<7ir
oLke Bailj ®*Ujjraph
WAR BOOKS
WITH THE FRENCH EASTERN ARMY
WAR SOOKS
Post
free
1/3
each
Cloth
l/;„
each
HOW THE WAR BEGAN By W. L. COURTNEY
LL.D.. and J. M. KENNEDY " '
THE FLEETS AT WAR By ARCHIBALD HURD
THE CAMPAIGN OF SEDAN By GEORGE
HOOPER
THE CAMPAIGN ROUND LIEGE By J M.
KENNEDY y J
IN THE FIRING LINE By AST. JOHN ADCOCK
GREAT BATTLES OF THE WORLD
By STEPHEN CRANE
BRITISH REGIMENTS AT THE FRONT
THE RED CROSS IN WAR By Mi« MARY
FRANCES BILLINGTON
FORTY YEARS AFTER The Story of the Franco-
German War By H. C. BAILEY With an Introduction by W. L.
A SCRAP* OF" PAPER By E. J. DILLON
HOW THE NATIONS WAGED WAR
By J. M. KENNEDY
AIR-CRAFT IN WAR By S. ERIC BRUCE
FAMOUS FIGHTS OF INDIAN NATIVE
REGIMENTS By REGINALD HODDER
THE FIGHTING RETREAT TO PARIS
By ROGER INGPEN
THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIAN
POLAND By P. C. STANDEN
THE BATTLES OF THE RIVERS Bv
EDMUND DANE y
FROM HELIGOLAND TO KEELING
ISLAND By ARCHIBALD HURD
THE SLAV NATIONS By SRGJAN PL. TUCIC
SUBMARINES, MINES AND TORPEDOES
By A. S. DOMVILLE-FIFE
WITH THE R.A.M.C. AT THE FRONT
By E. C. VIVIAN
MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR B»
HORACE WYATT y
HACKING THROUGH BELGIUM Bv
EDMUND DANE y
WITH THE FRENCH EASTERN ARMY
THE GERMAN NAVY By ARCHIBALD HURD
OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION
PUBLISHED FOR THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
BY HODDER & STOUGHTON. WARWICK SQUARE,
LONDON, E.C.
SBHUBKUHH
WITH THE FRENCH
EASTERN ARMY
BY
W. E. GREY
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
MCMXV
A TRIBUTE TO OUR FRENCH ALLIES
Earl Kitchener in the House of Lords :
" During all this time the long line from
Lille to Verdun was maintained intact by
our French allies against constant attacks
from the German forces. The French Army
have shown the greatest tenacity and endur-
ance and have displayed the highest fighting
qualities in thus defending their position
against any advance of the Germans. For
although they have made notable advances
at various points, they have never yielded
up a yard of their country since I last
addressed your lordships.
Earl Curzon : " Glad I was to hear the
noble Earl include in his tribute words
regarding the tremendously heavy part
that has been played by the French. We
are rather apt in this country — it is a
pardonable fault, concentrating our atten-
tion as we do on the fifteen or twenty miles
6 Tribute
where our own troops are fighting — to think
that is the centre and focus of the war.
Do not let us forget that it is not more than
one tenth of the line held by our allies, and
it is due to their patience and the strategy
of the French commander and to their
endurance that France, who is fighting our
battle just as much as her own, has so
gallantly held her own all the way from
Switzerland to the sea."
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. GERMANY'S WESTERN SCHEMES - 9
II. THE INSPIRATION AND THE MAN - 33
III. THE FIGHTING IN THE CONQUERED
PROVINCES 57
IV. A HEAVY FRENCH DEFEAT - - 78
V. THE FIGHT FOR NANCY ~ " 97
VI. BEATING THE CROWN PRINCE - 113
VII. IN THE VOSGES - - "133
VIII. THREATENING THE GERMAN LEFT 149
IX. A POSTSCRIPT : THE " NIBBLES '
BECOME GREAT " BITES " - 167
CHAPTER I
Germany's Western Schemes
Attention in England has been concen-
trated first on the brilliant retreat effected
by General Joffre and Sir John French on
Paris, then on the battles of the Marne and
the Aisne, and next on the long series of
capital engagements in that cockpit of
Europe, Belgium. Because of this, little
interest has been shown in the fighting on
the right of the Allied line. The British
troops have had no share worth men-
tioning in that. The whole brunt of it
has fallen on the French and they have
acquitted themselves there with a skill and
a bravery worthy of their finest records.
The unfortunate absence of war corre-
spondents will prevent for ever many heroic
deeds done in these months of struggle
against Germany's invading hordes from
becoming known. This volume is an attempt
at doing some justice to the work of our
9 A*
10 With the French Eastern Army
allies in that quarter and of showing
how important it has been to the common
cause. The writer had exceptional oppor-
tunities of studying the French action in
this region and is convinced, that it was
the impossibility of crumpling up the
French right which has led elsewhere to
defeat after defeat of the Germans in their
efforts to break through the Allied line and
overrun the rich provinces of France.
Something must necessarily be said of
the political side of the warfare which has
gone on in Alsace Lorraine and on the
eastern frontier. When I arrived in Paris,
the French Government had just gone off
to Bordeaux, and something like a couple of
million of people, residents in Paris for the
most part but with a large proportion of
panic-stricken American citizens, had seized
the opportunity to fly from the French
capital. The fear of a siege was before
their eyes. Even many of the newspapers
shifted their offices to Bordeaux and
produced their sheets in that great and
beautiful city of the South. Those who
did remain nicknamed the others " The
Swallows " flying south.
The inner history of those days will be
Germany's Western Schemes 11
well worth telling when the time comes.
There are a number of public men who are
not anxious that the story of that period
should be told at all. It would explain why
one prominent gentleman found it necessary
to leave France on a mission of inquiry to
another people, a mission which is not
likely to be concluded in a hurry. It was
more than whispered that a scheme was on
foot which would have been greatly to the
advantage of a group of international
financiers, and amounted practically to the
sale of the French capital. But the sellers
were to be the Germans and the buyers the
people of Paris. In other words the pro-
posal was one to purchase immunity for
Paris by providing the Germans with a
large sum in hard cash which the enemy
badly needed to finance them in their
operations against Russia and Great Britain.
Patriotically, the French kept this to
themselves, and M. Poincare, the President,
in consultation with the Prime Minister and
the Council of War, solved the difficulty by
ordering a retreat to Bordeaux. Paris was
left in the hands of that able soldier, General
Gallieni, the man who consolidated the
French conquest of Madagascar, and he soon
12 With the French Eastern Army-
dissipated into thin air any notion of sur-
rendering the capital as an open town.
Immediately the Government had been
safely bestowed on the banks of the
Garonne he set to work to still further
strengthen the already strong outer de-
fences of Paris, and enabled General Joffre
to have a free hand for the great strategical
movement which he had worked out with
Field-Marshal Sir John French, in prepara-
tion for the very eventualities which have
now occurred, that is, a fierce but carefully
prepared attack on France by Germany
through what it was hoped would be an
inactive and possibly complacent Belgium.
From the military point of view this was a
tremendous gain. It made Paris, as it were,
the hub of the wheel on which the right
wing of the Allies — entirely French in com-
position— and the left wing made up of
French and British troops could pivot, and
it made easy the transfer of troops from
either flank by means of the ceinture rail-
ways of Paris.
Now, it was known that the Germans
had no stomach for an attack on the Eastern
frontier of France. One who is well in the
secret of the Great General Staff of Petro-
Germany's Western Schemes 13
grad, has stated that the basis of all present-
day German strategy is to take the line
of least resistance. Ordinarily that would
answer could the line of least resistance be
always exactly discovered. But not once
in the present war has the Kaiser and his
generals found it. On the contrary, they
have invariably accepted both in the
Eastern and Western battlefields what the
opposing forces pretended was the line of
least resistance and have thus fallen into
carefully arranged traps, involving them in
appalling losses.
It discounts entirely their boasts about
the quality of their heavy artillery in that
they would not face the fortresses on the
Eastern frontier. Yet if their guns had
been so efficient it would have been dis-
tinctly to their advantage to have tried to
break through between Verdun and Toul,
or between Epinal and Belfort. They
would not then have had to tear up that
scrap of paper of which the German Chan-
cellor spoke so slightingly to Sir Edward
Goschen, the British Ambassador in Berlin.
They would not have infringed the neu-
trality of Belgium, and above all would have
kept us out of the struggle with our powerful
14 With the French Eastern Army
fleet, and, as it has proved, our uncon-
querable army. At least we could not have
gone into the war with so splendid a reason
and Germany would have found friends in
neutral nations where now she has her most
severe critics.
But years and years ago the Kaiser and
his War Lords decided against any attempt
otherwise than through Belgium, or by
French Lorraine, as likely to be effective
in the raid they proposed to make on France.
Our Headquarters Staff, as well as that of
the French, were well aware of the German
plan of invasion. Looking at the matter
from the Teutonic standpoint and leaving
all questions of international guarantees out
of account, their decision to turn the
formidable defensive lines which protect
the French frontier between Verdun and
the Swiss border, by moving a portion of
their fighting forces through neutral terri-
tory, was a wise one. Months before war
was thought of a distinguished ofhcer, then
on the retired list, but now recalled with
the rank of General to serve in the British
Army, wrote : " Experiences in recent cam-
paigns indicate that fortifications even
when they are not of the most formidable
Germany's Western Schemes 15
type, cannot readily be rushed — that was
proved at Port Arthur and has since been
shown at Adrianople, Janina, and Chatalja
— and in the warfare of the present day
it is all important to gain the upper hand
from the start. For many years after the
French had taken their lines of defence
between Verdun and Toul and between
Epinal and Belfort, German military
thinkers were inclined to assume that these
fortifications would not, in the event of war,
prove sufficient obstacles to compel in-
vading hosts coming from the east to find
their way through the gaps purposely left by
General de Riviere. But the lessons of the
war in the Far East, coupled with the fact
that the defences have been somewhat
strengthened at important points, have
obliged the Germans to realise that for
practical purposes advances in force can
only be carried out through the gaps."
The justness of these observations was
shown by the surprising resistance offered
by Liege, though the forts were not at all
of the type which the Germans would have
had to attack at Verdun and elsewhere.
When General de Riviere originally de-
signed the lines of fortification, the gaps
16 With the French Eastern Army
between Verdun and the Belgian frontier,
and between Toul and Epinal had a width
of about forty miles. The routes through
the northern gap lead, in the first instance,
into a somewhat rugged and inhospitable
Argonne country, and as Luxembourg was
neutral territory the approaches from the
German side were too narrow for the
development of great armies. The gap
between Toul and Epinal, on the other
hand, was a gateway into the upper basins
of the Meuse, the Marne, and the Seine.
It was a fertile region eminently adapted
for military operations conducted by great
masses of men, and the great lines of rail-
way communication leading from the in-
terior of Germany converge upon the
Franco-German frontier opposite to this
gap. They were calculated to insure the
concentration, within a very few days of the
commencement of hostilities, of a vast army
ready to advance.
Changes, however, had been made in the
lines in the period that had elapsed since
they were first laid down. The French ex-
tended the works on the Toul side. An
awkward fort was constructed in an im-
portant position close to the Luneville, and
Germany's Western Schemes 17
the gap was no longer forty miles wide.
Further, the fighting strength of both the
French and the Germans had appreciably
increased and sufficient room was no longer
available on which to manoeuvre these vast
forces. It was essential that Germany's
millions of men should be made full use of
from the very outset, and thus it is obvious
that the line of least resistance must lie
through Luxemburg and Belgium, and the
Great General Staff in Berlin decided without
any scruples whatever to overrun their two
small and, as they thought, harmless neigh-
bours. Luxemburg has not even an army
and they believed that Belgium would offer
no resistance. Besides it was part of the
German scheme of conquest to make that
country a province of the Empire. They
were, in fact, going to attack and destroy
France by advancing through a country
which they regarded as already, in essence,
owning allegiance to the Kaiser.
Ever since 1909, the Germans have been
busy preparing for this attack through
Belgium. The country immediately to the
east of the Belgian and Luxemburg fron-
tiers is not unlike the Ardennes country,
which has been long a favourite with British
18 With the French Eastern Army
tourists. It is hilly and in places is practically
a barren plateau. It is largely covered with
forest growths and has very few inhabitants.
There is neither population nor commerce
to justify the existence of many railways,
and as a matter of fact up to less than six
years ago only light railways were thought
necessary for the region. Important de-
velopments were then begun and I cannot
do better than quote again the General
already mentioned, who seems to have per-
sonally examined this portion of German
territory and brought away with him a
minute description of the changes that
were made or in progress not quite a year
ago :
" In the first place the Stolberg-St. Vith
line has been relaid and doubled, and very
extensive detraining stations have been
constructed at various points along it,
especially at Weiwertz and St. Vith. Then
the Remagen-Adenau line has been doubled
as far as Dumpelfeld, whence a double line
has been continued to Hillesheim, with
double branches outwards from Hillesheim
to Pelm and Junkerath, both on the
Cologne-Treves railway. Moreover from
Ahrdorf, between Dumpelfeldjand Hilles-
Germany's Western Schemes 19
heim, a single line has been constructed to
connect with the Cologne-Treve-s line at
Blankenheim. Then a most important
double line has been constructed across
barren country from Junkerath to Wei-
wertz on the Stolberg-St. Vith line. Up to
the present, however, little has apparently
been done on the line from Andernach on
the Rhine to Pelm, except that it has been
doubled as far as May en. Five lines con-
verge on Pelm — the double line from
Cologne, the new double line from Remagen
via Hillesheim, and a single line from Ander-
nach. Actually from Pelm to Gerolstein,
a distance of two or three miles, there are
laid down six parallel lines of rail, besides
numerous additional sidings. Moreover,
the double line from Hillesheim to Junkerath
crosses over the main Cologne-Treves line
by a bridge, and runs parallel to it for some
distance before turning off to the left to
reach Weiwertz. In fact, this knot of
lines about Junkerath, Pelm, and Gerol-
stein is so arranged that practically no
signalling difficulties would arise in case of
a sudden flood of traffic going in various
directions. Then the line from Gerolstein
to Pronsfeld has also been doubled."
20 With the French Eastern Army
" Further south a new line is being con-
structed from Waxweiller, near Pronsfeld
(to which there was already a branch) to
Bitburg, and another single line has been
constructed from Bitburg to near the
Luxemburg frontier, which is to join up
with the Luxemburg system at Echternach.
Moreover, very important work has been
carried out at Treves. Five years ago
there were at this point the double lines
from Cologne and Coblence, meeting at
Ehrang, a very extensive detraining station,
and then crossing the Moselle to run via
Treves to Thionville. There was also a
single line from Ehrang along the left bank
of the Moselle to the Luxemburg frontier,
with a bridge over the Moselle (then re-
cently constructed) joining the main line
beyond Treves. Since then this line along
the left bank has been doubled as far as the
frontier and an entirely new double-line
bridge has been constructed across the
Moselle, linking the railways on the two
banks of the river ; its channel is here of
about the same width as that of the Thames
at Kew, and navigable, so that these
bridges are costly works, involving long
stretches of high embankment. Moreover,
Germany's Western Schemes 21
at Igyl, within half a mile of the Luxem-
burg frontier on the left bank, a big en-
training station is at present being laid
out — it is as near to the frontier as it can
be got, a bluff intervening to prevent its
actually reaching the border. There are
vast sidings about Treves ; and Igyl,
Treves, and Ehrang, with the three bridges
over the Moselle, form for practical pur-
poses one huge detraining and rearranging
station. It is worthy of note that the
double line on from Igyl into the Grand
Duchy is not double all the way to Luxem-
burg, a stretch near that town, crossing
some hills, being only single. Igyl and the
new railway bridge are, in fact, purely
strategical, and they are directed against
territory the neutrality of which has been
guaranteed by Prussia."
It will be seen from the foregoing that long
before the war began the French entrenched
camps on the eastern frontier had cost the
Germans millions of money. They have
since cost them many millions more, both in
money and in men's lives, wantonly sacri-
ficed to gratify an ambition secretly enter-
tained by the Kaiser and his War Lords,
and one which they were bent on pursuing
22 With the French Eastern Army-
regardless of rights or wrongs, or of the
death and ruin which it would spread
among peaceful and unoffending popula-
tions. The French fortresses could not be
reduced by direct attack, but somehow or
other France was in Bismarck's historic
phrase "To be bled white " (literally like
veal), Belgium be annexed and then they
were to turn on us.
The case was brutally stated on the eve
of war by the National Zeitung of Berlin,
which not only dragged in the Almighty as
backing the German aims but jeered with
true Prussian disregard of the religion of
Bavaria and of Austria at the Lady of
Lourdes, a sacred figure to all Catholic
Europe. The Berlin journal declared
" Whatever may be reserved by Providence
for the German nation it is certain that He
will compel France to once more indemnify
us, but in another measure to that of forty-
four years ago. It will not be merely five
milliards which will be necessary to repay
us, but possibly thirty milliards. The
Holy Mother of God at Lourdes will have
plenty to do if she, as the worker of
miracles, has to cure all the bones that our
soldiers will break among the fellows on the
Germany's Western Schemes 23
other side of the Vosges. Poor France,
there is yet time for her to change her views,
but in a short time it will be too late.
France will then receive such terrific blows
that she will feel them for many genera-
tions."
It was hoped to take France at a dis-
advantage and from all I heard and all I
saw, Germany was successful. The fort-
resses of our ally were garrisoned by what
amounts to the only professional army the
country possessed. She was not mobilised,
and because of provisions made in the
treaties binding Germany, Austria and
Italy in an unholy alliance, she dare not
take an aggressive step, lest Italy came in.
Had she contemplated an attack on Ger-
many then or later, all I can say is that the
preparations made by French statesmen
and the French War Office were of the
poorest possible description. The French
had to face with what equanimity they
could the knowledge that on their frontiers
their troops had actually been retired and
that, with huge German armies on the
march to sweep over their territory, at
least a fortnight was necessary before
their mobilisation would become effective.
24 With the French Eastern Army
Happily for France, she is a nation of
quick resource and never showed herself so
great in every respect as during those early
days in August, when disaster sudden,
complete and irredeemable stared her people
in the face.
I like to think of that month of August
as it was in France. Some of us, myself
among the number, thought we knew the
French and their characteristics. It was a
time when we might have expected excita-
bility and even public clamour. Instead,
calmness reigned. The endless groups of
French political parties coalesced into one
patriotic whole, the Government was re-
formed on National lines, and every man
who could bear arms flew to defend the
beloved soil of France. Women and chil-
dren and old men were left to reap the
harvest, this year unusually abundant even
for France. The Boy Scout movement has
appealed strongly to the French, and lads
were out in their uniform doing good and
useful work for " La Patrie." I found
Paris as the city of Petra in Edom. Most
of the restaurants and cafes were closed,
not because they lacked custom, but because
proprietors, waiters, chefs, everyone on
Germany's Western Schemes 25
the roll of the army had donned his uni-
form and was at the service of the State.
In the newspaper offices editors, special
writers, reporters, compositors, machine-
room hands, even the camelots who sold
the journals on the boulevards had gone
to their stern duties. The theatres were
closed, for the actors, too, were playing a
greater and, alas, very often a tragic part in
this drama of war.
The journals were reduced to single
sheets, not so much because paper was
scarce as that no staff existed to bring out
larger issues. It speaks well for French
journalism that the men who were called in
to edit and produce their papers, though
most of them were beyond the age for
active service, had all the cheerful con-
fidence of younger men and believed in the
ultimate success of their country's arms.
They never struck a despondent note and
soon had material to which they could
point as proof that things were not going
badly. It does not fall to my lot to deal
with the brilliant and strategically excellent
defence of their Fatherland which was
offered by the Belgians. That, however,
was and is gratefully acknowledged in
26 With the French Eastern Army
France as of vital value to the French.
Even more than ourselves they are resolved
that Belgium shall lose nothing materially
because of that gallant stand they made
against the vast hordes of the Kaiser.
They were able themselves to bring their
army on the east into active operation in
the very first week, and it is with that army
that I am chiefly concerned. They then
made that bold dash into Alsace and Lor-
raine, which was disconcerting to the
Germans and proportionately heartening
to the French who were still in the throes
of mobilisation. That early fighting in the
two provinces which Prussia seized after
the war of 1870 has received little attention,
but I shall give in another chapter some
intimate details of it from one who was
through it all.
When Great Britain threw her sword into
the scale against Germany, it was a happy
thing to be British and in France. There
had been doubts as to whether we would
move, and I have a shrewd suspicion that
many of the rumours that then gained
ground were spread by the German agents
with which not only Paris, but the whole of
France were infested. No one who was
Germany's Western Schemes 27
acquainted with what was going on behind
the scenes paid any heed to these stories.
All the English knew that this nation would
not refuse the challenge which the Kaiser
had thrown down, and when we declared
war the French accepted it as absolute
evidence of certain success. They remem-
bered the Napoleonic days and said : " Ah !
these English never give in till they have
won."
Military officers had from the first no fear
as to the courage, skill and efficient training
of our army. Many of them expressed
themselves enviously of both the Russians
and ourselves, because we were the only
two nations who had known modern war.
They had studied our sj^stem of training
very closely, and many would have liked
to have seen it adopted in France, but there
is all the difference in the world between a
professional army and one raised by con-
scription, and they were under the impres-
sion at first that our methods of fighting,
which leave so much to the intelligence of
the non-commissioned officer and individual
soldier, were unsuited to the mentality of
their men.
Before the war had been in progress many
28 With the French Eastern Army
weeks they had changed their minds, and
under the stress of battle they began quietly
to assimilate their ways of fighting to ours.
In the earlier phases of the war they lost
men because their troops were brave to a
fault, and had not learnt to the full the
value of every scrap of cover and how much
could be done by spade work. The French
officers were especially gallant. They ex-
posed themselves with all the ancient valour
of their race, and lost proportionately.
They also have learnt better now, and are
modelling themselves successfully on the
British officer in every possible character-
istic. Gone are the gesticulations, the
waving of swords, and what seemed to us,
with our habits of self repression and lack
of demonstration, the theatrical side of drill
in the army of the Republic. They saw
our adaptability and in a word have imitated
it.
When Earl Kitchener's little message of
advice to British soldiers on the continent
was republished in translations in the French
newspapers, it was hailed, and not unjustly,
as the correct expression of how an army
should comport itself, and I found an
enthusiastic approval of it in the Bulletin
Germany's Western Schemes 29
des Armies, which is daily issued to the
French troops. Nothing could have had a
finer effect, and it was strongly commended
as the ideal of a great soldier, but above all
" an officer and a gentleman," a phrase
which one found in very common use.
It was with determination and confidence,
therefore, that the French prepared to take
the field against their ancient foes. Their
mobilisation was conducted with swiftness
and General J off re, the generalissimo, knew,
when he was ready to face the enemy some
fifteen days after the declaration of war,
that the numbers who had rejoined the
Colours exceeded all expectation. France's
sons had rallied to her need wherever they
might be, and when the official figures are
available, it will be found that the absentees
were very few indeed. The French General
Staff had long decided that they would not
expend on the first operations the younger
of their First line troops. They went back
to the class 1909 and earlier, leaving the
later classes to come into the fighting line
when their elders had borne the brunt of
the first shock.
The plans laid down by the French Staff
are very clearly stated by Mr. Hilliard
30 With the French Eastern Army
Atteridge in his book " The First Phase of
the Great War " (Hodder and Stoughton).
Their scheme was " to attack simultaneously
at several points the German armies that
were massing in Belgium and along the
frontiers of France. The great battle line
would extend for hundreds of miles from
Belfort near the Swiss frontier, along the
Vosges, and the borders of Lorraine, to
the wooded hills of Luxemburg and the
Ardennes, and the undulating plains west
of the Belgian Meuse, along the Sambre and
by Mons towards Tournai. It was not, of
course, a continuous line of guns and men
everywhere of equal strength. Along the
eastern frontier the line of entrenched camps
and forts from Belfort to Verdun enabled
comparatively small forces to oppose the
German invasion. Here there was to be an
advance from the northern Vosges into the
lower lands of Alsace, and a second move
of a strong force into Lorraine south of Metz
by Chateau-Salins and Morhange. These
movements were inspired by the desire to
show the tricolour again in the annexed
provinces.
" North of Verdun there was to be
another advance towards Longwy, an at-
Germany's Western Schemes 31
tempt to hold out a hand to the little
garrison that was gallantly keeping the
flag flying over the old bastioned fortress,
which seemed hardly capable of defence
against modern heavy artillery, but for all
that was making a stubborn resistance.
On the Allied left the main advance was to
be made into Belgium. East of the Meuse
a French army was to march across the
Semois into the forests of the Ardennes,
where the Duke of Wurtemburg's army
had its headquarters at Neufchateau. On
the other side of the Meuse another army
was to cross the Sambre, and march by the
battlefield of Ligny against the German
army that was advancing between Brussels
and Namur, and had already begun the
siege of the Namur forts. This movement
would be covered on the left by the advance
of the British Expeditionary Force by
Mons."
No doubt all this had been arranged in
consultation with Sir John French, who
was singularly familiar with the country in
which the troops were to engage, but the
French Secret Service had failed to note
the preparations made in peace time by the
Germans for their attack on France. Under
32 With the French Eastern Army
the plea of carrying out commercial under-
takings positions for heavy artillery had
been surveyed and selected and platforms
constructed in places which would dominate
the fortifications on the Franco-Belgian
frontier. These had been neglected, and
were not up to date. Lille, in fact, was
practically dismantled, and Namur, as it
proved, could be taken by a ruse. The
French, acting in perfect good faith, had
not strengthened their defences on the
Belgian frontier, because they feared nothing
from Belgium, whose neutrality was guar-
anteed by Great Britain and Germany.
That guarantee, it should also be remem-
bered, was directed against the French,
who were themselves parties to it, and
rigorously respected their treaty obliga-
tions even in the stress of the war of 1870,
when it would have been of advantage to
them to have torn up that famous " scrap
of paper."
CHAPTER II
The Inspiration and the Man
In many if not most of the villages and
towns lying behind the line of battle from
Soissons to Belfort, there has frequently
been seen a tall, heavy-looking man, his
hair and moustache grey, his face somewhat
fleshy, his eyes dark and rather somnolent.
Except his uniform, there is no indication
about him of the Commander-in-Chief, as
Earl Kitchener called him, of the Allied
army. But it is General J off re all the
same. He is as deceptive in appearance
as he is in his fighting. He is as little like
the great soldier of tradition as was the
von Moltke of 1870, or the Sir John French
of to-day. Joffre and French have, how-
ever, a curious resemblance to each other.
General Joffre never came much before the
French public. He was not often named
in their newspapers, but his tremendous
abilities were known to his comrades and to
83 B
34 With the French Eastern Army
the French Army Council, which, owing to
the frequent changes of Ministry and so on,
is less dominated by the civilian element
than is our own War Office.
General Joffre is one of the most unassum-
ing of men. He has not throughout his
career posed to the gallery at any time,
but has devoted himself with a single eye
to his chosen metier, and is one of those
happy men whose profession is their hobby.
He is a being of regular habits. During the
months of heavy fighting when he was
retiring before the German advance, and
afterwards when the Allies began to beat
back the enemy and demonstrate their
tremendous superiority not only in strategy,
but in tactics, General Joffre conducted his
campaign as though he was managing a
bureau in peace time. He had his petit
d&jeuner, his dejeuner and his dinner at the
accustomed hours, and it is said that he
has not hurried over a meal since the war
began, not even when the German spy
system enabled the enemy's artillery to plant
heavy shells in the neighbourhood of his
headquarters. It must not be supposed
that he is fond of the table. He is not, but
he thinks that a regularly nourished body
The Inspiration and the Man 35
assists in keeping the mental faculties at
their normal. War, from his point of view,
if it is to be successful, must be, like the
attainment of genius, a matter of pains-
taking effort.
There is a saying of our Indian fellow
citizens — the men who are fighting side by
side with us and the French — that the
crocodile is always at the ford where he is
not expected. This is one of the character-
istics of General J off re. The enemy and
even his own men may think the French
Commander-in-Chief is in this place or that,
but he is generally to be found where no fore-
warning of him is given. He has the knack
of getting the very last ounce out of every-
one in the fighting line, and when they have
reached the stage when they feel that they
can do no more, and are simply clinging on
desperately to their position, because help
and General J off re are seemingly far away,
they find that both are with them and
recognise themselves as unconquerable.
General J off re had at first some un-
pleasant things to do. Even senior officers,
who are crack soldiers in peace time, prove
themselves disappointing when war tests
the souls of men. The French Commander-
36 With the French Eastern Army
in-Chief had, therefore, to send back many
distinguished comrades and replace them
by others who were showing capacity.
There is nothing remarkable in this, for
Field-Marshal Sir John French was doing
exactly the same thing at the same time ;
that is in the initial stages of the conflict.
General J off re was solely concerned with
one object, and that was the success of the
French arms. One of the first regulations
he laid down was that under no circum-
stances, except when they were killed on
the field of battle, were the names of
generals and other officers commanding to
be mentioned. He wanted no spectacular
heroism but hard honest work. It is
remarkable that a great many of the men
who have come to the front, and whose
names will be knownlater, are from opposite
ends of France. The Normans have shown
in their bulldog tenacity how closely they
are related to ourselves, while the men from
the South have had dash and imagination.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Allied
forces is a man of the Midi, and has both
imagination and tenacity. They can be
seen indicated by his high broad forehead
and his heavy jaw.
The Inspiration and the Man 37
His headquarters were generally some
little French town well situated on cross
roads where could be concentrated the
system of field telegraphs and field tele-
phones by means of which a Commander-
in-Chief receives news of the progress of his
three hundred miles long battle front, and
can transmit his orders. High powered
motor cars are at his disposal and those of
his A.D.C.'s and petrol is more important
than horse-flesh to these swift messengers.
General Joffre might be seen in the market
square slouching about rather heavily, his
hands behind his back, and very often in
company with that splendid fighter, General
de Castelnau, who has seen two of his sons
die for France without a sign of his grief.
Were General Joffre in mufti one might be
deceived into thinking from his comfortable
appearance that he was a fairly prosperous
merchant, instead of a man who has des-
troyed in a few months the German prestige,
rendered nugatory the German art of war,
which has been dinned into our heads for so
many years, and assisted to free Europe
from the nightmare of German militarism.
Such is the man, what of the inspiration
which moves him and the whole French
38 With the French Eastern Army
nation ? It is M. Maurice Barres, of the
Academie Francaise who supplies the answer
in a wonderful piece of writing which
General Joffre had published in the Bulletin
des Armies shortly after war was declared.
No translation can give an adequate idea of
the spirit-stirring phrases of the original
which is here Englished : —
" From whence comes this prodigy, this
transformation of France ? How is it we
are all standing united, purified, and on
fire ? France has always been the land of
re-awakenings and of new beginnings. Her
enemies believed her dying. They regarded
her coming end with spiteful joy, but she
rose in might and said as she seized the
sword : ' Behold me ; I am youthfulness ;
I am Hope ; I am the Right invincible ; I
am young like Jeanne d'Arc ; like the great
Conde at Rocroy ; like Marceau the Repub-
lican ; like General Buonaparte.' She
breathes of the clear air of the great days,
sacred and national, and by an uplifting of
her soul she decides the Victory. It is to
express this force of resurrection which
there is in our race, that we insist on a
national fete day in honour of the Maid of
Lorraine, who saved France when all
The Inspiration and the Man 39
appeared lost. If we do not have the f£te
and the commemoration of her miracles, we
have better, for we see that the miracle is
happening again. We live to-day one of
those sublime moments when in France all
is saved by the outburst of our enthusiasm,
by the depth of our inward fires. The Ger-
mans have said ' France is exhausted by
centuries of greatness, and yet more by the
anxiety with which she is distracted of
maintaining her past and preparing for the
future. We will easily make her our slave.
She is a prey, rich and to be quickly won.
Her sons have taken a disgust at war.
They would rather quarrel among them-
selves.' That is how they regard us, these
Germans. But they will see our young
men with their eyes glowing, their breasts
swelling with love of real glory and con-
tempt of death, forming a rampart behind
which the elders await the hour when they
in turn will shed their blood in the fighting
line. A mysterious force which is incarnate
in no person, and which no will can com-
mand, has reunited us shoulder to shoulder
and foot to foot. The enemies of yesterday
have become brothers-in-arms and brothers-
in-spirit. There is no more of party. One
40 With the French Eastern Army
single soul rises towards the heavens and
flames with ardour.
" Ah ! from what heart, from what
sanctuary has sprung that redeeming fire
which has inflamed all France ? What word
of a great poet has reanimated in our con-
sciences the spirit of our ancestors ? What
act of a political genius has pierced through
the thicknesses of indifference and whom
must we thank and glorify for having sent
through our nation such a current of
strength and of brotherhood ? It is Alsace-
Lorraine which has saved us. It is Alsace
that has performed this miracle. The secret
of our strength reposed in the foundations
of our being unknown to ourselves. The
thick rock was pierced, the spring com-
menced to flow when, some months ago,
military Imperialism began to abuse, pro-
voke and to strike the honest traders, work-
men, and peasants of Alsace because they
preserved in silence a filial affection for the
genius of France. The arrogant wicked-
ness ; the offences against justice ; that
barbarism insulting at the same time our
country and our humanity, that is what
has awakened in all of us the knowledge of
our moral superiority and of our mission.
The Inspiration and the Man 41
It is not we who have asked the question :
What is the spirit that must govern the
world ? But since it has been asked with
one single voice France has replied : ' The
spirit of injustice must not prevail under
Heaven,' and the hearts and the armies of
the entire world rush to our assistance.
Alsace-Lorraine, grief-stricken daughter, be
contented. During forty-four years by thy
fidelity thou hast maintained in our breasts
the common amity. The best of us receive
from thee their virtue. Thou art our
bond, our sign of communion, the hearth of
our patriotism, our shining example. To-
day the sacred fire has swept through all
France. Thou hast saved us from ourselves.
It is for us to deliver thee."
This document also helps to make it
clear why the French attack was made
through Lorraine. It was so sudden and
swift, actually taking place within a few
days of the declaration of war that it gave
the impression that the French had reached
a further stage in their mobilisation than
was generally supposed. It had a double
effect, putting heart into the French and
making the Germans afraid that they
would possibly, after all, not retain the
42 With the French Eastern Army
element of surprise on which they had
built extravagant hopes. It was really
a well-planned effort by a small force under
General Pau, who is one of the best known
leaders in the French Army, and one, more-
over, who is thought by the French to have
a personal revenge to wreak upon the Ger-
mans because he lost his right hand in
the fighting in Lorraine in 1870. He made
a dash for Mulhouse, captured it and held
it just sufficiently to make his presence
and his influence felt in the two lost pro-
vinces, caused the Germans to detach a
strong force lest the offensive should be a
serious one, and then retreated rapidly
but fighting rearguard action after rear-
guard action till his forces conformed with
the general line of the French Army. There
is much to be said of that fighting, which
did not receive adequate notice in the
English newspapers till November.
I give extracts from the diary of a sergeant
there engaged which was published by a
special correspondent of the Morning Post: —
" August 4th, 8 p.m., Toul. — I am going
to bed having learnt that war has been
declared. It will come to us as no surprise ;
it was so absolutely inevitable.
The Inspiration and the Man 43
" August 6th, 5 p.m. — At Hoeville, five
kilometres from the frontier.
" August 14th, 5.40 a.m. — We are now
over the frontier, everyone is in high
spirits. After marching for half an hour
we see the artillery taking up its position.
The country is so like ours that the present
boundary could never remain. The firing
keeps going on to our right, but still no one
in front of us. We regard Lorraine as
re-annexed from to-night.
" August 15th, 5 a.m. — The 7th company
is off to make a reconnaissance in the direc-
tion of Vic. They will probably not all
come back. The German aeroplane that
has been above us since daybreak is still
there. Our machine-guns hidden in the
wood fire upon it for pure sport, as the
aeroplane is more than two thousand
yards up. The bullets as they drop nearly
hit us, and break the branches off the trees
as they sing over our heads. All these little
incidents, however, leave us quite calm.
" August 17th, 3 p.m. — Some troops are
in front of us between Vic and Chateau-
Salins, some of our men in reconnaissance
to see whether the Germans have stopped.
It seems that we are the joint of a great
44 With the French Eastern Army
pair of pincers which is to squeeze the
Prussian corps in front of us, and our work
is to hold firm without trying to advance.
They are retreating from the pincers,
seriously threatened by the right jaw.
When shall we become one of the jaws in
our turn ? We are getting tired of always
retreating.
" August 19th, 7 a.m. — In sight of La
Neuville en Saulnois the battalion advanced
in echelon, my company leading, supported
by two machine-gun sections. After a few
rifle shots the Hussars entered the village
at the gallop, but nobody was left. There
had been ninety-nine mounted men, but
they retreated at once. We continued on
our way towards Faxe, finding no troops
in the villages, five or six of them not having
been occupied for three days. We were
most enthusiastically received by the coun-
try people, who were very ill-informed by
the Germans. The Germans, according
to their own reports, are getting successes
everywhere, making thousands of prisoners,
and so on. They were astounded when we
told them about Mulhouse and Liege, and
would not believe us. . . . We are to take
up our quarters at Chicourt.
The Inspiration and the Man 45
" August 20th, 5.30 a.m. — The bullets
are singing terribly along the road, and a
young Colonial just beside me has had a
bullet through one side of his face and
out at the other. The captain of the 7th
company is down with a bullet through his
chest and arm, and the Prussians are taking
the heights around us. Our regiment is
suffering terribly. We must have advanced
too quickly yesterday, and have got to
evacuate Chicourt, which is too near to the
hills and woods. We retire slowly from
crest to crest on the road to Morhange to
get the cover of the wood. Behind, the
German artillery keep firing on ours, and
their shells keep bursting among our legs.
I have been hit by some flying earth, but
by a miracle am unhurt. What a heap of
dead and wounded ! It is a terrible sight.
A rain of 105-centimetre projectiles keeps
steadily falling. Whenever a group of
men forms it is shot at at once. The
German gunners are firing at 7,000 and
8,000 metres. Our poor soldiers ! There
are only 300 left of our battalion that was
1,000 strong. We reach at last the great
woods at Chateau-Salins, and pick up a
few men who had got separated from us,
46 With the French Eastern Army
and retreat slowly in line, taking the road
for Delme.
" The regiments re-formed slowly to-
night at eleven o'clock, and we started
crossing the Seille, near the chateau de
Barthecourt, The sappers were mining
the bridge as we passed. The regiment
halted on the hill, and lay down in the
open air on an empty belly. No one wanted
to eat. All wanted to sleep.
" August 21st, 3.30 a.m. — We take up
positions on the hills, and the march to the
rear continues. At daybreak the firing
begins again. From crest to crest we
retire little by little. By five at night we
are again in the German shell field, for the
Germans are shelling the French batteries
which are stopping them from getting out
of the woods too quickly. We are just
behind Sorneville, and ought to sleep there.
At seven we are sent on to Cerceuil, and
then to Senancourt. At midnight we lay
down dead with fatigue.
" August 22nd, 3.30 a.m. — Reveille. We
are to continue retreating and to cross the
Meurthe. We crossed at two in the after-
noon at La Neuville. I might perhaps
manage to get back to Nancy, but should
The Inspiration and the Man 47
be ashamed to do so after such a retreat,
and would rather people did not come to
see it. We have heard the cannon all day,
and hope it is our pieces. They are the
only means we have of preventing the
Prussians from getting into Nancy. At
ten I lay down.
" August 23rd, 4 a.m. — Reveille. The
first good sleep I have had for three days.
I am feeling almost right again. After
various duties, at nine I had a chance of
washing. I have an enormous bruise in
my back and right biceps where I was hit
by the lumps of earth three days ago.
The shells have really been very good to me,
but I now know why I have been so tender.
If it was not that I was afraid of the
Prussian soldiers being in France I should
be all right. They can't be far from the
Meurthe to-day, and then our forts will
be able to bombard them in their turn.
" August 24th, 4 p.m. — We are off again,
and have come near to St. Nicolas. Four
or five biplanes have just landed on the
hill to our left, less than a kilometre from
us, so that one of the army corps positions
is probably there. Three available German
army corps near Morhange were due to
48 With the French Eastern Army
move, one to Alsace and two others to
Belgium. Our division had to make con-
tact with them and keep them here. Our
attack and retreat before such a force
appears not to have been in vain, especially
as the position seems to have been improv-
ing for us.
" August 25th, 3.30 a.m. — Reveille. We
are advancing towards Drouville in short
rushes. At six the thunder of the cannon
and the crack of the rifles started. An
hour later our 75's advanced, batteries and
batteries of them. The cannonade is ter-
rible, but our guns seem to be getting the
better. By eleven the German shells are
few, but their rifle fire is becoming more
and more intense. By three o'clock we
have been ten hours under fire without
a mouthful of food. At seven a terrible
cannonade and fusillade. What an awful
day for anyone with nerves. The orders
have come for us to retreat in echelon, and
it is my duty to take them to my captain
despite shells and rifle shot. I should like
to get through the day without being
bowled over. At eight the companies
retreat, some of them not in very good
order. The Prussian infantry are coming
The Inspiration and the Man 49
out of the wood at 1,200 yards. The
artillery, which was less vigorous this
afternoon than this morning, gives us a good
watering, but luckily without hurting us.
Our own batteries, which are quite close to
us, keep firing with amazing rapidity, and
the row is deafening. The guns recoil at
each shot. Night is falling, and they look
like old men sticking out their tongues and
spitting fire.
1 August 27th, 4 p.m. — We can now get
a better idea of the desolation at Crevic.
What barbarism on the part of the Germans,
and what a disgrace to them ! By seven we
are on our way to the woods. There was
a terrible battle there two days ago. I
shall never forget the sight. French and
German corpses by the dozen, almost all
hit in the head by shells, with terrible
wounds. Everyone groans and curses war.
Whole groups have been mown down where-
they stood. In many places the men were
lying pell-mell, arms in their hands, with
bayonets directed at each other. In the
ditches the French soldiers are lying almost
touching each other, where they have been
brought down by the machine guns. A
whole section of Prussians seems to have
50 With the French Eastern Army
been killed where they stood. One German
soldier lay with his head resting on a clod of
earth, clasping his rosary ; he must have
died saying his beads. The rain is falling
in torrents, and that makes everything
still more dismal to everybody. What a
curse war is ! If only those responsible for
it could see ! The sacrifice of our genera-
tion must benefit our children. It is im-
possible that such a thing can ever happen
again. Our orders are to hold and dig
trenches in advance. I have had all the
slopes of the trenches covered with fresh
grass, and helped the stretcher bearers
carrying out the German dead. We have
taken their cartridges off our own dead and
collected them as they may very likely be
useful to us soon. The cartridges on the
Prussian dead I have had buried to prevent
them being used against us.
" It is impossible to eat, one is so sick at
heart. I am quite worn out and hardly
strong enough to walk, but one marches all
the same.
" August 28th, 4 a.m. — I get up, after
having hardly slept despite terrible fatigue.
There were alarms all night, and the cannon
was firing quite close to us. Our cloaks
The Inspiration and the Man 51
were wet through and prevented us from
being warm. A wounded German, hit in
the leg, slept quite close to us. This
morning he told one- of our men who speaks
German that he was looking for his rosary
that had gone astray. Poor devil ! He
was in a blue funk that the Prussian
artillery would open fire again, and that he
would be left where he lay. He kept
calling for the stretcher-bearers. One of
our provision wagons came up about nine
o'clock and took him away. He was
delighted. Last night was terrible. In
the intervals of silence you could hear the
groans of the wounded, who had not yet
been picked up. They all make the same
sound. Ah ! ah ! It makes you shiver.
