The following is from a letter, written during the prolonged battle of the Aisne by a lieutenant of the Twenty-sixth German Artillery:
"The Tenth Corps has been constantly in action since the opening of the campaign. Nearly all our horses have fallen. We fight every day from 5 in the morning till 8 at night, without eating or drinking. The artillery fire of the French is frightful. We get so tired that we cannot ride a horse, even at a walk. Toward noon our battery was literally under a rain of shrapnel sh.e.l.ls and that lasted for three days. We hope for a decisive battle to end the situation, for our troops cannot rest. A French aviator last night threw four bombs, killing four men and wounding eight, and killing twenty horses and wounding ten more.
We do not receive any more mail, for the postal automobiles of the Tenth Corps have been destroyed."
HOW IT FEELS TO BE WOUNDED
Many men in the trenches have proved themselves heroes in the war. A wounded British private told this story:
"We lay in the trench, my friend and I, and when the order to fire came we shot, and shot till our rifles burned up. Still the Germans swarmed on toward us, and then my friend received a bad wound. I turned to my work again, continuing to shoot slowly. Then I rose a little too high on my shoulder.
"Do you know what it is like to be wounded? A little sting pierced my arm like a hot wire; too sharp almost to be sore, and my rifle fell from me. I looked at my friend then and he was dead."
In one casualty list made public by the British war office in September, sixteen officers were reported killed, thirty-eight wounded and ten missing. The famous Coldstream Guards and the Black Watch regiments were among the sufferers.
HOW GENEBAL FINDLEY DIED
A correspondent in France described the death of General Neil Douglas Findley of the British Royal Artillery as follows:
"When at dawn the British advance continued toward Soissons the enemy was fighting an exceptionally fierce rearguard action. A terrible sh.e.l.l fire was directed against our artillery under General Findley, temporarily situated in a valley by the village of Prise. It seemed a matter of moments when we should have to spike our guns and General Findley saw the urgency for action.
""Boys," his voice echoed down the line, "we are going to get every gun into position," Then deliberately the general approached a regimental chaplain kneeling beside a gunner. "Here are some of my personal belongings, chaplain. See that they don"t go astray,"
"One by one our guns began to blaze away and the general had a word of encouragement and advice for every man. In vain his staff tried to persuade him to leave the danger zone.
"Our range was perfect, the German fire slackened and died away and with a yell our men prepared to advance. The outburst came too soon, one parting sh.e.l.l exploding in a contact with Findley"s horse, shattering man and beast."
KILLED FOE IN REVOLVER DUEL
While their men battled on a road near Antwerp, it is said that a Belgian cavalry sergeant and an officer of German Uhlans fought a revolver duel which ended when the Belgian killed his foe, sending a bullet into his neck at close range.
The daring Uhlans had approached close to the Antwerp fortifications on a reconnoitering expedition. They were seen by a small Belgian force, which immediately went out on the road to give battle. As they neared each other, the German commander shouted a jibe at the Belgian sergeant.
There was no answer, but the sergeant rode at a gallop straight for the Uhlan. Miraculously escaping the shots aimed at him, he drew up alongside the officer and informed him that his life was to be forfeited for the insulting words he had uttered. Both began firing with their revolvers, while at the same time their men clashed.
Only a few of the soldiers witnessed the thrilling duel, for they themselves were fighting desperately. After their officer"s death the Uhlans withdrew, leaving a number of dead. Someone carried word of the duel to King Albert, who had just arrived in Antwerp, and he called before him and personally congratulated the sergeant, Henri Pyppes. The latter was wounded in the arm by one of the Uhlan"s bullets, but he refused to be taken to the hospital and remained on duty in the field.
LITTLE STORIES FROM FRANCE
Count Guerry de Beauregard, a French veteran of the war of 1870, thus announced the death of a son at the front: "One son already has met the death of the brave beyond the frontier at the head of a squadron of the Seventh Hussars. Others will avenge him. Another of my sons, an artilleryman, is with the general staff. My eldest son is with the Twenty-first Cha.s.seurs. Long live France!"
A wounded French soldier who was taken to Ma.r.s.eilles verified a remarkable story of his escape from death while fighting in German Lorraine. The soldier owes his life to a small bust of Emperor William, which he picked up in a village school and placed in his haversack. A German bullet struck the bust and, thus deflected, inflicted only a slight wound on the soldier.
Twenty German prisoners taken during the melee near Crecy, were herded together in a clearing, their rifles being stacked nearby. In a rash moment they thought that they were loosely guarded and made a combined rush for the rifles. "They will never make another," was the laconic report of the guard.
SAYS DEAD FILLED THE MEUSE
Edouard Helsey of the Paris newspaper, Le Journal, reported to be serving with the colors, wrote under date of August 29:
"It would be difficult to estimate the number of Germans killed last week. Whole regiments were annihilated at some points. They came out of the woods section by section. One section, one sh.e.l.l--and everything was wiped out.
"At two or three places which I am forbidden to name corpses filled the Meuse until the river overflowed. This is no figure of speech. The river bed literally was choked by the ma.s.s of dead Germans. The effect of our artillery surpa.s.ses even our dreams."
DETROIT ARTIST"S NARROW ESCAPE
Lawrence Stern Stevens, an artist of Detroit, narrowly escaped death near Aix-la-Chapelle at the hands of a crazed German lieutenant, by whom he was suspected of being a spy.
Stevens left Brussels on Aug. 24 in an automobile. He was accompanied by a photographer and a Belgian newspaper correspondent, and his intention had been to make sketches on the battlefield. His arrest at Laneffe thwarted this plan. He underwent a terrifying ordeal at the hands of his demented captor, although he was not actually injured.
On the evening of Aug. 24 he was court-martialed and sentenced to death and held in close confinement over night. Early on the morning of Aug.
25 he was led out, as he supposed, to be shot, but the plans had been changed and instead he was taken before Gen. von Arnim. After being forced to march with German troops for two days, Stevens fell in with a party of American correspondents at Beaumont, from which point he traveled to Aix-la-Chapelle on a prison train, and eventually reached Rotterdam and safety.
SAD PLIGHT OF FRENCH FUGITIVES
M. Brieux, the noted French dramatist, who witnessed the arrival at Chartres of a train full of fugitives who had fled from their homes before the German advance, described his experience for the Figaro. The fleeing people gathered round him and told him stories and he wrote his impressions as follows:
"Children weep or gaze wide-eyed, wondering what is the matter. Old folks sit in gloomy silence. Women with haggard cheeks and disheveled hair seem to belong to another age.
"They tell of invaders who scattered powder around or threw petroleum into their houses and then set them afire.
"And when did this happen? Yesterday! It is not a matter of centuries ago in distant climes, but yesterday, and quite near to us. Yet one cannot believe it was really yesterday that these things were done."
One of the fugitives explained to M. Brieux why after the first hour of their flight she had to carry her elder child as well as her baby. She showed him a pair of boots.
"I felt the inside with my fingers," says Brieux. "Nails had come through the soles. I looked at the child"s feet. They were dirty with red brown clots. It was blood."
CHAUNCEY DEPEW ON A RUNNING-BOARD
Chauncey M. Depew, former United States Senator for New York, was in Geneva when the trouble began. He said on his return: "After crossing the border into France we picked up men joining the colors on the way to Paris, until our train could hold no more.
"Whenever I stuck my head into a corridor the soldiers would set up a cheer on seeing my side whiskers. They mistook me for an Englishman and cried: "Long live the _entente cordiale!_""
IN THE "VALLEY OF DEATH"
The fiercest fighting of all that preceded the Russian victory at Lublin was in a gorge near the village of Mikolaiff, which the Russian soldiers reverently named the "Valley of Death."
The gorge was full of dead men, lying in heaps, according to an officer who partic.i.p.ated in the battle. "When we attacked at 3 o"clock in the morning," he said, "the gorge contained 15,000 Austrians, a large proportion of whom were mowed down by the artillery fire which plowed through the valley in the darkness. The Austrians surrendered and we entered the gorge to receive their arms, while their general stood quietly on a hill watching the scene. Eight of his standards being turned over to the Russians was more than he could bear, for he drew a pistol and shot himself."
GENERAL USE OF KHAKI UNIFORMS
The war put everybody into khaki, with a few exceptions. On the battle line or in the field the English soldier and the English officer get out of their richly colored and historic uniforms and into khaki, of a neutral hue. The Germans are in gray. The Austrians have most of their soldiers in khaki, and the Russians all wear khaki-colored cloth. The French still cling to their blue coats and brilliant red trousers, although steps are being taken to reclothe the army in more modern fashion, and the Belgians have a uniform that is very similar to the French.
The French and Belgian officers are dangerously ornamented with gilt tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs during warfare and present such brilliant targets that some of the Belgian regiments during hard fighting with the Germans have lost nearly all of their leaders.
The new twentieth century mode of warfare puts the ban on anything that glitters, even the rifle barrels, bayonets and sabers.
A BELGIAN BOY HERO
On a cot in the Red Cross hospital at Ostend, September 12, lay one of the heroes of the war. He is Sergeant van der Bern of the Belgian army, and only 17 years old. He was only a corporal when he started out with twenty-nine men on a reconnoitering expedition during which he was wounded, but displayed such valor that his bravery was publicly related to all the soldiers, and Van der Bern was promoted.
Van der Bern and his little command came suddenly upon a band of fifty Uhlans while on their expedition. Outnumbered, his men turned and fled.