UCNRLF 
 
 r 
 
 ; OF MY 
 PERIENCES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 RE AT WAR 
 
 ASHMEADBARTLETT 
 
 lMaoM«B*r>'^ 
 
SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 IN THE GREAT WAR 
 
SOME OF 
 
 MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 IN THE 
 
 GREAT WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT 
 
 LONDON 
 
 GEORGE NEWNES, LIMITED 
 1918 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A LREADY the amount of literature produced by the 
 -^ ^ war has reached formidable dimensions, and I hope 
 I may be forgiven for adding to the ever-growing output. 
 This is not intended as a serious study of mihtary opera- 
 tions and deals with no controversial matters either strate- 
 gical or pohtical. It is merely a humble effort to place on 
 record some of the events I have witnessed in the various 
 theatres of war. My thanks are due to the proprietors 
 of the Daily Telegraph for allowing me to reproduce some 
 of the scenes which I have described from time to time 
 in their columns. 
 
 3S4297 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I The Sinister Week .... 
 
 II The Destruction of Rheims Cathedral 
 
 III In Prison with Richard Harding Davis 
 
 IV The Battle of Nieuport-Dixmude 
 V Some Glimpses of Gallipoli 
 
 VI Life at Sea in the Great War , 
 
 VII The Coming of the German Submarines 
 
 VIII Our Destroyers, Trawlers, and Monitors 
 
 IX The Recapture of Forts Douaumont and 
 Vaux ...... 
 
 X A Night Visit to Fort Douaumont 
 
 PAGE 
 
 9 
 32 
 46 
 
 59 
 
 77 
 
 94 
 
 114 
 
 135 
 
 156 
 170 
 
1 
 
 The Sinister Week 
 
 FEW will ever forget the week which opened on Monday, 
 July 20,1914. War and rumours of war were in the air. 
 Serbia and Austria were on the verge of hostihties. What 
 other Powers might be dragged in, no one could then tell. 
 The week before, I was staying in the country with some 
 friends, and the discussion turned on the possibilities of 
 war. My host, a very rich financier, was sceptical. I 
 told him that a European war was inevitable. He laughed 
 at my words, and when I said, " Take my advice and close 
 all your accounts without a day's delay," he repUed, " You 
 are wrong ; there will be no war, it is impossible." 
 
 " God knows I wish nothing of the sort," I repUed. " A 
 European war will be the most dreadful calamity the world 
 has ever known. I say there will be war because it has 
 been my job to observe European events for fifteen years, 
 and I am quite certain the great world calamity is at hand." 
 
 My friend did not take my advice. The crash came. 
 He lost a great deal of his money, and it took him a very 
 long time to collect all that was owing to him. 
 
 A few days later I was in the Bachelors' Club talking to 
 a number of officers. One of them, a young fellow in the 
 Blues, said to me, " What do you think will happen ? " 
 
 I replied, " There will be war for a certainty in a few 
 days." 
 
 9 
 
10 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 " What v/ii! become of fts ? •' 
 
 I answered, " The British Expeditionary Force willjbe 
 sent to France, and within two months most of yon \'ill be 
 dead." 
 
 My friend looked at me in incredulous amazement, and 
 repUed, " Well, you are cheerful." Within six weeks he 
 had fallen. Of that httle gathering how many are left ? 
 None, I beUeve. Gallant lads, they went forth in the pride 
 and hope of youth, stemmed the march on Paris, and then 
 blocked the road to Calais. They gave their Hves wiUingly 
 in a great cause. Most of them never intended to devote 
 their Hves to soldiering. Just a few pleasant years in the 
 Army — that was all — and none of that little group could 
 have foreseen that they would fight and die on Belgium 
 soil almost within sight of the field of Waterloo. 
 
 I had been kept in a state of unrest, wondering whether 
 I should have to leave England or not. The Daily Telegraph 
 told me to hold myself in readiness to leave at a moment's 
 notice. On the morning of Sunday, July 26, I decided 
 to leave London and to go down to Maidenhead and spend 
 the week-end on the river with some friends. Somehow the 
 Thames did not seem its usual self that afternoon. The 
 weather was beautiful, fine and warm ; there were the 
 usual launches, punts and boats full of youth and beauty, 
 and crowds on the lawns, but a sinister shade of impending 
 disaster seemed to hang like a leaden pall over every one. 
 I returned to my hotel at five o'clock. There the hall 
 porter rushed up to me. " The Daily Telegraph have rung 
 you up three times in the course of the last hour ; they 
 want you to return to London at once and to go straight to 
 the office." I flung my things into a bag and caught the 
 next train. A little after six I was in Fleet Street, where I 
 found Mr. Le Sage fuming at my late arrival. 
 
 " You must leave to-night," he said, '' for Vienna. 
 War between Austria and Serbia is inevitable. We want 
 you to join the Austrian Army which invades Serbia." 
 I stared at Mr. Le Sage in amazement. 
 
 " But," I replied, " if Austria has declared war on Serbia, 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK il 
 
 it means that Russia is bound to stand by the Southern 
 Slavs and a European war must follow, in which we shall 
 in all pr(;bability be involved ourselves." 
 
 " Well, " Mr. Le Sage repUed, " we want you to leave 
 to-night iji :iny case." 
 
 I argued iurther, saying, " There is another reason why 
 I do not wish to go with the Austrians ; because I was 
 attached to the Serbian Army only last year, and it is 
 hardly fan- for me to join their present enemy, as I am 
 certain to be cross-examined about everything I know of 
 the Serbian Army, its organization and leaders." 
 
 Mr. Le Sage saw the justice of my objections. I sug- 
 gested as an alternative that I should join the Serbian 
 Army against the Austrians. He cut me short. < 
 
 " My boy," he repUed, " time is getting on. You have 
 got to leave to-night by the nine o'clock train via Ostend. 
 You must go straight to Vienna and there await instruc- 
 tions which will be cabled to you. You must go some- 
 where at once." 
 
 It was past seven o'clock when I left the office of the 
 Daily Telegraph, and I had just two hours in which to pack 
 up, make my preparations and catch my train which left 
 Charing Cross for Ostend at 9 p.m. The first difficulty 
 to be overcome was the money question. It being Sunday 
 night there was no money in the office, and of course all 
 the banks were closed. I only had a little on me, but 
 managed to collect about £30 in aU by cashing cheques 
 at various clubs. Mr. Le Sage promised to cable me money 
 to Vienna, which I would find there on my arrival. The 
 next trouble was about my baggage — what I should take 
 and what I should leave behind. The Austrians are a 
 peculiar people and great sticklers for etiquette. If you 
 wish to have anything done in official circles, you must go 
 all dressed up in a tail coat and a high hat. This I had 
 learnt from previous experience the year before. My 
 flat was littered with garments, and I had no time to sort 
 anything out. Therefore I decided to take the lot, includ- 
 ing my campaigning kit, and to leave all surplus belongings 
 
12 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 in Vienna. I therefore set off with a nice Httle collection 
 of some seven trunks and bags, which I shall never see 
 again. 
 
 Thus at 9 p.m. on the night of Sunday, July 26, 1914, 
 I found myself finally launched into the vortex of Europe's 
 troubles, and making my way as quickly as possible into 
 the enemy's territory — as I was destined to learn a few 
 days later. 
 
 I reached Ostend at 2 a.m., and was due to leave three 
 hours later for Frankfurt. I walked through the deserted 
 streets and on the empty beach. I had known Ostend 
 very well in her old, gay days when crowds used to fill her 
 Casinos and you could see the pick of Europe's beauties 
 walking on or bathing from the immense esplanade. Did 
 any one reahze the grim cloud of war which was shortly to 
 creep from the west and within six weeks cast its iron grip 
 on Belgium's brightest city ? I do not think so. 
 
 The following morning I was passing down the beautiful 
 valley of the Rhine, which seemed as calm and peaceful 
 as ever. In fact, from outward observation, Germany 
 seemed still wrapped in her peace of forty years. I could 
 discover no movement of an extraordinary nature on the 
 lines, and the railway service was running in a normal 
 manner. All the Germans with whom I spoke laughed at 
 the idea of a European war, and apparently took but Httle 
 interest in the Austrian quarrel with Serbia. 
 
 On entering Austrian territory, the situation underwent 
 a complete change, and war was in the air. The railway 
 service was completely disorganized and but few civiHan 
 trains were running. However, the express upon which 
 I was travelling was not delayed, and we reached Vienna 
 on time at 7 a.m. on Tuesday, July 28. I went at once to 
 the Hotel Bristol. Vienna was seething with excitement. 
 Crowds paraded the streets and thronged the vicinity of the 
 stations to watch the troops leaving for the front. 
 
 I went round immediately to call on Herr Konried, the 
 Vienna correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and the editor 
 of a Vienna paper. Although Herr Konried isj^^now an 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 13 
 
 enemy, I must acknowledge my debt of gratitude to him 
 for the practical manner in which he aided me, and for the 
 excellent advice he also gave me. He told me that although 
 war had not actually been declared with Serbia, it was 
 expected at any hour, the Austrian Ambassador had left 
 Belgrade on July 25, following delivery of the Austrian 
 ultimatum to Serbia on July 23. In his opinion, a 
 European war was now inevitable, and it would be impos- 
 sible for the Czar to desert the Southern Slavs at the 
 eleventh hour. He advased me therefore to leave Vienna 
 at once by any route which might still remain open, as 
 otherwise I might find myself detained as a prisoner of war. 
 His advice was confirmed by inquiries I made at the Head- 
 quarters of the General Staff. It took me but a few minutes 
 to learn that my mission with the Austrian Army would 
 be entirely wasted. No arrangements had as yet been 
 made, but I was officially informed that whatever hap- 
 pened, I should be kept at least five days in rear of the 
 invading army. I saw looming up before me a vision of 
 those sad days which blasted the hopes of so many at the 
 Mustafa Pacha Pass in 191 2, when correspondents endea- 
 voured to follow the Bulgarian Army into Thrace. I there- 
 fore decided to quit Vienna the same afternoon. 
 
 But now I found myself in serious difficulties, as my 
 money was almost exhausted, and I found no cables await- 
 ing me at the hotel. Once again I had resource to Herr 
 Konried and explained my troubles. This excellent friend 
 in need at once undertook to raise me a loan, and produced 
 £50 in gold in return for a draft on the Daily Telegraph. 
 He told me it was useless to expect money by cable, as no 
 telegrams had been coming through for several days. 
 
 Thus I was equipped for the next stage of my journey 
 at least, and cabled to London to the office for them to 
 send on money to Bucharest. I had meanwhile made 
 inquiries, and found that the only possible way to get out 
 of Vienna would be to go eastwards, as no trains were now 
 running through Paris or to Ostend. 
 
 I was, in fact, assured on all sides that no trains were 
 
14 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 running, and that it would be equally impossible for me to 
 get through to Rumania. 
 
 I learnt in Vienna that it was the intention of the Aus- 
 trians to employ eight army corps against Serbia. Six 
 were to invade that country via Semlin, and were the 
 3rd corps from Gratz, 4th corps Budapesth, the 8th Prague, 
 9th Leilmentz, 13th Agram, and the 7th Temesvar. At 
 the same time, the 12th corps Hemamtadt, was to be 
 mobilized to watch the Rumanian frontier. The two 
 special corps, the 14th and 15th, which during the last four 
 years have been raised in Bosnia and Herzegovina, were 
 to invade Serbian territory from Forca, under the command 
 of General Potovick. The troops at SemHn were placed 
 under the orders of General von Bohm ElmoUi, the whole 
 being under the supreme direction of Baron Conrad Von 
 Hoetzendorf, Chief of the General Staff. 
 
 Before leaving Vienna, I managed to purhase an ex- 
 cellent pair of Zeiss glasses, which were an invaluable posses- 
 sion when war broke out. 
 
 My prospects of escaping seemed very poor until 4 p.m., 
 when the porter at the Bristol informed me that a train was 
 leaving at 4.50 for Budapesth. He strongly advised me to 
 go by it, and to take my chance of getting on from there. 
 So ofif I rushed to the station with my immense accumulation 
 of baggage. 
 
 The train was crowded and it was only with difficulty 
 that I obtained a seat. The passengers consisted of Ru- 
 manians, Serbians, Bulgarians, Russians and a conglomera- 
 tion of Levantines, all seeking to regain their own homes 
 before communication entirely broke down. There were 
 also a number of Austrian ofhcers hastening to join their 
 regiments at the front. Large crowds assembled to bid 
 these warriors farewell, and bitter tears were shed by the 
 ladies of Vienna when parting with their brothers, husbands 
 and friends. 
 
 The train in which I found myself seemed to be the only 
 civilian one running on the hne. I carefully examined the 
 Hne and found it blocked with troop trains and war material, 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 15 
 
 including several batteries of heavy howitzers. At ten 
 o'clock we reached Budapesth, and I found that a train was 
 leaving almost immediately for Brasso, on the Rumanian 
 frontier. This was the last train which passed through, 
 and it was with the utmost difficulty that I managed to 
 reach it and to collect my baggage. To enter it was quite 
 another proposition. The only time I have ever seen a train 
 so packed was during the flight of the entire population of 
 Thrace after the rout of Lulc Burgas. The scene and noise 
 reminded me of the last days of the Tower of Babel. A 
 mass of men, women and children were struggling to obtain 
 admittance. 
 
 All the languages of Europe seemed to rise in one 
 despondent wave of despair as the occupants searched for 
 seats or watched their baggage disappear amidst the crowds 
 struggUng on the platform. By brute force I made my way 
 into a carriage, but could get no further than the corridor, 
 which resembled one of those sombre pictures of the passage 
 of the Beresina by the Grand Army. Every compartment 
 was full, and when no more live stock could be forced into 
 the train, the guard blew his whistle and we moved slowly out , 
 whilst a despairing scream arose from hundreds left behind. 
 
 We passed a miserable, hot, uncomfortable night, sleeping 
 at fitful intervals, only to awake if any one stirred in his 
 sleep. From the corridor came groans of discomfort, inter- 
 mingled with curses. The following day, Wednesday, July 
 29, we made but slow progress, stopping at every station in 
 Hungary. It was interesting and sad, but instructive to 
 watch that terrible machine — a general mobilization — 
 dragging its victims to the mill of slaughter. The raw 
 material had been so hastily called upon that the majority 
 had to leave for the centres of their regiments in the gar- 
 ments they happened to be wearing at the time the fateful 
 slip of paper was handed to them. There were peasants 
 with the mud of the fields still wet upon their blue shape- 
 less smocks ; small proprietors in riding breeches and 
 bowler hats ; clerks with pens sticking in their ears, the 
 small tradesman with his account book in his hand. 
 
i6 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 All the various elements which make up civilian life were 
 there ; all taken from their homes and their occupations 
 without warning, to fight for a cause which not one in ten 
 understood and in which not one in a hundred was really 
 interested. At the stations they were being hastily mar- 
 shalled by non-commissioned officers, and then packed 
 like sardines in the waiting trucks — the proprietor with his 
 farm hand, the country gentleman with his butcher and 
 baker, and bank managers with their clerks. They ceased 
 to be human beings in the eyes of the Government ; they 
 were now so many living creatures capable of bearing arms ; 
 mere numbers to be counted and killed like sheep, so that 
 Austrian statesmen could boast that their country could 
 put 1,600,000 men in the field. 
 
 Yet these victims of ambition seemed far from unhappy. 
 On the faces of the majority was no look of anguish, but 
 of extreme surprise. Such is human nature — nothing 
 appeals to the mass of mankind so much as excitement and 
 a change. But I could not help thinking how different 
 would be their outlook on life before many days had passed, 
 when the long marches commenced, when food came at 
 uncertain intervals, when the heat of the day would be 
 followed by the cold of the night, when the shrapnel com- 
 menced to burst over the heads of this mass of leaderless 
 sheep, when the bullets began their mournful whistle, and 
 when the sun would shine on thousands of hostile bayonets. 
 
 The preUminary stages of a great war are the saddest of 
 all. It is the snatching from the home that affects one 
 most, the last farewells, the weeping women and hard- 
 thinking children unable to account for the sudden change 
 in their lives. There are many who cannot bear to see 
 a flock of sheep being driven along a country road to a 
 market town and to the slaughter-house, yet the same 
 housewives who ^vill turn away their heads and comment on 
 the cruelty of their husband's appetites, will be the first to 
 enter a butcher's shop to select the choicest joint for their 
 table. It is the same in war, when the conscripts are being 
 driven to the front, they command far more sympathy than 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 17 
 
 when arrayed in martial attire ; their natural occupation 
 seems to be to become cold meat at any hour of the day or 
 night. 
 
 This dreary journey continued until 4 p.m., when we 
 reached Brasso, the frontier town before one enters 
 Rumania. We had been told that the train would go no 
 farther, and that we should have to get out and motor to 
 Predal, the first Rumanian station, a distance of twenty 
 kilometres, but fortunately we were spared this crowning 
 inconvenience and the train carried us on to Predal, where 
 we changed and entered the connection for Bucharest. I 
 reached the Rumanian capital at midnight and eagerly 
 inquired for news, to learn that Austria had declared war 
 that day, and that Austrian guns were already bombarding 
 Belgrade. The spark had been put to the powder. The 
 long night of Europe's sorrows had commenced. 
 
 I passed one day (Thursday, July 30) in Bucharest to 
 find out what attitude Rumania would adopt. I found 
 the Rumanian Army anxious to march against Austria, 
 but the Government anxious to preserve a strict neu- 
 trality. Whenever soldiers marched through the streets 
 they were received with tremendous enthusiasm ; at night- 
 time in the cafes, the officers, who always wear full uniform, 
 stuck large bouquets in their buttonholes, and sang patriotic 
 songs. The Rumanians were then anxious for war to 
 redeem their honour and to prove that they could fight. 
 Their bloodless intervention in the Serbo- Bulgarian cam- 
 paign caused them to lose caste among the other Balkan 
 nations, and they felt their position keenly. 
 
 I also met several of my Austrian friends in the legation 
 of Bucharest. Curiously enough they seemed to scout 
 the idea of a European war, and fully believed that at the 
 eleventh hour Serbia would climb down and a compromise 
 would be reached with the aid of Russia. I found that 
 travelling was likely to be very difficult in Bulgaria and 
 Serbia, so I decided to leave aU my baggage behind in 
 Bucharest. I only kept one small kit-bag and just a few 
 necessary changes of linen. The rest I handed over to 
 
 B 
 
i8 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 Mon. Bertola, the manager of the Palace Hotel, who pro- 
 mised to look after them until I returned. That is now 
 over three years ago. The Germans are still in possession 
 of Bucharest, and by this time I suppose all my property 
 has been distributed amongst the apostles of Kultur. 
 
 At 7 a.m. on July 31 I took the train for Sofia, crossing 
 the Danube at Rusktuk and entered Bulgarian territory. 
 Before leaving, I cabled to the Daily Telegraph, informing 
 them of my movements, and requesting them to send on 
 money to Sofia, as my little stock was once again running 
 low. I could discover no trace of any miUtary movement 
 in Bulgaria. The population seemed perfectly peaceful 
 and happy. They are a strange race, these Bulgarians. 
 Less than a year before they lost in their two wars no fewer 
 than 140,000 of their male population dead. Yet they 
 seemed to have completely recovered from the shock, and 
 to have entirely forgotten their losses, and the enormous 
 sacrifices made by the whole nation. I reached Sofia at 
 midnight. There was no fresh news of any sort. 
 
 On the following day, Saturday, August i, I went to see 
 our Minister, Sir Henry Bax Ironsides, who also could 
 add nothing to my knowledge of what was happening in 
 Europe. He told me the new British Minister to Belgrade, 
 Mr. Des Graz, had gone through the day before, having 
 to motor from the frontier, as the fine was not yet open. 
 Sir Henry very kindly accompanied me to the house of the 
 Serbian Minister, who gave me a permit to cross the frontier 
 and to go to Nish. I dined at the Legation and stayed 
 there until 2 a.m. The only news which came through 
 during the evening was a telegram stating the Emperor 
 had declared that a menace of war existed. No one 
 knew what this meant. 
 
 I spent the day of Saturday, August i, in Sofia. I was 
 most anxious to continue my journey without delay, but 
 once again the financial position was becoming acute and I 
 barely had enough money left to carry me to Nish. No 
 cable had come through from London, and I learnt from 
 inquiry that no telegrams had arrived for several days. 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 19 
 
 What was I to do ? I racked my brains in vain, but once 
 again my luck was in and a stranger came to my rescue. I 
 had travelled from Bucharest to Sofia with a young Swiss 
 gentleman and we had become very good friends. On part- 
 ing at the station he gave me his card and I discovered he 
 was the manager of the Swiss Bank in Sofia. On Saturday 
 morning I went round to him, explained the whole situation 
 and asked if he could finance me. He consented at once 
 to let me have one hundred pounds in exchange for a draft 
 on the Daily Telegraph. Only gold was of any value, as the 
 Balkan States refuse to handle each other's notes, and 
 gold is very scarce in Bulgaria. However, before closing 
 time, my friend had produced one hundred and twenty- 
 five French Louis, and I was once more independent. I 
 certainly take this opportunity of tendering him my grate- 
 ful thanks, as without his assistance I really do not know 
 how I should ever have got home. Saturday, August i, 
 was the day on which Germany declared war against 
 Russia and France, but no news of these momentous events 
 reached the Bulgarian capital. We were left in complete 
 ignorance. 
 
 On the following morning, Sunday, August 2, I left at 
 7 a.m. by train for Nish, accompanied by a famous 
 German newspaper editor and correspondent whom I 
 had known in the Turkish War. We were the best of 
 friends, sharing our repast together in the train, talking 
 of the past and of our plans for the future. We did not 
 reach Nish until 3.30 p.m., and on arriving were met by 
 the news that Germany had declared war on Russia. 
 
 I shall never forget the effect of this announcement on 
 my German companion. We heard the fateful news on the 
 platform at Nish. Of course it could only mean that in a 
 few days — it might be hours — England would be dragged 
 into the struggle. I had my pistol with me, and turned to 
 my companion and said jokingly, " Now you are my 
 prisoner." But he took no notice. His face turned ashy 
 pale, and Ufting his arms to heaven he commenced the most 
 frightful impassioned tirade against the Kaiser and the 
 
20 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 Prussian military oligarchy. " This," he exclaimed, " is 
 the greatest crime in history. For years they have planned 
 war. The Serbian business is merely an excuse to bring on 
 a European war. I am a SociaUst and have always been 
 one, but I loved my country. Now it is finished. They 
 will take my four sons, all of whom must serve. All will 
 be killed. "WHio will survive a European war ? " 
 
 Then he collapsed, and sitting on a bench burst into tears 
 of anguish and rage. 
 
 The scenes at Nish were strange. It is a country town 
 of some twenty thousand inhabitants, about the size of 
 Evesham. Its normal life is purely agricultural. Its 
 houses are poor in structure and straggle over a large 
 expanse. Some are of brick, others of wood and straw. 
 In the centre is a large, iU-paved market-place to which the 
 inhabitants of the surrounding districts are wont to send 
 their cattle and their market produce. There are a few 
 evil-looking cafes which pass as hotels ; a few Government 
 buildings and some unimportant private residences. ' 
 
 Into this miserable, squalid refuge the whole of the 
 upper classes of Belgrade, the Court and the Government 
 oJSicials, retired after the declaration of war, to escape from 
 the Austrian guns. In addition, large numbers of troops 
 were passing through the town on their way to the front. 
 Hundreds of officers had also come there, and reservists were 
 trooping in from the surrounding villages. The Serbian 
 Parliament was also in session there. Thus, this market 
 town of a normal population of some 20,000 suddenly 
 found itself flooded by some 30,000 strangers, taxing its 
 holding capacity to the extreme Hmit. 
 
 I soon found it was impossible to obtain any accommoda- 
 tion, and after depositing my baggage in a caf6, I saUied 
 forth to find our new Minister and our First Secretary, Mr. 
 Crackanthorpe, whom I had previously known in Belgrade. 
 At the extemporized Ministry of Foreign Affairs it was 
 stated that both England and France had declared war, 
 but this was premature. 
 
 In Nish I was much struck by the moral of the Serbian 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 21 
 
 troops. They were clamouring to be led again at the Aus- 
 trians, and although they were being mobihzed for the 
 third time in two years, there was no grumbling and no air 
 of sadness at the hardness of their lot. The recruits and 
 reservists turned up at the station accompanied by their 
 wives and famiUes in the best of spirits. Each man had 
 a bunch of flowers stuck in the muzzle of his rifle, and all 
 were singing their national songs. As a matter of fact, 
 these hardy patriotic peasants had become so used to war 
 that they regarded a call to arms in much the same spirit 
 as the average man regards an invitation to a hunt. 
 
 These men were leaving their homes and their ripening 
 crops, on which the Serbian nation^depends for its existence, 
 at the most critical period of the year, and yet they took 
 the field without a murmur, rejoicing at again having to 
 defend their homes against the invader, and leaving their 
 women folk to do the field work for the third time in two 
 years. I was told that when war was first declared there 
 was a good deal of depression and misgiving, but when it 
 became known that Germany had declared war on Russia, 
 the enthusiasm of the army and the nation knew no limits. 
 An enormous load of anxiety was at once lifted from their 
 minds. They felt it was no longer a question of defending 
 their firesides against the invader, it now became a war of 
 revenge, perhaps of conquest. The scene in Nish on this 
 eventful Sunday afternoon will not quickly be forgotten. 
 The whole of the population of Nish, the Emigres from 
 Belgrade, and the innumerable soldiers and officers turned 
 out as if celebrating some great national fete. The river 
 Save passes through the town, and there is a shady prome- 
 nade along its banks. Here this mass of deUghted Slavs 
 concentrated in that same Ught-hearted atmosphere which 
 one associates with Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday. 
 On all sides one heard of the war of revenge and of the 
 anticipated march into Bosnia and Herzegovina to reclaim 
 these provinces for the Slav family. No one had a thought 
 for the evil days to come. 
 
 As an EngUshman was made more than welcome on this 
 
22 • SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 historic Sunday, I. met many friends whom I had known 
 in the late war and received a right royal welcome. I dined 
 that night with one of the managers of the National Bank. 
 He told me that when war became certain and it was 
 decided to clear out of Belgrade, the whole of the staff 
 worked incessantly packing the seventy-seven millions of 
 gold in Napoleons which was stored in its vaults. In three 
 days the whole of this sum was safely on its way to Nish. 
 By way of irony, they left one franc fifty in the gold safe, 
 and a 5d. stamp in the silver safe, both these items duly 
 appearing in the books. j^^ ^\.;v 
 
 The news of the declaration of war led me to reconsider 
 my position with the Serbian Army. I felt tolerably sure 
 that this must be followed by a declaration of war by France 
 and England against the Triple AUiance. This view was 
 confirmed by all those with whom I consulted, including our 
 Minister, Mr. Des Graz. Therefore it became evident that 
 the war in Serbia would become of mere local importance 
 with graver events occurring so much nearer home. I 
 therefore decided to leave at once and to make my way to 
 France. 
 
 The question I had to consider was how to get there. I 
 could not return by Sofia and Bucharest, because all the 
 European lines would have ceased running, and I should 
 have to pass through two hostile countries. After long 
 consultations, I decided the only practical route would be 
 via the Mediterranean, and to leave that night at i a.m. 
 in the train for Salonika. I was not sure I could get back 
 by this route, for all depended on the attitude of Italy. If 
 Italy declared war, the Mediterranean would be entirely 
 closed to all shipping until the Austrian and Itahan fleets 
 were disposed of, and my only chance would be to cross 
 over to Port Said and catch a P. and O. or some other 
 vessel there. 
 
 My difficulties were rendered greater by the complete 
 absence of all genuine news. Telegrams only reached 
 Nish at uncertain intervals and generally from the most 
 unreliable sources. But I decided to make my way to 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 23 
 
 Salonika and make a fresh start from there. At i a.m on 
 Monday, August 3, I entered the train for Uskub. I had 
 made this same journey a year before on my way to Uskub 
 to join the headquarters of the Serbian Army against Bul- 
 garia. Then the tide of war was rolling southwards into 
 Macedonia ; now the mighty engine was reversed, all the 
 tide was rolling northwards to meet a fresh invasion. Ser- 
 bian-Macedonia had been almost denuded of troops. Only 
 the third band of old reservists had been left to watch the 
 railway and to hold essential posts. 
 
 The train took an interminable time, stopping at every 
 station, waiting for troop trains, and it seemed as if we 
 should never arrive. The heat was terrific, and travelling 
 four in a compartment intended for three was the acme 
 of misery and discomfort. At two o'clock on Monday 
 afternoon I reached Uskub and eagerly inquired for news. 
 The station-master, an old friend, was full of it. This is 
 what he told me : 
 
 " Both France and England have declared war against 
 Germany. There has been a battle between the German 
 and Russian Fleets. The English Fleet has blockaded 
 all the German ports, and the EngUsh Army, 180,000 
 strong, under Sir John French, has already crossed into 
 France. The French Army has invaded Germany through 
 Belgium. There have been terrible battles on the French 
 and Russian frontiers." 
 
 Now I knew from a mere calculation of time that most 
 of this information was false, but it only served to whet 
 the appetite and to strengthen the longing to reach one's 
 native land. At 4 p.m. I left for Salonika in another train, 
 rolling slowly past Stip and Krivolack and the banks of 
 the Varda which a year before were wet with the blood of 
 countless Serbs and Bulgars. At i a.m. on Tuesday, 
 August 4, I reached the Greek frontier and again changed 
 trains. At 4 a.m. we arrived at Salonika. I made my 
 way to the local hotel and learnt more news from the porter, 
 who contradicted nearly all that given by the station- 
 master at Uskub, but added some interesting details of his 
 
24 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 own, namely, that Italy had declared war against Germany 
 and Austria ; that Spain had followed suit, and also that 
 Sir Ernest Shackleton had abandoned his expedition to the 
 South Pole. He rejoiced me with the information that an 
 Italian steamer was leaving at lo a.m. that morning for 
 the Piraeus, where she would arrive at lo a.m. the following 
 day, Wednesday, August 5, and that I should catch a large 
 steamer leaving at 2 p.m. for Brindisi. 
 
 The steamer for the Piraeus was the Silvie. On board this 
 miserable old tug, thirty- two years old, making her last 
 voyage, I found a conglomeration of aU the nations, all 
 engaged in seeking the shortest route by which to enter 
 the European slaughter-house. There were Austrians 
 and Germans, Itahans, French and Bosnians, all answ^ering 
 the call to the colours. 
 
 We spht up into hostile groups, the Triple Alliance — minus 
 the Italians — on one side of the deck and the Triple Entente 
 on the other, and eyed one another with hatred and ferocity. 
 We were quite ready to begin the battle of our nations then 
 and there with revolvers, knives, deck-chairs, and marling 
 spikes. However, the restraining presence of several ladies 
 preserved the peace. I noticed that the members of the 
 Triple Alliance seemed worried and full of misgivings, 
 whereas we of the Triple Entente had few anxieties for the 
 future. 
 
 After dinner I strolled up on deck, accompanied by two 
 French friends. We were immediately greeted by the 
 tremendous rolling refrain of " Deutschland, my Deutsch- 
 land " and the " Watch on the Rhine." I must admit 
 it was formidable and inspiring hstening to the mighty 
 words of these national hymns rolling over the still waves. 
 One of the Austrians had a concertina on which he could 
 play almost every known tune. Presently the Bosnians 
 appeared on deck, and furious at having to listen to the 
 Austrian and German national anthems, they commenced 
 a concert of their own. Never before have I heard such a 
 strange uproar. The rivals continued to sing without a 
 single intermission from 8 p.m. until past midnight, occa- 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 25 
 
 sionally varying proceedings by joining in a common song 
 such as the " Merry Widow " and the " Girl on the Film." 
 
 I never realized until I found myself once more afloat 
 on the waters of the Mediterranean what an immense 
 reputation and prestige the British Navy enjoys throughout 
 the world, what a terror it is to our enemies and what a rock 
 of comfort to our friends. The French and Italians and 
 the Greeks and Russians and all the neutrals on this boat 
 felt absolutely safe in entrusting themselves to the sea in 
 the middle of a European war. They felt that no harm 
 could possibly come to them either from the Goeben or the 
 Bresldu or the Austrian fleet, so long as the British fleet 
 remained intact, whereas the Germans and Austrians 
 eagerly scanned the horizon whenever a cloud of smoke or 
 ship was sighted, firmly beheving that at any minute they 
 might find themselves seized as prisoners of war. 
 
 However, our voyage passed without incident, but this 
 wretched boat, which should have arrived at the Piraeus 
 at 10 a.m. the following day, August 5, was five hours late, 
 and did not get into port until 3 p.m., just in time to see a 
 fine Italian steamer, the Sardinia, which should have con- 
 veyed me the next stage to Brindisi, departing on its 
 voyage. This was a bitter and crowning blow, as it meant 
 a delay of three days before another boat would be leaving, 
 and during that time the sea route might be closed, and I 
 might find the Italian Army mobilizing and the trains no 
 longer running. 
 
 There was a delay of two hours before the port doctor 
 awoke from his afternoon slumbers and came on board, 
 which aroused the passengers almost to a state of open 
 mutiny. We saw visions of the last route to France and 
 England closed, and an indefinite stay in the Mediterranean, 
 cut off from the great world where history was being made 
 and the map of Europe re- drawn. 
 
 The moment I got ashore I rushed up to Athens and 
 eagerly sought that saviour of benighted travellers, Thomas 
 Cook & Sons. I begged them to invent a way for me to 
 reach Brindisi without further delay. They replied I must 
 
26 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 wait and take my chance in the next steamer. However, 
 their under-manager, an exceedingly bright- witted youth to 
 whom I am under a deep debt of gratitude, was suddenly 
 seized with a brain wave. He said, " There is a chance ; 
 the Sardinia cannot pass through the Gulf of Corinth to 
 reach Patras, as the canal is undergoing repairs, and only 
 small vessels can pass ; so she must go right round the 
 islands and will take twenty- two hours, reaching Patras at 
 noon to-morrow. Therefore, if you can get to Patras you 
 will be able to catch her there." We found there were no 
 trains which could possibly get me there in time. I then 
 suggested a motor-boat to take me through the canal. 
 
 We searched the Piraeus, but could find none, neither any 
 small steamer wiUing to undertake the voyage. I then 
 suggested a motor-car. We had no difficulty in obtaining 
 one and fixing up a price, and all seemed settled when the 
 chauffeur pointed out most respectfully that there was no 
 road across country to Patras. Then I said, " You must 
 get me a special train." Cook's said they would try, and 
 after hunting all over Athens they finally ran down one 
 of the directors in his house. The affair, after endless 
 difficulties, was finally arranged on my paying the modest 
 sum of 800 francs. 
 
 I left at ten o'clock. When I reached the station I 
 found a crowd collected, for special trains are almost 
 unknown in Greece, and the rumour having spread of the 
 departure, all kinds of surmises were afloat amongst the 
 excited populace. Some said the French and British 
 Naval Missions were departing, others that war had broken 
 out with Turkey and that the King was leaving for the 
 front. We started amidst loud cheers. The news had 
 been telegraphed all down the Une of the coming of a special, 
 and at every station we found small crowds anxious to 
 learn the news and who greeted us with cheers of welcome. 
 
 I reached Patras at 4 a.m., and on my arrival I was met 
 by Commander Wells of the British Naval Mission to Greece. 
 This officer was on leave, and for two weeks had been cruis- 
 ing in a small yacht amongst the Greek islands. He only 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 27 
 
 learned of the outbreak of war by chance on putting into a 
 small port for provisions. 
 
 At noon the long expected Sardinia came into port, 
 and I lost no time in boarding her. I found she was 
 crowded with passengers all seeking to regain their homes, 
 the majority being Americans who had been caught by 
 the tide of war whilst on their summer holidays. The 
 Americans throughout Europe had a very poor time, and 
 there were thousands stranded at almost all the Italian 
 ports waiting for money and for ships to take them to their 
 homes. They almost all carry letters of credit which were 
 then useless, no bank being prepared to pay out cash 
 against them. 
 
 Thus millionaires found the vast sums which lay to their 
 credit in New York and Chicago of no use, and their energies, 
 which were formerly turned to making fortunes in a single 
 coup, were now reduced to trying to raise fivers and tenners 
 to carry them on to the next ix)rt or station, or to enable 
 them to live for a few days at some benighted hotel. 
 
 The Kaiser had been guilty of the impardonable sin of 
 making every one — erstwhile friends as well as enemies — 
 thoroughly imcomfortable. Execration greeted the men- 
 tion of the Kaiser's name from Salonika to Paris, through- 
 out aU those countries included in my Odyssey. I found 
 the Sardinia packed to her utmost limits, and forty-five 
 wealthy first-class passengers without berths. I was too 
 pleased to find myself on board to trouble about the minor 
 discomfort of having nowhere to lay my weary bones, and 
 I should have passed the night on deck but for the kind 
 intervention of an American gentleman, Mr. de Lancey 
 Nicoll, who had bought all the berths in one cabin at 
 Constantinople, and who with extreme kindness offered 
 to take me in. 
 
 Leaving Patras at i p.m. we shaped our course for Corfu, 
 where the Kcdser owns the splendid villa which he bought 
 from the late Empress of Austria. All our thoughts were 
 concentrated on the Goeben and the Breslau, which were 
 reported to have been heard of last in the Straits of Mes- 
 
28 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 sina. We were told that the British Fleet was cruising in 
 the neighbourhood, and that the pair must either be interned 
 or come out and fight. Excitement was intense when we 
 sighted a torpedo boat which was pronounced British. This 
 craft was travelling at full speed and in pursuit of a small 
 steamer which was quickly overhauled and evidently gave 
 satisfactory assurances, for she was allowed to proceed. 
 There were several Austrian and German officers on the 
 Sardinia who were in despair when this torpedo boat 
 seemed to turn her nose in our direction. 
 
 They went to the captain, gave him money and begged 
 him to see their wives safely on shore, then having bid a 
 last farewell, they awaited their fate with calm resignation. 
 No one seemed to have any clear knowledge of international 
 law as to whether belligerents can be taken off a neutral 
 ship, but in this case their fears were groundless, for we 
 were allowed to proceed unmolested on our nationaUty 
 being ascertained. At ten o'clock we approached Corfu 
 and saw an immense blaze on the hills, which every one 
 hoped was the Emperor's villa in flames, but which turned 
 out to be a wood fire. 
 
 At 10 a.m. on the morning of August 7, we entered the 
 port of Brindisi, alive with excitement, and uncertain 
 whether we could proceed farther, as rumours had crept on 
 board of an ItaHan mobihzation. However, Cook's men, 
 who lined the quay, shouted out that a train would leave at 
 twelve for Milan, but that it was uncertain whether we 
 could get any farther. Then there ensued an endless 
 delay whilst the doctor examined all the third-class pas- 
 sengers. 
 
 We were not allowed on shore until 11.30, and there 
 was still further delay at the Customs, every article of our 
 luggage being examined. I reached the station about two 
 minutes before the train left, and just got my last bag 
 thrown into the carriage as we moved off. In my journey 
 through Italy I found without exception an immense 
 enthusiasm amongst the population for England and 
 France. French officers were cheered and there were loud 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 29 
 
 " Vivas " for both countries. The Italian people, whatever 
 the attitude of the Government, longed to march against 
 Austria, and it was easy to see that the Government would 
 not have lasted a day had it attempted to side with the 
 Central Powers. 
 
 At 6.30 a.m. on August 8 we entered Milan. Here we 
 had some luck, for we found the last express train leaving 
 half an hour later for Lausanne. The Swiss Government 
 had that day decreed a general mobilization, and the entire 
 railway service was to be held up until this was complete. 
 We reached Lausanne at 4 p.m. and here had another piece 
 of luck, for we found another train leaving in five minutes 
 for Geneva, to which town all the officials told us it was 
 essential to go if we wished to enter France. 
 
 At five o'clock we reached Geneva. The place was in a 
 perfect pandemonium. We found at least 8,000 stranded 
 tourists, American millionaires, English families, " school 
 marms " and " Dr. Lunn's specially-conducted tourists " 
 all held up. 
 
