Book: The Audacious War

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




But England carries, as she ought, the financial burden. She feeds,
clothes, and equips the Belgians and furnishes the money-supply. The
Germans still strive, not so much against the Allies as against the
English in Belgium. Here the fighting is fiercest, casualties are
greatest, and here the reinforcements on both sides are the greatest
per mile of line.

Meanwhile the more than a million Germans in Belgium have trenched
across the whole country, rebuilt the forts at Namur, Liege, Antwerp,
and other places, and are digging themselves into the ground doggedly
and determinedly, and with as great precision and more science than the
Allies. The German trenches are rather better made and the machinery
for trenching has been, of course, better prepared by the Germans.

The great surprise of the war was the demonstration in Belgium that
forts costing millions, in defense of cities, are absolutely useless
against the big German shells. The defense at Liege was prolonged
because the Germans could not at first find the exact location of the
central defense. Finally a German approached bearing a large white
flag of truce. Belgian orders were given to receive him. The German,
under his flag of truce, signalled the desired information and then
fell. Soon after, fell the fort. The Germans had found the desired
range, and shot. At Antwerp a single shell was able to put an entire
fortress out of business.

It is the Landwehr and the older men that have been called by Germany
to do duty in Belgium, while the younger troops are sent back and forth
between the eastern and western frontier defences.

An American who has lately been all through Belgium, representing both
commercial interests and charity work, tells me;--

"I left America absolutely neutral. I was not a student of the war or
of the cause of the war. What I saw in Belgium convinced me that the
Allies must win and will win. I am no longer neutral. What I saw in
Belgium of the wanton destruction of villages, towns, and cities has
prejudiced me as no argument could have done. The Allies' losses will
begin when they take the offensive against the German works which are
now being constructed. Soon England will have 600,000 more men on the
Continent and there will be more doing.

"The losses of the Germans have been two or three times the losses of
the Allies in the Belgian trenches, because the Germans have been the
attacking parties. If the Allies become the attacking parties they
will have to sustain the heavy losses. But I cannot see it otherwise
than that the Allies must win. The crime against Belgium is the
greatest crime since Calvary, and it has set the whole world against
Germany.

"It is not only a crime, but it was a military error, for to-day
Germany has 600 miles of front to defend, 300 east and 300 west, and
her losses have been enormous. At Liege 7000 Germans went down in a
single day's fighting. One man I met assisted to bury 500 Germans in
front of a single trench.

"I do not believe Brussels is mined; but if ever the Germans got into
Paris they would destroy the whole city before they left.

"I shudder to think what the Germans will suffer at the hands of the
Belgians when once the rout of the Germans has been begun by the
Allies. The Belgians are unreconciled, and if they ever get weapons in
their hands--well, I will not predict, I will just tell you one fact: I
traveled the length and breadth of the land, saw the women and the
children sitting by their ruined hearthstones, but I never saw a tear
on the cheek of a Belgian."




CHAPTER IX

RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS

Russian Reforms--A United Russia--Russian Armaments--The Greatest
Future--Two Water Outlets--The Slav Invasion Bugaboo.


Russia also is likely to bring forth some notable men who have not
previously been heard of before the world. General Evanoff is the idol
of the Russian army. He is the strategist who plans the movements
against Austria and Germany in the East, who surrounds Przemysl and
says, "Now, we can take it when we please, but we will not sacrifice
Russian troops to take it now; Cracow is more important. Lodz is not
important from a military standpoint. We will surround it later."

Evanoff orders his men to keep out of the valleys and engage the
Germans in the open plain, where their own numbers will count in
action; for in the valleys the German big guns have the advantage.

Russia has been at work steadily since the Japanese war reforming her
army within and without. More than one third of her officers were
dismissed after that war. The Russian officials now say that the
Japanese war was to Russia most providential. It showed the lines of
Russian weakness, inefficiency, and graft, which could flourish at a
distance from St. Petersburg but became exposed when war put the
Russian organization to the test. Steadily every year Russia has been
systematically and thoroughly routing out graft and inefficiency. When
Russia starts to do a thing she does it thoroughly.

