Part 15

How I escaped myself I am not clear. I then had to bring up supports on foot. My horse was wounded, and the others were too far in the rear. Then came up the Guards Jager Battalion, Fourth Jager, Sixth Regiment, Reserve Regiment Thirteen, and Landwehr Regiments Thirteen and Sixteen, and with the help of the artillery we drove the fellows out of the position again. Our machine guns did excellent work; the English fell in heaps.

In our battalion three Iron Crosses have been given, one to C.O., one to Capt. ----, and one to Surgeon ----. [Names probably deleted.] Let us hope that we shall be the lucky ones next time.

During the first two days of the battle I had only one piece of bread and no water. I spent the night in the rain without my overcoat. The rest of my kit was on the horses which had been left behind with the baggage and which cannot come up into the battle because as soon as you put your nose up from behind cover the bullets whistle.

War is terrible. We are all hoping that a decisive battle will end the war, as our troops already have got round Paris. If we beat the English the French resistance will soon be broken. Russia will be very quickly dealt with; of this there is no doubt.

We received splendid help from the Austrian [Transcriber: original 'Austrain'] heavy artillery at Maubeuge. They bombarded Fort Cerfontaine in such a way that there was not ten meters a parapet which did not show enormous craters made by the shells. The armored turrets were found upside down.

Yesterday evening, about 6, in the valley in which our reserves stood there was such a terrible cannonade that we saw nothing of the sky but a cloud of smoke. We had few casualties.

Recently a pilot and observer of the Royal Flying Corps were forced by a breakage in their aeroplane to descend in the enemy's lines. The pilot managed to pancake his machine down to earth, and the two escaped into some thick under-growth in the woods.

The enemy came up and seized and smashed the machine, but did not search for our men with much zeal. The latter lay hid till dark and then found their way to the Aisne, across which they swam, reaching camp in safety, but barefooted.

Numerous floating bridges have been thrown across the Aisne and some of the pontoon bridges have been repaired under fire. On the 20th, Lieut. [name deleted] of the Third Signal Corps, Royal Engineers, was unfortunately drowned while attempting to swim across the river with a cable in order to open up fresh telegraphic communication on the north side.

Espionage is still carried on by the enemy to a considerable extent. Recently the suspicions of some of the French troops were aroused by coming across a farm from which the horses had been removed. After some search they discovered a telephone which was connected by an underground cable with the German lines, and the owner of the farm paid the penalty in the usual way in war for his treachery.

After some cases of village fighting which occurred earlier in the war it was reported by some of our officers that the Germans had attempted to approach to close quarters by forcing prisoners to march in front of them. The Germans have recently repeated the same trick on a larger scale against the French, as is shown by the copy of an order printed below. It is therein referred to as a ruse, but, if that term can be accepted, a distinctly illegal ruse.

"During a recent night attack," the order reads, "the Germans drove a column of French prisoners in front of them. This action is to be brought to the notice of all our troops (1) in order to put them on their guard against such a dastardly ruse; (2) in order that every soldier may know how the Germans treat their prisoners. Our troops must not forget if they allow themselves to be taken prisoners the Germans will not fail to expose them to French bullets."

Further evidence has now been collected of the misuse of the white flag and other signs of surrender. During an action on the 17th, owing to this, one officer was shot. During recent fighting, also, some German ambulance wagons advanced in order to collect the wounded. An order to cease firing was consequently given to our guns, which were firing on this particular section of ground. The German battery commanders at once took advantage of the lull in the action to climb up their observation ladders and on to a haystack to locate our guns, which soon afterward came under a far more accurate fire than any to which they had been subjected up to that time.

A British officer, who was captured by the Germans and has since escaped, reports that while a prisoner he saw men who had been fighting subsequently put on Red Cross brassards.

That irregular use of the protection afforded by the Geneva Convention is not uncommon is confirmed by the fact that on one occasion men in the uniform of combatant units have been captured wearing a Red Cross brassard hastily slipped over the arm. The excuse given has been that they had been detailed after the fight to look after the wounded.

It is reported by a cavalry officer that the driver of a motor car with a machine gun mounted on it, which was captured, was wearing a Red Cross.

Full details of the actual damage done to the cathedral at Rheims will doubtless have been cabled home, so that no description of it is necessary. The Germans bombarded the cathedral twice with their heavy artillery.

One reason it caught alight so quickly was that on one side of it was some scaffolding which had been erected for restoration work. Straw had also been laid on the floor for the reception of the German wounded. It is to the credit of the French that practically all the German wounded were successfully extricated from the burning building.

There was no justification on military grounds for this act of vandalism, which seems to have been caused by exasperation born of failure--a sign of impotence rather than strength. It is noteworthy that a well-known hotel not far from the cathedral, which was kept by a German, was not touched.

III.

*Two September Days.*

For four days there has been a comparative lull all along our front. This has been accompanied [Transcriber: original 'acompanied'] by a spell of fine weather, though the nights have been much colder. One cannot have everything, however, and one evil result of the sunshine has been the release of flies, which were torpid during the wet days.

Advantage has been taken of the arrival of reinforcements to relieve by fresh troops the men who have been on the firing line for some time. Several units, therefore, have received their baptism of fire during the week.

Since the last letter left headquarters evidence has been received which points to the fact that during the counter attacks on the night of Sept. 20 German detachments of infantry fired into each other. This was the result of an attempt to carry out the dangerous expedient of a converging advance in the dark. Opposite one portion of our position considerable massing of hostile forces was observed before dark. Some hours later a furious fusillade [Transcriber: original 'fusilade'] was heard in front of our line, though no bullets came over our trenches.

This narrative begins with Sept. 21 and covers only two days. There was but little rain on Sept. 21 and the weather took a turn for the better, which has been maintained. The action has been practically confined to the artillery, our guns at one point shelling and driving the enemy, who endeavored to construct a redoubt.

The Germans expended a large number of heavy shells in a long range bombardment of the village of Missy (Department of the Aisne). Reconnoitring parties sent out during the night of Sept. 21-22 discovered some deserted trenches. In them or in the woods over 100 dead and wounded were picked up. A number of rifles, ammunition and equipment were also found. There were other signs that portions of the enemy's forces had withdrawn some distance.

The weather was also fine on Sept. 22 with less wind, and it was one of the most uneventful days we have passed since we reached the Aisne, that is, uneventful for the British. There was less artillery work on either side, the Germans giving the village of Paissy (Aisne) a taste of the "Jack Johnsons." The spot thus honored is not far from the ridge where there has been some of the most severe close fighting in which we have taken part. All over this No Man's Land, between the lines, bodies of German infantrymen were still lying in heaps where they had fallen at different times.

Espionage plays so large a part in the conduct of the war by the Germans that it is difficult to avoid further reference to the subject. They have evidently never forgotten the saying of Frederick the Great: "When Marshall Soubise goes to war he is followed by a hundred cooks. When I take the field I am preceded by a hundred spies." Indeed until about twenty years ago there was a paragraph in their field service regulations directing that the service of protection in the field, such as outposts and advance guards, should always be supplemented by a system of espionage. Although such instructions are no longer made public the Germans, as is well known, still carry them into effect.