 The hotels were packed with a disgusted community, 
 all cursing the Kaiser and seeking to cash letters of credit 
 at any discount as long as they could get the wherewithal 
 of a fare to Paris. The mass of these unfortunates had been 
 waiting for a train for ten days. Here again our luck 
 stuck to us, for we found the first train was to leave at 7 
 a.m. the following morning for Paris. 
 
 It was to consist only of third-class carriages ; it was to 
 have room for 2,000 people when there were at least 5,000 
 anxious to get on it, and it was to take thirty-six hours on 
 the journey instead of the usual eight. Three French 
 officers I had met and myself lost not a moment. We 
 bought tickets and then hastened to the French Consul to 
 have our passports vises. Outside his door was a crowd 
 of several hundreds, aU bent on a like mission. 
 
 Our cards obtained a speedy admission, and the Consul 
 helped us in every way. He told us that a French Deputy 
 and his family were leaving in the same train, and that two 
 second-class carriages had been obtained for his use. He 
 
30 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 gave us an introduction and said he would do his best to 
 get him to let us share his carriage. M. Jules Auffray 
 was charming, and told us to be at the station at 6 a.m. 
 We hastened to an hotel, had a bath, dined, and tumbling in 
 slept for a few hours, rising at four so as to ensure our being 
 on time. 
 
 There was a repetition of the crush and muddle on an 
 exaggerated scale the following morning. However, we 
 obtained seats in M. Auffray's compartment, sitting eight in 
 a carriage intended for four. All other compartments 
 were equally full when we slowly steamed off. 
 
 On the discomforts of this journey I will say nothing 
 except this — that in hot weather it is not pleasant to sit 
 eight in a compartment for thirty-six hours on end, and to 
 Uve on any stray victuals which a country devoured by the 
 passage of countless thousands of troops could provide. 
 
 We passed the French frontier at Bellegarde with sighs 
 of relief to find ourselves at length on French soil. Our 
 passports were never examined, neither was our baggage. 
 There might have been Germans or Austrians on the train, 
 and their baggage might have contained enough explosives 
 to blow up the biggest bridge in France. There was 
 nothing to prevent any one of us from dropping a melinite- 
 charged trunk at any point on the litie. I am happy to 
 say none of these things occurred. 
 
 All the same, it did seem inexcusable carelessness on 
 some one's part to allow 2,000 strangers of all nationalities 
 to travel the length of France, to watch the mobilization, 
 and to get out at any station and wander about the country 
 if they so willed. 
 
 Shortly after leaving the frontier, the train, which was of 
 enormous length and very heavy, broke in half, and there 
 was considerable delay while it was re- connected. 
 
 Ours was the only civilian train I saw throughout the 
 length of France until we reached the outskirts of Paris. 
 All the others were packed with troops, with stores, with 
 guns and wagons. Where this immense amount of material 
 is hidden away in time of peace is a mystery. Every engine 
 
THE SINISTER WEEK 31 
 
 was gaily decorated with flowers and green branches of 
 trees. On most were inscriptions and drawings in chalk. 
 For instance, I saw on one, " i6th Regiment, Pau : destina- 
 tion, terminus, Berlin." On another a caricature of the 
 Kaiser having his moustaches clipped by a French soldier 
 on one side and a Briton on the other, whilst an enormous 
 bear was slowly creeping up behind. 
 
 Our train, instead of going North, went an endless round 
 over side Unes, until we reached Lyons. The great station 
 and town seemed dead. There was no food to be obtained 
 at the buffets, all had been devoured by the troops, but 
 we were allowed to sally forth into the town in search of 
 cold chickens and bread. 
 
 All that night we rolled slowly through France and finally 
 reached Paris at 4 p.m. on August 10. But what a Paris ! 
 A city of the dead. Everything had changed, no porters 
 at the station — no fiacres — no motor-cars — no young men 
 in the streets — no gay scenes — only old men, women and 
 children all waiting and watching. No night Ufe — no gay 
 cafes — no theatres — no opera — none of that joie de vivre 
 which attracts visitors from all over the world. I drove to 
 my usual hotel — I found it a hospital. I drove to another — 
 I found it closed. Paris seemed to be like a vast cemetery 
 waiting to be filled. 
 
 Here my wanderings came to an end. Just a fortnight 
 had elapsed since I left London. During this time, the war, 
 like a prairie fire, had relentlessly pursued me, and to 
 return to England I had to traverse Belgium, Germany, 
 Austria, Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, 
 Italy and France in addition to several seas. I changed 
 trains twenty-nine times and sailed in three ships. I 
 arrived back without one single article of baggage. 
 
II 
 
 The Destruction of Rheims Cathedral 
 
 WHEN poor Dick Davis fell dead at his telephone 
 from heart disease at the early age of fifty- two, the 
 Allies lost the support of their best friend and most influen- 
 tial supporter in the American Press. Davis was animated 
 by an extreme hatred of the Germans, for he had had 
 practical experience of their methods and brutaUty in 
 Belgium when he was arrested as a spy and narrowly 
 escaped being shot. He was a magnificent descriptive 
 writer, and few will have forgotten his wonderful account 
 of the march of the German legions through Brussels on 
 their way, as they thought, to Paris, but in reahty to the 
 decisive defeat of the Marne. Their arrogance was then 
 at its height ; they had swept the Belgians from Liege, 
 had forced the British Army to retire from Mons, and to 
 superficial observation, seemed to hold Paris almost in 
 their grasp. Of those haughty legions whose march 
 through Brussels Davis so eloquently described, how many 
 remain to-day ? But few indeed, and mostly cripples in 
 Germany. The bones of the remainder he scattered over 
 the provinces of Northern France, on the Marne and the 
 Aisne, before Verdun, in Picardy, on the Somme and the 
 Scarpe, and in the plains of Champagne. But few ever 
 retraced their steps through the Belgium capital. Retri- 
 bution and disaster has come to them, as it has eventually 
 come to all others who have essayed to enslave the world. 
 It had been my privilege to know Davis for twelve years. 
 
 82 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 33 
 
 I first met him on the old China saiHng from San Francisco 
 to Yokohama on our way to the Russo-Japanese War. 
 From that time I always enjoyed his friendship and society 
 in many parts of the world. He was loved by his friends 
 — that is to say by those who really knew him — but many 
 who just met him casually only formed a superficial estimate 
 of his character, and often formed a wrong impression of 
 him. Davis was as brilliant a conversationalist as a writer. 
 How many times have we not sat up until the small hours 
 of the morning, listening to his wonderful descriptions of 
 events and of individuals. He was certainly a curious 
 man with a curious character. To me, he seemed never to 
 have grown up, his mind always retained its early freshness 
 and remarkable capacity for getting amusement out of life, 
 above all out of the small things of life which so often 
 escape the notice of the majority of mankind. His powers 
 of observation were the most remarkable I have ever knouTi, 
 and it was an object lesson and valuable education for any 
 one engaged in descriptive writing to go about with him. 
 He could point out the essentials from the non essentials 
 in any scene which had to be depicted, and it was always the 
 bizarre in a situation, however serious, which appealed to 
 him most. In addition he possessed a remarkable nose 
 for news. He seemed to have a natural instinct for pick- 
 ing out the right point to m.ake for when in search of a 
 really good stor^'. At the same time he was extremely 
 sensitive and also proud in the justifiable sense of the term . 
 He always maintained the dignity of his calling and would 
 never stoop to any doubtful methods to outdo a rival. His 
 greatest fault was his undue sensitiveness, which fre- 
 quently caused him to take offence by putting an entirely 
 wrong construction on some word or action. On these 
 occasions he possessed a peculiar habit of retiring ^^ithin 
 himself and sulking for a time. But his moods never 
 lasted long, and he was always the first to make up a quarrel 
 and to forgive and forget. In appearance he was, especi- 
 ally when young, a remarkably handsome man with very 
 fine large bro^vn eyes. In his youth he was the model for 
 
34 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 the type of young America made so familiar by his friend 
 Dana Gibson. Davis possessed a generous nature. He 
 was always ready to help any struggling aspirant for 
 literary fame in any way in his power, either at home or in 
 the field. I owe a very great deal of any success I may have 
 achieved as a war correspondent to his sound advice and 
 assistance during the Russo-Japanese War. 
 
 Little did I dream when I accompanied Davis to Rheims, 
 to watch the destruction of that beautiful cathedral by the 
 Huns, that it would be the last excursion I should ever 
 make with him, and, in fact, I was destined never to even 
 see him again. I shall now endeavour to relate our strange 
 experiences which finally landed us in the Cherchi Midi 
 Prison in Paris. 
 
 At this time, September, 191 4, no war correspondents 
 were allowed at the front with either the British or the 
 French Armies. In spite of repeated promises that we 
 should be allowed in the field, and in spite of making every 
 preparation in accordance with the regulations laid down by 
 the War Office, the longed-for permission was not forth- 
 coming. I was kept hanging about in London for some 
 time, when finally the Daily Telegraph, despairing of ever 
 obtaining the assent for the departure of accredited 
 correspondents, decided to send me on a roving mission to 
 Paris. 
 
 In that city, which then seemed so empty and dull, I 
 met Davis and my two friends Granville Fortescue and 
 Gerald Morgan. We had all been through the Russo- 
 Japanese War together. We soon discovered we could get 
 no permission from the authorities to go to the front, and 
 the only excursions permitted were belated visits to the 
 battlefield of the Marne which was already old history. 
 We chafed at our lack of opportunity and the seemingly 
 hopeless prospects. The sole concession of the authorities 
 was to give us little round permits issued by the General 
 Staff, which authorised one to go twice a day to Head- 
 quarters to receive the official bulletin. 
 
 For some days we remained in Paris in despair, and then 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 35 
 
 Gerald Morgan was seized with a bright idea. He studied 
 the official permit of the General Staff, and decided to see 
 if it would carry any weight with the sentries and guards 
 outside of Paris. He hired a motor and set forth, actually 
 reaching Soissons and witnessing some fighting. He came 
 to us with the news of his unexpected success, and said that 
 whenever he presented his official permit signed with the seal 
 of the General Staff, the guards at once allowed him to pass, 
 and the sentries who a moment previous had pointed their 
 bayonets at his car, immediately sprang to attention. 
 Davis, Fortescue, Morgan and myself at once decided 
 to try our luck in a long excursion along the front. On 
 September 18 we set forth in a magnificent hired car. 
 We passed the barricaded gates of Paris without the smallest 
 interference, on the presentation of our passes, but with 
 our hearts in our mouths. Then we had to decide to which 
 point on the long front we should make for. Morgan was 
 in favour of another trip to Soissons, I was rather inclined 
 to his point of view, but Davis ruled other^vise. He declared 
 that in his opinion Rheims would now be the centre of 
 interest, and that it was the point to make for. At this 
 time the British Army was on the Aisne, sandwiched in 
 between Soissons and Rheims. We determined to avoid 
 it at all costs, as the Provost-Marshal enjoyed an exceed- 
 ingly bad reputation for summarily running in all strangers 
 found within the lines. We therefore motored to Meaux, 
 and from there along the banks of the Marne to Rheims. 
 
 About two o'clock we approached Rheims, and on 
 mounting a slight elevation we saw before us the city 
 wreathed in clouds of black smoke, while from the east and 
 south-east the booming of many cannon of large calibre 
 reached our ears. We found hundreds of men, women and 
 children sitting forlorn and disconsolate by the roadside, 
 their heads buried in their hands, and with the abject look 
 of those who are rapidly losing their last little bit of interest 
 in their material existence. 
 
 " What is happening down there ? " we asked. An old 
 woman looked up and replied : 
 
36 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 " Oh, monsieur, since this morning the Germans have 
 bombarded the town. Our homes are in ruins, and it is not 
 safe to return there any more. Are you EngHsh or Ameri- 
 can ? I hope that you will write about what they are doing 
 in the papers." 
 
 We passed on down the hill, crossed the canal, and 
 entered the city itself. At this end — that is to say the 
 side farthest removed from the field of fire — the majority 
 of the inhabitants had gathered. They were anxious, but 
 so pleased at the retirement of the Germans and the re- 
 entry of the French that the bombardment came as a minor 
 evil. 
 
 The streets were crowded with French troops, infantry, 
 engineers, and a large number of cyclist corps, all dirty, 
 covered with mud, but withal cheerful and confident. As 
 we advanced farther up the long main street we found it 
 almost deserted, save for cavalry orderhes bearing messages 
 and stray soldiers hastening to the entrenchments on the far 
 side facing the enemy. We soon saw evidences of the 
 damage done by the shells of the big howitzers of 6- inch 
 calibre. Whole houses had their interiors smashed into a 
 shapeless mass of bricks, mortar and wood. The walls 
 remained intact with just a neat little hole which the shell 
 had made on entering, after which they had just the same 
 effect as a dum-dum bullet on the human body, all inside 
 being smashed and addled. 
 
 All tourists knew the cathedral of Rheims, one of the 
 finest examples of pure Gothic architecture in the world, 
 dating from the thirteenth century, and having windows 
 which were unequalled for beauty of colour and design. 
 
 The glass was of priceless value. The windows were 
 the work of some Venetian, and the famous blue and red can- 
 not be produced in these days. Through all the chequered 
 history of France they had remained safe in their lofty 
 perches, protected by the veneration of conquerors and 
 conquered ahke. No contending civil factions had ever 
 dared to cast a stone at them. During the Revolution the 
 bitterest feelings of mankind aroused to a pitch of hatred 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 37 
 
 and ferocity against law and order and religion, the like 
 of which the world has never known before and never known 
 since, left these works of an unknown artist unharmed. 
 
 Later, in 1814, when Napoleon was making his last 
 dying struggle, and when Rheims was the centre of the 
 invading hordes of all Europe — Cossacks from the Don and 
 Tartars from the farthest Steppes — when the hatred of 
 these hordes had been excited to burning pitch by twenty 
 years of misery and oppression ; when a Russian Tsar 
 the year before had seen the ancient capital burned before 
 his eyes, and a desire for retaliation might reasonably be 
 lurking in his mind, the wonderful blue and red glass still 
 remained to excite the admiration of conqueror and con- 
 quered alike. 
 
 Again in 1870, when Bismarck's legions passed on their 
 march to Paris, N6tre Dame of Rheims remained safe and 
 inviolate. 
 
 For nine centuries without a single break, the interior 
 of this superb Gothic structure has been Hghted by rays of 
 dazzUng blue and red reflected b}^ the sun, casting shadows 
 over the altar such as no artist can now produce. The 
 sombre Gothic columns, the marble statues, the side 
 chapel, and the little painted statue of Jeanne d'Arc have 
 all knowTi those warming rays. 
 
 Now all was changed. The light in the cathedral was 
 brighter. There were still some rays of red and blue, but 
 these were few and far between. The grateful sun poured 
 in, no longer checked by the Venetian's guiding hand. It 
 entered now in great streams of pure white, broken here 
 and there by streaks of the old blue and red which had yet 
 survived the hero of Louvain's all-destructive hand. 
 
 Round the cathedral hardly a house had escaped damage, 
 and even before we reached the open square in which it 
 stands, it became evident that the Germans had concen- 
 trated their fire on the one historic building which Rheims 
 possesses. The pavement of the square had been torn 
 up by the bursting of these 6-inch shells, and was covered 
 with fragments of steel, cracked masonry, glass and loose 
 
38 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 stones. In front of the fagade of the cathedral stands a 
 well-known statue of Jeanne d'Arc. Some one had placed 
 a tricolor in her outstretched arm. The great shells had 
 burst all round her, leaving the Maid of Orleans and her 
 flag unscathed, but her horse's belly and legs were chipped 
 and seared with fragments of flying steel. 
 
 The hotel Lion d'Or, which stands in the square, was a sad 
 sight, having received the visitation of two great shells. 
 At the first view the exterior of the cathedral did not appear 
 to have suffered much damage, although the masonry 
 was chipped and scarred white by countless shrapnel bullets 
 or pieces of steel, and many of the carved flags and gargoyles 
 on the western facade were broken and chipped. 
 
 We found no one in the square — in fact, this part of the 
 town appeared to be deserted — but as we approached the 
 main entrance to try and obtain admittance a curious 
 sight met our eyes. We saw the recumbent figure of a man 
 lying against the door. He had long since lost both his 
 legs which had been replaced by wooden stumps. He lay 
 covered with dust, small stones and broken glass which 
 had been thrown over him by bursting shells, but by some 
 chance his surviving limbs had escaped all injury. This 
 old veteran of the war of 1870, as he described himself, has 
 accosted all and sundry at the gate of the cathedral for 
 generations past, and even in the midst of the bombard- 
 ment he had crawled once more to his accustomed post. 
 As we knocked on the great wooden door, from this shape- 
 less and filthy wreck of what had once been a man, there 
 came the feeble cry : " Monsieur, un petit sou. Monsieur, 
 un petit sou." 
 
 Our knock was answered by a priest, who, on seeing that 
 we were English, at once allowed us to enter. The sacred 
 father then told us, in language that was not altogether 
 priestly when speaking of the vandals whose guns were still 
 thundering outside, of how the Germans had bombarded the 
 cathedral for two hours that morning, landing over fifty 
 shells in its immediate neighbourhood, but luckily the 
 range being very great, over eight kilometres, the soUd 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF RHEIMS CATHEDR.\L 39 
 
 stonework of the building had resisted the successive 
 shocks of these 6-inch howitzers, and how it was that ancient 
 and priceless glass which had suffered the most. 
 
 " Monsieur, they respect nothing. We placed 123 of their 
 wounded inside and hoisted the red cross on the spire in 
 order to protect the cathedral, and yet they fire at it all the 
 same and have killed their own soldiers. Pray, monsieur, 
 make these facts known all over Europe and America." 
 
 With these words he unlocked a wicket and conducted 
 us towards the altar, close to which stands a small painted 
 statue of Jeanne d'Arc. The east end of Notre Dame had 
 up to this period suffered but little, and although some 
 of the windows were damaged, they were not lost beyond 
 repair. The light still shone through in rays of dark blue 
 and red, broken here and there by streaks of pure light. 
 Milton's description still applied to them : 
 
 " The storied windows richly diglit. 
 Casting a dim religious light." 
 
 Then our guide conducted us to the great cold stone 
 body of the cathedral, where the Gothic pillars rise in 
 sombre majesty, relieved by no ornamentation until they 
 hold aloft the blue masterpieces of the unknowTi artist. 
 Here one of the strangest of spectacles met the eye. The 
 w^hole of this vast vault was covered with dust half an inch 
 thick, with chipped- off masonry', pieces of lead piping from 
 the shattered windows, and with countless fragments of 
 varied coloured glass. In the centre lay an ancient can- 
 delabra which had hung for centuries from the roof sus- 
 pended by a steel chain. That morning a fragment of shell 
 had cut the chain in half and dropped its ancient burden 
 to the hard stone floor beneath, where it lay bent and 
 crumpled. Light was streaming in from all sorts of 
 unexpected angles, flashes of blue, red, white, pink and 
 green illuminating the sombre interior with cruel insolence 
 such as it had never known before. 
 
 I gazed aloft at the great blue windows, and saw that 
 they were smashed and that much of the glass had disap- 
 
40 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 peared. In others the lead work had been twisted out of 
 shape. The highest windows appeared to have been 
 damaged by the concussion of the shells bursting outside 
 and the lower ones hit by flying fragments of steel. One 
 lower window, facing south, the side from which the Ger- 
 mans seem to have brought their heavy guns to bear, had 
 been hit plumb by a shell, and nothing remains save a mass 
 of twisted lead. 
 
 A great wave of sunlight ht up a sombre picture of 
 carnage and suffering at the western end near the main 
 entrance. Here on piles of straw lay the wounded Germans 
 in all stages of suffering. Their round shaven heads, thin 
 cheeks and bluish- grey uniforms contrasted strangely with 
 the sombre black of the silent priests attending them, while 
 in the background, the red trousers of the French soldiers 
 were just visible on the steps outside. Most of the wounded 
 had dragged their straw behind the great Gothic pillars as 
 if seeking shelter from their own shells. The priest con- 
 ducted us to one of the aisles beneath the window where 
 the shell had entered that morning. A great pool of blood 
 lay there staining the column just as the blood of Thomas a 
 Becket stained the altar of Canterbury seven centuries 
 before. 
 
 " That, monsieur, is the blood of the French gendarme 
 who was killed at eleven this morning, but he did not go 
 alone." The priest pointed to two more recumbent figures 
 clad in the bluish-grey of the Kaiser's legions. There they 
 lay stiff and cold as the effigies around them. All three 
 had perished by the same shell. Civihan doctors of 
 Rheims moved amongst the wounded, who for the most 
 part maintained an attitude of stoical indifference to every- 
 thing around them. Food was scarce in the town and 
 meat almost unobtainable, but in the centre of the cathedral 
 transept lay the raw quarter of a slaughtered ox, a horrid 
 touch of materiaUsm amidst a scene otherwise lacking 
 all sense of reality. We moved around collecting frag- 
 ments of the precious glass which the Kaiser had so unex- 
 pectedly thrown within our reach. We were brought back 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 41 
 
 to realities by hearing the unmistakable whistle of an 
 approaching shell, followed by a deafening explosion, and 
 more fragments of glass came tumbling from aloft. The 
 weary war-worn Teutons instinctively huddled closer to the 
 Gothic arches. A dying officer, his eyes already fixed in a 
 glassy stare on the sunlight above, gave an involuntary- 
 groan. We heard outside the crash of falling masonr}'. 
 The shell was followed by another and more breaking glass. 
 Our chauffeur came hastening in with the Virgin's broken 
 arm in his hands. A fragment of shell had broken it off 
 outside. We Ungered long gazing at this strange scene. 
 Davis suddenly said : 
 
 " Do you know, this is the first cathedral that has ever 
 interested me." 
 
 Then we bade our priestly guide farewell and passed 
 outside. A huddled shapeless bundle lay right athwart the 
 door covered with more dust and dirt and broken glass. We 
 had to step across it. A feeble hand was raised and from 
 this apparently Ufeless and legless bundle of rags there came 
 again that plaintive : 
 
 " Monsieur, un petit sou. Monsieur, un petit sou." 
 
 Outside the guns were thundering all round Rheims. 
 Some of the French field-pieces seemed to be placed almost 
 in the centre of the town. We left our motor-car in what 
 we thought was a sheltered spot near the cathedral, and 
 hastened out to see the fighting. The streets were quite 
 deserted, except for the infantry hastening to the front. 
 Soon we reached the main body who were entrenched in the 
 roads which had been torn up and barricaded with carts 
 and bags and furniture dragged from the houses. We met 
 the colonel of a regiment, who told us that it was quite 
 impossible to go any farther. He explained how the Ger- 
 mans had been steadily driven back from the Vesle, and 
 how they were making a last desperate stand. That morn- 
 ing, they were holding one of the works east of the town 
 at Nogent I'Abesse, but had been driven out at the point 
 of the bayonet by a furious charge of the Turcos. The 
 fight was now merely a very severe artillery duel between 
 
42 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 the German howitzers and the French guns pushed forward 
 to the recaptured works. Whenever the French artillery 
 became very aggressive, the Germans replied by shelling 
 the cathedral, and as we stood there, three more huge 
 shells burst close to it. 
 
 French soldiers gathered round us in scores demanding 
 news of Paris, of the other part of the theatre of war, and 
 of the British Fleet. They seemed to me to be in excellent 
 shape, although horribly dirty and war-worn after 
 marching and fighting in three successive days of heavy 
 rain. They seemed to be well fed, but complained bitterly 
 of having no tobacco. A newspaper was also a priceless 
 gift to these poor men. Many ran up to us with bundles of 
 postcards, and begged us to post them in Paris. 
 
 These troops had fought at the great battles south of the 
 Marne, at La Fere Champenoise, and Montmirail, and 
 spoke proudly of their achievements there. They were also 
 greatly elated at having taken fifty kilometres of the aban- 
 doned soil of France in four days. Their recent successes 
 had a tremendous effect on the morale of these troops. 
 Having bid these warriors farewell, we thought it time to 
 return to the cathedral and find our motor, which had been 
 left close to where the last shell had burst. We found the 
 square quite deserted except by one old man who, regardless 
 of danger, was collecting the blood-stained straw thrown 
 out from the interior of the cathedral. We also saw the 
 old cripple crawling home amid the shell holes and broken 
 masonry, doubtless well satisfied with his day's work. 
 
 The statue of Jeanne d'Arc remained unscathed, and 
 she still waved proudly aloft the battered tricolor, a sym- 
 bol of the victory which is to come. A great pool of fresh 
 blood lay on the steps of the main entrance behind Jeanne 
 d'Arc. Hundreds of pigeons, never having heard of the 
 Gilded Hun, flew to and fro amongst the topmost turrets, 
 cooing plaintively and wondering why their sanctuary of 
 eight centuries was thus being disturbed. Our motor-car 
 had completely disappeared, and we wandered through the 
 streets searching for it. Eventually we ran it to earth 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 43 
 
 outside the town with the chauffeur scared half crazy. In 
 spite of his mascot, the Virgin's broken arm, the last two 
 shells had burst in his immediate neighbourhood. Nothing 
 would induce him to enter Rheims again, so we left him at 
 a httle inn outside, and walked back to try and find some- 
 where to pass the night. It was now growing dark, but 
 the guns were still thundering away fiercer than ever. The 
 horizon was black with the smoke of the guns and of the 
 bursting shells. Suddenly a German biplane came hovering 
 over the town like a huge black eagle ready to pounce on its 
 prey. It flew very high, and the French soldiers did not 
 take the trouble to fire on it. After circling over the 
 cathedral, it passed back into the German lines, doubtless 
 to annomice the progress of their sacrilegious work to the 
 artillery. 
 
 We wandered through the deserted streets towards the 
 station, and found a light in an hotel called the Hotel dii Xord. 
 We entered and sought food and shelter for the night. The 
 landlady seemed deUghted to receive us, giving us the 
 warmest of welcomes. 
 
 " Messieurs, I am delighted to have you as my guests 
 after those awful Germans ; they have eaten and drunk 
 everything for ten daj's and paid for nothing." 
 
 Rheims possesses only two specialities of any interest 
 to the Anglo-Saxon visitor : one is the cathedral which we 
 had already seen, and the other is champagne. The latter 
 we were not destined to see. 
 
 " Monsieur, I can give you a good bottle of wine, but no 
 champagne. Les AUemands ont tout bus ! " 
 
 However, this good lady gave us an excellent dinner, 
 which we ate to the accompaniment of a tremendous bom- 
 bardment. We learned from her many details of the 
 German occupation, and also from an old bearded gentle- 
 man, a notable of some sort, who had had the honour of 
 being selected as one of the hostages for the good beha\dour 
 of his fellow citizens. As he was still there in the flesh, 
 they must have behaved perfectly well. The Germans 
 first bombarded the town on September 4, but spared the 
 
44 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 cathedral. They then entered the city and selected their 
 hostages, announcing that if a single German soldier was 
 insulted, the whole lot would be shot immediately. A 
 crowd of officers descended on the little hotel and demanded 
 food and drink, for which they gave chits of no value to 
 any one until the war indemnity is fixed. The amount 
 they drank came as a revelation to our hostess. She said 
 that the Prussian officers behaved the best, but that the 
 behaviour of the Saxons was abominable. 
 
 Two army corps and the guard passed through the town. 
 The men were extremely cheerful, for their officers told 
 them that in three days they would be inside Paris. These 
 were the corps which subsequently received such a fear- 
 ful hammering on the heights of the Marne, at La Fere 
 Champenoise, and Montmirail, two famous battlefields of 
 1814. 
 
 When they returned through Rheims our hostess noticed 
 terrible gaps in the ranks of those who had made such free 
 use of her wine cellar, but the men as they marched through 
 the streets on their way back home, were forced to whistle 
 and sing as if returning from a victory instead of a crushing 
 defeat. The officers still talked to the men of victory, but 
 said that the generals had decided to enter Paris by 
 another route. 
 
 When the Germans evacuated the town, our friend the 
 venerable hostage was told that he would be hanged. This 
 threat he did not believe, and after being taken a few kilo- 
 metres outside the town, the whole lot of hostages were 
 released. The subsequent bombardment of Rheims com- 
 menced the day before my arrival, and an enormous 
 amount of damage was done. The Germans deliberately 
 ignored the Red Cross and fired on the hospital, the cathe- 
 dral and other churches. The number of women and 
 children who had perished was estimated at between 300 
 and 500, but I was unable to verify these figures. That 
 very morning three nuns were killed while attending the 
 wounded. Rheims is not a fortified city, and of course such 
 a bombardment was contrary to the laws of war as they 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF RHEIMS CATHEDRAL 45 
 
 were understood before the outbreak of the present struggle. 
 The lot of the inhabitants of these towns which are con- 
 tinually being occupied by large bodies of troops was miser- 
 able in the extreme. They were almost without bread, as 
 everything was requisitioned by the military authorities. 
 An army enters and its commander at once issues a procla- 
 mation ordering all horses and carts to be handed over by 
 a certain hour. This army is driven out, and the next 
 commander is obhged to do likewise whether he be friend 
 or foe. In spite of their misfortunes, the inhabitants of 
 Rheims were quite cheerful now that the tide of war had 
 turned and driven the Germans back across the Vesle, never, 
 as all firmly believed, to return again. The champagne 
 industry in the town is largely in the hands of German 
 proprietors, among whom is the notorious Mumm. The 
 French complained bitterly of the number of spies who 
 were continually signalling information to the enemy from 
 the housetops. An oihcer told me \nth great glee how he 
 had taken part in the destruction of Mumm's villa. Then 
 we retired to rest, thinking of the sad fate of thousands 
 sleeping outside the town amidst the rain which was pouring 
 down in torrents, and the bursting shells, for night brought 
 no cessation of the bombardment. 
 
Ill 
 
 In Prison with Richard Harding Davis 
 
 ON the following morning, after witnessing the destruc- 
 tion of Rheims Cathedral, we commenced our return 
 journey to Paris, highly elated with our excursion. 
 
 The same good fortune continued to beam on us, and we 
 reached Paris without mishap, and were the first to give 
 to the world the true facts of the first bombardment of the 
 cathedral. We also acquired the first photographs of the 
 damage done. These were taken by Fortescue and myself. 
 As the road to Rheims was immediately closed and no 
 photographers could get through, these became of great 
 value to newspapers, and we were literally besieged with 
 offers for the exclusive rights of publication. But I would 
 only deal with my old friend, M. Nordon, the Directeur of 
 L' Illustration. I wrote him an article, supplied him with the 
 photographs, and he held over the pubhcation of the paper 
 for two days in order to come out with this supplement on 
 Rheims. Having sent off our dispatches, we decided two 
 days later it was time to make a fresh excursion to the 
 battlefront. Davis again chose Rheims for our destination, 
 as he said there must be a lot more news to be learnt of 
 events in that town. Once more we set forth in our car. 
 Once more all the posts greeted our slender credentials 
 with a friendly eye, and we were allowed through. On 
 arriving in the town, Davis first suggested we should go and 
 see the American Consul who would be fully informed as 
 to everything that had passed during our absence. Mean- 
 
 46 
 
IN PRISON WITH RICHARD HARDING DAVIS 47 
 
 while the Huns had been again bombarding the city, and 
 their shells were concentrated on a zone round the cathe- 
 dral. The American Consul's house was in this danger 
 zone, and on arriving at his gates we found the following 
 notice afhxed : " Si on ne peut pas me trouver ici, il faut 
 me chercher dans les caves de Louis Roderer." So off we 
 went there and found him sure enough. He gave us many 
 interesting details of events since our departure, and what 
 was more, three wonderful bottles of a special champagne 
 and three of a choice old Burgundy. That night we slept 
 in the town. On the following morning, the bombardment 
 having ceased, we left Rheims in search of fresh fields of 
 adventure. We learnt that a French division was to make 
 an attack on a German position north of the city, and that 
 by taking the road to Fismes we would find ourselves right 
 on the battlefield. After a long discussion we decided it 
 was worth the risk and set forth. We soon found ourselves 
 amongst the French reserves, infantry and artillery, \\ho 
 had taken up a position which seemed to presage an attack 
 and were busily engaged in digging themselves in. We 
 were sometimes stopped by sentries, but almost every one 
 seemed too busy with their own jobs to take much notice 
 of four strangers in civilian attire motoring right through 
 their front lines. Shortly afterwards we met a stranger in 
 civilian clothes who stood in the very centre of the road and 
 held up his hands. On our stopping, he asked us who we 
 were and where we were going. Having explained our 
 identity and our mission, he said, " I have a farm about 
 five miles on, which overlooks the Aisne and the entire 
 battlefield ; if you come with me, I will take you there, and 
 you will have a magnificent view if there is an attack." 
 We thanked him for his kindness, he took the front seat, and 
 we proceeded on our way. It then became evident he was 
 glad of a Uft in our car, as otherwise he was faced with the 
 prospect of tramping five miles on foot. The troops on 
 the road now became thicker, and finally we ran into the 
 General and his Staff. This time we were not destined 
 to pass. We were stopped and examined by a Staff 
 
48 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 officer, and finally taken before the General. He was 
 affability itself, but also firm. The explanations of the 
 stranger we had picked up entirely failed to move him. 
 He repUed, " You cannot proceed. It is impossible to 
 have civilians motoring right through the front lines. You 
 must return to Rheims at once." 
 
 I cannot say we were altogether disappointed, for con- 
 scious of our trespassing, and the shady character of our 
 passes, we had not expected to get off so lightly. 
 
 The stranger was ordered to descend from the car and 
 was made a prisoner. We learnt subsequently from an 
 officer that he was under suspicion, and was strongly sus- 
 pected of being a German agent. I could never afterwards 
 learn if this was in reality the truth, or his subsequent fate. 
 
 We motored back to Rheims without mishap and decided 
 that as our position was becoming rather precarious, that 
 we would return to Paris at once. But our luck had gone, 
 and our few bright days of freedom were destined to come 
 to a summary end. We almost decided to take a longer 
 and more remote route to Paris for the express purpose of 
 avoiding the immediate lines of commimication, but as it 
 was getting late, in an evil hour we chose to take the direct 
 road. We had only gone five or six kilometres, when we 
 commenced to pass thousands and thousands of French 
 infantry, an entire army corps in fact, on their way to the 
 front. We were obliged to draw up to allow them to pass 
 and could only proceed very slowly. Finally, in the village 
 of Ravigny, we were stopped by an officer, and asked to 
 show our passes. He spoke English perfectly, eyed us 
 with great suspicion, and we produced our small round 
 cardboard discs with sinking hearts. One glance at them 
 was sufficient to disclose their worthlessness. " These 
 do not entitle you to be with the Army at the front," he 
 said ; " they merely authorize you to go to the Quartier 
 General for news in Paris itself." 
 
 It was obviously useless to contradict him, so we simply 
 replied that we had been out before, that we had been into 
 Rheims, and that it was in the interest of France, for the 
 
IN PRISON WITH RICHARD HARDING DAVIS 49 
 
 whole world should know of the outrages of the Huns. Our 
 words fell on ears dead to remonstrance. We were told 
 we were under arrest, were ordered to leave the car and to 
 follow our captor to Headquarters. It was a very crest- 
 fallen group who assembled in front of the house where a 
 crowd of Staff officers and orderlies watched our arrival 
 with great interest. However, we determined to put a 
 bold face on the matter and to make a hard fight for free- 
 dom. Presently the Chief of the Staff and other officers 
 came out and commenced to interrogate us. Our explana- 
 tions as to the innocence of our motives seemed to entirely 
 fail to satisfy them. Our very identity was questioned. 
 We produced passports, but of course they might be forged. 
 Our position, in fact, was extremely awkward, but I do not 
 imagine that any sane person could have really regarded 
 us as legitimate German spies, because four of us were 
 riding together in broad dayUght in a car hired from Paris, 
 right in the front Unes of the Army. Our chauffeur, who 
 was also under arrest, was questioned, and confirmed the 
 story of our previous movements. 
 
 Things were at a deadlock, when an officer came up and 
 said, " Are you not Ashmead-Bartlett, and were you 
 not attached to the French Army in Morocco in 1907 ? I 
 remember you very well there." The discover^' of this old 
 friend did much to reUeve the pressure, and at least our 
 bond fides were recognized as being correct, even if our 
 crimes remained the same. My friend spoke to the Chief 
 of the Staff, who ordered us to be taken away and said that 
 he would have to consult the General as to what should be 
 done with us. We were led down a lane with a farmyard 
 at the end of it, and were told we should have to wait inside 
 pending a decision. The farmyard was a filthy place, 
 full of dirty straw, surrounded by still more filthy cattle- 
 sheds and barns. Davis by this time was extremely angry 
 and swore he would never enter it. But speaking French 
 extremely badly, fortunately for all our sakes, his remarks 
 were lost on our captors. Morgan was selected as spokes- 
 man, and asked permission for us to remain outside the 
 
 P 
 
50 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 farmyard, which was full of gendarmes, prisoners, cows and 
 pigs. The chief of the gendarmes then gave us permission 
 to remain by the roadside and to send for our lunch, which 
 was in the car. It was then that the American Consul's 
 timely gift came in very handy, and we drowned our sorrows 
 and shame in his excellent Burgundy and champagne, 
 which the chief of the gendarmes was only too glad to share 
 with us. Suddenly we were hailed in EngHsh from the 
 yard, and discovered six men in civilian clothes. These 
 unfortunates were correspondents of American papers in 
 Paris who had attempted to get through to Rheims some 
 days before, and who now informed us they had been run 
 in and kept for four days and nights in this loathsome 
 yard, without being able to communicate with their friends. 
 At Fortescue's suggestion, we pretended to have no con- 
 nection with them and to know nothing of them, as an 
 acquaintanceship might be taken as a sign of guilt by our 
 captors. This legitimately infuriated the six, who were 
 dirty, unshaved and hungry, but we had enough troubles 
 of our own without mixing ours with theirs. After we 
 had finished lunch, the Chief of the Staff returned with a 
 serious mien that augured badly for our immediate release. 
 He said, " I have seen the General. He says you have 
 absolutely no right to be up at the front. You have no 
 passes and the Army orders are strict. General Joff re has 
 issued a standing order that any unauthorized persons 
 found with the Army are to be kept as prisoners for eight 
 days in case they should inadvertently allow news of the 
 movements of the troops to come out. You will, therefore, 
 have to remain eight days in this farmyard, where," he 
 added with a smile, '* you \\ill find some companions in 
 misfortune, and at the end of that time, provided your 
 identity is satisfactorily estabhshed, you will be sent back 
 to Paris. Your motor-car will of course be confiscated, as 
 we have orders to confiscate all cars found with unauthorized 
 persons at the front." 
 
 Now this excellent officer had reckoned without his 
 prisoners. No sooner had he uttered these words than a 
 
IN PRISON WITH RICHARD HARDING DAVIS 51 
 
 perfect pandemonium broke loose. Davis almost choked 
 himself with rage and humiliation. He kept on repeating 
 partly in French and partly in EngUsh, " I am Richard 
 Harding Davis. I am an American ; no one has the right to 
 lock me in a farmyard. I am a free-born American citizen. 
 I refuse to be treated in this manner. I demand my im- 
 mediate release, or that I be allowed to communicate at 
 once with Mr. Herrick, my Ambassador in Paris. I have 
 come all the way from America to help France. I have 
 done my best, and now you wish to lock me in a dirty pig- 
 sty. I will never enter it." Fortescue's language and 
 oaths — he is extremely hot tempered — would not bear 
 repetition, and fortunately I do not think they were 
 properly understood. He also demanded at once to be 
 allowed to communicate vWth Mr. Herrick. The more 
 sober-minded Morgan endeavoured to put all the good 
 points raised by us in his very best French before the Chief 
 of the Staff. I endeavoured to assist him. Meanwhile, 
 the chauffeur was wringing his hands, declaring he was 
 ruined because they had confiscated his car which was his 
 private property, and demanding that we should pay him 
 for it. Whilst the six prisoners within the pale, overhearing 
 our fate, started to jeer in turn at our misfortunes. 
 
