Told in gallant deeds : A child's history of the war

By Marie Belloc Lowndes

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Title: Told in gallant deeds
        A child's history of the war

Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes

Release date: December 16, 2024 [eBook #74913]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: James Nisbet & Co., Ltd

Credits: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOLD IN GALLANT DEEDS ***





          TOLD IN GALLANT DEEDS ❧ A CHILD’S HISTORY OF THE WAR


                                   BY

                          MRS. BELLOC LOWNDES


                                 London
                        JAMES NISBET & CO., LTD.
                         22 BERNERS STREET, W.




                              DEDICATED TO
                           THE HAPPY WARRIOR




                     CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR


           Who is the happy warrior? Who is he
           That every man in arms should wish to be?
           It is the generous spirit, who, when brought
           Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
           Upon the plan that pleased his childish thought;
           Whose high endeavours are an inward light
           That makes the path before him always bright:
           Who, with a natural instinct to discern
           What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
           Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
           But makes his moral being his prime care;
           Who, doomed to go in company with pain,
           And fear and bloodshed, miserable train!
           Turns his necessity to glorious gain;

                  ·       ·       ·       ·       ·

           Whom neither shape nor danger can dismay,
           Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
           Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
           Looks forward, persevering to the last,
           From well to better, daily self-surpassed:
           Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
           For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
           Or he must go to dust without his fame,
           And leave a dead unprofitable name,
           Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
           And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
           His breath in confidence of heaven’s applause:
           This is the happy warrior; this is he
           Whom every man in arms should wish to be.
                                               WORDSWORTH.




                                CONTENTS


              CHAP.                                  PAGE
                 I. BELGIUM                             1
                II. THE WHITE ENSIGN                   22
               III. BRITAIN, TO ARMS!                  58
                IV. THE BATTLE OF MONS                 86
                 V. THE GREAT RETREAT                 109
                VI. CAMBRAI, LANDRÉCIES, ST. QUENTIN  120
               VII. BATTLES OF MEAUX AND THE MARNE    139
              VIII. THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE           154
                IX. OUR ALLY RUSSIA                   175
                 X. OUR ALLY FRANCE                   193
                XI. BELGIUM ONCE MORE                 219
               XII. THE FAR-FLUNG BATTLE LINE         232




                                PREFACE


The great war will leave more than a deep mark on our country; when it
is over, there will be a different England, a different Scotland, a
different Ireland. Grown-up people will always remember vividly the old,
happy, peaceful, confiding England, as she was before her placid
contentment was rudely shattered in a night.

But what of the children? There are thousands and thousands of little
children who will look back all their lives to this war as their first
important recollection, the first impact on their minds of the great
world of realities lying outside all childish things. It will not be
possible to keep from them the knowledge of many horrors and savage
brutalities, and it is therefore the more necessary that there should be
shown to them as soon as possible the other and glorious side of the
shield. It is the more necessary that for our children, through the long
years that lie before them, the memory of the Great War should be
touched to noble issues—that it should be, first and foremost, a memory
of deeds as gallant as any that have ever been inscribed in
Christendom’s long roll of honour.

There can hardly be one British child whose little world of personal
affections and interests has not been roughly disturbed by the war. Many
have seen their fathers and brothers going off to fight, and to many
those dear fathers and brothers will never come back. Even the children
who have no kindred in the Navy or Army have friends who have gone out.
In every village familiar faces are missed, and some will never be seen
again. In every town, great and small, it is the same—this new and
disturbing sense of personal loss.

In this book the writer has endeavoured to show by force of contrast
that savagery and brutality are not of the essence of war. The Happy
Warrior is to be found in all ranks and in all armies, and it is an
inspiring thought that, for every brave deed the record of which has
leapt to light, there must be ten others of which the stirring story
will never be known.

Every intelligent child must have gradually become aware that this great
war illustrates the enormously increased havoc that may now be wrought
by various scientific engines of destruction. But it is the object of
the writer to demonstrate that the personal valour of officers and men
remains the ultimately decisive factor. Man can never devise a more
marvellous war machine than himself. All through the ages we see that
battles are really won, not by improvements in weapons of precision, but
by the unquenchable spirit of the individual soldiers and sailors who
wield them.

The writer has, wherever possible, linked on each tale of heroism to one
like it in the annals of past wars. This serves to bring out what is
perhaps the most splendid lesson of the present gigantic struggle,
namely that the soldiers and sailors of the present day are indeed the
worthy successors of the heroes of the past.

The writer has also drawn on the treasures of the older English poetry
with which some modern children are not too well acquainted. It is her
experience that children instinctively respond to the best in
literature, and also that lines which to their elders may seem hackneyed
keep all their old power to thrill and uplift the young imagination.

Moreover, Belgium and France are rich in historic and literary
associations, and the writer has ventured to refer to books such as
_Tristram Shandy_, _Vanity Fair_, and _Villette_, which children ought
to know about now, and to read when they are older.

As to the sources from which the deeds of valour and of chivalry
recounted are taken, they range from the brilliant, highly literate
accounts written by war correspondents to extracts taken from the
wonderfully vivid and picturesque narratives contained in letters
written home to mothers and wives by soldiers and sailors just after the
actions described.

To all these unknown helpers to whom the best part of her book is due,
the writer tenders her grateful thanks.




                         TOLD IN GALLANT DEEDS




                               CHAPTER I
                                BELGIUM

                 “Now tell us what ’twas all about,”
                   Young Peterkin, he cries.
                 And little Wilhelmine looks up
                   With wonder-waiting eyes;
                 “Now tell us all about the war,
                 And what they fought each other for?”


Like the children in Mr. Southey’s poem, you will want to know first of
all why we joined in with France and Russia in the great war against
Germany and Austria. Well, the answer in a word is—Belgium.


Supposing you had solemnly promised to protect a little kitten and
afterwards a big dog came and attacked the kitten, would you not keep
your promise, and do all you could to help the kitten? Of course you
would. Belgium was the kitten, and Germany was the big dog. We had
faithfully promised to protect the little country of Belgium, and the
terrible thing is that Germany had promised too, but she broke her
promise.


Germany wanted to get into France.


If you look at the map, you will see that the Germans might have tried
to go straight in without touching Belgium. Only then they would have
had to break through a very strong line of forts which the French had
built to defend their country. The Germans did not feel sure of doing
this, and they said to themselves, “The longest way round is the
shortest way in.” That meant going through Belgium.


You have probably heard grown-up people, when discussing this great war,
mention “a scrap of paper.” You may even have wondered what a scrap of
paper could have to do with the war. I will tell you. On the dread day
when our mighty country threw down the gauntlet, the German statesman
who had worked hard to keep England out of Germany’s quarrel with France
and Russia exclaimed, “You are going to war for a scrap of paper!” He
spoke truly, but on that scrap of paper or parchment was written the
solemn promise of both England and Germany to be like big brothers to
Belgium and protect her from being bullied.


At first the Germans were very nice to Belgium. They said, “Only let us
come through your country, and when we have conquered France we will
give you a splendid reward!” But France also had promised to be a big
brother to Belgium, and so Belgium said “No!”


England also said “No!” England said to Germany, “If you touch our
little friend Belgium, we will fight you.”


So that is why the British Empire went to war with Germany. If we had
chosen the easy way of breaking our promise by simply doing nothing, by
standing out and merely looking on at the awful struggle, would we now
be proud of being English? I think not.


Germany did more than break her promise to protect Belgium. When she
found that the brave little country was gamely going to fight, she sent
her great armies, hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers with fleets
of aeroplanes and terrible big guns, whose shells, as they are now
called, could kill people miles away. She thought she would easily be
able to march through Belgium right into France, and she fully expected
to capture the city of Paris—all in one month!


In fact, Germany made the worst mistake that can be made in war—the
mistake of despising her enemies. She despised the power of the French
armies, and she also very much despised the British Army. She had a good
deal of respect for the British Navy because it is big, but because the
British Army was small she thought it did not matter. Well, she was
taught a richly-deserved lesson by Sir John French and his splendid
troops, of whose gallant deeds you will read in this book.


Most of all, Germany despised the army of poor little Belgium. And yet
the game little kitten, though suffering terribly herself, contrived to
inflict some severe scratches on the big German dog. She actually held
him up for quite a long time, to his great surprise and rage, and that
delay was of the utmost benefit both to France and to England. It
enabled them to make their final preparations for serious fighting, and
it gave us time to send our Army across the Channel to join up with the
French forces.


Notice, also, that it would have been very useful to France to send her
armies through Belgium to attack Germany. What prevented her? Just “a
scrap of paper,” just her pledge and promise. She could not break her
word, because it would not have been playing fair, it would have been
taking a mean advantage—the same mean advantage that Germany did not
hesitate to take.

But you may ask, “Why did not the French at least send plenty of
soldiers to defend Belgium?” The answer is that they did offer to send
more than 200,000 men. But Belgium refused. She believed that Germany
would keep her written promise. “Can the Kaiser put his name to a lie?”
she asked.


Terribly did Belgium suffer for her trust in German honour. But once she
saw her trust was betrayed, her little army fought with splendid
courage, thousands of Germans were killed in the first battles, and
thanks to the splendid defence put up by the forts of a Belgian town
called Liège, she delayed the vast, oncoming German hosts till Britain
and France were ready to take them on.


                                   II

I am sure all of you are now familiar with the glorious name of Liège,
but you may not know so well that of the hero whose name is now linked
for ever with that of Liège—I mean General Leman, who conducted the
splendid defence.


The flower of the German Army was hurled against the city and the forts
and thirty thousand Belgians fought like lions repulsing the enemy.
Great deeds of individual valour were done, and a special interest
attaches to them as they were the first gallant deeds of this Great War.


Here is the story of a young soldier whose name is inscribed for ever on
the Belgian roll of honour.

I must tell you that waterways, almost always very beautiful and
picturesque waterways, play a great part in the life of Belgium, and
much fierce fighting has gone on, as we shall see, on the banks of
rivers, canals, and streams. In order to cut off the enemy, it became
all important to the Belgians to cross a canal, but the bridge was up,
and the mechanism was on the side held by the Germans.

A young soldier, named Tresignies, facing certain death, dived into the
stream, and swam across under the German fire. He leapt up the bank of
the stream, got hold of the pulley, and so lowered the bridge; but as it
fell in place, he himself fell dead.


The days went on, and still Liège held out amid terrible scenes of
bloodshed and heroism. Outside the forts the Belgians were not idle.
Fiercely they fought the enemy, and the Germans on their side were full
of pluck and of determination to conquer or die.


A fort is always built on the top of a hill or huge mound. Up the slopes
of each fort the Germans advanced again and again, under a withering
fire, and it was said that eight hundred men were killed within an half
mile square. If valour could have taken the forts during those early
days of the siege, Liège would have fallen. According to an eye-witness
who has seen much of the actual fighting during the war, the enemy never
fought so well as at Liège. But the enemy had a foe worthy of its steel.


An exciting and heartening incident of the fighting round Liège was the
capture by a brave Belgian boy of a German general.


A day may come when some of you British boys and girls will understand
why grown-up people smile when they note that this boy’s name is Jean
Jacques Rousseau. For Jean Jacques Rousseau was also the name of one
who, if a great thinker and writer, was not, in a physical sense, a
brave man; indeed, so vivid was the original Jean Jacques Rousseau’s
wonderful imagination, and so poor his courage, that he would probably
have fainted with fright had he been vouchsafed a vision of his
namesake’s gallant and daring deed!


The brave Jean Jacques Rousseau is only nineteen, yet he had already
been a soldier for three years when at Zelk, close to Liège, he
succeeded in making this officer of high rank his prisoner. The German
general seems to have put up very little fight; tamely he surrendered to
his captor a satchel containing not only papers, but six thousand pounds
in notes and gold! Jean Jacques handed over the money to the Red Cross,
for its noble work of tending the wounded, but he was allowed to keep
the satchel, and the General’s silver helmet.


When the Germans found they could not take Liège by what is called a
frontal attack—that is by an attack from the front—they brought up their
huge siege guns.


Now here I must stop to tell you about these guns. They were the first
surprise of the War, for their construction was kept a profound secret
by Germany, who with their help believed herself invincible! It is
suspected by some people that these new siege guns were to be kept
hidden till the enemy wished to strike terror into the defenders of the
huge forts which guard Paris. If that be so, then the gallant defence
put up by Liège forced the German generals to alter their plan, for as
soon as they found they could not take the Belgian stronghold by
assault, they dragged up seven huge guns—it takes thirty-five pairs of
horses to drag one along—and began battering the Liège forts to pieces!

Soon the Fort of Loncin, where the brave General Leman had his
headquarters, was entirely isolated. Each man, however, went on with his
work calmly and courageously, and that even when the bombardment was so
terrible that many were made—we must hope only temporarily—stone deaf.


One afternoon, just as General Leman and his staff were hastily drinking
a cup of tea, a terrific explosion shook the whole fort, and a moment
later its concrete walls collapsed in a cloud of flame and dust. Many
were killed outright; those who survived had the anguish of seeing the
enemy rush in.

In the midst of a scene of frightful horror and confusion the Germans
sought with frantic eagerness for General Leman. Soon they found him,
but at first they thought he was dead. He was, however, breathing, and
so, still unconscious, he was placed on a stretcher and taken out of the
ruins of the fort he had defended so gloriously.


There then occurred a fine little incident, and one to the credit of the
enemy. At the end of a gallery of which the sides were still standing,
were gathered together all that was left of the garrison. Black with
powder, their faces streaked with blood, their clothes in ribbons, their
hands clasping shattered rifles, the heroic little group, some
twenty-five men, still stood to resist. Touched by such splendid
courage, the Germans, instead of attacking, flung aside their weapons
and ran to the help of the brave Belgian soldiers. Of the five hundred
men who formed the garrison of Fort Loncin three hundred and fifty were
killed and more than a hundred were seriously wounded.


Meanwhile General Leman had recovered consciousness. He had sworn never
to be taken alive, but Fate had proved too strong for him! He was
accordingly brought before General von Emmich, the Commander of the
German forces. Sadly the Defender of Liège tendered his sword; but the
German general handed it back to him, and, bowing courteously,
congratulated General Leman very warmly on the splendid way in which he
had conducted the defence.


This example of German magnanimity recalls a French incident of the kind
which happened rather more than a hundred years ago. Lord Cochrane,
commanding his little British brig, the Speedy, was captured by the huge
Desaix. Admiral Linois, who lives in history as the best of Napoleon’s
naval commanders, refused, when Cochrane had to surrender, to take his
sword. “I cannot,” he cried, “take the sword of a man so brave that he
has been doing the impossible for twelve hours!” This was an allusion to
the fact that though three huge French battleships had all attacked the
Speedy together, her commander, by brilliant seamanship, had actually
managed to elude capture for a whole day.


General Leman, on being made prisoner, sent a very touching letter to
the King of the Belgians:

“Your Majesty will learn with grief that Fort Loncin was blown up
yesterday at 5.20 P.M., the greater part of the garrison being buried
under the ruins.

“That I did not lose my life in that catastrophe is due to my escort,
who drew me from a stronghold whilst I was being suffocated by gas from
the exploded powder. I was conveyed to a trench, where I fell. A German
captain gave me drink, and I was made prisoner and taken to Liège.

“In honour of our arms I have surrendered neither the fortress nor the
forts.

“Deign pardon, Sire. In Germany, where I am proceeding, my thoughts will
be, as they always have been, of Belgium and the King. I would willingly
have given my life the better to serve them, but death was not granted
to me.

                                             “Lieutenant-General LEMAN.”


It was a happy and a graceful act on the part of the French Government
to bestow the Legion of Honour on the town of Liège, which, as was well
said in the decree setting forth the honour, “was called upon to bear
the first brunt of the German troops, and kept the invading army in
check in a struggle which was as unequal as it was heroic.”


Every soldier worthy of the name not only respects, but heartily
admires, a gallant, magnanimous foe. Had there been even a few German
commanders like General von Emmich, there would not now rest, as there
will do till the Day of Judgment, an indelible stain on Germany’s name.


It is awful to have to put on record that after the fall of Liège the
enemy, maddened by the unexpected resistance, took a fearful vengeance
on poor little Belgium.

As they marched through the lovely, peaceful villages, and charming,
storied towns, which all other invaders had spared even in the so-called
dark ages, the Germans burnt, blew up, and destroyed far and wide,
killing even women and children in their ruthlessness. Yet even so,
these unarmed Belgians performed wonderful deeds of valour.


When the enemy approached Heristal, the Belgian Woolwich, where is the
National Arms Factory, the town was defended against the German attack
by the women, for all the men were already away fighting.

These wives and mothers swore that the enemy should never take the
factory. They armed themselves with revolvers and other weapons, and
actually repulsed several charges of the Uhlans. When their ammunition
was exhausted, they barricaded themselves in various houses and poured
boiling water on the Germans. Children and old men shared in the
defence, and for two days the Belgian colours still floated over the
factory buildings.


There is scarcely a village, and there is no town, in Belgium which has
not some glorious page of history to its credit, and some precious
survival of the Middle Ages in the shape of a noble old church or town
hall. Only the glorious pages of history now remain. But these have been
added to, for as a brave Frenchwoman once finely phrased it, “Le plomb
ne tue pas l’idée,” which may be freely translated, “Bullets can only
kill the body.”


The storied monuments alas! which belonged not only to generous little
Belgium, but to the whole world, are gone. Battered, shattered, in many
cases razed to the ground, by German lead, which, though powerless to
kill the mind, has been able to destroy the sanctified beauty which the
genius of artists and of saints had created with such happy labour and
prayers.


It is a pathetic and even an awesome thing to have to say of any
place—even of a tiny village—“it was, and is no longer.” That,
unhappily, is what we now have to say of the venerable and beautiful
town of Louvain—the Oxford of Belgium. Spared by innumerable armies, by
the fighting men of a thousand years, it fell victim to one stupid
barbarian, who, I suppose, still imagines himself to be an officer and a
gentleman. His name is given as Manteuffel, and it is a curious irony of
fate that the destroyer of one of the oldest homes of learning in Europe
should bear a name honoured by all classical scholars.

This German commander, angered by a report, which seems to have been
quite false, that some of the inhabitants of the town had fired when
they saw their dread enemy approaching, ordered his soldiers to set
fire, deliberately and systematically, to the houses and public
buildings of a town which, to all lovers of the beautiful and to every
scholar in the old and the new world, had become a shrine, a place of
joyful pilgrimage.


Till this summer there actually remained at Louvain a fragment of what
had once been Cæsar’s Castle, and this survival of Roman days was of
special interest to English people, for Edward III and his queen lived
in the Castle for a winter. That great Emperor, Charles V, and his
sister also, were scholars at Louvain, their teacher there being a
priest who afterwards became Pope Adrian VI.


Heroic deeds were performed by some of the citizens of Louvain. Take the
case of Dr. Noyons, who happened at the time to be Principal of the
Medical Faculty of the University. On the very day the German Army
approached the town, he suddenly learned that a hundred wounded were to
be brought in. Beds were hurriedly got ready, and Dr. Noyons and his
wife, as well as a large staff, were in attendance. This was at mid-day,
and the wounded kept arriving all the afternoon.


At seven o’clock the firing of the town began! By eight o’clock the
famous library was in flames!


Dr. Noyons’ own house, though it contained a number of wounded and had
the Red Cross flag on the door, was now set on fire. But all night long
the professor and his wife went on attending on the wounded, and when,
the next morning, they were informed they must leave the town, in order
that it might be razed to the ground by big guns, this noble-hearted
couple at once decided to remain with those of the wounded (many of them
Germans) who were too much injured to be moved.

Helped by a few trusted assistants, they carried their unhappy patients
into the cellars of the hospital, and then they remained waiting for two
days for a bombardment which fortunately never came. At the end of that
time, this brave steadfast pair—a hero and heroine of a rare and
splendid type—brought the wounded up again to the wards, and calmly
continued to look after them.

Quite as awful as the fate of Louvain was that of the pretty town of
Termonde. But there also splendid deeds of heroism were performed by
quite simple folk.


Four times early in the War was unhappy Termonde bombarded, and twice it
was deliberately set ablaze. But there were wounded there all through,
and the Burgomaster and his two daughters never left the town. The two
girls—the elder seventeen, and her sister a year younger—stayed at their
posts as voluntary nurses, brave and fearless, thinking of nothing but
their duty to the wounded.


The name of Termonde will now be for ever associated with the wicked and
brutal conduct of the German Army. But before this last invasion of
Belgium, Termonde was famed as having been the scene of all sorts of
romantic incidents. Louis XIV, the stateliest of the great French kings,
was very nearly drowned there, for the country round the town, like that
of Holland, can be flooded at will. When the Sun King (as Louis XIV was
nicknamed) was told that Marlborough was about to besiege Termonde, he
observed: “He will have to bring an army of ducks to take it!” But
Marlborough had the good luck to be there at a time of terrible drought,
and so the brave garrison had to surrender.


Malines, or Mechlin as we ought to call it, was also the scene of one of
the fiercest fights, and suffered greatly from the enemy. The beautiful
little town was splendidly defended by the brave Belgians, but after two
days’ battle they had to retire. Mechlin is famous, not only for its
exquisite lace, but also for its peal of bells, and this, grievous to
say, was destroyed by a German shell. Robert Browning, in a poem which I
expect many of you know by heart, “How they brought the good news from
Ghent to Aix,” wrote:

       “And from Mechlin church steeple we heard the half chime.”

But, tragic as was the fate of Mechlin, its most treasured relic was
saved! This, amusing to relate, is a curious doll which bears the odd
name of Op-Signoorke. This doll is said to have been modelled from a
dwarf who was the official jester of a famous Antwerp club in the
sixteenth century. In those days, every king and many a great noble had
his dwarf, a kind of human toy who often played a considerable part in
the life of his master.

The story goes that at a time when there was a great deal of friendly
rivalry between the Flemish towns, Mechlin boasted of a wonderful dwarf
jester who could out-talk and outwit any of his rivals. One of the
Antwerp Guilds was much annoyed at this, and when the next meeting took
place, it suddenly produced a new dwarf jester named Klaasken, who beat
the Mechlin dwarf at his own game!

Soon afterwards Klaasken died, and when the next contest was held the
good folk of Antwerp produced a wonderful model of him, beautifully
carved and splendidly dressed. The Mechlin people, incensed at this
insult to their live dwarf, carried him off one dark night, when the
doll was left unguarded. Op-Signoorke, as he was then re-christened,
remained at Mechlin, and ever since, on the occasion of the annual
Kermesse, he is hung out for all to see from a window of the town hall.
Now when it was known that the Germans were close to the town, a wise
alderman put Op-Signoorke in a bomb-proof shelter, where he will repose
till poor Belgium comes into her own again.


Shakespeare’s line in _Julius Cæsar_, “Let slip the dogs of war,” has a
practical meaning in this war. Both the French and the German armies are
accompanied to the front by war dogs; _les chiens militaires_ and _die
Kriegshunde_, as they are respectively called, are trained to act as
scouts, carry despatches, and they even help, as we shall see later on,
to succour the wounded. In Belgium dogs do much of the work performed in
other countries by horses, and during some of the more recent fights the
smaller pieces of artillery were actually harnessed to dog teams.


And now we must leave brave Belgium for a while, though later in this
book you will hear of many gallant deeds and romantic happenings, as
well as much that is piteous and terrible, concerning that country which
for hundreds of years has been called “The Cockpit of Europe.”

But there is much, even as I write, that goes to show that Belgium’s day
of ordeal is drawing to a close, and to her we may say that as long as
Britain, France, and Russia endure:

             “There’s not a breathing of the common wind
             That will forget thee: thou hast great allies:
             Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
             And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.”




                               CHAPTER II
                            THE WHITE ENSIGN

             I saw fierce Prussia’s chargers stand,
               Her children’s sharp swords out;
             Proud Austria’s bright spurs streaming red
               When rose the closing shout;
             But soon the steeds rushed masterless,
               By tower and town and wood;
             For lordly France her fiery youth
               Poured o’er them like a flood.
             Go, hew the gold spurs from your heels,
               And let your steeds run free;
             Then come to our unconquered decks,
               And learn to reign at sea.
                                         ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.


After the War broke out, a wise man declared that every British child
ought to say this grace before meat:

“Thank God for my good dinner and for the British Navy.”

Perhaps you will wonder why he put the dinner and the Navy together in
this way. It is because British children during the war owed their
dinners, and all their other meals also, to the Navy. This may sound
strange, but it is perfectly true. The Navy guarded the thousands of
merchant ships which bring us food and other things from abroad.

We do not grow nearly enough corn at home to feed everybody, so we have
to buy from Canada, America, and other countries. The German Navy would
have liked to capture the ships which brought us this corn, but owing to
the British Navy it could not do so.


But that is not all that the British Navy did.


I have told you how the Germans invaded Belgium and there were terrible
fighting and ravaging, in which not only soldiers but also women and
children were killed. Well, the Germans were even more angry with
Britain than with Belgium. They would have dearly liked to send over
hundreds of thousands of soldiers in big ships to land on the east coast
of England, perhaps at Cromer, or Hunstanton, or Felixstowe, or other
places where children often go for their summer holidays.


In our next chapter you will hear of how Napoleon waited impatiently at
Boulogne in the hope of swooping down on England. There is a tradition
in Dorsetshire that he did come secretly just to see what stretch of
shore on that lonely coast would be most suitable for a landing of
troops. This tradition or old belief is embodied in a wonderful short
story by Mr. Thomas Hardy.


What would the German soldiers have done to us if they had landed? I am
afraid they would have treated us even worse than they treated Belgium.
The whole countryside would have been laid waste with fire and sword,
and thousands of innocent people might have been killed.

Be thankful that England was not invaded like that. Be thankful that,
while the poor Belgians were being bullied and beaten down, we could all
sleep safely in our beds.

You know why that was. We owed our safety entirely to the strong arm of
our Navy. All round our shores, day and night, our gallant tars were
watching, watching. And the ships full of German soldiers could not
think of coming. Our Navy would have blown them to pieces if they had
tried.


Still, it was a terribly anxious time for Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and
the brave officers and men under him. Many accidents can happen at sea
which could not happen on land, and the whole Fleet knew well that the
Germans might make a dash for it, and perhaps land a small force of men
after all.

The portraits of Sir John Jellicoe show him as a man with a very strong
face and a determined mouth and chin, but the expression of his eyes is
full of kindness.

He earned his great position by sheer hard work. When he was a naval
cadet, he took three firsts, and won a prize of £80 as well at the Royal
Naval College. Afterwards, he studied naval guns and the art of firing
them.

Admiral Jellicoe is one of the officers of the Royal Navy who have
received the Board of Trade medal for gallantry in saving life at sea.
He himself, too, has been saved from drowning at sea, for he was in
command of the Victoria which was rammed by the Camperdown twenty-one
years ago; in fact, he was one of the very few who were saved in that
terrible disaster.


Quite early in the war, a bluejacket of H.M.S. Zealandia, the fine
battleship which was given to the Mother Country by the great Dominion
of New Zealand, wrote a poem called “The Walls of Jellicoe.”

He sent it to his aunt, and she, aunt-like, was so pleased with it that
she sent it to a paper! There I read it, and I thought it so good and so
true that I cut it out. Here are the verses I like best. But I like them
all.

        “On the flagship’s bridge a man
        Takes a long and quiet scan
        Of a certain bit of coastline lying east,
              Vaterland.

        And it’s him who has to think
        How to get your food and drink
        And likewise how to save you from
              ‘The Beast.’

               ·       ·       ·       ·       ·

        There’s no one by to say
        ‘Can I lend a hand, J. J.?’
        There’s no one near to treat him
              Like a friend.

        He’s the loneliest man at sea,
        And thank God it isn’t me;
        But you are safe while he is
              Keeping up his end.

        He’s Admiralissimo,
        Which is Johnny Jellicoe,
        And I hope you’ll breathe his name in all your prayers,
              And don’t forget.

        For he’s you and me and all,
        And if his old walls fall,
        Earth would close for alterations and repairs,
              Burn the map!”

This sailor poet expresses in his homely way the exact truth. Admiral
Jellicoe had indeed a good many things to think about; and while he was
keeping his ceaseless watch in the North Sea he had the grief of hearing
that his old father, a seaman like himself, had died in the Isle of
Wight. He could not be at his father’s death-bed; he could not follow
his father’s coffin to the burial. His place was at the post of duty and
of danger.


I have said that in the first months of the war the German Fleet would
not come out from under the shelter of the German fortress guns. But you
must not think that its commander, Admiral von Ingemohl, a very gallant
seaman, was content to do nothing. He counted on taking some of our
ships by surprise, and so making matters more equal before having a
regular big battle. But as we shall see, he found that Admiral Jellicoe
could play at that game too.


                                   II

The Germans may be said to have drawn first blood at sea.

Very early in the war, in fact on the very day that most people knew our
country was at war, on August 5, 1914, H.M.S. Amphion, while searching
for the mine-layer Königin Luise, was blown up, whether by a mine or a
torpedo will probably never be known.

Here I must explain that a mine at sea is a large rounded metal box full
of stuff that blows up when a ship bumps against it. These mines are
laid a little under the surface of the water. As for a torpedo, it is a
long thing shaped like a fish, with a motor in its tail. It is also
loaded with stuff to blow up, and it can be fired at an enemy’s ship
from a submarine or from a torpedo boat. The motor in its tail makes it
travel very fast under water, and if it hits a ship it is almost certain
to destroy her.


