Book: The Audacious War

C >> Clarence W. Barron >> The Audacious War




Austria extended the hand of friendship to Bulgaria and induced her to
attack her allies, Servia and Greece, thus making the second Balkan
war. The result was the loss by Bulgaria of part of the territory she
had acquired and a further augmentation in the importance of Servia.
Bulgaria has never forgiven either Servia or Austria for this defeat.

The Servians are the pure-blooded Slavs, while the Bulgarians have a
Turkish admixture, whence their great fighting qualities. The
Roumanians just north of Bulgaria are Italians, and the defeat of
Turkey in Africa by Italy did not lessen the importance of this
enterprising nation on the Danube, fronting Austria-Hungary and Russia.
Both Austria and Germany were losers in all three wars; while the
treaty ending the second Balkan war magnified Servia of the Slav race
of Russia. This is the important and crucial point in race and
geography.

Austria, as the hand of Germany, still demanded a union of all these
Balkan states with Turkey and under the aegis of Austria,--which meant,
of course, Germany.

The aim of Germany in alliance with Turkey was, through Austria in
_quasi_-sovereignty over the Balkan states, to carry German influence
by the Bagdad railroad right through Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf.
Germany would thus be, when the work was finished, a mighty military
empire with rail communications cleaving the center of Europe and
extending through Asia Minor to Eastern waters. With her growing
steamship lines she would touch her colonies in the Pacific and her
mighty naval base at Kiao-Chau in the Far East.

Now, while Germany is besieged on all sides and Italy and Roumania are
preparing to go into the war with the Allies that they may have their
part and parcel in the settlements, it is recognized that it is none
too early for the Allies to consider the map of the entire eastern
hemisphere and tackle that most difficult problem, the Bagdad railroad,
from which Turkey, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, the great
historic countries of the world, must be parcelled out or dominated and
developed.

The followers of Mohammed are no longer a unit. They number
175,000,000 people in the aggregate, but India and Egypt have gradually
receded in sentiment from decadent Turkey, now numbering only about
20,000,000 people, and defended by an army of about 1,000,000. But
this is no longer an army of united, fighting Mohammedan Turks; only a
mixed army lacking in unity, discipline, efficiency and financial base.

Indeed, such are the financial straits of Turkey that a ten per cent
tax has been levied upon the property of the people. If you hold
property in Turkey and cannot pay ten per cent of the value the
authorities have assessed against it, it may be sold or confiscated for
the tax.

Where the money goes, nobody knows. German influence with Turkey has a
financial base; 6,000,000 pounds sterling or 100,000,000 marks went
from Germany to Constantinople just before the war, according to
reports I have from people in the international exchange markets. From
diplomatic sources I learn that this was just one half of the payment
made by Germany to Turkey. The other 100,000,000 marks was probably
paid in war supplies, including the two famous German warships that the
English allowed to escape from the Mediterranean into Turkish waters.

The little English boy was right who returned from school the other day
and said, "Hurray! I don't have to study any more geography; the old
maps are to be torn up and the new map has not yet been made."

It is because of the making of this new map that European diplomacy is
rolling on underneath the surface faster than ever before. Bulgaria
has demanded as the price of her neutrality that she shall have what
she lost in the second Balkan war. The Allies have responded: "What
you get must depend upon what Servia gets from Austria and in the
carving up of Albania." Austria-Hungary may lose Bosnia, Herzegovina,
Dalmatia, and some more. So far as Servia acquires territory here
Bulgaria may push farther south, recovering Adrianople and more sea
coast on the Aegean.

Roumania wants Transylvania just north in Hungary, occupied by
2,500,000 people, the majority Roumanians--this will make her
10,000,000 people--and Italy wants territory from Austria and naval
ports on the Adriatic sea.

Neither Italy nor Roumania has its full war supplies and equipments.
Servia, however, has been terribly pounded by Austria and but for her
good fortune in pushing Austria back out of Servia in December, the
Roumanians with their 450,000 well-organized troops might have had to
come to her assistance earlier than was prepared for. Indeed, it is
now expected that Italy and Roumania will move against Austria within a
few weeks. Russia and the Allies are making their agreements for this
intervention.