 The very vehemence of our attack made a great impres- 
 sion on the Chief of the Staff. Our protests were so loud and 
 so \iolent, and our arguments so sound, that he began to 
 think it was hardly in the interests of France to inflict such 
 harsh treatment on her would-be benefactors and friends. 
 He began to hesitate and we pressed him the harder. 
 Finally, he said he would consult the General again, but 
 that meanwhile we must retire within the farmyard and 
 join the mixture of cows, pigs, condemned spies, army 
 deserters, and our six fellow-countrymen. He promised 
 to return as soon as possible. The gendarmes then escorted 
 us within our rural prison. By this time we were in the 
 worst of tempers, and Fortescue, who was longing for a 
 fight with some one, started a row with a gendarme whom 
 he declared had given him a push. We managed to pacify 
 
52 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 him and to keep him quiet. Our fellow-captors, who 
 presented a woebegone, dirty and unshaved appearance, 
 regaled us with stories of the delights of sleeping in a loft 
 and being devoured all night by bugs. 
 
 The hours rolled slowly by, and it was nearly five before 
 the Chief of the Staff returned. He seemed to be in a 
 much more amiable mood, and spoke as follows : 
 
 " The General, after considering all the facts, has decided 
 that you shall return to Paris to-night under an escort of 
 gendarmes, and there be handed over to the mihtary 
 authorities, who will decide what is to be done with you. 
 Your car shall also return and the chauffeur can drive it, 
 but he will remain under arrest." 
 
 The news came as an enormous relief. Whatever hap- 
 pened to us in the future we should at least see Paris that 
 night and would escape the bugs in the hayloft. Our 
 fellow- sufferers, hearing we were to be released, all shouted 
 out, " What about us ? Can't we go too ? " The Chief of 
 the Staff said he would take their request to the General, 
 and returned a few minutes later with the desired permis- 
 sion. Soon the cars were announced. Just as we were 
 leaving, two wretched peasants were led out under a strong 
 escort. They had been caught signalling to the Germans 
 and were to be shot on the following morning. With 
 infinite relief we quitted the Generals, cows, pigs, gendarmes 
 and deserters. The miUtary provided a number of cars. 
 Davis and I were placed in one with two fully armed gen- 
 darmes. Fortescue and Morgan were accommodated in like 
 manner in another. The rest followed in other cars. The 
 melancholy procession started on its homeward journey. 
 We had a hundred and forty kilometres to make, and it 
 became dark long before we reached Paris. The gendarmes, 
 in fact, had no idea of the road, and we, their sullen captives, 
 were obliged to keep them right from our previous experi- 
 ence. We stopped at several inns and regaled them with 
 wine, which kept the whole party on exceedingly friendly 
 terms. It was midnight when we passed the gates of Paris 
 and drove to Headquarters in the Boulevard des Invahdes. 
 
IN PRISON WITH RICHARD HARDING DAVIS 53 
 
 Here the cars stopped, and, according to his instructions, 
 the chief of the gendarmes went inside to announce our 
 arrival to General GalUeni, the Governor of Paris. But 
 the General could not be found, and no one had the smallest 
 idea of where he was. Some Staff officers came out and 
 announced that we should have to remain in custody until 
 the following morning, and that we should spend the night 
 in cells of the military prison of La Cherchi Midi. Once 
 more our spirits dropped ; we were all hungry and tired, 
 and the prospect of spending a comfortless night in gaol 
 was the final straw to our patience. Once more Davis 
 and Fortescue commenced to kick up a frightful outcr^'. 
 They swore they would never go to prison and demanded 
 to be taken to their Ambassador, Mr. Herrick. Fortescue, 
 in fact, was quite prepared to fight the entire General Staff 
 on the steps of their own building, and it was only with the 
 utmost difficulty that Morgan and myself prevented him 
 from committing some mad act which might have landed 
 him in serious trouble. All our remonstrances were in vain. 
 The Staff officers were obdurate and declared that nothing 
 could be done because General Gallieni could not be found. 
 Once more we were bundled into the cars and driven 
 through the silent deserted streets of Paris to where the 
 Cherchi Midi stands. 
 
 It is a gloomy stone building, the windows are iron- 
 barred and you enter the courtyard through enormous 
 gates which at this hour were double-locked. The loud 
 clanging of the bell caused the gates to be opened, we 
 were driven into the courtyard and the gates were imme- 
 diately closed behind us. Dim oil lanterns Ughted the 
 scene. The gaoler stood there with a look of surprise 
 on his face and a bunch of enormous keys in his hands. 
 Never before had he seen so many well-dressed prisoners 
 arrive in motor-cars, and he was evidently puzzled to 
 understand the pecuUar nature of our crimes. The whole 
 scene, with the dirty gaolers, the gendarmes standing by, 
 the courtyard Ut by dim oil lanterns, and we, playing the 
 r61e of the well-dressed aristocrats who had little except the 
 
54 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 guillotine to look forward to, reminded me of some picture 
 of the French Revolution. 
 
 We were at once admitted into the prison and found our- 
 selves in a stone chamber with cells radiating from it. Our 
 appearance caused evident astonishment amongst the 
 officials and the few prisoners engaged in menial tasks who 
 were still about at this hour. One by one we were ad- 
 mitted into a small office, and there forms were filled up 
 with a description of each of us, our names, occupations, 
 ages, and I think any peculiar marks on our anatomy. 
 Davis was now in a towering temper. He stamped the 
 floor, constantly repeating, " I am Richard Harding Davis. 
 They have no right to keep me here. I demand to be allowed 
 to communicate with my Ambassador." 
 
 Our gaolers, having discovered we were not very danger- 
 ous, behaved with great kindness. Through Morgan, we 
 explained we were hungry and must have some supper. 
 The Governor wrung his hands, exclaiming, " Mes messieurs, 
 c'est impossible a cette heure." I then suggested they 
 should send to the Ritz for some cold food and some wine, 
 and told him we would pay for everything. At the same 
 time I produced a big wad of notes, and the others did 
 likewise. The sight of so much money at once raised us 
 in the estimation of our captors. They reaHzed at once, 
 that whatever our crimes may have been, that we were at 
 least persons of some importance. The Governor said he 
 would send to a local hotel and get what he could. I told 
 them to bring at least half a dozen bottles of champagne 
 and some white wine, as our spirits needed raising badly. 
 A messenger was at once dispatched. 
 
 We had been in gaol about an hour and a half when the 
 great bell at the gates rang once more. Two Staff officers, 
 the same whom we had met at the Boulevard des Invahdes, 
 entered. They seemed to be in a better humour and were 
 certainly much more pohte. We complained bitterly 
 of our incarceration, and they obviously felt uncertain of 
 their own position in placing us in prison. After a con- 
 siderable discussion, they said that it had been impossible to 
 
IN PRISON WITH RICHARD HARDING DAVIS 55 
 
 find General Gallieni, and that they had come round to see 
 we were treated properly and were made comfortable for 
 the night. The gaoler, God bless him ! chipped in with the 
 information that the cells were cold, damp and uncom- 
 fortable. The Staff officers then agreed to allow one of 
 our party out with them to go in search of the American 
 Ambassador, and that if he vouched for us we should be 
 allowed to return to our hotels under nominal arrest. 
 Apparently Fortescue succeeded in convincing the rest of 
 us that he was on the most friendly terms with the Ambas- 
 sador, so he was selected as our common envoy. The three 
 departed and we remained, hoping against hope to see the 
 Riiz before cockcrow. 
 
 A httle later the messenger returned with an excellent 
 cold supper and several bottles of champagne. Our gaolers 
 eyed this repast with marked interest. We invited them 
 to join us ; they accepted with gratifying alacrity. One 
 of them remarked, " I will get you two prisoners to lay the 
 table and wait on you." Two convicts, half lunatics, who 
 were employed on hght domestic tasks, appeared. When 
 they entered I shook one of them by the hand, remark- 
 ing, " Sans douie, vous etes aussi un correspondent de 
 guerre." The joke was quite lost on him, but not on our 
 gaolers. 
 
 The table was laid and we all sat round the groaning 
 wooden board on wooden benches. Our prison had a 
 stone floor, a stone roof and stone walls, and was Ht by 
 two dim oil lanterns. The scene was impressive and re- 
 minded me still further of one of those pictures of aristo- 
 crats awaiting execution in the Temple. The supper and 
 the wine put us on excellent terms with one another and 
 ourselves. After all, prison was not such a bad place under 
 such conditions. The wine loosed the tongues of our 
 captors, the conversation became general, and we learnt 
 many details of the prison from our gaolers. At tliis time. 
 La Cherchi Midi was exclusively reserved for mihtary 
 prisoners, cliiefly deserters who were found wandering 
 away from their units. All were brought to the prison and 
 
56 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 tried by court martial, which sat daily. The guilty were 
 condemned to death but were never executed. They were 
 informed that they would be allowed to return to their 
 units, and could work off the sentence by good behaviour, 
 but if they were caught again they were liable to summary 
 execution. At this time there were over three thousand 
 prisoners in the Cherchi Midi, the driftwood from the Marne 
 and the Aisne. 
 
 Davis was once again quite his old self and had begun 
 to appreciate the situation in which he found himself. I 
 thought I would play a joke on him. I knew him to be 
 extraordinarily ignorant of some things, especially ancient 
 history. I said to him, " Davis, you have the chance of 
 your life. Do you know this is the very prison in which 
 Marie Antoinette was interned, and it was from here that 
 she was taken to the guillotine." He replied, " No ; is 
 that really true ? " " Yes, absolutely," I answered. 
 " Now, with your imagination and your powers of descrip- 
 tion, think of the story you could write if you spent the 
 night in her cell." Never had any idea appealed to him 
 more. He became like a joyous schoolboy who has been 
 promised an extra half-holiday, and instead of regarding a 
 night in the cells with horror and dismay, it became the 
 one obsession of his mind. Morgan, to whom I had tipped 
 the wink, promised to lay the matter before the officers on 
 their return. Davis becairre almost feverish with expecta- 
 tion. 
 
 An hour and a half elapsed when once more the great 
 bell tolled, the huge key turned in the lock, and Fortescue, 
 with the two Stafif officers, entered. His appearance was 
 glum, for he was hungry and angry, and seating himself 
 at the table, he commenced to swallow his food and imbibe 
 huge draughts of wine hke a famished hound. 
 
 " Well, Forty," we asked, " what has happened ? " 
 
 " Nothing," he replied. " I could not find Mr. Herrick 
 anywhere. I suppose he's out with Gallieni. No one 
 knows where he is. So I went to the Military Attache. 
 He would not help me, and says we must stay in custody 
 
IN PRISON WITH RICHARD HARDING DAVIS 57 
 
 until to-morrow, when Herrick can deal with the matter 
 personally." 
 
 Now we subsequently learnt that Fortescue and the 
 MiUtary Attach^ were enemies, having had a violent row 
 in Washington some years before, so the latter took great 
 joy in leaving him in gaol for the night, even if it involved 
 our three harmless selves. 
 
 The Staff officers, who had been consulting the senior 
 gaoler, now spoke up. *' The accommodation," they said, 
 " is so bad here and the cells are so uncomfortable that we 
 have decided to take you to Les Invalides for the night. 
 You will have to remain under arrest, but you will be 
 made quite comfortable, and in the morning you \\ill be 
 able to communicate with your Ambassador." 
 
 The three of us, Morgan, Fortescue and myself, were 
 quite agi-eeable to this proposition, as it was getting very 
 late and any bed would suffice. But not so Davis. He 
 had quite made up his mind to sleep in the historic cell. 
 He rose and shouted out, " No, Je refuse absolutely de 
 partir ici. Je desire dormir avec Marie Antoinette. Je 
 refuse de partir. ' ' He kept on repeating, ' ' Je desire dormir 
 avec Marie Antoinette. Je refuse de partir." The goalers 
 and the officers, the two lunatics and Fortescue stared 
 at one another in absolute amazement, thinking poor Davis 
 had gone mad. Morgan and myself dare not speak for 
 laughing. Finally, when Davis had worked himself into a 
 fearful temper, we thought it time to explain matters. 
 The officers and the gaolers were highly amused, but Davis 
 was furious with me. It was some days before he would 
 speak to me, but then he recovered all his old, good humour. 
 
 Having liberally tipped the gaolers and handed ovcr the 
 balance of our supper to the two lunatics, we took our 
 departure, once more entered our motor-cars and drove 
 through the silent streets to a girls' school in the Boulevard 
 des Invalides, which had been taken over for the use of 
 officers of the General Staff. W^e were told we should be 
 placed on exactly the same footing as officers under arrest. 
 On our arrival, our names were once more taken and we 
 
58 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 were then conducted to a long dormitory with many beds 
 in it. The doors were locked, sentries patrolled outside, 
 and we went to sleep. 
 
 At half-past ten on the following morning, Mr. Herrick 
 himself turned up. He vouched for his three subjects, de- 
 clared that their motives were quite innocent, and con- 
 vinced the authorities that we really thought we had been 
 working in the interests of France. I looked like being 
 left behind, as our Ambassador was then far away in Bor- 
 deaux, but Fortescue got Herrick to vouch for my bond 
 fides as well. One difficulty arose. This was General 
 Joffre's standing order that any stranger found at the front 
 must remain under arrest for a period of eight days. This 
 was finally got over in the following manner. The military 
 authorities placed us under general arrest for this period, 
 but at large in Paris, and we had merely to give our word 
 of honour that we would not leave the precincts of the 
 capital during the time. 
 
 Our dreadful sentence we worked out at Maxim's and the 
 Cafe de Paris. The only real sufferer was our unfortunate 
 chauffeur, for nothing would induce the miUtary authorities 
 to let him out. So we kept him well supplied with food 
 and gave him a substantial compensation in money. 
 
 It was obvious that we could see little of the war from 
 Paris, and we all decided to seek further fields of adventure 
 in other parts of the theatre of war. On our last night 
 in Paris, Davis invited us to a farewell dinner at his hotel. 
 We sat talking until the early hours of the morning. Then 
 we said good-bye. Little did any of us reaUze that this 
 would be our last meeting, and that so good a friend, so 
 brilliant a man would pass away at the early age of fifty- 
 two. 
 
IV 
 The Battle of Nieuport-Dixmude 
 
 THE unenviable period of the war correspondent's 
 life when he was unauthorized and had to act 
 on his own, lasted up to Christmas of 1914. During 
 these months, from August, 1914, to January, 1915, it was 
 often thankless if exciting work. The stories of this long- 
 drawTi-out struggle to beat the military authorities of 
 England, France and Belgium, and to reach battlefields 
 without being discovered, would make some of the most 
 interesting reading of the war. The position cannot be 
 said to have been dignified either for the authorities or 
 for those who endeavoured to outwit them. 
 
 Our adventures at Rheims had not encouraged me to 
 look farther afield, and I returned to England for some 
 weeks, hoping that the authorities would change their 
 mind or repent of the error of a ridiculous poUcy of ob- 
 scuration which concealed everything from the country 
 just at the time when enthusiasm was at its height. Had 
 the spirit of the people throughout the early days of the 
 war been taken proper advantage of, had our policy 
 been governed by the most elementary common sense, 
 how much trouble and how many bickerings would have 
 been spared us afterwards. But these things were not to 
 be. The War Office, under Kitchener, determined to keep 
 the deeds of heroes at the front a sealed book, and the 
 waverers at home, instead of being told of the desperate 
 state of our fortunes at the front in these early days of 
 
 59 
 
6o SOIVIE OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 the war, which would have at once stimulated their patriot- 
 ism and readiness for sacrifices, were told that all was well 
 and were fed on victories which only existed in printer's ink. 
 
 After remaining for three weeks in England, I was once 
 more asked to go to France to endeavour to reach the 
 front and to find out what was happening. I left about 
 the middle of October and made my way to Boulogne. 
 On this occasion, warned by my own experiences and 
 those of others, I decided to avoid the French and Enghsh 
 Armies, and to endeavour to attach myself to the Belgians, 
 where the Press were generally assured of a highly favour- 
 able reception from the gallant little army and its chiefs. 
 The position of the armies at this time was as follows : 
 
 Antwerp had fallen and the remnants of the Belgian 
 Army had fallen back until only a few square miles of Bel- 
 gium soil remained to that unhappy people. The army, 
 under the King, had taken up a strong position wdth its 
 left resting on the sea at Nieuport, and its right on the town 
 of Dixmude. The front of the army was covered by the 
 river Yser and a network of canals. General Joffre had 
 promised the support of the French troops, but these had 
 not yet come up. South of the Belgians' right at Dixmude 
 there came a great gap in the Allied line which was now 
 being gradually filled up by the arrival of Sir John French's 
 army which was coming up by degrees from the Aisne. 
 The German General Staff was preparing a giant blow with 
 over a half a million fresh men supported by immense 
 masses of heavy artillery to break through to Calais and 
 seize the Channel coast, thus hoping to dominate our 
 hues of communication with France. It was in fact a race 
 against time in which every hour was of momentous con- 
 sequence. Would the Germans break through or would 
 the Allies bring up their troops from the Mame and the 
 Aisne in time to stem this grave, and perhaps decisive 
 menace ? Everything, in fact, seemed to point to a 
 decisive battle somewhere along the line of the Yser when 
 I left England on October i8. 
 
 Now, curiously enough, although the military authori- 
 
THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT-DIXMUDE 6i 
 
 ties would not allow any accredited correspondents ^ith 
 the armies, neither the military authorities nor the Foreign 
 Office at this, the most critical period of our history, put any 
 obstacles in the way of any one who possessed a passport 
 and who wished to cross the Channel. The Channel ports 
 like Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk were full of pressmen 
 who had been sent over to collect any scraps of news or 
 rumours that might drift back from the fighting line from 
 wounded or deserters, or from those engaged on the lines 
 of communication. I should say that at this time the 
 precautions were so lax that all three of these towns were 
 hotbeds of spies who had Httle difficulty in passing through 
 the Belgian Army back into the German lines. The anom- 
 ahes of such a situation are obvious. Here was the Press 
 fully prepared to send its best representatives to the front 
 as properly accredited, and yet were refused permission, 
 while dozens of unauthorized pressmen were allowed to hang 
 about the communications with the bolder occasionally 
 attempting, and sometimes succeeding, in penetrating the 
 charmed circle and reaching the fighting line. 
 
 I left England on October i8 and crossed to Boulogne, 
 and then endeavoured to liire a car which would take me 
 on to Dunkirk. I found a wTetched old taxi-cab capable of 
 making the journey at a very high price. In Boulogne I 
 ran across my old friend Philip Gibbs, who was also out 
 in search of some means of reaching the front, so we agreed 
 to join forces and to stand or fall together. It was neces- 
 sary to obtain a road licence from the mihtary authorities to 
 motor to Dunkirk, but we succeeded in obtaining it without 
 much difficulty, and on the following morning we set out. 
 The journey was almost without incident and our pass 
 got us through all sentries and armed posts. At this time, 
 Dunkirk was the Headquarters of the Belgian Govern- 
 ment, as no to^vn of any considerable importance remained 
 in the hands of the Belgian Army. Our prospects at Dun- 
 kirk did not seem bright. We found several war corre- 
 spondents in the town, and not one of them had succeeded 
 in obtaining permission to leave. Our would-be objective 
 
62 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 was the small town of Furnes just inside the Belgian fron- 
 tier, which was the headquarters of the army holding the 
 Nieuport-Dixmude line. Fortunately I had a letter of 
 introduction to Monsieur de Brocqueville, the Belgian 
 Minister of War, and on presenting this at his Head- 
 quarters, I obtained a very strong letter of recommenda- 
 tion to the Belgian military chiefs at the front, authoriz- 
 ing me to go anywhere I chose. But the French still 
 controlled Dunkirk and its exits, and this letter had not 
 the smallest effect on them, as they declared it was abso- 
 lutely necessary to obtain a pass from the French military 
 authorities. I tried De Brocqueville's letter on them, but 
 it had no effect. In fact, we were told we must leave 
 Dunkirk in the course of the next few days and return to 
 Calais or Boulogne. 
 
 Then the fertile brain of PhiHp Gibbs hit upon a scheme 
 of getting over this difficulty, which he confided to me 
 under a pledge of the strictest secrecy. There was a 
 British Flying Ambulance party under Dr. Munro which 
 was about to start for Furnes. This remarkable party, who 
 did so much for the Belgian wounded, was made up of 
 EngUsh ladies who acted as chauffeurs and of EngHsh 
 doctors and nurses who had established a field hospital 
 for the Belgian wounded in the town of Furnes. The 
 Flying Ambulance, under Dr. Munro, had already done 
 valuable service during the retreat from Antwerp, and had 
 come back to Dunkirk for reorganization. But it was 
 now once again ready to take the field. Dr. Munro very 
 kindly consented to take us through with the Ambulance 
 as part of its personnel, and we, for our part, agreed to keep 
 our crazy old motor with the party and to use it for bring- 
 ing in the wounded, etc. 
 
 On the following morning we set out and passed the 
 French posts without any trouble, as Dr. Munro's pass 
 was sufficient for the whole party. Once across the Bel- 
 gian frontier there was no further trouble, as I had De 
 Brocqueville's pass, which carried me everywhere. We 
 reached Furnes early in the afternoon amidst the sound 
 
THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT-DIXMUDE 63 
 
 of a deafening cannonade from the whole front. It was, 
 in fact, tlie commencement of the great German offensive 
 against the Belgian Army, the first great effort to break 
 through to Calais and seize the Channel coast. 
 
 The country over which this great struggle took place is 
 absolutely flat. You can motor all over it without ever 
 having to change your gear, in fact there are no elevations. 
 There are numerous good roads connecting the picturesque 
 Flemish towns and villages, for Uke the whole of Belgium, 
 the countryside is (or rather was) densely populated. For 
 the last two days the German Army, which had been set 
 free by the fall of Antwerp, assisted by fresh corps, which 
 had apparently come up from Brussels, had been making 
 the most desperate efforts to break tlirough the line of the 
 Yser and to turn the Belgians out of the old town of Dix- 
 mude. 
 
 Their efforts culminated in one of the fiercest and blood- 
 iest battles of the war up to that time — a battle which 
 for spectacular and dramatic effect it would be hard to 
 excel. It is impossible to do justice to the horror and 
 grandeur of the scene, and therefore I can only endeavour 
 to relate various incidents as they struck me at the time. 
 
 I have had experience of thirteen campaigns, but now 
 for the first time, and I sincerely hope for the last time in 
 my Ufe, I found myself engaged in Red Cross work. Hav- 
 ing got into Belgium with the Munro Ambulance, Gibbs 
 and myself had to assist in its work, which consisted in 
 going as close to the firing line as was feasible, and in bring- 
 ing back the wounded to the field hospital established in 
 the convent at Fumes. 
 
 To me, the next few days were of additional interest, 
 because for the first time in my life I was to see women 
 engaged in war work, and constantly under fire, and their 
 conduct and heroism under such tr^nng conditions came as 
 a revelation. All through the night of October 20, the 
 windows of Fumes vibrated from the concussion of the 
 heavy guns, which kept up a steady bombardment all 
 along the line from Nieuport to Dixmude. It seemed certain, 
 
64 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 from the volume and density of the fire, that the Germans 
 were paving the way for a great attack on the following 
 morning. On the morning of Wednesday, October 21, I 
 climbed the tower of the old Town Hall to have a look 
 round the horizon. The Town Hall of Furnes is a splendid 
 example of Flemish architecture of the fifteenth century, 
 and has a very high wooden belfry with great bells which 
 were only rung to warn or summon the citizens on occa- 
 sions of emergency which often happened in this cockpit 
 of Europe. As far as the eye could reach, nothing was to 
 be seen except bursting shells and burning villages and 
 hamlets. The mist produced by this incessant fire blotted 
 out the whole of the horizon, which looked more like a 
 veldt fire than a populated district. That morning, 
 at an early hour, the Munro Ambulance set out for the 
 front. 
 
 We were fortunate enough in having young De Broc- 
 queville, the son of the Minister of War, as the cicerone for 
 the whole party. He was in general charge, and always 
 found out from the mihtary authorities where assistance 
 was most needed. On this occasion the P.M.O. ordered 
 De Brocqueville to take his whole convoy out towards 
 Dixmude, where he said desperate fighting was taking place 
 and where assistance was badly needed. This necessitated 
 a detour of some sixteen kilometres. On our way we 
 passed a cheering sight, brigades of French marines pour- 
 ing up to the support of the hard-pressed Belgian Army. 
 The Belgian Army has been given full credit for its great 
 deeds in the early days of the war. Considering that this 
 army, amongst which we now found ourselves, was only 
 formed on its new basis some two years before war broke 
 out, through the energy of Monsieur de Brocqueville, the 
 Prime Minister, assisted by King Albert, it was certainly 
 a great achievement for it to have held together so long, 
 and still to be able to present a determined front to the 
 enemy at a moment when the fortunes of the Allies were 
 hanging in the balance. The physique and equipment 
 of the men were excellent, and above all the Belgian soldier 
 
THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT-DIXMUDE 65 
 
 possesses the invaluable quality of remaining cheerful 
 under all circumstances. 
 
 WTiile making our way to the front, from which direc- 
 tion the sound of the cannon grew louder and louder as 
 each kilometre rolled by, I realized for the first time how 
 completely the motor-car has revolutionized warfare 
 and how every other factor is now dominated by the 
 absence or presence of this unique means of transport. 
 Every road to the front was simply packed with cars ; 
 every make and design repeated itself every hundred yards. 
 They seemed an ever-rolling, endless stream, either going 
 towards or returning from the front. The long transport 
 trains for each division were admirably hauled and kept 
 on separate roads, never crossing and blocking each other's 
 progress. 
 
 At different villages a few kilometres from the front, 
 hundreds of private cars were parked under a medical 
 officer, who, on receipt of instructions, dispatched them to 
 any point indicated by a motor-cyclist messenger. Thus 
 there was ample accommodation for all the wounded once 
 they could be got away from the actual fighting hne and the 
 numerous burning hamlets and villages, which marked the 
 length of this huge battle front. 
 
 We made our way past this stream of vehicles without 
 much difficulty, thanks to the excellence of these Belgian 
 roads, and on emerging from the village of Oudecappelle 
 we found ourselves really upon the battlefield. Only a 
 panoramic photograph could do justice to the scene. 
 Imagine a perfectly flat country dotted with towns and 
 villages, all of which were in flames. Imagine your horizon 
 about two miles in front a continuous line of smoke, which 
 completely blotted out all else beyond. Imagine shells 
 screaming and bursting over every one of these villages 
 and farms, and falling into the fields beyond. Ever^nvhere 
 you saw the white puffs of shrapnel and the great black 
 clouds rising in spirals, as the " Jack Johnsons " ble\» 
 houses, churches and mother earth into smithereens. 
 
 Men are not often visible in modem war, because to 
 
66 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 make any show at all against the infernal machinations of 
 Messrs. Krupp, Scheidner, Creusot and Co. they must bury 
 themselves in the earth, and only rise up to shoot if their 
 enemy is sufficiently foolhardy to show himself. But on 
 this occasion the shell fire from the German batteries was 
 so terrific that the Belgian soldiers and the French marines 
 were continually being blown out of their dug-outs and 
 houses and were sent scampering to cover elsewhere. 
 Also little groups of peasants and dwellers in the towns, who 
 had not fled before, were now forced to flee, because even 
 their cellars had begun to fall in. 
 
 These unfortunates had to make their way as best they 
 could on foot to the rear, frightened almost to death by the 
 bursting shells. Even children were amongst these refugees, 
 and their cries of alarm were perhaps the saddest incident 
 of this ghastly day. Amidst the infernal din made by these 
 German shells, the continual rattle of the rifles and machine- 
 gun fire must not be forgotten. It sounded like the finer 
 note of a violin amidst the clash of a neighbouring brass 
 band. 
 
 Now, as I have previously said, we had received vague 
 instructions to make in the direction of Dixmude. We had 
 followed the stream of motor-cars making in the same 
 direction, but just outside of Oudecappelle, both these 
 streams — the one going and the one returning — suddenly 
 ceased. The road lay perfectly straight for three kilo- 
 metres, and to the right lay Dixmude. This town was the 
 objective of the German attack, and it was having about 
 the worst time any town could ever reasonably hope to have. 
 The German shells were bursting all over it in such numbers 
 that it was quite impossible to count how many there were 
 to the minute. They just crashed among the roofs, blow- 
 ing whole streets to small pieces and sending tiles and 
 bricks flying in all directions. Even from a distance of 
 two or three miles j^ou could hear them crashing down. 
 Every now and again great sheets of flame would glow out 
 as one of the " Jack Johnsons " set fire to some new build- 
 ing. You simply knew the town existed from the flames 
 
THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT-DIXMUDE 67 
 
 and smoke-clouds rising above it. The houses were quite 
 hidden from view. 
 
 Outside Oudecappelle we halted where the stream of 
 cars ended, to reconsider our position. Personally I was 
 more than content to remain where I was, as I had an 
 excellent view of the whole field of battle, and I have an 
 intense dislike of deliberately going under fire. Soldiers 
 were drifting in from the front with awful tales of what was 
 happening ; of hundreds of mangled wounded lying un- 
 attended along the roads leading to and in Dixmude itself ; 
 of the terrible numbers of the Germans, and how they 
 continual^ came on in great waves only to be driven back 
 again. 
 
 Above all, it was the shell fire which all felt the most. 
 The Belgians only had a few field batteries with which 
 to reply to the immense numbers of the enemy, and the 
 latter simply dominated the field with his heavy howitzers. 
 Whenever one of the Belgian batteries attempted to reply, 
 it was simply smothered by " Jack Johnsons." Thus the 
 infantry holding the trenches round the town had to rely on 
 their own unaided efforts. 
 
 As I have said, we halted outside Oudecappelle to re- 
 consider our position. The medical authorities controlling 
 the Belgian cars had stopped their further progress at the 
 front, saying it was useless to try and get them through 
 such a fire into the town. Now I discovered for the first 
 time the exact meaning of the word " Flying Ambulance," 
 or rather the construction which Dr. Munro, Lady Dorothie 
 Feilding, and the gallant De Brocqueville put on it. With- 
 out a moment's hesitation, they volunteered to run their 
 cars through into Dixmude, and to bring out what wounded 
 they could carr\'. 
 
 Our road in front was catching the majority of the great 
 " Jack Johnsons " and smaller " Sam Langfords " which 
 were being aimed at the Belgian gunners in the fields on 
 either side. Every minute a great pall of black smoke 
 would rise up, leaving a dark cavity, in which you could 
 Jiave comfortably interred a couple of horses. We had to 
 
68 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 follow this road for two miles, and then turn sharp to the 
 right for another half-mile, to enter the mass of smoke and 
 flame which concealed what was left of Dixmude. The 
 feminine members of our party seemed to regard this 
 ordeal with a complacency which was certainly not shared 
 by myself, and I think I may venture to speak on behalf of 
 the other male members of this party. 
 
 The two English chauffeurs driving the motor ambu- 
 lances were going under fire for the first time, but they 
 maintained the customary stoicism of their race, and what- 
 ever they felt, said nothing. Off we started down the road 
 amidst the bursting shells, expecting every moment to re- 
 ceive the final " knock out " somewhere near the solar 
 plexus from our old friend " Jack Johnson " and driving at 
 terrific speed to minimize the risk. We were getting along 
 splendidly, and really the sensation was more exhilarating 
 than anything else, when we were suddenly pulled up short 
 by finding the road completely blocked. 
 
 A Belgian battery making its way to the front along 
 this road only twenty minutes before, had been unlucky 
 enough to have one of these great howitzer shells burst 
 right in its midst. The destruction was the most complete 
 I have ever seen. All six horses of one of the guns had 
 been blown into mangled heaps. Their remains lay scat- 
 tered about the road like badly-cut joints suddenly thrown 
 about by the overturn of a gigantic butcher's cart. 
 
 Amidst the meat, lay a Belgian gunner completely cut in 
 two. The carriage of the gun was overturned and smashed. 
 The force of the explosion had blown up some of the shells 
 in the limber, and scattered its contents all over the road. 
 Thus amidst the dead horses were masses of biscuits, tinned 
 meats, coffee, sugar and the personal possessions of the 
 unfortunate gunners. A little farther on, four other horses, 
 which had evidently managed to gallop a short distance, lay 
 dead. 
 
 The soldiers of the battery were collecting what remained 
 of the biscuits, tinned meats and coffee, and when this was 
 done they set to work to clear away the horrid remains 
 
THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT-DIXMUDE 69 
 
 and to drag the gun to the side. But for the time being our 
 progress by motor was completely stopped, and we had to 
 remain where we were, hoping that no other shell would 
 fall in the same spot. Ours were the only motors now in 
 sight. None others would attempt this dangerous pas- 
 sage. 
 
 We were alone, half-way from Oudecappelle and half- 
 way from Dixmude, at the mercy of the enemy's gunners, 
 unable to advance and unable to retreat, or rather the 
 Munro Ambulance never retreats. An ofi&cer came running 
 up and explained that there were two wounded in a farm 
 a quarter of a mile away. A stretcher-bearer party was 
 dispatched to bring them in. 
 
 On their return, the gunners had managed to clear a 
 passage amidst the debris, and we passed through, dashing 
 the remainder of the distance to the point where we had to 
 turn to the right to make the last half-mile into Dixmude 
 itself. At this comer, there is a farmhouse in which the 
 French doctors had established a dressing station. We 
 stopped here to pick up the wounded, but as there were 
 only a few mild cases, we decided to take them on our 
 return. Then we dashed for the town. We seemed to be 
 rushing into a burning furnace. 
 
 Before you actually enter Dixmude you have to pass 
 through a street with houses on either side. Here we came 
 upon the first signs of life, so to speak. This part had 
 escaped the general destruction, and we found the French 
 Reserves massed behind the houses, waiting their turn to 
 pass to the front. Here also we found dressing stations, 
 and any nimiber of wounded being hastily attended to by 
 the French and Belgian doctors. They gathered round us 
 in amazement, for no other motors had come near them 
 that day. They wanted us to take away their wounded, 
 but De Brocqueville refused. The Munro-Feilding-De 
 Brocqueville ambulance only goes to the heart of things. 
 Dixmude was our destination, and to Dixmude we had to 
 
 go- 
 We rushed on amidst the usual comments of " Les crazy 
 
70 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 Anglais," into the town itself. Well, I was all through the 
 siege of Port Arthur, and I happened to be in Rheims when 
 the Germans destroyed the cathedral. At Port Arthur the 
 bombardments were something awful, but then the Japanese 
 gradually worked their way towards the ports, and you 
 had deep trenches which gave you some cover. At Rheuns 
 you were fairly safe if you kept away from the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the cathedral, but at Dixmude it was 
 hell. 
 
 The town is not very big, and what it looked like before 
 the bombardment I cannot say. But the point is this : 
 an infuriated German army corps was concentrating the 
 fire of all the field guns and heavy howitzers on it at the 
 same time. There was not an inch which was not being 
 swept by shells. There was not a house, as far as I could 
 see, which had escaped destruction. The whole scene was 
 so terrible, so exciting, and passed in such a dream that it 
 has left only a series of pictures on my mind. 
 
 Suddenly, behind a low row of houses we came across a 
 mass of French gathered together for shelter, very excited 
 but well under the control of their officers. There was a 
 cart in which they were piling ammunition boxes. I 
 remember the officer calling out " Pas si vite ; pas si vite." 
 Then some one ran up and said, " II y a les blesses la-bas." 
 Dr. Munro took the fast motor and rushed down a side 
 street to get them. He told me afterwards he had not 
 gone a hundred yards when there was a deafening crash and 
 a whole chimney fell ten yards away, blocking his passage 
 and forcing him to return. However, he found three 
 other wounded in a house, and piled them in the car, where- 
 upon the chauffeur rushed out of Dixmude and never 
 stopped for four miles. 
 
 Meanwhile, we were left with the two unwieldy motor 
 ambulances. An officer of the marines explained to De 
 Brocqueville that there were many wounded in the Town 
 Hall. To get there we had to turn the car round. There 
 is nothing more unpleasant than having to turn cars under 
 such conditions. However, our two chauffeurs never 
 
THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT-DIXMUDE 71 
 
 turned a hair, although one of them afterwards confided 
 to me that he was scared to death. 
 
 Every time a shell came crashing amongst the roofs we 
 thought our end had come. So did the marines who 
 crowded closer together, as men always do under such con- 
 ditions. It was only a short way to the Town Hall, which 
 occupies one side of an open square, which was an inferno 
 in itself. The shells were bursting all over it, and, in 
 addition, it seemed to catch every stray bullet fired by the 
 Germans at the trenches, only a short distance away. The 
 H6tel de Ville was a sad sight. The top part had been com- 
 pletely riddled with shells, and smashed to bits ; just behind 
 it was what looked to me like a very fine old church, blazing 
 furiously, and threatening every minute to set fire to the 
 Town Hall. On the top of the steps of the Hotel de Ville 
 lay a dead marine, who had been struck by a bullet just 
 as he was apparently running in there for cover. A French 
 surgeon greeted us on the steps and told De Brocqueville 
 he must get his wounded out of the cellar, othen\dse they 
 would most certainly be burnt to death. He was quite 
 calm and directed our party where to go. 
 
 Inside the hall was a scene of horror and chaos. It was 
 piled with loaves of bread, bicycles, and dead soldiers. I 
 have never seen so many bicycles. I suppose some cyclist 
 troop had left them there on their way to the trenches. We 
 rushed down to the cellars and dragged up the wounded, 
 who were all Iving-down cases and had to be placed on 
 stretchers, which seemed under the circumstances to take 
 an endless time. All the while the shells were crashing 
 overhead, and the bullets whistling through the square. 
 Another officer ran up and told De Brocqueville that 
 there were some more wounded in another building. De 
 Brocqueville ran off and disappeared down a side street. 
 
 Loading the ambulances was slow work, but at length 
 it was completed. We were all ready and only too anxious 
 to depart, when we discovered that De Brocqueville had 
 not returned. We waited several minutes. He did not 
 come. Then there was a terrific crash and a shell hit the 
 
72 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 Hotel de Ville just above our heads, bringing down more 
 bricks and mortar. Dr. Munro decided we must leave, as 
 it was only jeopardizing the safety of the whole party to 
 remain. We did not like to go without De Brocque ville, 
 but had no idea where to find him. Then we dashed out 
 of this burning furnace, glad to be alive. 
 
 On our way through the outskirts we picked up several 
 more wounded sitting cases, and dashed right back to 
 Oudecappelle, where we found the mass of motor-cars still 
 waiting, and not attempting to reach Dixmude. We 
 transferred some of the wounded to these cars and held a 
 consultation. We decided that some of us should go back 
 in a fast car to Dixmude to try and find De Brocque ville. 
 It was about six o'clock when we reached the outskirts of 
 the town, but found no traces of him en route. Several 
 other ambulances now came up, but we could not get 
 through ; in fact, all the cars were stopped by a cordon 
 of marines. 
 
 It was just at this moment before dusk that the Ger- 
 mans chose to deliver their final grand attack, which they 
 hoped would cut through the Allies' left and open the road 
 to Dunkirk. Their artillery redoubled its fire. They 
 could no longer find the Belgian batteries out in the open, 
 and these, taking advantage of this fact, opened a terrible 
 and sustained cannonade on the German infantry. 
 
 It seemed as if the Germans were trying to turn Dix- 
 mude from the south, and the little village of St. Jacques- 
 Cappelle became the scene of a furious infantry combat. 
 The rifle fire and mitrailleuses never ceased for a moment. 
 The bullets seemed to be everywhere. The French sup- 
 ports could not get up for some time, as it was impossible 
 to pass through Dixmude owing to the shells and burning 
 buildings. The wounded came crawling and limping in 
 from the trenches, each with a different tale. Some said 
 the French and Belgians were holding their own, others 
 that it was all over, and that in a few minutes the Germans 
 would have possession of the town. 
 
 Suddenly the German artillery fire ceased for a few 
 
THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT-DIXMUDE 73 
 
 minutes, and we heard through the gathering darkness 
 shouts which sounded like " Ja, ja." A French soldier 
 told me it was the Germans charging with the bayonet. 
 This was the crisis. The cheers were met by a redoubled 
 rifle fire and the terrible " pat-pat-pat-pat-pat " of the 
 machine-guns. The Belgian batteries fired in salvos, the 
 shells all bursting in groups of red flame over the advanc- 
 ing infantr}'. The cheers died away and once more the 
 German field batteries and " Jack Johnsons " recom- 
 menced their shelling. 
 