When the Amphion bumped on a mine, or was hit by a torpedo, a sheet of
flame enveloped the bridge and rendered her commander, Captain Fox,
insensible. Soon he recovered consciousness and he ran instantly to the
engine-room to stop the engines. But the good ship’s back was broken,
and she was already settling down by the bows. At once efforts were made
to place the wounded in safety, but by the time some destroyers came up
the Amphion had to be abandoned.

The crew lined up in perfect discipline, everything was done without any
confusion, and twenty minutes after the blow was first struck, all the
men and most of the officers had left the ship. It was well they did so,
for three minutes afterwards came another explosion, blowing up the
whole forepart.


Discipline is one of the finest words in our language, and it is one we
share with our French Allies, for although the word is pronounced a
little differently in French, it is written exactly the same.

What is discipline? Discipline is composed of two human qualities which,
if they appear to have very little to do with one another, are yet often
allied. These qualities are obedience and courage.


The finest example of discipline in the history of the British Navy is
the story of the sinking of the Birkenhead. She was a troopship and she
struck on a rock. Instantly, the boats were lowered and filled with the
women and children. Then, the soldiers and marines were formed up on
deck, and they faced their death in perfect order as if on parade while
the ship slowly sank.

The then King of Prussia, Frederick IV, was so impressed by the
behaviour of the doomed crew on the Birkenhead that he caused this story
of “iron discipline and perfect duty” to be read aloud at the head of
every regiment in his kingdom.

Mr. Rudyard Kipling has referred to the cool courage of the marines, or
“Jollies” as they are called, in a famous poem:

 “To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with the firing all about,
 Is none so bad when you’ve cover to ’and, and leave and liking to shout,
 But to stand stock still to the Birken’ead drill is a dam tough bullet
    to chew;
 An’ they done it, the Jollies, ’er Majesty’s Jollies, soldier and
    sailor, too!”

But to return to the Amphion. The story I like best is one that was told
in a bluejacket’s letter to his parents:

“We were all stunned on the upper deck, surrounded with flame and smoke.
Then we saw our captain come. His arms were burnt, and his hair; he
spoke very nice. ‘Cheer up, men, and be brave; we shall all get saved.’
Of course that cheered up everyone. No excitement at all. The biggest
part of us stripped off to swim for it, but no one left that ship until
the captain gave the order to go, and, thank God, we were all saved that
was alive.”

You notice that gallant Captain Fox struck first a noble note, “Be
brave!” he cried; and then, as an afterthought, “We shall all get
saved.”


A day or two later it was shown that the British Navy knows how to
honour a brave foe. Four members of the crew of the Amphion and four of
the German mine-layer’s crew died in hospital at Harwich. Each son of
the sea, Briton and German, was provided with the same kind of coffin,
and the same service was performed for each of the eight separately. The
funerals were most reverently conducted, each coffin being hoisted on
the shoulders of seamen. The dead Britons had a Union Jack for pall, the
Germans the ensign of their Fatherland. They were all lowered into one
grave. Volleys were fired, and the Last Post sounded.


To show you the kind of risk our sailors run without a thought of self,
hearken to the amazing adventures of Stationmaster Stapleton, of
Hykeham, who is a Naval Reserve man. He received his call, joined his
ship, the Amphion, found himself in action, was sunk, and was
rescued—all within forty-eight hours of leaving his little wayside
station!


                                  III

It was on August 28 that Sir John Jellicoe first tried his hand at the
surprise game of the Germans. It was a brilliant success.


Out of the morning mist our ships crept and caught a German cruiser
squadron lying in supposed safety under the guns of Heligoland. We sank
the German protected cruiser Mainz and another cruiser of the same
class, while a third cruiser “disappeared” in the mist, heavily on fire,
and in a sinking condition. We also badly damaged some smaller craft,
while our own ships got off very lightly. But we had to mourn the loss
of sixty-nine men killed and wounded, including Lieut.-Commander Nigel
Barttelot and Lieut. Eric Westmacott among the killed.


All the ships which took part in this action had the words “Heligoland,
August 28, 1914,” painted in gold letters in a conspicuous place aboard
them. But special honour was paid to the light cruiser Arethusa.

This gallant little ship showed herself worthy of her name, which is one
of the most glorious in the Navy.

In recognition of the notable part she played in the fight, the
Admiralty ordered the famous old song of “The Saucy Arethusa” to be
engraved upon a brass plate and set up in a prominent place on board the
ship. The first verse runs:

                “Come all ye sailors bold,
                Whose hearts are cast in honour’s mould,
                While English glory I unfold,
                    Huzza for the Arethusa!
                    Her men are staunch
                    To their favourite launch,
                And when the foe shall meet our fire,
                Sooner than strike we’ll all expire
                    On board of the Arethusa.”

The Arethusa, which flew the broad pennant of Commodore Tyrwhitt (this
is the special flag always flown by commodores), was chosen for the
honour of leading the attack.

At the head of a line of destroyers, which are small but very fast
vessels, she sallied forth, intending to cut off the German ships and
drive them into the open sea, there to fight them at leisure. But two
German cruisers attacked her first at a distance of nearly two miles.
This seems a long way, but naval guns can shoot much further than that.
The Germans did her some damage, but she drove them off, and one of them
she seriously injured.

Later on in the morning she fought two other German ships, and helped to
sink the Mainz. In these actions she suffered so much that many of her
guns were made useless and her speed was lessened to ten knots, which of
course is very slow.

About one o’clock the gallant Arethusa was discovered in her crippled
condition by two German cruisers, and they would certainly have sunk her
if British ships had not come to the rescue. These ships turned the
tables with a vengeance, for they chased and sank the Germans in their
turn.


The Arethusa had done splendidly, all the more splendidly you will agree
when you hear that she had only been commissioned a few days before.
“Commissioned” means got ready for service, with crew, guns, stores, and
everything necessary for going to sea. Thus, her officers and crew were
new to one another and the ship was new to them, and yet they could not
have fought better.

The whole Empire felt a thrill of pride in the exploit of the Arethusa.
In far-off Johannesburg 2081 miners clubbed together, paying a penny
each to send a telegram congratulating Commodore Tyrwhitt and his whole
ship’s company on their victory.


Fighting at sea is, I think, in some ways more dreadful than fighting on
land. There is the same terrible distance from the enemy, and the shells
make the same fearful screaming noise in the air. But if your ship is
struck a mortal blow, you seem to have less chance than you would have
in land fighting, especially if your ship blows up before sinking.

But that is a landsman’s feeling. You may be sure that our gallant tars
do not trouble their heads whether the danger is more or less. Indeed,
this Heligoland action showed most vividly that the modern Navy is
worthy of all her glorious traditions.


I must tell you about Lieut.-Commander Barttelot and his gallant little
destroyer, the Liberty. She and the other destroyers did not hesitate to
engage much bigger and stronger German ships, and naturally they got
knocked about a bit.

After the funnel of the Liberty had been shot away, this brave officer
stood on the bridge and gave his orders as quietly as if he were at a
sham fight. A shell shot off one of his legs, but he seized the rails of
the bridge, steadied himself, and continued giving his commands. Shortly
after another shell struck the Liberty and killed him.


Not less thrilling is the story of Lieut.-Commander Frank Rose, of the
destroyer Laurel, who was seriously wounded in the left leg. His men
urged him to go below, but he simply shifted the weight on to the other
leg and continued to issue his orders. Soon his one sound leg was struck
by a shell, and down he came on the bridge, but he still declined to go
below. His signalman tore off his trousers to prevent the wound from
being poisoned, and to this act of thoughtful devotion Lieut.-Commander
Rose probably owed his life. As at last he lay swooning on the bridge,
one of his petty officers fastened a lifebelt round him.

By this time there only remained three rounds of ammunition, and it
appeared as if the little Laurel could not live much longer in the fire
to which she was then exposed. But she did.

The gallantry of all our seamen was indeed something to be proud of, and
it was shown by fighters and non-fighters alike.

For example, the surgeon of the Arethusa, who was, as I have explained,
new to the ship like the others, was a marvel of coolness. Before she
was struck he busied himself in handing out ammunition to the gunners,
and when the casualties began he stuck to his work of healing under
fire. He hadn’t time to dress properly, so there he was, wearing red
leather slippers, uniform trousers, and the coat of his pyjamas!


One officer of the Arethusa had his leg grazed by a shell which fell
five or six feet behind him. He was hurled along the deck, and appeared
to be much relieved when he discovered that both his legs had not been
shot away. But they were badly bruised. There were no crutches on board,
so one of the crew gave him a pair of broomsticks, by the aid of which
he stuck to his post and hobbled round giving his orders.


This action, the Battle of the Bight as it was called, inspired many
poets. To my mind by far the finest it called forth was by Mr. William
Watson. In it he addresses the mighty dead of the sea service, and his
last verse runs:

                  “Sleep on, O Drake, sleep well!
                    Thou hast thy heart’s desire.
                  Grenville, whom nought could quell,
                    Thou dost hand on thy fire.
                  And thou that had’st no peer,
                  Nelson! thou need’st not fear:
                  Thy sons and heirs are here,
                    Nor shall they shame their sire.”

The sea has always bred heroes. At the Battle of Trafalgar one of the
French captains had both his legs shot off. He had himself placed in a
barrel of bran, and went on directing his men in the hour of defeat to
the end.


At the Battle of the Nile a little midshipman, only fourteen years old,
named John Hindmarsh, gave the order which saved the Bellerophon. Seeing
that the fire in L’Orient would spread to the Bellerophon, he got some
men down and cut her cable and then had the sprit-sail set. The captain
was below, having a wound dressed, and the first lieutenant was also
below on duty. Hindmarsh was publicly thanked by Nelson himself.

Then it was wooden ships and sails; now it is ships of steel and
complicated machinery. But the spirit of Navy men remains every whit as
cool and gallant.


This first naval action off Heligoland also showed the splendid chivalry
of our seamen.

When the German ships were seen to be sinking, the British commanders
ordered the destroyers to cease fire. All boats were lowered to pick up
survivors; but while this was being done, German destroyers and cruisers
actually opened a heavy fire on the boats. Our destroyers were thus
forced to retire, and one of them, the Defender, generously left her
boat to the German prisoners, nearly all of whom were wounded.


Yet more. The commanding officer of Submarine E4, after covering the
retreat of one of the destroyers, returned to the boats and removed the
British officers and men. He might also have taken a German officer and
six unwounded men prisoners, but as there were eighteen Germans very
badly wounded, he humanely left the officer and unwounded men to care
for them and navigate the boats which contained them. He did something
else. He provided the boats with water, biscuits, and a compass, and he
generously gave the officer the position and course to Heligoland. As
for the officer and men of the Defender, they stripped themselves of
everything but their trousers and tore up their clothes to serve as
bandages for the wounded Germans.


Some days afterwards a high German official actually asserted that
British seamen had fired on the Germans swimming in the water. It is
from the reply which our Admiralty made to this cowardly charge that the
above facts are taken. As a matter of fact, I am sorry to tell you that
some of the German officers fired at their own men in the water with
revolvers.


A letter written by a sailor who took part in the Heligoland action told
a pretty story of his ship’s pet:

“Our dear little black lucky kitten sat under our foremost gun during
the whole of the battle, and wasn’t frightened at all, only when we
first started firing. But afterwards she sat and licked herself. We all
kissed her afterwards!”

Sailors are known to be extremely fond of animals. The Naval Volunteers
at the Crystal Palace soon acquired two pets—a kitten and a whippet. The
latter always had a red, white, and blue ribbon tied to each of his legs
and to his tail.


Soldiers, too, are very fond of pets. The story goes that on one
occasion a sergeant appeared on his troopship with a little woolly dog.
The quartermaster on duty refused to allow the animal on board. The
sergeant thought awhile, and then went on shore. An hour later he came
back with a cage. In it was a very queer-looking creature, which, though
it had four feet, was covered with hen’s feathers. “Can’t pass that
there dog on board,” said the quartermaster. “Dog?” said the sergeant.
“This ain’t no dog. It’s a Maltese four-footed Bird of Paradise, and
there’s no rules against taking birds on board!”

The laugh was with him, and his pet was allowed on board ship.


                                   IV

On September 22 the Germans scored a success against us with a submarine
attack. This resulted in the loss of three cruisers, the Aboukir, Hogue,
and Cressy. These were all old ships, and as a matter of fact were
afloat for the last time, as the Admiralty had decided to sell them for
breaking up. What could not be replaced was the loss of some twelve
hundred officers and men. Only about eight hundred and fifty were saved
out of over two thousand.


I expect that most of you have seen a picture of a submarine, but I do
not suppose that any of you know very much about this extraordinary
deep-sea fighting ship, which has been well said to wear the cloak of
darkness. The submarine can attack unseen with the deadly weapon of the
torpedo, and she can retreat undiscovered. But she is rather slow and
she is what is called blind in attack; she has to come up to the surface
before she can see exactly where her enemy is. It is said that if she
could get along more quickly than she does she could do a great deal
more mischief. Still, when commanded and manned by cool, brave men, and
when she has luck on her side, she can do quite mischief enough.


The disaster would probably not have happened if the three cruisers had
had with them their usual escort of destroyers—those speedy little craft
which are the terror of submarines. Unfortunately, the weather was very
bad, and the destroyers were delayed. This was the opportunity for which
the German submarine, commanded by Lieut.-Commander Weddingen, had long
been waiting.


The cruisers were on patrol duty somewhere off the Hook of Holland. They
did not see the tiny periscope of the submarine, as it emerged amid the
ruffled waters. The German had nine torpedoes to fire, and she had
plenty of time to choose her first victim. This was the Aboukir.
Lieut.-Commander Weddingen himself thought his torpedo hit the cruiser
under one of her magazines, which by exploding helped to destroy the
ship. However that may be, the Aboukir soon broke up and sank, and of
course her sister ships stopped and lowered boats to rescue as many as
possible of the crew.


Alas! the moment the Hogue stopped she became an easy mark. The German
submarine gave her two torpedoes in quick succession, and in about five
minutes the Hogue had gone to the bottom and the sea was covered with
men, some swimming for dear life, others clinging to tables, stools,
chairs, planks, etc., which had been thrown off the ship. Not
immediately, but soon afterwards, the Cressy was torpedoed and sank.

The brotherhood of the sea is very strong, and British seamen are always
generous in their appreciation of an enemy’s bravery. They admired the
daring of the German submarine, but they could not help being sorry for
the fact that it meanly advanced under cover of a German trawler which
had hoisted the Dutch flag. Further, one regrets to have to add that the
trawler made no attempt to save our drowning seamen, in this forming a
very great contrast to the British tars who always do their very best to
rescue their drowning enemies.


But there came up two trawlers, which were really Dutch, the Flora and
the Titan, and their captains and crews worked like heroes to save the
lives of our men. They took many hundreds to Holland, where the British
seamen were most kindly treated, being fed and clothed and sent back to
England after resting. Some of our poor fellows died of the cold and
exposure in the sea, and these the kindly Dutchmen buried with all
honour and reverence.


The mishap was a sad blow to the nation, all the more because it was
seen that the Hogue and the Cressy really met their doom owing to their
efforts to save the crew of the Aboukir. But everybody drew comfort from
the splendid gallantry shown by all our seamen, from the captains
downwards. Yet many as were the stories of brave deeds which came to
light, we may be sure that at least as many more will never be known,
the eye-witnesses having all perished. I will give you a few examples of
deeds which did come to light.


Do you remember the cool, brave surgeon on the Arethusa? There was one
equally brave and resourceful on the Cressy. Together with four men, he
was clinging to some wreckage, and he instructed his comrades to rub
each other’s legs with their naked feet alternately, and so keep their
blood circulating. They hung on for two or three hours, and finally all
were rescued, no doubt owing to the surgeon’s clever idea.


One survivor wrote after his awful ordeal:

“The best thing I saw was the coolness of a little cadet. Not more than
fourteen he looked. He drifted near me, he and a seaman clinging with
their hands and elbows on the same bit of wood. I never saw anything so
calm as that lad! He was talking to the seaman with him. ‘Well,’ he
says, ‘we’ve got to carry on like this, and if we die we shall die
game.’ And with that he begins to talk about everyday things on the
sunken ship. ‘What’s the new chief engineer like?’ he says, and chats
about little incidents in the mess. Only fourteen, a little light-haired
boy. I hope he was saved.”


What a splendid, lion-hearted boy! Was he saved? you will ask. I cannot
be sure, but I think he was.


Midshipman Cazalet of the Cressy, aged sixteen, saved no fewer than
eighty-eight lives, including one of his own officers. When Mr. Cazalet
saw that the Aboukir had been hit, he went out in the Cressy’s whaler
and picked up twenty-five men. He took them to the picket boat of the
Hogue, and went back for more. Altogether he picked up two more
boatloads, and it was not till he could see no more survivors that he
himself took refuge on board the Dutch trawler Titan.


A little drummer-boy of the Marines, Cecil Kneller, who was only
fifteen, had a great adventure, for he kept himself afloat in the water
for about four hours with the aid of an empty rum cask. And when he got
back to his father, who is a railway porter living at Chatham, it was
noticed that he was just as rosy-cheeked as when he went away! So he did
not suffer much from his long bath.


I am sorry to tell you that Captain Johnson, of the Cressy, was not
among the saved. This very gallant gentleman was last seen on the bridge
of his ship, carefully tying leaden weights round a parcel, which he
dropped into the sea.

Can you guess what was in that parcel? It was the secret signal-book of
the ship, and it was most important that it should not fall into the
hands of the enemy. If the enemy had got hold of it, then they would
have been able to read the signals with which our ships talk to one
another, and that might easily have led to a terrible disaster.


Captain Johnson was determined that that should not happen, and when he
had cast the parcel into the sea, he went down with his ship contented,
for he had done his duty.


                                   V

Much excitement was caused by the exploits of the German cruiser Emden,
which took and sank over twenty British merchantmen, and disposed of
several warships. Her commander, Captain von Müller, behaved
chivalrously to the crews of his prizes, treating them well while in his
power, and sending them to the nearest port. This contrast with the
behaviour of the Germans on land made everybody realise the brotherhood
of the sea.


For the first time in any big war, the fastest ocean liners on both
sides were armed with naval guns and turned into warships. I am going to
tell you about a most exciting duel between two of these armed liners,
which happened on September 14. Some of you may have crossed the
Atlantic to America in the White Star liner Carmania, and if so you will
read with all the more interest the story of her victory over the German
ship Cap Trafalgar.


You will easily understand that when the Carmania was taken over by the
British Navy and became H.M.S. Carmania, a good many changes were made.
The comfortable quarters for passengers, the splendid state-rooms and
luxurious berths, were ripped out, because fire is a great danger in a
warship and anything that will burn is usually thrown overboard when she
goes into action. Even as it was, a shell from the enemy did set the
Carmania on fire, as we shall see.

Fights between single ships are, I think, in some ways more exciting
than big battles. At any rate, it is easier to understand them. When it
is a case of only two ships, we can imagine ourselves on board one of
them and looking on at the struggle.


Have you ever heard how the gallant Captain Broke, of H.M.S. Shannon,
engaged and defeated the American warship Chesapeake? That was when we
were at war with America, just a hundred years ago. The duel took place
outside New York Harbour, in sight of land, and crowds came out to see
the sight. Their feelings must have been very mixed, for the Chesapeake
struck her flag after a short and very violent fight. But as the
Americans are a brave and generous people, they must have applauded the
clever seamanship of gallant Captain Broke.


You may remember, too, the plucky fight of the little Revenge against
enormous odds, and Tennyson’s noble ballad in which the story is told.


I cannot tell you why the Germans named their ship Cap Trafalgar, after
the scene of Nelson’s last and greatest victory, especially as there is
a splendid ship named Trafalgar in the British Navy. But it does not
much matter, as the Cap Trafalgar now lies at the bottom of the Atlantic
Ocean.


The crew of the Carmania were just sitting down to their mid-day dinner
when the look-out men sounded the alarm. Instantly everyone tumbled up
and went to his place, and all eyes were turned on a big ship lying
about five miles off, as big as the Carmania herself, and looking like a
liner. In fact, the Germans, with their usual cunning, had painted her
two funnels to look like a Union-Castle liner. The Cap Trafalgar was
pretending to be a British ship!


The trick did her no good, however; the captain of the Carmania was not
running any risks. “Give her a shot,” he cried, “but don’t hit her.” The
gun-layer gave her a neat shot just across her bows, and at that instant
the stranger opened fire. The Carmania replied with all her port guns,
and the fight immediately became furious.


The German was beaten for two reasons. First, because he fired too high,
only smashing the Carmania’s masts and rigging, whereas we put in most
of our shots right on the German’s water-line. Secondly, because the
Carmania was much better handled, her captain turning her so that the
enemy could only fire at her endways and not sideways.

The Cap Trafalgar took fire in the forward part, but still she gallantly
went on fighting. When at last she decided to try and escape, she found
it was too late. Already she was sinking, and the men of the Carmania,
which had by this time practically ceased firing, saw a very curious
thing. They saw the enemy turn over on her side, so that they could look
right down her funnels, which were level with the water. Even then the
German ship did not haul down her flag. There was an explosion and her
bows went under; then another explosion and the great vessel sank. All
the honours of war to this brave foe!


The Cap Trafalgar made 304 holes in the Carmania, but only two of them
were serious shots in the side of the ship. This was not very good
shooting when you think that the Carmania is 675 feet long—longer than
many a London street—and stands 60 feet out of the water, as tall as a
tall house.

The most serious damage done to the Carmania was by a shell, which set
her on fire under her fore-bridge, and made steering difficult. The fire
spread so much that it prevented the Carmania’s men from going to the
rescue of the Germans in the water. But before she sank five boats put
off from the Cap Trafalgar, and I am glad to say they were all rescued
by a coal-ship—two hundred and seventy-nine officers and men.


So much for this exciting little fight. The two ships were almost
exactly equal in size and strength, and the British vessel won on her
merits by better seamanship and better gunnery. No wonder the Navy was
pleased.


                                   VI

Now I must tell you about Lieut.-Commander Max K. Horton, of Submarine
E9, and how he earned the nickname of “The Double-toothed Pirate.”


You know how terribly dangerous the submarine service is. These ships
are long and narrow, shaped rather like a cigar, and they can travel a
long way under the water. But they are very fragile, and their gallant
crews are always ready for instant death.

The day before the Carmania sank the Cap Trafalgar, September 13,
Lieut.-Commander Horton took a little trip out to the Frisian Islands in
E9. He found the German light cruiser Hela and sank her with a torpedo,
and got away without being seen.

The loss of the Hela herself did not matter much to the Germans, as she
was nearly ten years old and not of much fighting value. But what did
matter was the upset to the nerves of the Germans. This is a most
valuable thing in war—to make your enemy feel “jumpy.”


It is said that E9 came back to Harwich flying a little yellow flag
bearing a skull and crossbones, which, as you probably know, is the
badge of the Kaiser’s favourite regiment of Brandenburg Hussars.


The next exploit of E9 was even more daring, even more certain to make
the Germans “jumpy.”


Again the little ship went off to the Frisian Islands, and there she
torpedoed and sank a German destroyer. If you look at the map, you will
see how close these islands are to the German naval stations of
Wilhelmshaven and Emden. What should we have felt if a German submarine
had come up and sunk a British ship quite close to Portsmouth and
Plymouth? However, the War may bring us worse surprises than that, and
if it does we must bear them bravely.


E9 had an exciting time. While she was watching for her prey, she saw a
big German cruiser and she had to dive. When she came up again, the
cruiser had gone, but there was a destroyer instead, and this she marked
down. At one time she was actually too near the destroyer to fire a
torpedo because it would have been dangerous to herself. At last she got
about six hundred yards off and then she fired two torpedoes, one after
the other. The first missed, but the second hit the destroyer fairly in
the middle and blew her to pieces. Another German destroyer which was
near hastily ran away.


Lieut.-Commander Horton and his gallant men returned to Harwich flying
the little yellow flag, and underneath it a little white flag, also
bearing the grim device of a skull and crossbones. It was then that he
was given the jesting nickname of “The Double-toothed Pirate,” for as
you know the skull and crossbones has always been the emblem of pirates.


I do not myself like this nickname, for Lieut.-Commander Horton is by no
means a pirate. On the contrary, he always fights fair. He is as clever
as he is brave, and he has always been a great believer in submarines,
which he has been studying for years. When he was serving in H.M.S. Duke
of Edinburgh he won a gold medal for saving life. That was when the
Delhi went ashore with the Princess Royal and the late Duke of Fife and
their children on board.


An amusing story is told which shows the coolness of submarine officers.
One of these gallant fellows, finding that the enemy could see him on
the surface by daylight, sank his boat to the bottom and waited for
night. Someone asked him what he did all that time. “I did very well,”
he said, “we played auction bridge, and I won 4s. 11½d.” But games like
this at the bottom of the sea are the great exception.


Never forget our seamen and what they are doing for us in storm, in
cold, and in fog. If you have the good fortune to be related to a boy or
man in the Navy, write to him regularly and tell him all the home news.
He will love to hear it, and, busy as he may be, will probably find time
to answer you. But if you don’t hear for a long time, remember that the
delightful verses—with only one word altered—which were written by the
Earl of Dorset at sea in 1665 are as true now as they were two hundred
and fifty years ago:

                “To all you children now at land
                  We men at sea indite;
                But first would have you understand
                  How hard it is to write:
                The Muses now, and Neptune too,
                We must implore to write to you.

                For though the Muses should prove kind,
                  And fill our empty brain,
                Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind
                  To wave the azure main,
                Our paper, pen, and ink, and we,
                Roll up and down our ships at sea.”




                              CHAPTER III
                           BRITAIN, TO ARMS!

           This England never did, nor never shall
           Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.
           Come the three corners of the world in arms
           And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue
           If England to herself do rest but true
                                               SHAKESPEARE.

             Men whisper that our arm is weak,
               Men say our blood is cold,
             And that our hearts no longer speak
               That clarion note of old;
             But let the spear and sword draw near
               The sleeping lion’s den,
             Our island shore shall start once more
               To life with armèd men.
                                         SIR WALTER SCOTT.


Just before the war broke out, a friend of mine took her three
grandchildren for a holiday to Wimereux, a French seaside place near
Boulogne. They were quite little children, the youngest indeed being
still a baby. On the day that my friend knew that war was certain she
was naturally very anxious to get the children safely back to England.

That night she sent them to bed early, and she herself did not sit up
late. On her way to her room she looked in on the children to see if
they wanted anything. To her surprise, only the baby was in bed. The two
elder ones had drawn up the blind and were looking out of the window on
the sea.

“Oh, Granny!” they cried, “do come and look!”

My friend went and stood beside them, and there, spread out before her
in the moonlight, she saw a most wonderful sight, one that no
Englishwoman could look upon without a thrill of pride.


Beyond the fort built by Napoleon, beyond a rock on which stood a
solitary French sentinel leaning on his rifle, the whole sea was covered
with the British Fleet, ship after ship in regular lines—Dreadnoughts,
cruisers, all with their attendant torpedo-boats, destroyers, and
submarines.

There they lay, with none of the bravery of flags flying and bands
playing, as when the King reviews his Fleet, but cold and vigilant, all
stripped for action. Not a man could be seen on board—only the long
guns.

The children, looking on, partly understood the silent strength of that
great armada of warships, and they went back to bed contented with their
grandmother’s promise to tell them all about it to-morrow.


Next morning the children ran to the window, but the British Fleet had
gone, vanished as silently as it had come, and the sea was almost clear.

“What has happened? Why have the ships gone?” The children pressed my
friend with eager questions, and as you will also want to put the same
questions, I cannot do better than tell you what she told them.


The great war with Germany had begun, and the British Fleet had gone
eastwards to the North Sea, there to watch for the German Fleet!


But the most wonderful thing was that now, after a hundred years,
British soldiers were going to fight again on the Continent. Almost
exactly a hundred years ago Wellington, aided by German troops, had
finally crushed Napoleon on the field of Waterloo. But now the British
and the French were fast friends, and they were going to fight shoulder
to shoulder against the German hosts.

A great writer, who was even greater as a poet, George Meredith, wrote
some noble lines on this new-found friendship. I quote one verse:

               “Joy that no more with murder’s frown
                 The ancient rivals bark apart.
               Now Nelson to brave France is shown
                 A hero after her own heart:
               And he now scanning that quick race
               To whom through life his glove was thrown,
                 Would know a sister spirit to embrace.”

You must never think of the past as if it were something quite different
from the present. In some ways this great war brings us much nearer the
glorious old England which was always at war in Flanders, as Belgium was
then called.

Those old heroical conflicts of long ago produced some wonderful books.
Let us hope that the time will come when some great writer of the future
will create as vividly real a man as Sterne’s Uncle Toby.


After being wounded at the siege of Namur, Uncle Toby spent his peaceful
old age in following Marlborough’s army on his bowling-green. Sterne
describes how the old man set up model fortifications with batteries,
saps, ditches, and palisadoes, and so, with the help of maps and books
as well as of Corporal Trim, his soldier servant, he was able to fight
over again, not only his old battles but those that were still going on.


The Uncle Toby of the future will set up miniature pieces of artillery
and tiny trenches in place of the batteries and palisadoes of the past.
Let us hope, however, that he will be as noble-hearted and kindly a man
as his famous predecessor.


When you are older, I hope you will read and re-read this wonderful
book, which is called “Tristram Shandy.” I will only add here Uncle
Toby’s defence of Britain at war, because it applies so well to the
present War with Germany.