And what does America know about these movements on the European
chessboard, and upon what basis should she aspire to be arbiter or
peace adviser?




CHAPTER V

FRANCE AND THE FRENCH

Signs of War not Conspicuous--Paris reopened--A Rejuvenation--English
and American Help--French Casualties--French Heroes.


One enters France nowadays by the Folkestone and Dieppe route, which is
a four-hour Channel trip or longer, or by Folkestone and Boulogne, a
Channel trip of ninety minutes more or less. All the routes to Calais
are used by the government for its troops, supplies, and munitions.
England's hospital base is at Boulogne. Here is the center of her Red
Cross work, with a dozen big hospital ships commandeered from the P. &
O. line and bearing distinctive stripes around their hulls. One
hospital ship is set apart for the wounded Indians, and the apartments
within are fitted up according to the various religious castes
prevalent among the troops of India now fighting in France and
Flanders. Here at times puts in Lord Zetland's yacht, fitted out by
Queen Alexandra for wounded English officers.

When you travel by rail, if you did not know that war was in the
country you would never suspect it, unless you wondered why a
red-hatted, blue-coated guard, with a rifle carelessly swung over his
shoulder, is noticeable now and then by a cross-road or near the
buttress of an important railroad bridge. You pass trains of troops,
but the uniforms are quiet, the men jovial and unwarlike. The wounded
are not conspicuously moved by day.

Although you are not many miles away from the firing line, where an
average of more than ten thousand are daily falling, the country is as
peaceful and quiet as can be imagined. The big black and white horses
are winter ploughing. The red and black cattle and the sheep and hogs
are grazing in fields and pastures. The reddening willows speak of an
early spring, and the full blue streams tell the brown grasses, and the
tall poplars that their colors will soon be gayer.

As the shadows fall, no guard comes as in England to pull your curtain
down according to military orders; and, as you approach Paris, you see
families dining by uncurtained windows in blazing light. You are
astonished after your London experience of semi-darkness to find the
boulevards ablaze and no apparent fear of aerial enemies or
sky-invasion, although aeroplanes and Zeppelins and bombs may be flying
and fighting only eighty miles away. Now and then a searchlight
illumines the heavens, but even searchlights are far less conspicuous
than in London. In January the lights were ordered to be lowered; but
Paris will not stand for long London fog, gloom, or darkness. The
French atmosphere and life demand light.

Paris is gradually getting accustomed to the situation. More than 30
first-class hotels are partially opened and advertising. Many of the
business streets have a semi-Sunday appearance. Boulevards running
from the Place de l'Opera are well filled with people, and nearly all
of the stores are now open. In the first weeks of December you could
see the reopening day by day, and when on the 10th the government
returned to Paris, the art stores and the jewelry stores joined with
the confectioners, trunk dealers, and book-men, and threw open shutters
that had been closed four months.

Paris is now normal but not crowded. Theaters are reopening, but the
restaurants must be closed at ten P.M. The inhabitants young and old
picnic in the Bois de Boulogne and evince most interest in the defences
about the Paris gates,--the moats, the new trenches that have been dug,
and the tree-trunks that have been thrown down with their branches and
tops pointing outward as though to interrupt the progress of an enemy.
Buildings have been taken down, and the forts of Paris stand forth as
never before; but when you learn how unmanned and how useless they are
in modern warfare, you can but smile and join with the people in their
curiosity excursions. A single modern shell can put a modern
stone-and-steel fort, garrison and guns, entirely out of commission.

A year ago Paris looked dirty and decadent. Her building fronts were
grimy, her streets were dirty, and there was a general carelessness
where before had been art, precision, and cleanliness. To-day Paris
streets are clean. There is even more evidence of rebuilding and of
modern conveniences. Motor street-sweepers whirl through the squares,
not singly but in pairs and more extended series, and they move with
automobile rapidity, quickly cleansing the pavement.