 It was now 7 p.m. and quite dark. The scene was 
 majestic in the extreme. Dixmude was a red furnace. 
 The flames shot upwards, showing clouds of white smoke 
 above. St. Jacques, farther south, was a smaller furnace. 
 All along the line the shells were no longer bursting in 
 clouds of white and black smoke. All had put on their 
 blood-red mantles. Close at hand everything was bathed 
 in inky darkness ; farther off the burning towns and buildings 
 showed up clearer than they had done during the day. 
 We were at a loss what to do. De Brocqueville had not 
 turned up, and it seemed useless to hunt for him during the 
 night. We therefore loaded up the car with what wounded 
 we could carry, and made our way back to Oudecappelle, 
 where we had left the remainder of the party. 
 
 The scenes on the road were melancholy. Every car, 
 numbers of which were now pushing up to the outskirts of 
 Dixmude, brought away its load of wounded. Others 
 less badly hurt were making their way to the rear, begging 
 for lifts which we were unable to give. Others were being 
 carried on stretchers. Behind Dixmude infantry were 
 busily engaged in constructing fresh trenches. 
 
 At Oudecappelle we joined the remainder of our party, 
 and reluctantly decided we must abandon De Brocque- 
 ville, and leave him to find his own way back to Fumes. 
 I looked back on this awful scene for the last time. As far 
 as the eye could reach, the horizon was a purple red from 
 the burning homes of thousands of harmless and peaceful 
 dwellers who are now poverty-stricken refugees in England 
 
74 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 and France. In this district, not a village or a hamlet 
 has escaped. 
 
 As far as destruction of property goes, it was a great 
 day's work for the German Army. As far as obtaining 
 their strategical ends, it was an utter failure. The French 
 and Belgians had been hard pressed, but they held their 
 own. 
 
 At Fumes we transferred all our wounded to the English 
 Base Hospital of the Belgian Red Cross. This organiza- 
 tion has done splendid work for the Belgian wounded 
 under Dr. Bevis. It had a splendid staff of surgeons, 
 dressers and nurses. All were volunteers and worked 
 without pay or hope of reward. 
 
 The splendid courage shown by these English ladies 
 is one of the wonders of this war of wonders. It makes 
 one proud to know one belongs to the same race. But 
 those who go and play a man's part on the battlefield 
 share the glory with those who work all night and all 
 day attending the wounded under conditions which allow 
 of a minimum of repose and comfort. All are heroes of 
 that type which only emergencies bring forth. 
 
 For those on the battlefield, war consists of horrible 
 discomforts and shocking sights, and endless suffering and 
 misery to millions who remain in suspense at home. I 
 always think a field hospital is the most depressing sight 
 of all. It is here you see the wounded brought in just 
 as they have fallen on the battlefield, bloodstained, ban- 
 daged and covered with mud and filth, and each man has 
 a label attached which shows the hasty diagnosis of his 
 injury which the surgeons must investigate later on. The 
 minor cases are immediately sent away to the Base, but 
 many of the seriously wounded have to be attended to on 
 the spot, and operations must be performed sometimes 
 under the fire of the enemy's guns. I never want to be in a 
 hospital again after the sights I witnessed in the old con- 
 vent at Fumes in the very midst of this great stmggle on 
 the banks of the Yser. Throughout the day, the Munro 
 Ambulance was engaged in bringing in hundreds of the 
 
THE BATTLE OF NIEUPORT-DIXMUDE 75 
 
 badly maimed, many of whom had but a short time to 
 live ; others with limbs so shattered by the heavy shells 
 that only immediate amputations could save them ; others 
 shot through the head and raving and delirious, sometimes 
 laughing, sometimes weeping and even singing snatches of 
 song. Each load of suffering humanity, in many cases 
 mere fragments of what had once been men, were dumped 
 down into the courtyard whilst the ambulances hurried 
 back to collect a fresh harvest from this field of death. 
 
 On one of these occasions, an ambulance, driven by Mrs. 
 Knocker reached an advanced dressing station to find twelve 
 German prisoners, wounded, who had just been captured. 
 The officer was at his wit's end to know what to do with 
 them, as no men could be spared from the ever-thinning 
 Belgian line to convey them to the rear. Seeing the empty 
 ambulance, he begged Mrs. Knocker to take them back to 
 Fumes. The twelve Germans entered the wagon with 
 well-disciplined docility and were conveyed ten miles to 
 durance vile, along roads which for long stretches were 
 deserted, by this English lady, who had once been a school- 
 mistress, whose only companion was a young fair-haired 
 English girl, Miss Chishohn, just out of her teens ! The 
 hospital at Fumes only had accommodation for a certain 
 number of cases and speedily became choked with the num- 
 bers brought in from the front. Ever^^ inch of space was 
 utilized. Beds soon gave out and the majority of the 
 wounded had to lie on blood-stained stretchers or on straw. 
 Many had to be left in the stone courtyard of the convent, 
 as no room could be found within the building. The sur- 
 geons and dressers worked for twenty-four hours at a 
 stretch almost without food, \vith their sleeves rolled up and 
 their arms and white coats stained with blood. Dressings, 
 operations, and amputations went on incessantly. Finally, 
 the crowd became so great that Dr. Bevis was obliged to 
 close the gates of the convent and to refuse to take another 
 case. The stench and filth and horror of the whole scene 
 w^re indescribable. How those women worked ! How 
 they stood the strain is more than I can say. They, too, 
 
76 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 like the doctors, worked day and night without a rest until 
 they broke down from sheer inability to stay awake 
 any longer. This noble work was carried on amidst the 
 rumbling of artillery, with great German shells sometimes 
 falling into Fumes itself and with the grim shadow of a 
 disaster which might suddenly see the town overrun by the 
 Kaiser's bloodthirsty legions, continually hanging over 
 their heads. In fact, the situation at the front became 
 so serious once, that orders were issued to evacuate all 
 the wounded to Poperinghe, and to transfer the whole 
 hospital there. This necessitated packing up and clearing 
 out at a few hours' notice. 
 
Some Glimpses of Gallipoli 
 
 THE veil of the censorship has not yet been Hfted 
 from the unfortunate Dardanelles Expedition, and 
 pending the pubUcation of the report of the Dardanelles 
 Commission, it is impossible to write the true history of 
 the events there. WTiatever else may happen in this war, 
 I believe the Dardanelles Expedition will ever remain 
 the most picturesque and dramatic incident. A " gamble," 
 as Mr. Churchill has described it, in which we staked every- 
 thing to secure a gigantic prize without having the least 
 idea of what we were up against, or of the men and resources 
 necessary for the enterprise. The failure of the Expedi- 
 tion, the immense losses in men and material involved, 
 caused us to put our house in order, and led to the forma- 
 tion for the first time of a General Staff on Continental 
 lines. 
 
 Who will ever forget the unique position in which our 
 gallant troops were placed on the peninsula, and the extra- 
 ordinary life they led during the nine months of the occu- 
 pation, with scarcely room in which to move, and with 
 " Thrice thirty thousand foes in front, and the broad flood 
 behind ! " I have heard our positions Hkened to crowded 
 seaside resorts during the summer holidays, where you see 
 thousands of holiday-makers bathing, and thousands more 
 crowding the beaches. I remember a General saying to 
 me after the landing at Suvla Bay, when I was endeavouring 
 to elicit from him what he thought of the new movement, 
 
 77 
 
78 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 " Well, we have secured another bathing resort." I think 
 the best simile was that of another General who likened our 
 men, pasted everywhere on the cliffs and beaches, to flies 
 on a flypaper, unable to move one way or the other. The 
 whole Expedition was, in fact, an impossible military opera- 
 tion conceived by amateurs and carried out by men who 
 had made no previous study of what modern warfare entails, 
 or who had learnt no lessons from their studies. Our men 
 were constantly called upon to attack the strongest posi- 
 tions without artillery support except from the few field 
 batteries which in the early days were frequently without 
 any ammunition except what they carried in their caissons. 
 Bombs and grenades, so essential in this type of warfare, 
 were almost unknown on the peninsula, and even the 
 new troops who were landed at Suvla Bay on August 6, 
 191 5, had received no instruction in their use. I know 
 of one Irish battalion which was suddenly called upon 
 to resist a terrible Turkish counter-attack. At the last 
 moment boxes containing four different kinds of grenades 
 were hastened up to the firing line. The Colonel of the 
 battalion told me himself that the most vivid impression 
 left on his mind was that of a young lieutenant unpacking 
 the precious contents and reading off the instructions as 
 to their use to his men when the enemy was within one 
 hundred yards of the position ! Of course all these evils 
 have been long since remedied, but nothing can return to 
 us the gallant lives so unnecessarily sacrificed in our amateur 
 days. But all through our history, we have only attempted 
 to study and learn the game when the ball was actually 
 at our feet. 
 
 But amidst all our failures, disasters, muddles and mis- 
 calculations, there stands out ever serene, ever confident, 
 ever uncomplaining, the majestic figure of the British 
 soldier. To me he is the most mysterious and unfathomable 
 figure in the world to-day. I have never known any one 
 who could satisfactorily account for him, or explain his 
 remarkable prowess in the field. We all had imphcit 
 confidence in our old army, but the new armies have 
 
SOME GLIMPSES OF GALLIPOLI 79 
 
 turned out to be just as good. Whether a man is a volun- 
 teer or whether he has spent months in endeavouring to 
 evade service by appeals to various tribunals, both behave 
 in exactly the same manner when facing the enemy in 
 the field. There is no soldier in the world who is so little 
 affected by success or failure. This may be due to lack 
 of imagination in the English character, which, if it is a 
 grave fault in the Higher Command, makes for enormous 
 stabiUty in the ranks. Every man seems only to take an 
 interest in his immediate job and his immediate surround- 
 ings. WTiether the operations as a whole have been a 
 success does not seem to excite the smallest curiosity or 
 interest in the rank and file. They are quite prepared to 
 wait and learn whether they have won or have been defeated 
 when the papers reach them some weeks later. Our 
 soldiers are apparently almost without nerves. They 
 seem to suffer no anticipatory fear or nervousness when 
 they suddenly learn they are to embark on some desperate 
 attack or enterprise. You see battalions, which are going 
 to assault a position in a few hours, lying round eating and 
 sleeping just as if an attack was an ever^^day event in 
 their lives. It may be morally certain that their casual- 
 ties will number some 75 per cent, of their strength, but 
 this depressing fact does not seem to have the smallest 
 effect on the mentality of the men. Their spirits and 
 habits and customary stoicism never change in the face of 
 danger. In Hke manner, you see them immediately after 
 an attack just as calm and methodical as ever. 
 
 During the critical operations of the first day's landing 
 at Suvla Bay, when an immediate advance was so necessary 
 to secure the Anafarta hills before the enemy could bring 
 up reinforcements, the whole advance was hung up and 
 delayed for reasons which have not yet been made clear. 
 It was a remarkable sight to see thousands of men sitting 
 near the seashore eating their rations and making up for 
 their night's lost repose by sleeping under the enemy's 
 incessant sniping and shell fire. Many hundreds varied 
 these proceedings by taking off all their kit and having 
 
8o SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 a bathe in the bay. Not one of them apparently understood 
 or even took the smallest interest in the great strategical 
 objective which they were out to obtain, each went on 
 in his own way just as if it was a sham fight in peace time. 
 Yet when the signal came to advance, these strange indomi- 
 table figures, cursing a bit at being disturbed and at the 
 heat and flies, advanced to the assault as coolly and 
 methodically as Guardsmen trooping the colours. Thou- 
 sands perished, but not a man was prepared to sacrifice 
 his last bath, even if each had been sure of his impending 
 fate. The coolness and callousness of our men under 
 modern shell- fire has become proverbial. They would 
 rather risk their lives than bother to dig themselves properly 
 in. In the same manner, if you watch transport trains 
 moving up to the front under an incessant barrage, you 
 will never see the men make the smallest effort to avoid 
 pronounced danger points. You will see them lolling 
 half asleep on their horses, worn out by nights of this 
 sort of work, but they will not even rouse themselves or 
 open an eye, with big shells bursting almost at their feet. 
 I do not believe you can make any appeal to the sentiment 
 of the British soldier as some of the world's great leaders 
 have been accustomed to do to their armies in the past . The 
 Napoleonic touch, the magic proclamation on the morning 
 of a battle would be entirely lost on the British soldier. 
 Give him his rations, not fine words, and he will do the 
 rest. Let his rations fail, and you will hear horrible 
 language, but he will fight all the same. I do not think 
 personalities have any effect on him, except those of his 
 company officers. He will fight just as well under one 
 General as another, and in nine cases out of ten he has 
 not the least idea who his General is. The majority of 
 the men do not even know the names of their Divisional 
 Commanders. Their imagination seldom expands beyond 
 a casual knowledge of the name of their Brigadier. In 
 fact, except when being reviewed behind the fines, the 
 men seldom have the opportunity of seeing their Generals 
 on the battlefield as in the old days of close-order fighting. 
 
SOME GLIMPSES OF GALLIPOLI 8i 
 
 At Gallipoli, on account of the peculiar position in which 
 the troops were placed, literally clinging, as at Anzac, 
 hke flies on a fly paper, to the face of the cUff, there was 
 an exception to the general rule, and the Australians and 
 New Zealanders got to know their General, Sir WilUam 
 Bird wood, extremely well. Bird wood is a remarkable 
 man, and no happier selection could have been made than 
 the appointment which made him head of the Anzac 
 Corps in the early days. The position of Anzac has been 
 described so often that any further description would 
 be superfluous. No army has ever found itself in a more 
 remarkable situation. WTio wHl ever forget the sight ! 
 The narrow beach packed with stores, ammunition, trans- 
 port, animals and human beings as thick as bees round a 
 hive. The low hills rising from the foreshore, and the 
 little valleys and gullies in which every one endeavoured 
 to find a home when not in the front line trenches, to obtain 
 some protection from the shrapnel continually bursting 
 over the position. Generals and privates Uved side by 
 side in exactly the same manner, eating the same hard 
 fare, and exposed to the same risks. General Birdwood 
 occupied a Uttle dug-out close to the landing stage which 
 could hardly be distinguished from any other. Frequently 
 new arrivals and fresh drafts from the " Down Under '* 
 landing, for the first time on this inhospitable shore, 
 invaded the General's quarters and were always sure of 
 a warm welcome. A new arrived one day found himself 
 on the beach and part of his kit missing at the dinner hour. 
 In truly Colonial fashion he set to work to find it by hunting 
 through the neighbouring dug-outs. Birdwood and his 
 Chief of Staff were engaged in an earnest consultation, 
 when they were suddenly interrupted by a head being 
 pushed through the fly net which covered the entrance, 
 and a voice saying," Now, which of you two blighters has 
 stolen my canteen ? " This incident, the Commander-in- 
 Chief being accused of theft by a private, is probably unique 
 in the annals of war ! 
 
 Birdwood is an extremely hardy man, always in the pink 
 
82 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 of condition. Every day he set out shortly after ten and 
 made a complete inspection of the whole of his front 
 trenches. His dress was highly unconventional, for he 
 wore no tunic, merely a khaki shirt rolled up at the sleeves, 
 and very often no hat. You could only distinguish him by 
 the rows of medal ribbons sewn on his shirt. Whenever 
 I was at Anzac, he would invite me to accompany him 
 on this terrible tour, which I dreaded. It took some three 
 to four hours in the hottest time of the day in the Mediter- 
 ranean summer, cUmbing up hills, down dales, through 
 narrow stuffy trenches, jumping over recumbent forms 
 and exposed at stray angles to the fire of the enemy's 
 snipers. The General had a cheery word for every man, 
 and I have witnessed some amusing incidents in the course 
 of these tours. One morning we were climbing painfully 
 up a trench when we ran across a brawny Australian pushing 
 a wheelbarrow full of stores up to its destination with some 
 difficulty. This was one of the first wheelbarrows to make 
 its appearance at Gallipoli. As we reached him, the man 
 stopped, pushed the barrow aside, and wiped his sweating 
 brow. " Well, my man," said Birdwood, '' where did you 
 get that barrow from ? Did you make it ? " " No," he 
 repUed, " I didn't, but I'd like to find the bloke who 
 did." 
 
 On another occasion we were going round, and found 
 the troops in the front lines extremely sulky and out of 
 humour. They had been expecting a great Turkish attack 
 for three nights and days, which had failed to materiaUze. 
 Consequently they were hot and tired and disappointed. 
 Birdwood endeavoured to cheer them up by his presence 
 and kindly greetings. But there was not the usual response. 
 One man lay half asleep across the trench, and in order 
 to pass we had to step over him. He looked up and recog- 
 nized the General by the ribbons on his shirt. Then he 
 solemnly called out to his next-door neighbour in full 
 
 hearing of us all :" I tell you one thing, Bill : the b 
 
 Army ain't going to know me long enough to get a row 
 like that." 
 
SOME GLIMPSES OF GALLIPOLI 83 
 
 The Australians and New Zealanders are very different 
 in their customs and habits to their British comrades. 
 They are not so much an army, as an independent community 
 who have come togetlier for a certain job and who have 
 formed their own code of laws to ensure its being carried 
 out. An officer derives little authority over them from 
 the mere fact of holding a commission. They only judge 
 of men by their approved merit in the field, and not by 
 the number of stars and crowns a man brings with him 
 into camp. They work as a rule in Httle groups, drawn 
 together by home ties or a mutual regard that has sprung 
 up in the trenches or on the battlefield. These groups 
 discipline themselves. Suppose stores have to be carried 
 up from the beaches, or water conveyed to the trenches. 
 A group told off for this purpose will not march smartly 
 down under an officer or N.C.O. and carry out his orders 
 as to how it shall be done. They saunter down slowly 
 and sit down and light a pipe, contemplating the work 
 before them. There is very likely a millionaire, a cowboy, 
 a doctor, and a clerk present. Each gang has its unofficial 
 leader who has come to be recognized by the others, and 
 after a time he will rise slowly and say, " Well, boys, it's 
 got to be done, so the quicker we get it over the better." 
 Then they start in and work Uke niggers, never stopping 
 or slacking until it is finished. One day, a group of four 
 millionaires were working at a mine shaft. The task was 
 not done when another regiment came to relieve the one 
 to which they belonged. These four men refused to go 
 down with their battalion until they had finished their 
 job, as they wished it to be known as their job and no one 
 else's. There is a story that one old miner went on digging 
 long after his comrades had abandoned all hope of tapping 
 a spring. WTien asked why, he repUed, " This bit of 
 country is just like Western Australia, and if there ain't 
 any water there's sure to be gold." And, sure enough his 
 trained eyes did discover gold among the sand, but not, 
 unfortunately, in paying quantities. 
 
 Another peculiarity of the Colonial soldier, which dis- 
 
84 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 tinguishes him in a marked degree from our own men, is 
 his disHke of clothes. I suppose that since the Dervishes 
 made their last charge at Omdurman no such naked army 
 has ever been seen in the field. The British Tommy Hkes 
 to move and work and fight with the majority of his worldly 
 goods hanging round him, no matter what the state of the 
 temperature. The men in our front trenches sit with 
 their packs on, sweating in the broihng sun, and will dig 
 trenches without removing a garment. But to find an 
 Australian in the hot weather wearing anything except a 
 pair of " shorts " is extremely rare, whether he be in the 
 trenches, in a rest camp, or on fatigue. One by one they 
 throw aside their various articles of clothing. First the 
 coats go, then the shirts, then imderclothes, a very large 
 number throw aside their boots and putties, and only a 
 lingering feeHng of decency still kept aUve by memories 
 of the mixed bathing season at Sydney, preserves the 
 " shorts," which starting at full-length trousers, eventually 
 arrive half-way up the thigh. In this primitive costume 
 the AustraHans and New Zealanders Uved and worked and 
 fought on the peninsula. Their huge frames and giant 
 limbs became burnt by the sun to a dull brick red. Some 
 learned ethnologist, arriving for the first time, would 
 hardly have classified them as belonging to the Aryan stock ; 
 rather would he believe he had suddenly discovered a 
 surviving branch of that race of red men who swaimed 
 over the plains of America until swept away by the ancestors 
 of our present-day Allies. 
 
 Some one remarked very truly once that this campaign 
 at the Dardanelles was only rendered tolerable by the excel- 
 lent bathing. I do not suppose any other factor counted 
 so much in keeping the troops healthy and clean, and in 
 restoring their spirits after days and nights in the stuffy, 
 dirty, smelly trenches. Especially do the Australians and 
 New Zealanders love their periodical dips. To them the 
 sea and the sun-bath are as the breath of life. From earliest 
 childhood they have been accustomed to Hve in the water. 
 The bathing at Sydney, where as many as 50,000 men, 
 
SOME GLIMPSES OF GALLIPOLI 85 
 
 women, and children take the water at the same time, is 
 world famous. At Anzac, straight from the trenches, 
 this endless procession of naked warriors, covered with 
 sand and dirt, never ceased from sunrise to sunset. No 
 sooner was a Colonial released from duty than he made 
 for the water, no matter the snipers and the bursting 
 shrapnel. For there, in far-off GaUipoli, for a short period 
 each day, they imagined themselves once more under the 
 Southern sun, and returned reinvigorated and refreshed 
 to the stern work on the hills above. 
 
 The Cape Helles end of the Gallipoh Peninsula was 
 very different to Anzac. Here we occupied a stretch of 
 flat ground almost six miles in depth running up to the 
 foot of Achi Baba, and in consequence there was less crowd- 
 ing and more room for men and material. But Lancashire 
 Landing, the beach of Cape Helles where all our men and 
 all our supphes had to be landed, was far more exposed 
 to the enemy's shell fire than the beach at Anzac, as it 
 was covered by the guns behind Achi Baba, and by those 
 which the enemy had placed in position on the Asiatic 
 shore of the Straits. 
 
 For the first month it was safe to live in the open in 
 tents, or to bask under the shade of the trees, but after 
 then all was changed. Every one was obhged to go under- 
 ground to escape the storm of shells which the enemy 
 sprayed over our positions whenever he happened to be 
 so inclined, or had received a fresh consignment of ammuni- 
 tion. The immunity we enjoyed at the start was due to 
 the fact that the Turk never thought we could obtain a 
 footing on the shore, and therefore he had not got his big 
 guns in the right positions for shelling the beaches and 
 the camps. Also, until the arrival of the submarines, our 
 battleships, with the aid of the aeroplanes, were able to 
 keep down the fire of his heavy artillery and to smash up 
 any new emplacements in course of construction, especially 
 on the Asiatic Coast. 
 
 But later when it was not safe to keep battleships per- 
 manently off the coast — and of this the Turks and Germans 
 
86 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 had taken full advantage — the shelling of the beaches 
 became far more frequent and violent. 
 
 We lived in an atmosphere of false security for a month. 
 On Lancashire Landing there sprang up a great camp of 
 tents and a great dep6t of stores, whilst hundreds of horses 
 were tethered in long rows, fully exposed to view. Any one 
 who had constructed for himself a bomb-proof shelter was 
 laughed at for his trouble. The beaches were piled with 
 stores, dumped from the transports, waiting to be sorted 
 out and distributed. You saw great piles of biscuits, 
 tinned meat, vegetables, petroleum, hay, and ammunition 
 packed side by side on the foreshore, and all day the sweat- 
 ing beach parties toiled at unloading lighters, the contents 
 of which were distributed by the Army Service Corps to 
 the " dumping grounds " of the various brigades. The 
 work never stopped. An occasional shrapnel, of which 
 no one took any notice, was the only interference in those 
 halcyon days. 
 
 Every one who was present will remember that afternoon 
 about May 20, when suddenly out of a blue sky the Turks 
 opened their first great bombardment of W Beach mth 
 two heavy 6-inch guns placed on either side of Achi Baba. 
 These high-explosive shells burst with a tremendous 
 detonation, throwing out huge clouds of black smoke, 
 and spHntering into hundreds of jagged fragments. Three 
 out of every four burst on contact with the ground, and 
 the others in the air, for the enemy employed this method 
 to gauge the range. 
 
 The toilers on the beach ceased their labours to gaze 
 in amazement on this new and unexpected phenomenon. 
 For a new problem had thus suddenly arisen which no one 
 had provided against. There were practically no dug-outs 
 or bomb-proofs, and the few who had provided against 
 the evil hour now had the laugh of their sceptical friends, 
 who were only too glad to accept an invitation for a short 
 visit while the storm lasted. The remainder of the crowded 
 population of W Beach were obliged to shelter as best 
 they could behind the cliffs along the seashore. The chief 
 
SOME GLIMPSES OF GALLIPOLI 87 
 
 sufferers in this bombardment were the unfortunate horses, 
 amongst whom the shells fell with terrible effect, and in 
 two afternoons we lost nearly loo. 
 
 Every one whose duties compelled him to live and work 
 on the beach then started digging with feverish haste. It 
 looked as if a mining camp had struck gold. Shelter walls 
 of bags filled with sand, were first constructed facing 
 Achi Baba, to keep out splinters until regular bomb-proofs, 
 which take time, could be made. The horses were removed 
 to less exposed ground, and the huge collection of stores 
 was placed under any available overhanging cliff or ridge 
 for shelter. Hundreds of Greek and Egyptian labourers 
 were brought over to construct a road right round the 
 seashore, connecting up all the beaches, along which men 
 and horses could pass in comparative safety. This road, 
 unique of its kind, will ever remain a lasting memorial of 
 the Anglo-French occupation of the Peninsula. It is a 
 great piece of work, and along it lived thousands of men 
 and horses safe from the enemy's shells. The gradual 
 development of W Beach was on much the same lines as 
 that of any seaside resort at home. When the shells came 
 from Achi Baba only, certain sites at once rose in price 
 and were eagerly sought after by the settlers. These were 
 the ones which commanded a sea view, and were constructed 
 on terraces cut out of the cliff overlooking the blue waters 
 of the Dardanelles. No shells, either direct or indirect, 
 could reach them from the land side, and the happy 
 aristocracy of the place looked with scorn on their neighbours, 
 who were still obHged through lack of space or the nature 
 of their duties to live in exposed dug-outs in the pen 
 valley running up from the beach. Thus W Beach 
 settled down once again, taking but small notice of the 
 enemy's high- explosive shells from Achi Baba, which made 
 a great noise, but seldom did any material harm. 
 
 The cliffs and the foreshore looked as you approached 
 from the sea as if a great tribe of cave-dwellers had sud- 
 denly been discovered — survivors of some primitive epoch. 
 The prevaihng colour was drab or khaki, for the whole 
 
88 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 settlement consisted of a background of dwellings dug 
 out of the sand, inhabited by hundreds of khaki- clad figures, 
 who moved and worked amongst huge piles of wooden 
 boxes and canvas bales. If any article arrived on the 
 beach a different colour, it was quickly reduced to the 
 same shade by the clouds of drifting sand which swept 
 over everything whenever there was the sUghtest breeze. 
 You become very weary of the uniformity of colour, of 
 the extreme heat, of the drifting sand, and the swarms of 
 flies. Even the cliffs seem to blow about when the sirocco 
 was on, for they are not formed of rock, but also of sand, 
 and crumble at the touch of the spade and the pick, which 
 were ever at work rebuilding crumbling walls, replacing 
 split sandbags, and digging out entrances which had 
 fallen in. 
 
 Lancashire Landing was in fact a miniature Sahara, 
 hot as hell and just as uncomfortable, but the sandy soil 
 did possess one inestimable advantage. Shells burst on 
 it with a minimum of effect. Had the ground been rocky, 
 it would have been rendered untenable in a very short 
 space of time. As it was, the shells plunged deep into the 
 sand, and many of them failed to explode, whilst the 
 fragments of those which did were checked in their flight 
 through having to force their way through the soft soil. 
 Once again I will refer to the excellent bathing. This 
 was quite true. We held miles of sea coast, and at any 
 point except those sacred to the memory of decaying 
 horses which had been buried out at sea, but which would 
 always return to the shore, you could have an excellent 
 dip. In the cool of the evening when the brunt of the 
 day's work was over, the inhabitants of Sea View loved 
 to sit on their terraces regarding the ever dwindhng fleet 
 of transports at the entrance of the Straits, with the stem 
 of the Majestic as a constant reminder of the great days, 
 or to watch the fleet of trawlers coming and going with 
 troops and stores from the neighbouring islands. It was 
 a grand and placid scene with Asia as a background six 
 miles away, looking so calm and peaceful as if inviting us 
 
SOME GLIMPSES OF GALLIPOLI 89 
 
 to take possession of it. At that time, you could let a 
 good bomb-proof on Sea View for almost any price, just 
 as you can let a villa overlooking the sea at Folkestone or 
 Eastbourne for what you like to ask at the height of the 
 season when every one has fled from town, and the bathing 
 is good. 
 
 But later, prices along the Sea View fell with a horrid 
 and disastrous slump, the hotels were almost empty, and 
 every one was tr^-ing to take a place in the country farther 
 inland. The reason was that the submarines having 
 forced our battleships to take shelter, the Huns had now 
 seized the opportunity of erecting batteries of heavy guns 
 behind Kum Kale, on the Asiatic coast, and with these 
 they could fire right into the front doors and windows of 
 all the houses along this erstwhile popular promenade. It 
 was just as if you had taken a house on the Lees at Folke- 
 stone, to wake up one fine morning and find shells from 
 Boulogne coming in your front windows. The Sea View 
 dwellers never foresaw this contingency. They only built 
 their homes to protect themselves against shells from Achi 
 Baba. Now they found themselves in an awkward predica- 
 ment, for their dwellings, being constructed on terraces along 
 the face of the cliff, could not be built up in front, and they 
 either had to face the risk or abandon them altogether. 
 
 Some fled to the top of the cliff ; others had by this time 
 become fatalists, and smoking their pipes, thought of 
 happier days in the past and conjured up fresh hopes for 
 the future. Others, again, sunk their pride and descended 
 into the valley once more to make terms with those whom 
 they had lately looked down upon. Many had a working 
 arrangement which answered very well. When the shells 
 were coming from Achi Baba, they invited those in 
 the valley up to Sea View, and when they were coming 
 from Asia, they themselves descended to the valley and 
 lived with their friends. But here again the unhappy 
 inhabitants of Lancashire Landing were often checkmated 
 by the Huns firing both from Asia and from Achi Baba at 
 the same time. 
 
90 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 This was scandalous, as there was then little or no cover, 
 and you could only sit in a round, deep hole, praying that 
 a direct hit would not put your number up for all time. I 
 do not suppose the non-combatant branches of an army 
 ever have lived under such conditions before, unless in 
 the course of some siege ; for strange though it may seem, 
 they were far more exposed than the troops in the front 
 trenches. Day after day, night after night, the officers 
 and men of the Army Service Corps, of the Army Ordnance 
 Department, and of the Army Medical Corps, and hundreds 
 engaged in clerical work, toiled and sweated in the great 
 heat amidst storms of sand, tormented by millions of flies, 
 and ever exposed to this never-ceasing and nerve-racking 
 shell fire. 
 
 For months these officers and men, not forgetting the 
 military and naval landing officers, and all those engaged 
 in handling the tugs and lighters, worked without cessation 
 or without a holiday of any sort. During this time an 
 incalculable quantity of stores, munitions, and ammunition 
 passed through their hands, and it was only their unselfish 
 and devoted labours, under unparalleled conditions, which 
 made it possible for us to maintain such a large army in 
 the field so far away from home. Let me attempt to 
 describe a typical day on Lancashire Landing. The 
 trawler brought you from headquarters off the beach 
 about 10 a.m. Other trawlers are constantly arriving, 
 laden with stores and troops. The enem}^ who always 
 seems to know what is going on, suddenly opens up from 
 Asia with a 6-inch high- velocity gun. His great object 
 is to knock out a trawler or to destroy the landing stage. 
 As you cast anchor a hundred yards from the shore, you 
 hear the shriek of a shell. You wonder exactly where it 
 is going to fall, and a second later you hear a tremendous 
 splash astern, and a great column of water rises almost 
 as high as the masts. Hardly have you taken your eyes 
 from the splash than another comes hurtling through the 
 air, and also bursts in the sea. 
 
 A steam pinnace comes to take you off the trawler to 
 
SOME GLIMPSES OF GALLIPOLI 91 
 
 the landing stage, and just as you set foot on it you think 
 that the end of the world has come, for a sudden blast 
 of air rushes by you, and another great shell bursts right 
 on the beach. This is obviously not a morning for Sea 
 View, and you hasten to gain the shelter of the valley, 
 when, as if by some concerted arrangement, the two big 
 guns behind Achi Baba also open up. No one knows how 
 long the enemy will keep up his fire. Sometimes it is for 
 a few minutes and sometimes it is for hours. Strict orders 
 have been issued for every one to take cover when the first 
 shell bursts. You now see hundreds of little khaki figures 
 running like madmen, and disappearing into their burrows 
 just as rabbits do at the sound of the first gun. Every 
 hole has its inhabitant and you just see the tops of their 
 heads peeping out between the intervals, to disappear 
 from \iew directly the dreaded shriek is heard once more. 
 Bathing is going on and the bathers who have just entered 
 the sea are loath to leave without completing their dip. 
 Suddenly a shell bursts in the water just ahead of them, 
 and they stay no longer. 
 
 Naked forms are seen making for the beach as fast as 
 they can swim or wade, and whenever another shell is 
 heard coming, all disappear below the water to escape the 
 splinters. Once ashore no one takes the trouble to dress 
 or even to collect his clothes. All double to their warrens, 
 never looking behind, and dive in head first, and there 
 remain until the sudden cessation of the enemy's " hate " 
 enables them to retrieve their abandoned clothing. Having 
 got ashore yourself from the trawler, you hasten to your 
 nearest friend's " dug-out," and there take cover until 
 it is over. Most of these dug-outs are cut down three 
 or four feet into the ground, and have a tent spread over 
 the top. Head cover is of very little use, because a direct 
 hit \vi]l go through almost anything and simply brings 
 down the roof on top of you, but if you sit below the 
 ground level you are fairly safe from the splinters fljing 
 round outside. Almost every tent is riddled \vith holes. 
 In one, which has been in constant use, there are no less 
 
92 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 than 294 separate holes, and it is quite exciting to sit 
 on the floor and watch fresh peeps of sunlight coming 
 through the top. The relief of hearing the shell burst is 
 enormous, for then you know it can't make a direct hit 
 inside. 
 
 When the firing dies down, you venture out and go on 
 your respective ways. Sometimes you enjoy several hours 
 of complete immunity ; sometimes a shell bursts at regular 
 intervals of half an hour, and at any unexpected moment 
 you may have all the guns open up at once. Do not 
 imagine you enjoy a respite at night. Far from it. The 
 Turks frequently bombard you during the night, and their 
 favourite trick is to fire a shell at regular intervals of half 
 an hour right through the night on the weary slumberers, 
 waking the majority up just as they are falling asleep, 
 after the fashion of the old Chinese torturers who prevented 
 their victims from sleeping by opening their closed eyelids 
 at regular intervals. The worst bombardment to which 
 Lancashire Landing has ever been subjected was when 
 the Turks made a big counter-attack. They started at 
 4 a.m. and between that hour and 8 a.m. they landed at 
 a conservative estimate, nearly 3,000 shells amidst the 
 bomb-proofs, dug-outs, and stores. Yet the result was 
 small. A few were killed and more wounded, but the 
 majority lay low and escaped. 
 
 Sometimes a fortunate hit will blow up some ammu- 
 nition or destroy some stores, but that is all. This 
 small amount of damage is more than compensated for 
 by the supply of excellent fish which can be purchased 
 after each bombardment. When the first shell bursts 
 on Lancashire Landing, the Greek labourers run like 
 frightened rats, never stopping until they have reached 
 their holes. Then they collect their thoughts and their 
 minds are torn in a fearful mental struggle between extreme 
 terror and an overpowering love of making money. They 
 sit and watch the shells falling. When one bursts on land, 
 they coil themselves up within their dug-outs and groan 
 with terror, but when a shell bursts in the sea, with a tre- 
 
SOME GLIMPSES OF GALLIPOLI 93 
 
 mendous splash, an avaricious gleam of joy lightens up 
 their eyes, 
 
 A half-naked figure will dash madly from the cliff and 
 plunge at break-neck speed into the sea, followed by others 
 only waiting for the lead. There arises a shrill chorus 
 of yells and oaths intermingled with a ceaseless chattering 
 from those who remain under cover. For a moment you 
 imagine the Gadarene swine have rushed down again. 
 Then you notice that everybody is endeavouring to reach 
 the spot where the shell has burst. Once there, all dive 
 and disappear from view ; a moment later up they come 
 and swim breathlessly back to the beach to regain their 
 "funk-holes." But each has now something marketable 
 in his hand, a fish stunned by the explosion, which fetches 
 a good price when the bombardment has ceased. One 
 fish caught in this manner weighed thirty pounds, and 
 produced joy in a dozen lonely bomb-proofs. 
 
 Thus the life and the work on Lancashire Landing went 
 on day after day, week after week, month after month. 
 The work was sometimes suspended, but it never stopped. 
 The devoted officers and men on the beach knew that the 
 army must be fed and must have ammunition. They 
 carried their lives in their hands day and night, but they 
 went on their way cheerfully, and not all the guns in Asia 
 could render the beach untenable when it is held by men 
 of this stamp. Heroes won it and heroes have worked on 
 it. 
 
VI 
 Life at Sea in the Great War 
 
 THE Dardanelles Expedition has been a bitter dis- 
 appointment to every one concerned in it, except 
 perhaps to the younger officers of the British Navy. To 
 them it has been a wonderful feast of new experiences and 
 excitement, which they are likely to cherish to the end 
 of their lives. To myself, previously unacquainted with 
 the Navy and a life at sea, it has been both a great experi- 
 ence and a great privilege to take part in the operations 
 against the Straits, and to go into action on a battleship. 
 Although the expedition failed, we may say with Fran- 
 cis I at Pa via that " Tout est perdu fors I'honneur." Cer- 
 tainly Anglo-Saxon prestige as a fighting race has risen 
 rather than fallen, in spite of failure, on account of the 
 splendid heroism shown by all our officers and men of the 
 Army and Navy. 
 