“What is War,” he asked, “what is it, when fought as ours has been, upon
Principles of _Liberty_ and Principles of _Honour_, what is it but the
Getting together of Quiet and Harmless People with their Swords in their
Hands, to keep the Ambitious and Turbulent within Bounds?”

I cannot help feeling rather sorry that most of you will not remember
what the British Army was like before the days of khaki. I am rather
sorry for myself that I cannot remember the time when our troops wore
the occasionally beautiful, the always quaint, and the sometimes
grotesque uniforms which you see in old pictures and engravings. At the
Naval and Military Tournament every year some of the old picturesque
uniforms and the curious old drill are revived. I remember, in
particular, how Sir Mark Sykes with wonderful skill brought to life
again before us in this way a company of the famous “Green Howards.”


Not much more than a hundred years ago, soldiers all wore pigtails, but
both officers and men hated them, and when at last they were abolished,
in 1808, some of the regiments actually made bonfires of their pigtails
while others buried them!


The French still wear the blue and red uniform, and sad to say it is
greatly owing to that fact that they have suffered so terribly from the
German fire. It seems that an airman, even when flying very high, sees
the bright patches of blue lying beneath him, when the British khaki,
and even more the greenish-grey German uniform, would be quite
invisible.


Many of you, I am sure, have been to Boulogne, either to spend a happy
summer holiday there, or when going through to some other part of
France. Henceforth we shall all look upon the beautiful old French port
with a new interest and a new respect. For there the British
Expeditionary Force landed in August 1914.


Till that date Boulogne was chiefly famous as having been the
“jumping-off place” from which Napoleon planned to make a victorious
invasion of England. It was the Battle of Waterloo which saved us from
that invasion. So Boulogne had a long and intimate acquaintance with
British warriors, but never till this year in the guise of friends. The
noble ghosts of these British warriors were evoked in splendid fashion
in the following lines by Mr. Justin Huntly M‘Carthy:

          “One dreamer, when our English soldiers trod
          But yesterday the welcoming fields of France,
          Saw war-gaunt shadows gathering stare askance
          Upon those levies and that alien sod—
          Saw Churchill’s smile and Wellington’s curt nod,
          Saw Harry with his Crispins, Chandos’ lance,
          And the Edwards on whose breasts the leopards dance:
          Then heard a gust of ghostly thanks to God
          That the most famous quarrel of all time
          In the most famous friendship ends at last;
          Such flame of friendship as God fans to forge
          A sword to strike the Dragon of the Slime,
          Bidding St. Denis with St. George stand fast
          Against the Worm. St. Denis and St. George!”

I ought perhaps to explain that “Churchill’s smile” does not mean the
smile of Mr. Winston Churchill, but of his great ancestor, the Duke of
Marlborough. The Worm is of course an old name for the Dragon and stands
in this case for Germany, and St. Denis is the old battle-cry of France,
as St. George is that of England.


In spite of what people may tell you to the contrary, never believe that
a secret cannot be kept. Honourable people always keep a secret. It
shows how very many honourable people there must be, both in England and
in France, when I tell you that the fact that this wonderful force of
110,000 men with all their guns and stores was being taken across to
France, was never publicly revealed till Lord Kitchener allowed it to be
announced in the newspapers.


And yet what was happening day by day and hour by hour must have been
known to thousands of people in both countries. The reason for this
secrecy was, as you can easily guess, to furnish a nice little surprise
for the enemy. And that it was a real surprise for the enemy is proved
by a German Army Order, which afterwards fell into our hands, referring
to a rumour that a British force might be coming. That Army Order was
dated August 21, after the whole force had landed!


I want you particularly to understand also that it is a difficult job to
take an army of horse and foot and guns across even so short a bit of
sea as the English Channel. It takes many big ships, called transports,
and they have to be most carefully guarded by warships while they are
crossing.


Never forget that if it had not been for the British Navy the Army could
never have got across the Channel safely. Nor could the constant stream
of fresh troops and horses and food and shells and cartridges and all
the other hundred and one things that an army needs in the field of
battle.


Everything possible was done to prevent the enemy from knowing about the
force which was being sent against him. The regiments left their depots
in ignorance of where they were being sent. Even the drivers of the
engines which drew the trains to Southampton were not told their
destination beforehand. Most wonderful of all, the captain of each ship
bearing a thousand or more soldiers started out from Southampton not
knowing whither he was bound till he was ten miles from shore. Then he
opened a sealed envelope containing his orders. Of course everyone had a
shrewd suspicion, but there was no talking, no gossip.


Equally in the dark were the people of Boulogne, though they must have
known great events were astir, for they could not help seeing some of
the preparations which had to be made for receiving such an army.


Before he left our shores each soldier received a message from the King
and a message from Lord Kitchener. This is the whole of the King’s
message:

“You are leaving home to fight for the safety and honour of my Empire.
Belgium, which country we are pledged to defend, has been attacked, and
France is about to be invaded by the same powerful foe. I have implicit
confidence in you, my soldiers. Duty is your watchword and I know your
duty will be nobly done. I shall follow your every moment with deepest
interest and mark with eager satisfaction your daily progress. Indeed,
your welfare will never be absent from my thoughts. I pray God to bless
you and guard you and bring you back victorious.

                                                       “GEORGE R. et I.”

“R. et I.” means “Rex et Imperator,” the Latin for King and Emperor, for
the King is also Emperor of India.


The message from Lord Kitchener was a good deal longer, and I will only
give you these sentences from what has been well described as the
noblest message ever sent to fighting men:

“You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French
comrades against the invasion of a common enemy.

“Remember that the honour of the British Empire depends on your
individual conduct, and you can do your country no better service than
in showing yourself in France and Belgium in the true character of a
British soldier.

“Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Always look upon
looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to
be trusted; your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust.

“Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.

                                             “KITCHENER, Field-Marshal.”

It was rather a fine touch of the French military authorities to set
aside for the British Army the exact stretch of ground where Napoleon
encamped _his_ Expeditionary Force nearly a century before. The more we
know about this war, the more wonderful a man Napoleon turns out to have
been. Even in this matter of choosing the best and healthiest spot for a
camp, the modern commanders could not do better than follow closely in
his firm footsteps.


Those of us who have been to Boulogne must have driven or walked to the
column which the town put up many years ago to the memory of England’s
great enemy. How strange to think that British soldiers rested, before
starting out on the most serious venture in their history, under the
very shadow of that column!


The people of Boulogne—or one ought to say what was left of them, for of
course their husbands, sons, and brothers were already at the front—gave
our troops a most wonderful welcome. This was, however, but a foretaste
of how they were to be treated in every district of France traversed by
them. As many of our soldiers wrote home, they were in some cases almost
killed with kindness.

Some of our troops were fortunate enough to remain at Boulogne ten days.
Others only had a few hours’ rest before they were hurried up to the
front. Yet others again left the camp full of high spirits, with
laughter and happy _au revoirs_, to come back within a very few days
wounded and on their way to hospital.


As you all know, the command of the British Force was given to
Field-Marshal Sir John French, and you may like me to tell you something
of this great soldier.


The first interesting thing about him is that, perhaps owing to the fact
that his father was a naval officer, he served for a time in the Navy as
a midshipman. Then he became a lieutenant in the Militia, or, as we
should say now, the Territorials, and afterwards joined the 19th
Hussars. He soon showed the splendid stuff he was made of, both in peace
and in war. I think you will like to know that he was among those
British officers who made the last desperate attempt to rescue General
Gordon.

He is what is called a great cavalry leader, and it has been said that
what Murat was to Napoleon, French proved himself to be to Roberts and
to Kitchener during the South African War. If a service of great hazard
and peril had to be performed, it was always French and his men who were
asked to do it.


But what I want you to remember about Sir John French is, not only that
he is a great soldier and a very brave man, but also that he is a
singularly modest man. In each and all of his despatches during this
great war he has always under-estimated his victories, in this setting
an example which has not been followed by the enemy.


Sir John French has another very rare quality, and one which some famous
military commanders have lacked, I mean the quality of generosity. There
is not in his nature a touch of envy, or of that feeling which has
sometimes made even very great men dislike and deplore any kind of
rivalry. He has paid noble tributes to the officers working under him,
and his commendation of his gallant army must have filled every man of
them with a glow of pride and pleasure. Among the rank and file, who
call him among themselves simply “Johnny,” he is almost worshipped, and
they have the most absolute belief in his powers of leadership.


Like all great cavalry leaders, Sir John French is exceedingly fond of
horses. He felt bitterly the death of a favourite charger which had
carried him through the whole of the South African campaign, and which
wore a medal round its neck recording its services. Sir John French had
this good horse buried at Aldershot, and a memorial now marks the
gallant charger’s grave.


You may be interested to learn that Napoleon’s charger, a small,
thick-set barb, lives in many a noble painting. He spent his old age at
the Jardin des Plantes, the “Zoo” of Paris, and used to be regularly
visited by the members of his master’s Old Guard.

As for the Duke of Wellington’s famous horse, Copenhagen, familiar in
many pictures, he was remarkable for his endurance, and however hard a
day he had gone through—on one occasion Copenhagen carried the Iron Duke
for sixteen hours at a stretch—he never refused his corn, which he used
to eat very oddly, lying down. When he died of old age at
Strathfieldsaye, he was buried with military honours.


Crimean Bob was for a long time the oldest horse in the British Army. He
was a pretty, chestnut-coloured horse, and joined as a four-year-old in
1833. In 1842, he went on foreign service for the first time. He came
back without a scratch, and embarked for the Crimea in 1854. He was
ridden in the Charge of the Light Brigade—the story of which you know
from Tennyson’s famous poem, “Half a league, half a league, half a
league onward”—as well as all through the battles of the Alma and
Inkerman. During the whole of the campaign he was never once struck off
duty through sickness. On his return home he was carefully looked after
at Cahir Barracks in Ireland till his death, which took place at an
extraordinary old age.

Perhaps the thing which first made many of the country people in
peaceful England understand that we were _really_ at war, was what is
called the “requisitioning” of horses. Supposing one of you had been
leading a horse along a lane near home, you might, and almost certainly
would, have been suddenly ordered to hand it over to be used for army
purposes, of course at a fair price.


I heard of one venerable lady who was taking a nice drive, as she always
did for an hour every afternoon. Her two fat horses were being driven,
as always, by her fat old coachman, when suddenly an officer jumped out
of a wood at the side of the road and politely requested her to hand
them over!

The old lady was very much agitated, and the coachman pleaded that he
might at least take his mistress home. “Yes, if you give me your word to
have the horses back here within an hour.” “And what is to happen to me?
It’s my living you’re taking away, sir!” “Oh, you can come too, and look
after your horses!”


A pretty little story was told about the same time. A mare arrived at a
well-known depot with other requisitioned animals. Tied round her neck
was a label, with a tiny sprig of heather fastened by a piece of blue
silk ribbon. The label bore the brief but pathetic message: “Sorry Lady
has to leave us. Hope she will return to us safe and sound. With much
love.”

This appeal found its way to a soldier’s heart, and he wrote from
Woolwich to the _Daily Sketch_:

“I should be obliged if you would inform Ivy Clayton that her little
horse has arrived here safe and well, and that she can rest assured that
‘Lady’ will receive every attention during her brief stay with us.
Sincerely hoping that she will soon recover her pet,

                                                         “GUNNER R.H.A.”


But to return to Sir John French and his officers. This word “officer”
is so familiar that I do not suppose anyone of you has ever stopped to
think what it means.


The ideal officer is gallant, intelligent, and energetic. He is aware
that influence over his men is not obtained by discipline alone, but by
kindness, firmness, and good sense. He explains to a certain extent to
the men under him the reasons for his orders. He does not require of
them the blind obedience which is exacted by the German officer. In
fact, I cannot do better than quote the description given by a certain
corporal in an old comedy called _The Poor Gentleman_:

“A good officer, do you see, cannot help being a kind-hearted man. Ship
an officer, we will say, with his company to a foreign climate; he lands
and endures heat, cold, and fatigue, hunger, thirst, sickness; now
marching over the burning plain, now up to his knees in wet in the
trench; how could a man suffer such hardships with a parcel of honest
fellows under his command, and not learn to feel for his
fellow-creatures?”

It is because our officers are good officers that the men follow them to
the death. It is because they are not only firm and just, but also kind,
that they are loved, honoured, and obeyed. A soldier never fails his
officer if he has confidence in him, and if he knows he will never be
asked for undue exertion unless the good of the service requires it.


During the passage across the Channel of our Expeditionary Force many
wonderful deeds of daring were done by our brave airmen. One such was
considered so remarkable as to be told in the official news later
despatched from the front, and it is, I think, difficult to beat for
cool courage.

During one of the airship patrols it became necessary to change a
propeller blade of one of the engines. The captain feared it would be
necessary to descend for this purpose, but two of the crew immediately
volunteered to carry out this difficult task in the air. Climbing out on
to the bracket, carrying the propeller shafting, they completed the
hazardous work of changing the blade 2000 feet above the sea.


It was a long time before some of us realised that not only England,
Scotland, and Ireland, but also the Greater Britain on which the sun
never sets, had gone to war. Gallant deeds are being performed every day
all over the Empire, and it is only by accident that we hear of some of
them. The War enormously increased their number.


Take, for instance, the magnificent courage shown by Mr. Saxby
Wellacott, the son of the Vicar of Totnes. This young man is not a
soldier but a civilian attached to the Public Works Department at Accra,
in West Africa. Yet he played an active part in the operations of the
Field Force which added Togoland to our Empire early in August. The
Germans put up a good fight. They mined the roads and railways and
electrified the wire entanglements; but it is also reported that they
used dum-dum bullets, which as you know is not fair fighting.


Mr. Wellacott, together with two French officers and thirty Senegalese
troops, advanced on a river called the Chra. The Germans blew up a
bridge and opened fire on the tiny allied force with three Maxim guns
and a couple of hundred rifles. The firing went on for two hours, and
Mr. Wellacott got left behind. He managed, however, to get back to his
motor-cycle, started it and rode it for five miles with a wounded man in
the side-car. Most wonderful of all, he succeeded in carrying the
motor-cycle over two bridges, though it weighed six hundredweight. At
last to his great joy he found the main column but rest was not for him
yet. The Allied forces had to fight all day the next day, achieving
victory the following morning.


The Germans were foolish enough to think when the war broke out that
there would be terrible trouble in Ireland, a rebellion in India, and
that the great Dominions—Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South
Africa—would seize the opportunity to desert the Empire.

As a matter of fact, the very opposite of these things happened.
Irishmen of all parties rushed to enlist. A great wave of passionate
loyalty swept over India. Her Princes and her peoples poured out their
offerings of men and money. Regiments of magnificent native
soldiers—Rajputs, Sikhs, Gurkhas, Pathans—were granted the dearest wish
of their hearts, namely to fight shoulder to shoulder with our white
troops.


As for the Dominions, most valuable help in men and money was instantly
offered by Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and gratefully accepted
by the Mother Country. South Africa’s help was not less valuable, for
the Union Government undertook to conquer the German colonies on the
East and the West.


About the middle of October, quite a little army came from Canada:
horse, foot, gunners, sappers, all fully equipped. These splendid
fellows are used to roughing it, and have their wits sharpened by
Colonial life. They brought a great many pets and mascots—dogs, goats,
birds, and so on—but the strangest of all was a little boy! He had been
a paper boy, and he was so eager to come with the Canadians that one
regiment smuggled him into their ship. By the time they landed in
England the little chap had blossomed into a bugler!


I must tell you about the song sung by the Canadian cavalry contingent
composed of British Columbian Rough Riders, as they rode through their
beautiful country to the sea. This song soon became extraordinarily
popular. Here are two verses:

                “British Columbia Horse are we,
                From Canada’s Pacific Sea,
                To make the Kaiser understand
                He must respect our Motherland.

                We’ll make him bow and scrape to us
                For stirring up this horrid fuss;
                We’ll make him dance the Highland Fling
                And ‘Rule Britannia’ loudly sing!”

These lines may not be very fine poetry, but they have the merit of
letting us know exactly how those who sing them feel about this war.


Of course it took some time for the whole British Empire to get to work,
but it was clear from the very beginning that the German hopes of
trouble were absurd. I cannot help picturing to myself with some
amusement what a shock it must have been to the Kaiser and his advisers
when they began to understand what a blunder they had made. Instead of
breaking up the British Empire, they had actually succeeded in drawing
it closer together and making it very much stronger.


At home also you remember how the outbreak of war seemed to bring us all
nearer together, rich and poor alike.


Lord Kitchener became Minister of War, and in response to his appeal
hundreds of thousands of fine young men hastened to enlist. Party
quarrels stopped like magic, and Conservatives and Liberals and Labour
men alike joined together to do what they could to help. The younger
members of Parliament went off to join the colours, while the older ones
made speeches about the war and took their share of the work of
relieving those on whom the war had brought much unmerited suffering.


The Prince of Wales started a great fund for helping people in distress.
At the time when I write these words he had collected the enormous sum
of nearly four millions. The Prince also joined the Grenadier Guards as
a subaltern and trained with great enthusiasm. To his bitter
disappointment Lord Kitchener did not consider him experienced enough to
go to the front yet awhile.


King George was unwearied in visiting his troops in camp, and the
wounded in hospital. This in addition to all the heavy daily work he had
to do with his Ministers.

Unlike the Kaiser, our King did not boast and rush about making silly
speeches. He just set to work and did his duty like the modest gentleman
that he is, and the example of coolness and courage that he showed was
an inspiration to the whole Empire.


Among all the people who helped on the outbreak of war, I do not think
any did better than the Boy Scouts.

They did excellent work, especially in guarding railways and bridges,
and about this I heard at the time an amusing story.


A man who was certainly old enough to know better resolved to play a
practical joke on some Boy Scouts who were guarding an important railway
bridge. Taking a little bag with him, he crept stealthily along the
line. Soon the Scouts challenged him, and then this foolish man
pretended to be a German! “Ach!” he cried, trying to imitate the German
accent, “Liddle boys, I vill blow up zis bridge.” Here the Scouts
interrupted him to such purpose that he had to spend a considerable time
in hospital! There, let us hope, he repented of his silly joke.


Many hundreds of Boy Scouts did regular coastguard duty in place of the
coastguards who were called away on active service. As the weather got
cold the Scouts found themselves in urgent need of warm clothing, and
Sir Robert Baden Powell, the Chief Scout, appealed for mittens,
comforters, stockings, and so on.


Here I may say that every boy and girl ought to help in making such
things. Your elders will tell you at any time what things are
particularly wanted for the soldiers and sailors exposed to wind and
rain and storm on land and sea.


An exciting story of a London boy who would not give his side away is
that of Freddy Ascher, aged sixteen. Freddy was at school near Peronne,
in Belgium, when the war broke out. One Sunday morning after church he
decided to cycle to Peronne to look for Germans, who were said to be
close by.

Just outside the town, two German soldiers on bicycles suddenly pounced
on him and took him into the German lines. There he was searched, and
from letters which he had from his parents, the German officers
discovered that he was English, and of course they began questioning him
as to where he had seen the English troops, and if any were near.

Now Freddy had seen some Lancers on the evening before, but he was not
going to tell the Germans, whatever might happen to him, so he said he
had no idea where the British were. “They must be where you have come
from,” declared the German officer. But the boy stuck to it that he had
not seen them, and the officer at last said: “We are going to keep you a
week till you tell me something.”

“Of course I was a bit frightened,” said Freddy, “but I had resolved
that I would never give away the English. They gave me a meal, and after
two hours we started on the march. I had to walk between two German
soldiers, and was told that if I ran away I should be shot. At the end
of three days we got close to Mons. I had often cycled over the roads we
went, and knew the country well. I was again questioned by officers as
to where I had seen British troops, but I still said I had never seen
any. And then an officer said: ‘We are going to let you go, but you must
not come back through German lines.’”

They gave him back his bicycle, and two German soldiers took him a mile,
and then told him to ride off.




                               CHAPTER IV
                           THE BATTLE OF MONS

           And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
           Dewy with nature’s teardrops as they pass,
           Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
           Over the unreturning brave,—alas!
           Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
           Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
           In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
           Of living valour, rolling on the foe
       And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.
                                                           BYRON.


On Sunday, August 23, 1914, there was fought what will rank as one of
the great Battles of the Ages. For on that Sunday the whole flower of
the German Army, including the pick of their famous cavalry, was hurled
against the British Army in the proportion of six to one!


I had hoped not to sully with the Kaiser’s now notorious address to his
troops the pages of a book in which were to be recorded only gallant
deeds. But alone it explains the strong preponderance of numbers at the
Battle of Mons.

This is what the German Emperor evidently thought to be an inspiring and
dignified message to his generals. I must tell you it was issued on
August 19, that is, only four days before our first contact with the
enemy:

“It is my Royal and Imperial command that you concentrate your energies,
for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and that is that you
address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate
first the treacherous English and walk over General French’s
contemptible little army.”


How hard the Kaiser’s legions tried to obey his commands you will
shortly see. Also how completely they failed, and that although, as I
must again remind you, the great outstanding feature of the Battle of
Mons was the overwhelming number of the enemy compared to our forces.


The simplest and most homely account often brings a fact more truly home
to us than any fine language would do, and I doubt if we shall ever read
a more vivid picture of the opening of this terrific fight than the
following passage in a letter written by a young British soldier to his
father, who is a gardener: “You complained last summer, Dad, of the
swarm of wasps that destroyed your fruit. That will give you an idea of
how the Germans came for us!”


Yet another who took part in this terrific battle, wrote: “It looked as
if we were going to be snowed under! The mass of men who came on was an
avalanche, and everyone of us must have been trodden to death, if not
killed by shells or bullets, had not our infantry charged into them on
the left wing, not 500 yards from the trench I was in.”

A non-commissioned officer also shows how our side was outnumbered: “No
regiment ever fought harder than we did, and no regiment has ever had
better officers; they went shoulder to shoulder with their men. But you
cannot expect impossibilities, no matter how brave the boys are, when
one is fighting forces twenty to thirty times as strong.”


Everyone of the great battles in the world’s history has some
outstanding heroic action to its credit. The heroes of Mons were British
cavalry, for the 9th Lancers made there a charge every whit as gallant
and glorious as the famous Charge of the Light Brigade.

A German battery of ten guns had been posted inside a wood, each gun
having been skilfully made to look like a small haystack, which caused
the British to approach them unsuspectingly. When the guns opened fire,
terrible havoc was caused in our ranks, and it seemed impossible to
silence them.

It was then that the 9th Lancers made their splendid charge.

The whole regiment rode straight at the German battery, cut down all the
gunners, and put the guns out of action. As was the case in the Charge
of the Light Brigade they lost more men as they rode back than on their
way in.


I think the best account of this wonderful cavalry charge was written by
one who was wounded in it. “We were flying at one another as hard as the
horses could go. It was a charge such as you see in a picture, every man
hoping he would not get his knees crushed by the fellows on each side of
him.” Does not that remind you of Sir Walter Scott’s splendid lines?

               “On came the whirlwind—like the last
               But fiercest sweep of tempest blast;
               On came the whirlwind—steel gleams broke
               Like lightning through the rolling smoke,
                   The war was waked anew.”

There were at least two Frenchmen in this historic charge. The Vicomte
de Vauvineux, a French cavalry officer, who rode with the brigade as
interpreter, was killed instantly—a gallant officer whose death many in
England mourned. Captain Letourey, the French master at Blundell’s
School in Devon, rode by the side of de Vauvineux, but escaped death as
by a miracle. His horse was shot under him, but he caught another,
riderless, and rode off unscathed.

While the bulk of the brigade swerved to the right, riding for a hundred
yards across the face of the machine guns, a few rode desperately on,
bearing charmed lives. But only for a few yards. The trap, baited by the
desultory fire of the artillery, was complete. Wire entanglements were
buried in the grass thirty yards in front of the guns. Riding full tilt
into these, the few who kept their line to the guns fell, and were made
prisoners.

Of the 9th Lancers, not more than forty gathered that night in a village
hard by. Others came in next day, and finally some two hundred and
twenty in all mustered out of the entire regiment.

A trooper of the 9th Lancers in writing home mentioned a fact which I
thought very touching, and the admission of which showed that he was
really a brave man. He said that when going into action he found himself
crying out “Mother!” “Mother!” and then suddenly he felt courage, as he
strikingly put it, “loom” up in him.


I think, without boasting, we may say that it is characteristic of both
armies that whereas the German soldiers are played into action by a
band, the British march into action singing. During the present campaign
they seem to have preferred “It’s a long way to Tipperary,” and it is on
record that an Irish regiment sang that stirring old song “God save
Ireland.” The Manchester Regiment sing “Killaloe,” the Rifle Brigade are
fond of that fine old ballad “Colonel Coote Manningham’s a very good
man.” The Fusiliers have their own song, “Fighting with the Royal
Fusiliers.”


We must not allow ourselves to forget that other regiments of our
cavalry were also engaged in this great battle, among them the 18th
Hussars and the 4th Dragoons, who performed noble feats of valour and
suffered severely.

Another historic “scrap” was that between a regiment of Irish infantry
and three regiments of German cavalry splendidly horsed, equipped, and
armed. The Irishmen, who had been joking and smoking, rose up to meet
the oncoming rush of horsemen, and one who was there said they looked
like a bristling bulwark of giants, holding weapons of steel in steel
grips.

For a few minutes there was an awful chaos of horses, soldiers grey and
soldiers yellow, glittering lances and bayonets, the automatic spit of
machine guns, the flashes of musketry. Amidst it all the men in khaki
stood steadfast. Grimly and without budging they threw back, at the
bayonet’s point, in utter demoralisation, the cavalry of the Kaiser.
While they fought they sang “God save Ireland,” and “Whistle to me, said
I.”


Martial songs have always had a very great effect on armies taking the
field. The British have a great many battle songs. The French have only
the “Marseillaise.” The most famous German battle songs are
“Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles,” and “Die Wacht am Rhein.” The
marching song of the troops who fought under Marlborough was
“Lillibullero.”


In the American Civil War there were many splendid songs sung by the men
going into action, of which perhaps the best known is “John Brown’s body
lies a’mouldering in the grave.” It is probable that nowadays, invoking
the shade of Lincoln, Americans would swing into battle singing “We are
coming, Father Abraham.”

There is a touching story to the effect that on one occasion when the
two great opposing armies—the strenuous North and the chivalrous
South—were actually only separated by a river, the soldiers on one side
began singing “Annie Laurie,” and suddenly the refrain was heard
floating over from the other side. Long after the deadly conflict which
took place the next day was forgotten, the incident of the song was
remembered in both Northern and Southern homes.


The instinctive fear felt and shown by the Germans of our cavalry, and
the great deeds of valour performed by them in the Battle of Mons,
recalls an exciting incident which occurred in the Indian Mutiny, when
what was known as the Volunteer Cavalry, raised by Sir Henry Lawrence
from among the unattached officers and civilians of Lucknow, did a
marvellous feat of arms while on their way to that beleaguered city.

There came a moment when Lawrence saw himself in danger of being
surrounded. He gave the order to retreat, a retreat which soon
degenerated into a rout. On approaching the Kokral stream which ran
across the road to Lucknow, about four hundred rebel cavalry were seen
prepared to dispute the passage of the one bridge on which depended the
safety of the fugitives. The situation was saved by the Volunteer
Cavalry. Without a moment’s hesitation some thirty of them with their
commander, Captain Radcliffe, at their head, hurled themselves at the
dense mass in their front, and before they could strike a blow the enemy
broke and fled, leaving the bridge free. To this splendid charge alone
was due the fact that a remnant of the British force finally reached
Lucknow in safety.


Let me recall in the same connection another tale of the Mutiny. It was
during the night of the 19th of June, when an especially determined
attack was made on the British position outside Delhi. Hope Grant, in
command of the cavalry, kept back the fiercest attacks of the enemy on
the rear of the British camp. At last, unhorsed, surrounded by the foe,
he must have fallen, had not his sowar, or native orderly, Rooper Khan,
ridden up to him saying, “Take my horse, sir, it is your only chance of
safety!” Hope Grant refused, but taking a firm grip of the animal’s tail
he was dragged by his sowar out of the mass of fighting men.


The British cavalry have been celebrated from the days of Julius Cæsar.
In his famous Commentaries, Cæsar remarks of his brave British foes,
“They display in battle the speed of horse with the firmness of
infantry; and by daily practice and exercise attain to such expertness
that they are accustomed, even on a declining and steep place, to check
their horses at full speed and manage to turn them in an instant.”

The British cavalryman regards his horse as his friend. It is recorded
that after each of the great cavalry charges at Mons the men, though in
considerable danger of being “sniped,” went round and shot the poor
wounded horses, so that they might be at once put out of their misery.


Those of you who have ponies of your own may like to hear how kindly and
tenderly our battle-horses are treated. The Army Veterinary Corps,
officered by fully trained veterinary surgeons, always accompanies our
troops in the field. Immediately after an engagement these officers
attend to those horses which are only slightly wounded, and send them
along to a horse hospital if it be necessary.

As to what care horses should have on active service, opinions differ
curiously. In a letter written by the Duke of Wellington to a cavalry
officer, he begged him when in the field not to allow his men to dress
their horses’ skins. “You have no conception how much warmth the animals
derive from the dust which accumulates in their coats.”


Cavalry horses love the stir and din, even perhaps the danger, of
battle. The story goes that one day a milkwoman passing in her cart near
where a regiment of cavalry was manœuvring, heard the trumpets sound.
Her horse pricked up his ears and started off at full gallop towards the
sentries, dragging the cart after it in spite of the poor woman’s
efforts. It did not stop till it had joined the ranks!