What a curse war is ! Two men of the 7th
company have already gone mad. I can
quite understand it.
" 10 a.m. — Two hundred Reservists from
Melun joined our battalion to-day. Though
they are between 25 and 35 years old, they
seem ' rookies ' to us. They've new
equipment, and their faces are full ; they
are not tanned. They are not yet veterans
who have seen fire and suffered heavily.
They keep asking questions and say that
52 With the French Eastern Army
the Germans can come on. They don't
know what is waiting for them. ... At
five o'clock we had a heavy artillery fire
in our new positions ; some of the shots
came very close to us. Our recruits jumped
as the shells screamed over us. They
thought they had burst above us. Our
seasoned men laughed, and from this we
can tell that we are really getting broken
in to war. . . . Everybody is horribly
muddy. The rain has soaked everything,
and we are so tired that we can hardly
stand up. My knees hurt and my legs are
stiff. I have a job in starting to move,
but once I get going I manage more or less
all right.
" August 29th, 3.30 a.m. — Reveille. We
are to occupy the hill in front of the Crevic
woods. There is a thick fog, and we can't
see twenty yards ahead. It is not raining,
though. That is the main point.
" 8 a.m. — The fog is lifting, and it is
going to be fine. It is better to be scorched
by the sun than drowned and chilled by
rain. Another artillery duel, luckily a
good way off. There are numbers of
Germans dead on the hill, and huge holes
have been dug by our big cannon. Four
The Inspiration and the Man 53
o'clock has been a critical time for us.
Our corner has been literally riddled by
German shells, which have been pouring
on us for two hours incessantly. The
result — two killed and a few wounded near
us.
" August 30th, 4 a.m.— Reveille. We
had several alarms during the night, with
rifles going off and everyone jumping to
the trenches. I feel sure the alarms were
caused by clumsy, nervous people shooting
at shadows. We are being bombarded,
and have been covered with dirt more than
twenty times. I have been hit in the left
arm, luckily without anything getting in,
but the place is very painful. I hope
nothing is broken. At six we came away.
In my half-section we had two killed and
eight wounded. A bad day for us. When
we were burying the dead this morning,
and were just putting one in a hole made
by a shell he moved his leg. He was just
in time. He had been wounded four days
ago, and had not moved since. He was
a German. The medical corps took the
poor devil off in the course of the day.
' August 31st, 2.30. — Reveille. My left
arm is very painful and a bit swollen, but
54 With the French Eastern Army
it will get all right. We could rest if it
were not for this terrible strain by the
continuous cannonade. We shall probably
be relieved after to-day.
" i p.m. — We are to be relieved to-night,
and to go into barracks near Crevic. Every-
one is delighted at the idea of getting a
barn to sleep in. We have only now the
five o'clock bombardment to go through.
From time to time men come back to us
quite dazed. Five or six of the company
have become mad.
" September ist, 3 a.m. — Reveille at
Granvesin on good hay bedding. We have
been moved off to Einville, and taken cover
in the woods there. Midday, we are moving
from the woods to the great trenches.
Five or six German shells burst above our
heads, and some of us were literally lifted
off the ground. One man had been cut in
half only two yards from me. The fact is
that we left the woods too soon. Half of
two companies were brought down by the
bullets from the German trenches in less
than five minutes, and we were ordered
to retreat to the woods. I had to take the
order to my company, which has almost
been destroyed. Poor 7th ; it has suffered
The Inspiration and the Man 55
a second terrible sacrifice. By five o'clock
there were only no left of my company.
The wounded dare not make any movement
because they are at once shot at. Some,
however, crawl back to the trenches on all
fours, and we dress all we can on the spot.
The Captain had a bullet in his arm at
three o'clock, and only went off to be
treated at seven. My officer was knocked
down by a shell, but is only suffering from
shock. Food has been brought to us from
the rear, but we can only eat bread, as the
least smoke in the wood attracts an imme-
diate bombardment.
" September 2nd. — I slept very little,
despite terrible fatigue. I had nothing in
my belly. Everyone lay down at midnight.
Cannon were thundering all the time. The
patrols at the borders of the wood kept on
firing, and there were alarms whenever
the firing got closer. We waited behind the
trees as the bullets whistled past. The
whole thing was pitiful, as whenever there
was quiet we heard the wounded crying for
help from all over the wood. At five a few
stretcher bearers came up and were able
to take away a few wounded. Though it
was against orders, I went into the wood
56 With the French Eastern Army
with two men and brought in a few of them.
Midnight. Another regiment is in our
rear to relieve us. We are off for Harau-
court and Drouville to the trenches there
and to recover. No sleep.
" September 3rd. — We reached Harau-
court at 4 a.m., accompanied by the sound
of cannon."
Since the date at which the diary con-
cludes its author was wounded, but he has
recovered and is returning now again to
the front. As an account of how in a few
days unseasoned troops became veterans
the diary is a valuable human document.
CHAPTER III
The Fighting in the Conquered
Provinces
In England the general disposition has
been to regard the early fighting in the
conquered provinces as of small account
and strategically unimportant. Fuller in-
formation, which will not be available until
we are furnished with the despatches, not
only from General J off re, but from General
Pau and General de Castelnau, is bound
to change this view. The fighting in
Alsace and Lorraine was important, and
was undertaken for other reasons than
merely to show the national flag to the
people who since 1870 had been crushed
under the Prussian jack-boot. The frontier
was crossed within the first week of mobili-
sation, and it was a police commissary
from Petit-Croix who took possession of the
German police station at Montreux-Vieux.
That was the signal for many Alsatians
57
58 With the French Eastern Army
and Lorrainers to escape into France and
enlist in the French army, as volunteers.
The success of the French force was swift
and unexpected. Both Altkirch and Mul-
house were occupied by August 9th. The
entry of the French army into these places
was, and is, regarded by our gallant allies
as a historic event. On the Friday even-
ing, just as night was falling, a patrol of
French horsemen belonging to the advanced
guard reached Altkirch. The town was
defended by a series of strong field works,
and held by a considerable force of Ger-
mans. The cavalry engaged in a brief
skirmish until French infantry and machine
guns could come into action, and then the
Frenchmen charged with an ardour which
nothing could resist. There had been an
impression among army theorists, because
rifles and quick-firers have attained such a
stage of perfection, that bayonet charges
were utterly impossible in modern warfare.
The soldiers of General Pau dissipated that
theory in their very first contact with the
enemy by charging the defences of Altkirch,
and bayoneting the Germans who held
them. No wonder there was rejoicing
among those daring raiders into German
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 59
territory at the success of their first assault
with the beloved bayonet. It augured
well for the future, for to both French and
British the use of the cold steel and body
to body fighting has become, during genera-
tions of conflicts, second nature.
Relatively small as that affair was, it
was a glorious opening to the campaign.
The Germans retired in great disorder.
They could easily have held their second
line of defences, but those they also aban-
doned precipitately, and finally they bolted
from the town. Their experience of a
French bayonet charge seemed to have
inspired unreasoning terror, and it is a
remarkable fact that not since then have
the Germans stood up to one. They have
invariably either surrendered or fled shriek-
ing. The quick moving French, burning
with a passion for vengeance, have never
hesitated — and quite rightly — to plunge
their weapons into the backs of the flying
foe. Our men did hesitate at first. It
seemed unsportsmanlike to drive a bayonet
into the back of a screaming and terrified
man, but they have learnt better since.
The Germans had quit the frying pan
for the fire. A regiment of Dragoons, in
60 With the French Eastern Army
action for the first time for over forty
years, showed that they were not behind
their comrades of the infantry in dash, and
were as good in the use of the " white
arm " as their predecessors who charged
a German army corps before Sedan under
the brilliant cavalry leader, General Mar-
guerite. These Dragoons had a joyous
time. They rode down the fleeing foe and
caused them serious losses, while small
resistance was offered by the boastful
soldiers of the Kaiser. Night saved the
Germans from further pursuit, but Altkirch
was occupied by the French, and the in-
habitants of the old Alsatian city welcomed
them with the pent up enthusiasm of years.
They pulled down, and carried away in
triumph, the frontier posts which had been
set up by the Germans to mark the Imperial
boundaries.
Daybreak the following morning saw the
French advance marching on Mulhouse,
and shortly after noon that town was also
in the hands of the French, whose cavalry,
charging through the streets at the gallop,
drove out the German rearguard. The
French outposts that night were established
north of the town. The French losses were
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 61
slight in numbers, and trivial considering
how much had been gained. The action
and the movements that had led up to it
showed that their troops were in excellent
training, and animated by a splendid
soldierly spirit. Mulhouse itself was a
valuable capture. It contained a hundred
thousand inhabitants, and was a great com-
mercial and industrial centre. Its posses-
sion, so quickly achieved after the sudden
declaration of war by the Kaiser, made a
deep impression, not only in Alsace but
throughout Europe. It seemed to show
that the French were better prepared than
the world had been led to suppose, and it
also assisted to dispose of a prevalent notion,
a notion strongly held in Germany itself,
that war was repugnant to the modern
Frenchman.
The Germans retired towards Neuf-
Brisach, the country that they had
oppressed so long rising against them as
they passed and aggravating the situation
in which they found themselves. The occa-
sion, it is not generally known, called forth
from General Joffre one of the few procla-
mations which that usually silent man has
issued, and it, as well as a message from
62 With the French Eastern Army
M. Messimy, Minister for War, was printed,
posted on the walls, and read with almost
passionate delight by the Alsatians. M.
Messimy said that the entry of the French
troops into Mulhouse amid the acclama-
tions of the Alsatians had sent a wave of
enthusiasm through all France. No doubt,
during the campaign that was to follow
they would have many successes greater
than that, but, at the opening of the war,
the energetic and brilliant offensive which
had been taken in Alsace would have a
moral effect which would be of the utmost
value. He, therefore, expressed to the
General and the troops the deep gratitude
felt by the Government.
General Joffre, it is important to note,
was at Nancy when this invasion of German
territory was begun. That he had made
that frontier town his headquarters for the
moment serves to show the value he
attached to the work of that little frontier
army, and he wrote as follows : ' Sons
and daughters of Alsace, after forty-four
years of weary waiting French soldiers
once more tread the soil of your noble
country. They are the first workers in
the great task of revenge. To them it is
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 68
a source of emotion and of pride. Some
to perfect that work have made the sacri-
fice of their life. The whole French nation
will push that work onward, and in the
folds of its flag are inscribed the magic
names of Right and Liberty."
From that day onwards up to the
moment of writing there has been fighting
in Alsace and Lorraine, very often no more
than affairs of outposts, but much more
frequently serious engagements. Both
sides reinforced, and the French gained
and held with desperate tenacity the
passages of the Vosges. Had the enemy
retained or captured the command in the
Vosges the course of the campaign would
probably have been of a different character.
The French pushed on until their advanced
troops came into action between Sarrbourg
and Baccarat, but they were not able to
maintain their position long. Sunday saw
masses of Germans moving from Mulheim
and Neuf-Brissach, and the French fell
back to the south of Mulhouse, remaining
for the time masters of Haute-Alsace, and
beating back the Germans in the districts
of Manonviller and Spincourt. In every
case the French showed alike in cavalry,
64 With the French Eastern Army-
artillery and infantry an invaluable moral
superiority over the Germans. Their aero-
plane service at the same time came into
effective operation, and began to demon-
strate how exceedingly useful the informa-
tion it obtained would be to the allied
troops throughout the campaign. For in-
stance, at the time under notice they were
able to let the Headquarters Staff know
that the Germans were massing troops at
Gerolstein, and also in rear of Metz and
Thionville.
This fact was important because, coinci-
dent with the advance into Alsace, another
was being carried out into Lorraine south
of Metz by Chateau-Salins and Morchingen,
and initiated a struggle which developed
into a series of prolonged and furiously
contested actions for the possession of the
department of Meurthe and Moselle, with
the city of Nancy as the great prize the
Germans wished to gain. The French were
therefore engaged in an offensive-defensive
which was to go on for weeks. During the
night of August ioth, at Mangiennes in
the district of Spincourt, north of Verdun,
the Germans drove in the French advanced
posts, but their success was only momen-
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 65
tary. The French brought up reserves and
made a vigorous counter-attack, bringing
into use with destructive effect their batteries
of artillery composed of the gun which has
made itself famous as the " 75." Indeed
its pet name throughout the whole army
is " Soixante-quinze." Here it met the
German guns for the first time, and marked
its entrance into action by destroying a
German battery and smashing to pieces a
German cavalry regiment which the French
gunners caught in close formation and
shelled out of existence. At the same time,
at Chateau-Salins, another German attack
was delivered in the nature of a strong
reconnaissance. This was driven back with
heavy loss, and the French made a forward
movement in which they seized the village
of La Garde between Chateau-Salins and
Avricourt at the point of the bayonet.
These combats, as Napier would have
called them, were merely preliminary to
actions of first-class importance.
We have heard much of the German
time-table in this war. In this frontier
region was noted the first evidence that
the enemy had got behind hand. The
French General Staff anticipated that their
66 With the French Eastern Army
mobilisation would not be more than two
or three days in progress before the Ger-
mans would have started on a bombard-
ment of Pont-a-Mousson, situated on the
very edge of the French territory, and they
also expected by that time the invasion of
the region which has Nancy for a centre.
But it was not till the twelfth day after
the declaration of war that the bombard-
ment of Pont-a-Mousson was entered upon,
and then it was by heavy artillery at long
range. The French dash over the frontier
had already borne welcome fruit, and had
produced hesitating councils on the other
side of the Rhine. The Germans were
using their heavy artillery, of which we
were to hear more than enough during the
murderous progress of the enemy through
Belgium, though there is also a suggestion
that they fired from the fort of St. Blaize.
As this was the first time that they were
employed, and as there has always been
something of a mystery about these
weapons, some details concerning them will
be of interest. It was supposed that they
required platforms of reinforced concrete,
with special fittings for mounting the
carriage, and that at least three weeks
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 67
were necessary to get them into position.
The Allies ascertained, but not till the war
was two months old, that this was not the
case, and the information they now possess
has been of material value to the personnel
of both the French and the British heavy
batteries in keeping down the fire of these
vaunted German howitzers. They are of
42 cm. calibre, and each is permanently
mounted on a railway truck of special con-
struction from which it is fired. The
length of the truck is 59 feet, and is carried
on two bogies. When the gun is brought
into action the weight is supported on
hydraulic jacks placed under the central
portion of the truck, the bogies being thus
relieved of all load. The train comprises,
in addition to the gun truck, an ammuni-
tion waggon, a carriage for the men who
work the weapon, and a waggon contain-
ing a petrol engine which drives various
auxiliaries, such as hydraulic pumps, a
dynamo, etc. The shell, weighing about
three-quarters of a ton, is handled by
means of a revolving crane, which is
mounted on the gun truck. The gun can
thus be brought quickly into action, granted
the existence of a railway of ordinary
$8 With the French Eastern Army
gauge within range of the position to be
attacked. That a railway is necessary is
a source of weakness, because the railway
line becomes more than ever an object
for attack by the heavy guns of the Allies.
The Germans could, and no doubt did,
use these guns against Pont-a-Mousson,
because their strategical railways made it
convenient to do so, and they were doubt-
less eager to try the weapon. It is, how-
ever, considered by artillery experts that
they have not been used to any extent in
the field since. They were possibly used
at Maubeuge, and could have been employed
at Mons and at Antwerp, where they did
not run any risk of capture. There is no
ground for believing that they reduced
Namur, for the batteries employed there
were the 28 cm. Austrian howitzers,
several of which had been placed at the
disposal of the Germans by the Austrians.
The latter, no doubt, now deeply regret
their generosity. The German heavy field
artillery is 15 cm. and fires a high explosive
shell of, roughly, 90 lbs. weight. The siege
train comprises 21 cm. howitzers throwing
a shell of about 280 lbs. weight. This is
what the French call the " Marmite " and
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 69
" Petit marmite,,, or " Soup pot " and
" Little soup pot." The maximum range
of both weapons is about 8,000 yards.
The Germans wasted a hundred of those
shells upon the little town, killing and
wounding several of the inhabitants, and
demolishing a number of the houses. It
was not followed by an infantry attack,
which confirms the view that the Germans
were merely carrying out an experiment
with their hitherto untried weapon, and
it is on a par with many things that they
have done in that they made no attempt
to ascertain the results. They took it tor
granted that their fire was effective, just
as they have consistently taken it for
granted that a heavy artillery fire directed
against the Allied trenches insured the
success of an attack by their infantry.
This absurd conceit has cost them the
lives of hundreds of thousands of their very
best troops. Incidentally, it was at Man-
giennes that the French discovered their
superiority in artillery. Not only did they
destroy, by the fire of their 75 's, the
enemy's batteries and cause the guns to
be abandoned, but the German projectiles
proved themselves ineffective, either not
70 With the French Eastern Army
bursting, or else breaking into such minute
pieces as to inflict slight wounds only.
A summary of the military situation in
the east of France at the end of the first
seven days of warfare showed that though,
after all, it was only affairs of what might
be called outposts still at Altkirch, Mul-
house, in the Vosges, at Spincourt, and at
Mangiennes, the French had held their own.
Exaggerated statements were published
about the fight at Mulhouse. The French
had there only an infantry brigade, and
their object was to destroy an intelligence
department which was centred in the town.
They were met by the 14th Army Corps
from Baden, and a division of the 15th
German Army Corps. The small French
force were willing to continue their attack
on the enemy, but the French corps com-
mandant thought the situation too risky.
They had carried out their mission, and it
was not necessary for them to hold the
position they had gained. The corps com-
mander therefore ordered them to retire,
and they fought a brilliant rearguard
action against a vastly superior force until
they reached their main body. The Ger-
mans attempted an attack on the French
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 71
army corps, but they could make no
progress, and withdrew during the night.
It had, owing to the rapidity with which
the French were effecting their mobilisa-
tion, been possible for them to place in
Haute-Alsace strong forces resting on Bel-
fort, and the situation, from a strategic
point of view, was not unsatisfactory.
Fighting for the crests of the Vosges had
been in progress throughout the first week.
The French had seized the lower heights
and, despite vigorous German counter-
attacks on the hills Bonhomme, St. Marie,
and Saales, had beaten back every effort
of the enemy, superior though it was in
number. The fight for the hill of Saales
was a furious one, the Germans throwing
.reserve after reserve into the attempt to
seize this dominating position, but they
were sent reeling back, mowed down by
thousands by the machine guns and the
French rifles. The town and the hill were
both held by the French troops, who were
able to establish their artillery on a neigh-
bouring and commanding plateau. These
guns took the Germans in reverse, and
they were compelled to fly so hastily that
they abandoned their equipment.
72 With the French Eastern Army
The French effort into Lorraine had,
however, spent itself, and they were falling
back before the great wave of the German
advance. Around Blamont, Cirey, and Avri-
court sanguinary combats were taking place
between the French and the Bavarians,
who were under their Crown Prince.
Like the Crown Prince of Prussia, the
Kaiser's eldest son, the Crown Prince of
Bavaria is not a successful soldier. Both
of them have to remember the eastern
departments of France as the scene of
repeated defeats and humiliation for them.
The only success in this quarter which was
conceded to the Crown Prince of Prussia was
the robbing of a chateau.
The villages of Blamont and Cirey and
the heights above them were brilliantly
carried and the German columns were hurled
back, leaving a great train of dead, wounded
and of prisoners. This meant a gain in the
Upper Vosges, which were now of serious
importance to both armies. The French
Government were able to make clear what
appeared to them the main features which
would dominate the great battle practically
extending from the Swiss frontier at Basle
to the Dutch frontier at Maestricht. They
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 73
asked public opinion to fix itself upon the
conditions under which the battle would be
joined and quoted the valuable indications
given by German military writers and the
Great General Staff of Berlin. Events were
proving that the enemy was going to carry
out as he had already announced a furious
double attack, one by way of Belgium, the
other by way of Nancy. The Belgians had
checked the first by the energetic courage
of their army, and by the dashing inter-
vention of the French cavalry. The French
cavalry had, in fact, done excellent work and
continued to do so until they had taken the
very last ounce out of man and beast, and it
was owing to the continuous hard work that
they had been carrying on day and night
while holding up the German advance on
Belgium that General Sordet had to report
to Sir John French at a critical moment that
his horses were too done up to move.
The second attack on France by way of
Nancy, even on the 16th day of August (fif-
teen days after the Kaiser had declared war),
could not be said to have started. The
strength of the French covering forces and
their action in Alsace and Lorraine had
thrown out the Germans by at least eight days.
74 With the French Eastern Army
That these eight days were invaluable to the
Allies goes without saying. The French were
able to concentrate their several armies, and
instead of having the clear walk through to
Paris that they expected, the Kaiser's gen-
erals were confronted with powerful forces
extending along their front for 300 miles.
The French were actually executing two
forward movements in German territory,
one in the north and one in the south, and
holding the centre of the Vosges between
those two lines of advance a fortnight after
the outbreak of war. The general French
advance was successfully carried out along
the whole line of the frontier from Pangy-
sur-Moselle close to Metz as far as Belfort
in the south. The Germans had bombarded
Badonviller and Baccarat, two villages near
Cirey. The latter place and the villages they
occupied, but only for a day or two, during
which they burnt down portions of each
place. When they retired they carried off
hostages with them, the precursers of many
more burnings and seizures of hostages in
pursuance of the barbarous German idea of
striking terror into the enemy. On the
contrary it made the French of the frontier
more anxious to carry out reprisals.
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 75
It was not till August 20th when the
successful French movement on Saarbourg
was checked before the great military camp
of Morchingen, that any change in the
position took place. Both sides were fight-
ing with their forces based on a fortress.
The German attempts at Pont-a-Mousson
and about Cirey, and the hold they estab-
lished on the north end of the Vosges were
based on Metz and Strasbourg. The French
had also attacked German Lorraine and
Alsace and secured their position in the
central and lower sections of the Vosges
because they had behind them the great
entrenched camps of Toul, Belfort, and
Epinal. It will thus be seen how invaluable
these frontier fortresses have been to France,
and they were to serve even more materially
in the phases of the war that were immedi-
ately to follow.
Away to the north of Verdun the French
also put up a gallant little struggle which
was intended more as a delaying action
than one of a serious nature. There at
Longwy was what had at one time been a
place of arms. It had been fortified by
the great Vauban in the seventeenth century
and was encircled with a simple enceinte.
76 With the French Eastern Army
It could not be described as a fort, let
alone a fortress. The town had developed
owing to the extensive iron works in the
neighbourhood, and contained only a small
garrison. The Germans summoned the
commandant to surrender, but he courage-
ously refused and displaying the French
flag from the old bastions, prepared and did
make a stubborn resistance. The French
tried to relieve him, and their efforts led to
a brilliant combat on the banks of the river
Othain. Two battalions of the French
had thrown at them five times their number
of Germans. The Frenchmen held their
ground and during the night procured
reinforcements including artillery. With
the dawn they delivered a counter-attack,
which compelled the Germans to make a
precipitate retreat, during which they
suffered severe losses in killed and wounded.
The Germans were forced to abandon a
battery of artillery, three machine guns,
and a large quantity of ammunition. In
the pursuit which followed, a French bat-
tery surprised the 21st German Dragoons
dismounted. The opportunity was too
good to be lost. The French opened fire on
the dragoons, caught at a terrible dis^
Fighting in Conquered Provinces 77
advantage, and annihilated the regiment,
both horses and men. The result of this
double success was to hold up the Germans
and then to cause their withdrawal, leaving
the villages through which they passed,
Pillon and Othe, full of their wounded.
A more important affair was recorded
on the Meuse. There a French detachment
crossed the river and occupied the town of
Dinant, one of the beauty spots of Belgium,
and familiar to many thousands of British
tourists and holiday makers. The army of
the Duke of Wurtemburg had occupied the
Belgian Ardennes, and he detailed a German
column to drive the French out of Dinant.
This they were successful in doing, but the
victory was of a temporary character, the
French coming up with heavy reinforce-
ments and timing their counter-attack
extremely well, drove the Germans out with
great slaughter. The punishment of the
Germans was continued for a long distance
by the French artillery. Here again the
French fought with an elan and skill which
made it clear to all qualified observers that
the army of the Republic was a very different
machine to the army of the Empire which
had fallen, forty-four years before, at Sedan.
CHAPTER IV
A Heavy French Defeat
By the 20th of August, the Headquarters
of the French Eastern Army — that is the
right wing of the Allies — were able to report
with justice that their progress in Upper
Alsace and Lorraine had been continued,
and that they had compelled the enemy to
retreat in disorder, abandoning his wounded
and quantities of his material. The French
were in possession of the greater part of the
passages of the Vosges, where they look out
towards Alsace. They were concentrating
troops on the level ground south of Saar-
bourg, and were otherwise threatening
points of tactical advantage in the annexed
provinces. The enemy had entrenched
themselves very strongly, and had heavy
artillery in position, but despite this the
French gained ground, and they succeeded
in driving the Germans back for quite con-
siderable distances, harassing them in addi-
78
A Heavy French Defeat 79
tion with a violent cavalry pursuit. The
Germans were outflanked at Seille, and had
to evacuate their positions, and the horse-
men of General Joftre had seized on Chateau-
Salins by a brilliant coup. The French
Commander-in-Chief then reported highly
on the courage of the troops and the ability
of their leaders.
They followed up their successes with
ardour, decision and rapidity, and yet they
must have been surprised that they were
permitted to penetrate so far into the
enemy's country. They understood the
situation better four days later, for by that
time they had sustained a decisive defeat,
and were falling back in some disorder on
the river Meurthe to the south of Luneville,
the canal of the Marne, and the line of the
river Seille. Nor could they hold that
position, which was strategically weak.
They merely rested there prior to falling
back still further westward to the line of
the river Mortagne, which is one of the
principal tributaries of the Meurthe.
Not throughout the war anywhere have
the Germans come so near to securing a
great and important victory. There is no
excuse for the Germans. They ought to
80 With the French Eastern Army
have been able to utterly destroy the French
army operating in Lorraine, and won their
way to Nancy. The pedantry which has
marked so many of the German movements,
when they have secured not merely a
tactical but a strategical success, came into
evidence here, and the French escaped
destruction. What happened was that the
French were permitted to advance into
Lorraine until they reached Morchingen,
or as the French call it in their official com-
munications on this phase of the campaign,
Morhange. Morchingen is the Salisbury
Plain of Alsace-Lorraine, and the French
found waiting for them there an army five
times their number. Morchingen, had the
Germans known their work, ought to have
proved as fatal to the French as any of the
Alsatian fights of 1870, and should have
cleared the way to Nancy. As it is, our
French allies covered themselves with glory.
They were defeated, but not disgraced, and
they saved themselves from disaster by
refusing to realise that they were beaten.
After all the French had not penetrated
into the country in force, and they were not
employing their First Line troops. The
German dispositions were naturally good
A Heavy French Defeat 81
because they were actually in one of their
principal military camps. The French
losses were excessive, and it is worth noting
that they led to a change in the nature of
the official bulletins dealing with the opera-
tions in Alsace-Lorraine, which from that
day onwards said less and less of the fight-
ing on the eastern frontier. The check the
French had received would probably have
been regarded as of the most serious char-
acter had the knowledge of it become
public property. One could easily imagine
the news of the result of the fight being as
depressing to the French public as certain
newspaper reports, which about the same
time proclaimed, with exclamations to the
Deity and many tears in the ink, the total
rout of the British Expeditionary Force,
were to nervous and ill-informed people in
England. Without doubt the French right
wing was for days in a parlous state, but
beaten as they were, the remnants of the
French army corps fell back fighting with a
courage and endurance that cannot be
admired too sufficiently. Any doubts which
might have existed as to the quality of the
French troops of to-day must have dis-
appeared after the battle of Morchingen.
82 With the French Eastern Army
Their officers showed the highest skill, and
all ranks succeeded in holding off the
Germans by dealing them sullen and heavy
blows when they attempted to push the
pursuit. In all the stress of a closely
formed withdrawal from a dangerous situa-
tion which threatened them every moment
with annihilation, the French officers con-
trived to reform their men and bring order
out of what was for the time being some-
thing in the nature of chaos.
Though the French had lost a number of
field guns and quickfirers, they had managed
to render all of them useless before they
were abandoned, for they had no desire
to see the weapons left to the Germans in a
workable condition. Many an artilleryman
sacrificed his life for this object. The
French gunners, even more than our own,
are devoted to their guns, and they knew
that every " Soixante-quinze " captured
by the foe would be paraded in Berlin as a
great trophy. Day after day the French
retreated hard pressed by the Germans,
but the former proved themselves the better
metal. They were, as already stated, not
First Line troops, but established themselves
as veterans and gained a reputation which
A Heavy French Defeat 83
has served to make the several French corps
engaged in the Meurthe and Moselle in-
vincible to all German attacks since. They
fought rearguard after rearguard action,
till they got under cover of their reserves
and fresh artillery and gained their way
back to the position indicated by the river
Meurthe. There for twenty-four hours
General de Castelnau again stayed the
German invasion till he had secured the
valley of the Mortagne, and a front parallel
with the famous range of heights known as
the " Couronne " of Nancy.
Beyond that line, struggle as they might,
the Germans have never been able to
advance. The French had the impression
that the full force of the German attack
when it did come was inevitable by way of
Nancy. They had under their mobilisation
scheme plans for a great concentration
of troops in that neighbourhood. When it
became clear that the Kaiser, regardless of
treaties, was to advance "on the line of
least resistance " through Belgium, a change
was made in the disposition of their forces
and the number stationed on the eastern
frontier was greatly reduced. The defeat at
Morchingen did not weaken General Joffre's
84 With the French Eastern Army-
views. He had clearly foreseen that he
must fight the great German advance
through Belgium and the north of France
by a series of gigantic rearguard actions
until he had them safely held, if necessary,
on the very banks of the Seine itself. He
still concluded that the wise thing to do
was to keep General de Castelnau on the
right of the allied armies, in command
of what may be called the army of Nancy.
It was a decision which showed his remark-
able insight into character and events.
The defeat on August 20th of the French
at Morchingen laid open to the Germans
four lines of advance on Nancy. They
could come from the north through Pont-&-
Mousson ; from the north-east through
Chateau-Salins ; from the east through Cirey ;
and from the south-east through St. Die\
All these routes were excellent. An ex-
perienced and well-informed observer states :
11 From St. Die* along the wide valleys of
the Meurthe and its tributary the Mortagne,
from Cirey past LuneVille down another
Meurthe tributary, the Vezouse ; from
Chateau-Salins by the main road between
the forests of Champenoux and St. Paul ;
and from Metz southward past Pont-a-
A Heavy French Defeat 85
Mousson up the channel of the Moselle
and the Meurthe, the ways into Nancy are
straight forward, and the ground for the
most part flat and unbroken. But, besides
the villages and towns by which they pass,
there is, at irregular intervals between
them, a ringed fence of wooded heights
proudly known as the Grand Couronne of
Nancy. To the north these hills rise to a
height of about a thousand feet on each side
of the Meurthe and extend beyond Nancy,
which they encircle from the south, along
the side away from the frontier to a point
a little east of north. East and south the
remaining segment of the circle consists
chiefly of a wide plain, rising gently to the
horizon, five miles away, with more hills
and forests springing out of it. The most
important of these landmarks are the
Plateau of Amance, six miles north-east of
the town, with the forests of Champenoux
and St. Paul just beyond it, north and south
of the Chateau-Salins road, and secondly,
more to the east, in the direction of Lun6-
ville and Cirey, the forests of Vitremont and
Parroy."
The French retreat had exposed to the
Germans a number of prosperous frontier
86 With the French Eastern Army
towns. Chief among them were Gueb wilier
— which is also known as Gerbeviller — Xer-
maminel, Luneville, Vitremont and Crevic.
All these places were bombarded by the
Germans, were laid waste, their principal
inhabitants shot in cold blood, and the last
indignities inflicted on the womenfolk.
They were denuded of money, provisions
and everything of value. At Guebwiller
the chateau and its chapel, which had
belonged to one of the oldest families in
France and contained many objects of
historical and intrinsic worth, had been
turned into hospitals, and were flying the
Red Cross of Geneva. Both were bom-
barded and set on fire by means of incen-
diary shells. What treasures the flames
spared the Germans stole. The place was
held by only fifty Alpine Chasseurs, who
put up a heavy fight. They withstood the
absurdly overwhelming German attack for
ten hours, contriving to cleverly duplicate
themselves by changing their positions
swiftly on their bicycles. All except two
of them succeeded in getting away. When
the Germans entered they were in a state
of furious exasperation, and persisted in
the pretence that the town had been
A Heavy French Defeat 87
defended by civilians. They arrested all
the men remaining, no matter their age,
and with few exceptions shot them out of
hand. They rushed into houses taking
money and jewellery, and after spraying
walls and furniture with paraffin set them
on fire. They were told that they had been
opposed by only a few Chasseurs, and one
officer admitted that he knew that was the
case, but they were out to strike terror
and thus continued their work of pillaging
and burning.
They were not contented with shooting
the men, but they mutilated the bodies,
which remained for three weeks unburied.
This was done under the direct orders of
General Clausen. The Mayor, M. Liegey,
has the names of forty men who were shot
and of two children, a boy and a girl, who
were burnt before the eyes of their mother.
Some of the German officers had their wives
with them, and it was for their benefit that
waggons were loaded with linen, furniture
and silver plate. They left the town a
wreck. The chateau was not even complete
in its bare walls ; much of the framework
had gone. The dome and roof had tum-
bled and inside the marble columns were
88 With the French Eastern Army
shattered and scorched by the heat. They
ransacked the cellars of the brewery, and
left the building alone. The return of the
French army prevented them destroying it
or carrying off the wine they had collected
in the grounds of the chateau. Where the
fifteen men who were seized by the Germans
when they entered are buried is not far
from the roadside. Above the grave is a
wooden cross bearing their names. Their
neighbours have planted an evergreen tree
close by, and the mound is decorated with
flowers. Not far off is another grave which
contains the remains of some hundreds of
Frenchmen. The enemy had skilfully con-
cealed themselves in trenches masked by
wooded ground, and when the French
advancing from the south unsuspectingly
approached close to these, they were met by
a terrible fire. But that ambuscade cost
the Germans dear.
Everywhere in the departments of the
Meurthe and Moselle and the Vosges the
same story might be told. At first the
Germans pretended that they only behaved
badly in those villages from which the
population had deserted in whole or part.
They declared that this showed the French
A Heavy French Defeat 89
civilians to believe in the bad faith of the
German soldiers. An insult was therefore
implied to the great and glorious and cul-
tured army of the Kaiser. The French
authorities on the frontier tried to accept
this view, but they learnt by bitter experi-
ence that the German assurances were
utterly worthless. All the district round
Luneville has been devastated in the most
infamous manner, and its helpless inhabit-
ants driven out as refugees. St. Benoit,
Rambervillers, and Raon l'Etape and many
other places in the Epinal region were
wrecked, and the country people tell of
German female domestics in those towns
who made themselves busy while the Ger-
mans were in possession by showing their
compatriots where they would find valuables,
and particularly furs, for their womenfolk.
When, at the end of November, M.
Poincare, accompanied by M. Viviani, the
Premier, and other members of the Govern-
ment, went on a visit to the scenes of the
long continued and dogged fighting in
Lorraine, they inspected several villages
which had been destroyed by bombardment
or by fire. At Gueb wilier, M. Poincare
conferred upon one of the heroines of the
90 With the French Eastern Army
struggle the Legion of Honour. She is
Soeur Julie, Superior of the Hospital in
the town. The brave woman had already
been mentioned in an Army Order for
having by her presence of mind and courage
defended and saved the hospital, which
had been transformed into an ambulance
station, and for securing food for the
wounded occupants during the bombard-
ment.
This courageous French woman tells
very simply what she did. When the
French were driven out and the Germans
came in mad and shouting, and shooting
down people, one of the first places they
went to was the ambulance station, avow-
edly with the object of bayoneting the
French wounded. Soeur Julie resisted
them, told them they had no business to
act as they had done and would only allow
them into the hospital on condition that
they did no harm. They agreed to leave
it alone but wanted to set fire to the rest
of the street. Soeur Julie had to point out
to their dense Teutonic minds that if they
did that the hospital would be almost
certain to catch fire as well. Eventually
she and three other sisters had not only the
A Heavy French Defeat 91
French wounded to look after but the
German. The callous brutality of the
invaders in the handling of their own
wounded shocked and horrified these good
women. The Germans took no trouble
over their own men but shoved them down
anyhow in the hospital corridors, and when
these were full simply left them on the
ground outside. The four sisters had 400
Germans to tend, and only had one visit
from a German doctor with the troops,
who seemed to have thought he did his
duty by staying half an hour. The Ger-
mans actually demanded bread from her
for their men, and she had much satis-
faction in calling their attention to the
fact that no bread could be had because
they had deliberately burnt the public
bakehouse. The whole thing is typical of
the senseless stupidity which marked so
many actions of the Germans in the earlier
stages of the war. They have ceased since
then, probably because so many of the worst
of the vandals have been killed by the
Allies' troops.
We heard much of the destruction wrought
in Belgium, and quite rightly, but the French,
burning with hate at the shooting of
92 With the French Eastern Army
innocent men, women and children, and the
destruction of their towns and villages,
were forced to suppress the knowledge of
these things because of military reasons.
Glancing in December over the commu-
niques for the end of August and the begin-
ning of September when, in the Vosges, the
Meurthe and Moselle, and the departments
further to the west as far as Soissons, day
and night was spent in fierce fighting, one
realises how little was known outside the
actual area of the struggle. In Lorraine
alone eight German army corps of First Line
troops, a corps of Bavarian Landwehr, and
a Reserve corps with cavalry and artillery
were attacking much smaller French forces
in the neighbourhood of Luneville. More
Bavarian army corps, two brigades of
Prussian Uhlans, and the White Cuirassiers
of the Imperial Guard were operating in
attempts to seize the forests of Champenoux,
while the army of Metz (which feinted as
though it were making for Verdun but had
really turned south and fronted towards
Nancy) lay with its right on St. Mihiel,
on the Meuse, and its left on Pont-a-Mous-
son. Wounded men who had been in this
constant storm of shot and shell and had
A Heavy French Defeat 93
engaged time after time in hand to hand
bayonet struggles were surprised at the
scanty references which were made to
what they were bound to regard as im-
portant affairs. Like the rest of us they
could not understand why more justice
was not done to the invaluable efforts on
the French right to hold up the second
great line of German advance — an advance
controlled by the Crown Prince himself.
A Paris correspondent quoted the views
of a private in a French line regiment on
the subject. Said the French soldier :
• These official messages are all the same.
They say either too much or too little.
Our General says too little." He went
into particulars.
" It was on the frontier, close to Rezonge,
that a bit of shrapnel gave me this scratch
on the arm — it is nothing important ; none
of us were badly hurt in that little affair.
We had started out from Luneville soon
after midnight to make a surprise attack ;
and we came on the enemy at about five
o'clock in the morning, just to the north
of Rezonge. The ' Bosches' who happened
to lie in the path of my regiment showed
very little fight, and the dragoons who were
94 With the French Eastern Army
with us took about 150 prisoners without
losing a man. The regiment next in line
to ours had a couple of men killed and an
officer wounded ; but those, so far as I
know, were the only losses in our own
little part of the affair.
" To the right and to the left of us, of
course, there were other troops taking part
in the movement. One lot of Germans,
surprised by our cavalry and our advanced
parties, shot their commandant because he
refused to surrender. Our guns, when
they got to work, scattered those who
were inclined to make a stand, and the
' Bosches ' bolted seven or eight miles
beyond the frontier. We could see them
hopping away like rabbits !
" Many of the prisoners we took were
Alsatians or Lorrainers, who were only
too pleased to fall into French hands.
They told us that they had been very
hungry there in the forests on the frontier,
where no supplies could be brought up to
them. But all of them must have been
glad to get out of the forests. There has
been too much fighting there. The place
is pestiferous.
" Between Nancy and Luneville, on the
A Heavy French Defeat 95
railway, there was a good sharp fight
between the guns. Ours broke up six Ger-
man batteries, and I don't think that many
of the German gunners got away. They
had built a bridge across the Meurthe, but
we drove them away from it, and they left
fifty transport waggons full of bridge-making
stuff when they went. The Germans shelled
us as long as they could — it was a perfect
storm of shrapnel while it lasted — but they
shot badly. We did well that morning ! "
He seemed to have wandered from his
point and the correspondent had to bring
him back to the subject of the " com-
munique/' He fished into his pocket and
brought out his " Livret militaire " in
which he had preserved a scrap torn from a
newspaper. It was the " communique "
referring to the little affair in question.
" To the east of Nancy," it read, " we have
made some progress in the neighbourhood
of Rezonge and of Parroy." That was
all!
It should be remembered that all this
time the German newspapers and the Ger-
man publication bureaux generally were
cracking up the Crown Prince as a great
and glorious commander worthy of the
96 With the French Eastern Army
highest traditions not only of the Hohen-
zollerns — these do not amount to very
much — but of the greatest of German
heroes. The only one to be named in the
same breath with him was said to be
Alaric the Goth. The Parisians used to
describe the Kaiser as a cafe-concert
Napoleon. His son proved himself a cafe-
concert Alaric. He had captured the ven-
erable fort of Longwy, and had made a
demonstration against Verdun, which was
futile to absurdity. The German General
Staff committed the folly of officially repre-
senting these as great French reverses.
Nothing he did in this region affected the
French campaign and the sole result which
one can note as accruing from this lavish
laudation of the Crown Prince was that
it gave him a further accession of that
disease called by the French tete montee
and led him to commit blunders which
have materially assisted the Allies and
added to the long series of disasters to the
German arms.
CHAPTER V
The Fight for Nancy
To appreciate the value of Nancy to the
Germans one must consider its situation and
resources, and especially its position in rela-
tion to Paris. The town, at the commence-
ment of the war, contained roughly 120,000
inhabitants. It lies on the left bank of
the river Meurthe, and is only 170 miles
south-east of Paris. Not only is it the
centre of a network of excellent roads
leading right into the heart of France,
but it is the junction of an important
railway system. One line runs over the
frontier direct to Strasbourg and actually
communicates with the strategical railways
built by the German Government on the
banks of the Rhine. Another line goes to
Metz and thence to Treves, while on the
French side there are lines to Epinal and
Belfort and a main line passing by Bar-le-
Duc, Vitry, the great camp at Chalons
97 D
98 With the French Eastern Army
and Chateau-Thierry to Paris. Both Bar-
le-Duc and Chateau-Thierry are important
junctions, the former leading direct to
Sedan and the latter to Rheims, Laon,
and through Amiens to the Channel. From
the point of view of railway communications
there is no need to enlarge on the importance
which the Germans attached to the capture
of the capital of the Meurthe-et-Moselle.
The town is a prosperous manufacturing
centre. It contains a wealth of supplies
of all kinds and could have been held to
ransom for an enormous sum by the chief
of the German organised brigandage, the
Crown Prince. In fact it will be remem-
bered that the Kaiser himself felt that
success there was so vital that he lent
his armies the inspiration of his own pre-
sence, and issued a famous order that
Nancy must be taken at all costs and under
his eye. It was not taken, though the
cost to the Germans was enormous, and
all that the Kaiser saw was some of his
finest troops blotted out of existence.
The ancient part of the town is noticeable
for its narrow, irregular streets, but there
is a modern part which has broad, open
boulevards commanding a view of the
The Fight for Nancy 99
surrounding hills. The handsome Place
Stanislas divides the old town from the
new, and contains many fine buildings,
such as the Hotel de Ville, and the Bishop's
Palace, while there is also the ancient
cathedral and the church of the Cordeliers.
Without doubt all these buildings would
have suffered from the usual expression of
German " kultur," but in this case all
that the Germans have been able to do
to Nancy is to throw a few ineffective
shells into it.
When the French were defeated and
compelled to retreat from Morchingen,
their General had already selected the
positions he would take up for the defence
of the town. The French had a splendid
line of natural positions to fall back upon
which only required a little preparation
and determined courage to hold against
an enemy attacking in immensely superior
numbers. The Germans, after the battle
at Morchingen, had swept onwards with
great rapidity. They had captured Lune-
ville and at Dombasle were on the banks
of the Meurthe. Their lines curved east-
wards from Crevic to Erbewiller, then
westward from there to Champenoux and
100 With the French Eastern Army
skirted the Foret de Champenoux to Jeande-
laincourt. They reached there on August
22nd, and it was the limit of their advance.
Mention has been made of the hills which
surround Nancy and make it such a pictur-
esque and attractive place of residence.
They are known as the Couronne de Nancy,
and rise to considerable height, are well
wooded and are noticeable for their abrupt-
ness and terraced character. Many of
these terraces are actual plateaux, and one,
known as the Plateau of Amance, was the
height which dominated and rendered in-
operative the German advance. It was,
in fact, this hill of Amance which all
experienced observers who have studied
this portion of the campaign agree as having
shattered the German attack. They held
the village of Champenoux and the forest
of the same name at its foot, but their
attempts to capture the hill itself cost
them the lives of hundreds of thousands of
good soldiers. The retreat on the Mortagne
had taught the French that they must
modify their system of offensive and be
content with wearing down their abounding
enemy, while they themselves lost as few
men as possible.
The Fight for Nancy 101
They took up a line from south to north
with their right flank resting lightly on
the river Mortagne, which a little lower
falls into the Meurthe. Curving by Drou-
ville — Remereville, eastwards, they com-
pelled the bend in the German line already
noticed. They held the forest of St. Paul
and Languvelotte strongly with the south-
eastern slope and crest of Amance. The
crest of Bouxieres aux Chenes and the lower
heights of Montenoy, the neck and village
of Bratte, the Col de Sivry, the height of
Mont St. Jean and Mont Toulon to the
north were also French. The latter was
their extreme left and overlooked the
German right at Jeandelaincourt. General
J off re had carefully surveyed the position
with General de Castelnau and General
Pau, and they recognised that here they
had a natural fortress made to their hands,
of enormous strength, against which the
Germans were bound to batter themselves
to pieces in vain.
Nancy always contained a garrison num-
bering several divisions and reinforcements
were available from Toul, while the men
of the divisions who had been driven over
the frontier after Morchingen were so far
102 With the French Eastern Army
from being demoralised that they took a
prominent part in the month's fighting
that followed and the subsequent advance.
The Germans had a great preponderance in
men and abundant artillery, but the French
outclassed them in the latter respect by
possessing excellent artillery positions, es-
pecially on the Plateau of Amance, and the
accuracy of fire was another factor in favour
of the defenders. The French had also
crowned the crests with their guns of 155
calibre and their long range kept down the
effectiveness of the German heavy guns.
The first German attack on the position,
it will be noted, corresponded with the
attack on the Allied left and justified the
official description of August 22nd as the
day on which between the Moselle and
Mons a battle general was in full progress.
On the extreme right of the French
armies the fighting was at first most marked
about Dombasle, which was seized by the
Germans, who also struggled hard to obtain
Haraucourt and Rosieres. They were com-
pelled to retire and fell back on Crevic
and its small stretch of forest. They tried
the day after to gain the heights north of
the road from Luneville to Dombasle, and
The Fight for Nancy 103
made a furious onslaught on the French
right at Vitremont. The only result was
that they left thousands of their dead in
the forests. A few days afterwards two
French brigades tried to drive out the
Germans from the neighbourhood of Serres,
but failed. They could not obtain the
necessary artillery support and gallant
though the effort was, it was misplaced.
They lost heavily and had to retire leaving
many killed and wounded behind them.
The latter had to remain where they fell
unattended for days.
The Germans were in worse case for they
had realised how vitally necessary it was
to obtain Amance, and they delivered the
first of a series of long drawn out and well
sustained attacks on that hill of death
through the forest of St. Paul from the
south and the forest of Champenoux on
the north. Their infantry were mown
down as they advanced by the well-placed
French guns on the plateau, and from their
trenches the French infantry swept away
the Germans like reapers do ripe corn.
The beginning of September saw a new
development, for by then German aero-
planes had indicated the positions of the
104 With the French Eastern Army
French batteries and the German heavy guns
threw a perfect tornado of shells on to the
plateau and the village on the reverse and
the hill. The fire was ineffective, so far as
the guns were concerned, and the infantry
supports were well entrenched. Little harm
was done and after some four days' bombard-
ment the French were able effectively to reply.
Then came the Kaiser and the spectacular
side of war. The weather had been foggy,
and from time to time mist had covered the
hills and made the French nervous of a
German attack under cover of the obscurity.
By September 6th these conditions had
changed, and there was clear sunshine, so
that when, two days afterwards, the Kaiser
ordered that Amance was to be taken
" regardless of cost " the French had the
supreme satisfaction of seeing the Germans
emerge from Erbewiller, Champenoux and
its forest and the forest of St. Paul in
bright sunlight. According to all accounts
the enemy advanced, because they were
under the eye of their War Lord, with their
bands playing and at their absurd parade
step and pace. If this be so it was a piece
of murderous folly on the part of the
Kaiser and the subordinate generals.
The Fight for Nancy 105
The French gave no sign of movement.
Their guns were silent and their infantry
did not discharge a round. Instead the
latter allowed the Germans to approach
within less than 300 yards on the lower
slopes of the hills and then dashing out
with fierce yells bayoneted without mercy
the surprised enemy. The survivors, tum-
bling down the hill in disorder, affected the
troops coming in support. Few escaped
into the shelter of the woods, where their
columns had formed, for the French field
guns caught them at point blank range
and annihilated them. Again and again
they returned to the attack trying to force
that terrible hill with its invincible infantry
supported by the deadly fire of machine
guns and quick-firing field guns. They
advanced either six or seven times. The
French really ceased to count. They were
almost sick of the slaughter when in a mad
moment the Kaiser ordered that his own
White Cuirassiers should be launched
against the French position apparently as
a last desperate effort. Probably the in-
tention of this ludicrous charge of cavalry
against infantry entrenched was due to
some foolish memory of the action of
106 With the French Eastern Army
Bredow's horsemen forty-four years ago, and
further to the north. Bredow's horsemen
were thrown away, like the White Cuiras-
siers, to permit a breathing space for de-
moralised infantry.
The charge was a sheer waste of life.
They never reached anywhere near the
French infantry, but were smashed to
pieces by the French shrapnel and all that
remained of one of the Kaiser's most
famous cavalry regiments were the dead
bodies of men and horses which strewed
the plain. No further infantry attacks
were attempted. No troops on earth could
have faced that blood-stained stretch of
soil. Even the iron discipline of the Ger-
man army could do no more, and they are
hardly to be blamed, for at the last, so
it is declared by French soldiers, they were
firing through heaps of dead Germans in
order to get at those of their foes who yet
remained alive. Never was there such an
example of the futility of the boasted
German attack en masse against a well-
armed, well-trained and well-entrenched
enemy. The September sun set that even-
ing on one of the ghastliest scenes in the
annals of human battles and the German
The Fight for Nancy 107
Emperor must have realised then and there
that not for him was there to be a triumphal
entry into Nancy with its sequence of a
successful advance on Paris.
It must have been for him a terrible
evening, that of the 8th of September, when
he retired to his headquarters knowing
that many thousands of the flower of his
army had thrown away their lives and
effected nothing to forward his scheme for
conquering France and, through France,
England and Europe. He must have
realised that it was the beginning of the end,
for it coincided with the defeat of the
Crown Prince's army further to the west
and the consequent retirement of the army
of General von Kluck, which had pene-
trated within twenty miles of Paris. There
are no blacker days in the German calendar
of this war than the 6th, 7th, and 8th of
September.
General Joffre might have been able to
command in person every movement
throughout the whole of the Allied line
from Nancy to Soissons and beyond, they
so co-ordinated. For the following day
saw the Germans faced with a general offen-
sive. On the extreme right the French
108 With the French Eastern Army
followed up their tremendous success of the
previous day by a counter-attack on the
Germans, who were under cover in the
woods and the terrain generally in front of
Amance. It was largely an artillery action
which ended in the French driving the in-
vaders, such of them as were alive and un-
wounded, out of the woods and back to
Mazerulles, Sorneville and Bezange-La
Grande. The Germans begged for a truce
and obtained one for a few hours in which to
bury their dead. It is the last truce they
will be granted by the French, for events
proved that they seized the opportunity
to bring up and safely mount their heavy
guns in the positions from which they
later attempted to bombard the reverses
of the Couronne and the town itself.
Had this determined assault succeeded,
nothing would have saved Nancy from cap-
ture with all its attendant consequences,
including the turning of the right flank of
the Allies and the probability of an advance
on Paris from the south. In view of this
tragic failure the attempts which the
Germans made to overwhelm the defence in
other directions seem of small moment, yet
such was not the case. But for the high
The Fight for Nancy 109
tempered courage of the French any of them
might have succeeded with equally dis-
astrous results to the Allies. It was the
failure of the army of Metz and of the
Bavarian corps from Strasbourg to make any
headway nearly a fortnight before which
had compelled the Emperor to order a
frontal attack on Amance. The Prussians
advancing from Pont-a-Mousson tried to
seize the western approaches of the hills on
the French left. They followed the line of
the Moselle, their first object being to
capture the little town of St. Genevieve.
The French had foreseen and prepared for
an attack on this quarter and so contrived
their defences that they compelled the
Germans to enter upon a long wasteful
and ineffective artillery preparation. The
French had constructed a line of entrench-
ments which caused the Germans to mistake
the real frontage of the defending force.
They were trapped into ascending a spur of
the hills at an acute angle, and instead of
finding themselves as they had imagined
on the left of the French position they really
hit its centre.
The French did not employ their batteries
to reply to the enemy's cannonade and their
1 10 With the French Eastern Army
gun positions were therefore hidden. It
was only when the dense masses of German
troops had reached a close range that they
commenced to fire, pouring in salvo upon
salvo from their " 75 's ' besides a perfect
hailstorm from the mitrailleuses and doing
dreadful havoc on the advancing, closely
packed regiments. The Germans were
hurled back and again the German guns
resumed the bombardment. Once more
the French were silent, as though they had
been destroyed by the German artillery fire.
Fresh German troops were sent forward
over this natural glacis which was now
strewn with the bodies of their comrades
and slippery with blood. This time the
French guns showed no sign of life and not
a bullet was fired by the infantry. Steadily
the Germans charged up the slope in slow,
methodical fashion until within two or three
hundred yards of the French trenches.
Once more it was " thus far and no fur-
ther." The deadly Lebels and machine
guns poured a withering hail of projectiles
into them and they fell rank upon rank. It
must be said that their comrades did not
hesitate. They clambered over the dead
bodies until they in turn were piled so high
The Fight for Nancy ill
that their successors could leap from them
over the wire entanglements. At one point
alone the French counted nearly four
thousand dead in front of a relatively small
section of that slope of death.
Nightfall saw the army of Metz as well
as its supports from Luneville beaten and
in retreat, a retreat which did not cease
till they were once more back at Pont-a-
Mousson.
A trained and experienced observer in The
Times summed up the situation as follows :
" General de Castelnau and General Pau al-
ways had the game well in hand, and when
it was over 11,000 German dead lay in the
fields and forest round Luneville (which was
bombarded by the French and partly burnt
by the Germans) and 20,000 were dead
between Nancy and Champenoux. On Sep-
tember 6th the German Emperor made a
last desperate attempt to turn defeat into
victory by ordering the famous White
Cuirassiers of his Imperial Guard to storm
the fort of Amance which with its guns
had from the beginning done more even
than the splendid courage and endurance
of the field troops to keep the Germans
from their prey. But when that had
112 With the French Eastern Army
failed the end had come, for the trifling
bombardment of Nancy on the night of
September 9th did little damage and was
only due to a fit of spleen. The Germans
were beaten and knew it, and knew also
that they had lost the battle of the Marne.
So while their troops on that part of the
line were retiring to the Aisne the dis-
appointed assailants of Nancy were also
in full retreat. On September 12th their
three weeks occupation of Luneville was
over, and a little later all their forces on
that side were crowded back to the frontier
or across it, and nearly all the towns and
villages of Lorraine were freed from their
grasp."
CHAPTER VI
Beating the Crown Prince
One of the immediate effects of the French
victory was that the Germans evacuated
Vitry-le-Francois which they had fortified,
and when attacked at Sermaize and at
Revigny they fled, leaving great quantities
of munitions of war behind them. The
main force occupying the Argonne com-
menced to retire, fighting rearguard actions,
towards the north, by the Forest of Bel-
noue, and the French advanced perman-
ently to Champenoux, Rehainviller, and
Guebwiller, clearing the Germans out of
St. Die. The troops were rewarded by
an order of thanks issued by General
Joffre in which he praised their vigour,
tenacity, and dash. They well deserved
it for they had fought magnificently against
tremendous odds. Three days afterwards
the inhabitants of Nancy had the satis-
faction of seeing posted up at their Mairie
118
114 With the French Eastern Army
an official communication stating that the
enemy had fallen back upon Etain, Metz,
Delme, and Chateau-Salins.
It is necessary to retrace our steps
somewhat and discuss what had happened
on the left of General Pau's gallant and
invincible little army. Certain changes had
been made in the German command. The
Crown Prince, after his absurd demon-
stration in force before Verdun and his
reduction of the 17th century fort at
Longwy, had fallen into line on the left
of General von Kluck's army and was
bearing down on Paris for the great coup
of the war in which it was arranged that
he should figure prominently. A curious
fact is that not for some time afterwards
was it known what had happened to
him and his army. The French Head-
quarters Staff were in ignorance of the
extent of their success, and the official
communique issued from Bordeaux was
most guarded in its terms, suggesting a
drawn battle and indicating a belief that
the first of the German horde to retire
from Paris and the Marne was that of
General von Kluck.
That General was in fact made the scape-
Beating the Crown Prince 115
goat by the Germans, for the Crown Prince
was in practical command of the German
left wing. So far as the British public
were concerned the news of what had
occurred was first revealed by Mr. Gran-
ville Fortescue, one of the ablest of the
many able war correspondents which the
Daily Telegraph sent out to the front.
Mr. Granville Fortescue realised the situa-
tion as no one else did, and his account of
what took place is a document of great
historical value. He points out that in the
plan of the German operations the path
that promised the greatest glory was re-
served for the Crown Prince. This was
in accordance with the policy of bolstering
up the fast fading popularity of the House
of Hohenzollern. Throughout Germany he
was acclaimed as the hero of Longwy.
His futile demonstration against Verdun
was magnified into a series of glorious
assaults. In official bulletins he was de-
clared to have inflicted a severe defeat on
the French.
Now, as a matter of fact, so far from being
defeated the French army opposed to him
had carried out a skilful and effective re-
tirement before superior numbers, and when
116 With the French Eastern Army
the time came took up the offensive in a
fashion which has made it impossible,
probably, for the Crown Prince ever to
visit Paris except as a prisoner of war.
Mr. Granville Fortescue in his despatch
made it clear that, contrary to the general
impression, the great battles round Paris
did not begin with the defeat of General
von Kluck. That commander's misfor-
tunes were due directly to the retirement of
the German left wing on the night of
September 6th~7th. The mystery which
has surrounded the movements of the
German Army disappears now that we
know that the main body of the Crown
Prince's army retired forty kilometres dur-
ing that night. Such a retirement amounts
to a rout.
The Germans advanced on the line
Verdun - Ste Menehould - Chalons sur
Marne. Their progress was exceedingly
rapid. When the Uhlans of Kluck's force
were in Chantilly the main body of the
Kaiser's heir's army was yet 200 kilo-
metres away. Then this army was or-
dered to push on with all speed. The
order of march of the German Army up
the Champs Elysees was being drawn
Beating the Crown Prince 117
up, and as the Crown Prince was to head
this historic march, undoubtedly dressed
in the uniform of his pet regiment, the
Death's Head Hussars, the French troops
opposing him must be brushed aside.
Fighting began at daybreak on September
6th, adding another to the long list of
decisive battles which have taken place
on Sundays. The struggle continued until
dark, and trustworthy information shows
that the artillery fire went beyond any-
thing the history of warfare has hitherto
recorded. The French guns were served
with undeniable superiority, and the loss
they caused to the Germans cannot be
approximately estimated. I note that Mr.
Granville Fortescue hesitates to give the
figures which he obtained from a trained
observer who was on the battlefield before
the dead had been touched. The loss
was roughly 100,000, of whom 20,000
were killed.
Much has been said about the wonderful
French artillery which thus broke up the
German plans, but no adequate description
has appeared outside the technical press. A
French artillery officer writing to a relative
in England who had asked for some account
118 With the French Eastern Army
of the famous " Soixante-quinze " says :
" The 75 mm. cannon is a field piece,
that is to say, it is light, easily transport-
able, very rapid, and available in almost
any kind of country. It is the model of
1900. The German equivalent, which is
not to be compared with it, is the 77*25 mm.,
the projectiles of which are less heavy than
those of our ' 75 ' and far less effective.
With our field pieces it is possible to deluge
a given space with projectiles, for each
piece can fire eighteen rounds a minute.
The fire sweeps from right to left and vice
versa in such a way that a body of troops
surprised in the open without any means
of taking cover by a battery of 75^ is
assailed with shell at a very high rate.
The shells explode automatically at a
height of about four metres from the
ground. You see, then, that such a body
as I have mentioned is quickly annihilated.
It is worse still if there are three or four
batteries which are unmasked and put in
operation at the same time. The effect
is like that of a gigantic sickle. When the
war is over it is to the 75's that we shall
have owed the victory."
The wonder about these weapons is how
Beating the Crown Prince 119
the supply of ammunition is kept up. To
maintain the rate of fire which went on
through this battle along the line which
the French were holding from Verdun to
Sezanne must have required a perfect
transport service. The total artillery ex-
penditure is put at four thousand shells,
and hundreds of ammunition waggons must
have been emptied. The Germans with
inferior artillery suffered severely, and there
seems to be no doubt that their supply of
ammunition began to fall short. Then
they were fighting in the north-east against
one of the best of the armies of France,
that commanded by the veteran General
de Castelnau. It contained a division which
boasts itself to be made of "iron," and is in
friendly rivalry with another which declares
that it is made of " steel." Two such divi-
sions require a commander of metal, and
they found it in General de Castelnau.
He is a smallish man who always sug-
gests to Englishmen who have met him
something of Lord Roberts. He could
claim the prize offered in France for large
families, having no fewer than ten sons,
and whimsical stories are told of him
making miscounts at family gatherings
120 With the French Eastern Army
as to whether all were present or not.
Several of his sons are serving in the French
Army, and two have made the great sur-
render for La Patrie. One of them was
serving directly under his father when he
was killed. The General did no more than
kiss the dead lips, and then the stern
little man continued his task of directing
the battle. He has since lost another son,
and it is not to be wondered at that he
is one of the most terrible foes that the
Germans have to meet. A man who ani-
mates his soldiers with his own iron nerve
and unconquerable spirit. When this war
is over and we welcome the victorious
French Generals, say to a great reception
in the City of London, some of us will be
prepared to give an extra special greeting
to General de Castelnau, one of the most
capable of General Joffre's lieutenants.
The German Army had to advance on a
front nearly forty miles in extent. Now
the north-east of France is not the best of
countries for an army to operate in, and it
is particularly bad in the neighbourhood
of Sezanne. There is much marsh land in
the valley bottoms and the necessary
deployment caused by these impassable
Beating the Crown Prince 121
marshes gave the French their opportunity.
Not that they escaped the need for heavy
sacrifice. It is stated that one corps was
practically wiped out of existence, but each
French soldier fought with a stubborn-
ness and a courage unequalled even in the
brilliant annals of their nation. The Ger-
mans could do nothing against the resis-
tance they offered, and when night fell
neither side could claim much advantage
in position gained. That the French had
held their ground and were ready to take
the offensive was as good as a victory.
That the enemy had not forced its way
through the opposing troops was tanta-
mount to a defeat for the Germans.
And then came the German retreat. As
Mr. Granville Fortescue said in the Daily
Telegraph : " The long line was giving
way, not only on the right towards Paris,
but also on the left, where there seems to
have been heavy fighting about Verdun.
It has been suggested that there was a
breakdown of the transport service in this
direction. If this were the case, after the
enormous expenditure of ammunition during
the first day of action, the Crown Prince's
army would have been obliged to fall back
122 With the French Eastern Army
or be captured. The circumstance of their
precipitate flight incline me to the last
explanation. Of course, the fighting on
this wing continued for several days, but
the Germans were only trying to save what
was left of a badly crippled army from
complete destruction.
' With the Crown Prince retreating,
there was nothing left for von Kluck's and
von Bulow's armies but to execute the
same manoeuvre. This brought about the
battle of the Aisne and all the subsequent
fighting. In the fighting the French have
been uniformly successful. It goes without
saying that the English troops contributed
largely to this success. Their bravery has
passed into a proverb throughout France."
