The German offensive plans were well laid. No army that ever took the field was ever so mobile. Thousands of army autos have been in use. Each regiment had its supply. The highways were mapped in advance. There was not a crossroad that was not known. Even the trifling brooks had been located. Nothing had been left to chance and the advance guard was accompanied by enormous automobiles filled with corps of sappers who carried bridge and road building materials.
THE TERRIBLE KRUPP GUNS
How well the German plans worked was shown when Namur, which, it was boasted, would resist for months, fell in two days. The terrible work of the great Krupp weapons, whose existence had been kept secret, is hard to realize. One shot from one of these guns went through what was considered an impregnable wall of concrete and armored steel at Namur, exploded and killed 150 men.
And aside from the effectiveness of these terrible weapons, Belgian prisoners who were in the Namur forts declare their fire absolutely shattered the nerves of the defenders, whose guns had not sufficient range to reach them.
GERMANS DEFY DEATH
"It makes you sick to see the way that the Germans literally walk into the very mouth of the machine guns and cannon spouting short-fused shrapnel that mow down their lines and tear great gaps in them," said a Belgian major who was badly wounded. "Nothing seems to stop them. It is like an inhuman machine and it takes the very nerve out of you to watch it."
SPIRIT OF GERMAN WOMEN
"The women of Germany are facing the situation with heroic calmness,"
said Eleanor Painter, an American opera singer on landing in New York September 7th, direct from Berlin, where she had spent the last four years. "It is all for the Fatherland. The spirit of the people is wonderful. If the men are swept away in the maelstrom of war, the women will continue to fight. They are prepared now to do so.
"There are few tears in Berlin. Of course there is sorrow, deep sorrow.
But the German women and the few men still left in the capital realize that the national life itself is at stake and accept the inevitable losses of a successful military occupation. There is a grim dignity everywhere. There are no false ideas as to the enormity of the struggle for existence. A great many Germans, in fact, realizing that it is nearly the whole world against Germany, do not believe that the Fatherland can survive. But they are determined that while there is a living German so long will Germany fight.
FATHER AND TEN SONS ENLIST
"A German father with his ten sons enlisted. General von Haessler, more than the allotted three-score years and ten, veteran of two wars, offered his sword. Boys who volunteered and who were not needed at the time wept when the recruiting officers sent them back home, telling them their time would come.
"The German women fight their own battles in keeping back tears and praying for the success of the German arms. Hundreds of t.i.tled women are at the front with the Red Cross, sacrificing everything to aid their country. Baroness von Ziegler and her daughter wrote from Wiesbaden that they were en route to the front and were ready to fight if need be.
"Even the stupendous losses which the army is incurring cannot dim the love of the Fatherland nor the desire of the Germans, as a whole nation, to fight on. I speak of vast losses. An officer with whom I talked while en route from Berlin to Rotterdam, told me of his own experience. He was one of 2,000 men on the eastern frontier. They saw a detachment of Russians ahead. The German forces went into battle singing and confident, although the Russian columns numbered 12,000. Of that German force of 2,000 just fifty survived. None surrendered."
FEARFUL STATE OF BATTLEFIELDS
Dead men and horses, heaped up by thousands, lay putrefying on the battlefields of the Aisne, Colonel Webb C. Hayes, U.S.A., son of former President Hayes, declared in Washington on Oct. 7, on his return from observing the war and its battlefields. He was the bearer of a personal message to President Wilson from the acting burgomaster of Louvain.
"When I left Havre on Sept. 27," he said, "the Allies were fearful that they would not be able to penetrate to the German line through the ma.s.s of putrefying men and horses on the battlefields, which unfortunately the combatants seem not to heed about burying. I don"t see how they could pa.s.s through these fields. The stench was horrible, and the idea of climbing over the bodies must be revolting even to brave soldiers."
Col. Hayes had been on the firing line; he had visited the sacked city of Louvain as the guest of Germans in an armored car; he had been in Aix-la-Chapelle, at the German base, and had seen some of the fighting in the historic Aisne struggle.
"It is a sausage grinder," he declared.
"On one side are the Allies, apparently willing to sacrifice their last man in defense of France; on the other are the Germans, seemingly prodigal of their millions of men and money and throwing man after man into the war."
"What about the alleged atrocities in Belgium?" he was asked.
"Well, war is h.e.l.l; that"s about the only answer I can give you.