We will now go back to the Battle of Mons—to the firing line, and to a
remarkable act of gallantry performed by Captain Grenfell. The tale, as
told by a corporal, cannot be improved on:

“The gunners had all been killed by shrapnel, and there were the guns
with no one to look after them, and a good chance that the Germans might
get them. The horses were safe enough, but there was no one to harness
them. Captain Grenfell stepped out. ‘We’ve got to get those guns back,’
he said. ‘Who’s going to volunteer for the job?’ He had a couple of
dozen of us before he had finished speaking. Since our chaps have seen
him in the firing line, they would go anywhere with him.

“Well, we went out. There were bullets flying all round us and shrapnel
bursting all over the place, but Captain Grenfell was as cool as if he
was on parade. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘They can’t hit us. Come
along!’ We got to the guns all right, hitched up the horses, and brought
them back, and only three of our chaps were hit. It’s a wonder the whole
lot of us were not wiped out.”


It was later in that same day that this gallant Captain Grenfell was
wounded. He got a bullet in the thigh, and a couple of his fingers were
hurt. His men brought him back from the firing line and sent for an
ambulance to take him away, but while they were waiting for the
ambulance a motor-car came along. “That’s exactly what I want,” said the
Captain. “What’s the use of an ambulance to me? Take me back to the
firing line.” And he got into the motor-car and went back, leaving the
doctors to make what they liked of it!


Here is another story, of which the hero this time is a cavalry
sergeant. This man had been badly wounded three times, but was still
going on fighting. Suddenly he heard a corporal shouting to be taken out
of the line. Turning round, he bound up his comrade’s wounds, set him on
his own horse and sent him back out of the way. Then, regardless of his
own condition, he limped along to his regiment, and started fighting
again.


And now for a very pathetic little incident.

In the middle of the battle, in a beautiful cornfield from which the men
fighting could see all over the country, one of the drivers of a battery
was badly wounded. He asked to see the colours before he died. His
officer told him that the guns were _his_ colours, and he answered:
“Yes, that is true. Tell the drivers to keep their eyes on their guns,
for if we lose our guns we lose our colours.”

These brave drivers have the strongest feeling of affection and loyalty
for their guns.

On one occasion, also at Mons, two drivers brought a gun out of action,
the shells bursting all round them. They had noticed that the gunners
had all been killed, so they walked their horses down to save the gun.
One driver held the horses under a fearful fire while the other
“limbered up.” The gun was rushed safely back, neither men nor horses
being hit. Their comrades, watching them from the trenches, thought it
quite impossible for them to escape death, for shot and shell were
ploughing the ground up all round them.


So many were the brave, chivalrous, and merciful deeds in this battle
that it is difficult to make a choice. I should like, however, to tell
you of one such performed by a lieutenant of the “A” Company of the 1st
Cheshires, whose nickname is “Winkpop.”

He was shot through his right leg, and on the road some of his men cut
off his boots and tried to bandage his wounds. As he rose to his feet,
he saw a private in distress about fifteen yards away. Seizing a rifle
he hobbled forward and managed to bring him in on his back under a
murderous fire from the enemy.

This gallant deed recalls a splendid act of valour performed by two
non-commissioned officers, who were among the first group of V.C.
heroes. They were among the very few to return unscathed from the Charge
of the Light Brigade. Regardless of their own danger, they remained by
one of their wounded officers, and at last, by making a bandy-chair with
their arms, they actually brought him in safety to the British lines.


The cool courage of the doctors and of the ambulance men whose duty it
is to rescue and then to attend to the wounded must never be lost sight
of in what may be called the more showy deeds performed by our soldiers
and sailors.

The story you have just read recalls the astonishing coolness and
bravery of the man who, I believe, was the first doctor to receive the
V.C.—Surgeon Mouat of the Inniskillings. He dressed the wound, under
fire, of Captain Morris, of the 17th Lancers, who had just taken part in
the Charge of the Light Brigade, thereby saving his patient’s life.


The Middlesex Regiment, who bear the glorious nickname of “The Die
Hards,” greatly distinguished themselves on those eventful days, August
23 and 24. They were much pleased by a communication received by them,
containing a statement by Mr. J. B. Dolphin, British Vice-Consul at
Liège, in which the following passage occurred:

“A German general said that he had never dreamt of such magnificent
bravery as that displayed by them. The accuracy of their firing was a
revelation: their coolness was wonderful, and their trench work
splendid.”

As you will see later in this book, “The Die Hards” also distinguished
themselves in one of the later battles of the war.


In the first public speech made in England by a British officer wounded
at Mons, Captain Buchanan Dunlop, he paid a fine tribute to the French
non-combatants, as people who are not soldiers are called in a country
at war:

“I think England might get a very good lesson from the inhabitants of
France and Belgium. All the way as we proceeded through that country all
the inhabitants turned out and did all they could for us. They brought
us coffee, bread and butter, cigarettes, and anything they could think
of. The ladies even turned out balls of string in case the men might
find them useful, and handkerchiefs. We advanced up through this
country, and then had to retire through it. You can imagine our feelings
going back through the same country that we had previously traversed.
This did not make the slightest difference to the way we were treated by
the inhabitants. They brought us coffee and other things as before.

“Fugitives flying from their homes were eager to give us of the food
which they were carrying back for their own consumption. What struck us
the whole time was the thought, If this was England? What an awful thing
it would be to have an invading army in England, and everything
happening here that is now going on in France!”


Captain Buchanan Dunlop also told two splendid little stories to show
what pluck and fight our men have in them:

“I was talking to an officer of my own regiment in town yesterday. He
was also wounded, and he told me about a fight on Wednesday week when
one of his men lying just in front of him under heavy shell fire, turned
to him and said: ‘Sir, may I retire?’ ‘Why?’ asked the officer. ‘Sir,’
replied the man, ‘I have been hit three times.’”


Here is the other little incident:

“On the very first day we were holding a canal bank, and during the
night we had orders to retire, having held off the enemy all day. We
were to blow up the bridges. By some mishap a sergeant with ten men was
left on the wrong side of that canal with the Germans about two hundred
yards in front. We could hear the Germans talking. The next morning,
when we called the roll, we expressed sorrow at thinking that this
sergeant and his men must have been captured. But in the morning, when
they found they were cut off, what did they do? They did not put up
their hands, but blazed away at the Germans, with the result that the
Germans fled and the sergeant and his men got away.”


The following story shows how many sides there are to a modern battle.

It was at Mons that a fight occurred for the possession of a canal
bridge, and a handful of British soldiers held at bay the enemy, who
were in force a hundred yards away. The odds were overwhelmingly against
our soldiers, and the Germans were preparing to rush the bridge, when an
engineer sergeant perceived that if the enemy succeeded our men would be
cut off.

Urging the men to concentrate their fire on one particular point, this
cool, brave man proceeded to dynamite the bridge. But as time was short
he could only employ a few inches of fuse. This meant that he went to
certain death. Sure enough, he and the bridge blew up together, and as
an eye-witness quaintly said, “Another Victoria Cross was saved.”


A young Isle of Wight gunner named Butchers, from the pretty village of
Brading, was the hero of a magnificent episode.

A half battery in rather an exposed position was galling the enemy by
the accuracy of its aim. Several of the German batteries therefore made
a combined attack on it. It was a fight between a David and half-a-dozen
Goliaths. One by one its guns were silenced. The men who had been
serving them were shot down till at last only Butchers was left. He went
on doing his best, working steadily and to all appearance calmly, till
an officer called him away.

One of the first letters received from the fighting line contained the
following striking tribute from the writer, a private, to one of his
officers:

“You know I have often spoken of Captain ——, and what a fine fellow he
was. There was no braver man on the field. He got knocked over early
with a piece of a shell, which smashed his leg. He must have been in
great pain, but kneeling on one knee he was cheerful and kept saying,
‘My bonnie boys, make sure of your man.’ When he was taken away on the
ambulance he shouted, ‘Keep cool and mark your man.’”


You have already heard how splendidly our soldiers were welcomed by the
women and children when they landed in France. Well, during the Battle
of Mons the French peasant women showed their gratitude in an even more
practical way. It was very hot during those hours of fierce fighting,
and these valiant women brought water, and luscious cooling fruit, right
into our trenches and firing line. “I can assure you they are the
bravest souls I have ever met,” wrote a British private to his mother.


During the Battle of Mons the Germans may be credited with having
performed at least one act of kindness.

Lieutenant Irwin, of the South Lancashire Regiment, was wounded by
shrapnel at the end of the day’s hard fighting. He lay all night in a
turnip field. In the morning some German soldiers discovered him and one
of them brought a bundle of hay for Mr. Irwin to lie on till the
stretcher came up. He was taken to Valenciennes, and the German
commander most kindly allowed him to write home to his friends. There
were many French doctors and nurses in this hospital, and the German
officers behaved well to them also.


Very different was the experience of Private Charles Baker, of the 20th
Hussars.

After being wounded, he was taken into a cottage which had been turned
into a temporary hospital and where there were already twenty men,
including three Germans, in charge of an English doctor. Suddenly this
poor little hospital was raided by a party of fifty Germans, all more or
less drunk. Roughly they ordered the British wounded to say where their
regiment was, but, as Private Charles Baker wrote home to his people,
“Not one of us would give the game away.” Thereupon they were threatened
with death, and as Private Baker very honestly remarks: “I can tell you
I began to shake. I was really afraid then. I thought my number was up!”

Suddenly a most unexpected thing happened. The three wounded Germans
implored their comrades to spare the British, pointing out how very
kindly they had been treated by the English doctor. So the fifty Germans
went off as quickly as they had come in, and the next day the wounded
were all moved to another hospital.


Those of you who know anything of the Crimean War are aware what a
terrific battle was Inkerman. The British losses at Mons were the
highest for any single battle since Inkerman. On the other hand, there
were probably ten times greater forces engaged at Mons than at Inkerman,
when the numbers on either side were fairly even.


Now one last word as to where this battle was fought.

Very few English people who had not actually been there were familiar
with the name of Mons, and yet the town which gave its name to the first
big battle of this war, is not only the centre of the French “Black
Country,” but it has had a long and romantic history, and was founded by
Julius Cæsar.

A certain King of Spain, to whom Mons once belonged, must have been very
like the Kaiser. The latter, as we know, has with magnificent
lavishness, bestowed the Prussian V.C., the great decoration of the Iron
Cross, on some fifty thousand of his men. This King of Spain was once so
pleased with the inhabitants of Mons that he conferred a peerage on
every member of the Town Council!




                               CHAPTER V
                           THE GREAT RETREAT

              No thought was there of dastard flight
              Linked in the serried phalanx tight,
              Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
              As fearlessly, and well.
                                                  SCOTT.


You will remember that the Battle of Mons was fought on the 23rd of
August, a Sunday.

On the Monday the whole world, with the exception of Germany and
Austria, heard with dismay that the famous Belgian fort of Namur had
fallen, after holding out as long as it could against the great German
guns.


Now Namur was in a sense the key to France, so you can understand how
very very serious a matter for the Allies, as the French and British
forces were henceforth to be called, was the fall of this great
fortress. In these days it is rather curious to remember that fourteen
British regiments, including the Grenadier Guards, the Scots Guards, the
Royal Welsh Fusiliers, the Coldstreams, the Royal Irish, and the King’s
Own Scottish Borderers, bear the honorary distinction, “Namur, 1695,”
upon their colours, for having captured this stronghold two hundred and
nineteen years ago.


Through the town of Namur flows the Meuse, a lovely river, shared by
France and Belgium, which has already seen some of the hardest fighting
of this war.

On the banks of the Meuse, Joan of Arc, as a little girl, must often
have played, for in France it laves the village of Domrémy. When it
reaches Belgium, this storied river flows by the grave of an
extraordinary man who in some ways had certain affinities with Joan of
Arc—I mean Peter the Hermit, who is buried in the gardens of the old
Abbey of Neufmoustier.


The most beautiful description of the Meuse at Namur was written by
William Wordsworth:

         “Is this the stream whose cities, heights, and plains,
         War’s favourite playground are, with crimson stains
         Familiar as the morn with pearly dews?
         The morn, that now, along the silver Meuse,
         Spreading her peaceful ensigns, calls the swains
         To tend their silent boats and ringing wains,
         Or strip the bough whose mellow fruit bestrews
         The ripening corn beneath it. As mine eyes
         Turn from the fortified and threatening hill,
         How sweet the prospect of yon watery glade,
         With its grey rocks clustering in pensive shade,
         That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise
         From the smooth meadow-ground serene and still!”

Terrible fighting took place over that “smooth meadow-ground,” and at
last the fortress surrendered.


Now let me tell you something of a happy and inspiriting nature.

While Namur was falling, the gallant little French fortress of Longwy
was holding out against the Germans, and that though it was what is now
called a fortress of the second class.

Longwy has always been regarded as of considerable importance, owing to
its position on the Franco-German frontier. In the middle of the Great
Revolution it was taken by Germans, and its fall very much upset the
citizens of Paris. It put up a splendid fight in 1815, and was then
besieged for three full months before it fell.

In the Franco-Prussian War it resisted for one week. But in this war it
held out, against infinitely greater numbers and far more formidable
siege artillery than in 1870, for twenty-four days! The enemy
congratulated the French officer who had conducted the defence on his
bravery and skill.


The fall of Namur forced the Allies back, and it was then that there
began the British rearguard movement which was so brilliantly,
skilfully, and successfully conducted by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien that
it is considered worthy to rank with the great retreat of Sir John Moore
at Corunna.


I should like here to tell you something of the soldier to whom Sir John
French paid a grand tribute in his official despatches concerning those
first momentous days of the War.

General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien is a younger son of a family which has
given many distinguished soldiers to the Empire, and for generations has
held feudal sway over the Scilly Isles. Those of you who know Cornwall
may have visited the beautiful tropical gardens surrounding his old
home.

Before he obtained his high command in the Expeditionary Force,
Smith-Dorrien had seen a great deal of fighting, and one likes to quote
now what he once said during the South African War:

“Give me a thousand Colonials, men well acquainted with the rifle and
expert in horsemanship; let me train them for six months; and I shall
then be ready to lead them against an equal number of men drawn from any
Continental army with absolute confidence.”

Sir Horace has also had experience with another type of splendid soldier
of the Empire; for at one time he commanded the 4th Infantry Division of
the Indian Army, which includes some of the finest troops in the native
ranks.


During the South African War, Smith-Dorrien performed one of the
pluckiest deeds ever done by a British officer.

His brigade was moving forward to take a main Boer position, when two
battalions, one of the Gordons and the other of the C.I.V.’s, lost
touch. The Gordons, to put it shortly, rushed up the hill at Doornkop
with such impetuosity that they got cut off, and the General saw that
there was great danger of their being surrounded. Without wasting a
moment, and under an awful fire which was being kept up by an invisible
foe, he galloped straight across the enemy’s front and turned the
Highlanders back.

When Smith-Dorrien rode in unscathed, a brother officer protested
against the awful risk he had run. “Someone had to stop the Gordons! I
couldn’t send anyone else to face that fire, could I?” was his only
answer.


It must have been hard for so brave a man to have to organise a retreat,
but he knew that it had to be done—and done fighting.


You will have heard of—you may even have known—someone whose name was
included in the list sent home after a battle as “missing.”

Now there is something terrible and disturbing in the thought of a man
being missing. It makes one feel that anything may have happened to him.
But we must always remember that this disturbing word does not
necessarily mean that any harm has come to the soldier in question,
still less that he is killed. It very often means that he did not hear
the order to retreat and so was left behind in the trenches to be taken
prisoner by the enemy. Not a pleasant fate, but from the point of view
of those who love him, better than if he had fallen, as the French
proudly put it, on the Field of Honour. Also it is well to remember that
the number of the missing, especially in what is called a rearguard
action, is always greater than the number of killed or wounded.


A retreat has been well described as disheartening and painful, but in
strategy it is an operation like any other. Very often, as in the case
of Smith-Dorrien, it is the way to win in the end.

What is strategy? Strategy is another name for arranging your forces
like chessmen on a chess-board with the object of winning in the end.
Great strategists are born, not made. Cæsar was a great strategist, so
was Napoleon, and so was Lord Roberts. Just as a composer can write a
piece of music without the help of a piano or any other instrument, so
the born strategist can work out the plan of a battle, and even make a
shrewd guess as to who is going to win, when sitting in his study with a
good map before him.


It may interest you to know that before each of his great battles
Napoleon spent the night in his tent studying a number of large maps
laid out on the floor. Lying flat on his stomach, and with a little
stick in his hand, he would work out the dispositions of his troops and
of the enemy. When he had made up his mind what was going to happen,
down to every detail, he would call in his generals and explain to each
of them exactly what he was to do the next day. His generals soon found
that though he was not always certain what his own side would do, he
could always foresee the plans of the enemy.


I have already spoken of Sir John Moore at Corunna. At the time that
great soldier made his famous retreat, he was much criticised, but now
all military historians regard it as having been a most wonderful piece
of work, if only because it forced Napoleon to alter his whole plan of
campaign.

Just as General von Kluck wished to obey the Kaiser and destroy the
British Army, so Napoleon was most eager to destroy Sir John Moore’s
forces. Fresh from a series of brilliant victories, at the head of a
splendid host, Napoleon dashed into Spain, but Sir John Moore, by his
masterly retreat, defeated all his plans.

The first of his contemporaries to realise the splendid thing Moore had
done was Napoleon himself. While the British commanders—Moore’s own
contemporaries and even his own friends—were criticising the dead man,
for he fell at Corunna, Napoleon was putting on record his unbounded
admiration of his foe.


How our gallant soldiers felt when ordered to fall back was graphically
described by Private Harman, of the King’s Royal Rifles:

“We did not like the order to retire, for we knew we were doing better
than the Germans, and inflicting heavy losses upon them. Our officers
also knew we were disappointed. On the fifth day of the retreat—which
was the last I was in before being knocked out—our commanding officer
came round and spoke to us, saying, ‘Stick it, boys, stick it! To-morrow
we shall go the other way and advance.’”

And in time, as we shall see, they did advance, but before that glad
moment came they had to retreat, fighting.


Listen to this, written by another private:

“On one occasion seven of us were left to cover a Maxim gun while it was
being limbered up to take some other position farther back. We had to
take up the position of the gun, and we kept firing rapid so as to make
it appear that the Maxim gun was still there. The Germans were shelling
the position on both sides of us. Then we had to go at the double for
about five miles to catch up to the others. It was a hard jog-trot all
the way.”


It was during this skilful retreat that there came the first of those
wonderful duels in the air which established, as Sir John French so well
put it, the personal supremacy of our flying men, and proved that they
are quicker and sharper in the air than those of the enemy:

“Our man got above the German, who tried his hardest to escape,” wrote
an eye-witness. “The Englishman was firing his revolver, and the German
seemed to plane down in good order, but when he got to the ground he was
dead.”


Little by little, in some cases not for many weeks, came through stories
of the daring and quenchless heroism which illumined the dark night of
the great retreat.

A solitary grave, each day strewn with fresh flowers, is the last
resting-place of an English soldier who, quite alone, fought his last
fight till overwhelmed by numbers.

During the first rearguard action he had strayed from his comrades, and
fallen exhausted from fatigue. Unable to find them, he took up his
quarters in a deserted carriage. Thirty-six hours later the Germans
appeared and fired at him. Undeterred by the fact that he was utterly
alone, he replied, and such was his determination and accuracy of aim
that he accounted for six German officers, one of them a general, before
he fell under a volley.

The French from a village near by buried him where he had fought,
erected a cross, and in honour of his gallantry, laid fresh flowers each
day on his grave.

His name was David M. Kay, and he belonged to the 5th Lancers.


Hearken to another exploit, of which the hero was Corporal Shaw, who for
three years was the twelve-stone wrestling champion of the Army in
Ireland.

He saw a comrade in difficulty with his horse in the first retirement
from Mons. The pack had slipped round to its side, and the rider was
endeavouring to straighten it. Shaw dashed up and helped the soldier to
straighten the pack. Bullets rained round the plucky champion, one
darted into the soft part of his shoulder, another killed one of his
comrades near by, but the man he was helping rode off clear.




                               CHAPTER VI
                    CAMBRAI, LANDRÉCIES, ST. QUENTIN

            He, who in concert with an earthly string
                Of Britain’s acts would sing,
                He with enraptured voice will tell
            Of One whose spirit no reverse could quell;
            Of One that ’mid the failing never failed—
            Who paints how Britain struggled and prevailed
            Shall represent her labouring with an eye
                Of circumspect humanity;
            Shall show her clothed with strength and skill
                All martial duties to fulfil;
            Firm as a rock in stationary fight;
            In motion rapid, as the lightning’s gleam;
            Fierce as a flood-gate bursting at midnight
            To rouse the wicked from their giddy dream—
            Woe, woe to all that face her in the field!
            Appalled she may not be, and cannot yield.
                                                WORDSWORTH.


The first place to which our troops fell back (fighting hard all the
way) was Cambrai, where cambric was first made, and where, in days of
peace, much exquisitely fine linen is still woven. Cambrai and Le Cateau
are practically one, and a very fierce engagement took place there.

Here I must tell you of a brave Englishwoman who had lived for fifteen
years at Le Cateau. She kept a little restaurant, and during these
terrible hours when such hard fighting was going on close to the town
she went on cooking eggs and bacon for her fellow-countrymen. Both her
French friends and the English soldiers begged her to leave the town,
but, as only answer, she observed that she wouldn’t move “for all the
Germans.”

It is to be hoped that her little house was saved, but the English
soldier, who told the story of her pluck, fears that it must have been
destroyed.


At the Battle of Cambrai, the charge of the 12th Lancers and Royal Scots
Greys is said to have been the equal of anything seen at Waterloo.
Indeed finer; for at Waterloo, in one cavalry charge at any rate, the
men, after their first success, got out of hand, went too far, and
suffered grievously in consequence.


An heroic passage of arms, in which the 2nd Battalion Connaught Rangers
were concerned, was splendidly described by a private in a letter home:

“It was understood we were to pass the night at Cambrai, but we got a
report that the Germans were approaching, and were close on us. Every
man was called to stand to arms, and soon the German shells were falling
amongst us. Our colonel was a perfect gentleman, and under his gallant
lead the Rangers set a bold front. In the midst of the bursting of the
German projectiles his clear, stentorian voice rang out: ‘Rangers of
Connaught, all eyes are upon you to-night. While you have fists and a
heart within you, charge them. If you don’t, never face me in this world
nor in the next!’

“Our boys were greatly encouraged by the bravery shown by Colonel
Abercrombie. Bayonets were fixed, but at the sight of the steel the
enemy turned about. We were, however, completely outnumbered, and in a
subsequent attack some of our men, including our brave commander, were
taken prisoners.”


It must have been that same night that a brave deed was done for which
the hero, had he survived, would surely have been awarded the Victoria
Cross.

The British took the offensive against the Germans who were holding a
bridge spanning a canal. It was very dark, and when our men reached an
embankment running sharply down to the river, several failed to secure a
foothold, and fell into the water.

Four of the men, who were unable to swim, were in imminent danger of
drowning, when Corporal Brindall, an excellent swimmer, plunged into the
river and rescued all four in turn. He was clambering up the embankment
himself, when a German shell exploded near him, killing him instantly.


Even in the stir and din of battle funny and curious little incidents
are always taking place.

Take the odd case of Private Joseph Davis, of the Dorset Regiment, a
well-known footballer, who, at Cambrai, received a shrapnel bullet in
the shoulder.

Now, strange to say, Mr. Davis has tattooed on his chest a gorgeous
portrait of Queen Victoria. While he lay wounded on the field of battle,
his one dread was that the Germans would see his chest and want to have
a dig at the Queen! Happily his fears were not realised.


It was at Cambrai also that another amusing and most unexpected little
incident took place.

An English governess who happened to be spending a holiday in a village
on the route of our Army rushed for protection to the British lines
during a skirmish. For four days she remained with the troops, marching,
bivouacking, and sheltering during fights, until she was placed on a
conveyance which ensured her safe passage to a port.

During her enforced visit to our gallant troops, she was continually
exposed to danger, but she maintained an iron indifference to the
inconveniences of her situation, and the soldiers met with such good
luck in those four days that they came to regard the lady as a mascot,
and were genuinely sorry when she departed.


A terrible toll of death was exacted during this awful battle, and as at
the Battle of Mons, so many were the gallant and noble deeds that it is
difficult to make a choice.

To Lieutenant Noel, a young officer killed in action, the following
moving tribute was paid:

“Always cheerful, ever thoughtful for others, the best of companions
with the kindest of hearts, Jack Noel endeared himself to all who knew
him, and those who were privileged to be called his friends were bound
to him by ties far stronger than those of common friendship.”

His death was a singularly heroic one, and in wonderful keeping with
what we know of his life. A wounded corporal of his regiment, who was
near him when he fell, says that “Lieutenant Noel, despite the fact that
he was hit in or near his left eye by a shot that broke the half of his
field-glasses, promptly picked up his glasses again, and, finding the
right half of them still workable, continued to direct the fire of his
platoon with his right eye, until a few minutes later he was killed by a
shot in his left temple.”


Not the British only fought at Cambrai; deeds of unparalleled valour
were done by the French, and also by France’s Arab troops, the Turcos.
It was at Cambrai that the Turcos first saw fire. They were singled out,
five hundred of them, to do a desperate piece of work on which the fate
of thousands of men depended.

Straining as if at a leash, they waited for the order to advance. At
last it came. They swung round and faced the foe. Onward they went,
right up to the guns, and against what seemed to be an impregnable line
of trenches.

Of the five hundred, only twelve survived; of the twelve, only one was
unwounded. But the enemy’s guns were silenced, and the Germans had fled
from their trenches. The men who fell were buried shoulder to shoulder
as they fought.


The French peasant women, as we have seen, are wonderfully brave in the
matter of going under fire. One of these showed herself possessed of a
quieter type of courage, but courage nevertheless, during the retreat.
Hear the tale as told by a British officer:

“After the Battle of Mons we were billeted at a large farmhouse, the
occupants of which did not seem very pleased to see us. We had not
touched any eatables for several hours, and I made the housewife
understand that we wanted some food. She looked at us in a way which was
not altogether an expression of friendliness, and, pointing at the
table, round which a number of workingmen were gathered, to whom she was
serving their meals, she said, ‘Après les ouvriers.’—‘After my
work-people.’

“We waited patiently till the men had finished their meal, and then
asked once more for food. But the woman merely remarked, ‘Après nous.’
‘After us.’ And she and her husband subsequently prepared to eat their
supper. It is rather trying to see somebody making an attack on a hearty
meal while one has not tasted any food for a long time. So I demanded,
in the name of the King, that we should be supplied with foodstuff
immediately, the more so that the woman seemed so unwilling to grant our
wishes. The only answer she made was that, if we were in want of food,
we should have to look for it ourselves and try to prepare it.

“The situation was rather awkward, and I was wondering why these French
peasantry were so extremely unkind towards British soldiers!

“Suddenly it entered my mind that perhaps she thought we were Germans!
At the same time I had something like a happy thought in order to prove
that we were not. One of our men, a tall, heavy chap, who was still
outside the house, was ordered to substitute a German helmet for his own
cap, and to knock at the door. He did, the door was opened, we dashed
forward, and made ‘the German’ a prisoner.

“The whole scene changed all of a sudden. The whole family embraced us,
almost choked us. Food and wine and dainties were supplied at once, and
we had a most glorious time.”


August 26, a Wednesday, saw perhaps the fiercest hand-to-hand fighting
which had yet taken place. All day our gallant men fought at Landrécies
against fearful odds. There two companies of the Coldstream Guards held
3000 Germans at bay for four hours. Lieut. Percy Wyndham (a direct
descendant of the great Irish rebel-hero, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and of
his wife, the lovely Frenchwoman who lives in romance under the name of
Pamela) stood up and fired a hundred rounds from his revolver so that
his men could form up quietly behind him. He then shouted out to them:
“Fall in, and die like Coldstreams!” This gallant young soldier fell in
action a week later at Soissons.


Listen to the heroic end of yet another officer of the Coldstreams.
Lieutenant Allan William George Campbell lost his life through a
successful attempt to rescue a comrade who was in a worse plight than
himself. He had already been wounded, when he noticed Captain Tollemache
fall. Together with Colonel Ponsonby he went out and carried Captain
Tollemache over a mile under fire to a position of safety; but while he
was doing so, he was again terribly wounded, and he only lived a few
days.


We get a touching glimpse of Lieut. G. C. Wynn, killed in action at
Landrécies, in a letter from one of Mr. Wynn’s men, written to the young
officer’s father:

“The last day he was alive we had got a cup of tea in the trenches, and
we asked him to have one. He said, ‘No, drink it yourselves, you are in
want of it’; and then with a smile he added, ‘We have to hold the
trenches to-day.’ At Mons we had been fighting all day, and someone
brought a sack of pears and two loaves of bread. Lieut. Wynn accepted
only one pear and a very little bread. We noticed this. I had a small
bottle of pickles in my haversack and asked him to have some. But it was
the usual answer, ‘You require them yourself!’ He died doing his duty
like the officer and gentleman he was.”


In a letter written from hospital after this engagement, a corporal told
of how he had been saved from a lingering death on the field:

“They blazed at us from 350 yards, and as fast as we shot one lot down,
another came up. At last I got a bit of shell in the calf of my leg. We
retired all together. My captain put me on his horse and led it for
miles, until we got to a train.”