I was reminded thereby of a personal experience at the breaking out of
the Spanish-American War. At breakfast on a Sunday morning with one of
America's most successful millionaires, I said, "How is it possible
that the stock market can be rising as the country is going to war--a
war that may cause some of our new warships to turn turtle and may
bring bombardment upon our sea-coast cities? Yet before the guns are
booming the stock market is booming. Indeed, the stock market began to
boom from the time we declared a state of war."

And this successful multi-millionaire replied quietly, "Stocks are
going up because I am buying them and every other intelligent
capitalist is buying them. Look out of the window there. That sweeper
at the crossing has straightened up and is sweeping that crossing
better and with more energy because the flags are flying, and the bells
are ringing, and the guns will soon be booming. War is the greatest
energizer of a people. There is now profit in industry and enterprise,
and financial equities have increased value." And for nearly ten years
the stock market booms followed in the wake of that war boom, while
construction and upbuilding went steadily forward despite agitation and
restricting laws.

It would astonish Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan to know how many patriotic
Americans are helping France and what they are doing in Red Cross and
other work. I was surprised to meet a former member of the New York
Stock Exchange in a khaki uniform. I said, "Are you still an American
citizen?" He responded promptly, "Certainly I am, but would not the
boys on the floor of the Exchange be astonished to see me in this
uniform?"

I said, "Were there not men enough here to do this work?"

He responded, "Possibly, but quick organization was wanted, and I
volunteered and have held the job." And he was off in his high-powered
automobile for a run down behind the firing line to one of the Channel
ports.

As the casualties of the French have been ten times those of the
English, American and English sympathizers have turned to France to see
if they might "do something." An English lady with small feet and
delicate hands responded to the spirit of the hour, left her English
home and her servants, and went to the hospital front in France. She
wrote home: "I am helping not only to dress the wounds, but to wash
dishes. My soft hands are parboiled but hardening; my feet are sore;
and my legs are swollen. I lie down thoroughly exhausted every night,
but I am doing something and am happy."

Mrs. W. L. Wyllie, wife of the famous marine etcher on the south
English coast, looked out upon the Channel war-scenes, and took ship
for France. She found the center and south of the country one vast
hospital. At Limoges alone she found more than 12,000 wounded, and
32,000 wounded had passed through that city. She found the hospital in
need of special bandages and cross-bandages for multiple wounds, and
back she flew to England for bales of bandages. For weeks she was
crossing and recrossing the English Channel. Soldiers have recovered
from as many as twenty and thirty bullet-wounds in the flesh.

An American lady assisting in the English Red Cross work told me that
she saw 2000 wounded every day for eleven days arriving at Boulogne.
About the middle of December I learned that orders had been given to
clear the Boulogne hospital base and prepare for a large number of
wounded. Relief days for the troops at the front were shortened, and
it was intimated to me in good quarters that the Germans would enjoy no
Christmas in their trenches. The Allies advanced, counted their dead
and wounded, and ceased in the attack.

I do not believe that any great forward movement can be made on either
side from or against these trenches in the winter time. In good
strategy and diplomacy, the break-up of Germany should come from other
quarters.

There is considerable typhoid arising from the trench-work, but I heard
it stated in medical circles that the Servian troops, with their milder
climate, had found a new way of healing wounds. Not having the
hospital base and equipment of other countries, they heal their wounds
in the open air with the result that there is no tetanus or lock-jaw.
In Switzerland human tuberculosis is now being cured by exposing the
chest, directly over the affection, to the full rays of the sun.

The casualties of this war have been tremendous for France. No lists
of her dead or wounded are published; it was at first a life-and-death
struggle. While the total casualties--killed, wounded, missing, and
prisoners--were estimated in the press reports and by the people as
600,000, I happen to know that they were more than 1,000,000. Of
these, of course, one third or more will return to the battle-line, and
the French have the satisfaction of knowing that the German losses are
far larger. But, viewed from a financial standpoint, if this war is
not too prolonged or too costly in life and treasure, France will
emerge from it rejuvenated and reenergized.

Her people are serious and determined as never before. They now
welcome strong work and strong hands, and if the Republic does not
respond to the responsibilities of the hour, they will not as in 1870
burn and destroy, but will set up another government in quick order and
wipe out the weakness and inefficiency found to exist when the strain
came in August, 1914.