It was because Russia was rebuilding, reorganizing, and was indulging
in criticism and putting its mind on the weak spots, that Russian
confidential papers stolen in the interest of Germany misled both
Berlin and Vienna as to the possibility of Russia going to war to
defend Servia in the year 1914.

War has united Russia as never before. The Czar now moves about
unattended, and the country is a unit behind him and the war and
unitedly against the Germans. From Warsaw to Siberia the German agents
and merchants have been arrested and impounded. Nobody in Germany can
yet realize how this war has destroyed her commercial relations and
commercial organizations throughout the world. Everywhere German
people are subjects of suspicion. You will even hear in all
seriousness that the Kaiser had an army of 150,000 reservists in the
United States with a partial equipment of arms ready to attack Canada;
and I have been told by supply agencies that these arms are now offered
for sale, as the uselessness of any German movement on the American
continent is apparent.

How far Germany is unable to measure the spirit of the English-speaking
people is shown by the fact that she cannot understand why the United
States does not take this opportunity to possess Canada.

I heard of a retired German-American of wealth, residing in Germany,
who was actually invited to go to America to stir up a raid on Canada.
Of course he obediently returned to the United States, and then he sat
down to wonder how he could effectively report back the foolishness of
such an idea without offense to Berlin.

Russia has been perfecting her military organization for ten years.
The expansion was to come in the next two years. At the opening of the
war she had only 2,500,000 available troops. For two years she has
been building factories to manufacture ammunition and arms, and these
are now being rushed to completion. People who have offered her
contracts for arms and munitions have been told that Russian factories
shortly to be completed will make their weapons more quickly than they
can now be ordered and received from other countries.

With arms and equipment Russia can draw 17,000,000 men to her
German-Austrian frontier just as readily as Germany can draw 7,000,000
men to both her frontiers. In both calculations only one in ten of the
population is counted upon for service.

The story is told of a Russian who was asked in London why he did not
return for military duty. He replied, "Oh, I belong to the 14th
million, and it will be some time before the 18th million is called
out."

Russia has the greatest future of any country in Europe. She has the
largest unturned arable soil of any country in the world. Russia in
Europe is a great agricultural plain. To the east are her rich
oil-fields steadily expanding north in the Ural Mountains, and east
lies Siberia, endowed by nature as one of the richest countries in the
world, an area in which you could deposit the United States. From the
Siberian railroad other railroads are now projected; mineral wealth is
being uncovered; and English and French capital and American engineers
will in the future work wonders with the country.

What Russia has long sought is an outlet to the ocean. This war is
likely to give her benefits which she could never have asked and could
only have fought for. Germany, defeated, will lose the control or
monopoly of the Kiel Canal, and possibly the country around it which
she took from Denmark. The Kiel Canal under international control will
extend the Baltic Sea of the Russians and the Scandinavians most
directly to the North Sea and the English Channel.

To the south Russia will have something to say in Asia Minor and much
to say concerning Constantinople. Certainly her influence in the
Balkan States and on the Bosphorus will be as great as she could
desire. As long as the Turks remained loyal to England, Great Britain
was bound to maintain their integrity and hold upon Constantinople and
the Bosphorus. With the passing of the Turk Constantinople is in the
hands of the Allies when they are victorious. Its final disposition is
not yet clear, but the English people can see compensation in Egypt,
Asia Minor, and Persia for any necessary Russian control of Byzantium.

While seeking one direct outlet by waterway, Russia may get two with
the suicide of Germany and the destruction of her latest ally, the
Mohammedan Turk.

Russia is beginning to be better understood throughout the British
Empire and the world. The fear of an invasion of Western Europe by the
Slav races is a bugaboo set afloat by Germany, who also propagates the
bugaboo of a Japanese invasion of North America.

Russia is not a competing nation. She needs the capital and the brains
of the outside world for her development, and in time she will offer
the greatest field for world cooeperation.