St. Quentin, with which will ever be associated the name of a terrible
battle, one of the three rearguard actions in which our army fought with
such splendid bravery and against such fearful odds, is a beautiful old
town. It was part of the dowry of Mary Queen of Scots, and all through
her long, sad captivity, she still received money from the faithful
city.

Long before this great war, St. Quentin saw terrific fighting.
Spaniards, British, Germans and Flemings there defeated the French, who
were led by the brave Coligny and the famous Constable Montmorency. That
old Battle of St. Quentin was fought on St. Lawrence’s Day, and it was
because he believed that God had helped him to win this victory that the
sinister King of Spain, Philip II, built the Escurial, a marvellous
Spanish palace formed in the shape of a gridiron.


The great charge of the Black Watch took place at St. Quentin. The men
had marched close on eighty miles before word ran through the ranks they
were going into action. Unmeasured was their joy! At once they put
themselves in good skirmishing order, and, under cover of the guns, got
closer and closer to the enemy. Not till they were within a hundred
yards of the German lines did they receive the longed for command.

The Black Watch and the Scots Greys charged together. The Scots Greys
galloped forward, the Black Watch hanging to their stirrups. On the
horses flew through a cloud of bullets, but every sound was drowned by
the thunder of the horses’ hoofs as they careered wildly on. Saddles
emptied quickly as the charge closed on the German lines, and man and
horse were on the German gunners before they knew where they were. Down
the enemy went in hundreds, and still the deadly work of the bayonet
continued. Soon the Germans broke and fled “like rabbits before the shot
of a gun.” It is said that there were 2000 British against 20,000
Germans. Close on 4000 prisoners were taken, as well as an immense
number of guns.


Many years ago a famous historian of the Scottish Highlands wrote
concerning the Highlander words which hold as good to-day as they did in
the ’45. “He is taught to consider courage as the most honourable
virtue, cowardice the most disgraceful failing; to venerate and obey his
chief, and to devote himself to his native country and clan; thus
prepared to be a soldier, he is ready to follow wherever honour and duty
call him.”

There is a fine little story concerning the men of the Black Watch on
their first visit to England. The then King had never seen a Highlander
at close quarters, and as he wished to do so, three men who were noted
for their dexterity in the broad-sword exercise and with the lochaber
axe were sent to St. James’s Palace. So pleased was the King with their
performance that he gave them each a guinea, which they in turn gave to
the porter of the gate as they went out. “Doubtless,” they observed,
“the King has mistaken our character and condition in our own country.”

It is interesting to note that it was the gallantry of the Highlanders
in covering the retreat of the Allied Forces at Fontenoy which received
the special praise of the Commander-in-Chief. Fontenoy was their maiden
experience of a foreign foe.


I want you specially to remember what our soldiers in this war have owed
to what is called the Army Service Corps. You will recollect my telling
you that Napoleon said an army marched on its stomach. All that is
necessary for the physical well-being of our men is done quickly,
quietly, and very bravely, by the officers and men of the Army Service
Corps. Their adventures are often as perilous and exciting as those
which befall the fighting soldier. They all have to bear the weight of
considerable responsibility and ever-present anxiety. The enemy always
does his best to harass, intercept, and, if possible, destroy the food
which is on its way to our men. Not food only for the men, but forage
for the horses is under the care of this wonderful Corps.

Never was the triumph of their organisation shown to such advantage as
during the fighting retreat with which we are now concerned.

On one occasion the Germans, who, remember, were close on the heels of
the British motors and waggons, were particularly anxious to get hold of
a train of forty motor lorries stocked with food and ammunition. In
addition to these were also several hundred horsed waggons similarly
loaded.

At last, when close to St. Quentin, which was to be the next great
stand, the men in charge of this huge convoy were informed that the
Uhlans were only a mile away. The colonel in command made certain
inquiries. To his dismay, he learnt that not only his men but their
horses also were so dead tired that they could not go on any more. He,
therefore, made up his mind to stay in the little village where they
found themselves, and if attacked to put up a stout fight.

Wearied though they were, each was sent with a loaded rifle to a place
on the line he was to defend. The waggons were all drawn up in the funny
little narrow winding streets which make a French village not unlike an
old Scottish town.

In a very short time everything was in order to receive the enemy.

I have not yet told you much of the fate of ordinary people during a
great war, but you can fancy for yourselves how the inhabitants of this
village felt when they realised that their home was about to be made
into a battle-ground.

The wise colonel of our forces advised that all the village people
should go into the church, and there the curé arranged to hold a
service. The lady who generally played the organ eagerly gave her
services, and soon the English soldiers guarding the convoys were
heartened by hearing the sweet singing of French and Latin hymns.

Time went on. The horses got very restless, and a stampede was feared.
Had that happened all would have been lost. But it did not happen, and
at last day broke. No attack had been delivered, and it was clear that
the enemy had gone to the right or left of the village, pressing onward
in the belief that the British convoy was ahead.


Yet another exciting incident, which shows the kind of adventures the
Army Service Corps takes as being all part of its day’s work.

A convoy had been drawn up some way from the firing line, and in the
early morning rations were just about to be issued to a brigade of
artillery who were going into action at 3 A.M., when the word went forth
that the convoy was being quietly surrounded by a troop of German
cavalry.

At once it was arranged that if it could not be got away it must be
burnt. But before doing that the officers resolved to make a push for
it.

Lorries and horses started off at top speed till they got to a railway
bridge. There all the transport, with the exception of thirty motor
lorries, passed over in safety. Another determined effort was made, and
out of the thirty, twenty-eight got over safely. Then the bridge was
blown up. A moment later the remaining two lorries were in the hands of
the Germans, together with two officers and eight men, who were, we may
suppose, taken prisoners.


A wonderful stand was also made by our retreating troops at Tournai,
when 700 British soldiers resisted 5000 Uhlans. They stood their ground
to a man, till of the 700 less than half remained. Even then there was
no panic. Calmly, harassing their pursuers with a murderous fire, “all
that was left of them” retreated with the wounded, their convoy intact.
As for the guns, though some were lost, many more were put out of
action. The enemy showed reckless bravery, hurling themselves on to the
very muzzles of the British field guns.


A soldier always admires a brave man, no matter what his uniform is.
Here is a fine tribute paid by a wounded British artilleryman to the
enemy:

“The grandest thing I saw out there was the fight of a handful of good
fighting men in German uniforms. These chaps were the last of a regiment
to cross a stream under fiendish rifle and artillery fire.

“They were hotly pursued by French cavalry and infantry, and when they
saw that it was all up the remnant made for a little hill and gathered
round the regimental flag to fight to the last. The French closed round
them, and called on them to surrender, but not they! They stood there
back to back until the last man went down with the flag in his grasp and
a dozen bullet wounds in his body.

“Then the flag was captured by the French, but there was no shouting
over the victory, and every soldier who passed that way and knew the
story of those brave chaps bared his head to the memory of brave men.”


During the last stage of the great retreat, the British fought
splendidly at Compiègne. It was there that three non-commissioned
officers in the Royal Horse Artillery won the V.C. in recognition of a
deed of extraordinary bravery. Taken by surprise by the enemy, the now
famous “L” battery fought their guns until only one remained, and the
three men who became the V.C. heroes were the sole survivors of the
battery working the gun. The story may be briefly told thus:

The battery was waiting for the order to retire; it was limbered up
ready to move at a moment’s notice. There was a thick mist, and when it
lifted the battery was suddenly subjected to a terrible fire from the
ridge which they had supposed to be occupied by the French, but which
was now occupied by the Germans. The first burst of fire killed nearly
all the horses of the British gun teams, which made it impossible to
retire with the guns, so the men, splendidly directed by their
commanding officer, Captain Bradbury, unlimbered and began to reply to
the German fire. Many of the gunners had been killed during the first
few moments. Those remaining coolly replied with such good effect that
one by one the German guns were put out of action. So terribly
outnumbered were the British gunners that in a short time two out of the
three of their guns in action had been silenced, and only one remained
to defend the position. Officers and men went on serving this one
remaining British gun till all were killed or wounded with the exception
of three. At last they had put all the German guns out of action but
one, and then an exciting duel began, till at last behind the shelter of
their gun the three were found by a strong force of cavalry and infantry
which had come to their rescue.




                              CHAPTER VII
                     BATTLES OF MEAUX AND THE MARNE

          Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
          Or close the wall up with our English dead!
          ... Teach them how to war! And you, good yeomen,
          Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
          The mettle of your pasture ...
          I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
          Straining upon the start.
          The game’s afoot: Follow your spirit!
                                                  SHAKESPEARE.

   Right well fought all the Frenchmen who fought for France to-day,
   And many a lordly banner God gave them for a prey.
                                               MACAULAY.


You all know what it is to be in a hurry. You have all said on some
occasion or other, “I must get that done quickly or I shan’t be able to
do it at all.” It is an anxious, worrying mood. Well, the Germans, when
they started on this war, were one and all of them in that kind of mood.
They all knew, from the Kaiser to the humblest soldier, that time was
all-important in the French campaign. I think you will guess at once why
this was so, but in case you have already forgotten, I may remind you
that it was owing to the fact that the Germans have to fight in this
great war, which they themselves provoked, not only the French and the
British, but also the Russians. You know that this was their excuse for
breaking their word of honour, and rushing through Belgium. This was
also the reason why they made that astonishing, and we must admit, that
magnificent rush towards Paris during our retreat from Mons.

But all the time they were pushing forward, deep in the heart of every
German soldier there must have echoed the dreaded tramp of the Russian
legions. The poet Marvell expressed in exquisite English exactly what
the enemy must have been feeling during the whole of the French
campaign:

                 “But at my back I always hear
                 Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near.”

A retreat, in ordinary language, means a falling back. There are,
however, many ways of falling back; indeed, as in everything else, there
is a right way and a wrong way. Sir John French’s gallant army, and the
French forces under General Joffre, accomplished their retreat in the
right way. Although at the time the enemy was quite unaware of it,
everything was done according to a well-thought-out and careful plan;
and, as you have seen, while this falling back movement was going on,
our retreating army constantly turned, harried, and even forced back the
advancing enemy.


The object of the Germans may be told very shortly. It was to reach
Paris, to enter that great city in the guise of conquerors, conclude a
hasty peace with France, and then rush back by train and motor lorry to
fight the Russians. It will interest you to know how and why this plan
miscarried.


What I am going to tell you illustrates the soundness of the wise old
saying, “Speech is silvern, silence is golden.” Even Paris remained all
unknowing of the clever plan formed by the Allies. That great and
beautiful city believed herself to be doomed. The awful fate of the
inhabitants of Louvain was thought by many Parisians to be the
forerunner of what would happen to themselves. The French Government,
that is the President and his Ministers, left the capital for the
distant town of Bordeaux, and orders were given that all those
inhabitants of Paris who had babies and little children should leave the
city.

Though to the great majority of French people Paris is in a sense the
capital of the civilised world, the nation made up its mind to sacrifice
this beloved and beautiful city if the good of the country as a whole
required it. They did not say anything of their resolve. They simply
made it, and waited grimly for the end.


At last the German Army was within a day’s march of Paris. Pretty
American girls who had acquaintances among the German officers actually
received letters from them arranging to come to tea with them! Every
soldier in the great German Army believed that in twenty-four hours he
would be comfortably resting in the most luxurious quarters in Europe.


Then suddenly, it will never be known exactly how, but probably through
their clever airmen, the enemy’s commanders learnt that, hidden safely
in the Palace of Versailles and under the great trees of the park
surrounding that palace, was a new French army of fresh troops. Had the
Germans penetrated into Paris, this army would have cut off their
retreat and caught them, according to the proverbial saying, “like rats
in a trap.” So it was that, instead of making their triumphal entry into
Paris, the rushing, oncoming hosts swerved to one side, and very soon
there developed close to Paris the great fights which will live in
history under the names of the Battle of Meaux and the Battle of the
Marne.


Superior people rather despise those who believe in omens, but sometimes
even the holy and the learned find great comfort in them.

The most notable scholars in France belong to the Academy of
Inscriptions in Paris. Now, in spite of the fact that war was raging and
the enemy close to the gates of their city, these learned men decided to
hold their usual monthly meeting. The proceedings opened with the
statement that there had just been presented to the Louvre a Greek
statue of surpassing charm and interest, the first gift made to the
Louvre Museum since the outbreak of the war. After a short pause, the
speaker added the words, “Gentlemen, the statue is that of the Winged
Victory.” And all these grave old scholars rose to their feet and
cheered the omen to the echo!


It was near Meaux that the German Army, commanded by the skilful and
resourceful General von Kluck, seems to have met quite unexpectedly the
large reserves of men—perhaps it is a mistake to call them an army—which
had been brought up there by General Joffre. There are certain other
notable facts about this battle which make me wish you should specially
remember it, and that though its glories were somewhat dimmed by the
greater and more important Battle of the Marne.


The Battle of Meaux turned the tide of the first German campaign. By a
strange irony of fate, Von Kluck seems to have first got wind of the new
French army on September 1. It was on September 2, 1870, that the Battle
of Sedan was fought, the French suffering a crushing defeat at the hands
of the Germans. The Germans confidently expected to enter Paris again on
September 2, 1914, and celebrate there the anniversary of their great
triumph. Not only was this confident expectation disappointed, but it
was on that very day that they were forced to begin their retreat.


Before I begin to tell you of some of the deeds of valour and heroism
performed during these two battles, I should like to tell you one or two
interesting things about the town of Meaux.

Bossuet, who spoke so beautifully that, like St. Chrysostom, he was
called “the golden mouthed,” was Archbishop of Meaux; he was also a
brave and fearless man, and one of those who leave the world in which
they live—in his case, a brilliant, frivolous, selfish world—better than
they find it.


The present Bishop of Meaux is a worthy successor to Bossuet. When the
Germans entered the town, the bishop was the only man of authority who
remained at his post. The Mayor had advised the inhabitants to leave as
soon as the Germans drew near. He and the other officials all went. The
bishop refused to join them, saying, “My duty is here. I do not think
the enemy will harm me, but if they do, God’s will be done. I cannot
leave my cathedral. I cannot leave those of my flock who remain.”

When the Germans arrived, the bishop parleyed with their commanding
officer and exacted a promise that his men should behave well. And they
did. So we may well exclaim, “Bravo, brave bishop!”


In a little town close to Meaux called Château-Thierry, where much
fighting took place, was the cheerful home of another Frenchman whose
name some of you certainly know. I mean La Fontaine, who wrote the
delightful animal fables. The hotels of Château-Thierry are very happily
and appropriately named: they are called The Elephant, The Giraffe, and
The Swan. The poor Giraffe was battered all to bits during the great
battle, I am sorry to say, by the shells of the French, who with their
help successfully dislodged the Germans. But the owner of the Giraffe is
such an unselfish patriot that when showing his wounded house to an
English gentleman after the battle, he exclaimed, “See how splendidly
true our gunners’ aim was!” pointing out with pride that every single
window had been neatly smashed.


I think most of you will envy the two Eton boys who were on a bicycle
tour in France when the war broke out, and who, when the tide began to
turn, suddenly found themselves in the fighting zone! By luck more than
anything else they stumbled on to the French General Staff, and there
came across an English officer. Both implored him to help them to get
into the French Army, and, amazing to tell, they were both made honorary
sub-lieutenants. Soon they were put on the Commission which had the
business of examining the villages improperly devastated by the enemy,
for sad to say, as soon as the Germans began to get the worst of it,
they wreaked their vengeance on the innocent inhabitants of the villages
and small towns through which they were retreating.


Mean people always suspect others of being as mean as themselves. The
Germans believe that the taking of an unfair advantage is quite the
right thing to do in war. But in the end these practices recoil on their
doers and keep them in a miserable state of constant fear and suspicion.


A worthy French priest and two innocent little boys very nearly fell a
victim to the enemy’s terrors. The Germans were having a rest in a
village, when their commander noticed that the church clock was stopped.
He sent for the priest, and demanded that the clock should be set going
again. The curé, accompanied by two of his choir boys, went to wind it
up; and as was natural, when once it was wound up it began to strike.
The German commander, in a great fright, decided that this was a dodge
invented by the curé to warn the French that a number of weary Germans
were in his village. At once he had him arrested, and the two little
boys as well. Without more ado all three were sentenced to be shot the
next morning.

All three were brave, but we can imagine what a sad night they must have
spent, and how especially sad the old priest must have been that, owing
to the fact that he had allowed the two lads to accompany him, they were
to have their young lives cut short in such a dreadful way. Early in the
morning, an hour before they were to have been executed, the news
reached the Germans that the French were on them. They rushed out of the
village, forgetting all about their captives. Meanwhile, the priest was
so convinced that his last hour had come that he himself opened the door
of his temporary prison and went to the village green in order to await
the firing party, and to make a last appeal to them to spare the two
lads. You can imagine his joy when he saw the familiar blue and red
uniforms of his fellow-countrymen.


This great war has been illumined by star-like deeds of beautiful,
simple humanity, performed, in many cases, by men who were unconscious
of their own heroism. One such still shines forth from the Battle of
Meaux.

A Scottish regiment was occupying a trench, swept by violent rifle and
artillery fire, when two privates noticed that a Frenchman, attached to
the battalion as interpreter, occupied the most exposed place in the
trench.

“The Frenchman is awkwardly placed,” observed one of them, “let us widen
his trench.”

At once the two Scots, paying no attention to the hail of bullets and
shrapnel, set to deepening the trench, after which they calmly went back
to their own stations.


I expect some of you will envy a certain French boy named André. He
lived in Paris, and on the declaration of war he watched with very mixed
feelings his brother and most of the grown-up men he knew start off for
the front. In France every man between the ages of eighteen and
forty-five is, in time of war, a soldier, ready to defend his dear
country to the last drop of his blood.

André was only twelve years old, but when he heard that the enemy was
now close to Paris, he decided that he must go and defend his country
too. So he suddenly disappeared, leaving a letter which ran:

                                             “My dear father and mother,

“I am starting for the war. Don’t worry about me. I have my savings bank
money.”

After nearly a fortnight a sunburnt André reappeared in Paris, and told
all that had befallen him. It had been quite easy for him to find the
army, and the soldiers hadn’t had the heart to send him away. Marching
with them by day, and sleeping in their bivouacs or billets at night, he
stayed with them until the battalion reached Meaux. There the colonel
began to ask questions. André’s soldier friends had to confess that they
had adopted him as a human mascot. The colonel sent for André, and
although at first very angry, soon relaxed into a broad smile, but
insisted that the boy’s share in the campaign must now come to an end,
and so André went sadly home.


In these days when hundreds of thousands of soldiers are pitted against
one another, a battle consists of a number of separate fights, or, as we
call them now, engagements. It was in one of these, during this same
battle of Meaux, that a perambulator figures in a grand deed of heroism.


The hero of this story is an infantry officer, one who had only just
left St. Cyr (the French Sandhurst, and once, funnily enough, the most
famous girls’ school in the whole world), and who first went under fire
at the Battle of Meaux. Looking round in the thick of the fight he saw
his major, who was a very small man, lying severely wounded in a field
swept by the fire of the German guns.

There were some houses close by. Into one of these Lieutenant Gesrel
ran, and he came out wheeling a perambulator. The men lying about him,
taking what shelter they could, looked at him in amazement. He wheeled
it briskly, but without appearing to hurry, out into the bullet-swept
open space, until he came to where the major lay.

The men could hear the wounded officer protest. “Go away,” he said.
“Leave me; I shall be all right. It’s madness to expose yourself like
that.”

The lieutenant took no heed of this, but picked his major up, put him in
the perambulator, and started to wheel it back to the edge of the little
wood. At last he reached safety with his precious burden. Then he ran
and joined his men in the fight again.


I expect you have heard how, at Fontenoy, the French called out to the
British, “Fire first, gentlemen.” But the latter refused to fire,
shouting back at once rudely and politely, “No, gentlemen and assassins,
you begin!”

This famous exchange of courtesies is recalled by the action of another
French lieutenant, who, during a sharp fight which took place round a
small railway station near Meaux, pursued a German officer into a
locomotive shed, and found him under the tender of an engine. The two
looked each other up and down, and by tacit agreement took up a duelling
position at fifteen paces. “Please fire first,” cried the French
officer. The German fired and missed. Then the Frenchman fired and hit.


The last human quality one would naturally associate with war is
kindness. Yet it is not too much to say that every great battle, every
scene of carnage, is brightened by truly wonderful acts of kindness. By
this I do not mean deeds of heroism, the saving of one gallant soldier
by a pal, but simple, homely kindness. Such was the following:

Trooper Philippe, of the 2nd Chasseurs, under heavy artillery fire,
bullets and shrapnel falling thickly, not only brought his captain in,
but after that went back eight times more to take water to the wounded.


A French soldier, wounded in this same battle of Meaux, had with him a
dog nestled in his coat while the fighting was going on, as it was
apparently terrified at the noise of the firing. The soldier fed it from
his rations, and after he was wounded smuggled it in the train which
took him to the hospital.

Our own soldiers have always had a special fondness for dogs. It is said
that when a dog once enters barracks he never afterwards seeks to change
his quarters.

At Vittoria the Guards made a poodle puppy a prisoner, and it became
their pet. At Bidart, when Colonel Ponsonby was encouraging his men to
advance, they were delighted to see the poodle jumping and barking, much
amused at the bullets which rained round him. Colonel Ponsonby and the
poodle were wounded at the same moment, a bullet breaking one of the
dog’s legs. He was, however, tenderly nursed, and the rest of his life
was happy, although spent on only three legs.




                              CHAPTER VIII
                        THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE

           For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
             Seem here no painful inch to gain,
           Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
             Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

           And not by eastern windows only,
             When daylight comes, comes in the light,
           In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
             But westward, look! the land is bright!
                                               ARTHUR CLOUGH.


After the German army had fallen back a long, long way, close on a
hundred miles, they suddenly came to a stop, and prepared for a new and
desperate stand.

Gradually, those of us who were watching anxiously from far off, learnt
what the men at the front knew almost at once; General von Kluck had
decided to turn and face his pursuers along the line of the river Aisne.
It was an excellent choice. This river, broad and deep, was one of the
easiest to defend in the whole of Europe. Moreover, von Kluck was well
aware that in days of peace cunning Germans, masquerading in many cases
as quiet wine merchants, had prepared there a series of almost
impregnable trenches. Now the word impregnable means “impossible to
take,” and when our officers, later, saw the trenches out of which the
Germans had been driven, they declared that our men would have held them
for ever!


It was there, in the beautiful country of vineyards and of the low,
swelling hills which surround the famous town of Rheims, that began what
has come to be known as the Battle of the Aisne.


I expect most of you know the meaning of the word “fortress.” Those of
you who don’t will understand it best if I tell you that in old days
every castle was a fortress. It was so built with ramparts, battlements,
and little narrow windows, that every stone of it could be defended,
either by archers with bows and arrows, or with men and guns.

Now the most striking fact about the great Battle of the Aisne, which,
beginning on September 10, was to last longer than any previous battle
in the history of the world, was that on the German side it was exactly
like fortress or castle fighting. I mean that the Germans, with a
foresight which did credit to their cleverness, had evidently thought it
possible, though not probable, that they might be pushed far back, as in
fact they were. They had, therefore, prepared long beforehand trenches
and quarries which, from a little way off, actually looked like the
battlements of a castle. There, snugly hidden behind natural and
artificial ramparts, they were able to keep the British troops and those
of our ally at bay during many long weary days.


The German trenches were all ready for the enemy to step into them, but
every British and French trench had to be dug out and prepared at short
notice. This, however, was soon done, and then there began that strange
“life in the trenches,” of which so many vivid accounts were written
home by officers and privates.


You will certainly want to know what a trench is like. A one-man trench
is best described by its other name, “dug-out.” It is a large, neat
hole, cut so deeply in the ground that a man can stand upright in it
without being seen.

There is a great art in digging a trench. When finished it should be not
unlike a tiny cottage room; the floor, however, is quite unlike that of
a room, for instead of being flat it is slightly sloped, so that any
rain that gets in may run away quickly. At the side there is a step, so
that the occupier, when he cares to do so, can cautiously raise his head
above the ground and look round. The best trenches have a kind of roof
or head-cover. This protects the man inside, not only from rain and sun,
but also from the awful bullets which come out of the shrapnel shells.


It is interesting to know that the shrapnel shell, which has done such
deadly harm in this war both to ourselves and to the enemy, is called
after a distinguished English soldier, General Henry Shrapnel, who
invented it. On the park gates of the ancestral home of the Shrapnel
family near Trowbridge are still to be seen inscribed the names of over
twenty battles won with the aid of this shell. Sir George Wood, who
commanded the artillery at Waterloo, declared that we owed to shrapnel
the recovery of La Haye Sainte, on which part of the battle depended.


As to what trench life was like during the long Battle of the Aisne, it
was in some ways like playing at keeping house.

When I was a little girl I often played at keeping house with my
brother, but as we were very fond of soldiers, and lived in a stretch of
beautiful country which was very suitable for _la petite guerre_, as
military manœuvres were then called in France, our house was always a
tent.


In those days we knew nothing of trenches, or it would have been a
trench. Into our little house—we always called it a house though it was
really a tent, for the roof was always made with a sheet, and the door
was a big towel—we used to bring all the sort of things that we thought
soldiers would want. But in these days a soldier’s requirements have
grown, if only because he has to live in his trench for far longer than
the soldier of long ago used to live in his tent.

I think it may interest some of you to know both what an officer
generally has, and what he would like to have, with him, when he is in a
trench. He generally has a canteen containing a knife, fork, and spoon;
also a sponge, a tooth-brush, a piece of soap, and an extra pair of
socks. As to a change of clothes, boots, and sleeping bag, they form
part of his equipment. He also has a water-bottle, a revolver, a pair of
field-glasses, and a compass. Only if he is lucky does he possess as
extras a waterproof sheet, a torch with re-fills (many on the Aisne
preferred candles), a canvas bucket, notepaper and envelopes, and an air
pillow. There should be six thick pairs of socks made of good wool,
twelve coloured handkerchiefs, four thick flannel shirts (khaki colour),
a good wide comforter, and two sleeping caps (in case one gets wet). Any
pencils sent to a man on active service ought to be indelible. Valuable,
too, is a tiny medicine chest.


Very few people realise what an important part food—good, hot, and
plenty of it—plays in war. Napoleon, who was the first great general to
study closely the comfort of his troops, would have admired and envied
the British commissariat.

However fierce the fighting during the Battle of the Aisne, there was in
each trench or dug-out “the dinner ’ush from twelve to one.” The shells
might continue to roar, and men be hit by bullets, but out fifty yards
behind the trench the battalion reserves had their fires alight and were
cooking dinner. Fifty yards of shell-swept ground behind men in trenches
is, however, a long way off.

There were, however, always plenty of volunteers ready to rush to the
belt of trees and return triumphant with mess-tins riddled with shrapnel
bullets and some of their number on the ground, but with dinner safe for
the famished battalion.


I wonder if you can guess what is the worst thing connected with life in
the trenches? It is not the cold or the heat. It is not the damp or the
wet. It is not even the fact that the soldier, however cleverly he may
be entrenched, is in perpetual danger of death, or if not of death
itself, then of some terrible and painful wound.

No, the worst thing about life in the trenches is the noise! All day
long, and very often all night too, the boom of the great guns, and the
long drawn-out screaming whistle of the shells, went on, backwards and
forwards, across that narrow valley of the Aisne. Who can wonder that
many of our brave soldiers were made temporarily deaf?


And yet, in spite of the distracting noise, a good deal of reading was
done, for quite a number of books had been brought to the trenches.

One of the officers of the 1st Hampshire Regiment actually read Sir
Walter Scott’s poem of “Marmion” aloud to his men while they were being
subjected to a continuous fire. This fact becoming known to a retired
naval officer, Commander Henry N. Shore, he wrote the following
interesting letter to a paper:

“Curiously enough, the same thing happened a century ago during the last
great war in which Great Britain was engaged. While Wellington’s army
held the lines of Torres Vedras, a captain in an infantry regiment wrote
to Sir Walter Scott telling him that while his men were waiting for an
attack by the French he excited their martial ardour by reciting aloud
to them a canto of ‘Marmion’ which had recently been published. Thus
does history repeat itself.”


The French soldiers during this long drawn-out battle were astonished at
the tidiness and cleanliness of their British comrades. Every morning
our soldiers did their best to perform their toilets in the trenches,
and that however hard the night had been. Each man had a little bit of
looking-glass which he put up on the chalky earth, then he got his water
and soap to hand, and shaved and washed as though for a parade! There
was no compulsion; it was done because each man wanted to do it, and
knew he would feel the better for it.

This kind of siege battle is very wearing to those engaged in it. The
dogged courage, day and night, which it requires, seems to me every bit
as splendid as those more striking deeds of gallantry for which men win
the V.C. As a private wrote:

“We don’t care tuppence for shrapnel, which flies back and hardly ever
hits us. What worries us is that the Germans have been turning their
heavy siege guns upon us. The shells they fire are no joke. They rip a
hole in the ground big enough to bury an entire regiment. One man
standing near me was hurled into the lower branches of a tree by the
concussion. We got him down, and strange to say he was comparatively
unhurt.”

That makes one think of Sir Walter Scott’s lines:

              “Three hundred cannon-mouths roared loud,
              And from their throats with flash and cloud
              Their showers of iron threw.”