The French nation has never before been put to such a trial. In every
other war there has been no threat of the destruction of France.
Indeed, up to 1870 France was the great nation of Europe, greatest in
war as well as greatest in peace. When she attacked Germany in 1870,
she started for Berlin with full confidence in her greatness. And when
she paid to the Germans a billion dollars in 1871, it was with scorn
and contempt: "Take your money and get out!"

When Bismarck in 1875 discovered the prosperity of France, he cunningly
set about encompassing her downfall. He knew the world would not
approve of Germany attacking a foreign foe; there was no excuse that
could be found.

Therefore, as he himself has confessed, he started France into
empire-colonial upbuilding in Africa and Asia, with the full intention
of leading her into a clash with England. When this point was reached
many years afterwards, Delcasse clearly saw the situation, and, instead
of war, made friends with England. All the world knows the result.
Germany demanded his resignation from the French Cabinet under threat
of war. France was humiliated, Delcasse dropped. Later he led the
movement to strengthen the navy of France as well as the army. It may
be declared that Delcasse created the Triple Entente and thereby saved
France and Europe. To-day France fights a wholly defensive battle,
supported on the one side by the Russian bear and on the other by the
British lion. And strongest in the new cabinet of France stands
Delcasse.

France was chastened by the war of 1870. She will be crushed or
redeemed by the war of 1915. The spirit of her people to-day is the
spirit of sacrifice. The French character never before shone forth so
nobly.

"What a terrible disfigurement!" exclaimed a thoughtless lady as she
visited the wounded in a great French hospital.

"Not a disfigurement at all, madame," exclaimed the French soldier. "A
decoration!"

Out of this war may come great political and military heroes. There is
one general in France to-day whose name is not widely known but of whom
his associates say, "He is not only the equal but the superior of
Napoleon." But the great hero throughout Europe to-day is the King of
the Belgians, of that little country that grew daily bigger in the eyes
of the world as it grew daily smaller in possessed territory. There
are those who believe that France and Belgium will be hereafter closer
together than before, and that--stranger things have happened--the King
of the little Belgians might be no greater miracle for France than the
little Corsican more than one hundred years ago.




CHAPTER VI

THE POSITION OF FRANCE

The Iron Hand of War--Paris offered in Sacrifice--Faulty
Mobilization--The French Army--The Joffre Strategy--The German Retreat.


The position of France to-day cannot be compared with that of any other
country in the war. The French people have a distinctive genius all
their own. They are still the greatest people in art in the world.
Nothing in sculpture or painting in the outside world yet rivals the
skill of France. Politically the French are trusting children,
vibrating between empires and republics, and following only the rule of
success. In finance they were accounted great a generation ago. In
savings they have been regarded as world-leaders.

When the stern reality of military necessity suddenly confronted France
five months ago, there was the same old story of graft, fraud, and a
deceived people.

But the war authorities gripped France with an iron hand. The military
traitors and grafters are in jail. The weaklings in the official line
have been cashiered. The politically undesirable have been given
foreign missions.

There was political as well as military wisdom in the return of the
government from Bordeaux to Paris. The French people were shocked when
they learned that the boasted military defences of Paris, "the most
extensive fortifications in the world," embracing 400 square miles,
were unprovisioned and indefensible, that the government had fled, and
that there was no army to save the city.

Indeed, the authorities had determined to sacrifice Paris to save
France. General Joffre had no men to spare to be bottled up in the
city. He determined that his armies should be kept free on the field.

You may ask anywhere in France, Belgium, or England why the French did
not come to the relief of Belgium, why Paris was undefended, and what
saved it after Von Kluck had led seven armies of 1,000,000 men down to
its very gates, and you will get no satisfactory answer.

But when you have studied the situation and the record, you will see
that no simple answer can be readily given. A brief one would be:
French mobilization plans were imperfect, and, therefore, Belgium could
not be defended by the French. But motor-busses did what the railroads
were unprepared to do, and finally saved Paris and France.