 At the commencement of the war, we possessed an 
 immense number of pre-Dreadnought battleships, which 
 were regarded as a second and third line of defence. Our 
 immense fleet of Dreadnoughts was more than sufficient 
 to bottle up the German Navy in the Kiel Canal. The 
 officers and crews of the older battleships and cruisers 
 felt that their lot would be to cruise about the Channel 
 with small chance of fighting, but constantly exposed to 
 submarine attack. Of course their opportunity might 
 come if we lost a number of Dreadnoughts, either through 
 submarines or mines, which might encourage the enemy's 
 
 04 
 
LIFE AT SEA IN THE GREAT WAR 95 
 
 fleet to come out and give battle. In such an event, at 
 the end of an engagement, our pre-Dreadnought fleet might 
 have been able to play a decisive r61e, but the contingency 
 was too remote to keep alive the hopes of many. For the 
 first six months of the war, the officers and men of the old 
 battleships had a dull and disappointing time. Confined 
 for the most part to the Channel ports, they had little to 
 do, but nevertheless had always to hold themselves in 
 readiness to meet any sudden emergency that might arise. 
 Therefore the excitement can well be imagined when orders 
 were received for them to sail the very same night for 
 an unknown destination. The joy of expectancy was 
 turned into practical realism when it became known that 
 the Dardanelles was their destination. A heterogeneous 
 squadron was collected in the Eastern Mediterranean in 
 January, 1915. The ships varied in size and in age from 
 the mighty Queen Elizabeth, our latest and greatest Dread- 
 nought, to battleships that had first maintained the 
 supremacy of the seas a quarter of a century before. The 
 crews were also a very mixed crowd. The greater number 
 of our active-service ratings were required to man the 
 Grand Fleet in the North Sea, and the older ships were 
 completed with reserve crews, many of the men being 
 between forty and fifty years of age, or else young boys 
 who had hardly completed their period of instruction on 
 the training ships. Of the ofiicers, a great number were 
 also drawn from the reserve and from the mercantile 
 marine, and many of the midshipmen had been released 
 from the toils of Osborne and Dartmouth after only one 
 or two terms. Thus in a trice, the officers and crews of 
 these old ships, who for months past had been bemoaning 
 their fate and casting envious glances tow^ards the North 
 Sea and their comrades in the Grand Fleet, who they felt 
 would reap all the glory and enjoy all the fighting, were 
 transported to the seventh heaven of elation when they 
 suddenly found themselves face to face with a formidable 
 enemy. To the layman, a visit to a battleship, even in 
 times of peace, is of absorbing interest. The life is entirely 
 
g6 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 different from anything the civilian has previously known. 
 He lives in a new and strange world and breathes a different 
 atmosphere. He seems to have left the constitutional 
 government under whose benevolent sway he has dwelt 
 so long and so leniently, and to have entered an old feudal 
 castle surrounded by battlements and engines of destruction, 
 there to dwell under an autocrat who exercises supreme 
 and unappealable authority over the 800 retainers under 
 his command. I know no experience more awe-inspiring 
 than to climb the ladder of a battleship and mount her 
 quarter-deck for the first time. You gaze up at stem figures 
 in white peaked caps and smart blue uniforms, each with 
 his telescope under his arm, who glance down upon you 
 with eyes seemingly animated by ill-concealed suspicion 
 at the sight of an unwelcome intruder. Never forget 
 when you take your first step on to the quarter-deck to 
 raise your hat to the officer of the watch, who meets you 
 at the gangway. The moment you are on the quarter-deck, 
 an intense feeling of loneliness comes over you. You feel 
 a stranger in a strange land and that you will never become 
 accustomed to the automaton figures who stride about 
 amongst the armour and the guns. The officer of the watch 
 inquires your business, and on telling him you have been 
 assigned to the ship, his first step is to take you down to 
 the Captain. At such a moment, you are delighted to 
 disappear down any ladder to escape the gaze of the many 
 eyes peering at you from every point of vantage. You 
 feel, in fact, like some new specimen arriving for the first 
 time in the unfamiliar atmosphere of the Zoological Gardens. 
 Down a ladder you descend to make your way aft, 
 pass an anteroom and then come to a door. The officer 
 of the watch knocks before entering. A voice that sounds 
 horribly gruff says, " Come in," and you enter for the first 
 time the Holy of Holies in which sits the tyrant of the 
 castle, at whose mercy you will remain during the whole 
 time you are on board. Most people are acquainted with 
 the interior economy of a battleship. It always seems to 
 me as if the Captain has one-quarter of the ship to himself, 
 
LIFE AT SEA IN THE GREAT WAR 97 
 
 the twenty or thirty odd officers another quarter to them- 
 selves, and the 800 men of the crew crowd into the remaining 
 half as best they can. The Captain's saloon, in time of 
 peace, looks extremely luxurious and comfortable, with 
 its sofas and chairs, tables and handsome bookcases, its 
 carpets and light curtains, which give it the air of a lady's 
 boudoir. But in time of war all the trappings are taken 
 down, the carpets taken up, and all the woodwork is removed 
 so as to minimise the fear of fire in action. You see before 
 you a middle-aged, grey-haired man, clean-shaven and 
 determined-looking, sitting at a desk piled high with papers 
 and charts. He rises as you enter and greets you in a 
 courtly and kindly manner that at once puts you at your 
 ease and makes you feel that the tyrannical Baron of the 
 castle is fortunately in a good humour on this particular 
 occasion. He invites you to sit down on his only remaining 
 sofa and to have a whisky-and-soda or a cup of tea. A talk 
 on the war follows, then he remarks that he has heard from 
 the Admiral that you are to be his guest ; he hopes your 
 stay will be agreeable, and that he himself will do every- 
 thing to ensure your comfort as far as the circumstances 
 will permit. He then asks if you would like to visit the 
 wardroom and make the acquaintance of the officers. He 
 conducts you through the anteroom, then through a 
 steel door, which, when closed, forms one of the water- 
 tight compartments of the ship, and you then enter a large 
 oblong apartment with a long table ranged down one side 
 of it, and the other half full of comfortable chairs and sofas, 
 a piano, a bookshelf, and one or two green tables on which 
 stand the inevitable dice boxes, for at sea it is sacrilege to 
 have a drink without first tossing for it. Some sixteen 
 or twenty officers are sitting or lolling in all attitudes in 
 the chairs or on the sofas. They rise as the Captain enters ; 
 the Commander comes forward and you are formally intro- 
 duced to him and handed over to his care by the Captain. 
 The Commander then makes an heroic effort to introduce 
 you to the other officers, but it is impossible in the confusion 
 to catch many of the names, and, in fact, on a battleship 
 
 G 
 
98 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 it takes weeks to learn who everybody is, because nearly 
 everybody is known by pet names, and you hardly ever 
 hear them called by anything else. 
 
 You are amazed at the change in the atmosphere. The 
 stiffness, formality and iron etiquette of the quarter-deck 
 disappears the moment you go down below and enter the 
 wardroom, and you find yourself amongst a most charm- 
 ing and jovial lot of companions, whose one desire in life 
 seems to be to make you feel at home and one of themselves. 
 After the introductions are over comes the inevitable 
 " Have a cocktail," and whether you want it or not, you 
 might just as well say " Yes," because you won't be let 
 off without at least one or two. Now cocktails on battle- 
 ships are the most remarkable concoctions known to man. 
 In the Mediterranean, various ships in which I stayed 
 frequently ran out of all the ingredients which are considered 
 necessary for the production of these pernicious but 
 delightful " end-hasteners " on land. Ice was seldom avail- 
 able ; gin, the basis of almost every cocktail, was generally 
 lacking ; Italian and French Vermouth seldom if ever 
 present at the same time, but nevertheless the messman 
 could always produce a wonderful browny golden-looking 
 substance in glasses three times as large as the ordinary 
 cocktail glass. To take one of these changes your entire 
 outlook on life. Whatever your troubles, anxieties, or 
 discomforts, a wonderful serenity suffuses your soul the 
 moment you have poured this nectar of the wardroom down 
 your parched throat. Two of them will transport you to 
 those wonderful realms where the imagination of the opium 
 smoker loves to dwell for hours at a time. Three of them 
 will instil into you an unnatural courage, which had it 
 been practical would have taken the form of rushing upon 
 the nearest Turks and tearing them into a thousand pieces, 
 after the manner of that prince of all knights-errant, 
 Amadis of Gaul. 
 
 The Commander having found you a cabin, you are left 
 to your own reflections and the disposal of your kit until 
 the dinner hour. Just before that meal starts is the great 
 
LIFE AT SEA IN THE GREAT WAR 99 
 
 moment when the dice boxes rattle, and the keen competi- 
 tion of throwing the aces commences. In some ships, the 
 Captain comes in and has an aperatif with his officers. 
 This is, as a rule, the only occasion on which the dictator 
 enters the officers' mess. Long years of etiquette prescribe 
 that the Captain must live and eat absolutely by himself. 
 He is the most lonely figure in the universe. He may be 
 socially inclined, but he must suppress his proclivities and 
 conform to the custom of centuries. His meals are served 
 in solitary state, and even when they are over, he cannot 
 come into the wardroom to play a quiet rubber, or listen 
 to the latest ragtime on the inevitable gramophone. Very 
 occasionally he has a guest or one of the officers to dine 
 with him, and usually the midshipman of the watch takes 
 his breakfast with him. On only one ship have I known 
 this iron rule broken. There the Captain, one of the best 
 known characters in the Navy, declined absolutely to lead 
 the life of Simon Stylites on his lonely tower. He dined 
 ever}' night in the wardroom, and was the most jovial 
 figure present. He was, in fact, the life and soul of the 
 officers' mess, and the most newly promoted lieutenant 
 could meet him on equal terms during these short hours 
 of relaxation. No one dared to take advantage of his 
 good nature, and the moment he appeared on the quarter- 
 deck that iron wall of etiquette and discipline divided him 
 completely from those under his command. But this, as 
 I have said, was an exceptional case, and the Captain had 
 an exceptional character. The object of keeping the Cap- 
 tain absolutely apart from his officers is the fear that 
 discipline might suffer were this rule in any way departed 
 from. Although the essentials of discipline are the same, 
 the atmosphere of every ship varies, according to the 
 character of her Captain. His influence is felt throughout 
 every grade, from the wardroom to the stokehole. The 
 officers and crew seem to, insensibly perhaps, model them- 
 selves on the lines of their Captain's disposition. The 
 purely local social atmosphere of the wardroom is perhaps 
 fieterniined more by the character of the Coiiimander, 
 
100 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 who is in direct charge of it, rather than the Captain. 
 After a short stay on a battleship, it is eas}^ to understand 
 the tales of the life on board warships a hundred years ago. 
 At that time ships would be at sea for months at a time, 
 and everybody on board was directly under the Captain's 
 orders, who could exercise his authority in a hundred 
 pleasant or unpleasant ways. A tyrannical Captain could 
 make his vessel a hell on earth, whereas a kind-hearted, 
 humane Commander could keep all hands a happy family 
 even during long periods on the sea. The spirit of the 
 age, the spread of democracy and new codes have changed 
 the customs of the old days and there is no such thing as 
 a tyrannical Captain afloat at the present day. Ships are 
 seldom long at sea, and if the crew were discontented, they 
 would vent their feelings in any port every three or four 
 days. But this is seldom, if ever, the case. The discipline 
 of the Navy may seem severe to the untutored civilian, 
 but it is invariably exercised with justice and discretion, 
 and the spirit which prevails between officers and men is 
 one of mutual confidence and respect. The laws of the 
 Navy lay down clearly, exactly what a Captain may do, 
 but of course a great deal depends on the manner in which 
 orders are carried out. For a command coming from one 
 man may be a pleasure to perform, whereas coming from 
 another it may lead to endless grumbling and discontent. 
 
 Our warships off the Dardanelles were a study of peculiar 
 interest, largely owing to the scratch character of their 
 crews, hastily brought together at the general mobihzation. 
 Some of the officers had been out of the service for a long 
 time, and others belonging to the mercantile marine had 
 only served a short period each year on warships. Some 
 of the older reservists amongst the men had almost for- 
 gotten their former life at sea, and many of the young newly 
 joined boys had to complete their training under the fire 
 of the enemy's guns. But it was remarkable how soon 
 these divergent elements adjusted themselves to their 
 surroundings and became an efficient whole. The work of 
 the crews was extremely hard throughout 1915, and told 
 
LIFE AT SEA TN THE GK^r^J fi^/iR loi 
 
 heavily on some of the elder men who had lost their youth 
 and the habit of prolonged toil, broken by short spells of 
 sleep. The duties of the Navy at the Dardanelles were 
 manifold. Not only were the ships constantly in action 
 against the forts, but they had to detail numbers of offtcers 
 and men as beach parties for the landing of men and 
 supplies. Many others were kept busy, sometimes night 
 and day, in the steam pinnaces which had to drag all the 
 lighters to the landing stages, from the trawlers and 
 transports. There are, in fact, a thousand odd things 
 always waiting for the sailor to carry out. He never seems 
 to get any real rest, for the unexpected is always happening. 
 To my mind, the most interesting figures on a battle- 
 ship are perhaps the midshipmen. There are generally 
 some twenty of these young gentlemen in the gunroom. 
 Some of them, straight from Dartmouth, were only fifteen 
 years of age. To them, of course, the expedition was a 
 vast pleasure trip, and they would not have exchanged 
 their places with the happiest monarch on any throne — 
 (if there is such a thing as a happy monarch in this troubled 
 age !) They occupy a curious position on a warship, for 
 in fact they do not seem to have any real status at all. 
 They are neither ofhcers, w^arrant officers, nor able seamen. 
 The officers treat them with the utmost scorn, and 
 with a kindly severity, always excusing their harshness 
 with the stock remark that " these ' Snotties ' think they 
 can do what they jolly well please now. It was very differ- 
 ent when I first joined the service." The warrant officers 
 also treat them with good-natured contempt, and in fact 
 the unfortunate midshipman has a pretty hard time, even 
 now, in his early days at sea. The golden rule for him is 
 to always be at ever^'body's disposal and never to utter 
 a word of remonstrance, even though he be suftering under 
 a sense of injustice, because then his persecutor, having a 
 bad case to start with, will turn from his original objective 
 and call him to task for daring to answer back. The mid- 
 shipmen only get their own back when they are away from 
 a ship in charge of the boats and pinnaces. Their humble 
 
102 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 attitude then changes, they themselves assume an attitude 
 towards the crews under their charge which is only on a 
 par with what they themselves have been subjected to. 
 It is certainly a novel experience to see a youth of fifteen, 
 not five feet high, ordering a boatload of veterans, some of 
 them old enough to be his grandfather, to do his bidding, 
 in a voice, accompanied by a look, that would cause even 
 the bravest of Napoleon's marshals to tremble in his pre- 
 sence. The courage of these youths is inspiring, and ensures 
 the future stability of the Anglo-Saxon race. They landed 
 with the first parties on the shore of Gallipoli under a 
 tremendous fire on that historic 25th April. For month 
 after month they were employed on dangerous work, 
 taking the pinnaces to the beaches under a heavy shell 
 fire, or dwelling under similar conditions on the beaches 
 themselves. Dangerous excursions up the Dardanelles 
 varied these proceedings. If they wanted a holiday, their 
 great joy was to get ashore and wander along shell- strewTi 
 roads and amidst the snipers until they came to the front 
 trenches. Some have been killed, and many wounded, 
 but their dauntless spirit of enterprise remains the same. 
 
 The gunroom, where the midshipmen live, has a severe 
 discipline of its own. They are under the charge of a 
 Sub- Lieutenant, who visits the slightest breach of any 
 custom or etiquette in that summary manner not unknown 
 in the public schools of both England and America. It 
 is in this iron school that our future generation of naval 
 officers are being brought up, and if there is no further 
 good at present discernible from our unfortunate descent 
 on Gallipoli, we have at least in a few months crowded the 
 experience and knowledge into a hundred of our younger 
 officers which in normal times they would have taken 
 years to obtain. 
 
 The life on a battleship on active service takes a very 
 great deal of getting used to. It cannot be described as 
 comfortable, but on the whole I consider it preferable to 
 that led by the soldier on land. For instance, in the 
 Mediterranean, even in the heat of the summer, all port- 
 
LIFE AT SEA IN THE GREAT WAR 103 
 
 holes had to be closed down and all lights extinguished 
 after sunset, even when lying in the protected harbours. 
 This naturally made the ship very stuffy, but it does not 
 seem to have affected the health of the crew. I attribute 
 this to the short time that the men sleep at any one period, 
 and to the sea air. The acme of discomfort is reached when 
 a ship is firing her big gun. Personally I never could get 
 accustomed to the noise of the terrific concussion of modern 
 weapons. You seek in vain for some quarter where you 
 will catch the concussion the least. All depends on the 
 angle at which the guns are being fired. If you are 
 standing on the forebridge and the turret guns are trained 
 right forward, it is not so bad. You hear the deafening 
 roar and the whole of your horizon is blotted out with 
 the dense clouds of yellow cordite, and you hear the shell 
 speeding towards its objective so many thousands of yards 
 away. You have just said to yourself, " Oh, this is not 
 so bad after all," when you feel as if both your ear-drums 
 had been blown right inside your head by the discharge of 
 a 6-inch gun in one of the batteries, the muzzles of which 
 are almost level with the bridge on which you stand. The 
 gun having gone off on the starboard quarter, you rush to 
 port, just in time to catch a similar welcome on that side, 
 which blows you back again to the centre of the bridge. 
 You think you are going to get a moment's respite in which 
 to recover your numbed senses, when the small 12-pounders 
 go off like a crack of a stock-whip just underneath you. 
 You can only put your hands to your head, hoping that 
 firing will cease, when you have them blown away again by 
 the 12-inch. You would speedily lose your hearing if you 
 did not carry cotton wool or patent ear protectors in your 
 ears, but even as it is, many officers are rendered deaf, 
 and some have had their drums damaged by being caught 
 near the muzzle by an unexpected discharge. After 
 standing this for some time, you decide to leave the fore- 
 bridge, and run aft along the narrow gangway on the 
 superstructure, where you won't catch the concussion 
 quite so much. You make your way along the gangway 
 
104 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 and are almost blown off on to the deck below by the 
 discharge of the guns as you go along. You then decide 
 to go down below to the wardroom and read a paper until 
 the firing stops. On entering it, you find a scene of horrible 
 confusion. In some ships more lightly constructed than 
 others you will find the woodwork all torn and cracked 
 by the concussion of the guns overhead. In vessels of a 
 stronger build, you will find chairs overturned, the table- 
 cloths lying in heaps on the floor, masses of books and 
 papers scattered everywhere, glasses that have been left 
 about, smashed to atoms, and the atmosphere composed 
 of a fine dust which settles over everything like the lava of 
 a volcano. You remain alone amid this scene of wreckage 
 until the firing is over, because all the officers have to remain 
 at their battle stations, and cannot leave until the " Dis- 
 perse " is sounded. Then a grimy crowd of sweating figures 
 make their way in from turrets, engine-rooms, and subter- 
 ranean passages, and fling themselves down in the nearest 
 chairs. The bell is rung furiously for the mess marines, 
 who hasten in straight from the guns, and serve a round of 
 drinks before beginning to clear up the horrible mess and 
 to lay the table for luncheon. 
 
 Night firing is particularly interesting. When lying off 
 the Dardanelles in the early days, a message would suddenly 
 come on board to fire at such and such a square on the 
 map, where the enemy might be showing signs of activity 
 and threatening to attack our lines. This brings the Cap- 
 tain out of his bed on to the bridge. " Battle Stations " 
 is sounded, and you hear feet scampering from every hole 
 and corner like rats in an old barn. If you happen to be 
 awake, you put on a few clothes, hasten on deck j^ourself 
 just in time to see a terrific burst of red flame from the 
 turret like an immense explosion of a huge land mine. 
 The firing goes on and you see the shells bursting in great 
 red spheres, thousands of yards away, carrying the eternal 
 message of hate from the Christian to the Infidel. The 
 firing goes on until orders come from the shore that the 
 enemy has taken the hint and has gone back to his own 
 
LIFE AT SEA IN THE GREAT WAR 105 
 
 trenches. Then everybody tumbles into bed again, per- 
 haps only for an hour or two, to be disturbed a little later 
 to open up again. One night I was asleep in my cabin 
 on the port side, and after putting out my light, had 
 opened the porthole to let in a little air, a breach of the 
 regulations which was winked at in very hot weather. I 
 was sleeping soundly when suddenly I found myself flying 
 through space and deposited amidst a number of trunks 
 and overturned chairs on the floor of my cabin. The room 
 was full of yellow sulphurous smoke, and it took me some 
 time to collect my senses. In fact, the scene was exactly 
 similar to the popular representation of the Old Man's 
 abode in Pilgrim's Progress. What had happened was 
 this : Orders had suddenly been received on board to open 
 fire on a certain square on the map, and as we were lying 
 bow to the shore it necessitated training the port 6-inch 
 guns right ahead along the side of the ship. Unfortu- 
 nately the muzzle of one of these was almost flush (at this 
 particular angle) with my cabin window, and when the 
 gun was discharged, I caught the full benefit of the con- 
 cussion, with the disastrous results I have related. I went 
 outside into the passage and found a friendly marine, who 
 said he would close my porthole, an offer I was only too 
 willing to accept. He knelt on the bed, but before he 
 had time to screw it down there came a second discharge, 
 which blew him bang out of the cabin, through the doorway, 
 and deposited him, emitting hornble language, at my feet. 
 A sailor then came up and rushed in, closed it before the 
 next discharge, and the smoke having cleared, the three 
 of us proceeded to clear up the remains of the Government's 
 and my own property which had survived this unequal 
 contest. 
 
 Naval battles are now very different from what they were 
 in the days of Nelson. A different sort of courage is 
 required, what the French describe as le courage jroid, 
 that is to say, men no longer fight face to face, seeing their 
 comrades around them, and with their eyes fixed on the 
 enemy, forty or fifty yards away. The scenes on the open 
 
io6 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 decks of the old three-deckers must have been horrible 
 enough, but then men had a chance of seeing red, and their 
 blood being up, they would forget their surroundings in 
 the excitement of the contest. On every deck hundreds 
 of men would be busy loading and discharging the guns, 
 the deafening record of the broadsides would deaden the 
 senses to the enemy's shots sweeping through the open 
 portholes, killing and maiming dozens at a time. Pools 
 of blood made the decks slippery for the fighters. Arms 
 and legs and fragments of humanity lay around, while a 
 constant stream of wounded would be borne to the dim 
 recesses of the cockpit, afar down in the hold, there to have 
 their limbs amputated without chloroform under conditions 
 which have happily passed for ever. At any moment 
 might come the call to repel boarders, or to board one of 
 the enemy's ships. Then this crowd of semi-savages, 
 stripped to the waist, black with powder or red with blood, 
 rushed to the upper deck with ferocious yells, to chmb 
 along the booms and yards to the enemy's decks, and there 
 carry on a hand-to-hand fight until they were annihilated, 
 or he was forced to yield. Every man could see what his 
 comrade was doing and follow his officer to glory or de- 
 struction. It was amid scenes such as these that our 
 greatest naval hero lived and died. They were awful 
 enough, it is true, but I have already said that this primi- 
 tive mode of hand-to-hand fighting appeals more to the 
 brute instincts of man, and I think calls for a lower level 
 of courage than the long-range engagements of the present 
 day. Let me describe what a battleship is like in action 
 under modern conditions. 
 
 The essential difference between life in the Army and 
 the Navy on active service is the manner which the Navy 
 continues its normal existence right up to the commence- 
 ment of an engagement, and the way in which both officers 
 and men take all their worldly possessions into action with 
 them, whereas the soldier leaves everything behind. A 
 battleship in this respect resembles the self-contained 
 feudal castle of which I have already spoken. You can 
 
LIFE AT SEA IN THE GREAT WAR 107 
 
 leave your cabin in the morning, go to the wardroom and 
 there sit down at a comfortable table covered with a nice 
 clean white cloth, on which is spread all the comforts 
 which the ship can provide at this particular moment. 
 Half an hour later " Battle Stations " may sound and 
 you find yourself steaming towards the enemy. On active 
 service a ship is always ready for action, and the final 
 preparations take about five minutes. Thus your normal 
 Hfe continues right up to the psychological moment when 
 the bugle sounds the call to ' Battle Stations." You 
 can have your bath and shave and dress just as on any other 
 morning of the year. There may be a suppressed air of 
 excitement, and you may notice the crew moving about 
 more briskly, but that is all. A marine enters your cabin, 
 shuts the porthole, and carefully screws down the steel 
 shutters. You will find others engaged in a similar task 
 in the wardroom. On deck, the crew^ are busy closing the 
 companion ways and skylights, fastening down the steel 
 shutters and removing the deck rail, so that there is nothing 
 to interfere with the fire of the guns. Between decks, 
 others are busy stowing all the hammocks down below and 
 removing anything which is inflammable. Others are 
 closing the water-tight doors, until it becomes difficult for 
 the layman to move from one part of the ship to another. 
 These simple preparations having been made, the officers 
 again reassemble in the wardroom, from which most of 
 the furniture has been removed. All are in their oldest 
 and dirtiest working clothes, stained with oil and smoke, 
 and a friendly discussion takes place as to what is the best 
 thing to do in the event of the ship striking a mine, and 
 which is really the most efficient type of hfebelt. Suddenly 
 "Battle Stations" is sounded, and the whole party 
 double ofi to their respective posts, leaving you, the unoccu- 
 pied onlooker, to roam about the ship as you please. I 
 will merely relate my own experiences. 
 
 I first visit the starboard battery, which is deserted, 
 because there is no object in manning the small 12- 
 pounders, as their crews would not be behind armour. 
 
io8 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 There are two 6-inch casements in this battery, and I 
 glance into these. Here the crews are busy getting ready 
 the guns, arranging the lOO-pound shells, and hauling up 
 ammunition from the passages beneath. Except for these 
 four casements, the upper part of the ship seems to be 
 quite deserted, so I descend to the main deck, where I 
 run across the Fleet Engineer, who carries a somewhat 
 bored look. I ask him where his station is in action. 
 " When I am not wanted in the engine-room, I wander 
 about and try to learn what is happening. It is very dull 
 dowTi below, cut off from all the new^s." 
 
 I descend another iron ladder, and find myself in what 
 is known as " Bag Flats " and I meet the parson, who says, 
 " Come and see the sick bay, where I stay during action." 
 I pass along endless stuffy passages crowded with men 
 and boys, who seem to have nothing to do except to sit 
 still and wonder whether the ship will strike a mine or not, 
 and after passing through innumerable doors, some of 
 which are closed after me, I enter the sick bay, which is 
 equally crowded. Here is the Fleet Surgeon and his 
 assistants ready to handle any casualties. Knives, saws, 
 lint, basins, chloroform are all laid out with that neatness 
 and precision which is typical of everything in the Navy. 
 The sight is depressing, and the atmosphere so stuffy that 
 I speedily accept the invitation of the Chief Gunner to 
 descend to another floor to the ammunition passages and 
 see the 6-inch-shell room. On the way I pass the Lieuten- 
 ant-Commander and a lot of men, and I ask him what 
 his job is. His reply is, " We have to wait until the ship 
 catches fire, and we then try to put it out." 
 
 In the ammunition passages I find men busy placing 
 6-inch shells in canvas carriers, and hoisting them up by 
 pulleys to the 6-inch casements. I then glance into a small 
 room which contains innumerable speaking tubes, navy- 
 phones, and telephones, electric bells, wires and electric 
 plant. This is the transmitting room and all the range 
 and results of shots taken in the control chamber on the 
 foretop are telephoned down here to be passed on to the 
 
LIFE AT SEA IN THE GREAT WAR 109 
 
 various guns. It all seems confusing and incomprehensible 
 to the lay mind. Every step you take you stumble over 
 or on fresh machinery. Below decks is a jumble of electric 
 engines, hydraulic steam pumps, wires, tubes, 'phones, 
 and a hundred other comphcations of science, until you 
 wonder how any mind can ever master their juse. 
 
 The gunner then says, " Would you like to see the cordite 
 chamber ? " I chmb through a round hole and descend 
 a steel ladder. It is amazing how many decks a battleship 
 has. I have, in fact, now gone down so many that I have 
 lost count ; all I know is that I am a long way below the 
 water level, and somewhere near the double bottom. 
 
 WTien I reach the starboard battery once again, I do 
 not see a soul. Every one has vanished below as if by 
 magic, and we are slowly steaming towards the Darda- 
 nelles. It is, however, pleasant to find oneself again 
 in the fresh air, and to be able to see with your own eyes 
 what is happening. I feel sincerely sorr^^ for the hundreds 
 whom I have just left below. I make my way towards 
 the corming tower. The Captain is standing just outside 
 it, and invites me to enter. I find myself in a Httle, round 
 steel chamber, with an opening about 8 inches high all 
 round at the top. It is packed with eleven officers and 
 men. One is at a tiny little wheel, which looks hardly big 
 enough to control a Thames launch, but the great ship is 
 responding to every turn. I then leave the conning tower 
 and make for my final destination, which is the control 
 station on the foretop. The ascent is made by a steel 
 ladder, and before you can enter the fighting top 3'ou have 
 to turn a corner, chmb out of the shrouds, and then up 
 through a kind of small coal-hole, such as you see in any 
 London street. I hate this climb, which is terrifying to 
 one who is not accustomed to chmb great heights, in a 
 wind on a pole stuck on a moving and very often highly 
 unsteady platform. The weather has been very bad all 
 the morning, with storms of wind and rain, which at this 
 moment almost blot out the shore and the battered forts 
 of Seddul Bahr and Gaba Tepe. On safely negotiating the 
 
110 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 shrouds and the coal-hole, I find myself in a small oblong 
 chamber of thin steel, which would hardly keep out a 
 bullet fired at close range. It is open all round at the top, 
 and has a similar thin steel roof. Inside are a Heutenant 
 of marines, a naval lieutenant, two midshipmen, and three 
 sailors, a rangefinder, several pairs of glasses, some tele- 
 scopes and the eternal voice pipe, navyphones and tele- 
 phones for speaking to the conning tower, the engine-room, 
 the batteries and the transmitting station. We are very 
 crowded, and our tempers are ruffled by the heavy rain. 
 My sensations are very strange when I find myself aloft. 
 They are quite different from those you get when you are 
 'about to go into action on land. A feeling of intense 
 insecurity comes over me, and also one of extreme loneU- 
 ness. On the ship beneath, not a soul is visible, all are 
 hidden below, and will know nothing until it is all over. 
 In an hour they will probably be still safe and sound, or 
 else drowned like rats in a huge trap. The thought occurs 
 to me that it is very strange to be perched up there, lOo 
 feet above the sea, with a ship full of high explosives beneath 
 you, and a sea which you imagine must be full of mines 
 beneath the ship. Then a kind of feeling follows that you 
 have lost your individual existence, and are merely a fitting 
 on this great steel m.onstrosity, which is ghding so slowly, 
 yet remorselessly towards the danger zone. You say to 
 yourself, " Whatever happens, we shall all survive or go 
 together," and you have the satisfaction of feeling that 
 you cannot be left lying wounded on the battlefield. The 
 land on either side looks so firm and secure, whilst up on 
 the fighting top you cannot shake ofif the feeling of some 
 great, unknown danger, such as you have never faced 
 before, continually lurking around you. 
 
 UnHke conditions in the Army, there is not that margin for 
 individual error, and but few have to receive special instruc- 
 tions, because each of the 800 odd minds on board knows 
 his special place and special job in action, and all he has to 
 do is to double there as quickly as he can when the bugle 
 announces that the real work is about to commence. One 
 
LIFE AT SEA IN THE GREAT WAR iii 
 
 brain alone controls everything on board, and that is the 
 Captain's, who is in the conning tower with a small staff 
 of assistants. Thus when a battleship goes into action, 
 only the Captain knows where she is going and what she 
 is doing. All the responsibihty rests with him alone, and 
 the majority of the ship's company, buried deep down 
 between decks at their stations, are led blindly to victory 
 or destruction, without seeing, hearing, or knowing what is 
 taking place. They are engaged in purely mechanical 
 tasks, such as stoking, passing up ammunition, minding 
 the engines, or working the guns. The final efficiency of 
 a ship's company can, of course, be estimated, not by what 
 the Captain does in action, but the manner in which the 
 several tasks are carried out. 
 
 Thus it will be seen how different the conditions are 
 from what they were in the days of the old three-deckers. 
 Ninety-five per cent, of those on board see nothing at 
 all, and simply have to carry on with their mechanical 
 tasks, leaving the control of their destinies to fate and to 
 the guiding hand of the Captain and his staff in the conning 
 tower. It is nerve-racking work, this modern fighting, 
 because if the ship strikes a mine or is torpedoed, it is 
 extremely difficult to get the men up from far below, 
 and many are immediately drowned with the inrush of 
 water. Also no individual knows how the engagement is 
 going and whether he is on the winning side or the losing, 
 and he has not got the excitement of fighting the enemy 
 face to face. I think the vast majority of men would 
 rather fight on the open decks of the old three-deckers, 
 with their comrades around them and the enemy only 
 a few yards away, than be shut up in these mighty battle- 
 ships, which look so strong and which are yet so vulner- 
 able to the torpedo and the mine. It is certainly a strain 
 on the nerves when you are in the conning tower or the 
 fighting top and can see what is going on, but it is a much 
 greater strain when you see nothing and hear httle, except 
 the swish of the ship as she rushes through the water to 
 victory or destruction, and the dull detonations of the 
 
112 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 guns being fired overhead. In some of the minor engage- 
 ments in the Straits when we were shelling the enemy's 
 batteries, and they returning our fire, familiarity having 
 bred a certain measure of contempt, it was extremely 
 difficult to prevent some of the officers and men coming 
 out on deck. It used to be a regular game to leave the 
 conning tower or batteries and to have a look around, and 
 then to rush back again to cover like hunted rabbits when 
 you heard a shell coming. Every one of these sounded 
 as if it were going to land plump in the centre of the ship, 
 but fortunately the majority arc fired high, and pass 
 overhead, or else damage the funnels, the fighting tops 
 and the staj^s. The effect of shells striking a ship's armour 
 is to give her a shock which causes her to sliiver all over. 
 A dense cloud of smoke then comes abroad and there is a 
 rattling sound as bits of the shell fall about or smash the 
 boats. I saw a very funny sight on one occasion, for we 
 had had a long morning's work bombarding both the 
 European and Asiatic batteries, the enemy replying vigor- 
 ously, but his aim was bad and we were not hit. Suddenly 
 there was a terrific crash, followed by an explosion and a 
 cloud of smoke, and an 8-inch shell landed in the super- 
 structure, smashing two boats, and the fragments falHng 
 in the port battery. Immediately the fire party rushed 
 forward in case there was a blaze, but on this occasion there 
 was none, and the next minute everybody about the decks 
 made a rush to the spot to collect fragments of the shell 
 as souvenirs. Most of the battleships that were damaged 
 at the Dardanelles were struck by shells falling vertically 
 on to tlieir decks, either from howitzers or long-distance 
 fire. The wardrooms suffered especially, and it has been 
 the lot of the officers on several ships on going down to 
 refresh themselves at the end of an engagement to find 
 the wardroom and everything in it smashed into a kind 
 of jelly, a great hole through the cciHng, another in the 
 floor, and the chairs, tables, sofas, piano and bookcases 
 all mixed up together and spoilt beyond repair. I know of 
 one Fleet Paymaster who had two shells through his cabin 
 
LIFE AT SEA IN THE GREAT WAR 113 
 
 in the same engagement, and he couldn't find even a change 
 of Hnen in the general mix up. 
 
 But in spite of its dangers and discomforts, it is a grand 
 life to be on a battleship in war time, as long as the sub- 
 marines will keep away from you. But when they are 
 about, your life is one long-drawn-out misery, until you 
 have reached the shelter of a protected harbour. You feel 
 so strong and yet you are so helpless, and after a time 
 any object floating in the water, which may possibly be 
 a periscope, sends a cold shiver down your spine 
 
VII 
 The Coming of the German Submarines 
 
 I DO not suppose that any race except the British 
 would have attempted the expedition to the Dar- 
 danelles, and I am quite certain that no other nation 
 would have persisted in it so long, after the many obstacles 
 and setbacks we encountered from the start. 
 
 The first attempt to force the passage on March i8 
 with the Fleet alone, was considered by most of the minor 
 nations of the Near East as sufficient proof of our mad- 
 ness ; the actual landing from ships in the face of an 
 unbroken enemy and the storming of forts and field works 
 covered by barbed wire, confirmed the impression of our 
 state of mind, already formed, and it was only when we 
 proved our ability to hold the positions thus won in the 
 face of a great superiority of numbers, that it began to 
 dawn on the many interested spectators in the Near East 
 that there was method in our madness after all. As a 
 nation we have a peculiar habit of conceiving great schemes 
 and rushing into them at a moment's notice without 
 counting the cost, relying on the bravery of our troops 
 to see us through the initial stages, the remarkable apti- 
 tude which as a nation we have always displayed for 
 educating ourselves to conditions of which we had only 
 formed the most rudimentary idea, and in the wonderful 
 ability of our officers and men to adapt themselves to new 
 surroundings. All this with us takes the place of the years 
 of study devoted by foreign General Staffs to any naval 
 
 U4 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 115 
 
 or military enterprise before it is ever embarked upon. 
 Ours is a somewhat amateurish way of conducting war, 
 but when examined carefully, it has its advantages over 
 the Continental, as well as its disadvantages. Conti- 
 nental General Staffs strike with the blunt end of the 
 wedge, relying on the first blow to break down all oppo- 
 sition. We have seen this over and over again in the case 
 of Germany. But if the first blow fails, there is no further 
 weight behind the movement, and the situation remains 
 in statu quo. But we always strike with the thin edge 
 of the wedge, one sharpened so fmely that it seems impos- 
 sible for it to inflict any real injury on the victim of our 
 choice. We do this because the thick end is very seldom 
 ready at the moment we strike, and we have to pile up 
 weight gradually behind our first lunge. The Dardanelles 
 Expedition is a good case in point. At our first lunge 
 the thin end snapped altogether, leaving two of our battle- 
 ships and one of the French at the bottom of the Dardan- 
 elles, whilst several others w^ere seriously damaged. At 
 first this reverse seemed final and crushing in the eyes of 
 the Near Eastern spectators. To them a battleship, 
 whether new or old, is the last word in a nation's glory 
 and power. She must be guarded as a sacred thing, and 
 never risked except under circumstances of the most dire 
 necessity. From that date the Expedition was regarded 
 as doomed to failure. We sought for Allies, but they 
 were loth to throw in their lot with what appeared to be 
 a losing, or even an already lost, cause. Then when the 
 Army, inadequate in numbers, appeared on the scene, the 
 curiosity of the Near East was again roused, but few 
 beheved we should succeed. After the landing, this pes- 
 simism, tempered with curiosity, gradually changed to 
 admiration. 
 
 At the Dardanelles the Navy was responsible for every 
 man, biscuit and round of ammunition put on shore, and 
 it also had to guard the flanks of the Army. Who would 
 be an admiral in an expedition Uke this ? His respon- 
 sibiUties are enormous, but he can no more control each 
 
ii6 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 individual unit of his Fleet than he can control fate. A 
 battleship was necessary to protect the right flank of the 
 French Army. We shared this duty in turn with the 
 French Fleet. On May 13, 1915, the Goliath, engaged on 
 this dangerous duty, was torpedoed three times on a dark 
 night and sank in three minutes, only an odd hundred of 
 her crew being saved. Steps are immediately taken to 
 ensure that such an occurrence shall not happen again. 
 The right wing of the Army is told it must take care of 
 itself during the night, and ships are withdrawn from this 
 danger point up the Straits. For a few days our admirals 
 enjoy a respite, and then the most sinister of all our enemies 
 appears on the scene, one who has it in his power to change 
 the character of the campaign. 
 
 The true history of the voyage of the German submarines 
 from England, and their gradual approach to and final 
 arrival off the Dardanelles, will make one of the most 
 fascinating stories of the war when it comes to be written. 
 One cannot help admiring the enterprise shown by their 
 commanders, and the skill with which they must have 
 organized their depots of oil beforehand. On the other 
 hand, I am inclined to think, judging from what our ships 
 accomphshed up the Dardanelles, in the Sea of Marmora 
 and actually in the harbour of Constantinople, that had 
 Enghsh submarines ever had similar opportunities, they 
 would have accomphshed far more than the German 
 boats have done up to date. What a wonderful chance 
 they have had ! One that every submarine commander 
 must dream about, but seldom finds ! 
 
 Our fleet and transports lay anchored off an exposed 
 coast, faced with the menace from the Straits which pre- 
 vents their taking shelter up there, whilst from the outside 
 these monsters of the deep could approach from the shelter 
 of innumerable islands and little harbours, not to mention 
 Smyrna and other Turkish ports. 
 
 The Fleet was quite happy as it lay off Cape Helles, 
 until the first vague rumours reached us of hostile sub- 
 marines having been sighted passing Gibraltar, Then 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 117 
 
 came another rumour that one had been seen off Malta, 
 and later on, another was reported as passing the Doro 
 Channel and then sighted again off Matapan. At first 
 the evidence was not really credited. It was not denied 
 by the naval experts that the new German submarines 
 could not reach the Dardanelles without taking in fresh 
 oil, but the character of the evidence was not considered 
 altogether satisfactory. It came from trawlers or small 
 transports, and those who made the reports were not 
 considered skilled experts, and might be mistaken or have 
 confused one of our boats, or one of the French boats, for 
 those of the enemy. Nevertheless, every precaution was 
 taken. 
 
 One fine day, the pride of the Fleet and the terror of the 
 Turks, the mighty Queen Elizabeth, faded in the distance 
 to some unknown destination. We mourned her depar- 
 ture, but realized the necessity. Then other vessels of 
 good fighting capacity were seen less and less, or only for 
 short periods off the shore and faded away into distant 
 ports or protected harbours. Every day the evidence of 
 the near presence of the enemy became more certain and 
 assumed a more definite form. Our Admiral was con- 
 tinually transferring his flag to smaller and less valuable 
 units. My own experiences were much the same. In 
 the course of a short two months I lived on six different 
 floating homes, drifting gradually down the scale of 
 antiquity. Thus, when the menace from underneath 
 assumed a definite concrete shape, no ships of gi-eat fight- 
 ing value, although many bore historic names, remained 
 off the coast. The remainder of the Fleet, having accom- 
 plished its assigned task in accordance with the prearranged 
 plan, departed for other spheres of activity. Those that 
 remained carried on the old work just as if nothing had 
 happened, and with the same precision and coolness in the 
 face of danger, which is the envy and wonder of the bal- 
 ancing neutrals in the Near East. The Triumph and the 
 Swifisure, the Majestic, the Prince George, the Albion and 
 the Canopus and Corvwallis with Palinure's unaltered 
 
ii8 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 mood, remained at their dangerous posts together with 
 cruisers, destroyers, torpedo-boats and submarines. The 
 spirit of the Navy remains unchanged whatever the 
 dangers which confront it. I do not think I can describe 
 it better than by quoting what was found by the Censor 
 in the letter of a young bluejacket. 
 