It was early in the Battle of the Aisne that a British gunner, already
slightly wounded, went on serving his gun, when suddenly down whizzed a
shell and severely injured his leg. He picked himself up and calmly went
on with his perilous job. The action was then very hot, and he refused
to receive first aid. At last, when it became clear he could go on no
longer, he was forced by his comrades to leave his post of duty and
danger, but it took two of them to hold him down on the ambulance
stretcher!


The Russians have an excellent proverb, “The bullet is a fool, but the
bayonet is a brave fellow.” The bullet, however, especially when shot by
one of our British soldiers, is by no means a fool, as our enemies have
again and again found to their cost. The German soldiers usually fired
their rifles at random from the hip. But our men are trained to take aim
steadily from the shoulder, and so not many British bullets are wasted.

The modern bullet has a tremendous range. Before the Battle of Omdurman
a wounded officer was placed at what was thought to be five thousand
yards from the nearest point of fire. Yet a stray bullet traversed those
three miles of desert, and striking him on the head killed him.

One is glad to know that the latest type of bullet usually inflicts
quite a small, clean wound, which heals up quickly. In old days it was
thought that no one could survive being shot through the heart, but it
has now been proved that a bullet may actually puncture the heart
without doing any permanent harm.


Sometimes—and this is a very piteous and woeful thought—a wounded
soldier has to lie out a long time on the field of battle before he can
be carried in. I am sorry to say that the Germans often fired on the men
sent out to pick up wounded. As an example, I will tell you of the case
of a soldier whose left thigh was fractured and right foot wounded in a
very fierce engagement. He lay alone among the dead and dying, unseen,
and apparently without any power of attracting the attention of the
ambulance men. At last he plucked up enough strength to crawl along
towards the British trenches.

“I was about finished,” he wrote afterwards, “when a man of the Welsh
Regiment saw me and came out for me. That man ought to get the Victoria
Cross. I didn’t ask his name, and I don’t know what it was, but he was a
real good one, and no mistake. He got me up on his shoulders and he
carried me right in. The Germans were firing all the time, and I was so
near finished that I wanted him to drop me and let me die. It didn’t
seem right for him to be worrying about getting me in. All he said was,
‘You hold tight, old man; I’ve got you all right, and I don’t intend to
let you go!’”


Wherever the British wounded passed they were loaded with gifts by the
French peasants. Old men and women, children even, brought them the best
they had. They would bring the milk kept for the baby’s bottle, or their
only and much valued bottle of champagne or old wine.

A Lancashire private showed his comrades an agricultural medal an old
man had given him. “It is not much in itself, I dare say,” he said, to
excuse the tears in his eyes, “but I could see it was what the old
fellow was proudest of, so you see I have to keep it careful.”


Some of you, when walking through one of our beautiful, peaceful,
country churchyards, may have cast a sad thought to the lonely graves
where so many of our bravest soldiers lie in France. But let me tell you
that one of the best traits in the French character is respect for
death. A tramp found dead on the wayside near a French village will be
given a decent funeral, and what is more there will be women present,
not only at the Mass said for his soul, but also at the grave side.

That being so, you will readily imagine with what reverence and care the
British dead who have died fighting for France have been treated by the
people whose sad fate it has been to live close to the great
battlefields of this war. After each action the dead were sought for,
and after their personal possessions had been put aside for their
relations, they were buried on a strip of ground called “The Field of
Honour.” There French and British lie side by side, as you will see from
the following letter written by a lieutenant of the Royal Army Medical
Corps serving with the 2nd Seaforth Highlanders:

“Poor Colonel Bradford! I can’t tell you how great our loss is. He was
brave, and a born commander, but in the twinkling of an eye, while
trying to safeguard his regiment, a shell carried him off. We could not
fetch him in during daylight because of drawing fire, but at midnight,
on September 14, we laid him with two other officers and men to rest in
their _champ d’honneur_, on a hillside overlooking a fair river and
valley.

“It was a sad but glorious moment for us to stand and hear the padre
tell us that they had not shrunk from duty, and had fallen for the sake
of comrades. The next day I found some Scotch thistle growing close by.
I plucked the blooms, and formed a cross over our chieftain’s grave.”

In a letter to Miss Rose-Innes, of Jedburgh, Colonel
Richardson-Drummond-Hay, writing from the regimental quarters of the
Coldstream Guards at the Battle of the Aisne, paid a splendid tribute to
a Scots surgeon, named Dr. Huggan. It told how two days before the young
man was killed he was recommended for the Victoria Cross for organising
and leading a party of volunteers to remove a number of wounded from a
barn that had been set alight by the German shells. The work was carried
out under very heavy fire, and all the wounded were saved.

Dr. Huggan, who was killed at the Battle of the Aisne on September 16,
was a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps, attached to the 3rd
Battalion Coldstream Guards. He was a native of Jedburgh, and played
Rugby with the Jedforest Club for some years.


The doctors on both sides have taken a splendid part in this great war.

Let me tell you here of an exceptionally kind and delicate-minded action
on the part of a German doctor.

In a French town temporarily captured by the Germans, a certain French
gentleman lay very ill. He was an old man, too old for fighting, and
just now too ill to be moved away by his friends. There were no French
doctors left in the town. Hearing of this case, one of the German
doctors took off his uniform, put on an overall, and pretended to be a
captured English doctor, in order to go and see the sick man. He took
all this trouble because he thought the excitement (hatred of the
Germans by his patient) would be bad for the old gentleman. This was all
the kinder, inasmuch as, being an Army doctor, he was, of course, under
no obligation to treat people in the town.


I am sorry that I cannot tell you the name of one of the bravest men
mentioned in this book. There is, however, one fact about him which can
be stated. He is a private in the West Yorkshire Regiment.

This soldier was in the trenches when suddenly he saw that close to the
German lines a number of his comrades had been struck down while in the
act of charging the enemy. He took off his coat and equipment, and
walked over to where they lay under a perfect hail of bullets. Beginning
with the adjutant, he made altogether eleven journeys, bringing in also
his colonel and nine men. Small wonder that he is said to have been
recommended for the Victoria Cross.

During the first two months of the war, the British Veterinary Corps,
which, by the way, was first formed after the South African War, had
30,000 horse patients through its hands. Horses, in spite of motor
transport, have already played an important part in this great war, and
it does not require much thought to know that their supply in almost
every country is limited. Russia alone seems to have an inexhaustible
number—in fact, it has been asserted that there are no fewer than thirty
million horses at the disposal of the Tsar.

Our horses are better looked after than any others in the field. The
wounded ones are cared for most tenderly, and are often cured of quite
serious wounds. Not only have they their comfortable hospitals, but
there have actually been set apart for them splendid convalescent homes.
Some of these consist of the fine racing stables belonging to well-known
Frenchmen whose colours are often seen on English racecourses.


I have been told that one of the strangest and, in a sense, most
pathetic sights on the battlefields of the Aisne was the loose horses
which rushed hither and thither aimlessly while shells whistled
overhead. Another curious sight is the terror of the birds when an
aeroplane flies low. They swirl about, beside themselves with fright,
and evidently believe that the flying machine is a huge monster of their
own kind bent upon their extermination.


A private of the Royal Irish Fusiliers described how he and his comrades
once went under fire:

“As we stood up, there was a ghastly shower of bullets, and shells burst
all round. Into it we had to go, and as I looked ahead one of our chaps
said, ‘I think we’ll have to get our great-coats, boys; it’s raining
bullets to-night, and we’ll get wet if we’re not careful.’ Men of “C”
Company started laughing, and then they took to singing ‘Put up your
umbrellas when it comes on wet!’ The song was taken up all along as we
went into the thick of it, and some of us were humming it as we dashed
into the German trenches.”


During the retreat from Mons a slightly wounded Scot, an artilleryman,
asked a German for water, and was refused. Long afterwards, during the
Battle of the Aisne, the artilleryman recognised the same German among a
party of wounded whose cries for water couldn’t be attended to quickly
enough.

The recognition was mutual, and the German stopped his moaning, thinking
he was sure to be paid back in his own coin. But the Highlander took out
his water-bottle and handed it to the German without a word. According
to one who was there, the German had the grace to look very shamefaced
indeed.


Our flying men played a most important part in this Battle of the Aisne.
What they did, and how they did it, was excellently described in the
following letter written by Lord Castlereagh from Champagne. As you read
it you will feel as if you were there, watching the wonderful and
inspiring sight:

“The thing that has impressed me most here has been the aeroplane
service, a splendid lot of boys who really do not know what fear is. The
Germans shoot shrapnel at them, and you see the aeroplane like a
dragon-fly in the air, and then a lot of little puffs of white smoke,
which are the shells bursting. Luckily the shots are very wide, and so
far none have been brought down. One man was shot in the thigh by a
German airman whom he was chasing.

“I watched for twenty-five minutes an aeroplane doing what is called
‘ranging’ for a battery of heavy guns. The aeroplane watches where the
shells drop, and then signals to say where the shells are falling,
whether too far or not far enough. This aeroplane was being shelled by
the enemy with shrapnel, and three times it flew round and showed the
battery where they were shooting. The Germans must have fired forty
shells.

“The aeroplane, about five thousand feet up, and easily in sight, looked
like an eagle, and about the same size, and the shells made a cloud of
white smoke and looked about the size of a cabbage. It was a wonderful
sight, and if such a picture appeared in an illustrated paper no one
would think it was anything else but an imaginary one.”


On September 22 a daring exploit was performed by a group of British
aviators. They flew off and made a successful raid into Germany.
Flight-Lieut. C. H. Collet dropped three bombs on the Zeppelin shed at
Düsseldorf, and as the whole shed burst into flames it is clear that his
object was accomplished.

Both this gallant airman and his companion were most careful to do no
harm to private or public buildings in the towns through which they
flew. In fact, they could have destroyed another Zeppelin shed had they
not thought it wrong to run the risk of injuring innocent women and
children in the misty weather which then prevailed.

I cannot help contrasting this behaviour with the conduct of German
airmen, who killed or mutilated with their bombs numbers of women and
children in open towns like Paris and Ostend.


Some of the most gallant deeds of this great war have been done some way
from the fields of battle, and in what may be called cold blood. A fine
story of Irish heroism was told by a trooper of the Irish Dragoons:

“There was a man of ours who carried a chum to a farmhouse under fire,
and when the retreat came got left behind. A German patrol called and
found them. There were only the two, one wounded, against a dozen
Uhlans. Behind a barrier of furniture they kept the Germans at bay. At
last the Germans made off and brought a machine gun to the house and
threatened to destroy it.

“The two soldiers were not unmindful of the kindness shown them by the
owners of the farm, and rather than bring loss on them or the village
they made a rush out with some mad idea of taking the gun. Just over the
threshold of the door they both fell dead.”

Among the most moving and beautiful stories of this great struggle is
one that also has as hero a nameless Irish private. What happened was
perfectly told by a wounded corporal of the West Yorkshire Regiment:

“The regiment was approaching a little village near Rheims. We went on
through the long narrow street, and just as we were in sight of the end
the figure of a man dashed out from a farmhouse on the right.
Immediately the rifles began to crack in front, and the poor chap fell
dead before he reached us.

“We learned that he had been captured the previous day by a marauding
party of German cavalry, and had been held a prisoner at the farm where
the Germans were in ambush for us. He tumbled to their game, and though
he knew that if he made the slightest sound they would kill him, he
decided to make a dash to warn us of what was in store.

“He had more than a dozen bullets in him, and there was not the
slightest hope for him, so we carried him into a house until the fight
was over. We buried him the next day with military honours, but as his
identification disc and everything else was missing, we could only put
over his grave the tribute that was paid to a greater: ‘He saved others;
himself he could not save.’”




                               CHAPTER IX
                            OUR ALLY RUSSIA

           Prepare, prepare the iron helm of war,
           Bring forth the lots, cast in the spacious orb;
           The Angel of Fate turns them with mighty hands,
           And casts them out upon the darkened earth,
                   Prepare, prepare!

           Prepare your hearts for Death’s cold hand! Prepare
           Your souls for flight, your bodies for the earth!
           Prepare your arms for glorious victory!
           Prepare your eyes to meet a holy God!
                   Prepare, prepare!
                                                       BLAKE.


I should now like to tell you something of our great ally, Russia, and
of the gallant deeds performed by her soldiers in this war.


Valour does not belong to one nation more than to another, but each
country, and this is rather a curious fact, has its own kind of valour.
The British excel in what I should call the “forlorn hope”—the kind of
valour that stood our soldiers in such fine stead at Mons, and during
Sir John French’s magnificent retreat. The Marquis of Montrose embodied
the spirit of England and this peculiar stoical type of valour when he
wrote:

                  “He either fears his fate too much,
                    Or his deserts are small,
                  That dares not put it to the touch
                    To gain or lose it all.”

The Briton never fears his fate too much to put it to the touch—that is
why he generally gains it all!


Now the Russian has a singularly splendid kind of valour. It is the kind
that faces _certain_ death for love of country, with joy rather than
with resignation. Never in the history of mankind was a finer thing done
than the sailing of the Russian Fleet to certain doom, during the
Russo-Japanese War. Every man, from admiral to stoker, knew of the fate
awaiting him, and every man went cheerfully to the encounter for the
sake of “Holy Russia.”


This courage of the Russians is part of their grand passion for romance,
or what people now call idealism. A great many years ago a writer
quaintly and truly wrote in _Blackwood’s Magazine_: “I have seen the
unromantic drop like sheep under the rot of their calamities, while the
romantic have been buoyant and mastered them.” So never let anyone laugh
us out of being romantic. Too often those who try to do so are in the
sad case of the fox who, having lost his tail, could not endure to see
any other fox with one.


It was this same peculiar strain of magnificent, romantic courage which
made the Governor of Moscow, after having given orders to burn the city,
when Napoleon and his Grand Army were approaching, himself set fire to
his own beloved house. This great deed will live in the long noble
history of human sacrifice and valour as long as the world endures, for
it was the burning of Moscow which turned the tide against the greatest
conqueror Europe had known since Julius Cæsar.


The Russians are as mighty with the pen as with the sword. The finest
story ever written on war was written by a Russian named Count Tolstoi.
It is called “War and Peace.”


And now to the Russians this great war with Germany is a crusade, a holy
war. They are fighting for their fellow-Slavs, who like them belong to
the Greek Church, and who if they became Germans and Austrians would be
most cruelly oppressed by their conquerors. So strong is this feeling in
Russia that it has united everyone—from the Tsar to the poorest
moujik—in one great passion for justice and freedom.


The following moving letter from his mother was found on the breast of a
Russian officer killed in action. It will show you more than anything I
can tell you how Russia feels about this war:

“Your father was killed very far from us, and I send you for the sacred
duty of defending our dear country from the vile and dreadful enemy.
Remember you are the son of a hero. My heart is oppressed, and I weep
when I ask you to be worthy of him. I know all the fateful horror of
these words, what suffering it will be for me and you, but we do not
live for ever in this world. What is our life? A drop in the ocean of
beautiful Russia. We must die, but she will live for ever. I know we
shall be forgotten, and our happy descendants will not remember those
who sleep in ‘brothers’ graves’ (soldiers’ graves).

“With kisses and blessings I parted with you. When you are sent to
perform a great deed, don’t remember my tears but only my blessing. God
save you, my dear, bright, loved child. One word more; it is written
everywhere that the enemy is cruel and savage. Don’t be led by blind
vengeance. Don’t raise your hand at a fallen foe, but be gracious to
those whose fate it is to fall into your hands.”

What a noble and beautiful end is that to this letter, but how one’s
heart aches for the writer now that the dear, bright, beloved son sleeps
in “brothers’ graves.”


Of all the Tsar’s soldiers the most typically Russian is the Cossack.
Now the Cossack has been well described as being a man of war from his
youth upwards. He is always the child of a soldier, and his mother
cradles him with war songs. When he gets a little older and begins
crawling about the floor, his games are mimic battles, and his father
takes him off to the stables for at least an hour every day that he may
regard horses as his friends and playfellows.

At seventeen he becomes a Cossack, and after a very few weeks’ training
he is ready for war. The Cossack’s equipment is most peculiar, and it is
so arranged that he can creep along, even when on horseback, quite
noiselessly. A proverb in Russia runs: “One dragoon makes more noise
than a regiment of Cossacks!” The Cossack’s claim is that what mortal
man can do he will do, and a great deal more besides. As a rule he is a
small man and his horse is a small horse, in fact what we should call a
pony. No cavalryman is on better terms with his mount, and many and many
a time a Cossack has given his life for his horse. But a Cossack never
allows his mount to know what the inside of a comfortable stable is
like; the Cossack’s horse has to learn to be as hardy as his master.


Small wonder therefore that the Cossacks are the most amazingly clever
horsemen in the world. One of their favourite manœuvres, when on active
service, is to swing down beneath their horses’ girths, thus causing the
enemy to believe that they have before them a number of runaway horses.

The story goes that a patrol of ten Cossacks lately came upon a German
squadron who, to avoid a fight at close quarters, opened fire. The
Russian horsemen swung round under their horses; the Germans mounted and
set forth to capture what they believed to be runaway horses. When they
came close up the Cossacks reappeared in the saddle, and attacking them
with awful fury, cut them to pieces!

The Cossacks have retained their old, picturesque uniform—not for them
the sober khaki—and an action in which they engage recalls the verse of
Robert Burns:

                “The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
                The glittering spears are rankêd ready,
                The shouts o’ war are heard afar,
                The battle closes thick and bloody.”

The Cossack trooper has a great deal of that simple, resourceful cunning
which is so important an asset to all sportsmen and fighting men.

This was shown in the present war by the adventure of one such brave
horseman called Polkovnikoff, who was taken prisoner by the Austrians.

His captors treated Polkovnikoff kindly, and asked him many questions
concerning his famous corps. “How do you manage to unsaddle just in
front of the enemy’s entrenchments, and attack them on foot? Is not your
horse a drag upon you?” they asked.

Polkovnikoff volunteered to show how it was done, so they lent him a
fine horse, belonging to an officer, to enable him to make an exhibition
of his skill. Conscientiously and artistically he went through some
vaulting exercises. Then, in order to put the finishing touch to one of
his feats, he went the furthest possible distance from the assembled
company, and, before they realised what was happening, he had put spurs
to the horse and was galloping madly away!


This delightful little sketch of a Cossack officer will show you how
fortunate these Russian cavalrymen are in their leaders. It was written
by a British war correspondent on his way to the front.

“At Pavlodar a Cossack officer came on board, who will ever stand out in
our memory as a great little man. He was clean-shaven, fat, and
jolly-looking. Within two hours he had the reservists under his thumb to
such an extent that had they been asked to storm, unarmed as they were,
a German position, they would have gone without hesitation! His
treatment was paternal, almost to the extent of the schoolroom. He read
to them, and he told them funny little stories. Then he made them sing
choruses, and wound up by warning them that upon their arrival at the
great concentration camp of Omsk they must remember to treat all
strangers with courtesy.”


A Cossack never “retires” from active service. He goes on being a
fighting man as long as he can ride well and straight. A Cossack whose
leg was amputated clamoured for a quick recovery that he might go back
to the front. The doctor asked him what he could do in the war with only
one leg. He replied proudly, “Have I not still my strong right arm with
which to strike down the enemy?”


All grown-up people hope that among the very best consequences of this
great war will be the restoration of freedom and happiness to heroic
Poland. It is the unhappy fate of this valiant country to be, as it
were, a buffer State. I expect you know that a buffer is something
wedged in between two contending forces. India-rubber, which is at once
hard and yielding, makes an excellent buffer. Poland is between Russia
and Germany, and before the war she had been divided between them.
Neither had treated her well, but for many years past Germany treated
her part of Poland with far more harshness than Russia treated hers. As
a consequence of this, even German Poland now sides with Russia, the
more so that the Tsar, very early in the war, issued a general
proclamation in which he promised the Poles their freedom after victory.

Poland has been the scene of some fierce conflicts, and the Poles have
had the opportunity of performing many gallant deeds. The Polish
villagers have also been very good to the wounded of both sides. In one
village a little girl of seven years old went up to a wounded man and
saw that he was bleeding dreadfully from a wound in his head. She tried
her best to staunch the blood with her pinafore, but as it went on
coming through she put her hand tight down on the place, and sent her
baby brother to fetch an ambulance man.


You will remember how more than one French boy managed to get to the
front. This has also happened in Russia. Indeed, it is said that there
boys as young as eight years have run away from home in the hope of
fighting for Holy Russia.

Touching stories of the kind are being told in Petrograd concerning not
only boys but girls.

Very soon after the war broke out, four little girls made their way to a
police station. Each had a bundle on her back, each wore a Red Cross
armlet. The police inspector was much surprised to see them. “Has
someone sent you with these things?” he asked, pointing to their
bundles. “If so, you must go on to the hospital.” “No, indeed,” said the
boldest of the four; “we have come here on our way to the front. We
intend to nurse the soldiers ourselves.” Proudly they exhibited their
bundles, which contained bits of old linen and cotton wool. The
inspector did not like to make fun of these valiant and patriotic little
girls, so he kept them there while he sent out men to look for their
parents. At last these arrived. The spokeswoman of the party then turned
on the inspector and, with a look of grave reproach, exclaimed, “We
trusted you with our secret, and now you have given us away!”


And here I must stop and tell you that very early in this stupendous
war, where whole nations and their manhood are engaged, Russia did a
very noble thing by her allies. Knowing that Germany had thrown her full
strength into an effort to defeat, once for all, the British and the
French armies, the Russian Commander-in-Chief made up his mind to create
what is called a diversion. Although he was not yet really ready to meet
so powerful and fully prepared a foe, he threw a large force over the
German frontier.

Filled with alarm, the enemy hurried a big army to meet the oncoming
Russians. This successfully relieved the rush on the British and French,
but at a heavy cost to Russia. In a very real sense thousands of
Russians then laid down their lives for their friends. Had they not been
idealists and romantics, they could not have brought themselves to do
it, for it requires a kind of courage differing from every other courage
(and there are ever so many other kinds), deliberately to face defeat.

Very soon the Russian Army, completely ready by now to face their
formidable foe, showed how temporary had been the check her commanders
had knowingly courted and endured.


The Russian peasant is noted for his kindness of heart, and when he
becomes a soldier this beautiful human quality stands him in good stead.
In one instance four classes of the Order of St. George, which is like
our Victoria Cross, were conferred upon a Hussar trooper, the orderly of
a dangerously wounded officer, whom he rescued amid a hail of shot, and
carried four miles. On the way he evaded numerous patrols of the enemy,
and several times he had to swim broad streams, holding up the officer
as best he could while they were both being “potted” from the banks.

We in our country did not know at first of the fine things being done in
Russia. Many people were surprised to learn, for instance, how very good
is the Russian Army Air Corps.

You are of course aware that an airman takes his life in his hand every
time he goes out to observe what is going on in the enemy’s lines.
Putting aside all the ordinary—they ought to be called the
extraordinary—dangers of air service, there are times when a great deal
may depend on a flying scout being willing to give his life for his
beloved country. How true that is was shown by a grand exploit performed
by Captain Nesteroff, the Russian Pegoud, one of the first men in Russia
to loop the loop.

During a fierce battle with the Austrian troops, Captain Nesteroff was
able to convey information of extreme value to the Russian commander. He
was resting after his exertions, when he observed two Austrian
aeroplanes making their way towards the Russian positions. Aware that at
the moment of their appearance a strategic move of the utmost importance
to the safety of the Russian Army was in progress, and that it was
absolutely necessary to prevent information from reaching the enemy, he
took the air and flew towards them.

By skilful manœuvring he succeeded in getting so close to one of the
aeroplanes that he was able to fire his revolver almost point blank at
the pilot. The latter was wounded, and fell with his machine to the
ground, where he was captured. As soon as he had fired, Captain
Nesteroff commenced a spiral upward flight, and he was at once followed
by the second Austrian airman. Realising that it was, above all else,
necessary to prevent the enemy aeroplane from returning to the Austrian
lines with the valuable information that he had gathered, Nesteroff
nerved himself for a supreme effort, and launched his aerial craft full
tilt at his foe. The machines came together with a crash, and descended
to the ground interlocked, both the gallant airmen being killed.


I have told you that the Russian peasant has a very kind heart. Kindness
almost always implies sympathy and understanding. When the first
trainload of wounded Austrians arrived on Russian soil they were treated
at each place the train stopped with wonderful kindness and sympathy,
and one poor woman was seen, while feeding a young Austrian soldier, to
be crying bitterly.

“What is the matter?” asked one of the doctors. “Has he insulted or
annoyed you in any way?”

“No, indeed,” she answered; “I am crying because I cannot help feeling
sorry to see a boy like this all alone in a foreign country, not even
able to say a word in our language. I am mourning over what his mother
must be feeling now. If you will allow me, I will take him home with me
and nurse him back to health!”

And yet this peasant woman, simple as she may have been, must have known
quite well that Austria has always had a peculiar dislike, and even
contempt, for the Slav race to which she belonged, and for the sake of
which Russia is at war.


The following little story illustrates the same beautiful qualities of
mercy and of kindness, but this time the hero of it is a soldier.

An artilleryman’s battery, after hours of hard work, was at last ordered
to retire. As it sullenly retreated, he saw a baby girl toddle from the
doorway of one of the houses of the village right into the path of the
battery. Amid a rain of shell and shrapnel, this brave fellow went to
the baby’s rescue, while his comrades gave him up for lost. As he
reached the child a shrapnel shell burst overhead, and, throwing himself
down, the man shielded the child’s body with his own. One bullet passed
through his back, injuring him so badly that he could not regain his
feet. But two of his comrades immediately went to his assistance, and
carried him, with his little protégée, to the battery, whence they were
removed to hospital.


It has been said that every country has the Jews it deserves. Now Jews
have never been quite fairly treated by the Russian Government. But
during this war they have shown themselves to be true patriots and brave
soldiers, and so we may hope that they will be treated as well as they
deserve to be in future.

Very early in the campaign a Jewish soldier, named Pernikow, won the St.
George’s Cross for valour. He was charged with the delivery of important
secret despatches, and, though very seriously wounded on the way, he
struggled on to his journey’s end, and fulfilled his mission.


We must not forget another of our Allies, the country which Russia
regards as her small sister—I mean Serbia.

This gallant little country was the greatest help to the Allies, and
especially to Russia. She had by no means recovered from the terrible
Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, when Austria fell upon her. But little
Serbia not only drove away the enemy, but herself invaded Austrian
territory. Thus she engaged and defeated large Austrian forces which
would otherwise have been thrown against Russia.


Here is the story of a young Serbian officer who at one time was well
known in London and in Paris, for his father is a diplomatist.

Lieutenant Voislav Grashanin was not only a keen soldier, beloved and
honoured by his men, but he was also a very clever and many-sided man. A
comrade thus described his gallant death:

“It fell to our detachment to lead the attack on Iverak and Golo Tchuk.
Grashanin was first in the charge, and after a fierce tussle he reached
the height of Golo Tchuk and ranged his men quickly in firing order once
more. I saw him passing among the lines, and heard him say: ‘Now,
brothers, show how straight you can aim! There is glory in store for us
here if we know how to take it. Who cares for life? We’ve all got to die
some day!’ Shortly afterwards the enemy began to fall back, and
Grashanin called: ‘What did I tell you? See! A battery is offered us. A
battery of our own. Forward, and seize their guns!’

“Just then he was shot in the right hand. He bound up the wound where he
stood, and lifted the other hand to give the signal, when that hand,
too, was struck by a bullet. This time the wound was graver, his fingers
being severed. We bound it up for him as well as we could, for he
refused to go to the rear. He had taken off his coat for the hasty
operation, and now the bandages were so clumsy that he could not pass
his arm through the sleeve. We hung it by one button round his neck, and
he went on giving orders as before.

“We advanced steadily, and again the enemy made a backward move. Then
Voislav shouted, ‘Come on for the guns!’ At that moment a bullet lodged
in his chest. He fell, but got up again on his knees to command: ‘The
guns! Take the guns!’

“Our lieutenant was dead when we brought up the guns to where he lay.
Still, I think he must have heard our ‘Hurrah!’ when we took the guns.
Every man of us kissed him before we buried him, and we dug him the
deepest grave I have seen in this campaign. We were very fond of him
because of his kind heart and elegant manner of speech. Some had
nicknamed him ‘the Parisian,’ but he was Serbian to the core.”




                               CHAPTER X
                            OUR ALLY FRANCE

             O torn out of thy trance,
             O deathless, O my France,
         O many-wounded mother, O redeemed to reign!
             O rarely sweet and bitter
             The bright brief tears that glitter
         On thine unclosing eyelids, proud of their own pain;
             The beautiful brief tears
             That wash the stains of years
         White as the names immortal of thy chosen and slain.
                                                     SWINBURNE.

          Tout homme deux pays—le sien et puis la France.
                                                  VICTOR HUGO.


Among the many changes which this great war will bring about, it will
certainly again make true Victor Hugo’s touching boast, “Two countries
hath each man—his own and France.”

For nearly a thousand years this was true of all the gentlepeople in our
three kingdoms. Scotsmen and Irishmen might be at daggers drawn with
England, but always they remained not only friendly, but on the closest
terms of intimacy with France. Charming French princesses married
Scottish kings, and you will perhaps remember that when the great Scots
wizard waved his wand, “the bells would ring in Notre Dame,” not,
observe, in Westminster Abbey or in Old St. Paul’s!

There was a Scots College and an Irish College in Paris, and no one in
Scotland and Ireland was reckoned a scholar unless he had studied in
France.