Japan wants to cooeperate with Russia, and, indeed, with all European
civilization. After the fall of Kiao-Chau she sent arms to Russia, and
she stands ready to throw legions into the European field in defense of
her English ally. Influential people in England are strongly urging
the military authorities to permit the little Japs to join in.

Russia will keep faith with the Poles and the Jews and set up an
autonomous Poland. But there is a strong resentment in Russia to-day
because the Polish Jews misled the Russian army in the marshy grounds
of East Prussia in the early campaigns of the war.

Russian military plans had to be changed and the field of war set
farther south. Here Russia hopes to drive the five million people of
Silesia back toward Berlin. This will awaken the Junkers of East
Prussia and bring home to the people of Germany what the Prussian
military machine really invites when it attempts a world-conquest.

Russia lacks military railroads and scientific means of communication.
But just as America was surprised ten years ago to find the Japs, as
the ally of England, giving, as the English predicted, "a good account
of themselves," so the Russians as the allies of Great Britain may be
found giving a very good account of themselves in this war. Russia is
certainly unconquerable from either the Austrian or the German
standpoint, and the smashing of Austria between Russia, Roumania,
Servia, and Italy may be the real military campaign of this most
Audacious War.

American engineers and diplomats familiar with Russia declare that,
properly led, the Russian soldier is the greatest fighter in the world;
and he is getting that leadership now.

The Russians expect the war will be over before next autumn, but
Kitchener does not plan to end it then. He means to do this job
thoroughly, and his plans are most comprehensive.




CHAPTER X

THE ENGLISH POSITION

A Quiet London--The Call to Arms--No Mourning--The Zeppelin
Scare--German Spies--The German Landing--Kultur War Indemnities.


It is worth a winter trip across the Atlantic to stand with a London
audience and hear it respond to the call, "Are we downhearted?" with a
thunderous "NO!"

It is then you first realize that the British Empire is at war; and
what that war means; and that that Empire has piped to its defense a
free people inhabiting one fifth of the territory of the globe.

The British Empire has war upon its hands a major part of the time. It
may be in the Soudan; it may be in South Africa. From some quarter of
the globe war is almost always before the Empire. But a war summoning
the whole British Empire to arms on land and sea,--that has not been
dreamed of for a hundred years.

You expect to find in London an armed camp, the flags flying, the drums
beating, the troops marching; an excited people discussing causes and
effects of the military and naval programmes; military encampments with
white tents over the plains. But you find nothing of the sort. If you
attempt to motor in the country and figure on reaching a certain place
in two hours, you may find it takes you four, as you are very likely to
run into troops, companies, regiments, and armies in training, but
mostly without arms and only partially uniformed. They are trudging
the highways and the lanes of England from 5.30 A.M. until dusk,--rain
or shine. Here is Kitchener's army being put into condition, with no
fuss, feathers, or trumpet beats. The army is "rolling up" and
"hardening up." But not on the tented campus. It is quartered in the
towns and villages all over England, and board and lodging is regularly
paid by the government.

There are no noticeable drum beats over England; no displays of
bunting. Monuments, public buildings, and conspicuous corners, and,
most conspicuous of all, the glass fronts of the taxi-cabs, bear signs
calling the men of England to arms:--

"Fall in--Join the Army at once."

"Your King and Country need you. England expects that every man this
day will do his duty."

"Enlist for the duration of the War."

"Enlist for three years."

"You are needed to fight for Honor and the Country's defense."

"No price can be too high when Honor and Freedom are at stake."

"Who dies if England lives?"

"He gives twice who gives quickly--join at once."

"'More men and still more until the enemy is crushed.'--Lord Kitchener."

And many more of the same tenor. Beyond these you will see little
evidence in the London streets of an empire at war. Hotels are largely
empty; managers very polite; restaurants must close at 10. P.M.; no
after-theater supper at the hotels unless you are a guest. Men in
khaki uniforms are more conspicuous; and bandaged heads, slung arms,
and legs assisted by crutches are more noticeable than formerly.