 " Mother, it is sometimes very hot out here when the 
 shells are dropping all about you and the submarines are 
 hovering round and you may strike a mine at any minute. 
 At first I was a bit scared, but I remembered the words of 
 the padre last Sunday, when he said, ' Men, men, in times 
 of trial and danger, look upwards.' I did look upwards, 
 
 mother, and if there wasn't a b aeroplane dropping 
 
 bombs on us." 
 
 But the glory which surrounds these great names in 
 our naval history bears no relation to their fighting value. 
 They vary in age from twenty, fifteen, to twelve years 
 of age, and but for the war, would be on the scrap heap, 
 waiting to be sold to the highest bidder. But they have 
 ended their days gloriously and have played their Uttle 
 part in this world- struggle for freedom. The Turk may 
 howl with joy each time he reads that another has gone, 
 and the minarets of a thousand mosques may echo with 
 prayers of thanksgiving to Allah, but the Huns, who do 
 this devil's work for the children of the Prophet, have no 
 such illusions. They know they have not materially 
 weakened our fighting fleet by one iota, any more than 
 they weakened it by sinking women and children on the 
 Lusitania. By attacking the old crippled veterans off 
 the Dardanelles, they were avoiding the real work which 
 alone could save their tottering empire. Like some 
 scared prize-fighter, who will not face the principal in the 
 ring, they creep round it and knock out from time to time 
 an ill-conditioned second whose fighting days are long 
 since over. 
 
 By one of those strange ironies which even the most 
 astute of minds could not have foreseen, all the hard work, 
 dangers and strain of these na^'al operations off tlie Dar- 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 119 
 
 danelles fell not on the young and vigorous manhood 
 of the Fleet, to whom constant risks and fresh excite- 
 ments are as the breath of life, but on the old home- rooted 
 reservists who were called back to the colours to man this 
 auxiUary fleet at the outbreak of war. The ships are the 
 oldest of veterans, and so are their crews. In some of the 
 ships there was hardly an active service rating on the 
 upper deck. There were many men between forty- eight 
 and fifty-six years of age. Nearly all were fathers, and 
 many grandfathers. They had reached that age when, 
 after a hard Ufe at sea, they might reasonably expect to 
 look forward to passing their declining years surrounded 
 by their children and grandchildren, in the happy enjoy- 
 ment of their small pensions, and engaged in the civilian 
 pursuits each may have adopted at the conclusion of his 
 period of active service. This, of course, was an anomaly 
 which could only occur in the English Service. It ought 
 to bring a blush of shame to the cheeks of all those who are 
 still clinging on desperately to civilian Ufe, hoping that 
 peace will come before they are swallowed up in the sea of 
 militarism. Whilst thousands of an age pecuharly eUgible 
 were hanging back, hundreds of fathers and grandfathers 
 were protecting them out at the Dardanelles, working 
 all day and sometimes all night at incessant physical toil, 
 or facing gims, mines and submarines. Yet they did not 
 grumble or complain. Indeed, these veterans deserve 
 well of their country. They have been called back to the 
 colours, leaving everything they hold most dear. Many 
 have perished, and many must perish before the great 
 task is done. 
 
 It was on May 22, 1915, that the actual presence of sub- 
 marines in the neighbourhood of the Dardanelles was 
 proved beyond a shadow of doubt. At this time I was living 
 on the battleship Swiftsure, the flagship of Rear- Admiral 
 Sir Stewart Nicholson, having previously been in turn on 
 the Triumph, London, Implacable and Cornwallis. At 
 1.30 p.m. on May 22, just as we had finished lunch, the 
 periscope of a submarine was sighted by a destroyer and 
 
120 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 also from the battleship Prince George, approaching from 
 the direction of Rabbit Island. The Prince George fired 
 two rounds, which had the effect of making her dive. 
 The danger was imminent, as all the battleships, cruisers 
 and transports were at anchor, and presented a splendid 
 target. Immediately, the destroyers, whose duty it is 
 to guard the Fleet, dashed out at full speed to cover this 
 mass of vessels, throwing up dense columns of black smoke 
 as they increased their speed. They hunted up and down 
 the spot where she had first been sighted, endeavouring to 
 ram her or to force her to rise and disclose her position. 
 
 As if by magic every battleship and every transport 
 in a position to do so, weighed anchor and steamed away 
 at full speed. It was a weird sight, and also had its 
 humorous side ; for a stranger suddenly coming upon 
 the scene might have thought that the whole Fleet had 
 gone mad. Every vessel was steaming about at full 
 speed, not in any fixed course, but describing circles and 
 half- circles, then turning in her tracks or dashing madly 
 to port or starboard, determined at all events not to allow 
 her elusive enemy the chance of a straight shot. But the 
 submarine did not appear again that day, and the alarm 
 having subsided, we returned to our anchorage, whilst 
 the indefatigable destroyers formed a moving cordon 
 round the Fleet. That night all the vessels whose presence 
 off the coast was not essential were ordered to various points 
 for safety, but the Swijtsure remained at her old anchor- 
 age off Cape Helles, together with some of the older battle- 
 ships, whilst the Canopus, Vengeance and Albion patrolled 
 the coast round the Australian positions at Gaba Tepe, 
 but did not anchor. 
 
 The firstfruits of the submarine menace were seen on 
 the following morning, when the battleship Albion went 
 ashore south of Gaba Tepe in a local fog at 4 a.m. As 
 soon as it became light the Turkish field batteries opened 
 up a tremendous bombardment on her, but fortunately they 
 could not bring any heavy guns or howitzers to bear. 
 One of the Turkish battleships up the Straits, probably 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 121 
 
 the Barbarossa, fired a few rounds of 11- inch without 
 scoring a hit, and was herself driven away by one of our 
 battleships. Alarmist reports on the condition of the 
 Albio7i reached us at dawn on the Swift sure, but they 
 fortunately turned out to be without foundation. The 
 Albion was reported to be firm on the bottom and sub- 
 jected to such a terrific fire that it had been decided to 
 abandon her, and to take her crew off in destroyers which 
 were standing by. When the hght became stronger, we 
 on the Swiftsure could see her lying close inland, and the 
 enemy's shrapnel bursting all around her. 
 
 Amongst other vessels which went to her aid was the 
 yacht Triad, which also came in for a heavy fire, and was 
 hit several times. In fact, this yacht. Admiral de Roe- 
 beck's new flagship, without any armour or protection, 
 behaved with the greatest gallantry, as also did the de- 
 stroyers. About 4.30 a.m. the battleship Cayiopus, which 
 has played such a gallant and varied role all over the world 
 in this war, stood in close to the Albion and got a wire 
 hawser aboard, and attempted to tow her off under a very 
 heavy fire, but the cable immediately snapped. Two 
 others were, however, made fast, and the towing recom- 
 menced. The crew of the Albion were all ordered aft 
 and made to jump on the quarter-deck to try and shift 
 her bows off the sandbank ; at the same time the Albion's 
 fore turret and fore 6-inch guns opened up a tremendous 
 bombardment on the Turkish positions to lighten the ship 
 and to try and shift her by the concussion of the guns. For 
 a long time all these efforts were of no avail ; but in the 
 end, at about lo a.m. perseverance and the towing of the 
 Canopus prevailed, and we had the great satisfaction of 
 seeing the two vessels ghde slowl}^ into deep water without 
 either having suffered much harm. The Albion was hit 
 over two hundred times by shrapnel and common shell, 
 which had little or no effect on her thick armour. The 
 casualties amongst the crew were also few. 
 
 The remainder of the day passed without any further 
 definite news of the enemy's submarines, although it was 
 
122 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 reported that one was seen making in the direction of 
 Smyrna, whilst other reports credited her with having 
 gone up the Dardanelles. In fact, no one was sure whether 
 there were two boats or one operating in our midst. That 
 night we remained at our old anchorage off Cape Helles. 
 
 On the following day, May 24, there was an armistice 
 at Gaba Tepe for the burial of the dead, but we had further 
 scares of submarines oft" Southern GaUipoh. Every one 
 was, in fact, on the qui vive, and determined not to be 
 caught napping, so that any object in the water was apt 
 to be taken for a periscope. Thus alarms were caused 
 by floating tins, empty barrels, a waterlogged boat, and 
 more than once by the bodies of dead horses which have an 
 inconvenient and most objectionable habit of floating 
 with one of their legs in the air, which exactly resembles 
 the periscope of a submarine. In connection with the 
 " Dead Horse " scare, Admiral de Roebeck told me an 
 amusing story of a young destroyer commander who 
 brought his boat at full speed into harbour and at once 
 made the following signal to the flagship : " Have just 
 sighted new type of submarine having no less than four 
 periscopes. On my firing at her and I believe hitting her, 
 she immediately proceeded to emit large quantities of 
 poisoned gas ! " 
 
 What, may be asked, was the eftect of these continual 
 alarms on the crews of our ships, and what are the feel- 
 ings of the average individual when he has to pass day 
 after day, night after night, expecting to be blown up by 
 an enemy he cannot even see ? They vary according to 
 the character of the crew. On a ship like the Swijtsure, 
 carrying nearly all active service ratings highly disciplined 
 and as keen as mustard, the whole thing seemed to be 
 regarded as a form of sport. The men actually got up 
 a sweepstake, the winner to be the first man who actually 
 sighted a periscope. There was, in fact, the greatest 
 keenness on board to stamp out these pests. The 14- 
 pounders were kept loaded, with their crews on watch by 
 day and asleep around them at night, ready to fire at a 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 123 
 
 moment's notice. Mixed up with this feeUng of menace 
 and invisible danger, there is also a sense of the ridiculous, 
 which lends a humorous aspect to the affair. You feel 
 so strong and powerful on a battleship solidly protected 
 by armour that it seems unreal and unnatural that a small 
 craft " somewhere under the Mediterranean," manned 
 by about thirty officers and men, should have it in her 
 power to inflict on you a vital injury \vithout any warn- 
 ing. You feel much the same as Gohath must have felt 
 just before the fatal stone came whizzing from David's 
 sling. You have an impression in your mind that although 
 the elusive little beggar may possibly sink another ship, 
 he could never do any harm to the one you are on. Or, 
 at least, this was my feeling until the enemy struck his 
 first deadly blow. Then there is the never- failing amuse- 
 ment caused by the various ways each individual on board 
 provides for his own safety. The number and variety 
 of the lifebelts carried is endless. Some beheve in a collar 
 which is blown out and worn round the neck. Some one 
 else will tell you confidentially that two men, who by way 
 of experiment jumped into the water with these on, both 
 had their necks broken. Others carry belts which resemble 
 bicycle tyres cut in half. You blow these out and tie 
 them round your waist, either on deck or after you have 
 reached the water. But the Gieve waistcoats are the 
 most popular of all. They are an ordinary waistcoat 
 which you can wear under your coat and which, when the 
 emergency arises, you blow out through a tube in the form 
 of a hfebelt all round you. Others declare all hfebelts 
 hamper your movements in the water, and prefer to trust 
 their swimming powers. It is certainly amusing to see 
 a lot of thin officers and men suddenly swelling to gigantic 
 proportions in moments of danger as they quietly blow 
 up their waistcoats underneath their coats. The older 
 crews, consisting chiefly of reservists, feel the strain of 
 this constant submarine menace more than those manned 
 by the active service ratings. WTien you are a father 
 or a grandfather and well over fifty, you do not look for- 
 
124 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 ward with such indifference to the prospect of having your 
 ship suddenly blown up and you, yourself, forced to take 
 a cold bath at any hour of the day or night. 
 
 Events now developed fast. At eight o'clock on the 
 morning of May 25 I was down below on the Swijtsure, 
 when I suddenly heard two 14-pounders fired in rapid 
 succession, and the sound of men running to their stations. 
 On going on deck I found the alarm had been caused by 
 the periscope of a submarine which had appeared on our 
 port bow only three hundred yards away. Our alert 
 gunners did not lose a second, but fired at her and she dis- 
 appeared below the surface. Why she did not discharge 
 a torpedo remains a m3^stery, as she had our ship as a 
 target only three hundred yards off, and also the Majestic 
 and Agamemnon quite close. It is thought she was trying 
 to make the entrance to the Dardanelles, came up bUnd 
 amongst the ships, and was scared by our guns, the small 
 craft, trawlers and destroyers all around her before 
 she could lay on any target. But we all knew we had 
 escaped disaster by a hair's breadth. Of course the alarm 
 was immediately given, and our destroyers were off after 
 her hke a flash. A little later she was reported to be 
 making towards Gaba Tepe. At 10.30 a.m. the battle- 
 ship Vengeance, which was cruising up and down in that 
 direction, reported she had been fired at, but missed : 
 another most lucky escape. There were also rumours of 
 another submarine having been reported off Rabbit 
 Island, so it seemed there were two in the immediate 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 I had occasion to go on shore that morning, and did not 
 return until lunch time. 
 
 We were all at lunch in the wardroom of the Swiffsure 
 when a signalman entered with his cap in his hand and 
 went up to the commander, saying, " Beg pardon, sir, the 
 Triumph is listing." This news came as a thunderbolt, 
 and every one left his luncheon and rushed up on tlie 
 quarter-deck. The news was indeed true. The Triumph 
 was at anchor off the coast in her old position south of 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 125 
 
 Gaba Tepe when she was struck by two torpedoes. Her 
 nets were down at the time, but made not the slightest 
 difference, as both torpedoes either passed through, or 
 else underneath them. Wlicn we reached the deck she 
 was already listing, and it was obvious she would turn 
 right over in a few minutes. On these occasions one 
 battleship is not allowed to go to the assistance of another 
 through fear of being torpedoed by the same submarine, 
 which will probably remain hanging about in the neigh- 
 bourhood, awaiting just such a chance. In any case the 
 Swifisure was at anchor, and we could never have got 
 there in time. When she was struck, there was a trawler 
 and a destroyer quite close to the Triumph, and these 
 two vessels at once went to her assistance to pick up the 
 crew, whom we could see jumping off the side into the 
 water. All the destroyers off Cape Helles, in our neigh- 
 bourhood, also got up steam and dashed at top speed across 
 the ocean, almost blotting out the horizon with the columns 
 of black smoke thrown out by their eager funnels. It was 
 a dramatic sight from the quarter-deck of the Swifisure, 
 and also on the quarter-deck itself. The two vessels are 
 sister ships, having been purchased from Chili to prevent 
 their sale to Russia in the Russo-Japanese war, and we 
 on board all had in mind our narrow escape that very 
 morning when the periscope of this same submarine had 
 arisen within three hundred yards of us. The Admiral 
 came on deck, together with the other officers, and all 
 stood in a silent group behind their chief, gazing at the 
 stricken battleship some four miles away. The scene 
 resembled Orchardson's picture of the " Last Sight of 
 France of Napoleon and his Comrades on Board the Bel- 
 leroplwn." The Triumph was listing more and more over. 
 She seemed to be struggling against some horrid invisible 
 monster which was dragging her slowly down. Elsewhere 
 the scene remained the same. Our guns were bombard- 
 ing the Turkish positions, and theirs were leisurely respond- 
 ing. Off Gaba Tepe you could see the other warships 
 keeping their customary stations, whilst all around us 
 
126 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 at the entrance of the Straits lay our transports and war- 
 ships and those of the French. The thought involuntarily 
 occurred, " Whose turn will come next ? " For seven 
 minutes the group on the deck of the Swiftsure watched 
 the dying struggle of the Triumph in absolute silence. 
 Then suddenly she seemed to grow weary of the hopeless 
 fight against these invisible forces, and exactly eight 
 minutes after being struck, she gave a final roll and turned 
 upside down, her red bottom alone remaining visible. 
 For half an hour we watched her floating bottom upwards, 
 and then suddenly she gave a final plunge and disappeared 
 for ever beneath the waves amidst boiling surf and clouds of 
 steam. " The Triumph has gone," remarked the Admiral, 
 slowly shutting up his telescope and turning on his heel 
 to return to his quarters. The group on the quarter-deck 
 immediately dispersed, each to his own reflections on this 
 tragic event. 
 
 The sinking of the Triumph caused a fresh and very 
 serious problem for the Admiral Commander in Chief. 
 As long as this submarine or submarines remained in the 
 neighbourhood, he could not leave his battleships exposed 
 off the coast to their attacks, whilst at the same time he 
 had to consider the needs of the Army and the amount of 
 artillery support which the General might require to keep 
 down the fire of the Turkish batteries on the European 
 and Asiatic shores. Immediately after the crew of the 
 Triumph, of whom some sixty were drowned, had been 
 picked up and transferred to trawlers, the whole of the 
 available destroyer craft started a tremendous hunt after 
 the enemy. Throughout the early part of the afternoon 
 reports kept on coming in of her movements. First, she 
 was said to be making her way south from Gaba Tepe 
 towards Cape Helles, and every one on the Swiftsure 
 remained on the alert, as we were still at anchor and had 
 no nets, even if these old nets offer any protection, which 
 is extremely doubtful. At 3.30 it was decided to send 
 the Swiftsure back to the protected harbour Mudros, and 
 for the Admiral to transfer his flag to the twenty-year-old 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 127 
 
 Majestic, which was now the only battleship left off Cape 
 Helles. She lay at anchor a few hundred yards from us 
 with her nets down. It took a very short time to transfer 
 the Admiral's baggage to his new quarters, and after bid- 
 ding farewell to the officers of the Swiftsure he was rowed 
 across to the Majestic, and the Swiftsure shortly afterwards 
 disappeared at top speed, reaching her new destination 
 without mishap. 
 
 The Admiral took me with him to his new flagship. 
 The Majestic was the oldest British man-of-war at the 
 Dardanelles, having been launched just over twenty years 
 ago. Then she was the pride of the British Fleet, the envy 
 of all foreign nations, and at once became flagship of 
 the Channel Squadron. For years, in fact, she remained 
 a flagship until superseded by vessels of superior power. 
 But her glory had long since departed, and for several 
 years before the present war she had been practically on 
 the scrap heap, and was actually waiting to be sold out 
 of the service at the commencement of the present struggle. 
 But necessity knows no age hmit. WTien the expedition 
 to the Dardanelles was decided upon, she was refitted and 
 a crew, consisting chiefly of old reservists, was placed on 
 board her, whilst most of her officers were also drawn from 
 the R.N.R. Out in the Mediterranean she had done her 
 full share of work up the Straits and bombarding the 
 enemy's positions. In fact, it may be said of her, as was 
 said of Cicero, " Nothing in her hfe became her as her end." 
 Now, for the last forty- eight hours of her existence, owing 
 to the immense influence of hostile submarines on naval 
 operations, the old Majestic, the veteran of the Fleet, 
 after twenty- five years of laborious and honourable ser- 
 vice all over the world, found herself once more a flag- 
 ship proudly flying the Rear- Admiral's flag, and the only 
 battleship left off Cape Helles to protect our army ashore, 
 and to brave the terrors of the enemy's submarines. 
 
 That afternoon the Vice- Admiral came down to Cape 
 Helles to hold a consultation with the Rear-Admiral, 
 and the two Commanders met, the one on the Majestic 
 
128 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 and the other on a small yacht, the Triad, bought from a 
 resident of Constantinople earher in the war. Such is the 
 malign influence exercised by submarines ! Throughout 
 the afternoon of May 25 our destroyers kept up their unceas- 
 ing chase of the hostile craft or crafts. They were sighted 
 more than once beneath the surface, but at too great a 
 depth to ram, and after 4.40 p.m. were seen no more. 
 Throughout the day the old Majestic remained defiantly 
 at her post, with the Admiral's flag proudly flying from 
 her foremast. At eight o'clock that evening we were told 
 we were not to remain at anchor off Cape Helles, but were 
 to run to shelter to the protected island of Imbros. 
 Escorted by four destroyers, we dashed at top speed across 
 the moonlit ocean, the old vessel doing wonderful time 
 considering her age and the wear on her engines. In fact, 
 some one remarked, " She never did as well as this on her 
 original trials." That night, at midnight, there was 
 another scare that the enemy's submarines were trying to 
 get through the boom. The crew were called to their 
 stations, but the alarm came to naught, and probably 
 only belonged to the vivid and harassed imaginations of 
 those on the destroyers guarding the entrance. 
 
 On the following day, the last of her existence, the 
 Majestic returned to her old anchorage off Cape Helles, 
 to resume her chaperoning of the troops on shore. I do 
 not think we had any submarine scares that day, and 
 towards evening there seemed to be a general feeling that 
 at any rate for the time being the enemy had been driven 
 off or forced to retire to some base for oil and stores. 
 But every one on board felt our security was only tempo- 
 rary, and that very shortly the submarines would again 
 show their periscopes in our neighbourhood. That even- 
 ing. May 26, we did not go back to a sheltered port, but 
 moved in closer to the shore in front of Lancashire Landing, 
 so that instead of being outside the Hues of transports, we 
 were actually anchored inside the outer line in a position 
 where it would be extremely difficult for a submarine to 
 get a clear shot at us. I remember remarking at the time, 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 129 
 
 ' that in former days the British Navy protected British 
 Commerce, but that now owing to the presence of sub- 
 marines, British Commerce had to protect the British 
 Navy." 
 
 Now that I come to describe the last hours of the poor old 
 Majestic, I can only tell the story of what my own experiences 
 were, and of what I saw of the vessel and crew when she 
 finally plunged to her doom. Personally, although we had 
 moved so close in shore and inside the outer line of trans- 
 ports, I felt no great sense of security and was perfectly 
 certain that the end might come at any moment. For that 
 reason I had not slept in my cabin for several nights, neither 
 did I on the Swiftsure, but had my mattress carried up on 
 deck, having long since made up my mind to get off the 
 ship the moment she was struck and swim as far away as 
 possible before she turned over and made her final plunge. 
 As I do not profess to be a great swimmer, I was deter- 
 mined not to get mixed up on her decks or dragged down 
 by the suction. That night we sat up rather later than 
 usual in the wardroom, and feeling the end was near, we 
 drank the few remaining bottles of champagne on board. 
 I was just retiring to rest when I met the Principal Medical 
 Officer, who asked me if I had a Hfebelt. I was the pos- 
 sessor of one of those which resemble bicycle tyres and 
 kept it blown up in my cabin, but it was inchned to leak, 
 so I told the P.M.O. I could do with another. He pre- 
 sented me with a similar one, only quite new. In fact, 
 it had never been blown out. 
 
 I then retired to my cabin, undressed, put a little money 
 in notes in my pocket, carefully wrapped up all my invalu- 
 able notes I had made on the campaign in a waterproof 
 coat, and placed them in a small leather bag, which unfor- 
 tunately I left below and did not take with me on deck. 
 It was a beautiful night, clear and bright, with the sea as 
 calm as a lake. I went up on the after shelter deck which 
 is just above the after turret, where my mattress had been 
 placed, lay down and was soon soundly asleep. I do not 
 think I woke up once during the night and slept soundly 
 
 I 
 
130 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 until 6.15, when I called out to the sentry, " What's the 
 time? " he replied, " 6.15, sir." So I turned over and 
 went to sleep again. The subsequent times I learnt after 
 the catastrophe, as they were all taken from the shore. 
 It was at 6.40 that I was aroused by men rushing by me, 
 and some one trod on or stumbled against my chest. This 
 awoke me, and I called out, " What's the matter ? " A 
 voice replied from somewhere, " There's a torpedo coming." 
 I just had time to scramble to my feet when there came a 
 dull heavy explosion about fifteen feet forward of the 
 shelter deck on the port side. The explosion must have 
 been very low down, as there was no shock from it to be 
 felt on deck. The old Majestic immediately gave a jerk 
 over towards port and remained with a heavy Hst. Then 
 there came a sound as if the contents of every pantry in 
 the world had fallen at the same moment. I never before 
 heard such a clattering, as everything loose in her tumbled 
 about. You could tell at once she had been mortally 
 wounded somewhere in her vitals, and you felt instinctively 
 she would not long stay afloat. 
 
 Although I had been prepared for days for just such an 
 emergency, the actual realization came as a great shock. 
 However, having mapped out my programme in advance, 
 I proceeded to carry it through. I stooped down to pick 
 up my lifebelt, and then to my intense disgust I discovered 
 it was not blown out. When the Principal Medical Officer 
 presented it to me on the previous evening I had intended 
 to do so, but must have forgotten all about it. Thus the 
 first part of my plan, namely not to take the water unless 
 encircled by a good belt, was at once knocked on the head. 
 I decided not to lose any time over it now, but to get off 
 the ship at once as she was listing more over and seemed 
 likely to turn turtle at any moment. I was swept down 
 the ladder to the main deck by the crowd rushing by me, 
 and from there made my way aft to the quarter-deck. 
 The quarter-deck was crowded with men nearly all dressed, 
 and many wearing lifebelts who were climbing over the 
 side and jumping into the sea», all determined to get clear 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 131 
 
 before she went down. Just after the explosion a cloud 
 of black smoke came up and got down my throat and in 
 my eyes, so that all this time I seemed to be in semi-dark- 
 ness. I looked over the side and saw that I was clear of 
 the torpedo nets and then climbed over, intending to 
 slide down a stanchion into the water and then swim clear. 
 But again my programme was upset by unforeseen events, 
 for just as I had both legs over the rail there came a rush 
 from behind and I was pushed over the side, falHng with 
 considerable force on to the net shelf, which is where 
 the nets are stowed when not out. I made no long stay 
 on the net shelf, but at once rebounded into the sea and 
 went under. I came up at once still holding my useless 
 belt, and having got some of the water out of my eyes, 
 took a look round. The sea was crowded with men swim- 
 ming about and calling for assistance. I think that many 
 of these old reservists, who formed the majority of the 
 crew, had forgotten how to swim or else had lost all faith 
 in their own powers. A few yards from me I saw a boat, 
 towards which every one in the water seemed to be making. 
 She was already packed with men, whilst others were 
 hanging on to her gunwale. I swam towards her, mixed 
 up with a struggHng crowd, and managed to get both hands 
 firmly on the gunwale, but it was impossible to drag my- 
 self on board. I looked round at the Majestic, which 
 was l}dng only a few yards away at an acute angle, and 
 I remember thinking that if she turned right over, our 
 boat would probable be dragged under with her. It is 
 very tiring work hanging on by both hands with your feet 
 trailing in the water, and I was beginning to wonder 
 whether I should not be wiser to let go and swim aw-ay, 
 when my right foot caught in what is known as a " man- 
 grip " on the bilge keel. This is a small sUt in the keel 
 which enables you to hang on in the event of the boat 
 being overturned. This gave me a lot of additional sup- 
 port, and I felt much more comfortable. A minute later,, 
 or even less, a sailor leaned over the side, seized me by 
 \he shoulders and dragged me inside,, scraping ths little. 
 
132 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 remaining skin I had saved from the fall on the net shelf 
 off my legs and arms. However, at the time I was too 
 delighted to find myself on board to notice such minor 
 trials. I then had time to look round. The boat was 
 absolutely packed with men. She was a small cutter 
 intended to carry, at the most, thirty, and eventually 
 ninety-four were taken off her. We were sitting on one 
 another, others were standing up and many were still 
 clinging on to the gunwale begging to be taken on board, 
 which was of course out of the question. 
 
 The Majestic now presented an extraordinary spectacle. 
 She was lying over on her side, having such a list that 
 it was no longer possible to stand on her deck. About 
 one-third of the crew still seemed to be hanging on to the 
 rails or standing on her side as if hesitating to jump into 
 the sea. All around the sea was full of men, some sum- 
 ming towards neighbouring ships, others apparently 
 having their work cut out to keep themselves afloat. All 
 the vessels in the neighbourhood were lowering boats, and 
 many steam launches were hastening to pick up survivors, 
 but they did not dare stand in too close for fear of being 
 dragged under in the final plunge. I was just thinking 
 what a magnificent photograph the scene would make, 
 when some one called out, " If you don't loose that rope 
 you will be dragged under." I am told it was Captain 
 Talbot, who was still hanging on to the quarter-deck, 
 saw the danger we were in and gave the warning just 
 in time. For in the general confusion we had not noticed 
 that our boat was attached by a rope to the end of 
 the torpedo boom. In fact, she belonged to the Majestic, 
 and had been lying out all night. This discovery caused 
 great excitement on board, and many, to escape this 
 imminent disaster, preferred to entrust themselves once 
 more to the sea, jumping overboard with oars in their 
 hands. I was hesitating whether to follow suit, when 
 some one in the bows managed to clear or cut the rope 
 and we were free. A very few seconds later the Majestic 
 rolled right over to port and sank bottom upwards like a 
 
THE COMING OF GERMAN SUBMARINES 133 
 
 great stone, without any further warning. There came a 
 dull, rumbling sound, a swirl of water and steam, for a 
 moment her green bottom was exposed to view, and then 
 the old flagsliip disappeared for ever, except for a small 
 piece of her ram which remained above water as her bows 
 were lying on a shallow sandbank. As she turned over 
 and sank, a sailor ran the whole length of her keel and 
 finally sat astride the ram, where he was subsequently 
 taken off without even getting a wetting. The final 
 plunge was so sad, but grand, that for a few seconds you 
 forgot about the large numbers of officers and men who 
 were still clinging to her like limpets when she went down. 
 
 Some were dragged down by the fatal nets before they 
 could get clear, others were probably killed inside by the 
 explosion. Nevertheless the loss of life was small, num- 
 bering only fifty. This was due to the fact that most 
 of the men had hfebelts. The majority had time to clear 
 the ship before she turned over ; we were anchored in 
 shallow water, so the suction was small, and, above all, 
 assistance was promptly forthcoming from the numerous 
 ships, boats and launches which hastened to pick up those 
 strugghng in the water. The final plunge was watched 
 by thousands of troops on shore and by thousands of men 
 afloat. It was a sight which will not easily be forgotten. 
 Captain Talbot, the moment the ship was struck, rushed 
 forward with his Yeoman of Signals to seize and either 
 save or destroy the Confidential Signal Book. This was 
 accomphshed, and then when the ship went down, he 
 was thrown into the water but was picked up by a launch. 
 Then, seeing two of his men in danger of dro\\Tiing, he 
 plunged into the sea again and saved them both. 
 
 Of course it was impossible to tell until late in the day 
 who had been saved and who had been dro%\'ned, as the 
 survivors were picked up by various boats and taken to 
 different ships or on shore, and subsequently transferred 
 to Mudros Bay. But happily every officer got clear, 
 including Admiral Sir Stewart Nicholson. I was taken on 
 board a French ship, together with the ninety survivors 
 
134 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 from this crowded cutter, where we were received with 
 every kindness and attention. Dry clothes were served 
 out to us. and we were given coffee and brandy by our 
 generous AlHes. 
 
 By a merciful dispensation of Providence, in the case 
 of neither the Triumph nor the Majestic did the magazines 
 blow up, otherwise there would have been hardly any 
 survivors. As it was, owing to the prompt assistance 
 forthcoming, the loss of life on both vessels was small and 
 was chiefly due to the cause I have already mentioned ; 
 namely, men being dragged down in the nets when they 
 took the final plunge. 
 
VIII 
 Our Destroyers, Trawlers and Monitors 
 
 THE arrival of the submarine as an active factor in 
 naval warfare has entirely altered the pecuhar r61e 
 which the different units composing a fleet were supposed 
 to play when they were originally designed. Battleships 
 and great cruisers can no longer command the sea by 
 strength of numbers and weight of armament. Even 
 light cruisers nominally intended for commerce destroy- 
 ing, protection of trade routes, and as scouts, are frequently 
 exposed to danger from submarines. Nevertheless, 
 battleships and cruisers are still the final court of appeal 
 between nations, and the most responsible duty which 
 now falls to the light craft cruisers, destroyers and tor- 
 pedo-boats is not attacking the enemy's ships, but pro- 
 tecting their own battle squadrons against under-water 
 attack. 
 
 The torpedo-boat was originally intended as the gi-eat 
 offensive weapon against armoured ships — a weapon 
 which might be of supreme value in the hands of a weaker 
 power, and enable her to weaken a stronger adversary 
 sufficiently to allow of a general action between the fleets 
 on even or more even terms. But modern gunnery has 
 already rendered the torpedo-boat obsolete for the pur- 
 pose for which she was originally constructed. There 
 are very few instances in the course of this war in which 
 a battleship or a cruiser has been sunk by a torpedo fired 
 by an above- water craft. There was the case of the unfor- 
 tunate Goliath, which was torpedoed three times by a 
 Turkish destroyer manned by a German crew on the night 
 
 135 
 
136 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 of May 13 in the Dardanelles, and also some cases in the 
 Battle of Jutland. 
 
 Destroyers were originally intended as the main weapon 
 of defence against torpedo-boats, but very soon developed 
 into an equally effective weapon of offensive on account 
 of their greater speed and ocean-going quahties. But 
 as in the case of torpedo-boats, they have been rendered 
 inoperative for this purpose by the precision of modern 
 gunnery. The outbreak of war soon showed, however, 
 that the destroyer was the only effective available anti- 
 dote to submarine attack, and although by no means a 
 perfect or ideal defence, it is the best available, and has 
 performed immense service during the war. 
 
 The amount of work accompHshed by the destroyer 
 flotilla in the Eastern Mediterranean and before the Dar- 
 danelles has been stupendous, but their labours are little 
 known to the public, although fully recognized by the 
 Army and the Navy. Their work started with the escape 
 of the Goeben and the Breslau from the Dardanelles, and 
 the subsequent return of those two vessels to Turkish 
 waters turned out to be one of the most unfortunate inci- 
 dents in our naval history. But the blame cannot be 
 laid on our destroyers, who never lost touch with the enemy 
 during the whole of his short outing. Their next job was 
 to watch the Austrian Fleet, and to patrol the Adriatic 
 and the Eastern Mediterranean. But it was only when 
 Turkey declared war that their most arduous task com- 
 menced. Throughout the winter months it fell to their 
 lot to keep up an incessant patrol off the Dardanelles and 
 along the Asiatic coast. These months will never be for- 
 gotten by those who took part in the operations. In all 
 weathers, tossed about by terrible gales, with their decks 
 never dry for weeks at a stretch, they kept up their inces- 
 sant vigil on the Straits, Asiatic coast, and neighbouring 
 islands. At times, issuing from under the lea of Tenedos, 
 they would steam to the entrance of the Straits in howling 
 storms which blotted everything from view a hundred 
 yards away. Once in the mouth of the Channel, the four- 
 
DESTROYERS. TRAWLERS, AND MONITORS 137 
 
 knot current and east wind would sweep down with such 
 force that they were only able to maintain their stations 
 by steaming ten knots ahead, such was the strength of 
 the combined elements. Lying in the trough of the sea, 
 these small craft would roll and plunge until even the 
 most experienced seamen became sick from sheer exhaus- 
 tion. The decks were continually swept by huge seas, 
 no one on board could keep dry, and the galley fires could 
 not be kept alight. The bitter cold frequently covered 
 the decks and bridge with sheetings of ice, and froze stiff 
 the oilskins of the crew. Nevertheless, in spite of these 
 awful conditions, the destroyer flotillas and their gallant 
 crews never for a moment relaxed their grip on the Eastern 
 Mediterranean and the Dardanelles. Never, even in the 
 old days before Brest and Toulon, did our officers and men 
 show greater determination or suffer greater hardships. 
 
 With the coming of the spring, the material conditions 
 improved with the return of the fine weather and the 
 bright sunshine, but the work of the destroyers became 
 even harder with the commencement of active operations 
 against the Dardanelles. On February 19, our Fleet, 
 which had gradually assembled, commenced the bom- 
 bardment of the outer forts. No sooner had these works 
 been destroyed, than the destroyers and trawlers com- 
 menced the great task of sweeping the outer channel for 
 mines. This had to be carried out under a heavy fire 
 from the forts and concealed batteries who were firing 
 shells of all calibres. Many of the boats were struck and 
 suffered heavy casualties. When it was decided to make 
 the great attempt to force the Dardanelles with the Fleet 
 alone, without waiting for the Army, the work of pre- 
 paring the way fell to the destroyers. Day after day 
 they entered the Straits sweeping the lower minefield, 
 covered by certain battleships told off for this purpose. 
 In spite of the most heroic exertions, the current was so 
 strong and the difficulties so great that the task seemed 
 almost insurmountable. It is characteristic of the Navy 
 that a desperate expedient was then decided on to over- 
 
138 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 come these obstacles. The destroyers were ordered to 
 tow the mine- sweepers above the minefield during the 
 night and then allow them to drift down with the current, 
 thus sweeping with, instead of against, the tide. The 
 difficulties and dangers of this enterprise are at once 
 apparent, for the channel is under a mile wide and the 
 work could only be carried on under the rays of numerous 
 powerful searchlights backed by all the guns in the forts. 
 On the nights of March ii, 12 and 13 efforts were thus 
 made to clear a passage for the battleships. 
 
 Many of the destroyers were struck, and many officers 
 and men killed. There is absolutely no cover on a 
 destroyer. She is a thin steel shell, which the smallest 
 shell will perforate, and the only protection for those 
 on her decks even from shrapnel and machine-gun fire, 
 are feeble barricades of rope hung round the bridges. 
 The Turks soon tumbled to the new plan, and on the 
 night of March 13 they allowed the flotilla to come right 
 through the minefield without firing a shot or showing a 
 light. Then when they had turned and were engaged in 
 getting out the sweeps, they suddenly switched on their 
 searchlights and opened up a terrible fusillade from every 
 available gun. There was nothing for it except for all 
 the destroyers to get back as quickly as possible out 
 of this tornado of shot and shell. 
 
 P^On the day of the great attempt to force the Straits, 
 on March 18, the destroyers played a secondary role in the 
 actual fighting, but they did splendid work sweeping ahead 
 of the battleships, and were responsible for saving the 
 lives of the crews of the Bouvet, Irresistible and Ocean. 
 They took the crews of the latter two ships off under a 
 heavy fire, and were fortunate enough to escape any serious 
 damage. 
 
 The definite failure of this attack ushered in the era 
 of land operations, and the Fleet was temporarily with- 
 drawn to Tenedos and Mudros, but the change brought 
 no respite to the tireless flotillas. They continued to 
 patrol the Asiatic coast, the entrance of the Straits, and 
 
DESTROYERS, TRAWLERS, AND MONITORS 139 
 
 to sweep the lower waters so as to keep them clear of float- 
 ing mines. In spite of their vigilance, a torpedo-boat 
 managed to escape from the Dardanelles under cover of 
 night and attempted to sink one of the transports com- 
 ing from Alexandria. How that ship miraculously 
 escaped, and the subsequent chase of our destroyers which 
 ended in the enemy running ashore, are well known. 
 Almost every day a destroyer would enter the Strait and 
 make a reconnaissance high up under heavy fire. This 
 was both exciting and trying work. 
 
 The next great service rendered by these craft was on 
 the historic day of the landing, April 25. Each destroyer 
 had a definite station assigned to her in the great drama, 
 at the different landings. Their r61e was to carry close 
 inshore the second batch of infantry who were to support 
 the first landing parties put ashore in the boats and steam 
 pinnaces of the battleships. The destroyers were filled 
 with troops at Mudros and followed the landing and cover- 
 ing battleships to Helles and Gaba Tepe. No one will 
 ever forget the sight as these long low craft packed with 
 khaki figures crept in closer and closer to the shore, com- 
 ing under rifle and shrapnel and machine-gun fire, losing 
 men before they could reach their objectives, but never 
 hesitating and only stopping to discharge their Hving 
 cargoes into boats, when the shallow water prohibited a 
 further advance. Throughout those early days the de- 
 stroyers were kept incessantly busy landing troops, cover- 
 ing exposed wings, and keeping guard in the Straits to 
 stop any of the enemy's torpedo- craft from making a 
 sudden raid on our flanking ships or great fleet of trans- 
 ports which then lay at anchor discharging their men 
 and stores off Seddul Behr. 
 
 A destroyer is a friend to every one in distress. She 
 can move so quickly and twist and turn so nimbly that 
 she is ever first on the spot to lend a helping hand. One 
 day, two of our transports lying locked close to Y Beach 
 were suddenly opened on by a Turkish field battery, and 
 in a few minutes were hit thirty times. The steam winch 
 
140 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 of one having been injured, she could not raise her anchor. 
 Immediately a destroyer dashed to their assistance, plac- 
 ing her frail form between them and the enemy, and emit- 
 ting great clouds of black smoke from her funnels to 
 provide a screen against the gunners. At the same time 
 she lowered a boat to pick up a panic-stricken member 
 of the crew who had leaped overboard. A tornado of 
 shells ploughed up the sea all around her, and it seemed 
 a miracle how she escaped. But there she remained, 
 guarding the two transports until they could get under 
 way and out of range. In addition to their work at the 
 Straits, other divisions of the flotilla were engaged in 
 patrolling the sea between Alexandria and Mudros, pro- 
 tecting the transports in watching Smyrna, and also in 
 keeping an eye on the highway between Malta and the 
 islands. Every night during these operations, patrols 
 stayed up the Dardanelles to guard the covering ships, 
 protecting the right wing of the French Army off Morto 
 Bay. Nevertheless, on a pitch black night, one of the 
 enemy's destroyers was able to drift down on the current, 
 pass our patrols and torpedo the unfortunate Goliath. 
 
 The amount of work which fell to the destroyers during 
 the summer was incalculable. I have never seen a de- 
 stroyer at anchor anywhere for more than a few hours at a 
 time. They remind you of a pack of hounds going through 
 coverts when a submarine has been sighted or reported. 
 Suddenly they break into full cry with their muzzles glued 
 to the ground peering beneath the surface for the hidden 
 foe. Then after a long chase backwards and forwards, 
 they force him to earth and then sit down outside his lair 
 to wait until he comes up again in search of a fresh victim. 
 There is something peculiarly fascinating in watching 
 these long, low black craft at work. The way they can 
 turn is amazing. A destroyer going at top speed will 
 suddenly swing round in her own length, almost raising 
 her bows out of the water just like a racing automobilist 
 who hfts his front wheels right off the ground when turn- 
 ing a corner. Having these craft everywhere about gives 
 
DESTROYERS. TRAWLERS. AND MONITORS 141 
 
 you a great feeling of confidence when you are forced 
 to take a passage in a trawler or transport to get from 
 one island to another, or from one beach to another. You 
 know that if you are submarined or sunk by a shell, or 
 swamped by a wave, half a dozen of these craft will come 
 up like greased lightning from nowhere, and pick you up 
 almost before you have had time to get wet. Destroyers 
 pick up everybody and ever^iihing that falls overboard. 
 They are like the Salvage Corps of the London Fire Brigade, 
 and always manage to save everything that is to be saved. 
 But here I must leave these wonderful craft with their 
 gallant crews and their record of splendid work. Whether 
 patrolling the coast or examining sailing craft for oil and 
 arms or dashing up the Dardanelles, or chasing a sub- 
 marine or protecting transports, or bombarding the enemy's 
 trenches, they are always the same. Speed and efficiency 
 is their motto. Their crews have a terrible time in the 
 winter. They work for every odd minute of each 
 twenty- four hoiu"s. WTien millions at home are com- 
 fortably sleeping in their warm beds, when hundreds 
 of thousands of soldiers are crouching in the trenches 
 trying to obtain some warmth and shelter, our destroyers 
 in the Eastern Mediterranean stand like sentinels before 
 the mouth of the Straits washed by enormous seas, 
 tossed to and fro like cork, encrusted with ice and 
 exposed to the full force of wind, rain and snow. A 
 horrible life which only men of iron can stand. But 
 their crews will never fail us. They will never let go 
 the iron grip they have obtained on the tottering 
 Turkish Empire, and every time a shivering Turk looks 
 over his parapet from Europe or Asia, he will see these 
 grim sentinels of fate shooting forth their long streaks of 
 white light, and perhaps at length come to realize how 
 hopeless it is in the long run to contend against a nation 
 that possesses undisputed command of all the seas and 
 oceans of the world. 
 
 " What would King Garge 'ave done without these 'ere 
 trawler^ ? " 
 
142 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 This was the historic remark of a West Country skipper 
 as he gazed round the ^gean Sea from the bridge of his 
 trawler, when the submarine scare was at its height, and 
 before the monitors had appeared to take the place of the 
 cruisers and battleships. The West Countryman had 
 ample justification for his remark and every reason to 
 be proud of his craft and the hundreds of others, almost 
 exactly similar to her, which have played such a unique 
 and invaluable role in the Dardanelles Expedition. 
 
 From the latter part of May until the middle of July 
 the Narrow Seas were left almost entirely to the care of 
 the destroyer flotillas and trawlers. There were not 
 nearly enough of the former to protect all our lines of 
 communication in the Mediterranean from the raids of 
 the enemy's submarines. The trawlers had therefore 
 to assist. Their work was divided into two categories, 
 namely, patrolling, and carrying supplies and troops from 
 the base at Mudros to the various beaches of Gallipoli. 
 Probably for the first time in their lives, the majority of 
 our officers and men, both soldiers and sailors, out at the 
 Dardanelles, were brought into touch with our great fish- 
 ing fleet from the North Sea and from the West coast. 
 From time to time during peace, an article appears in 
 the Press or in some illustrated magazine, describing the 
 life led by this hardy race of seamen off the Dogger Bank, 
 off the north coast of Scotland, or far south of the Scilly 
 Isles. But the majority of the pubhc have httle or no 
 acquaintance with our fishing fleet or with the types of 
 men who keep England supplied with fish in normal times. 
 It was my first experience of them, and one of the most 
 agreeable recollections of the Dardanelles Expedition 
 will be the many happy hours I have spent on these traw- 
 lers going from one island to another or from beach to 
 beach, listening to the tales of the North Sea told me by 
 the skippers and mates of these mysterious craft brought 
 at a moment's notice from the cold waters of the North 
 to the sunny Mediterranean. They are a magnificent 
 race of men» brought up in a hard school and deU^hted 
 
DESTROYERS. TRAWLERS. AND MONITORS 143 
 
 at the opportunity of serving the Empire alongside of the 
 Fleet. 
 
 Their craft are extremely uncomfortable, but built 
 to withstand the gales of the North Sea and the Atlantic, 
 they can go out in any weather. The first trawlers were 
 brought out to the Mediterranean to be employed in 
 sweeping the Dardanelles for mines, and to prepare a 
 passage for our pre-Dreadnought Fleet to force the Narrows. 
 For the sake of those who have never seen one, I will 
 endeavour to describe one of these craft. They have a 
 high bow, their decks taper down amidships and rise again 
 at the stern. In the centre is a sort of armoured citadel 
 for the engines, captain's cabin, and the cookhouse. 
 The crew, who generally number eight or nine, Uve for- 
 ward down below in very cramped quarters. The whole 
 of the bows is utilized as a hold for carr^-ing fish, and the 
 entrance to it is obtained through a hatch. Aft, the 
 fishing gear is stored, the ship's stores and all spare gear. 
 The bridge is very high in front of the wheel-house where 
 the helmsman can keep under cover. They have two 
 mcLSts, a single funnel, and can do ten knots at a pinch. 
 Thus, when battened down, the seas can sweep right over 
 the decks, leaving the Httle steel citadel fairly dry. The 
 captain and the crew work on a percentage basis of the 
 value of the fish caught, but the mate and engineer are 
 paid fixed salaries. Every trawler is distinctive, and 
 the whole character of the crew and of the Ufe on board 
 depends on the captain. These skippers are types who 
 seem to have survived from an age long since gone by, 
 and to have stepped out of the works of Marryat and other 
 writers of the early part of the nineteenth centur^^ You 
 can always tell a North Sea trawler from a West Country 
 one. The North Sea skippers seem sterner and more 
 taciturn, whereas the West Countr^inen, mostly Devon- 
 shire men, seem more genial and loquacious. The types 
 have probably arisen from the conditions which each 
 have had to face for many long years in baffling with the 
 elements. All aie, however., delightfijUv independeal 
 
144 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 and express their views on things in general in a manner 
 which makes Naval officers tremble for the discipline of 
 the Service. They love to criticize everything. In talk- 
 ing of their lives in time of peace, they criticize their owners, 
 the middleman who buys their fish, and even the very fish 
 they catch. At the Dardanelles they loved to hold forth 
 on the strategy of the campaign, on the disposition of the 
 Fleet, on the orders of the Admiral, and on the Royal 
 Navy in general, which is, of course, their pet subject 
 for adverse comment. I have never yet seen a trawler 
 take an order from any admiral or captain which was 
 not received with a volley of mild oaths from the skipper, 
 followed by an eloquent lecture on how much better it 
 would be to accomplish the same thing in a different man- 
 ner. But nevertheless, I am not hinting that there was 
 any real in- discipline, for the orders were always carried 
 out, but generally in a manner which was never intended; 
 
 The trawlers love short cuts. It took them a long 
 time to become accustomed to the masses of nets laid down 
 at the Dardanelles to trap the enemy's submarines. They 
 hated to go round them, and much preferred to sail right 
 through them, and frequent were the furious signals that 
 flew across the ocean, and the damage and depredations 
 committed by these craft. I remember some of them 
 from an infuriated admiral or captain : " WiU you warn 
 
 Trawler No. to sail through the entrance to K 
 
 harbour, and not over the top of the nets as she is in the 
 
 habit of doing ? " " Will you warn Trawler No. 
 
 to be more careful when raising her anchor ? Two days 
 in succession she has carried away the Suvla Bay cable." 
 
 But of course these are merely incidents of the cam- 
 paign. The skipper of a trawler never will admit that 
 any officer in the Navy is a real seaman. They will stoutly 
 maintain that seamanship is a lost art which can now 
 only be found amongst themselves, and they love to hold 
 forth on the handling of great battleships as they make 
 their way into narrow harbours or take up difficult anchor- 
 ages, pointing out how much better they could have done 
 
DESTROYERS. TR^WVLERS, AND MONITORS 145 
 
 the job themselves. They love to grumble at everything, 
 and without a grievance they would be miserable. They 
 complained bitterly of the food, missing the fish of the North 
 Sea, and grumbled at the barrenness of the Mediterranean. 
 In fact, some of them at periods had rather a hard 
 time, living on bully beef and biscuits, an occasional 
 frozen joint, and vast quantities of sweet tea. Rum 
 was scarce, and only obtainable at long intervals. There 
 are now parent ships for trawlers which supply them with 
 bread and fresh meat and other necessities whenever 
 obtainable, but in the early days they had to replenish 
 their stores from any battleship which happened to be in 
 the neighbourhood. Now some captains were kinder 
 to them than others. On some they knew they could 
 obtain almost anything they wanted, whereas on others 
 it was more difficult to get the paymaster to part. But 
 the vn\y skippers soon got to know what they called a 
 " generous ship " from a " stuffy " one. 
 \^ At one time I was on a battleship that enjoyed the 
 highest reputation of all amongst the trawler community. 
 The captain always invited the skippers on board and 
 regaled them with whisky and soda, beer and port, while 
 the purser was parting with the best of everything to 
 the crew above. Thus the attentions of the trawlers 
 finally became somewhat embarrassing, for wherever we 
 lay at anchor, towards sundown, from all points of the 
 compass when their day's work was done, you saw these 
 little craft making for our ship, racing one another to be 
 the first alongside, the skippers on the bridges speaking- 
 tubes at their mouths, and a hard luck story to be let off 
 the moment they got within decisive range, whilst dovm 
 below on the deck the trawler's cook could be seen tying 
 an empty rum jar to a rope, ready to fling on board to be 
 caught by an eager and generous crew, and returned 
 later full from the ship's stores. 
 
 But few have any conception of the amount of work 
 accomplished by these craft. In fact, it would have been 
 almost impossible to have kept the Army supplied with- 
 
 K 
 
146 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 out them. Between the bombardment of the outer forts 
 on February 25 and the great combined attack made by 
 the whole Fleet on March 18, many of the trawlers were 
 engaged in the most difficult and dangerous work of endea- 
 vouring to sweep the Straits of mines. The strength of 
 the current and the consequent sagging of the nets made 
 this an extremely difficult task, and the results were 
 disappointing. On March 11, 12 and 13 efforts were 
 made during the night to sweep the minefield below the 
 Narrows, and many of the trawlers were hit and suffered 
 casualties. Some kept their regular crews during this 
 dangerous work, and others were manned by volunteer 
 crews from the Fleet and were placed in charge of lieu- 
 tenants and sub-Heutenants. Unfortunately the enemy's 
 fire was too severe, and it was found impossible to clear 
 the minefield, and after the failure of the attack of March 18, 
 sweeping operations were abandoned. After that time 
 the work of the trawlers was divided into two classes. 
 Some were employed in patrolling for submarines in con- 
 junction with the destroyer flotillas and others kept up 
 an uninterrupted service of supplies from Mudros and 
 Imbros to the various beaches in Gallipoli. The trawlers on 
 patrol duty had a small 3-pounder gun mounted on a 
 small platform forward, and were often under the command 
 of Naval officers or R.N.R. Ueutenants. They went far 
 afield, searching the coasts of the islands for possible 
 hostile bases, and examining every sailing ship which 
 came within the war zone. They had orders to ram 
 any submarine or anything they imagined to be a 
 submarine without hesitation, and many were the 
 reports and scares that failed to materialize. The 
 trawlers engaged in transport duty had perhaps the 
 harder time of the two. They left Mudros laden with 
 biscuits, fresh meat, tinned meat, live goats for the Gurkhas, 
 ammunition, and a hundred and one other articles which 
 an army requires for its daily use. Piled on the top of 
 this mass of goods and live stock, officers and soldiers took 
 passages to and back from the front. It was no uncom- 
 
DESTROYERS, TRAWLERS, AND MONITORS 147 
 
 mon sight to see a General sitting on a biscuit box with a 
 goat gnawing at one boot and the other hidden beneath a 
 quarter of frozen beef. More often than not there was not 
 a vacant square inch of space left on the deck. The life 
 is not all beer and skittles, for on arriving off Helles, the 
 Turks formerly, often greeted them with shell-fire, and it 
 was very disconcerting just as you had cast anchor to have 
 a shell come whistUng overhead from Achi Baba or from 
 the Asiatic coast. No sooner does a trawler arrive, anchor- 
 ing as close to the shore as the depth of the water will 
 allow, than barges are sent off by the Naval landing officer, 
 towed by steam pinnaces full of hired labourers, Greeks 
 and Egyptians, who proceed to tumble everything from 
 her decks into the barges, which are then towed ashore. 
 But if the shell-fire happened to be heavy, the labourers 
 promptly took to cover, having apparently the right to do 
 so under the terms of their contract, and the work had to 
 be carried on by the crews or fatigue parties from the shore. 
 A regular service of trawlers was arranged between the 
 various islands and beaches, thus : By leaving Imbros at 
 seven in the morning, you could arrive at Suvla Bay at nine, 
 leave again at eleven and go on to Anzac, then leave Anzac 
 at one, arriving at Helles at three, and then leave again 
 at five and get back to Imbros at seven at night. Or you 
 could go round the reverse way. Every day trawlers did 
 this round trip, picking up officers and men and stores 
 en route. The work of the crews was hard, but they stuck to 
 it manfully and carried it on most efficiently. It is a remark- 
 able tribute to their skill in seamanship that when one 
 considers the thousands upon thousands of voyages they 
 have made and the immense distances they have covered, 
 I think only one trawler has been lost during the whole 
 campaign, and she was sunk off Anzac by shell-fire in 
 the very early days. Owing to the fact that the Turks 
 were in possession of the promontory of Gaba Tepe, 
 they could see exactly what was taking place off the 
 Anzac beach, and they have frequently shelled the trawlers, 
 giving them a very hot time. In fact, most of these peace- 
 
148 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 ful fishing craft have now some honourable scars to show 
 from shell wound and shrapnel. 
 
 Thus it will be seen what a great and honourable role 
 the North Sea and West coast fishing fleets have played 
 in the campaign. Brought from their peaceful surround- 
 ings into the very centre of the great war game, they have 
 swept the Dardanelles for mines ; they have been exposed 
 to shell-fire for months on end ; they have chased sub- 
 marines and patrolled the islands of the Asiatic coast ; 
 with the destroyer flotillas the seas were left to their care 
 when the battleships and cruisers were forced to shelter 
 by the enemy's submarines ; they have carried thousands 
 of tons of stores from the bases to the beaches, and trans- 
 ported thousands of officers and men and thousands of 
 sick and wounded to and from the islands to the hostile 
 shores. Their skippers and crews belong to a hardy race 
 of seamen, rendered almost extinct by modern ships and 
 modern methods of travel. They grumble, but they carry 
 out their orders, and above all, in spite of all they say, 
 they are proud of the Navy and of the chance of working 
 side by side with Naval officers and Naval men. A great 
 spirit of friendship has sprung up between the two, and 
 each recognizes the value of the work of the other. In the 
 summer their task was child's play, steaming about a 
 sea that was generally smooth as glass, but in the winter 
 the work still had to go on under conditions which were 
 very different, and then it was when the storms were 
 blowing from the south-west or from the north-east that 
 the hard lessons they had learnt in winters spent in 
 the North Sea and off the wild coast of Scotland came in 
 most useful. Seamanship counted a lot in the winter, 
 and the old West Country skipper's proud remark : 
 '* What would King Garge 'ave done without these 'ere 
 trawlers ? " was amply justified. 
 
 Who will ever forget the magnificent spectacle^ our 
 Fleet presented when the expedition first sailed from 
 Mudros Bay, for better or for worse, on the afternoon of 
 April 24, 191 5 ! Since then, so many things have hap 
 
DESTROYERS, TRAWLERS AND MONITORS 149 
 
 pened in the Eastern Mediterranean that those early days 
 have faded into the background, and have been almost 
 forgotten by many. In addition to hundreds of trans- 
 ports drawn from every sea in which the British flag has 
 ever flown, every type of warship was represented. There 
 was the mighty Queen Elizabeth flying the Admiral's flag, 
 the wonder of all eyes, and the admiration of every English- 
 man, Colonial, Indian, Frenchman and Senegalese, who 
 had been brought together for this, the last of the great 
 crusades of the Cross against the Crescent. Then down 
 the scale came the Lord Nelson, and Agamemnan, the last 
 two of the greatest of our pre-Dreadnought battleships, 
 followed by the Queen, the London, the Prince of Wales 
 and Implacable, and then a few birthdays older the 
 Canopus, Prince George, Goliath, Albion, Majestic and 
 Vengeatice, and cruisers of all sorts, which it would take 
 too long to enumerate. 
 
 This mighty Armada should have struck terror into 
 the hearts of the Turks, but that stubborn and extremely 
 stupid people have Uttle or no sense of fear, and were pro- 
 bably rather flattered at the immensity of the forces brought 
 against them. After all, this same Armada failed to 
 force the Dardanelles on March 18, and they had then 
 seen three battleships — the Irresistible, Ocean and Bouvet 
 — go to the bottom, and several more retire none the better 
 for their trip up the Straits. 
 
 Who will ever forget those early bombardments, the 
 like of which the world is hardly likely to see again against 
 land defences ? Who does not recall that closing scene at 
 5 p.m. on May 8, when every battleship opened up on the 
 Turkish positions with 15-inch, 12-inch, 9"2's, ys's, 6- inch 
 and every other available inch. The earth shook, the 
 skies became overcast, and Achi Baba disappeared from 
 view under an immense cloud of rolHng smoke and burst- 
 ing flames. It was magnificent. It made you feel drunk 
 with the sense of power that lies within these steel walls. 
 
 But the Turk, not being of an imaginative turn of 
 mind, refused to play the role assigned to him, and to run 
 
150 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 away shrieking to Allah for mercy and protection against 
 such devilry. On the contrary, he sat tight in his trenches, 
 as he has done ever since, and successfully resisted our 
 infantry when they went forward to the attack. 
 
 Now, unless we carried the Straits by a coup de main 
 it was obvious from the start that our Fleet would not be 
 able to remain indefinitely off the coast, because the Huns 
 far away in the North Sea would be certain to send some 
 submarines to assist their Ally, and in addition there was 
 always the chance of some Austrian submarines escaping 
 the blockade of the Adriatic. Just for three weeks after 
 the landing, the Fleet was left in peace and quiet, and 
 then the trouble began. 
 
 The Fleet had to retire to sheltered harbours protected 
 by booms and nets. The Turks on the hills above us 
 looked on exultingly. They were so carried away by the 
 successes of their Ally, that they issued a pathetic appeal 
 to our soldiers in the trenches, pointing out how they 
 had been deserted by the Fleet, and that now no hope 
 remained for them, adding that if they would surrender 
 they would be certain of good treatment and a friendly 
 reception on arriving in Constantinople. The " Swine- 
 hunds," as they called the big guns of our ships, had 
 gone. 
 
 In their ignorance they imagined they were going to 
 enjoy a respite from big- gun fire until the end of the war. 
 They forgot, however, the time-honoured old axiom that 
 the Anglo-Saxon race is always surprised, but never beaten. 
 We are never ready for anything except fresh taxation, 
 but on the other hand we have a marvellous talent for 
 improvisation and adopting fresh means to meet new and 
 unexpected emergencies. Our mighty pre- Dreadnought 
 Fleet had suddenly become useless, and we could not afford 
 to risk the loss of any more battleships. Already five 
 had gone — the Irresistible, Ocean, Goliath, Triutnph and 
 Majestic — more than we had ever lost before in any one 
 period of our naval history. The Turk had some real 
 reason to feel elated. For the next two months he saw 
 
DESTROYERS, TRAWLERS, AND MONITORS 151 
 
 but little off his coast except an occasional battleship, 
 seme small cruisers, and the tireless destroyers. Of course, 
 according to his theories, our Fleet having been forced to 
 retire, we should have acknowledged ourselves beaten and 
 have taken the Army off the coast. But he waited for 
 this happy denouement in vain. 
 
 Meanwhile, what was happening ? The brains at home 
 were working out a scheme to get back command of the 
 surface of the Mediterranean. They set to work to design 
 craft wlLch could carry the guns of battleships without 
 having their vuhierabihty to submarine attack. Only 
 a nation with absolute command of the sea and with 
 unlimited shipbuilding resources could have set to work 
 to substitute one fleet with another of an entirely different 
 type, at a few hours' notice, in the middle of a great 
 war, at the same time blockading the German Fleet, and 
 holding all the world's trade routes. Rumours came 
 rippling down the sunny Mediterranean of strange craft 
 having been sighted on their way out, the hke of which 
 had never been seen in Eastern waters before. The rumours 
 about craft of strange shape became more and more 
 definite. One fine day in July, the first of them arrived. 
 She was unUke any other vessel ever seen in these parts, 
 having a low freeboard almost flush with the water, a 
 9-2 in her bows and a long 6- inch astern. She looked 
 more like a Chinese pagoda than a ship, but she talked 
 Hke one all right, as the Turks found a few days later 
 when she went out and tried a few shots at Asia for 
 practice. 
 
 She was followed by another httle bird of passage, even 
 smaller, armed with two brand-new beautiful 6- inch guns, 
 " the same as the Lizzie's," as the crew delight to tell you. 
 She was so small and so young that no one had even taken 
 the trouble to baptize her, so she carried a number in lieu 
 of a name. Her crew of seventy can hardly be said to 
 live on her ; there is no room for that — they apparently 
 hang on anywhere they can. This httle craft came all 
 the way from England under her own steam. " Yes, 
 
152 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 we had quite a comfortable passage, for the sea was fine ; 
 but what she'd do in a gale, God only knows, for the smal- 
 lest seas come right over her decks." This in answer to 
 my inquiry. The Turks must have regarded her arrival 
 with mingled contempt and amusement after their experi- 
 ence of the mighty Queen Elizabeth and others, but they 
 sang a different tune when one fine day she went outside 
 to calibrate, and they found that this baby of the deep 
 could throw lOO lb. of high explosive twelve miles without 
 over-reaching herself. 
 
 The next arrival caused somewhat of a sensation, not 
 only to the enemy, but to our own troops. One after- 
 noon there appeared at the entrance of Kephabs Harbour 
 an amazing- looking object. She could hardly be said to 
 steam up, but rather wobbled into port, Uke a huge goose 
 primed for Michaelmas. It was impossible to tell at a 
 distance whether she was broad side on, or showing her 
 bows or her stern, for she seemed to be quite round. Her 
 high sides held aloft an absolutely flat deck, on which 
 nothing showed except an enormous turret, from which 
 projected two guns of enormous girth and length, whilst 
 rising up from her centre, Uke the giant of some Californian 
 forest, was a huge striped tripod, bearing aloft a kind of 
 oblong jewel-box, the exact repUca, on a huge scale, of 
 that in which the Dalai Lama bears about with him the 
 ashes of his first embodiment. 
 
 With great difficulty, steering vilely, she made her way 
 through the crowded harbour and dropped her anchor 
 with the eyes of thousands riveted on her. No one had 
 ever seen the like of her before. Sensation, in fact, followed 
 sensation. Her crew began to bathe. Apparently all 
 possessed the divine power of walking on the water, for 
 on descending the ladder, instead of plunging into the 
 waves, they walked along them by the side of her, and 
 having thus distributed themselves, proceeded to dive in, 
 only to climb out again a few minutes later at their will. 
 We set off in boats to investigate this strange phenomenon, 
 and then found that just below the surface her sides bulge 
 
DESTROYERS, TR.\WLERS, AND MONITORS 153 
 
 out some 10 feet and then curve under, forming a platform 
 just washed by the waves. This is the secret and the 
 mystery of these craft. In that bulge, man has concen- 
 trated his ingenuity to defeat the submarine. If a tor- 
 pedo strikes her side, it will explode amidst a variety of 
 substances which I must not mention, and the hull of the 
 vessel will escape injury. These huge monitors carry 
 naught but two 14- inch guns and some anti-aircraft 
 armament. They are roomy and comfortable, unhke their 
 smaller neighbours. Their speed is, however, very slow, on 
 account of their strange shape, and they steer badly, but 
 at present their development is only in its infancy, and 
 they are interesting because in them you see the germ of 
 what will probably be the battleship of the future. They 
 can hardly be described as graceful, and alongside of the 
 neat destroyers and elegant cruisers, with a stern- on view, 
 they resemble a fat old dowager chaperoning some young 
 and graceful friends at a ball. 
 
 The first time one of these monitors went to the mouth 
 of the Dardanelles to caUbrate, she gave the poor old Turks 
 a horrid shock of surprise. Her guns go off with a terrible 
 roar and carry over three-quarters of a ton of metal fifteen 
 miles. They recalled to the Turks the early days of May, 
 when the Queen Elizabeth was still around. Later on, 
 three more of these monsters arrived, giving us eight 14- 
 inch with which to bombard the enemy's positions, in 
 addition to a large number of smaller monitors of all 
 shapes and sizes, some with names and some without, but 
 each armed with the very latest weapons of precision. 
 
 Then the new Fleet began to settle to its work, sally- 
 ing forth day by day and bombarding the enemy's posi- 
 tions, being spotted for by balloon ships and aeroplanes. 
 The Turks and the Huns then began to grasp the sad fact 
 that we had once more regained command of the surface 
 of the seas and that the great effort which had led to the 
 retirement of our High Seas Fleet had been wasted after 
 all. Later on two other strange vessels, the Endymion 
 and Theseus, cruisers, twenty-five years old, also protected 
 
154 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 by a formidable waistbelt similar to that worn by the 
 monitors, turned up. It did not improve their appear- 
 ance, for the protection was hung from their sides by steel 
 stanchions and wire ropes. They looked as if they had 
 just survived a terrible gale, in which most of their fittings 
 had been washed away. These old cruisers of the Sir 
 WiUiam White epoch have been born again. They and 
 the monitors fear no submarine, and their fat round sides 
 give them an appearance of solidity and security. 
 
 The big monitors are as steady as a rock at sea, but 
 they are no beds of roses to Uve in, for the coal dust pene- 
 trates everywhere and they are almost impossible to keep 
 clean. When they fire their big guns, the concussion blows 
 great clouds of smoke and flame from the funnels, smother- 
 ing everything astern. They are not really ships at all, 
 but floating gun platforms. Nevertheless, they serve 
 their purpose well, and as an experiment have proved a 
 great success. You will have some strange experiences 
 if you try and board one in a rough sea. The waves break 
 over the projecting sides just below the surface, causing 
 a long line of raging surf. Unless you are very careful 
 coming alongside you may be washed ashore, figuratively 
 speaking. That is to say, you may be cast upon the break- 
 water and dashed heavily against the sides. 
 
 Thus gradually, throughout the month of July, our new 
 Fleet assembled ready to cover the landing of the new 
 armies and to assist its efforts to break through the Turk- 
 ish lines by the fire of its guns. It was marvellous that 
 such a transformation should have been brought about in 
 such a short space of time. It gave you a true insight into 
 the extent of our maritime resources and the ability of 
 our Navy to meet any new situation which may be sud- 
 denly thrust upon it. 
 
 The new fleet of monitors played an important role on 
 the occasion of the new landing at Suvla Bay on August 6, 
 and in the various operations which followed. They covered 
 with their fire the advance of our infantry, both at Anzac, 
 Suvla and Helles. Scattered along the coast, they com- 
 
DESTROYERS. TRAWLERS, AND MONITORS 155 
 
 manded every vantage-point, kept the Turks from showing 
 themselves near the chffs and checked their attempts 
 to counter-attack. The scenes during these days were 
 strongly reminiscent of the days of the first landing. 
 Only the ships differed. 
 
IX 
 Recapture of the Forts Douaumont and Vaux 
 
 Verdun, October 24, 1916. 
 
 ON October 23 I motored to Verdun, together with my 
 companions representing the British and American 
 Press with the French Army, six of us in all. It was 
 raining hard, and a heavy mist hung over the valley of 
 the Meuse when we entered the gate of the famous town. 
 We went straight to the historic old Citadel where the 
 British prisoners were kept during the Napoleonic wars. 
 But the Citadel has changed since then, and the terrible 
 old underground chambers in which our recalcitrant 
 prisoners were kept have been done away with. This 
 immense underground fortress was originally constructed 
 by Vauban, but during the last thirty years it has been 
 much enlarged and strengthened. There are only two 
 entrances, and if the place should be besieged, the garrison 
 lock themselves in and concrete these up. There are no 
 less than six kilometres of underground passages buried 
 thirty to forty feet below the ground level and divided 
 into two stories. Inside this structure everything 
 necessary for making the garrison self-contained is kept. 
 It has its own wells, its own electric plant, its own bakeries, 
 hospitals, barracks, and repair shops. During the attack 
 on Verdun it was of the greatest value to the French as 
 a depot for ammunition and suppHes of all kinds, which 
 were distributed from this central point to the various 
 points along the fighting line. Even battalions coming up 
 
 156 
 
RECAPTURE OF DOUAUMONT AND VAUX 157 
 
 in support were kept absolutely under cover until the 
 moment came for them to advance through the ruins of the 
 town itself to the trenches beyond. Thirty thousand 
 loaves of bread are baked daily inside the Citadel for the 
 use of the Verdun army. The Citadel is absolutely imper- 
 vious to shell- fire and suffered no damage whatsoever 
 during the six months of fighting. 
 
 The French are extremely frank in showing and explain- 
 ing everything to you once they trust you. Thus their 
 officers took us all over the Citadel and showed us every 
 single detail of this wonderful underground fortress where 
 they had intended to make their last stand in the event 
 of being forced to evacuate the right bank of the Meuse. 
 
 We were invited by the Commandant of the town to 
 lunch with him in the officers' mess within the Citadel. 
 There must have been nearly two hundred officers at table 
 at this curious underground meal. General Dubois gave 
 us a really wonderful lunch beautifully cooked by a prize 
 chef and washed down with some of the finest wines of 
 France. This kind-hearted officer had actually sent all 
 the way to Bar- Le- Due for luxuries such as cakes and 
 pastry for which that town is famous, also for its patties. 
 It was strange, eating and drinking with so many French 
 heroes in this underground shelter, nearly fifty feet below 
 the ground level, with the big guns thundering away 
 incessantly outside. At the end of the meal, the General 
 made a short speech in extremely bad English, welcoming 
 us to the town. He then showed us the theatre which had 
 been rigged up in one of the galleries. The artists from 
 the " Comedie Fran^aise " come down and give per- 
 formances from the time to time. I managed to obtain the 
 programme of their last performance. 
 
 The General then accompanied us round the town, and 
 explained in very great detail the steps which were taken 
 for the defence of the place had the French been obhged 
 to evacuate the right bank of the Meuse. The scheme was 
 to turn every single house — or rather cellar — in which the 
 place abounds, into a separate fort, and each was to be 
 
158 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 defended d Voutrance. Finally if the Germans succeeded 
 in forcing their way through the ruins, the garrison were 
 to retire to the Citadel and there shut themselves in and 
 hold out as long as their provisions lasted. Supplies were 
 stored there sufficient to last two thousand men (the 
 number of the garrison) for six months. The Citadel 
 itself would be covered by the fire of the forts on the left 
 bank of the Meuse, and in fact all these would have to be 
 stormed before the Germans could claim any real success. 
 In fact, the more one sees of Verdun and its defences, the 
 more one is staggered at the colossal error made by the 
 German General Staff in ever breaking their heads against 
 such a position, 
 
 A great deal has been written about the proposed French 
 retirement from the right bank of the Meuse after the 
 Germans had obtained a footing in Douaumont. This was 
 only contemplated as a sound strategic move and not a 
 panicy decision which was subsequently abandoned. It 
 was considered by many Generals to be the better policy 
 on account of the immense difficulties the Germans would 
 have been faced with had they attempted to storm the 
 ruins of the town itself under the fire of the guns of the 
 forts on the left bank, which completely command the 
 town. Castlenau and Petain, however, ruled otherwise. 
 They felt the moral effect might be bad in France, and also 
 they thought the existing positions which still remained 
 on the right bank favourable ground on which to inflict 
 heavy losses on the enemy. Although this decision cost 
 France heavily in men, it was doubtless wise, because the 
 Germans knocked themselves to pieces in their vain efforts 
 to drive the French over the Meuse. Had they succeeded, 
 I do not believe they could ever have reached the left 
 bank or even taken the Citadel. Verdun will be a night- 
 mare in Germany for many generations to come. 
 
 But the French had a terrible time in the early days of 
 the attack, owing to the enemy's enormous concentration 
 of artillery and the superiority of his air service. The 
 defences of Verdun had been neglected. There were no 
 
RECAPTURE OF DOUAUMONT AND VAUX 159 
 
 railways running into the town except the narrow-gauge 
 line from Bar- Le- Due. No effort had been made to lay 
 down light lines and double the bridges over the Meuse. 
 The Germans knew before the attack started that they 
 commanded and could smash up at any time the Verdun- 
 St. Menhould-St. Michel line. It was gross neglect on 
 some one's part that might have cost France dear. The 
 communications of the army of Verdun and its very 
 security were saved by the great reserve of French motor- 
 lorries. Over four thousand of these were employed to 
 keep the fighting line supplied with reserves and ammuni- 
 tion. The German shell fire during these early days was 
 terrific. It searched everything. Even when there was 
 no real fighting the French casualties averaged a thousand 
 a day from shell fire alone. Verdun itself was completely 
 destroyed and not a house has escaped damage. It will 
 have to be completely rebuilt. 
 
 The expected attack did not come off on the afternoon 
 of October 23, as we had been led to expect. The Germans 
 evidently had an inkling that some move was contemplated, 
 for they were very nervous and frequently indulged in wild 
 barrages. On Sunday, the 22 nd, the French made a 
 pretence of advancing and cheered and shouted from their 
 trenches. This produced a furious barrage, and then in 
 their bulletin the Germans claimed that they had repulsed 
 an attack. Little did they realize that afternoon how 
 close Nemesis WcLs at hand ! 
 
 Verdun presented a curious spectacle and is a most 
 interesting study of how a ruined town can be rendered 
 almost impregnable in just the same way as the Germans 
 prepared the ruined villages of the Somme, the Ancre, and 
 roimd the Yser. To outward observation the whole city 
 was just a crumbling ruined mass of destroyed houses and 
 shapeless streets. Yet on closer observation you dis- 
 covered any number of spots which would still effectively 
 shelter men and machine guns, so cunningly concealing 
 them that no aeroplane observation would disclose them, 
 and the^ German artillery could only knock out such 
 
i6o SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 posts by chance. The cellars and underground passages 
 of Northern France are the curse of all offensives, and 
 when this devastated area is rebuilt, the Government will 
 surely refuse any householder the right to construct these 
 formidable underground natural defences again. 
 
 On our way back to Bar-Le-Duc, we stopped for a few 
 minutes at the village of La Regret, the headquarters of 
 General Mangin, who commands locally all the troops on 
 the right bank of the Meuse. On this occasion we were 
 just formally introduced to him and his staff. Mangin 
 is one of Marchand's old gang and accompanied him on 
 the famous march to Fashoda. La Regret is a curious 
 example of how some places escape destruction in war. It 
 has long been the French Headquarters, and the farm 
 where the General lived was under the observation of 
 Douaumont, some six miles away, yet it escaped the 
 general destruction. A few stray shells had damaged 
 some of the walls, but otherwise the buildings were intact. 
 The greatest pains were taken to conceal the true purpose 
 for which the farm was used. There were artificial screens 
 and at nights the motors were run into a concealed arbour 
 so that their lights should not be seen. 
 
 On leaving Mangin's headquarters, we climbed up to 
 the Fort de la Chaume, from which position, on a clear 
 day, you are said to have an excellent view of zdl the 
 positions on the right bank of the Meuse. A heavy bom- 
 bardment was in progress, but owing to the mist and 
 drizzling rain, it was impossible to see anything. Even 
 3^t 3.30 p.m. it was almost dark, and the bombardment 
 looked like night fire as you could only see the flashes of 
 the guns and the bursts of the shells on the German posi- 
 tions. 
 
 October 24 will always remain an historic day in French 
 history. We motored from Bar-Le-Duc to La Regret at 
 dawn. It poured all night and the ground was sodden. 
 The infantry coming back from the trenches were soaked 
 through and caked with mud. There were many cases 
 of frozen feet. Unfortunately, owing to the rain and 
 
RECAPTURE OF DOUAUMONT AND VAUX i6i 
 
 mist, the light was worse than the day before. From 
 La Regret we motored to the headquarters of a General 
 of Division called Etoille. He himself accompanied 
 us to an observation station near the Bois de Bourrus, 
 where under normal conditions one would have had an 
 excellent view of the attack. But the atmosphere was 
 so heavy ^^ith mist and rain that it was next to impos- 
 sible to see anything except the artillery fire. In fact, 
 3'ou could not hear the sound of the guns being fired even 
 a few hundred yards away. To get anywhere, you were 
 obliged to wade through a sea of mud, and an icy wind 
 chilled you to the bone. For news one had to rely on the 
 scraps of information that came through on the telephone 
 from time to time to Etoille's headquarters. A rumour 
 came through early in the day that Thiaumont and Douau- 
 mont had both been retaken. It seemed incredible that 
 the French infantry could have advanced so rapidly, and 
 even the General was incHned to regard the information 
 as a mistake. It really was tantaUsing sitting at a fine 
 observation post \\'ith all these historic events screened 
 from your view under a veil of white, drizzhng Scotch 
 mist. The weather was, in fact, so bad that the French 
 aeroplanes were quite unable to assist their artillery. But 
 all the ranges were well known, and it turned out, as we 
 learned later, that the advance was assisted by the pre- 
 vailing conditions. This retaking of the principal forts 
 on the left bank of the Meuse was carried out in almost 
 total obscurity, for even the Brigadier-Generals had no 
 idea what had become of their infantry once they had left 
 the trenches de depart. 
 