The fact that England and France were almost always at war made no
difference to this pleasant state of things, and now we like to remember
that the one place where, till this year, British and French fought side
by side, was in the Holy Land during the Crusades. In old days wars
raged over years, not over weeks or months, and now and again great
stretches of French country belonged to England. I know a beautiful
parish church in the heart of France which was built by the British in
the thirteenth century—seven hundred years ago.


Those of you who have learned any history must know that poor Queen Mary
exclaimed that when she died the word “Calais” would be found graven on
her heart, so deeply had she felt its recapture by the French. Not long
ago, speaking of the Germans’ desperate wish to get to Calais, a great
English writer observed, smiling, “As to the effect which their
occupation of Calais would produce on this country, they are three
hundred years too late. Calais is not inscribed on the heart of _our_
Queen Mary!”


Ill-fortune often brings countries far more closely together than does
good fortune. After the execution of Charles I, English, Scottish, and
Irish loyalists fled to France, and lived there long years of a not
unhappy exile. Louis XIV gave them a magnificent welcome. He presented
the Stuarts with one of his most comfortable palaces, one, too, within
an easy distance of his own palace at Versailles; and when you read the
enchanting, intimate letters of Madame de Sévigné to her daughter, you
will see how much the two courts intermingled, and what a constant
coming and going there was from France to England and from England to
France. When Charles II became king he did not forget his French
friends. In fact I think it may be whispered that he remained far more
of a Parisian than a Londoner, and you will feel this too if you ever
read the letters he wrote to his beloved sister, the fascinating
Henrietta, who had married the brother of Louis XIV.

England was very English in the eighteenth century, but, even so, there
was constant intercourse between London and Paris. English names occur
almost as often as French ones in the correspondence of the famous
Madame du Deffand, and the best picture of the French society of that
day is to be found in the letters of her old friend, Horace Walpole.
Marie Antoinette had many dear English friends, and Englishwomen as well
as Englishmen were made very welcome by her, not only in the Palace of
Versailles, but at her own beloved Petit Trianon.


So close was the tie then between the two countries that they read as a
matter of course each other’s books. Innumerable little girls in France
are now called Clarisse because of a wonderful story, written by an
English bookseller named Benjamin Richardson, called “Clarissa Harlowe.”
Equally in this country, few, if any, children were named Clare or Julia
before the publication of “La Nouvelle Héloise,” written by the Jean
Jacques Rousseau to whom I alluded in my first chapter.


You might have thought that the great Revolution would have broken the
old connection between the two countries and the two capitals. So far
was this from being the case that there were many people in England who
sympathised with the aims of the Revolution. Others, while regarding all
that went on in the France of that day with horror, yet felt their
affection for France and the French people become closer. An
affectionate familiarity between the two countries was further
encouraged by the sudden appearance in England of thousands of French
people, who, known as the Emigrés, were largely composed of members of
the French nobility who had escaped from France on the eve of the great
Revolution. Many of them lived in England till after the Battle of
Waterloo, and our grandmothers were all taught French, dancing, and the
harp by lady Emigrées.


Even the Napoleonic Wars did not really break the links binding France
and England. In some ways they may even be said to have strengthened
them. Not only were our troops always on the Continent, but Napoleon
occasionally made a great sweep of any English travellers he could
catch, either in France, or in the countries which he successively
conquered. These unfortunate people were what would now be called
“interned” in various French towns, where in some cases they were
compelled to remain for years. But I am glad to tell you that these
forlorn creatures were treated most kindly by their French neighbours,
and when they finally came back to England, so fond had they become of
France that some of them used to go back there for two or three months
of each year.


Gradually, it is difficult to say why, the two countries drifted apart.
Indeed it began to seem that the nearer they grew together in a material
sense—the less and less time it took to get from London to Paris, for
instance—the less all that was best in French art and in French life,
appealed to English people.

One thing that perhaps made the English nation distrust the French was
France’s constant change of rulers. After France had had a king for a
few years she would suddenly change about and have a republic; then
would come a king again, another small revolution, and then an emperor!
It was during the reign of an emperor, Napoleon III, that Paris became
for the first time the playground of Europe, the place where foreigners
went rather to amuse themselves in stupid ways, instead of to see
beautiful things and to meet agreeable and interesting people.

Then, quite suddenly, there came a terrible day, just forty-four years
ago, when the playground of Europe became a battle-ground, and when,
with surprise and horror, England saw that the French, busily engaged in
amusing themselves and other people, had entirely neglected to get ready
for the awful thing, War, which had suddenly come upon them. As a result
of this neglect, Germany, for the first time in their joint history,
conquered France.


So easily, so surprisingly quickly, was this conquest achieved, that it
made the Germans get what is vulgarly called “swelled head.” It also
undoubtedly led to their confident belief that everything must go well
with them in the present war. But France, as Germany now knows to her
bitter cost, had learned her lesson. Without spending nearly so much
time and thought on war, and the terrible engines of war, as Germany had
done for forty years, she yet prepared quietly and soberly for the big
conflict which, unlike England, she felt quite sure must be coming on
Europe, if only because of the extraordinary preparations which she
noticed her bullying neighbour was continually making.


                                   II

You may know that the beautiful provinces or counties of Alsace and of
Lorraine were the heavy price France paid for her defeat at Germany’s
hands in 1870. But these two provinces always remained French at heart,
and their possession by Germany was like an open wound in France’s side.
Small wonder, therefore, that when war was declared the first thought of
the French Government was, unwisely and imprudently as many people now
think, to throw an army into Alsace.


The rapture with which the people there welcomed the French advance was
changed into terror when the fortunes of war brought about a temporary
retreat. The Germans hate these Alsatians, and cruel was the vengeance
they took on them. One terrible example of their revenge aroused deep
feelings of pain and horror all over the world, the more so that they
actually boasted of the act in the following words:

“The German column was passing along a woody defile, when a little
French lad (Französling) belonging to one of those gymnastic societies
which wear tricolour ribbons (_i.e._ the Eclaireurs, or Boy Scouts), was
caught and asked whether the French were about. He refused to give any
information. Fifty yards further on a battery suddenly opened fire from
the cover of a wood. The lad was asked in French if he had known that
the enemy was in the wood. He did not deny it. Then walking with firm
steps to a telegraph post he stood up against it, with a green vineyard
at his back, and received the volley of the firing party with a proud
smile on his face. Infatuated wretch! It was a pity to see such wasted
courage!”

But we know that his courage was not wasted, and that by their
ill-advised recital of that little boy’s heroism, the Germans inspired
innumerable Frenchmen, and Frenchwomen too, to show themselves even
braver and more fearless for love of country than they might otherwise
have done.


It was near a town called Nancy that there took place a touching
incident two days after the outbreak of war.

A French detachment came into contact with German troops; soon the
Germans retired, leaving behind them a young wounded officer. The French
soldiers picked him up, and behaved, as I am glad to say our allies
always do behave to their wounded enemy, not only with mercy but with
kindness. He was, however, dying, and his last words were, “Thank you,
gentlemen. I have done my duty. I have served my country, as you are
serving yours.”

This young officer was Lieutenant Baron von Marschall, son of the late
Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, who for a few months was German
Ambassador in London. He had been, till a few days before the
declaration of war, a happy and popular Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.


Duty must have been one of Nelson’s favourite words, for not only did he
signal the word in his immortal message, “England expects every man to
do his duty,” but the last words he ever spoke were, “I have done my
duty; I praise God for it.” The French have some fine sayings concerning
duty. Of these the oldest and the finest is, “Fais le droit, advienne
que pourra.” “Do thy duty whatever may happen.”


It was in Lorraine that Georges André—one of France’s most famous
runners, who is also a Rugby Internationalist, and scored against both
England and Ireland in last season’s matches—won the Médaille Militaire
(the French Victoria Cross). André, with his company, was surrounded by
a large German detachment in a small village. They fought like lions,
and he himself at last captured the enemy’s standard, regaining the
French lines under a hail of bullets.


We have seen how the German Commander on the fall of Liège handed
General Leman back his sword. Much about the same time that this was
occurring in Belgium, a similar incident, on a humbler scale, was
happening in Alsace.

A Uhlan patrol was surprised by French soldiers. They all took to their
heels save one, who fought magnificently until finally overpowered by
force of numbers. His French captors, much to his surprise (for the
German soldiers had been told the infamous lie that the British and
French gave no quarter to the wounded), shook him warmly by the hand,
exclaiming, “Tu es un chic type!” a meed of praise which it is
impossible to translate. They also showed their admiration of his pluck
in a more practical manner, for though they were short of food
themselves they supplied him with food and drink before he was taken to
the General Quarters.


One likes to remember that in no great war have men had the monopoly of
gallant deeds. In this book you have read, and will read, of many such
performed by women. A lady can no longer defend a castle, as was done in
mediæval Christendom by so many great-hearted wives whose husbands were
away fighting. But she can risk her life, and lose it too, for her
country, as the following pathetic story proves:

Madame Favre-Schwarz, of Basle, a young and beautiful French lady,
married to one of the richest merchants in Alsace, was executed after a
court-martial very early in the war. She had attempted to blow up an
important tunnel on the line of the Rhine near Leopoldshöhe, in order to
hinder the advance of German troops towards her beloved country. Madame
Schwarz met her death bravely, and shouted “Vive la France!” as she
fell.


After this war is ended, and indeed during the conduct of this war, I
hope that no one will ever again sneer at a woman merely for being a
woman.

Splendid work has been done to help the men at the front by the women of
each of the countries—those of our enemies as well as in our own and
those of our allies—during the course of this awful struggle. I was told
by a wounded soldier, to whom I had the privilege of talking in a London
hospital, that what struck him most during the first terrific battles in
which he took part, was the way in which Frenchwomen of all ages, from
aged crones to little girls, came into the trenches under fire with
fruit and water. This was a true errand of mercy, for during the earlier
part of the war the heat was terrible, and our soldiers suffered awfully
from thirst.


When the enemy entered Soissons the Mayor of the town had already left
it. Accordingly, a certain Madame Macherez, the widow of a former
Senator—or, as we should say, of a former member of the French House of
Lords—informed the Commander that she was quite ready to take over the
government of Soissons.

He assented, and at once she took charge of the police, of the fire
station, and of the hospital. She “ran” the town most successfully, and
that though the German Commander began by making enormous demands on the
unfortunate citizens. He asked for nearly 200,000 pounds (weight) of
food, including preserved meats, smoked sausages, and flour, and 40,000
pounds (weight) of tobacco, adding the significant threat that if all
this were not at once forthcoming Soissons would be burnt to the ground.

Madame Macherez bluntly told him that it would be just as reasonable for
him to ask for the sun and the moon as for all these things. She
offered, however, to give what she could, and not only was her offer
accepted, but the town was spared the dreadful fate which befell many
places in the North of France.

We can easily imagine this brave woman’s joy when, a few days later, the
same troops who had behaved in an arrogant, if not in a barbarous,
manner passed in full retreat through Soissons!


The French have a peculiar, passionate love for their flag—the
Revolutionary tricolor which banished the old lilies of France and under
which Napoleon led his soldiers from victory to victory.


Very early in this war a light infantry regiment, closely engaged by the
enemy, saw over twenty men who in turn held the standard cut down; a
fresh soldier immediately grasped the coveted trophy and held it aloft,
while his comrades ringed him round with dead. So it went on until
supports arrived, and the standard and the little remnant of gallant men
were saved.


I must tell you what a London lady did to cheer and encourage the young
men who were eagerly joining the colours. She lives in a street where
recruits are constantly passing, and she felt sad to see how weary they
often looked, and what little notice passers-by took of them. She
therefore bought a large Union Jack, and whenever a contingent of
recruits marched by she hurried to her front door and waved the flag,
thus showing them that there was at least one person there who wished to
do them a little honour and felt gratitude for what they were doing for
England. In due course she was rewarded, for an officer, before then
quite unknown to her, called specially to tell her how much his men had
been cheered and touched by her action.


Some time before the British airmen’s daring raid into Germany, two
French flyers, Lieutenant Cesari and Corporal Prudhomme, performed a
magnificent exploit over Metz.

They left Verdun under orders to reconnoitre and destroy if possible the
Zeppelin sheds at Metz. The two airmen flew over the line of forts, the
lieutenant at about 8000 feet up, and the corporal at 6500. In the midst
of a cloud of bursting projectiles they kept on their way, but a little
before they arrived above the parade ground the lieutenant’s motor
suddenly stopped!

Determined not to descend without having accomplished the task assigned
to him, he proceeded to volplane, and it was in planing that he launched
his bomb at the shed. A little later, much to his surprise, for he had
given himself up for lost, his motor re-started. Corporal Prudhomme also
dropped a bomb from his machine. On their return journey hundreds of
shells were fired at them, but they reached headquarters safe and sound.


A French aviator is reported to have brought down from the skies a
German rifle bullet which he had caught in his hand! He was flying at a
height of about 7000 feet, when he suddenly became aware of a small
black object close to his head. He thought it was an insect of some
kind, and was enough of an entomologist to realise that a flying insect
at such a height was a curiosity. So he stretched out his hand and
grasped what to his amazement proved to be a bullet! It was evidently a
rifle bullet that had been fired almost vertically, and had there
reached its utmost elevation.


It has been said that this great war has been waged in a very pitiless
manner, but there have been, as we have seen, merciful exceptions.

One of these was the reconciliation on the battlefield between a French
and a German soldier, who lay wounded and abandoned near the little town
of Blâmont. They were there all through the cold, dark night, with only
the dead about them. When dawn came they began to talk to one another,
and the Frenchman gave his water-bottle to the German. The German sipped
a little, and then kissed the hand of the man who had been his enemy.

“There will be no war in Heaven,” he said.


Boys, as we know, have played a splendid part in the war. One of the
bravest French lads, whose name I am sorry I cannot tell you, saved the
town in which he lived from total destruction, and from French shells.

It was at Montmirail, where the German Headquarters Staff was for a few
brief hours installed in the château of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld.
When the first French shell burst, the Germans did not wait for a
second; they quickly cleared out. But of this retreat the French could
not know anything, so they went on firing. It was then that a brave lad,
in order to save the castle, took his bicycle and rode out with the
shells shrieking above his head to inform the battery that the enemy had
fled.


Surprise was felt in our country when it was heard that quite young
German boys were in the firing line, but in the great American Civil War
there were lads as young as thirteen and fourteen, fighting. One of
them, called John Rhea, performed an act of extraordinary bravery during
the retreat from Fishing Creek. He recognised in a prostrate figure on
the ground an old school friend, named Sam Cox. Although he knew that he
faced almost certain death by trying to help the wounded lad, he bent
down, managed somehow to get him on his back, and carried him into
safety.


Here let me break off to tell you that German boys have not been
backward in helping their beloved country.

At the end of August, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, who is thirteen years
old, placed himself at the head of a corps of schoolboys, who not only
helped to get in the harvest, but did other useful work.


One of the most remarkable dogs in the world is a French dog. His name
is Tom (a very favourite name for a dog in France), and he has been
trained to help the wounded by carrying their caps to the Ambulance
Corps. He never touches a dead man.

A certain French soldier was struck by a fragment of shell in the arm.
With a bullet in his jaw as well, and a sabre cut over the head, the
wounded man was lying terribly alone amid a little heap of his fallen
comrades, when he felt a light touch on his forehead. It was Tom.

The soldier knew that the dog was trained to carry to the camp the cap
of every wounded man he found, but alas! the soldier had lost his. “Run
along, Tom. Go and find my comrades. Get along and find them!” Tom
understood. He dashed away to the camp, ran about among the men, pulling
at their capes and barking, and succeeded in drawing two ambulance men
to the spot where the wounded man was lying.


I think the story of French pluck which has touched me most was that of
Denise Cartier, the little girl who was so terribly injured in one of
the German bomb attacks on Paris. The first words which Denise said to
the policeman who lifted her up after the explosion were, “Surtout ne
dites pas à maman que c’est grave.” (“Above all, don’t tell mother that
it’s serious.”)

But alas! her mother had soon to know the worst, for brave little Denise
had to have her leg cut off. When she awoke after the operation, she
found by her bedside a pile of most beautiful presents sent her by
kindly Parisians who had heard of her misfortune. Among them was a gold
medal, and what do you think was engraved on it? Her own brave words to
the policeman, “Surtout ne dites pas à maman que c’est grave.”


                                  III

Before going back to the fighting line, and especially before taking
leave of our ally, France, I want to tell you of what was, perhaps, the
bitterest blow suffered by her in the early weeks of the war.

That blow was the bombardment of Rheims Cathedral.


Round Rheims are the most famous vineyards in France. All the little
hills are covered with grape-laden vines, and when the writer was in
that lovely, peaceful province of the Marne two years ago, all the happy
peasant people, men, women, and little children, were gathering in the
fruit, singing and laughing as they went along the narrow, fragrant
pathways cut through the vines.


Rheims is a beautiful city, as old as France herself. Once more, as in
1870, fierce fighting was taking place there at the time of the grape
harvest, recalling the fine lines of Bret Harte:

 “Let me of my heart take counsel;
   War is not of life the sum;
 Who shall stay and reap the harvest
   When the autumn days shall come?
       But the drum
       Echoed, ‘Come!
 Death shall reap the braver harvest,’ said the solemn-sounding drum.”

And death did reap a brave harvest amid the vineyards of France. Not a
human harvest alone, but one composed of cherished memories—memories
composed of all the French nation holds dear in its glorious, shadowy
past. Memories of every figure in the magnificent procession of France’s
kings and queens, of her saints, her statesmen, her warriors—especially
of Joan of Arc, the beloved warrior-maid. The Cathedral of Rheims was
not only the most perfect building of its kind in Europe—it was the
Westminster Abbey of France, respected by her enemies for a thousand
years.


Rheims has been sung by many poets, but perhaps the most beautiful lines
on the cathedral were written by James Russell Lowell:

             “I stood before the triple northern port,
             Where dedicated shapes of saints and kings,
             Stern faces bleared with immemorial watch,
             Looked down benignly grave and seemed to say,
             _Ye come and go incessant; we remain
             Safe in the hallowed quiets of the past;
             Be reverent, ye who flit and are forgot,
             Of faith so nobly realised as this._”

It was with a feeling of amazement as well as of horror that one
September day the world learnt of the bombardment of Rheims Cathedral.


The interior of the great church had been filled with wounded, most of
them, be it noted, German, and a large Red Cross had been hung out from
one of the towers. When the bombardment began, an effort was made to
move these poor soldiers out, but they were lying on straw, the straw
caught fire, and several of the people in the cathedral were killed by
the German shells, including four Sisters of Mercy. Much of the floor
became thickly littered with the stained glass, which fell in showers
out of the great windows, six hundred years old, which were, perhaps,
the chief glory of the Cathedral. To add to the horror of the scene the
wounded, terrified by the sight of flames and smoke, began trying
painfully to drag themselves out of danger.

As the unhappy German wounded appeared at the great doors, which someone
had already flung open, there rose from the townspeople assembled
outside a hoarse, insistent cry of “Kill them! Kill them!” For some of
those in the crowd unjustly suspected these men of having set the
cathedral on fire.

For a while it looked as if the German prisoners would be massacred, but
at the critical moment the Abbé Andrieux, a gentle, quiet little priest,
sprang forward, placing himself with outstretched arms before the great
doors. Behind him pressed forward the terrified wounded, standing,
crouching, and crawling—their one thought to escape the fire, smoke, and
falling glass and masonry inside.

“Stand back! Don’t fire!” shouted the Abbé “If you kill them you will be
far more guilty than they!”

Ashamed, the crowd shrank back. But they went on hissing and hooting
while their enemies were carried to shelter close by.


The present writer is almost as grieved at the injury which was also
done to the ancient Church of Saint Rémy, at Rheims, which is a hundred
years older than the cathedral. It had already been built some time when
Joan of Arc was born at Domrémy, the little village on the Upper Meuse,
which was, in a sense, the creation of the Abbé and monks of St. Rémy of
Rheims. The Abbé had a very kindly feeling for Domrémy, and he
generously gave Joan’s father, Jacques d’Arc, a patent exempting the
village from all taxes and tribute. This exemption was maintained until
the French Revolution. In the registers kept by the tax-gatherers the
blank space opposite the name of this parish was quaintly inscribed year
after year, and century after century, “On Account of The Maid.”


During the bombardment, the people of Rheims kept up their courage, and
that even when they had to live for many days in their cellars. An
Englishman had a talk with one old French gentleman in a cellar
dwelling.

“The one thing that keeps us going,” he said, “is my wag of a son, my
seventh, for every time a shell falls, or bursts over the house-tops, he
makes some fresh joke, the young beggar.”

“And where are your other six sons?” his English acquaintance inquired.

“They are all at the front, and I’ve heard from them too. They are as
happy as happy can be, for, you see, Monsieur, we are daily gaining
ground.”


This little anecdote will make you understand the great outstanding fact
about France. It is that every one of her sons is, will be, or has been,
a soldier! During the course of a great war, it is a splendid, inspiring
thought that the whole manhood of a nation is in arms to defend her. No
need of recruiting there—no need to remind the young men that their
country needs them. The French soldier is the French Everyman.


In old days I often felt pained to hear English people, just returned
from a holiday in France, smile—even jeer—at the rough, often unsmart,
look of the French soldier. These same people do not smile and jeer now
when they watch a rough, unsmart detachment of young Englishmen marching
to their drilling ground. They are touched and thrilled—or if they are
not, they ought to be. You cannot have smart uniforms when every man
over eighteen and under fifty is a soldier—or if you do, you sacrifice
the rest of the nation, as we now know Germany has done, to the awful,
sinister War god, the evil genius who lies in wait for happy, peaceful,
busy countries, which only arm, as France had done, not for attack, but
for defence.




                               CHAPTER XI
                           BELGIUM ONCE MORE

                       The future’s gain
           Is certain as God’s truth; but, meanwhile, pain
           Is bitter, and tears are salt: our voices take
           A sober tone; our very household songs
           Are heavy with a nation’s griefs and wrongs;
           And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake
           Of the brave hearts that never more shall beat,
         The eyes that smile no more, the unreturning feet.
                                                     WHITTIER.


You will remember I told you that long before this great war Belgium had
already been called for hundreds of years “the Cockpit of Europe.” This
vivid phrase comes down to us from the time when cock-fighting was a
favourite sport among Englishmen.

Belgium was indeed the pit in which the gamecocks of many nations—the
Flemings, the Dutch, the Spanish, the English, and the French—battled
furiously. There is no town, and there is scarcely a village, the name
of which is not proudly borne by some regiment among its battle honours.
From the British point of view the most memorable of these are Quatre
Bras, Ramillies, and Waterloo.


The most famous, I need hardly tell you, is the Battle of Waterloo,
which was fought within a few miles of Brussels, the capital of Belgium.
That was one reason why a great many English-speaking and
English-reading people all over the world felt very sad when they heard
that the German Army was in Brussels. But there is another reason why
many men and women who have never been there feel a familiar and
affectionate interest in the town. That is because three of our greatest
writers and romancers have chosen to lay scenes of their stories in
Brussels.


The first of these was Laurence Sterne, of whose most famous character,
Uncle Toby, I have told you.

The second was William Makepeace Thackeray. He showed an intimate
knowledge of the Brussels of a hundred years ago in his account in
“Vanity Fair” of what took place there before, during, and after the
Battle of Waterloo. But those who claim to be true Thackerayans will
tell you that even finer, even more firmly fixed on their minds, is the
account of Esmond’s visit to his mother’s grave in the Brussels of the
eighteenth century.

It was, however, a lady, Miss Charlotte Brontë, who, in “Villette,”
which good judges consider the best of her stories, has made many of us
feel really intimate with the highways and byways of Brussels. In fact,
it is not too much to say that there are many people (the writer among
them) who, when before the War they heard the name of Brussels suddenly
pronounced, immediately thought of “Villette.”


In every war certain men seize on what is called the popular
imagination. Three such soon towered above all their fellows in Belgium.

The first was King Albert, who has shown himself the heroic defender of
his kingdom’s rights and liberties, and who continually shared in the
trenches the dangers and discomforts of his brave troops.

The second was General Leman, whose name will ever be linked with the
magnificent defence of Liège.

And the third was Adolphe Max, the Mayor or Burgomaster of Brussels.
This civilian hero might well take as his motto, “Peace hath her
victories as well as war,” for his extraordinary moral and physical
courage saved his beloved city from the fate which befell Louvain and
Termonde.

When the Germans were about to make their triumphal march through the
Belgian capital, the Mayor insisted that as he was the First Citizen of
Brussels he must ride at the head of the procession. In this way he
proved that he was not the captive but the host of the rough intruders.
And when the German General Staff arrived at the Town Hall, and,
declaring that they meant to make it their Headquarters, commanded M.
Max to provide them at once with three hundred beds, “I will provide
three hundred and _one_ beds,” replied the Mayor of Brussels, smiling,
“for of course _I_ shall sleep here too!”

“You will hand over to us a hundred of your notables as hostages for
your people’s good behaviour,” said the German General. “I will be your
hostage,” instantly replied M. Max, “and I will provide you with none
other.” Small wonder that this brave, good-humoured man won the love as
well as the respect of the people of whom he was the shepherd.

On one occasion the German General, trying to threaten and bully M. Max,
laid his revolver on the table with what he apparently thought was a
grand gesture. M. Max, with a smile, took up his pen and laid it beside
the revolver. And never was there a better example shown of the fact
that the pen can be mightier than the sword.

At last, as punishment for his sturdy courage and his determination to
protect his people’s legal rights, M. Max was suspended from his office,
and put in what the enemy quaintly called “honourable custody” in a
German fortress. Fierce were the grief and anger of the unfortunate
inhabitants of Brussels, and the Germans soon found that it was far more
difficult to govern the city in the absence, than with the help, of M.
Max.


The Germans had not been at Brussels very long when it became known that
British Marines had been landed at Ostend. They only stayed there a
short time, but their temporary presence was a great comfort to the poor
Belgians.

Ostend was then simply a pretty watering-place, but that was not always
so. The town whose name, as you will see later, was to become a familiar
one in this great war, was once besieged by the Spaniards for three and
a half years, and it was said that the noise of the bombardment was
heard in London! It was at Ostend that the Duke of Wellington, then
plain Arthur Wellesley, first set foot on the Continent.

Early in the War Ostend became a place of desolation and distress, for
the unfortunate Belgians, when fleeing from their burnt towns and
villages, naturally made for the sea. There was no room in the town to
lodge them all, and many of them lived for quite a long time in
bathing-machines on the beach. It was mostly from Ostend that the
Belgian refugees embarked to find kind new friends and homes in England.


Before the Germans marched on Brussels King Albert and his brave Queen
had left for Antwerp, the beautiful old city and port which was, till
this war, regarded as one of the best fortified strongholds in Europe.

The King and Queen, together with their little children, had not been
there many days when one night the enemy basely sent a huge Zeppelin
airship over the town. It tried to drop bombs over the Palace, where the
Royal family were sleeping, but, missing the mark, only destroyed a
small house, in which, however, a young mother and her tiny baby were
killed. This cruel and unwarlike act shocked and disgusted all civilised
people. But it seems to have delighted the Germans, who loudly
proclaimed that London would be the next city visited. It is, however, a
curious fact that during the first three months of the War no Zeppelin
flew over French territory, although in this way a great deal of
legitimate damage might have been done, not to women and children, but
to soldiers and stores of arms.


At the time that I am writing, no Zeppelin has yet flown over London,
but from the first day of the War a great many sensible people fully
expected that the enemy would send one of these enormous aircraft over
to England, if only to surprise and terrify us.

Now a Zeppelin is a most wonderful thing, and for my part I should very
much like to see one. The day may come when we shall journey by air as
easily as by road or rail, and in Germany for some time past anyone
could take a short trip in a Zeppelin by paying a comparatively small
sum.


I have already told you that it is a foolish thing to underrate an
enemy; it is also a rather mean thing to do. Let us, therefore, give all
honour to Count Zeppelin, even if he has allowed his invention to be
turned to a despicable and inhuman use.


This remarkable man, like most inventors, was regarded for a long time
as a dreamer, even as a madman. Undeterred by this mortifying fact, he
worked on and on till at last he produced the airship which was known as
Zeppelin I. It was not, however, till Zeppelin III, just seven years
ago, made a successful flight, that the German Government agreed to
purchase the ship, and further granted him a good sum of money in order
that he might carry on his experiments. In the year following, in 1908,
a much larger sum was given to Count Zeppelin, and he found himself,
from being an obscure inventor, suddenly raised to a pinnacle as the
most belauded man in his Fatherland!


When this war broke out the Germans undoubtedly counted immensely on
their fleet of Zeppelins. But, fortunately for those of us who live in
London, a Zeppelin is so huge and unwieldy that it can only be started
with considerable difficulty, and it cannot alight and fly up again as
can an aeroplane. Moreover, it requires an enormous shed for its
protection when it is not in the air, for on land it is a very helpless
machine. Once in flight, however, it is a most formidable-looking engine
of war. It has been said that if a Zeppelin were stood on end by St.
Paul’s, it would appear at least a third longer than that vast building.

To return to Antwerp. The city has long been dear to many English
people, and it is very easily reached from our shores. Perhaps that is
one reason why it has been a favourite holiday place for a great many
years. When the news came that it was to be fiercely attacked by the
enemy, a wave of sorrow swept through our country.

It is a beautiful town, and the steeple of the Cathedral is so
exquisite, so delicately lovely in design, as to have become one of the
wonders of the world. Napoleon, who was not apt to admire fine
architecture, said it was like a piece of old Mechlin lace. Antwerp is a
city of churches, and in each church there are wonderful paintings, many
of them the work of men born in the city itself.


The most delightful of Flemish painters was Quentin Matsys. He began
life as a blacksmith, and the city possesses some fine ironwork done by
him in youth. Fortunately for the world, he fell in love with an
artist’s daughter. The artist would not give his daughter to a
blacksmith, and declared that she _must_ marry a painter. So Quentin
Matsys immediately began to paint, and he very soon painted much better
than his future father-inlaw! In the Cathedral is a tablet to his memory
on which are inscribed the words:

           “’Twas love connubial taught the smith to paint.”


Antwerp has always been one of the fighting fortresses of the world. We
must, however, remember that it was far easier to defend the little old
Antwerp of the Middle Ages than the big modern city.

I think the most interesting thing about the Antwerp of the past is that
Godfrey de Bouillon, of whom I am sure some of you must have heard,
started from there for the Holy Land, where he was to die bearing the
fine title of “Baron and Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.”

Antwerp went through many terrible trials before this last siege—in
fact, so cruelly was it treated about five hundred years ago that the
episode still lives in history as “the Spanish Fury.”

In the middle of the French Revolution Antwerp became French. Napoleon
delighted in its possession, and uttered the famous words, “Antwerp is a
pistol aimed at the heart of England!” He found it, however, as we
believe the Germans will find it, of as little or of as much use as an
unloaded pistol; and in due course he had to give it up, just as the
Germans will have to give it up.

It is strange now to reflect that a British Army besieged Antwerp in
1814, when it was splendidly defended by the French.


War is full of curious, funny, and terrible incidents.

Before Antwerp surrendered to the enemy, everything was destroyed that
could possibly be of any use to the German hosts. Among other things so
treated were hundreds of motor-cars. Some, of course, had seen a good
deal of service and were old, but there were some splendid new ones too.
An energetic Belgian officer had them all brought together in a square,
and then he set strong men, including as many blacksmiths as he was able
to find, to carry out the job of putting the motors out of action. They
fell to their work of destruction with a will, puncturing tires,
hammering cylinders, and wrenching gears.

Tons and tons of excellent corn were also emptied out into the river,
and the cold-storage apparatus of the town, which enabled meat and all
perishable foods to be kept for an indefinite time, was also destroyed.
All the ships in the fine harbour were made useless by their boilers
being smashed up. Thus, when the Germans walked in expecting to find
everything nice and comfortable, they discovered that the town was but
an empty husk.


The Germans began to bombard Antwerp on the second day of October, and
they took the city solely because they had better and bigger guns than
the defenders. The Belgians, headed by their splendid King, put up a
valiant fight, and England sent a party of British Naval Volunteers to
help in the defence.

Now very few people know about the British Naval Volunteers. They are a
fine force, dating from the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is a curious
fact that Antwerp saw them for the first time under fire since the
Napoleonic scare, which frightened quiet folk in England so very much
more than the Kaiser with all his legions and terrifying threats has
been able to do! It is, therefore, the more creditable that our officers
and men acquitted themselves so excellently, showing remarkable
firmness, discipline, and courage, and that though some of these Naval
Volunteers had only been in training a very short time.

As Antwerp fell, some people regretted that this British force had been
sent there. But they were wrong in so regretting. The presence of these
volunteers heartened the defence, and in such a case as that we should
all feel:

                  “’Tis better to have loved and lost
                  Than never to have loved at all.”




                              CHAPTER XII
                       THE FAR-FLUNG BATTLE LINE

           Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set
           His Britain in blown seas and storming showers,
           We have a voice with which to pay the debt
           Of boundless love and reverence and regret
           To those great men who fought and kept it ours.
                                                   TENNYSON.

              Then each shall take with stubborn grip
              His rifle as he took his whip,
                  And when the Flag’s unfurled,
              The clerk shall drop his futile pen
              To lift his well-loved lance—and then
                  A nation fronts the world!
                                          ARTHUR H. ADAMS.


How long will the War last? No two people agree about this, and that
however wise, however clever, even however experienced in war they may
be. It will be very interesting to see who among our friends have proved
right; those who say it will be over soon, or those others who believe
it may last years.


There is one thing, however, about which even now we all are agreed.
This is that, however long the war may last, Britain and her Allies will
never give up the fight until victory is assured.


This great war has been full of surprises, which soldiers and historians
will go on discussing for many years to come. Never before, as I have
already explained, had such vast masses of men been engaged, never
before had battle fronts extended for two hundred, and even three
hundred, miles. Not so very long ago, battles never took more than a
week or ten days at the most before what soldiers call a “decision” was
reached. By “decision,” soldiers mean the complete defeat of one army or
the other, so that it is unable to gather itself together and fight
again. Even the Battle of the Aisne, which was really a row of battles
on a line as long as from London to Carlisle, did not produce a decision
of that kind.


Without going into a long explanation which you might not be able to
understand, I will try to show how the Battle of the Aisne simply did
not end at all, but gradually melted, so to speak, into what we may call
the Battle of the Dykes.

One great reason for this singular result, or absence of result, is to
be found in the use of aircraft. In the Italian War in Tripoli, and in
the Balkan War, aeroplanes had done good service, but this was the first
occasion on which they had been employed on a great scale, and the
effect of their employment was that neither side could prepare those
surprises for the enemy which, in old days, brought about decisive
victories.

Napoleon used always to feel by means of scouts for the point at which
his enemy was weakest, and against that point he would throw his whole
strength. But if Napoleon were alive now, he could not wage war in that
way. It is true that his aeroplanes would find out the enemy’s weak
point quickly, but the enemy, in his turn, would quickly find out where
Napoleon was bringing up fresh men, and would make arrangements to meet
them.


This is the sort of thing that happened on the Aisne. Both sides pushed
hard, and there was terrible loss of life in numerous battles along the
whole front. Villages were taken and retaken, sometimes five or six
times over, and on the whole the Allies gained a good deal of ground,
and to that extent they defeated the enemy, to whom it was very
important to get on quickly.

England and France were not in such a hurry. They could afford to wait
because fresh troops were constantly coming up, not only French, but
also British, including the magnificent Indian regiments, while the New
Army enlisted on the appeal of Lord Kitchener, and the Canadian and the
Australian forces, were steadily forming and training, ready to be
thrown into the battle. It was quite enough for the Allies simply to
hold the Germans, and prevent them from getting to Paris.


There is reason to believe that the German generals, and the Kaiser in
particular, determined at this crisis to make a great dash for the
coast. If you look at the map you will see that on the Belgian coast,
going westwards beyond Ostend, we come to Dunkirk, in France; and then,
still further on, to Calais.


Calais has had such a long and romantic history that I cannot help being
glad that it has played a part in this great war. The people of Calais
are as brave now as they were in the days when the burghers, themselves
behaving nobly, gave, as the doing of a noble action nearly always does,
the opportunity for the performance of another. Long before the Kaiser
set his heart on occupying the nearest port to England, mighty warriors
had fought for Calais.

              “A thousand knights have reined their steeds
              To watch this line of sand-hills run,
              Along the never silent Strait,
              To Calais glittering in the sun;

              To look towards Ardres’ golden field
              Across the wide aerial plain,
              Which glows as if the Middle Age
              Were gorgeous upon earth again.”

The Kaiser wanted to get to Calais for two reasons; one was to encourage
the people in Berlin, and the second object was to frighten people here,
in England, and to attack the British warships with submarines and
destroyers, working from the harbour of Calais.

But a very disagreeable surprise awaited the Germans when they threw
themselves towards the coast. This surprise was a number of British and
French warships, which shelled them from the sea!


Among the British ships were three very strange-looking craft called
monitors. You know well what a monitor means at school, though in some
schools they are called prefects. The word exactly means a person who
advises, and to whose words attention must be paid.

The Germans certainly had to pay attention to the observations of the
three British monitors. These ships, named the Humber, Severn, and
Mersey, are like nothing else in the Navy—I can only compare them to
floating fortresses. Everything else is sacrificed in building them to
having on board as big guns as possible. They are therefore shaped
rather like barges, so that they may stand the violent shock when their
big guns are all fired. Their speed is not great, and they do not lie
deep in the water, so that they can come very near the coast. They are,
indeed, meant entirely for coast defence.

These three curious-looking ships were being built in this country for
Brazil, and our Admiralty very cleverly took possession of them, of
course paying the full price, and very useful they turned out in this
Battle of the Dykes.

You can easily understand that the German trenches and other positions
had to be mostly, not alongside the coastline, but at right angles to
it, so that the monitors could fire their shells lengthwise at the
doomed Germans, and so they killed many more than they would otherwise
have done.


The country in which the battle was fought is covered with little rivers
and canals and dykes, and that is why I have called it the Battle of the
Dykes. Parts of it also were flooded, and the German advance became
extremely difficult. The British destroyers used to run up the rivers
and canals and shell any German position which had escaped the shells of
the monitors.

The loss of life was terrible, and not on the German side only. The
gallant Belgian Army, though a good deal diminished in numbers, fought
magnificently. The Germans, however, continually brought up fresh
troops, regardless of the terrible slaughter. And there came a day at
the end of October when the Belgian forces found that they were running
short of cartridges and shells. It was then that the Germans had their
great chance, but for some extraordinary reason they missed it. If they
had pressed on, they must have driven their enemy before them and
obtained an important success. Instead of that, to the astonishment and
delight of the Belgians, they actually fell back, and the golden
opportunity was gone.

What a lesson this is in the value of perseverance! The Romans had an
excellent proverb, namely, “Opportunity is bald behind”; meaning that
when you have once allowed your chance to pass you, there is nothing by
which you can catch hold of it to drag it back.


You may have heard the expression “the romance of war.” Even in this
awful conflict, where there has been so much that was frightful, certain
romantic facts have come to cheer the heart of the nation. Thus, under
Rear-Admiral Horace Hood, who commanded the flotilla off the Belgian
coast, was Commander Charles Fremantle. They are both descended from
heroes of the Napoleonic wars. A Fremantle commanded a line of
battleships at Copenhagen and Trafalgar. It was Viscount Hood who, in
1759, destroyed the transports which had been got ready by the daring of
the French for the invasion of England. Another Hood served with Nelson
in the Mediterranean; this was Samuel Hood. His elder brother,
Alexander, commanded the Mars, which fought a duel with the French
warship Hercule, and he died of his wounds just as the sword of the
French captain was placed in his hands.

The British Army never fought more bravely, more doggedly, and with more
splendid cheerfulness than during this fierce, water-logged battle. The
enemy, even with his great advantage in numbers and in weight of
artillery, was no match for our men. The London Scottish, the first
complete unit of our Territorial Army to fight by the side of Regulars,
covered themselves with glory by magnificent charges, again and again
repeated, at a place called Messines. It was at this time, too, that the
Indian troops first came into action, with terrible results for the
Germans.


It is difficult to select what to tell you about the Indians, there is
so much that is curious and interesting. What struck me personally most
was the fact that their batteries of mountain guns and Maxims, according
to an observer who saw them in their French camp, are carried on
mule-back. Being in Europe has made no difference at all to these
wonderful people’s immemorial traditions. Thus, they have brought all
their food from India, and they live when on foreign soil exactly as
their ancestors lived. There are thousands of goats in the Sikh lines,
and very well they bore the long journey from India.

Some of the Indian troops cannot eat any food over which has passed even
the shadow of a person belonging to another religious creed. Some of the
Indians, also, can only take their food separately, and as it were in
secret. But, with the help of the native officers and of white officers
who had served in India, such difficulties were easily met, and these
gallant Sikhs, Rajputs, Gurkhas, and Pathans suffered no injury to their
religious faith, while at the same time they fought shoulder to shoulder
with their white comrades in defence of the British Empire.


It would be a great mistake to suppose that the enemy was content only
to fight in the cockpit of Europe. The far-flung battle line reached at
last from Belgium to Switzerland, something like three hundred miles,
and all along there was constant fighting. The struggle swayed backwards
and forwards—indeed, for weeks it seemed like a joust between two
determined wrestlers, each of whom, if he gave way an inch one day, got
back an inch the next.


Particularly violent was the struggle round and for Arras. This quaint
town has been described as the most picturesque in Northern Europe. This
was partly owing to the fact that it still retained great traces of the
old Spanish occupation. One square in Arras looked as if it had been
lifted bodily out of Spain. Like so many north of France and Belgian
towns, it also had a singularly beautiful town hall and belfry. Alas!
all this beauty, including the little Spanish square, was bombarded and
destroyed. But, sad as was the fate of Arras, it was shared by many
other historic towns.


All along the battle line deeds of valour, of daring, and of quiet,
unostentatious heroism were daily performed. Many of our soldiers and
airmen earned not only the Legion of Honour, but the Médaille Militaire,
which is only awarded for deeds of exceptional daring performed on
active service.


Private F. W. Dodson, of Meadowwell, North Shields, serving with the 2nd
Coldstream Guards, was recommended for the V.C. for saving a wounded
comrade under fire. When writing to his wife on their wedding
anniversary an account of what had happened he said:

“You will know by the time you receive this that I have been recommended
for the V.C., an honour I never thought would come my way. I only took
my chance, and did my duty to save my comrade. It was really nothing,
but I shall never forget the congratulations and praise I received from
our officers, my comrades, and our Brigadier-General. I shall ever
remember them.”


Mrs. Dodson must have been a proud woman when she read this modest,
manly letter, as also when she received yet another letter from the wife
of her husband’s commanding officer, Captain Follett. Lady Mildred
Follett sent her the following extract from a letter received from her
husband:

“A thick fog came down, so I sent a group of three men out 100 yards to
our front to warn us of an attack from the enemy. After they had been
there an hour, the fog suddenly lifted, and they were fired on at close
range by the Germans. One man was killed, one was wounded badly, and one
crawled back. I didn’t know how to get the wounded man back, so I had to
call for a volunteer, and a reservist, Dodson, at once responded, and
went out and fetched him. He was heavily fired at, but not hit. He is
quite all right.”


It is comforting to know that the bravest, even the most reckless, men
constantly have marvellous escapes. Take the case of Lieutenant A. C.
Johnston, the Hampshire county cricketer. The day before he was wounded,
the nose of a shell hit a wall six inches above his head. Shortly after
that a bullet hit the ground half a yard in front of him, bounded up,
and hit him on the body, bruising his ribs. Then a bullet hit him over
the heart, but was “spent” before reaching him. Finally, while he was
sitting on the steps of a house, half the building was blown up, and he
was not even touched!


You will often hear contemptuous allusions to “amateurs” and their
doings. But amateurs have proved, especially in this war, that they
often are just as good as those who have been carefully trained to do a
special job.

One of the finest “amateur” corps in this war was that of the British
Volunteer Despatch-riders. Thanks to their work the generals commanding
were able to keep in constant touch with one another, a matter of vital
importance in warfare.

Many of these young fellows were just fresh from their Universities, and
had no previous military experience, but they showed remarkable dash and
bravery while travelling on motor-cycles through a country infested with
enemies.

Many and thrilling were their adventures. On one occasion an Australian
from Cambridge, while speeding along a country road, suddenly came upon
a party of fourteen German cavalrymen. With characteristic audacity he
drew his revolver and shot down an officer and one man, whereupon the
others ran away. Thus the Australian was able to deliver his despatch,
which informed a corps commander that Germans were in the neighbourhood,
and so prevented what might have been a disagreeable surprise.


The spy service, or, as they prefer to call it, the Secret Intelligence
Department, has always been very cleverly conducted by the German War
Office. Of the many devices resorted to by the enemy to convey secret
information to those whom it concerned, the most curious and original
was that known as the sign of the Black Cow.

All over the area of war the French and British troops were much
surprised and mystified by seeing rough sketches of a black cow on walls
and the sides of houses, even on gates and fences. Sometimes it was a
small cow, sometimes a large cow; sometimes the cow was standing,
sometimes she was lying down.

At last a French officer, cleverer or blessed with more imagination than
his fellows, suddenly “tumbled to” the explanation. The small cow meant
that the road in front was weakly defended. The large cow conveyed the
warning that the enemy were strongly entrenched near by. Always the
direction in which the head pointed told where the enemy lay. Only when
the head was tossed back, and the horns were long and pointed, did it
indicate to the enemy that an aeroplane reconnaissance would be valuable
over there.


I think one of the stories of plain-man valour which impressed me most
was that of a young telegraphist at Lille. He managed to move his
instruments into the cellar of the house next to the Post Office. He
then went and installed himself there; and for three weeks, helped by a
few faithful friends who managed to give him food and water at certain
long intervals, he conveyed valuable information to the Allied forces.

Now one of the most extraordinary features of this war has been the way
in which towns and villages, aye, and even houses, have been taken and
retaken alternately by friends and enemies. When the French had a
temporary success the young telegraphist did not come out, as most
people would have done; he remained where he was, knowing how probable
was the presence of spies. Thus, when Lille was once more in German
occupation, he was able to go on with his valuable help to the Allies.


A good many of us just now are anxious about some prisoner of war, and
it is curious how few people know the pains, penalties, and privileges
to which the prisoner of war is doomed or entitled. To begin with, the
person of a prisoner of war is sacred, and on the whole he is well
treated. Thus his captors have not the right to ask him for information
which would do harm to his own side. He can, however, be forced to work
for his captors. The Germans are said to make their prisoners work at
digging trenches and making earthworks, which is not fair, for of course
such defences are intended to be used against the prisoner’s own side.
If a prisoner of war gives his word not to escape he is often allowed
much more liberty, but, as a rule, British and French officers refuse to
give any such promise. Should one of them escape, he may be fired at,
but if he is retaken he may not be punished for having tried to escape.

In this war, Britain has treated her prisoners in a very generous and
humane fashion. Those among them who are wounded were actually visited
by our King and Queen, who spoke to them kindly in their own language,
and gave orders that their comfort should be studied.


Immediately after what I have called the Battle of the Dykes, came one
of the fiercest struggles of the war, that which centred round the
curiously-named town of Ypres. This quaint, beautiful, old town was
once, strange to say, besieged by an English Churchman, Henry Spencer,
Bishop of Norwich. He failed to take Ypres because of the stout
resistance offered to his soldiers by a hedge of thorn-bushes! This
hedge grew on the ramparts, and proved a very real defence. In memory of
their preservation the people of Ypres hold a fair every August, and in
the Cathedral is a fine painting called “Our Lady of the Garden,” to
show that the aid of Heaven as well as of the thorns had been invoked.


One wonders if the Kaiser had heard of that old siege, when he issued
his cruel and wanton order commanding that Ypres, with its lovely old
houses, and its famous Cloth Hall, should be razed to the ground. Such
destruction could bring no military advantage. In fact, the British held
on to Ypres with splendid tenacity, though many gallant and noble young
lives were laid down during the fierce fighting which went on there.


Other cities, not less beautiful than Ypres, and not less famed in
history, were the scene of awful battles during this phase of the great
war.

Tournai, where an important engagement was fought, is a quiet, placid
town where are made what are called “Brussels” carpets. According to
tradition, the art of weaving these carpets was brought home from the
Crusades by Flemish soldiers, who had learnt it from the Saracens.
Tournai is quite used to being the scene of fierce and bloody conflicts.
It was splendidly defended nearly five hundred years ago by a woman,
Princess Christine d’Espinoy, an ancestor of the Comte de Lalaing who is
now Belgian Minister in England. It was said of this princess that she
united the skill of a prudent general to the valour of a brave warrior,
and, although she was herself badly wounded, she only gave in when
three-fourths of her garrison were either dead or unable to fight. You
may be interested to learn that Tournai is not far from the famous
battlefield of Fontenoy, where English, Dutch, and Austrians were
defeated by the French with the help of the gallant Irish Brigades which
had been raised by, and for, the Stuarts.


Then there is the town of Courtrai, where was fought the
beautifully-named battle of the Golden Spurs. This must not be confused
with the Battle of the Spurs which was fought two hundred years earlier.
The Battle of the Golden Spurs was won by the weavers of Ghent and
Bruges, fighting against the French. Hundreds of gilt spurs worn by the
French officers were gathered on the field where British and French have
now fought side by side.

Round Peronne, too, fierce fighting went on during the struggle in
Northern France and Flanders. This town has had the honour of holding
more than one king captive. King Charles the Simple was imprisoned there
for fifteen years, and is even said to have been starved to death there.
When Louis XI came to Peronne to meet Charles the Bold, the latter shut
him up for two days in his castle to punish him for having stirred up
Liège to rebel, and only released him when Louis consented to sign the
Treaty of Peronne. The town was once finely defended by a woman,
Catharine de Poix, five hundred years ago, and the fortress never fell
till the Duke of Wellington took it in 1815.

I suppose there has never been before so long a battleline as that which
extended from the sea at Ostend right across Flanders and through
Northern and Eastern France to the borders of Switzerland. The armies of
the Allies were under the supreme command of General Joffre, whom Lord
Kitchener described at the Guildhall banquet as not only a great soldier
but a great man. Sir John French and the British Army fought mostly in
Flanders, where they repulsed terrific onslaughts delivered by the
flower of the enemy, notably by the famous Prussian Corps of the Guards.


It is interesting to recall that among the British and French who thus
fought side by side were descendants of heroes who had fought against
one another on the field of Waterloo. For instance, a great grandson of
the Duke of Wellington was, through his work in the Flying Corps,
brought into daily touch with the Duke of Elchingen, a direct descendant
of Marshal Ney.


As the fighting grew fiercer, so the number of the wounded rose to
terrible proportions. Splendid deeds of valour were performed by the men
and women, doctors, nurses, and ambulance men, whose duty it is to bring
in and care for the soldiers who have fallen on the battlefield.


I must tell you of one truly heroic deed done by an English officer:

After an engagement in which the Germans were repulsed, they fell back,
taking with them all their wounded except one, who was overlooked. An
English officer, having given the order “Cease fire,” himself went out
into the open to pick up the wounded German. He was struck by several
German bullets and badly wounded, but the Germans, as soon as they saw
what his object was, also ordered the “Cease fire.” Thereupon our
officer staggered to the fallen man and carried him to the German lines.
A German officer received him with a salute, and, calling for cheers,
pinned upon his breast an Iron Cross. Then the officer returned to his
own trenches. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross for this notable
example of chivalry, but he died of his wounds.


The German soldier is sometimes a more gallant foe than is his
commander. A couple of wounded Germans arrived at the hospital of Saint
Mandier, Toulon, bearing round their necks cards on which had been
written by the senior surgeon who had sent them there, the words: “These
two Germans are recommended to the special care and attention of my
colleagues, because they have saved a French officer.”

It then appeared that on the field of battle these Germans lay by the
side of a French officer, who, like themselves, was badly wounded.
Presently there came along a party of German cavalry, who, seeing the
Frenchman, proposed in a mean and cowardly way to finish him off. But
the two Germans—believed to be Bavarians—would have none of it, and
themselves defended the wounded Frenchman. When all three reached
hospital, the French officer told the story.


While our men were fighting and dying for their country in Flanders,
people at home did all they could to help them. No one was too great, no
one too humble, to support the many kindly and ingenious schemes which
were devised.

Lord Roberts, by a personal appeal, obtained thousands of field-glasses
for the use of our officers, and then, with like success, he obtained
great numbers of saddles for our cavalry. To each donor, whether of the
field-glasses or of the saddles, he sent a personal letter of thanks.


You know, of course, that Lord Roberts died as he would have wished to
die—with the Army. It was about the middle of November that he went to
France to see and speak with the Indian troops, and there he caught a
chill which, alas! he had not strength to resist.

It would take a great book to tell you all that Lord Roberts tried to
do, and all that he succeeded in doing, for his country. I can only here
give you the splendid and heartening message which he sent to the
children of the Empire:

“You have all heard of the war; you have all heard of the fighting
forces sent from every part of the Empire to help the Mother Country.
Why are we fighting? Because the British Empire does not break its
promises, nor will it allow small nations to be bullied.

“Now, the British Government promised, with all the Great Powers of
Europe, including Germany, that no army should set foot on the territory
of the little nation of Belgium without her leave; in other words, she
‘guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium.’

“Germany, however, was bent on war, and on dominating other nations.
Britain did her best to keep the peace, but Germany (breaking her word)
marched her armies into Belgium to try and conquer France.

“Children of the Empire, this is why we are at war—to hold our promise,
to help our friends, and to keep the Flag of Liberty flying, not only
over our own Empire, but over the whole world.

“God Save our King and Empire.

                                              “ROBERTS (Field-Marshal).”

Truly to Lord Roberts may be applied the famous lines:

                  “Great in council and great in war,
                  Foremost captain of his time,
                  And, as the greatest only are,
                  In his simplicity sublime.”


You will remember my telling you of the exploits of the German cruiser
Emden. Well, early in November she was caught and destroyed by the
cruiser Sydney, of the Australian Navy.

The captain of the Emden, whose name is Karl von Müller, became a sort
of hero of romance. This was partly because of his extraordinary
ingenuity and daring, partly because he treated the crews of the liners
he captured with humanity and politeness. Our seamen chivalrously gave
him and his officers all the honours of war, allowing them to keep their
swords.

Von Müller was accused by the crew of at least one of his captures of
having sent out S.O.S. signals to lure merchant ships into his net.
These signals, as you know, mean, “I am in great distress. Come as quick
as you can to the rescue.” If he really played this trick, I find it
difficult to admire him for it.

I do not know whether Captain von Müller is a reader of Mr. Cutcliffe
Hyne’s entertaining books, but he certainly repeated in real life an
exploit of Commander M‘Turk in “The Western Ocean Pirate.” He added a
sham funnel to the Emden, and crept into Penang Harbour, pretending to
be a British cruiser. He was thus able to dispose of two warships, one
of them Russian.


As winter drew near, everyone turned their thoughts to providing warm
garments and warming comforts for the troops. The Queen appealed to the
women of the Empire and splendidly they responded. Young and old fingers
knitted socks, mittens, comforters, and body belts, till hundreds of
thousands were despatched to the front and to the Fleet.

Always remember that a deed of real kindness warms the heart as truly as
a cosy garment warms the body. Our brave men, as we know by their
grateful letters home, felt ever so much heartened by these and other
signs of our gratitude.


And while we were all working here, French women, Russian women, and
German women, helped by their children, were also all intent on
providing their soldiers with winter comforts. But thinking of those
industrious, devoted German mothers and wives, I wonder if they ever
give a thought to those Belgian women who, homeless wanderers owing to
Germany’s ruthless inhumanity, can provide nothing for _their_ sons and
brothers, but have to rely entirely on the kindness of their Allies and
of America.


I do not think I can end this record of gallant, merciful, and kindly
deeds without telling you of the Santa Claus ship from America.

The poor little Belgians, and those French boys and girls whose homes
have been destroyed by fire, shell, and shot, are not likely to have any
Christmas presents this year. Neither are the children of the other
combatant nations likely to have a very happy Christmas. So a kind
American editor bethought himself that here was a chance for the boys
and girls of America. The American Government entered very heartily into
the project of sending what is now known as the Santa Claus ship to
Europe with Christmas presents for the children of the warring nations,
and they offered the use of a United States battleship. It was settled
that the battleship should fly at her foremast a large white flag, with
a red Star of Hope in the centre, and under it the word “Inasmuch.” It
was further arranged that the Santa Claus ship should proceed first to
England, then to France, and then to Belgium, the German children’s
presents being sent through Rotterdam.


I want you to try and make a special effort to remember the following
deed of heroism, because it seems to me to be in some ways the most
moving and splendid told you in this book. That is why I have put it
last.

It was during an engagement near Nancy that Corporal Lancaster, of the
Coldstream Guards, was shot in the neck. It was a terrible wound, and
his comrades dragged him into the shelter of a haystack. “Be quiet,”
they whispered, “for if you groan you will give away the position.”

Lancaster remained silent for six hours.

At last the Germans advanced. At a hundred yards from the haystack they
were met by the blinding hail of the machine-gun section of the
Coldstreams, and the silence of Corporal Lancaster was rewarded. Still
grimly silent, he was gathered in by the Red Cross men at the end of a
terrible day, and was soon on his way to England, who, we may safely
assert, has never borne a braver son.


As the War Christmas drew in sight, kind Princess Mary suddenly
bethought herself how nice it would be to send each of our sailors and
soldiers a Christmas gift, or rather a Christmas parcel. Her Royal
Highness accordingly issued a touching appeal to the public. It was
responded to with great eagerness and enthusiasm. As a result five
articles were sent to each man on active service, from Sir John French
and Sir John Jellicoe to the youngest private or sailor serving under
him. Every parcel contained some tobacco in a brass box on which was
engraved, in a medallion, the names of the Allies, the proud words
“Imperium Britannicum,” and a portrait of Princess Mary.

I feel I cannot end a record of gallant and merciful deeds more suitably
than with the beautiful supplication for peace written by a French
prince, Charles of Orleans, when a prisoner in England five hundred
years ago.

I have not attempted to find or to provide a translation, for this poem,
written in what a boy poet once called stained-glass-window French, is
perfect, full of the humble piety and unquestioning faith of an age more
trusting and holier than ours.

              “Priez pour paix, douce Vierge Marie,
              Reine des cieux et du monde maistresse,
              Faites prier, par vostre courtaisie,
              Saints et saintes, et prenez vostre adresse
              Vers vostre fils, requérant sa hautesse
              Qu’il lui plaise son peuple regarder
              Que de son sang a voulu racheter,
              En déboutant guerre que tout désvoie;
              De prières ne vous veuillez lasser,
              Priez pour paix, le vrai trésor de joie.”


     Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. at Paul’s Work, Edinburgh

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


 ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
 ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.





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