The real tragic feature of the whole war is Belgium. Its people are wonderful folk--clean, decent, respectable. What this nation should do is to concentrate its efforts to aid the women and children of Belgium.
Help for hospitals is not so much needed, but the fate of these people is really pathetic." Asked for a brief description of what he saw along the battle line, Col. Hayes declared:
"The battle front these days is far different from what it used to be. There are few men to be seen, and practically no guns. All are concealed. Shrapnel flies through the air and bursts. That is the scene most of the time. In the hand-to-hand fighting bayonets are used much by the French, while the Turcos use knives."
"Shall you go back?" Col. Hayes was asked.
"Does anyone wish to visit a slaughterhouse a second time?" he replied.
PRINCES WOUNDED BY THE FOE
Prince August William, the fourth son of Emperor William, was shot in the left arm during the battle of the Marne and Emperor William bestowed the Iron Cross of the first cla.s.s on him.
Prince Eitel, the Kaiser"s second son, was wounded during the battle of the Aisne. Up to October 7 four of Emperor William"s sons had been placed temporarily _hors de combat_.
Prince George of Servia, while leading his battalion against the Austrians September 18, was. .h.i.t by a ball which entered near the spinal column and came out at the right shoulder. The wound was said not to be dangerous.
HOW THE SCOTSMEN FOUGHT
At St. Quentin, France, the Highland infantrymen burst into the thick of the Germans, holding on to the stirrups of the Scots Greys as the hors.e.m.e.n galloped, and attacked hand to hand. The Germans were taken aback at the sudden and totally unexpected double irruption, and broke up before the Scottish onslaught, suffering severe losses alike from the swords of the cavalry and from the Highlanders" bayonets. The scene of this charge is depicted in one of our ill.u.s.trations.
TWO TRAGIC INCIDENTS
During the Russian retreat through the Mazur lake district, in East Prussia, a Russian battery was surrounded on three sides by the enemy"s quick firers. The infantry was on the other side of the lake, and the Russian ammunition was exhausted. In order to avoid capture, the commander ordered the battery to gallop over the declivity into the lake. His order was obeyed and he himself was among the drowned.
During an a.s.sault on the fortress of Ossowetz, a German column got into a bog. The Russians sh.e.l.led the bog and the single road crossing it. The Germans, in trying to extricate themselves, sank deeper into the mire, and hundreds were killed or wounded. Of the whole column, about forty survived.
IN THE BRUSSELS HOSPITALS
A peculiar incident of the war is noted by a doctor writing in the New York American, who went through several of the great Brussels hospitals and noted the condition of the wounded Belgian soldiers. These soldiers carried on the defense of their country with a valor which the fighting men of any nation might admire and envy. The writer remarks:
"Two facts struck me very forcibly. The first was the very large number of Belgian soldiers wounded only in the legs, and, secondly, many of the soldiers seem to have collapsed through sheer exhaustion.
"In peace times one sees and hears little or nothing of extreme exhaustion, because in times of peace the almost superphysical is not demanded. War brings new conditions.
"These Belgian soldiers were at work and on the march during stupendous days, practically without a moment"s respite. They went, literally, until they dropped. As a medical man, their condition interested me enormously.
"What force of will to fight and struggle until the last gasp! The exhaustion one sees often in heat strokes and in hot climates is commonplace, but this type of exhaustion is, by itself, the final triumph of brave spirits.
"The victims presented a very alarming appearance when first I met them.
They seemed almost dead; limp, pale, and cold. Recovery usually is not protracted; in every case the men knocked out in this manner expressed a fervent desire to return at once to the ranks.
GERMAN WARNING TO FRENCH TOWNS
Following is the text of a proclamation published in French and posted in all towns occupied by the Germans:
"All the authorities and the munic.i.p.ality are informed that every peaceful inhabitant can follow his regular occupation in full security.
Private property will be absolutely respected and provisions paid for.
"If the population dare under any form whatever to take part in hostilities the severest punishment will be inflicted on the refractory.
"The people must give up their arms. Every armed individual will be put to death. Whoever cuts telegraph wires, destroys railway bridges or roads or commits any act in detriment to the Germans will be shot.
"Towns and villages whose inhabitants take part in the combat or who fire upon us from ambush will be burned down and the guilty shot at once. The civil authorities will be held responsible. (Signed) VON MOLTKE."
MOTORS IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY