Chapter 10 ALONG THE ROAD TO VICTORY

A thrifty victory-Seventeen-inch guns asleep-A procession of guns that gorged the roads-French rules of the road-Absence of system conceals an excellent system-Spoils of war-The Colonial Corps-The "chocolates"-"Boches"-Dramatic victors-The German line in front of the French attack-Galloping soixante-quinzes.

Anyone with experience of armies cannot be deceived about losses when he is close to the front. Even if he does not go over the field while the dead of both sides are still lying there, infallible signs without a word being spoken reflect the truth. It was shining in panoplies of smiles with the French after the attack of July 1st. Victory was sweet because it came at slight cost. Staff officers could congratulate themselves on having driven a thrifty bargain. Casualty clearing stations were doing a small business; prisoners' inclosures a driving one.

"We've nothing to fire at," said an officer of heavy artillery. "Our targets are out of reach. The Germans went too fast for us; they left us without occupation."

Where with the British I had watched the preparations for the offensive develop, the curtain was now raised on the French preparations, which were equally elaborate, after the offensive had gone home. General Joffre had spared more guns from Verdun for the Somme than optimism had supposed possible. Those immense fellows of caliber from twelve to seventeen-inch, mounted on railway trucks, were lions asleep under their covers on the sidings which had been built for them. Their tracks would have to be carried farther forward before they roared at the Germans again.

Five miles are not far for a battalion to march, though an immense distance to a modern army with its extensive and complicated plant. Even the aviators wanted to be nearer the enemy and were looking for a new park. Sheds where artillery horses had been sheltered for more than a year were empty; camps were being vacated; vast piles of shells must follow the guns which the tractors were taking forward. The nests of spacious dugouts in a hillside nicely walled in by sandbags had served their purpose. They were beyond the range of any German guns.

For the first time you realized what the procession which gorged the roads would be like if the Western front were actually broken. Guns of every caliber from the 75's to the 120's and 240's, ammunition pack trains, ambulances horse-drawn and motor-drawn, big and little motor trucks, staff officers' cars, cycle riders and motor cycle riders, small two-wheeled carts, all were mixed with the flow of infantry going and coming and crowding the road-menders off the road.

There was none of the stateliness of the columns of British motor trucks and none of the rigidity of British marching. It all seemed a great family affair. When one wondered what part any item of the variegated transport played it was always promptly explained.

Officers and men exchanged calls of greeting as they passed. Eyes were flashing to the accompaniment of gestures. There were arguments about right of way in which the fellow with the two-wheeled cart held his own with the chauffeur of the three-ton motor truck. But the argument was accompanied by action. In some cases it was over, a decision made and the block of traffic broken before a phlegmatic man could have had discussion fairly under way. For Frenchmen are nothing if not quick of mind and body and whether a Frenchman is pulling or pushing or driving he likes to express the emotions of the moment. If a piece of transport were stalled there would be a chorus of exclamations and running disputes as to the method of getting it out of the rut, with the result that at the juncture when an outsider might think that utter confusion was to ensue, every Frenchman in sight had swarmed to the task under the direction of somebody who seemed to have made the suggestion which won the favor of the majority.

Much has been written about the grimness of the French in this war. Naturally they were grim in the early days; but what impresses me most about the French Army whenever I see it is that it is entirely French. Some people had the idea that when the French went to war they would lose their heads, run to and fro and dance about and shout. They have not acted so in this war and they never have acted so in any other war. They still talk with eyes, hands and shoulders and fight with them, too.

The tide never halted for long. It flowed on with marvelous alacrity and a seeming absence of system which soon convinced you as concealing a very excellent system. Every man really knew where he was going; he could think for himself, French fashion. Near the front I witnessed a typical scene when an officer ran out and halted a soldier who was walking across the fields by himself and demanded to know who he was and what he was doing there.

"I am wounded, sir," was the reply, as he opened his coat and showed a bandage. "I am going to the casualty clearing station and this is the shortest way"-not to mention that it was a much easier way than to hug the edge of the road in the midst of the traffic.

The battalions and transport which made up this tide of an army's rear trying to catch up with its extreme front had a view, as the road dipped into a valley, of the trophies which are the proof of victory. Here were both guns and prisoners. Among the guns nicely parked you might have your choice between the latest 77's out of Krupps' and pieces of the vintage of the '80's. One 77 had not a blemish; another had its muzzle broken off by the burst of a shell, its spokes slashed by shell-fragments, and its armored shield, opened by a jagged hole, was as crumpled as if made of tin.

Four of the old fortress type had a history. They bore the mark of their French maker. They had fired at the Germans from Maubeuge and after having been taken by the Germans were set to fire at the French. One could imagine how the German staff had scattered such pieces along the line when in stalemate warfare any kind of gun that had a barrel and could discharge a shell would add to the volume of gunfire.

Such a ponderous piece with its heavy, old-fashioned trail and no recoil cylinder was never meant to play any part in an army of movement. You could picture how it had been dragged up into position back of the German trenches and how a crew of old Landsturm gunners had been allowed a certain number of shells a day and told off to fire them at certain villages and crossroads, with that systematic regularity of the German artillery system which often defeats its own purpose, as we on the Allies' side well know.

Very likely, as often happened, the crew fired six rounds before breakfast and eight at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the rest of the time they might sit about playing cards. Of course, retreat was out of the question with a gun of this sort. Yet through the twenty months that the opposing armies had sniped at each other from the same positions the relic had done faithful auxiliary service. The French could move it on to some other part of the line now where no offensive was expected and some old territorials could use it as the old Landsturmers had used it.

All the guns in this park had been taken by the Colonial Corps, which thinks itself a little better than the Nancy (or Iron) Corps, a view with which the Iron Corps entirely disagreed. Scattered among the Colonial Corps, whether on the march or in billets, were the black men. There is no prejudice against the "chocolates," as they are called, who provide variation and amusement, not to mention color. Most adaptable of human beings is the negro, whom you find in all lands and engaged in all kinds of pursuits, reflecting always the character of his surroundings. If his French comrades charged he would charge and just as far; if they fell back he would fall back and just as far. No Frenchman could approach the pride of the blacks over those captured guns, which brought grins that left only half of their ebony countenances as a background for the whites of their eyes and teeth.

The tide of infantry, vehicles and horses flowing past must have been a strange world to the German prisoners brought past it to the inclosures, when they had not yet recovered from their astonishment at the suddenness of the French whirlwind attack. The day was warm and the ground dry, and those prisoners who were not munching French bread were lying sardine fashion pillowing their heads on one another, a confused mass of arms and legs, dead to the world in sleep-a green patch of humanity with all the fight out of them, without weapons or power of resistance, guarded by a single French soldier, while the belligerent energy of war was on that road a hundred yards away.

"They are good Boches, now," said the French sentry; "we sha'n't have to take that lot again."

Boches! They are rarely called anything else at the front. With both French and English this has become the universal word for the Germans which will last as long as the men who fought in this war survive. Though the Germans dislike it that makes no difference. They will have to accept it even when peace comes, for it is established. One day they may come to take a certain pride in it as a distinction which stands for German military efficiency and racial isolation. The professional soldier expressing his admiration of the way the German charges, handles his artillery, or the desperate courage of his machine gun crews may speak of him as "Brother Boche" or the "old Boche" in a sort of amiable recognition of the fact of how worthy he is of an enemy's steel if only he would refrain from certain unsportsmanlike habits.

At length the blue river on the way to the front divided at a crossroad and we were out on the plain which swept away to the bend of the Somme in front of Péronne. Officers returning from the front when asked how the battle was going were never too preoccupied to reply. It was anybody's privilege to ask a question and everybody seemed to delight to answer it. I talked with a group of men who were washing down their bread with draughts of red wine, their first meal after they had been through two lines of trenches. Their brigade had taken more prisoners than it had had casualties. Their dead were few and less mourned because they had fallen in such a glorious victory. Rattling talk gave gusto to every mouthful.

Unlike the English, these victors were articulate; they rejoiced in their experiences and were glad to tell about them. If one had fought it out at close quarters with a German and got his man, he made the incident into a dramatic episode for your edification. It was war; he had been in a charge; he had escaped alive; he had won. He liked the thrill of his exploit and enjoyed the telling, not allowing it to drag, perhaps, for want of a leg. Every Frenchman is more or less of a general, as Napoleon said, and every one knew the meaning of this victory. He liked to make the most of it and relive it.

After having seen the trenches that the British had taken on the high ground around Fricourt, I was the more interested to see those that the French had taken on July 1st. The British had charged uphill against the strongest fortifications that the Germans could devise in that chalky subsoil so admirably suited for the purpose. Those before the French were not so strong and were in alluvial soil on the plain. Many of the German dugouts in front of Dompierre were in relatively as good condition as those at Fricourt, though not so numerous or so strong; which meant that the artillery of neither army had been able completely to destroy them. The ground on the plain permitted of no such advantageous tactical points for machine guns as those which had confronted the British, in front of whom the Germans had massed immense reserves of artillery, particularly in the Thiepval-Gommecourt sector where the British attack had failed, besides having the valuable ridge of Bapaume at their backs. In front of the French the Germans had smaller forces of artillery on the plain where the bend of the Somme was at their backs.

This is not detracting from the French success, which was complete and masterful. The co?rdination of artillery and infantry must have been perfect, as you could see when you went over the field where there were surprisingly few French dead and the German dead, though more plentiful than the French, were not very numerous. It seemed that the French artillery had absolutely pinioned the Germans to their trenches and communication trenches in the Dompierre sector and the French appearing close under their own shells in a swift and eager wave gathered in all the German garrison as prisoners. The ruins of the villages might have been made either by French, British or German artillery. There is true internationalism in artillery destruction.

It was something to see the way that French transport and reserves were going right across the plain in splendid disregard of any German artillery concentration. But, as usual, they knew what they were doing. No shells fell among them while I was at the front, and out on the plain where the battle still raged the soixante-quinze batteries were as busy as knitting-machines working some kind of magic which protected that column from tornadoes of the same kind that they themselves were sending. The German artillery, indeed, seemed a little demoralized. Krump-krump-krump, they put a number of shells into a group of trees beside the road where they mistakenly thought that there was a battery. Swish-swish-swish came another salvo which I thought was meant for us, but it passed by and struck where there was no target.

I have had glimpses of nearly every feature of war, but there was one in this advance which was not included in my experiences. The French infantry was hardly in the first-line German trench when the ditch had been filled in and the way was open for the soixante-quinze to go forward. For the guns galloped into action just as they might have done at manoeuvers. Some dead artillery horses near the old trench line told the story of how a German shell must have stopped one of the guns, which was small price to pay for so great a privilege as-let us repeat-galloping the guns into action across the trenches in broad daylight and keeping close to the infantry as it advanced from position to position on the plain.

Here was a surviving bit of the glory and the sport of war, whose passing may be one of the great influences in preventing future wars; but there being war and the French having to win that war, why, the spectacle of this marvelous field gun, so beloved of its alert and skilful gunners, playing the part that was intended for it on the heels of the enemy made a thrilling incident in the history of modern France. The French had shown on that day that they had lost none of their initiative of Napoleon's time, just as the British had shown that they could be as stubborn and determined as in Wellington's.

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