The searchlights flash above the city; the street lights are shaded
overhead in foolish fancy as a protection from aeroplanes or
dirigibles. Curtains are closely drawn by police orders, in the houses
and railway trains.

Yet one of the airmen who had been over London at night told me that
the city was just as conspicuous as though it were wide open in
illumination. Indeed, there is a general call among the Londoners for
the police to let up and permit electric signs, lighted windows, and
more light in the streets. But the only answer that came early in
December was orders to turn down the lights further!

In Paris they turned on the lights, illuminated the streets, closed up
the museums and galleries, buried their art and sent the Venus de Milo
on a walk to some storage vault along with the banks' reserve gold.
London's museums and picture galleries are wide open, and the endeavor
to protect the streets from Germans peering down from above looks
childish. The great strategy of the Germans consists of talking across
the Channel about their plans for raiding England. I suspect that the
English military authorities do not object. It encourages enlistment.
When enlistment gets dull, the Germans stimulate it with some shells
thrown on the English coast.

There are only two or three new plays in London this season; the great
war-plays and dramas, and indeed the literature of this war, have yet
to be written. Nearly all the new presentations for which London is so
famous were set back on the shelf when the business of war started.
Most of the theater programs are revivals of old favorites, and a few
of the theaters are still closed. All that are open begin promptly at
8 P.M. Five hundred English actors have gone to the front.

You have to make the circuit to find the heart of England at war, but
you find it--horse, foot, and dragoons; men, women, and children. "Are
we downhearted?" answered by a thunderous "No!" Then again silence,
and turning down of the lights, and the steady work! work! work!

"Have you a bed here?" said Kitchener when he entered the War Office.
"Never heard of such a thing here," was the response.

"Get one," said Kitchener; "I have no time for clubs and hotels."

Not only Kitchener but the whole staff camped down in the office,
working days, nights, and Sundays, until Lady ---- turned over her
house nearby to Kitchener and his staff.

"Where is ----?" I asked of his next-door neighbor. The response was,
"Oh, he is at the War Office, and gets a Sunday home with his family
about once in six weeks." That family was not fifteen miles from
London.

When a citizen has been suddenly notified that where he could formerly
get a train for home every fifteen minutes, the railroad has been taken
for military service, and he must get his supper in town, there is not
the slightest word of complaint. He only wishes he could contribute
more to the Empire.

I spoke with Lord K., of B---- & Co., concerning the loss of his eldest
son, as I had known Lord K. for many years. The manner, the gesture,
the speech, in response, were all one, and brief; just an indication of
sacrifice that had to be made for the Empire; and that sacrifice had
only just begun; deaths in the family just honorable incidents in the
life of the Empire.

You see crutches and broken heads in London, but you will see no
mourning.

"Yes," said Lord C. to me, "the average income tax in England is now
doubled until it is one eighth, or about 12 1/2 per cent, but my
friends in the banking world have to pay an increasing supertax. I
know many who must now give one quarter of their income to the
government. They not only do it gladly, but expect it will be a half
next year, and they will contribute that just as gladly."

From the top to the bottom in the Empire, all that is asked at the
present time is a protected food and clothing supply, and everything
else can go into "the cauldron of war."

"Did you ever see anything like it?" said an American banker in London
to me. "Are n't these people wonderful? Did you ever see such
resolution, such steady work, such sacrifices, such unity of empire?"

It was indeed worth a winter's trip across the ocean to see it.

Although the newspapers complained of the censorship, there was only
one general complaint from the people in the British press. They
wanted to know what the regulations were, or were to be, concerning
self-defense when the Germans arrive in the country. Should a citizen
without uniform take up arms against the invaders? Had he a right
individually to shoot a German invader? Was the old rule that an
Englishman's home is his castle, and that he has the right to defend
it, now superseded by any rules of international warfare?

Some independent people of note were declaiming in the public prints
that any German invader of England was a thief and a robber and that
any weapons might be used to attack the invaders; and that there was no
rule of warfare that could prevent an Englishman defending his home by
any weapons against any foreign invaders.