The defeat of the Crown Prince assisted
in relieving the pressure on the forces de-
fending Nancy, and made that commander
responsible for the failure of both the
German main attacks — that on Paris
through Belgium and on Paris through
Nancy. His reputation as a general was
lost in the mud of the French marshes,
and since then he has done little more than
potter in the Argonnes, at times running
narrow escapes from still more personal
Beating the Crown Prince 123
disasters. Other German generals have
had to extricate him time after time, and
he has proved a valuable asset — to the
French Eastern Army. Rumour in the
French capital frequently associates him
with capture, and fact always with defeat.
At any rate as the battle progressed on
the Aisne it was found possible to continue
the French offensive-defensive in Lorraine
and Alsace with fewer troops, and a fresh
army was formed by General Joffre in
rear of Nancy which enabled him to make
a redisposition of his troops further west-
ward. He withdrew General de Castelnau
and his army, all now veterans tried and
proved, to reinforce his line in Champagne,
and to surprise the Germans who were
enjoying themselves in the cellars of Rheims.
T saw something of this great transfer
from the French right to the left centre,
and the details are not without interest
even to non-military readers.
The movement was effected for the most
part by railway. The whole railway system
of France seems to centre on Paris, and the
German military writers have always
counted upon it as being inefficient com-
pared with their own, which was constructed
124 With the French Eastern Army
with a single eye to strategy and an inva-
sion of France. They were convinced that
the French railways would not stand the
strain put on them, and they did their best
when they reached, for instance, Amiens,
to bring about a breakdown by making
prisoners of all the railway employees on
whom they could lay their hands in that
important junction and centre for the
exchange of traffic.
In France all employees of the several
lines become part of the army when war
breaks out, and are doing military service,
though going about their normal duties.
Everything on or about the railways is at
once placed at the disposal of the Com-
mander-in-Chief, and the guarding of the
lines is carried out by territorials — that is,
men who are too old for the active reserve.
Many of them were old enough, I observed,
to wear the medal for the war of 1870, and
these grizzled veterans were proud to be
out again relieving younger men of a duty,
necessary but irksome. They were some-
times a trial to the inquiring stranger, for
they were desperate against spies and had
a fine excess of zeal. The wives would
bring their meals to their husbands, and
Beating the Crown Prince 125
the couple would share the food at the man's
post of duty. Mostly their uniform was
of canvas with the national kepi, and they
were armed with the old pattern breech-
loaders without magazines. Many were
content with an army cap and a brassard.
Each railway employee sports one of these
indicating his rank and duty, and at import-
ant places the station master is a com-
missioned officer. The signalling on the
French railways has always been a dark
mystery to me and, possibly quite wrongly,
I have a slight opinion of it. The fact
remains that the troop trains only travelled
at ten miles an hour and at ten minutes
interval. The object was to lessen the
risks of and the damage done by collision.
The length of the trains was anything up
to thirty or thirty-five of the big goods
waggons, which can carry forty men or eight
horses. Sometimes wooden forms were
rigged up for the men inside the waggons,
but generally the floors were simply heaped
with straw, and the men lay about in not
unpicturesque attitudes, with the sliding
doors in the middle left open for light and
air. Wounded men, when General de
Castelnau's big movement was in full swing,
126 With the French Eastern Army
had no better accommodation than this,
and were fortunate if they spent less than
a week on the way to the base hospital. As
a result many of them arrived at places like
Villeneuve St. Georges, to the south of
Paris, in a terrible state, and our Royal Army
Medical Corps and the French surgeons were
very grateful for assistance given them by
the doctors and trained ambulance men
who form part of the rank and file of the
London Scottish. Many lives and limbs
were lost through the enforced delay in
reaching skilled care, but not a word can
be said in the way of criticism. The needs
of the Army, the active fighting Army, had
priority, and it must always be so. Wounded
men had to suffer. Afterwards it was
much better, for the French hospital trains
were well arranged and equipped, and they
got their wounded away quickly.
That was almost the only period when our
men were not well supplied with food and
other requirements. No ordinary trains
were run, and General Sir Wallis King, the
British Director-General of Supplies, whose
excellent work has secured him mention
in Sir John French's despatches, had to
personally insist, he told me, on certain
Beating the Crown Prince 127
trains being at his service. But despite all
this transport of troops, our supply was so
well managed that by the end of the week
in September in which General J off re was
forming new armies, and bringing Castel-
nau's veterans into fresh positions a hundred
miles away, we could furnish the French
with from 20,000 to 30,000 rations a day.
It was then that they became acquainted
with " bully beef," which has since become
an article of popular diet in Paris itself.
The French did not recognise in the word
" bully " their own " bouilli " or boiled
beef, and they have called the tinned meat
" monkey." But they are always glad of
it. The French supplies were chiefly of
fresh meat, and for long it arrived irregu-
larly, but their troops can make a well-
cooked meal where most of our men would
fail to find material to boil a pot.
One of their great faults was that the
horseman, whether cavalry, artillery or
transport, could not understand why his
beast should be fed, watered and cared for
if he, the master, was hungry and thirsty.
The cavalry and the artillery horses had
very hard work as may be imagined when
they were screening the retreat of the
128 With the French Eastern Army
army down to the Marne and the Eastern
frontier. Their horses were in a terrible
state because the French, though fine
horsemen, are not good horsemasters.
Afterwards all was changed. The mounted
arms were accustomed to share fighting and
quarters with the British, and they saw and
soon appreciated the care given by our
soldiers to their animals. A better time
has set in for French army horses, for the
commanders, observing the condition which
the mounts of General Allenby's division, in
the hands of leaders like Sir Philip Chetwode,
Gough and Byng, speedily regained after a
ten days' rest on the Marne, are seeing to it
that their men are following suit. Let me
say from what I learned during days spent
in cavalry barracks and talks with the men,
that the soldiers are willing to fall in with
the new order of things. What an English
soldier does is absolutely right in the
French view. They are prepared to imitate
him not only in looking after their horses
before they trouble about themselves, but
they took to trenching work because our
mounted men did, and they are undemon-
strative because Tommy never shows his
feelings. Sometimes this absolute worship
Beating the Crown Prince 129
of the British soldier causes one to choke,
partly with laughter, partly with sheer
pride.
It was the latter when certain French
Dragoons told me of the honour they felt
it to be to have charged with British
cavalry the massed regiments of the Kaiser
and routed them utterly, though five to one.
No wonder the German Minister for War
has now intimated to the German officers
training new troops that the day of cavalry
charges is over, and that the only use of
horses is "to go at an easy pace for long
distances from point to point." That may
be the role of German cavalry in the future,
and that it should be so is due to the
gallant cavalry of the French and British
armies who out-scouted, out-charged, and
fought out of existence the Uhlans, Cuiras-
siers, and the crack horsemen of the Em-
peror's own Prussian Guards. The terror-
inspiring Uhlans became themselves so
frightened that on one occasion they fled
from the mounted escort of a horsed supply-
train moving along a road when they might
easily have captured every one of the long
line of waggons. In fact, particularly on the
eastern flank of the French army, the
130 With the French Eastern Army
cavalry have almost spoilt the game for
themselves by driving every German horse-
man beyond the limits of the horizon.
The French retain for their cavalry the
steel helmet as well as the characteristic
uniforms. The helmet, however, is covered
with a yellow-brown cloth for campaign
purposes. An opening is left at the back
for the long horse-hair plume, and when
the wearer is clean-shaven this gives him a
curiously feminine appearance, as though
he were a girl with her hair down. The
French horseman has shown that there is
nothing feminine in his behaviour in the
crash of battle and the meeting of squad-
rons. The Cuirassiers also retain their cuir-
asses and go into action with them. It is
even said that these steel breastplates have
saved many a life. After a few weeks
campaigning, they certainly became both
rusted and well dented. When cavalry is
being taken by rail, as was the case with
those of Castelnau's army, the men share
the waggons with their horses, and one can
hear when the beasts become restless that
their masters are having an exceedingly
lively time of it among the hooves.
General Joffre was anxious that this
Beating the Crown Prince 131
movement along his front should be effected
without the knowledge of the enemy, and
he took extraordinary precautions with that
end. Marching was done at night as much
as was possible, and an instruction was
issued that troops who were on the roads
during the day should, when an aeroplane
was seen — and the enemy's aeroplanes were
very busy at that time — should turn and
seem as if they were tramping the other
way. The " Iron " division put in some
wonderful marches. They boast in peace
time that they do two hundred kilometres
on foot every week, and they appeared to
get tired positively of train travelling.
One of the battalions, finding that it was
within five miles of its camp, and learning
that the train would be held up for probably
half an hour or so, made no bones about it,
but left the waggons, shouldered their packs
and baggage, and tramped off in the dark-
ness, saying they would be there first.
Unfortunately, the enemy did get wind of
this movement through an indiscretion of a
censor, and all that was hoped from it was
not realised. In addition the Germans,
thinking that the right wing had been
unduly weakened, made a furious attack
132 With the French Eastern Army
on the French Eastern Army. They had
been deceived, and were again beaten back
with severe losses. Thereafter in the region
of the Meurthe and Moselle, the troops set
themselves down once more to steady and
persistent fighting, and to a slow but sure
advance.
CHAPTER VII
In the Vosges
All the fighting was not over, and continued
fiercely for weeks. The French, if they
retired rapidly, came again surely and made
certain of their ground in Lorraine, the
Vosges and Alsace, and also in the Argonne.
In the latter the progress made was secured
by the infantry, and there must have been
some fine combats which cannot now be
put on record. One regrets that com-
petent observers were not with the force
that early in the war worried and out-
manoeuvred the Crown Prince.
When General J off re had formed his new
armies, there were several changes in the
commands, and as the Bulletin des Armees
remarked, " none of the mistakes were
again committed, which were noted and
punished in August." Like ourselves, the
French War Office is secretive on the
punishment of high officers unless they are
133
134 With the French Eastern Army
tried by General Court Martial. It is well
known that several high officers were dealt
with by being sent to posts which were
honourable and — ornamental. Between the
Oise and the Argonne the Generals com-
manding after August were Maunoury,
D'Esperey and de Cary. They had their
trials on October 2nd, when the Emperor
came in person to encourage his armies to
break through to Paris by the east of
Rheims. It was another of his expensive
" cut-through-at-all-costs " visits. All he
saw was the defeat of more of the flower of
his active army. In fact, the handling the
Germans had was attended with heavy
loss, and three days after the battle the
enemy's dead were still lying in heaps on
the field. Labour could not be obtained
to inter them, and special means had to be
taken to incinerate them least they should
breed a plague. And yet the Kaiser went
off to Ypres to try the same " strategy "
there very shortly afterwards.
All this time the Germans were trying
hard to advance on Toul and then on
Nancy from the north-west, and when that
could not be done, they struggled to reach
the same points from the south-east by
In the Vosges 135
way of the Valley of the Meurthe. It was
a fight for the Vosges, and by consequence
for Alsace. The Vosges have always meant
much to France. They rise along the
western bank of the Rhine and are very
like the Black Forest range on the eastern
bank of that river. Practically they
stretch 150 miles from Basle to Mainz
between the departments of Vosges and
Meurthe in north-east France and German
Lorraine on the one hand, and Alsace on
the other. The highest point is the Ballon
d' Alsace or de Guebwiller, which rises to
nearly 5,000 ft. All through the slopes of
the Vosges the French had prepared forts
and gun positions. The wayfarer often
comes to clearings which are the beginning
of military roads, and if he understands
these matters will realise that they probably
lead to a " false battery," that is a spot
ready for use as a gun position. The French
are adepts at the employment of their
artillery now that they have a really mobile
weapon. They can thus move them from
parapet to parapet, which are all protected
by elaborate entanglements planned in
peace time with leisure and thoroughness.
The Ballon d'Alsace closes in the head of
136 With the French Eastern Army
the Moselle Valley and the main road to
the Gap of Belfort passes right over its
summit.
The French at first, and indeed for a long
time, were content to guard the line of
approach in Epinal, Nancy and Toul. This
lies in the great trench-like river valley, and
the Germans tried to make way at St.
Mihiel where they failed. Had they suc-
ceeded, they would have been in touch with
the Crown Prince's army in the Argonne.
They could also have advanced on Toul
and in turn on Nancy. This is described
as the German advance by the Meuse, and
was followed by an attempted advance by
the Meurthe. They came on from Maon
l'Etape, along the valley of the Hurbache,
and so reached the north of St. Die. Their
immediate objective was to obtain command
of the roads leading to the Plateau de
Donon and the Col de Saales to the north
and south-east and on the west to Lune-
ville and Nancy. St. Die itself is on the
Luneville-Nancy road, and lies on both sides
the Meurthe with high hills all round. The
district is a curious one and was generally
named in the official reports as the Ban de
Sapt. That is a general title for a number
In the Vosges 137
of small communities. One morning in
mid October, the Germans made a deter-
mined attempt to secure this district and
the roads.
The engagement was not a big one, but is
typical of the fighting in the Vosges. The
Germans made their way to a position
which commanded the Ban de Sapt, their
artillery opening fire on that place. A
body of Bavarian infantry with machine
guns attempted to carry one of the villages.
The French, however, had a little surprise
for the Germans. They had a battalion of
Chasseurs with three mitrailleuses and some
field guns carefully hidden, and in something
like half an hour the German quick-firing
batteries were destroyed, their field guns
were escaping at the gallop, and the
Bavarian infantry were swept out of exist-
ence with the bayonet. That little affair
cost the enemy three hundred killed. The
French do not expose themselves as they
did at the beginning of the war. Instead,
they wait till their 75's have subdued the
enemy's artillery and driven the infantry,
as in this case, into the houses in the villages.
Then they came on with the bayonet, the
woods allowing the French to get close up
138 With the French Eastern Army
to the village before they made their rush.
A trick which was effective in this hill
fighting, where the Germans approaching
the French trenches had to come crouching
up the slopes, was for the officer command-
ing the French to give the word for a
bayonet charge. The men were instructed
to remain still, in the trenches. The Ger-
mans, hearing the order, naturally rose to
their full height to repel the dreaded charge
and then the French would pour a deadly
volley of musketry fire into them.
The armies faced each other for long at
close quarters, and night and day the
engagements took place, often developing
into quite serious combats. Hardly a
village or town has escaped bombardment.
The force around Epinal did remarkably
well. They were generally opposed by an
enemy ten times their strength, but the
whole country up to Rambervillers is
wrecked and ruined. All these picturesque
and beautiful valleys have become just so
many burial grounds for the brave men
who fought and killed one another while
contesting the ground foot by foot. From
the Argonne to the Vosges the French troops
.have proved their power of endurance.
In the Vosges 139
Every day and every night round Verdun
and on the heights of the Meuse they had
to repel attacks, some of which were particu-
larly violent. Special mention must be
made of the affair of Chauvoncourt. The
French, by a bold offensive, set foot in two
barracks to the west of Chauvoncourt, a
suburb of St. Mihiel. Twice they were
driven back and twice they retook the
position. They were holding the greater
portion of it when a fierce fire from n-inch
mortars compelled the leading company to
shelter in the cellars of the first barracks.
At that moment the Germans blew up the
building, which they had mined. The
French lost in killed, wounded and prisoners
about 200 men, but the effort of these gallant
fellows had not been in vain. The French
were able to destroy defensive works which
had served as a base for the enemy's counter-
attacks. The Germans who had tried to
cross the Meuse in order to support their
forces at Chauvoncourt had on the other
hand suffered much more heavily. The
French artillery prevented the enemy from
gaining any ground at Chauvoncourt, and
though the 4th Bavarian Regiment held
the edge of the suburb, yet even with
140 With the French Eastern Army
reinforcements amounting practically to a
division, they were still unable to retake
the ground they had lost under the fire of
the terrible French artillery.
By mid November we found the same
places being named in the communiques
as was the case at the beginning of August.
This in itself indicates how steady and
irresistible has been the pressure exerted
on the Germans by the French on the right
wing of the Allied army. Pont-a-Mousson
was once more in French hands, and heavy
batteries were bombarding Arnaville, which
is only ten kilometres from Metz. Under
these circumstances it was not surprising
to learn that the Germans were becoming
alarmed about their lines of communication.
Along that route the German supplies of all
sorts of munitions of war were coming from
Metz, the surrendered town which the
French will strain every nerve to regain
now that the time has come for avenging
its betrayal. The destruction of Arnaville
would involve the withdrawal of the German
forces entirely from Lorraine . But not with-
out a fierce struggle.
That they had made up their minds to
this as inevitable was obvious from the
In the Vosges 141
elaborate fortifications which they pro-
ceeded to construct at Cirey, Blamont and
elsewhere on the frontier. It was at Cirey,
it will be remembered, that the first fighting
in the war took place, and it is at Cirey
that the Germans arranged to offer the most
determined resistance to a French invasion.
They cleared out what inhabitants re-
mained in the villages round about, sending
them into Nancy through the Forest of
Parroy. The men were made prisoners
and compelled to work at the making of
trenches and the laying of mines in front
of their new position. That they felt it
necessary to do this was an acknowledgment
of failure. It marked the close of the great
effort to overrun the east of France and
showed that they had so far shot their bolt
that they were under the urgent compulsion
to prepare for the defence of their own
territory.
When this stage was reached the situation
was so sound, even tactically, for the
French that the President of the Republic,
with M. Viviani, the Prime Minister, was
able not only to visit Nancy, but to make
a tour of the places from whence the Ger-
mans had been driven out. M. Poincare
142 With the French Eastern Army-
drove in his motor car to Guebwiller and
Luneville and others of the towns and
villages at the foot of the Grande Cou-
ronne. M. Keller, the Maire of Luneville,
and M. Minier were warmly congratulated
by the President on the way they had
stuck to their posts. They had been held
as hostages by the Germans and ran very
serious risk when in turn Luneville was
bombarded by the French. They were
fortunate in escaping with their lives, for
in this part of the country the enemy
seemed to make it the rule to shoot any
hostages they had seized when they were
compelled to evacuate a place.
Everywhere throughout the long line
which the French held extending from
Soissons to Belfort, a feature of the fighting
has been the closeness of the combatants
to each other. Trenches in a vast number
of cases were not more than two or three
hundred yards apart. Both sides tried
to make themselves as comfortable as
possible, but the French were quickest in
learning the art. The east of France is
not the dryest section of that country,
especially in the late autumn and during
the winter months, but the soldiers contrive
In the Vosges 143
to keep themselves dry by constructing
in well chosen spots^to the rear of their
trenches underground dwellings ap-
proached by covered ways, which are of
the nature of zigzags, and could be used
for sniping and indirect fire. They are
fond of giving these underground houses
high-sounding names, and have planted in
the earth which forms the roofs shrubs,
which serve to disguise their character
and position.
The nature of the ground, which is very
unlike the flat plains of Flanders where the
left wing of the Allies were fighting, enabled
a system of drainage to be devised which
kept the rain out and the men could sleep
on their bags of straw in perfect comfort.
The German attacks had a certain regular-
ity about them, and were invariably pre-
ceded by a burst of artillery fire. This was
a signal for reinforcements for the advanced
trenches to prepare for eventualities. It
was always a nerve racking experience, the
German heavy shell plunging into the earth
and exploding sometimes in front, but most
often in rear, while overhead would shriek
the shells from the French guns replying
to the enemy, The impression created,
144 With the French Eastern Army
French soldiers said, was unimaginable,
and produced a feeling as though both
heaven and earth had taken on a new
aspect.
The infantry attack generally followed
with the inevitable repulse, and then com-
parative quiet would settle down unless
the French in their turn had prepared a
bayonet attack on the Germans. The
African troops delight in this work. Nei-
ther the Turcos, the Senegalese, nor even
the Zouaves care for work in the trenches,
and it serves to explain why their losses
were so very heavy in the first few weeks of
the campaign. Their forte is the charge
and must necessarily be so seeing the type
of fighting which they have had to face in
the French African dominions. Charge is
met by charge in that savage warfare and
delivered at a rapid pace. How effective
it can be was shown during that twenty-
four hours of terrific fighting at Charloi,
when General J off re was falling back on
Paris. At that place the Turcos and
Zouaves had full opportunity to indulge
their favourite tactics, charging the masses
of the Prussian Guard with the bayonet
and piling the streets of the town with the
In the Vosges 145
dead of the Kaiser's finest infantry. Un-
fortunately the French suffered severely in
their turn.
During the slow, methodical advance
made by the Eastern Army of France, it
was always a welcome moment when these
African troops got permission to move out
at night and approach, with all the cunning
of Red Indians, the enemy's trenches.
The terror shown by the Germans when
these wild figures suddenly swarmed in on
the unsuspecting enemy whose sentries
had been strangled or otherwise quietly
disposed of did not lessen the satisfaction
of the warriors from Africa.
Belonging, as he does, to a nation largely
agricultural, the use of the spade seemed
to come naturally to the Frenchman.
Their troops have had to work as we would
say like navvies, and most often when
thick mists have come down or during the
night. But it is not all digging and fighting.
They organised, as only the French can,
their service de cuisine. The hours for the
meals may seem unusual. Coffee, of course,
was forthcoming first thing in the morning,
and at ten o'clock arrived la soupe, generally
rich with vegetables and followed by a
146 With the French Eastern Army-
stew of some kind. A similar meal would
be served at five o'clock, and then those not
actually on duty would turn in and sleep
awaiting the unfailing night attack by the
Germans. The cooking was done in a
cottage if the cooking stove was intact,
or in the field kitchens, which are very
much on the lines of our own. The troops
contrived washing places such as have since
been described by the eye-witness with the
British army, where by utilising a stream
provision could be made for half a company
to bathe at the same time.
When a battalion was in reserve and out of
range of the German projectiles, the officers
generally managed, like our own, to get up
some form of amusement for their men, and
in numbers of cases they got together quite
remarkably good amateur companies, and
performed revues which furnished oppor-
tunities for plenty of regimental wit and of
gibes at the " Bosches," the sound of whose
shells could be heard in the distance.
Never did one come across anything that
suggested despondency or lack of confi-
dence. The temper of the French troops
could not be bettered. They were daily
facing death and suffered cold and hardships
In the Vosges 147
and wounds, but their spirits never flagged.
It was as if the souls of the soldiers who,
under Napoleon, had swept over nearly all
Europe were reanimating their descendants.
The latter-day army of France, however,
in each individual unit recognises that its
role is changed, and that they are fighting
not to establish, but to abolish a tyranny.
General Joffre's report in the Bulletin des
Armies, published on December 5th, showed
that the French even then were only at the
beginning of their resources. He said :
" Our forces are as large as they were at the
beginning of the campaign, but the quality
of the troops has enormously improved.
All our soldiers are profoundly imbued with
a sense of their superiority over the enemy,
and they have absolute confidence in victory.
The supply of ammunition for the artillery
has been largely increased, while the heavy
artillery of which we were short has been
supplied and put to the test. The German
scheme has sustained the following checks
which have far-reaching consequences :
" The rush attacks on Nancy, the rapid
march on Paris, the envelopment in Novem-
ber, the attack on Dunkirk and Calais and
the attack on Ypres.
14S With the French Eastern Army
" In their futile efforts the Germans have
exhausted their reserves and the troops
which they are bringing up to-day are
badly officered and badly trained.
" More and more Russia is asserting her
superiority and the halt of the German
armies in the East is doomed inevitably to
turn into retreat."
CHAPTER VIII
Threatening the German Left
Anyone glancing at a map of Haute Alsace
and what the French call the Territoire de
Belfort will see that the term used in the
geographies to describe the depression which
lies between the last spurs of the Vosges
and the first spurs of the great range of the
Jura is not exact. The Gap of Belfort has
none of the characteristics of a plain — the
term commonly used for it in this country
— any more than the great rolling downs
at Salisbury suggest a flat surface. The
Gap of Belfort consists of a series of low
hills or downs separated by a multitude
of valleys through which pass an endless
number of small streams, which in the
hollows spread out into lakes of consider-
able depth. These make the approaches to
Belfort easy to defend, and it would be
necessary for a German army of invasion
to try to turn the flank of the fortress by
149
150 With the French Eastern Army
way of Montbeliard. But here another
great obstacle presents itself.
To reach Montbeliard otherwise than
through Belfort, the invaders would be
compelled to make their way through Swiss
territory between Basle and Delemont.
They would thus reach the valley of the
Doubs and turn, instead of destroying the
obstacle. The Germans for a long time
thought of doing this, and there are abundant
proofs come to light since the war began
that they had had it seriously in their minds
to force the neutrality of Switzerland just
as they violated that of Belgium. Under
one pretext or another members of their
Headquarters Staffs have made minute
examination of the country from time to
time in all the places through which they
would have to pass, and marked down the
routes which would best serve their advance.
But if Germany contrived to create a
certain sympathy among the Swiss of
German race it was of doubtful value, and
was more than counter-balanced by the
feelings entertained against Germany by
the Franco-Swiss cantons bordering on
the French frontier. There the opposition
to the German secret schemes was naturally
Threatening the German Left 151
acute. These comings and goings of high
officers from Berlin did not escape the
Swiss observation. The Franco-Swiss news-
papers did good service by denouncing the
peril which threatened their country long
before the conflict began, and, after four
months of hostilities, as a result France
on her Swiss frontiers has not been invaded,
and there is now little prospect that the
Germans will attempt the mad enterprise
of turning the flank of Belfort through
neutral territory.
The French are very much on the watch
there. Under the direction of an energetic
military Governor, General Thevenet, of
whom the least that is said is that he knows
his work, the French engineers have created
marvels. The defences of Belfort in actu-
ality are prolonged beyond the advanced
forts. Not a feature of the terrain but
is utilised. Each post is protected by a
system of redoubts and blockhouses in-
visible at a distance, and strengthened by
a triple ring of trenches carefully designed
of which the faces are defended not only by
barbed wire, chevaux de frise, caltrops,
and abatis of wood, but by a system of
ingeniously contrived waterworks, by which
152 With the French Eastern Army
inundations can be brought about. Beifort
is, in fact, impregnable as far as a fortress
can be made so. To lay siege to it would
require at least five army corps, and now
that the French are again at Altkirch and
Mulhouse it would be necessary before
making any attempt against the fortress to
dislodge the French from all their positions
in Alsace. This would be no small task,
because Beifort, under the circumstances,
is now not merely a defensive work, but
provides a base from which a serious threat
is made on Germany itself. The Germans
realised this and have had to take troops,
which might have been employed elsewhere
with advantage, to strengthen their lines
on the western bank of the Rhine.
All is then for the best on the French
side. Life in Beifort, and the whole of the
vast area included in the fortress, though
active enough, would have seemed some-
what monotonous and wearisome were
it not that the soldiers always had the
hope that they would soon be in the firing
line and engaged on a forward movement.
They knew that in maintaining and
strengthening their position there they
were really fulfilling a great object, but,
Threatening the German Left 153
like a mettled charger, eager to dash into
a gallop, they were longing for the signal
to march into Germany. The civil inhabi-
tants also, as the French say, " champed
the bit " but for other reasons. The strict
regulations in force in a fortress during
war time hit them hard. All foreigners
were sent away. All the inhabitants who
were useless and only added to the numbers
to be fed were despatched to Nancy and
elsewhere, and the population, which in
ordinary times amounts to 35,000, was
reduced to the military employees, the
police and other functionaries, and a few
traders. Very few women and no children
were allowed to remain. None but soldiers
were in the streets and they, for the most
part, were men marching to and from
their posts. Neither cabaret nor cafe was
open and every shop, no matter what its
character, had to be shut at eight o'clock.
The rural population, as is not uncommon
under the circumstances, were the most
troublesome to manage. They made great
complaint of the regulation which com-
pelled them to obtain a permit to enter or
to leave even if the occasion was a slight
one, and when permits were refused, as
154 With the French Eastern Army
they frequently were, they were voluble in
their protests. In this quarter they belong
to that type of French peasant which is
always close in its dealings, and they
resented the military requisition made on
them for billeting officers and men. They
strongly objected also to the sanitary
measures which were ordered and enforced
by the Governor, but their children will
benefit by the drainage works of a permanent
character which were carried out in order
to ensure the health not only of the troops
but of the ordinary population. Typhoid
fever has long been endemic in this region
owing to the polluted state of the water
supply, and all the soldiers underwent
innoculation against the disease. Provi-
sions are stored in Belfort in abundance,
and one of the advantages of being quar-
tered there is that the men get the ordinary
bread and not that baked for the army in
the field.
Life in the heart of the fortress cannot be
described as unpleasant, for hotels were
open though occupied chiefly by the staff
officers. The food was excellent, and one
who stayed there for a few days is prepared
to say that he was better served than has
Threatening the German Left 155
often been the case in a hotel, with a name,
in Paris in peace time. The French officers
were delightful men to meet, keen on their
work and free from any suspicion of boast-
fulness or swagger. In fact, life was run
on much quieter lines than in the case of
most English messes. An almost conven-
tual rule of silence prevailed, but one rite
was observed each evening that was strik-
ing. At the principal table, which was
always presided over by a General or the
senior officer present, at the close of dinner
a captain of Engineers would stand up
and in the midst of dead silence would read
aloud the bulletin published at three o'clock
each day in Paris relating to the progress
of the war.
War brought together in a true confra-
ternity men of much diversity in occupation,
mind and character. Not only were there
the officers who were professional soldiers,
but others who had been called from civil
life as reservists or territorials. They came
from all parts of France and included
engineers, manufacturers, professors, ad-
vocates, farmers, and commercial men, and
all found themselves after two or three
months of contact perfectly homogeneous.
156 With the French Eastern Army
It was the same in the advanced posts.
Indeed there the impression was strength-
ened rather than diminished. At the quar-
ters of the commandant of each section of
the fortress one found the same diversity
in origin and the same fraternity. Between
officers and men the like exchange of
cordiality was to be noticed. Constant
care had to be taken against surprise and
espionage, therefore twenty times a day
even the officers would have to show their
papers of identity, particularly to the
sentries and patrols. The formality com-
pleted, the soldier might say " Excuse, me,
mon capitaine, it is an order," to which the
officer would reply : " You are quite right,
my lad."
It was from Belfort that Commander
Briggs with Lieutenant Sippe and Lieuten-
ant Babington, of the Naval Flying Corps,
set out on their successful expedition to
destroy the Zeppelin sheds at Friedrichs-
hayen on Lake Constance. There is an
aviation ground and aeroplane park at
Belfort, and a ceremony which took place
there has been picturesquely described by
M. Thiebault-Sisson :
( Ten o'clock in the morning, with a clear
Threatening the German Left 157
sky and a temperature that would freeze a
wild duck. Over the aviation ground at
Belfort whistles an icy wind. In a huge
shed, of which one end is occupied by
spherical balloons, 1,500 men of the garri-
son are gathered. To the left is a battalion
of infantry, to the right a company of en-
gineers and detachments from all the corps
d' elite which the fortress contains, and near
them a battery of artillery, with a regi-
mental flag. In the middle, side by side,
and fronting the entrance of the shed, are
two young men, clean shaven and without
arms, who might be taken, owing to the
absence of any badge on their caps and by
their workmen's jackets and black overalls,
to be ordinary civilians were it not for the
strip of gold braid which encircles their sleeve.
They are the two English officers who the
day before had bombarded Friedrichshaven,
the Zeppelin factory. One, tall, bony and
thin, may have passed his thirtieth year a
little. He is Lieutenant Sippe. The other,
short and slender, is not more than twenty-
three. He is Lieutenant Babington.
" The drums beat, the trumpets sound,
and the troops carry arms. General
Thevenet, the Governor, comes forward,
158 With the French Eastern Army
followed by his pennon bearer and the
French flag, with his Guard of Honour.
The Governor halts before the English
officers and says : ' In the name of the
President of the Republic, and by virtue
of the powers which are conferred on us, we
make you Chevaliers of the Legion of
Honour.' And upon the breast of Sippe,
and afterwards on that of Babington, the
General fastened the Star which marks
their rank in that distinguished order of
brave men. Then in due form, with his
sword, he gives them the accolade on each
shoulder. The ceremony closed with a
march past before the two young officers.
" The same evening in the hotel, the
officers of the garrison offered to their Eng-
lish comrades a dinner of honour, in the
course of which General Lecomte and the
Administrator of the District of Belfort, M.
Goublet, made speeches in French ; Colonel
Lanty of the Engineers in English, and
Lieutenant Sippe replied in French. At the
close of dinner I had an interview with
Lieutenant Babington. He told us in the
simplest possible way, and as if it were an
everyday affair, about the feat of arms in
which he had taken part.
Threatening the German Left 159
" ' Yesterday morning at half -past ten, in
the biplanes which we brought from Eng-
land, Lieutenant Briggs, Lieutenant Sippe
and myself left the aviation ground. Our
machines followed each other at five
minutes interval, and we made straight
over Alsace. When we had found the line
of the Rhine, we followed that river, taking
care to constantly leave it upon our right,
so as to avoid flying over Swiss territory.
In two hours and a half we had flown the
200 kilometres to the Lake of Constance.
We had maintained during all our flight
a height of 750 metres. Over the lake we
separated so as to attract less attention,
and came down to about 150 metres. We
flew over Friedrichshaven at a slow rate,
arriving from three different sides, one from
the lake and the other two from the north
and south. We each had six bombs at our
disposal. Sippe was able to launch all his.
I was only able to throw five, the machine
for throwing them failing me at the sixth.
I do not know what happened to Briggs, who
was in rear of us, and I cannot tell you
whether the hangars contained Zeppelins
or not or what damage our projectiles
caused.
160 With the French Eastern Army
" ' Scarcely had we been seen by the
enemy than a furious cannonade broke out
below us. Flying low as we were, we offered
a beautiful target, and there was nothing
for us but flight. When we found ourselves,
that is Sippe and myself, over the right
bank of the Rhine, after making several
spirals to obtain a good height, we proceeded
to follow the route by which we had left
in the morning, and our return journey
took us about the same length of time.
You gave us a welcome here which we shall
never forget. The Governor was not con-
tent to congratulate us, but he telegraphed
to General J off re and asked that we should
have the Legion of Honour. He immedi-
ately accorded us that distinction. It is a
reward which we never expected and which
is far beyond our merits. We rejoiced
exceedingly when a telegram arrived by
way of Holland to let us know that Briggs
is safe, though with his machine damaged
and himself slightly wounded. He had
been forced to land in German territory and
had been made prisoner.' "
When on December 2nd the French
occupied Lesmenil and the Dexon signal
station, matters began to look serious for the
Threatening the German Left 161
Germans, for at the same time the French
carried the Faux summit to the south of
the village of Bonhomme, which commands
the frontier ridge and was used by the
Germans as an observation post. Coinci-
dently in Alsace the French seized Aspach
le Haut and Aspach le Bas, south-east of
Thann. The following day they occupied
Bumhaupt and established themselves on
the line Anspach-Pont and Aspach Bum-
haupt.
The importance that the French attached
to these advances is indicated by the fact
that General Joffre, who neither wastes his
time nor his words uselessly, made a long
journey from his headquarters and paid
a visit to the Alsatians of Thann. Nothing
could be more touching than the brief
account which appeared in the official record
of this meeting between the Alsatians of
Thann and the man who had planned the
operations intended for their deliverance
from the Prussian yoke. General Joffre
saw before him old men who were French
prior to 1870, and many quite young ones,
the hope of the Alsace of to-morrow. The
first to present arms to the General was a
lad with a rifle. He was scarcely older than
162 With the French Eastern Army
the small boy who was brutally shot by the
Germans for aiming his toy gun at them in
play. More happy than the younger, this
lad has the chance of becoming a French
soldier. Although he knew nothing except
the education he had received in a German
school, with its German history and the
German regulations, by sheer instinct he
contrived to escape to the French lines.
Except the older men, there were few
males in Thann. The men of active age
were all at the war. Some had managed,
by incurring a thousand dangers, to enter
the French army, but the greater part were
serving in the ranks of the Germans, threat-
ened with death from French bullets in
front and the bullets of their hated masters
in rear. That is the tragedy of Alsace.
General Joffre walked through the town
saying little as usual, but in response to
the welcome which was informally extended
to him, he uttered only the sentence : You
are now French for ever." General Joffre
is a man of his word, and probably that
little phrase, with the events which have
followed it in the Alsatian theatre of war,
caused profound disquiet at the enemy's
headquarters.
Threatening the German Left 163
General Joffre's visit to the recaptured
territory was somewhat of a surprise. All
the intimation that was given to the local
committee, which had taken charge of the
resources of the place under the control of
the military commandant, was that a distin-
guished personage was likely to arrive.
It was thought that the visitor might be
President Poincare, who indeed was there
later. The committee gathered in the
Hotel de Ville and waited doubtless with
some impatience. At half-past two in the
afternoon there came the sound of several
motors. The cars stopped outside the
Hotel de Ville, and a number of officers
descended. One was a General, and as
he entered the room where the committee
sat, a member of his staff announced simply,
' Gentlemen, General Joffre." The surprise
was complete, and it was with enthusiasm
that the citizens shook hands with the
Generalissimo of the Allied Army. In con-
versation he explained the motive of his
visit.
For forty-four years General Joffre had,
he said, been waiting for the great moment
when Alsace, which had been stolen from
France, would once more become part of
164 With the French Eastern Army-
French soil. The moment had come. One
by one all their kindred, the Gaulois of the
left bank of the Rhine, were being freed.
One by one the valleys of the Eastern Vosges
were being liberated from their half century
of slavery. Very soon like a ripe fruit the
whole province would fall into their hands.
It was only a question of days. Also he
desired to come himself to instal in person
the first French official since 1870. Finally,
he exclaimed, " Permit me, gentlemen, to
embrace in the person of your president
the whole of Alsace, which is now indis-
solubly reunited to France."
In the East of France, on the frontier and
on the entire front from Soissons to Belfort,
the object of General Joffre was to keep
occupied as large a number of German
troops as possible. The French Head-
quarters summarises the story briefly : " In
Alsace the first French attack, badly con-
ducted, took them to Mulhouse, which they
were not able to retain. The second attack
directed by General Pau enabled them to
retake it, and also to hold in the Vosges and
on the plain the road to Colmar, inflicting
huge losses on the Germans. Unhappily
at that moment, adverse events (the defeat
Threatening the German Left 165
at Morchingen) in Lorraine and Belgium,
compelled them to reduce in Alsace the
extent and intensity of their effort. They
had to fall back on the Grande-Couronne
of Nancy and the south of Luneville, where
a counter-attack, delivered simultaneously
by the armies of General Dubail and General
de Castelnau, consolidated permanently
their position."
In that brief passionless way the Head-
quarters Staff of General J off re have told
the great achievements of the French Army
described in this volume. Since then we
have seen the King of England and Emperor
of India among his troops in the fighting
line ; a meeting of President Poincare and
the King at the Allied Headquarters and a
review of Belgian troops by the King of the
Belgians and our own monarch. King
Albert has received on the field of battle
the Order of the Garter, an event unpar-
alleled for six hundred years. The British
Sovereign has passed in perfect safety to
and fro on the seas while the Great German
Fleet hides ingloriously in harbour. These
things are in themselves victories.
The Kaiser was to smash France in
August. We are in a New Year, and his
166 With the French Eastern Army
triumphant march into Paris is now im-
possible. He is flitting from the scenes
of one disaster after another, with his
Empire threatened both on the East and
West. In his downfall the Eastern Army
of France will have taken a splendid share.
CHAPTER IX: A Postscript
The " Nibbles " become great " Bites "
While, in the old phrase, this book was
passing through the press the forecast it
contains, that events would develop on the
French Eastern frontier, was in process of
fulfilment. Not for nothing had General
J off re gone to Thann to instal the first
French functionary since 1871, and declared
that not again would Alsace form part of
Germany. His " nibbles " have become
great " bites," and as I write this postscript
the Germans are sending what reinforce-
ments they can to resist the French advance
on Mulhausen and Colmar. The fortress
of Metz has been bombarded by French
airmen, and the great station with its troop
trains seriously damaged. The railway at
Altkirch is not merely threatened but
broken, and had to be repaired time after
time. The French forces north of Belfort
are being supported by new bodies from
167
168 With the French Eastern Army
that fortress and so speedily and with such
dash are the French sapping and mining,
capturing lines and positions with the
bayonets, and above all destroying the
enemy by their invincible and unequalled
artillery fire, that it will be no surprise
to find them in Mulhausen and threatening
the Rhine defences by the time our little
volume is in print.
To some impatient people progress on the
Allied East as on the Allied West may still
seem slow. We see in the communiques
in January the names of the same places
which figured there in, what looks now like
ancient history, the months of August,
September and October. Really, of course,
that is not so long ago. Yet how changed
it all is. In England we have come to
realise the importance of the movements
on the right of the Allies, and to appreciate
the splendid work the French have done in
first holding the Germans fast and then
surely and not slowly driving them back.
Just as when General J off re decided that
the time had come to assume the offensive
after the avalanche advance of the Germans
on Paris, the whole line of the Allies took it
up in brilliant attack after brilliant attack,
" Nibbles " become " Bites " 169
so, with the New Year, the Allies, having
utterly conquered the German initiative,
have again taken a fierce offensive at every
point of their long front. The hold of
the enemy in all sectors, whether it is
in Belgium where Ostend is threatened, at
Soissons, at Rheims, at St. Mihiel or at
Sennheim, is daily becoming a more pre-
carious one.
Wherever they have been evil has been
their good. In Belgium venerable priests
have felt impelled to preach to the poor
victims of German violence and lust, that
under the circumstances the practice of
abortion is not sin, and that there is absolu-
tion for the mother who destroys the off-
spring of an enforced and unnatural union
with a German invader. " Holy and inno-
cent victims of the Huns," is how one aged
and beloved Belgian pastor describes these
poor women. The official account of the
German occupation of part of Eastern
France is an appalling record of atrocities.
The knowledge of what the Bavarian
soldiers did wherever they were for a time
in possession, has nerved the French soldier
to revengeful zeal and for him the only
good German is a dead German, as the
170 With the French Eastern Army-
North American settlers used to say of the
Red Indians.
The French Commission, writing of their
investigations in the department of the
Meurthe-et -Moselle, state : " We experi-
enced a feeling of horror when we saw the
pitiable ruins of Nomeny. Apart from a
few houses which are still standing near
the station there remains in this little town
only a succession of broken, blackened
walls. In the midst of the mass of ruins
can be seen here and there a few bones of
animals partly calcined, and the carbonised
remains of human bodies. The fury of a
maddened soldiery was let loose there
without restraint." On August 14th the
Germans, after firing into each other by
mistake, entered the town at midday.
According to one of them, their officers had
told them that the French tortured the
wounded, pulling out their eyes and cutting
off their limbs. Consequently they were
in a state of terrible excitement and com-
mitted abominable excesses — pillage, burn-
ing, and massacre. When the inhabitants
tried to escape, their houses were deliber-
ately set on fire. The unfortunate people,
driven from the cellars by the fear of fire,
"Nibbles" become " Bites" 171
were brought down with the rifle like game.
Many cases of murder and individual
brutality are cited.
" The most tragic incident of these
horrible scenes happened at the house of a
man named Vasse, who had collected in his
cellar several people. About four o'clock
fifty soldiers invaded the house, broke in
doors and windows, and finally set fire to
the place. The refugees tried to escape,
but were struck down one after another as
they went out, M. Mentre was assassinated
first ; his son, Leon, fell next, with a young
sister eight years old in his arms. "He was
not killed outright, and a rifle barrel was
put against his neck and his brains blown
out. It was then the turn of the Kieffer
family. The mother was wounded in the
arm and shoulder. The father, a boy of
ten, and a girl of three were shot."