The French had been warned many months publicly and privately that
their mobilization plans would be found faulty in case of sudden
hostilities. The railways moved perishable goods at the rate of thirty
miles a day while German and Austrian railways bore military trains at
the rate of thirty miles an hour.

So ill prepared were the French in their mobilization plans that they
actually summoned to arms the men who were to man the railways, and the
railways themselves were deficient in rolling-stock to move the troops.
The citizens responded promptly enough, but France had no bureaucracy
or military plans to match those of Germany, and, as throughout French
history, the leaders of the people failed at the crucial moment. The
plodding English had to help out the French railway plans, and then had
to turn around and find their own railroad defects. When England first
sounded the call to arms, men deserted the railroad service to go into
training to such an extent that the authorities had to stop it and
maintain transportation as, of course, an important arm of the
war-service.

The history of the unpreparedness of both England and France has yet to
be written. It would not be useful to print much that is already
known. There are two political sentiments in both countries, and
political issues will rise again in both after the war.

A little contemplation here will show the extravagance of many
estimates of the number of men to be put in the field in time of war.
Many estimates have taken little account of the number of men required
to handle a modern transportation service, and the supply organization
to back up an effective army at the front. Transportation and
war-supplies are on such an expanded basis as was not dreamed of a few
years ago. The war plans of one generation cannot be the war plans of
another either on land or sea. That France had 4,500,000 men capable
of bearing arms did not mean that she could hold 4,000,000 men in
fighting array at any one time.

After five months of war France had only 1,500,000 men at the front,
and from the camps and military organizations she expects to have ready
a fresh army of another million in the spring. But she mobilized
nearly 4,000,000 men. Paris industry, trade, and commerce could shut
down in a day, but there was no organization that could make in a day
or a week the men of France into an army at the front. Her 600,000
regular troops were, of course, always in position to be thrown on the
defensive at the German frontier. None of the nearly 4,000,000
additional men could be got with arms and munitions of war into
Belgium, to meet effectively the trained troops of Germany.

The German troops were "moving" as early as July 25, while all the
governments of Europe, including Austria, were negotiating for and
hopeful of peace. When war was declared against France, she promptly
offered Belgium five French army corps for defence. King Albert
declined, saying there had been no invasion of Belgium by Germany, and
that Belgian neutrality was guaranteed by treaty. Within two days the
German guns were firing on Belgium; but when King Albert then called
upon France for protection, the response was that the French troops
which had been offered had been placed elsewhere. The regular troops
probably had. The new troops were not mobilized, and the French
transportation system, to say the least, had not been as responsive as
expected.

France paid dearly for her unpreparedness. Her richest provinces were
invaded by the Germans and are still held by the Germans in
considerable part.

Caught unprepared, there was only one safe thing for General Joffre to
do--let the Germans expand far from their base while the French
concentrated between the German border and Paris, to strike back at the
opportune moment against an extended and weakened line.

The march of the armies of Von Kluck--"General One O'clock," they
called him, and said his fiercest attacks were at one o'clock--is
considered a masterpiece of military precision. The strategy of
General Joffre which foiled him is praised throughout France.

The plan of the Germans was to hold the north of France with the army
of Von Kluck while the Crown Prince moved from Luxemburg straight to
Paris. This was theatrical, dramatic, and Kaiserlike; but the French
would not consent. They persisted in holding Verdun and defeating the
armies of the Crown Prince.

The English are the greatest fighters in the world in retreat, while
the French can fight best in a forward movement. The little
expeditionary army of England, originally 100,000 men but at this time
180,000 men, held the right flank of Von Kluck in the retreat from
river to river, from hill to hill, although pounded by 350,000 trained
German troops massed on this flank. This retreat put the stamp of
English bravery and dogged determination, as before, on the map of
Europe. Paris was open and exposed to any entry which the Germans
wished to make. The government had retired, the gold reserves of the
banks had been moved, the people in large numbers had fled.

Indeed, I may say what has never before been printed, that President
Poincare summoned the "architect" of the city to the American embassy
and, with tears streaming down his face, told him whence he must take
his orders in the future.

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