Nevertheless the spirit of the people was, even under invasion, to
respect law and order and rules of warfare, and be guided by the
government as to all forms of individual or collective defenses. They
simply wanted the rules promulgated.

The English are reconciled to Zeppelin raids from Germany, and rather
expect them. But there is yet no unanimity in preparation or action.
The Rothschilds have put four feet of sand on the roof of their
building, but the amount of their gold in store must be incomparably
less than that in the Bank of England, where no precautions are visible.

Trenches by the beaches and barricades by the highways are noticeable
along the entire south and east coasts of England, but they are without
stores or equipment. You run across these trenches in the moonlight as
you journey about the country and for the moment you wonder for what
purpose somebody dug those long ditches by the shore, and what the
trench or irrigation scheme is. Your answer comes when you run
straight into a timber barricade across the highway nearby. Then you
look down the coast and see flashing searchlights, note the lights of
steamers passing up and down the coast, and reflect that there is no
universal law in war. The Channel steamers are carrying lights in the
war area, but the North Atlantic steamers still cross the ocean without
showing even port or starboard lights. The street cars moving in the
English coast cities must, of course, be lighted and the streets must
have some illuminant; but the railroad carriages, hotels, and private
houses must draw their curtains. Yet railroad terminals and piers must
have their lights, and harbors must have their searchlights. General
service lights must be ablaze, but individual glimmers must be
curtained. It reminds one of Cowper, the English poet, who, in the
same kennel, cut a big hole for his big dog and a little hole for the
pup.

The most talked-of war subject in England is the German spy system. It
is estimated there were between 30,000 and 40,000 German spies, and
many times this number of German reservists, in England at the outbreak
of the war. For years England has laughed over German theoretical
discussions of how best to invade England, and German studies of
English coast lines and country resources.

I heard years ago of a young Englishman who disputed in Berlin the
war-office plans of his father's estate. He declared that he thought
he ought to know the land where he was born and brought up as a boy,
and that there were only two springs of water thereon, instead of
three. The German general staff said their maps of England were
correct and were not based on English authority. The young man found
on his return to England that the German maps were correct and that his
father's estate had three springs whence men and horses could be
watered, although his family had never noted the existence of a third.

Two years ago some friends of mine were playing tennis in an English
village and inquired the occupation of two young Germans, who seemed to
be good tennis-players, but without family relations or settled
business.

The response of the hostess was: "Oh, they are just two German spies of
good education and charming manner looking over the country here, and
we find them very useful in making up our tennis tournaments." It was
looked upon as just a part of the German map-making plans, and England
was an open book for anybody to map. Baedeker published the
guide-books of the world: why should n't the Germans make all the maps
of the world,--especially if German map-making were cheaper than
English map-making?

A banker friend of mine found two young Germans in his village, with no
other occupation than motoring the country over and making notes and
sketches of cross-roads, railroad junction-points, important buildings,
bridges, etc. He thought the authorities ought to know what was going
on, but received a polite invitation from the local police to mind his
own business. When once he lost his way on a motor-car trip, and ran
across these fellows, he was very glad to get the right directions for
the shortest way home. They knew more about the roads of that country
than did the people who were born there.

About 20,000 German spies and reservists are in detention camps on the
west coast, and on the islands. Even the German prisoners are kept
away from the east coast, where it is expected the Germans may
eventually struggle for their landing.

I have not the slightest confidence in any invasion of England by
Germany, but I do not understand why German Zeppelins do not move in
the darkness over the British Isles and drop a few bombs about the
country at important places. It may be that the German Emperor is
right in his calculation that such action would do very little damage,
and would strengthen tremendously the enlistments and war-expansion
plans of the English.

When West Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough were bombarded by the
German warships on the morning of December 16, the English excitement
concerning it was only a small part of what an American would have
expected. Not far from this bombarded coast is a summer resort town,
where for many years a legend has existed that when in some future age
England decayed and Germany came in, this would be the first
landing-point.

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