The report describes how several others
were killed in similar circumstances and
continues : "At the end of the butchery
an officer came up and ordered the women
still living to get up, saying ' Go away into
France.' While all these people were
massacred others, according to witnesses,
were taken in herds to the fields under threat
172 With the French Eastern Army
of immediate execution. The cure, especi-
ally, owed it to exceptional circumstances
that he was not shot." In explanation of
the atrocities officers alleged that civilians
had fired on them. This, the Commission
states, is an absolute lie, because all the
arms were in the Town Hall, and the
population, terror-stricken, were hidden in
the cellars. Further, the alleged incident
would not excuse the destruction of the
town and the murder of women and chil-
dren. A list drawn up by the Councillor
of the arrondissement shows fifty names.
During the first days of the occupation
of Luneville, the Germans contented them-
selves with pillage. For instance, on August
24th a house was rifled, and the objects
stolen were loaded in waggons, in which
were three women, one dressed in black,
and the others wearing military uniform
and appearing to be canteen keepers. On
the 25th the attitude of the invaders sud-
denly changed. At about half-past three
in the afternoon the Mayor saw soldiers
firing. The Germans stated that the in-
habitants had fired on them.
The Mayor of Luneville offered to prove
the absurdity of this by going round the
"Nibbles" become "Bites" 173
town with the authorities. On finding the
corpse of a civilian, Crombez, in the road
the officer who commanded the escort said
to the Mayor : " You see this corpse. It is
that of a civilian, whom another civilian
killed in firing on us from a house near the
Synagogue. So, according to our law, we
have burnt the house and executed the
inhabitants." The officer referred to the
murder of a man whose timid character
was known to all, the Jewish minister
Weill, who had just been killed at his
house with his sixteen-year-old daughter.
While the Mayor and the officer were tour-
ing the town fire broke out in all directions,
and at the same time massacres began that
were to continue till next day. The report
continues : " Murders were committed in
the following circumstances : On August
25th, after firing two shots in the interior
of the Worms Tannery to give the impres-
sion that they were attacked, the Germans
invaded a workshop in the factory where a
workman, Goeury, was working with a man
named Balastre and his son. Goeury was
dragged into the street, was robbed and
brutally treated, while his two companions,
who had hidden, were found and shot. On
174 With the French Eastern Army
the same day soldiers came and called for
M. Steiner, who had hidden in his cellar.
His wife, fearing disaster, tried to stop him.
As she was holding him she received a ball
in the neck. A few minutes later Steiner,
obeying the order, fell mortally wounded
in his garden."
M. Kahn was also assassinated in the
garden of his house. His mother, ninety-
eight years old, who was burned in the fire,
had previously been bayoneted in her bed,
according to the statement of a man who
acted as interpreter to the enemy. M.
Binder, who was going out to escape the
flames, was also struck down. The Ger-
man who killed him admitted that he acted
without motive, while the man was standing
quietly before his own door. About three
o'clock the Germans broke into a house,
smashing windows and firing into the
dwelling, in which were Madame Dujon,
her three-year-old daughter, her two sons,
and a M. Gaumier. The little girl was nearly
killed, her face being burned by rifle fire.
At the same moment Madame Dujon,
seeing her youngest son, fourteen years old,
lying on the ground, called to him to get
up and fly with her. She then saw he was
"Nibbles" become " Bites" 175
holding his entrails with both hands. The
house was on fire, and the poor child was
burnt, as well as M. Gaumier, who had
been unable to escape.
Other similar cases at Luneville are de-
scribed by the Commission, including an
instance of saw bayonets being used
against women. A less serious case, which,
however, sheds light on the mentality of
the Germans like several others, refers to a
man of sixty-seven years old, taken with
his wife into the fields with hands tied
behind his back. Both were cruelly treated,
and a non-commissioned officer seized eigh-
teen hundred francs in gold which the old
man had in his possession.
In the village of Chanteneux the hostages
were brutally treated, and when a German
officer was told by a French schoolmaster
on his word of honour that civilians had
not fired he exclaimed : " Pig of a French-
man, don't speak of honour ; you have
none." Out of 465 houses in Gueb wilier
only twenty were left habitable. Over 100
persons disappeared, fifty at least being
killed by the Germans. The statement
is made in the report that a Red Cross
worker named Werner was shot, and as he
176 With the French Eastern Army
still moved, was saturated with paraffin
in the presence of his mother and burnt
alive The Commission give on good
evidence a statement that the corpse of a
woman was violated by some of the
Bavarians, and this in itself is an evidence
of degeneracy in the men of the Kaiser's
Empire, which bears out many dark and
unbelievable stories of strange sexual de-
pravities which have grown up in Germany
coincident with militarism.
The Commission visited Baccarat, where
the town was pillaged and set on fire. For
purposes of arson the German army utilised
a complete plant comprising torches, ex-
plosive grenades, fuses, petroleum pumps,
rolls of explosive stuff and bags containing
pellets of a highly inflammable compressed
powder. Pillage was methodically practised
everywhere, even in the presence of officers.
Wine cellars were emptied, safes burst
open, table silver, jewellery, pictures, furni-
ture, linen, dresses, sewing machines and
even children's toys were carted across
the frontier. At J olivet, Bonvillers, Ein-
ville, Remonville, Sommerviller, Rehain-
viller, Lamath and Fraimbois, burnings
and outrages were reported. At Mont,
"Nibbles become "Bites 177
bombarded by the French, a German officer
was furious that a Frenchwoman had been
allowed to leave the house, saying : " I did
not want the door opened. I wanted the
French to fire on their own people.' ' Other
atrocities by retreating Germans are reported
from Magnieres, Croismare, Remereville,
Drouville, Courbesseaux, and Erbeviller.
In a commune of the Meurthe-et-Moselle
Department, two women were exposed
without defence to the brutalities of a
German soldier, who, after compelling the
elder to take off his boots, stripped both
naked and outraged the younger under
peril of her life. The Commission adds :
" We have undertaken not to reveal the
names of the two women (they were
nuns) nor the village where the deed was
committed, but the facts were given us
under oath by witnesses worthy of full
credence, and we accept all responsibility
for the verification of them."
The village of Embermenil was the scene
of particular cruelties. At the end of
October, or beginning of November, an
enemy patrol, meeting in the outskirts
of the village, a young woman, Madame
Masson, who was pregnant, questioned
178 With the French Eastern Army
her as to the presence of the French troops.
She knew nothing, so could not answer,
but after the Fifth Bavarian Regiment
had been received with shots from French
troops on entering the village some days
later the entire habitants were assembled
before the church, and the officer demanded
to know who had betrayed the Germans.
Madame Masson bravely stepped up and
repeated what she had said days before,
asserting that it was her honest knowledge.
She was instantly taken and shot, together
with a young man picked out at hazard
from the crowd. The whole village pleaded
for her, but it was useless. Her father-in-
law's house was then burned. In Donievre-
sur-Vezouze 136 houses were destroyed by
incendiary compounds. A lad named
Maurice Claude was shot dead with three
bullets while quietly standing before his
aunt's house. Two others were similarly
killed, and two taken as hostages have since
disappeared. But enough of these atro-
cities which make the heart blood run cold
in the reader. That the Germans will pay
a terribly heavy price for them there is no
doubt. Retribution has indeed already
begun.
" Nibbles" become "Bites" 179
The Allies could not have had worse
weather than that which was experienced
throughout the last month of the year and
the beginning of 1915. They have had to
fight in drenching rain and on ground not
merely sodden, but many feet deep in
mud. In spite of numerous difficulties,
dummy fortifications and well concealed
artillery, their progress eastward of Rheims
was continued with method and tenacity.
The enemy's attitude was strictly defensive.
The French had suffered too much from
the Germans to even give them a Christmas
truce. The fighting was continued on both
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So
abhorred and untrustworthy are the enemy
opposed to the Eastern Army of France
that when some of them left their trenches
on Christmas Day shouting " two days'
truce," their ruse did not succeed. All
were shot down. The French have not
forgotten how their foes utilised a
truce for the burial of the dead in
September to bring up their heavy guns
and place them for the bombardment of
Nancy.
Throughout the whole of the eastward
region the turn of the year was marked by
180 With the French Eastern Army
fresh successes. All counter-attacks by
the enemy were repulsed, and the French
appreciably increased their gain. For in-
stance, by the evening of December 24th,
they had driven the enemy from some of his
first line saps. They were masters of all
the line Perthes-les-Hurlus, Mesnil-les-Hur-
lus, and Beausejour. The night of Christ-
mas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day
were marked by five violent attacks in
strong force against the position taken by
the French troops. The four first were
directed to the west of Perthes. They
were carried out on a front of 1,500 metres
or roughly between ten and twelve miles.
The French infantry and machine guns
received them with such a murderous fire
that the Germans were thrown back. The
artillery then came into action and
completed the rout, the enemy leaving
large numbers of dead in front of the
French lines. The importance of this
success was emphasised by the fact that
the Germans had brought reinforcements
from other parts with the object of
repairing the losses of the previous
days. The only result was to make them
heavier.
" Nibbles" become " Bites " 181
In the last week of the year the advances
continued. Three battalions of Colonial
infantry — who are among the most dare-
devil troops in the army of our ally —
carried whole lines of trenches with the
bayonet, and the French fought on, making
progress by hundreds of yards on New
Year's Day, and right up to the time of
writing. All the ground captured was
held, and they were able to start upon
their new positions in spite of the desperate
efforts of the enemy. On the whole front
their artillery obtained complete mastery
over the German batteries, and on January
3rd it inflicted very heavy losses on the
enemy's infantry concentrated to the north
of Massiges. In the captured trenches the
French found, as evidence of the extent
of the German defeat, minenwerfers, with
armoured hoods, quick-firing guns, machine
guns, boxes of cartridges and other ammu-
nition, boxes of explosives for trench work,
fuses, cigars, boxes of chocolate, tinned
provisions and other indications of a hurried
flight. In the Argonne, progress has been
slow, but here also it has been sure, and
violent counter-attacks by the enemy were
without result.
182 With the French Eastern Army
In the region of Verdun and the heights
of the Meuse the French have continued
to advance, and the vigorous counter-
attacks of the enemy at the close of the
year were invariably repulsed. On the
heights of the Meuse our allies have every-
where gained ground. At Eparges the
enemy's batteries were withdrawn half a
mile, finding the French fire too hot for
them. The German artillery contented
itself with long range bombardment of
villages in rear of the French front. Be-
tween the Meuse and the Moselle the
Germans announced that they had obtained
great successes in the Bois Brule. The
name of this wood recalls a literary reminis-
cence, for the village is described by Mr.
Hilaire Belloc in one of his most entertaining
books. " And Brule is a very good omen
for men that are battered about and given
to despairing since it is only called Brule
on account of its having been burnt so
often by Romans, Frenchmen, Burgundians,
Germans, Flemings, Huns, perhaps, ^and
generally all those who in the last few
thousand years have taken a short cut at
their enemies over the neck of the Cote
Barine. So you would imagine it to be
"Nibbles" become "Bites" 183
a tumble-down, weak, wretched and dis-
appearing place ; but so far from this it is
a rich and proud village, growing better
wine than any in the garrison, though Toul
stands in a great cup or ring of hills, very
high and with steep slopes, and guns on all
of them, and all these hills grow wine, none
is so good as Brule wine." As a matter of
fact, the Germans have not reached the
Bois Brule, but for weeks were fighting on
its outskirts suffering severe losses. Not
for them is the wine of Brule which Hilaire
Belloc eulogises.
In another wood, that of Le Pretre, near
Pont-a-Mousson, for six weeks they tried
in vain to penetrate. In fact, throughout
the Vosges, the French activities have been
crowned with the most happy results. In
the Ban de Sapt, near Bonhomme, they
were often attacked, but never gave way,
and an attack on the latter place on Christ-
mas Day, renewed three times with great
violence, was repulsed first with the bayonet
and then by the artillery. The enemy lost
heavily, the bodies of 500 men and several
officers were found in front of the French
trenches after the bayonet repulse, and
they were compelled to abandon much
184 With the French Eastern Army
ammunition, hand grenades and other
stores.
The capture of Steinbach, however, opens
the door to the French for renewed attempts
upon Mulhausen and Colmar. It must be
remembered that the French already hold
all the tops of the passes along the Vosges,
and from these points of vantage can
outflank every position the Germans can
take up to oppose a French advance up the
Rhine valley as soon as the situation makes
it worth the while of General J off re to pay
the necessary price in human life. Already
the threat against Mulhausen at the begin-
ning of January was causing alarm at the
German headquarters, and from the Swiss
frontier came news of troops being rapidly
railed to the threatened point. These
troops had to be taken from somewhere
and the margin of reinforcements is steadily
growing smaller. Somewhere in other
words they had to weaken their defence,
and this process will go on steadily in-
creasing until the Germans find themselves
compelled to fall back, first probably to the
line of the Meuse, then to the line of the
Rhine. It is this that makes the unin-
terrupted progress of the French from
" Nibbles" become " Bites" 185
Christmas Day onwards particularly profit-
able alike in the region of Thann, in the
Vosges, about Cernay (or, as the Germans
call it, Sennheim) and Steinbach.
They held the outskirts of the two
Aspachs to the south of Sennheim on
Christmas Day, and notwithstanding a
vigorous resistance installed themselves in
the borders of the wood near Steinbach.
Next day they advanced in the wood and
in what is known as the Uffholz ravine,
while to the west of Sennheim they were
in close grips with the enemy, and to the
south were attacking the woods to the
north of Lower Aspach. The fight con-
tinued next day, the French advance being
over ground covered with German corpses and
abandoned arms and equipment . For thirty-
six hours more violent fighting occurred,
a ridge to the west of Uffholz being gained
and Steinbach wood surrounded and cleared
with heavy losses on both sides. The
French cleared the village of Steinbach,
house by house, and street by street. It
is, or was, a pleasant little village of irregular
construction, lying at the foot of the deep
cup formed by the surrounding hills, of
which that numbered 425 is the most
186 With the French Eastern Army
commanding. On New Year's Day, the
Chasseurs Alpine did some splendid work,
dashing through the village amid the
flames of burning houses and the enemy's
machine-gun fire. Two days later these
nimble mountaineers had not only captured
the whole village, but jtheir comrades
had carried the enemy's trenches on Hill
425-
The Germans, exasperated by the con-
tinual progress of the French, made two
determined counter-attacks with over-
whelming numbers. They recaptured Hill
425 and drove the French back to their
original trenches. They regained possession
of the cemetery and the church of Steinbach,
but it was beyond their power to hold them.
Without waiting for daylight the French
delivered their reply. Before dawn they
were once more in possession of Steinbach,
and had cleared the enemy from Hill 425,
and by nightfall, not only was the entire
village in French hands, but they had
commenced their untiring advance to the
north-east and south-west. They also
gained ground on the road from Thann to
Sennheim.
Well may the official account say that
"Nibbles" become "Bites" 187
the German^defeat was complete. The
conduct of the French during these days
was heroic. It has been so throughout the
whole of the prolonged struggles on the
eastern frontier.
Printed in Great Britain by Wyman & Sons Ltd., London and Reading.
Ube 2>ail£ ftelegvapb
WAR BOOKS.
25 Volumes. Cloth 1/= net each.
(1) HOW THE WAR BEGAN.
By W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D., and J. M.
KENNEDY.
Britain's justification before the bar of history.
" No one who reads with a clear or an honest mind the
documents here set out can fail to feel completely
satisfied with the part we have played." Spectator.
" The work is a really indispensable possession. . . .
No intelligent reader can afford to be without it."
British Weekly.
(2) THE FLEETS AT WAR.
By ARCHIBALD HURD.
The Key Book to the understanding of the naval
situation.
" ' The Fleets at War ' is of great use as presenting
concisely and clearly the factors, merits and demerits of
the various great fleets, with details of each class of
ship throughout." Athencsum.
(3) THE CAMPAIGN OP SEDAN.
By GEORGE HOOPER.
This fascinating account of the disaster of 1870 is
essential as a preliminary to the understanding of the
present plan of campaign.
" A well-compiled and intelligently compressed account
of the memorable occurrences of forty years ago, and
as a key book to the understanding of the present
military situation is undoubtedly of considerable assist-
ance." Outlook.
(4) THE CAMPAIGN ROUND LIEGE.
By J. M. KENNEDY.
The only ordered and vivid account of the wonderful
Belgian resistance to the German advance.
HODDER & STOUGHTON Publishers Warwick Square London E.C.
" A stirring record of Belgium's most valorous stand
against the mighty invader. Nothing that happens in
the course of the war can obliterate the memory of what
happened at Liege ; it is a story that will always be
worthy the telling, and in these pages it is well and
clearly told." Sheffield Telegraph .
5) IN THE FIRING LINE.
By A. ST. JOHN ADCOCK.
The first connected account of the splendid heroism
of the British Expeditionary Force, compiled from the
accounts of men who have actually fought.
" ' In the Firing Line ' remains as human and engrossing
an epitome of the struggle as any that has reached us
yet. . . . The little book, so full of anecdotes and
illustrations of bravery, is as precious in its way as the
Greek Anthology or the Golden Treasury, for it is the
material in the rough from which many a poet and
patriot will draw his inspiration." Pall Mall Gazette.
(6) GREAT BATTLES OF THE WORLD.
By STEPHEN CRANE Author of " The Red
Badge of Courage."
Full of passion and the fire of action, Stephen Crane's
word pictures of the Great Battles of the World are
among the most realistic and audacious war scenes ever
penned.
" Another fascinating book in the ' Daily Telegraph '
series is entitled, ' Great Battles of the World.' "
Yorkshire Post.
" The book has a high historical and educative value."
Irish Daily Independent.
(7) BRITISH REGIMENTS AT THE
FRONT. The glorious story of their
Battle Honours.
By REGINALD HODDER.
This is a most fascinating volume. Everyone is interested
in the fortunes of the regiments forming our gallant
army on the Continent. Their previous glorious
achievements on the field of battle are told here with
rare vigour and picturesque colour.
" The story of how our famous regiments won their
nicknames, and a record of their more notable achieve-
ments. It is an inspiring little volume." T.P.'s Weekly
HODDER & STOUGHTON, Publishers, Warwick Square London, E.C.
(8) THE RED CROSS IN WAR.
By Miss M. F. BILLINGTON.
The essential part played by women in war receives full
recognition in this volume. It is specially written for
those who wish to emulate the heroisms and self-sacrific-
ing zeal displayed by courageous women in Red Cross
work on the field of battle and at home.
(9) FORTY YEARS AFTER.
The story of the Franco-German War of 1870,
by H. C. BAILEY. With an introduction by
W. L. COURTNEY, LL.D.
This is a complete and fascinating account by a famous
writer of the whole course of the Franco-German War of
1870. (The Campaign of Sedan is separately considered
in another volume.) Here is the true story — more
fascinating than any novel — of the war, its causes and
its effects.
" A very readable narrative which is preceded by an
admirable introduction by Dr. W. L. Courtney. Many
at this time will be glad to have recalled to memory the
facts of the conflict which ' laid waste the fields of
France and tore from her the provinces of Alsace and
Lorraine.' " Westminster Gazette.
(10) A SCRAP OF PAPER.
The Inner History of Germany's Diplomacy
and her world-wide Plan of Conquest, by
E. J. DILLON.
In conjunction with " How the War Began " this volume
forms one of the most crushing and most enlightening
indictments ever written of Germany's aims and plans.
It contains the famous correspondence around " the
scrap of paper " which constituted the neutrality of
Belgium, and discusses its meaning from all points of
view. It is a complete exposure of the crooked paths
of Teutonic diplomacy.
" Quite one of the best short summaries of the events
that led up to the war. Few men know the inside of
European politics as does Dr. Dillon." Public Opinion.
H0DDER.1& STOUGHTON, Publishers, Warwick Square, London, E.C
(11) HOW THE NATIONS WAGED WAR.
A companion volume to " How the War Began,"
telling how the world faced Armageddon and
how the British Army answered the call to
arms, by J. M. KENNEDY.
" How the Nations Waged War " does not deal merely
with diplomatic history ; it discusses many other impor-
tant subjects, among which may be mentioned the
German Press Campaign, the position of Italy, Russia
and the question of Polish Independence, the Japanese
in the Far East, the Triple Entente Declaration, the
importance of the Balkans, the splendid aid from the
Dominion of India, the economical position, and the
question of the food supply.
" If you have missed any of the diplomatic disclosures
or events preceding the war get ' How the Nations
Waged War." Its revelations of Germany's intrigues and
preparations are startling." Western Mail.
(12) AIR-CRAFT IN WAR.
By ERIC S. BRUCE.
(13) FAMOUS FIGHTS OF INDIAN
NATIVE REGIMENTS.
By REGINALD HODDER.
(14) THE FIGHTING RETREAT TO
PARIS.
By ROGER INGPEN.
(15) THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE.
By MARR MURRAY.
(16) THE FIRST CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIAN
POLAND.
By P. C. STANDING.
HODDER & STOUGHTOR, Publishers, Warwick Square, London, E,C.
4
(17) THE BATTLES OF THE RIYERS.
By EDMUND DANE.
(18) FROM HELIGOLAND TO KEELING
ISLAND.
By ARCHIBALD HURD.
(19) THE SLAY NATIONS.
By SRGJAN PL. TUCIC.
(20) SUBMARINES, MINES AND TOR
PEDOES.
By C. W. DOMVILLE-FIFE.
(21) WITH THE R.A.M.C, AT THI
FRONT.
By E. CHARLES VIVIAN.
(22) MOTOR TRANSPORTS IN WAR.
By HORACE WYATT.
(23) HACKING THROUGH BELGIUM.
By EDMUND DANE.
(24) WITH THE FRENCH EASTER*
ARMY.
By W. E. GREY.
(25) THE GERMAN NAYY.
By ARCHIBALD HURD.
HODDER &. STOUGHTON, Publishers, Warwick Square, London, E.C.
S
THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Santa Barbara
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW.
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
A A 000 292 956 o
Live Music Archive
Librivox Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Internet Arcade
Console Living Room
Books to Borrow
Open Library
TV News
Understanding 9/11