 As it was impossible to see, we returned to the Fort de la 
 Chaume. At about 3 p.m. the weather lifted somewhat, 
 and the sun made a brave effort to come out. Thus we 
 were able to witness the final stages of the advance against 
 Douaumont. One could watch the tremendous curtain 
 of artillery fire creeping slowly up towards it. Suddenly 
 some red rockets flashed skywards through the gloom. This 
 was the prearranged signal that the fort had been re- won. 
 
i62 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 Thus was accomplished the crowning irony of the war, 
 perhaps of all history. The French army of Verdun — 
 exhausted and useless, according to the enemy's reports — 
 retook in seven hours, without withdrawing a man or a 
 gun from the Somme, practically the whole ground which 
 the Crown Prince's army was only able to gain and hold 
 at a cost of roughly half a million of the best German 
 troops, and by the expenditure of an unprecedented 
 quantity of material and ammunition. Douaumont was 
 the key to France and to peace, according to the Kaiser's 
 proclamation. It turned out to be neither the one nor the 
 other, but in the minds of the German people and the 
 German army after their stupendous exertions to capture 
 it, it occupied a moral position that was never justified by 
 its strategical importance. But the mass of the civil 
 population attach far more importance to the words of 
 their leaders — especially do (or did) the German people 
 to the words of the All Highest — than to the actual study 
 of the map. It will be instructive to learn in the future 
 what the German people really thought when they learnt 
 the truth of the events of this ever- historic October 24, 1916. 
 A front of seven kilometres was overrun in seven hours 
 to a depth of three kilometres in the vital centre. Douau- 
 mont, Thiaumont, and the quarries of Haudramont — the 
 scene of the bloodiest battles in all history — were all 
 regained by the indomitable French infantry. But they 
 represent far more than mere historical names and strate- 
 gical positions. This semicircle of works and heights 
 is a vast cemetery of German corpses and German ambi- 
 tions. Some two hundred thousand of the rotting bones 
 of the flower of the German army lie buried in this gain 
 of seven hours' fighting. Here also is a vast field of 
 unfulfilled hopes and unredeemed promises. Every German 
 hope and every Imperial promise was concentrated on 
 Douaumont. For the possession of this dominating 
 plateau the German infantry fought and died like heroes. 
 No one will deny this. For the same plateau the German 
 people gave their sons willingly, relying on the Imperial 
 
RECAPTURE OF DOUAUMONT AND VAUX 163 
 
 word that the decisive victory which must follow would 
 bring the longed-for peace in its bloody train. Neither the 
 victory nor the peace followed, but nevertheless it 
 was the high- water mark of German efforts on the Western 
 Front, and as long as it remained in their possession they 
 could feel that perhaps all hope was not yet gone, and 
 at least they held the ground on which countless thousands 
 had been sent to an untimely end. 
 
 In seven short hours all was changed. The work and 
 futile sacrifices of six months were undone at a cost which 
 worked out at something like i per cent, of the achieve- 
 ment. Perhaps the French have found the Crown Prince's 
 crown in Douaumont ! Can the lachrymose Prince who 
 now sighs for peace, and who mourns over the benefits 
 he intended to but is unable to confer on humanity, ever 
 face the German mothers again ? I doubt it. Better for 
 him and his reputation had he left his bones amongst the 
 rotting legions on those sombre heights. The irony and 
 futility of it all ! That is what struck me most as I watched 
 the blue waves, preceded by the inferno of bursting shells, 
 slowly submerging the bloodstained heights amidst the 
 mist and driving sleet — for nature seemed to add her tears 
 — moving irrevocably onwards towards the hour of atone- 
 ment. 
 
 The importance of the French victory could not be 
 calculated in mere words or figures. The French army of 
 Verdun was supposed to be exhausted ; the French, the 
 German people had been told over and over ag^iin by their 
 leaders, had been so hard hit before Verdun that they 
 were incapable of assisting the British in a grand joint 
 offensive. The Somme proved the falsity of this calcula- 
 tion, and the events of October 24 proved that not only were 
 the French capable of a giant effort on both sides of the 
 Somme, but that without slackening their efforts there a 
 single hour they could also embark successfully on a 
 second great offensive before Verdun. 
 
 There are some interesting points which should be put 
 QTi record in connection with the retaking of th^se ppsi-^ 
 
i64 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 tions. In the first place, ever since the Battle of the 
 Somme opened on July i, the Germans had been putting 
 up a gigantic bluff before the fortress. It was known that 
 the enemy had withdrawn a number of his divisions and 
 was constantly changing others. By the irony of fate, 
 he was so hard pressed for men on account of his losses on 
 the Somme that Verdun became a rest camp for his divi- 
 sions shattered and broken on the front. But what was 
 not accurately known was the number of the guns he had 
 been obliged to send from Verdun to the Somme. Various 
 estimates varied from one-third to a half. The ground 
 in the valley of the Meuse is not so favourable for aerial 
 reconnaissance as the Somme. You have not got the flat 
 stretches and long rolling plains on which almost every 
 gun emplacement can be seen and photographed, and 
 almost every gun counted. The ground round Verdun 
 is a series of heights, valleys and woods which lends itself 
 admirably to the concealment of artillery. To keep up 
 this bluff to the end, if a humble French Adjutant tried 
 to make his way from one French position to another in 
 daylight, he would be greeted with salvoes of 8-inch 
 shells. But Joffre decided to call the enemy hand, with 
 results that are now known throughout the entire world. 
 On Monday, October 23, there was an unwonted stir 
 in and around Verdun. The roads were packed with 
 long lines of troops and transports moving towards the 
 town. Amidst the ruins were large numbers of battaUons 
 resting and waiting the signal to move forward to the 
 front trenches. I watched black African aborigines 
 grinning with satisfaction as they munched their white 
 bread, lovingly stroking their rifles and laughing as they 
 watched the guns thundering away at the enemy's lines. 
 They are great in attack, these Senegalese ! They do not 
 like the long, dull work in the trenches, but they love to 
 have a Hun spitted on the end of their long bayonet ! I 
 also watched the splendid Colonial troops in khaki waiting 
 the signal to move forward, and the Zouaves and Chasseurs 
 " U Alpine " in dark blue. It was obvious that dirty 
 
RECAPTURE OF DOUAUMONT AND VAUX 165 
 
 work was ahead for some one. These masses of assaulting 
 troops are not brought into a ruined town within range 
 of the enemy's guns for a half-hoHday 1 
 
 On October 27 we set out to visit some of the advanced 
 positions. The morning was fine, but an icy wind chilled 
 us to the bone. On reaching the barracks we had to 
 abandon the oars and proceed on foot. The French guns 
 were shelUng away merrily, but the weary and dispirited 
 Germans were making no reply whatsoever. We made 
 our way through the muddy boyaus to the fort of Souville. 
 The mud was awful, you sHp and slide and fall and pick 
 yourself up only to fall once again. We passed a number 
 of infantrymen and many wounded returning from the 
 front trenches, caked with mud and frozen to the bone. 
 It is really awful, the existence these men have to lead in 
 modem warfare. 
 
 As we approached Souville, there was nothing left to 
 outward observation to denote the presence of a fort. 
 Simply a jumble of mud, shell-holes, smashed concrete and 
 woodwork. But as one reached the top of the ridge one 
 noticed small holes which had been cleared of debris which 
 led to the interior galleries of the works. The galleries 
 were quite intact and had suffered little or no damage 
 from the terrific bombardments of the last nine months. 
 These old forts have certainly vindicated their existence. 
 The concrete cupolas with guns mounted on them have, 
 of course, been rendered quite useless. The exterior of 
 all these modern forts is absolutely destroyed after a few 
 hours' bombardment from heavy siege guns. Only the 
 concrete galleries buried thirty feet below the ground 
 remain. Then you are faced with this problem : How 
 can you defend these galleries against attacking infantry 
 who, when once they have destroyed the exterior defences, 
 can swarm all over the position ? The only way is to dig 
 machine-gun tunnels out from the interior, and endeavour 
 to keep these clear and prevent them from being constantly 
 blocked by the disturbance to the soil at the entrance 
 caused by the enemy's artillery. This is now the French 
 
i66 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 scheme. Each garrison of a fort must be an isolated self- 
 contained unit which ca.n, if the necessity arises, lock itself 
 in underground and hold out indefinitely. Once the garrison 
 is forced underground, the counter-batteries can then con- 
 centrate their fire on the exterior of the fort in possession 
 of the enemy, and perhaps force him to evacuate the 
 position or else to inflict on him enormous losses which 
 render its occupation hardly worth the while, Souville 
 was the last of the old permanent forts remaining in the 
 possession of the French on the right bank of the Meuse. 
 Directly in its front is Fort Vaux, which only succumbed 
 after an heroic struggle. But Vaux was the high-water 
 mark of a German success, for they never penetrated the 
 French positions any farther. Inside Souville I found 
 General Passaga, the Commander of the 133rd Division, 
 installed. From him w^e learnt the interesting news that 
 Fort Vaux had been evacuated by the Germans that very 
 night, and was now once again in the possession of the 
 French infantry. The 133rd Division was one of those 
 which made the great advance on the 24th. It was only 
 brought up from the Vosges two days before the attack, 
 but it had been carefully trained for this great event over 
 ground which approximated as nearly as possible to that 
 round Douaumont and Vaux. The men were not told 
 where they would make their attack until the last minute. 
 " I told them," said General Passaga, " that I thought the 
 advance would be at St. Mihiel. I do not believe in making 
 assaults on positions with troops who have been occupying 
 trenches for a long time in their front. The men become 
 frightened and scared of the ground, and all kinds of im- 
 aginary dangers and difficulties arise in their minds." 
 
 The 133rd Division only lost one thousand men in the 
 actual attack, but suffered heavy casualties from holding 
 the ground under the enemy's concentrated fire, and from 
 cold and frostbite. 
 
 After a most agreeable cup of hot chocolate with the 
 General, we sallied out into the cold and mud to the obser- 
 vation posts on the top of the fort, from where we could 
 
RECAPTURE OF DOUAUMONT AND VAUX 167 
 
 obtain an excellent view of Thiaumont, Douaumont, and 
 what remains of the village of Fleury, in fact the whole 
 perimeter of the ground over which the attack was made. 
 It is marvellous how the French retook these positions with 
 so Uttle loss, and it certainly points either to a surprise or 
 to extreme demoralization amongst the Germans. The 
 conditions under which men fight are certainly enough to 
 demoralize any army. The shell- fire is incessant and the 
 rain and the cold are enough to knock the Ufe out of even 
 the most bold. For instance, the French troops who made 
 the attack on the 24th had to he out in shell holes and 
 partly destroyed trenches for four days and nights. It 
 would certainly seem as if the Generals do not always treat 
 the men with the consideration they deserve, and that these 
 divisions who had just made so successful an attack might 
 well have been relieved sooner. 
 
 From Souville, you look right up the gentle slope leading 
 to Douaumont, and yet the Staff told me that on the 24th, 
 when the attack started, once the infantry had left the 
 trenches de depart they were immediately swallowed up in 
 the mist, and no one knew how they were progressing until 
 coloured rockets were sent up from the captured positions 
 as they were taken. After a good look round, we descended 
 to the valley of Fleury through a maze of trenches to the 
 spot where once stood the village and station of that name. 
 But of these not a single trace now remains. They have 
 simply been pounded into mother earth. Some one 
 pointed out the stump of a tree and declared to their 
 certain knowledge and recollection that it formerly offered 
 shade to the station platform. God knows how many 
 thousands of souls passed into eternity during the fighting 
 for the possession of these miserable ruins. Fleury was the 
 high-water mark of success at Verdun gained at the most 
 costly price ever paid by any nation for a worthless conquest. 
 Fresh trenches had continuously been cut through this 
 ground and in many places you found the dead embedded 
 in the walls of the trenches, head, legs, and half-bodies 
 just as they had been shuffled out of the way by the picks 
 
i68 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 and shovels of the working parties. It was a ghastly 
 sight. 
 
 In a dug-out at Fleury I met the Colonel of one of the 
 regiments which had made the attack. He was in the last 
 stage of exhaustion and fatigue, and complained that his 
 men could no longer hold on under the incessant shell- fire, 
 lying exposed in shell-holes full of water. " I have told 
 the General," he said dramatically, " they must be reheved 
 to-night." He certainly had good reasons for his com- 
 plaints. At his point the Germans had started a very 
 heavy shelling and I had to abandon any idea of getting 
 into Douaumont, as the barrage fire completely cut it off. 
 It was only possible to get up there at night until fresh 
 boyaus had been cut through the maze of shell-holes. 
 In fact I was very glad to get back without being cut in 
 half by high- explosive shell spUnters. As we were return- 
 ing, the Germans made a show of leaving their trenches 
 and commencing an attack. Immediately the French 
 seventy-five's opened up a terrific barrage fire which 
 nipped the movement in the bud. These barrage fires are 
 impossible to realize unless you have seen them for yourself. 
 The French batteries have the range to the inch, and each 
 gun fires from fifteen to twenty rounds a minute. No 
 living soul can pass through such a fire, and the German 
 movement died away immediately. I saw a great number 
 of German prisoners. Most of them are young, sturdy, and 
 apparently well- nourished, but their clothes were in a 
 terrible state and quite unsuitable for the cold. One and 
 all seemed delighted to be captives. They are apparently 
 extremely well treated, and are only too wiUing to work 
 for their captors. Large numbers were being employed 
 in and around Verdun. 
 
 On our way back we lunched with General Mangin at 
 La Regret. He gave us a most excellent lunch and was 
 obviously very pleased with himself, for he was wearing 
 the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour which Poincar6 
 had come down to Verdun to confer on him the previous 
 day. The immediate direction of the whole offensive had 
 
RECAPTURE OF DOUAUMONT AND VAUX 169 
 
 been in Mangin's hands. Mangin is a short, thick-set man 
 who rather apes the great Napoleon in his manner of stand- 
 ing with his hands behind his back and poking his head 
 forward. His face is more Italian than French. His hair 
 is iron-grey and stands bolt upright from his head. He 
 has been wounded no less than five times during the war. 
 He has the reputation of being a good General, but the 
 soldiers say he throws the lives of his men away reck- 
 lessly. 
 
A Night Visit to Fort Douaumont 
 
 BUT few of the public who have not actually partici- 
 pated in the war can have any real conception of the 
 horrors which the individual has been called upon to 
 endure. They transcend anything that has ever happened 
 before, and the imagination of a Dante could not have 
 conceived the misery and suffering which the Kaiser's 
 ambitions have brought in their train. It is marvellous 
 that men can still be found to carry on the struggle after 
 three years, so intense is the nervous strain. But war is 
 rendered still possible by continually drawing on fresh 
 reserves of humanity, by taking troops continually out 
 of the firing Une to rest camps, and also because men are 
 killed or maimed so quickly that but few survive long 
 enough to succumb to the nervous shock. Who will ever 
 forget who has been through it, the mud, the shells, the 
 gas, the machine guns, the horrible sights, and even more 
 revolting stenches of the modern battlefield ! It is almost 
 impossible, and probably neither is it desirable, to bring 
 home these things in all their naked horror to the pubhc. 
 The average person, when he reads of a fresh advance 
 in his morning paper, knows little or nothing of what 
 these few official words really mean. Of the weeks of 
 silent preparation, of the immense movements of men and 
 material entailed, of the mental agony endured by the 
 thousands who are to take part in the attack, of the long 
 and terrible night that precedes the assault at dawn. Yet 
 
 170 
 
A NIGHT VISIT TO FORT DOUAUMONT 171 
 
 it is now generally conceded that the actual attack is the 
 least trying feature of modern warfare when the advance 
 has been preceded by an adequate artillery preparation. 
 The worst hours are those spent in consohdating the 
 enemy's ruined trenches and fortified posts after they have 
 been taken. It is then that the survivors of the advance 
 must he out, half- frozen, soaked with rain, often without 
 food and water, in shell-holes and half- destroyed trenches 
 which offer but httle cover, fully exposed to the enemy's 
 concentrated artillery fire and to his counter-attacks. 
 Almost every soldier would sooner be called upon to 
 assault a position than to hold it for the first twenty- four 
 hours after its capture. 
 
 For several days after the recapture of Douaiunont and 
 Vaux I was unable to reach these advanced positions, 
 owing to the incessant barrage with which the enemy cut 
 them off during the day. Finally I received permission 
 from the Staff to make the attempt at night, but warning 
 me that the task would be neither pleasant nor easy. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the Germans were quietly 
 acquiescing in the recapture by the French of all the ground 
 they won after six months' fighting. Far from it. They 
 knew they could not retake the positions, and therefore 
 they had become " of no military importance," but on the 
 other hand, to show their rage and spite, they bombarded 
 them and the lines of communication behind incessantly 
 night and day, so as to render the occupation as difficult 
 as possible by preventing suppUes and ammunition from 
 being sent up during the day. In fact, all this work had 
 to be done at night under an incessant feu de barrage. It 
 was only possible to approach the fort at night, and so I 
 was told I must be ready to start at midnight, in order to 
 have time to get in and get out again before dawn, other- 
 wise I should remain a prisoner in Douaxmiont until the 
 following night. 
 
 It was a beautiful moonlight night when I set out for 
 Verdun. At the gate the sentry complained that the 
 Germans had just sent a shell close to his post, and advised 
 
172 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 us to move on quickly. A minute later there was the 
 whistle of a shell, a crash, and the sound of faUing masonry. 
 Another bit of the ruins had been brought to earth. It 
 was now ten o'clock and we stopped for two hours at the 
 Archbishop's Palace. It was formerly the Archbishop's 
 Palace until sequestered by the State. Two rooms were 
 still intact. They were ornate and gaudy and decorated 
 with gold and crimson hangings. In the centre of the 
 largest was a fine statue of a lady in a very Ught costume 
 for the time of year. She looked singularly out of place 
 amidst the surrounding ruins, the crumbUng cathedral 
 and the fine old college with its superb cloisters. In fact, 
 these two ornate rooms with their gilded furniture and 
 crimson hangings and the lady in marble were about the 
 only things left intact in Verdun. Why they had survived 
 I could not tell, but perhaps the Crown Prince had heard 
 of her and wished to add so fair a form to his collection ! 
 
 The ruins of Verdun are singularly beautiful by moon- 
 light. You could stop and gaze on the wondrous scene for 
 hours were you not constantly brought back to realities 
 by the screeching of shells and the crashing of masonry 
 as Europe's Housebreakers continued their favourite job. 
 We had two hours to spare before starting, so I decided to 
 sleep in the motor until the fateful moment arrived. 
 
 It was in a courtyard surrounded by ruins. Close by 
 was a substantial arch which had only been damaged. The 
 chauffeur suggested we should move the car under it as a 
 measure of precaution. This we did, and then a shell 
 crashed somewhere in the courtyard, but we felt com- 
 fortably safe and soon fell asleep. It only seemed a 
 minute later when I was aroused and was told it was time 
 to start. My companions joined me, and we motored 
 through the ruined streets to the foot of the hiUs where the 
 first line of forts stood. Here we abandoned the car and 
 started to cUmb to the top. It had been raining for days 
 and the mud was as thick as a wheat field and as heavy as 
 glue. I had not gone more than a few yards when my feet 
 slid from under me, and I rolled into the slush, emerging 
 
A NIGHT VISIT TO FORT DOUAUMONT 173 
 
 covered with yellow slime from head to foot. I cursed, 
 but the officer with us remarked : " That does not matter, 
 as in half an hour we shall all be in the same state. You 
 are merely anticipating our fate." 
 
 From the crest of the first hne of defence we looked 
 down on the ruins of the fortress. WTiat a superb sight ! 
 The moon hghted up the ruins, shining on a thousand 
 shapeless forms of what were once houses, churches, 
 colleges, shops and miUtary barracks. The shell- fire was 
 incessant. The projectiles came screeching from afar and 
 burst in fire over the town. But the work went on just the 
 same. If motor- lorries were damaged, they were dragged 
 aside and others took their place. If men were killed, they 
 were buried by the roadside and others took theirs. The 
 same thing goes on month after month and will continue 
 to go on until the enemy cries " Enough." That cry will 
 never be heard from the French nation. With grim 
 determination, the French people and their AUies are 
 slowly choking the German Empire to death. The French 
 artillery is repl}dng to the German fire. It seems mon- 
 strous that you cannot have a respite even at night. When 
 do gimners sleep ? Never, it would appear, when you are 
 on a modern battlefield. The shell- fire night and day is 
 incessant. No wonder the munition makers can hardly 
 keep pace with the demand. The battlefield of Verdun 
 has a different atmosphere from any other I was ever on. 
 Its horrors are also greater. But withal there is a feeling 
 of intense satisfaction. You recognize the completion 
 of a great masterpiece. You feel, as you so seldom have 
 the chance of feeUng in this war, that something vital and 
 decisive has been accompUshed, and that the work can 
 never be undone. You stand on the ground where the 
 last supreme effort of the Huns was broken. It was here 
 that the turning point of the war was reached. It was 
 here, as was only fitting, that the French nation fought 
 out the issue alone with their Ufetime enemy, and thus 
 gave time to the Allies to prepare for the great retribution 
 which is now slowly moving on towards its inevitable end. 
 
174 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 It was at Verdun that the French people found themselves 
 again, and emerged from the clouds which have hung over 
 them for forty- five years. 
 
 We stopped and gazed for some time on the wonderful 
 scene. The night was so bright, lit up by a full moon and 
 thousands of stars. Suddenly one star of peculiar bright- 
 ness steered a course at amazing speed amidst its compan- 
 ions. It was a strange phenomenon we had never seen 
 before. Then some one suggested it was a giant French 
 aeroplane brilliantly illuminated with electric light, sweep- 
 ing homewards from the German lines. 
 
 But nov/ it was time to pass on if we were to enter 
 Douaumont and get out again before da\vn. It took, so 
 our guide reminded us, at least three hours' walking even 
 under the most favourable conditions. We now entered 
 the boyau to make our way to the foot of the Cote 
 de Froide Terre, the last position held desperately by the 
 French for six months on that long, dreary, corpse- sown 
 ridge, which rises gradually to Thiaumont and then on to 
 Douaumont itself. The mud in the boyau was frightful. 
 It came up to your knees and crawled down to your ankles 
 through the tops of your boots. You slip and slide and 
 fall and curse as kilometre after kilometre is passed. The 
 French officers, in their blue uniforms, were soon khaki- 
 coloured like ourselves. After an hour and a half's walking 
 we cUmbed to Froide Terre. This was a soHd concrete 
 shelter that had remained intact under the incessant 
 bombardments. We entered it, for here we had to find a 
 new guide who could take us the remainder of the way. 
 Inside, the scene resembled the fo'c'sle of a ship in the days 
 when merchant sailors were little better than slaves. 
 There was a wooden table, and ranged round it were 
 wooden bunks. The atmosphere was foetid. Each bunk 
 contained a form rolled in a blanket. All were trying to 
 snatch a few hours' sleep before the game of war was 
 renewed at dawn. The officer on duty was seated on a 
 bench by the telephone. He was surprised at the entry 
 of strangers, and still more so when he learnt that we 
 
A NIGHT VISIT TO FORT DOUAUMONT 175 
 
 proposed to go on to Douaumont. He pointed out the 
 difficulties and dangers of the enterprise, and then, having 
 done what he considered his duty, he offered his aid on 
 hearing we were authorized to make the attempt. A guide 
 was what we required and he gave orders for a man who 
 knew the direction — there is no road — to be aroused. It 
 seemed cruel to take any one on such a trip. Then he asked 
 if everv^one had a helmet and a gas mask. At this point 
 I discovered I had left mine at home as usual, so he kindly 
 lent me another. Then we emerged from the warmth into 
 the cold night air again, ha\4ng discarded everything and 
 every garment that was not absolutely essential. We 
 stood shivering outside, and contemplated the next stage 
 in our dreary' journey. 
 
 The sight was not encouraging. The shell- fire was 
 incessant and you heard the screech of the missile and 
 watched the bursts as the Huns put up an incessant barrage 
 in front of Douaumont right across the track we must 
 take. The bright moon had disappeared behind dark 
 clouds which were rolling up from the south-west. Behind 
 us the French guns continued to thunder away. Our 
 guide shouted, " En avant," and plunged for\vard into the 
 mud. There was still the remains of a track, and on this 
 boards had been placed. We tried to walk on these, but in 
 the darkness it was difficult. I heard a groan from one 
 of my companions, and on looking back saw him trjing 
 to pick himself out of the slime. Suddenly the track 
 ended, and we struck across country, entering a moon 
 crater of shell-holes full of water, which, with the moon- 
 light shining on them, resembled a vast number of small 
 ponds, separated by tiny banks of mud. Over these mud 
 tracks we tried to progress, but the task was almost impos- 
 sible. You fall at every step even with the aid of a stick. 
 I can only relate my own experiences, but every one else's 
 were the same. I stumbled and fell and recovered only 
 to fall again. I was now simply a moving portion of the 
 mud which surrounded me. The guide made no better 
 weather than I. He stopped suddenly and said, " Take 
 
176 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 care you don't fall into the shell-holes : they have six feet 
 of water in them, and if you fall in you may never come 
 out." This was an obvious truism. If you did slide into 
 one of those moonlit, glittering holes it was doubtful if you 
 ever would emerge. To avoid such a catastrophe you 
 proceeded most of the way on all fours. Your arms are 
 just as good as legs in such an emergency. Now we 
 entered the shell zone, or, in other words, the last 2,000 
 yards which separated us from Douaumont. The Huns 
 were bombarding this furiously with 6- inch shells which 
 came from aU directions and burst at the most unexpected 
 places at the most unexpected moments. The countryside 
 was alive with them. You hear an appaUing screech 
 coming through the darkness. Instinctively every one 
 falls flat in the mud. The monster then bursts with the 
 sound of the final crash of a brass band. You do not look 
 up ; you lie with your face buried in the mud waiting for 
 the humming birds — the fragments of the shell which fly 
 round like bees humming for the particular flower on which 
 they long to alight. You wonder on which part of your 
 anatomy they will descend. You thank God when the 
 last bit has alighted with a thud in the earth beside you. 
 You don't bother about the chunks of mud thrown up by 
 the explosion. They can and do hit you anywhere they 
 like. It is almost a pleasure when one has struck you and 
 you realize it is not encasing a fragment of steel. Then 
 you push on another few yards until you hear the next 
 aerial motor-bus coming your way. At first you are 
 horribly frightened, but then you are grateful for being 
 ahve. It seems incredible that any of the party can be 
 alive. 
 
 The moon now went in, for the clouds had come over us, 
 and it started to pour with rain. We were soon soaked 
 through, but hardly noticed the annoyance and discomfort. 
 We crawled on, sweating profusely in spite of the cold. 
 Excitement keeps you very warm on a cold night. Sud- 
 denly there loomed up before us a dark mound. There 
 were figures round it and we made for it. It was a Poste 
 
A NIGHT VISIT TO FORT DOUAUMONT 177 
 
 de Commandement, that is to say, a kind of concrete shelter 
 that existed before the war and which has not been de- 
 stroyed. The Huns were now redoubUng their fire, and we 
 rushed down the narrow entrance to this post, using the 
 excuse that we wanted to get out of the rain. Inside were 
 sleeping figures rolled in grey blankets, lying on the muddy 
 floor. The place seemed a palace of luxury and comfort. 
 The officers on duty welcomed us and undertook to provide 
 another guide, for ours said he did not know the way any 
 farther, and if he did, he had a perfect right to cut such 
 an acquaintance. A very small and active soldier was 
 aroused from his slumbers. He regarded us with a mingled 
 look of curiosity and annoyance, and small blame to him. 
 He win surely cut his annual subscription to the local 
 paper when he returns from the war. We were about 
 to proceed when one of the officers said : " Do not attempt 
 to go yet. This is the worst time to pass. The Bosches are 
 firing their hardest now." This seemed both sound and 
 true, for the ground which separated us from the dark 
 outlines of Douaumont was Ht up with bursting shells, 
 " Rest here for an hour." Never were words more grate- 
 fully received 1 I lay down on the floor in the mud, with 
 the rain trickling down on me, and soon I fell asleep. I 
 remember thinking, " If only that Captain with us had any 
 regard for our feelings he would say, ' You can't go any 
 farther.' " But the Captain had suffered so much already 
 that he was determined to make the three of us suffer 
 fully for our sense of curiosity. 
 
 I had no sooner gone to sleep, it seemed, than I was 
 aroused again. One of my companions said, " Wake up. It 
 is quieter now and we have the chance of getting through.'* 
 I cursed him and went outside. " Quieter now!" The 
 words were ironical, for the shells seemed to be bursting 
 thicker than ever, and an icy cold rain was pouring down 
 in torrents. Our guide proceeded, we followed as best we 
 could. This guide was horribly active and we should 
 soon have lost him altogether had not the Captain ordered 
 him to go slower. " How far to Douaumont ? " I asked. 
 
178 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 " Fifteen hundred metres," was the reply. A chorus of 
 groans from the darkness showed that every one of the 
 party felt the same as I did. We cursed the day we were 
 born and our folly at not being neutrals. The procession 
 was now like the moving figures in a local shooting gallery. 
 The shell- fire was incessant and the projectiles burst around 
 every thirty seconds, or maybe ten seconds. We no longer 
 fell, that was quite unnecessary, because every time we 
 heard a shell coming the entire party dropped automati- 
 cally and lay as quiet as the corpses which surrounded 
 them. One of our number fell too far in his anxiety to 
 escape a fragment of Von Essen's preferred stock and 
 rolled over into a shell-hole full of water. Awful oaths 
 arose from its muddy depths. 
 
 It took a full hour to move eleven hundred yards when 
 another black spot emerged out of the darkness. Some one 
 said, " Is this Douaumont ? " " Oh, no," said the guide, 
 " there are 500 yards more, much more severe than this." 
 It was, in fact, another little local shelter used as a place de 
 secours. We passed down the passage which led to it. 
 There were recumbent forms on every side. Groans arose 
 from the darkness. Here were the fruits of the night's 
 bombardment waiting until the stretcher-bearers could 
 carry them back. Inside, the surgeons were working. 
 They suggested we should stop for a while until the Huns 
 had ceased their feu de barrage. " When does it stop ? 
 we asked. One officer said, " In half an hour." Another 
 said, " Not until 6 a.m." A third said, " It does not matter 
 when you go. They fire all day and all night." This 
 seemed to be the nearest approach to the truth. The 
 groans of the wounded were so unpleasant to listen to that 
 we decided to proceed. Then I noticed that all the party 
 were drinking from flasks. Out we went into the darkness 
 again. The guide said, " You must move quickly here, for 
 this is the worst bit of all, where they concentrate their 
 fire." Move quickly ! The wicked irony of those words. 
 Move quickly on such a ground and under such conditions ! 
 It was on this last 500 yards that the heaviest guns of 
 
A NIGHT VISIT TO FORT DOUAUMONT 179 
 
 both sides had been concentrated. The ground was torn 
 to pieces and the shell-holes were three times the size and 
 contained 8 feet of water, some of them much more, but I 
 like to average a night's troubles. If you fell into one 
 you would be drowned unless some one could pull you out, 
 and if you clung to the narrow ridges between them a 
 fragment of shell would probably hit you. On and 
 upwards we crawled, scared to death. The guide moved 
 too fast. He was small and light and did not sink into 
 the mud as much as the heavier members of the party. 
 Instead of striking the mild bombardment which we had 
 been promised, we next ran into the very worst of the Hun 
 barrage. Instead of single shells every ten seconds or so, 
 there were salvoes bursting round us. It was really getting 
 too hot altogether, even for our guide. There was a huge 
 crater with only 2 or 3 feet of water at the bottom. He 
 flung himself into this and yelled to the rest of us to do 
 the same. In we went and remained with our faces buried 
 in the mud, not daring to look up even for a second. The 
 shells burst all round and the fragments continued their 
 horrid humming. We shared this crater with the dead. 
 All through the night I had been putting my hands on to 
 nasty cold lumps or bones or fragments of uniform. At 
 first I had no idea what they were in the darkness, but as 
 the moon emerged from behind a cloud, I discovered I was 
 lying alongside fragments of the Cro^^Tl Prince's legions. 
 A decaying German, eaten away by time, was on one side 
 of me ; some bits of another were on the other. The 
 smell was Hke the interior of a newly- opened vault. It was 
 disgusting. 
 
 The shell- fire did not stop for a moment. In fact it 
 rather augmented. Suddenly there were cries from the 
 darkness and three figures emerged from the gloom. Two 
 of them were endeavouring to support the third. The 
 third was groaning horribly, and the two said, " Est-ce 
 que c'est le posts de secours ? " We could only reply 
 " No," and point vaguely to the darkness behind. The 
 three stumbled on their way. Suddenly our guide had 
 
i8o SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 had enough, and no wonder, for the shell- fire became worse 
 and worse. He yelled out, " En avant, il faut arriver au 
 fort." The only lump of battered earth looming up ahead 
 certainly seemed the one chance of salvation. He jumped 
 up and, considering the difficulties, proceeded with amazing 
 speed. We were in the real barrage now around the 
 remains of what was once the fosse of the fort. I found 
 I could travel almost as quickly as our guide. There were 
 now cursed Roman candles which the enemy were throwing 
 around the fort. They seemed to make you the most 
 conspicuous figure in the world, and you forgot all about 
 Hughes and Wilson. After a Roman candle came a dozen 
 shells. Suddenly my guide disappeared. He had arrived 
 at the sea of mud which forms the fosse, and had jumped 
 in. I rolled in after him. We crossed the fosse and 
 reached the escarpment, which was merely a bank pitted 
 with a frightful attack of the small pox, which had left 
 holes 12 feet deep. We hugged the bank like trout, 
 crawling along it so as to allow the shells to burst on the 
 farther side. We heard shouts which seemed a long way 
 off, but we did not take any notice of them. We imagined 
 our companions were close at our heels. I shouted out 
 to the guide, " Stop ! " But without lessening his pace, 
 or even looking back, he replied, " On ne pent pas arreter 
 ici." He had reason on his side, for the shells were tumb- 
 ling into the fosse with appalling detonations. " How 
 much farther ? " I shouted. " Cent metres," came out 
 of the gloom. I followed him, stumbHng and crawHng 
 and creeping through the mud. Suddenly he disappeared 
 into a tiny dark hole which I should not even have noticed. 
 I did not know what it was or where it led to. But it was 
 a hole, and to me a hole at such a moment offered more 
 attractive possibilities than a blameless life. So I followed. 
 Rather, I dived into it. The narrow passage opened up, 
 and I found myself in a concreted cellar with shivering 
 figures standing round. I was in Douaumont. 
 
 It was five o'clock in the morning when I followed the 
 guide into the narrow hole wliich is the entrance to Douau- 
 
A NIGHT VISIT TO FORT DOUAUMONT i8i 
 
 mont. I passed dovMi a narrow passage which shortly 
 opened into a vddt and high gallery with a stone roof. It 
 was packed \\'ith shivering Chausscurs who form the 
 garrison. These men had just been aroused from their 
 slumbers, and were waiting the signal to leave the fort to 
 go back for supplies and ammunition, etc. They were 
 greatly surprised to see a stranger suddenly pop into their 
 warren out of the darkness of the night. I waited a few 
 minutes to recover breath and then discovered that my 
 companions, whom I imagined were close on my heels, 
 had not yet made their appearance. I asked the guide 
 what had become of them, but he did not know, so it 
 seemed we must have lost touch in the darkness. We 
 waited for about ten minutes and then, as there was stiU 
 no sign, we went back to the entrance and looked out into 
 the ruins of the fosse. No one was in sight. We shouted, 
 and then a voice was heard from somewhere in the gloom 
 calling for the entrance. The shell- fire was still intense. 
 We shouted back, giving the direction, and a minute or 
 two later we saw dark figures apparently attempting to 
 climb up the escarpment of the fort, instead of going along 
 the bottom of the fosse. One of the guides yelled to them 
 to keep down, and we saw all three figures stumbling and 
 rolling down the bank, and falling into the thick mud at 
 the bottom. A minute later, they safely reached the 
 entrance and came inside tho "oughly exhausted. In truth 
 we presented a woebegone s^^ectacle. AH of us were 
 simply a mass of mud from head to foot, our clothes, faces, 
 boots and hands being caked with it. 
 
 The party then explained what had happened to them. 
 In the darkness they had been unable to keep the pace set 
 by the guide, and had been left behind. After falling 
 hundreds of times into shell-holes, they became so exhausted 
 that they had to wait in a shell-hole under a hea\y fire, 
 expecting every moment would be their last. The captain, 
 who is a big man, sank so deeply into the mud that they 
 could only pull him out with difficulty. After a rest, they 
 reached the edge of the fosse without recognizing the 
 
i82 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 fort, which is, in fact, a shapeless mud heap. One of the 
 party then took a false step and fell eight feet into the fosse 
 beneath. He thought his last hour had come, but for- 
 tunately the mud was so soft and deep that he suffered no 
 injury. Not knowing where they were or where was the 
 entrance, they decided to chmb up the bank in front, which 
 would have brought them on top of the fort in full view of 
 the enemy at dawn, when fortunately they heard our 
 shouts and reached the entrance safely. 
 
 Being once more collected together we passed down the 
 gallery, which was quite uninjured, and descended a long 
 flight of steps to the low galleries where the commandant 
 was installed with his staff in a square concreted room. He 
 was just up when we arrived and welcomed us warmly. 
 To our surprise, the interior of the fort was ht with elec- 
 tricity, for the Germans had left the motor in perfect 
 working order. It was very pleasant, finding ourselves in 
 a comfortable, concreted, electric- Hghted room after five 
 hours' trudging through the mud, exposed to an incessant 
 shell-fire, which had somewhat shattered the morale of the 
 party. Some one suggested that a drink would be very 
 agreeable. Here we made a curious discovery. We had 
 set out with enough whisky to last for two days, in case, 
 we should be shut up in the fort, but on arriving at our 
 destination every drop of it was gone. But never mind. 
 It had undoubtedly helped us through the journey. In 
 fact, I think a little was diunk in every sheU-hole in which 
 we stopped. The commandant in charge of Douaumont 
 looked about thirty years of age. He said : " You have 
 only a short time to stop if you wish to get out again this 
 morning. The enemy's barrage will not be so intense, and 
 you will have a comparatively quiet hour in which to get 
 back to Thiaumont. Come, I will show you round the 
 fort." 
 
 We followed. The fort of Douaumont is the largest and 
 most important of the Verdun defences. A thousand men 
 can, in fact, Uve comfortably in its capacious interior. 
 It is a two-storied structure ; that is to say there is an 
 
A NIGHT VISIT TO FORT DOUAUMONT 183 
 
 upper level of galleries and a lower. Above the concrete 
 is thirty feet of earth, or rather there was thirty feet of 
 earth, but now the exterior has been churned into a troubled 
 ocean of shell waves and in some spots the earth is deeper 
 and in others much less. The counterscarp galleries have 
 been destroyed, except in two places where machine-guns 
 can still sweep what remains of the fosse immediately in 
 front of those undestroyed counterscarp galleries. The 
 only entrance is the small hole I have already described in 
 the rear. The fort has two 75 mm. guns mounted in a 
 revolving steel turret, and also two 130 mm. guns simi- 
 larly mounted. The material damage to these turrets has 
 been small, but the guns are out of action through the 
 breakdown of the machinery and the smashing of the 
 guns themselves at the muzzle. Although you can hardly 
 recognize Douaumont as a fort from the outside, the 
 interior has suffered extremely little damage, even after 
 eight months of incessant shelUng from the guns of both 
 friend and foe. The lower galleries and the chambers 
 which radiate from them are entirely intact, but the upper 
 have been pierced in one place by the fire of the French 
 400 mm. guns, which have cut off all communication 
 between the east and the west of the fort on the upper 
 level. It is said that it was the entry of three successive 
 400 mm. shells which did the damage, and caused the 
 Germans to abandon the position before the attack on 
 October 24. 
 
 The old fort has, in the eyes of the French, more than 
 justified its existence, and has withstood a terrible hammer- 
 ing in a truly marvellous manner. There are wells, but 
 at the present time the water is undrinkable, and all the 
 water for the garrison has to be brought up by hand and 
 stored in tanks, which were found intact. The commandant 
 showed us every detail of his interior organization. The 
 Germans have certainly been good tenants, and had no 
 time to work any destruction before they abandoned the 
 position. Every gallery and chamber has its use denoted 
 on white signboards, which still bear their German letter- 
 
i84 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 ing. The first steps taken by the French were to provision 
 the fort and to collect a sufficient water supply to enable 
 the garrison to hold out for several days should their 
 communications be cut by the enemy's barrage fire. This 
 had been no light task, because every biscuit and every 
 litre of water and petrol for the engine had to be brought 
 up by hand over the ground I have already attempted to 
 describe. But each day the carrying parties bring back 
 a double supply of food and water, so that now reserve 
 supplies have been accumulated. The hfe of the garrison 
 is no bed of roses. The underground galleries are damp 
 and cold, and there is no means of warming them, for no 
 fuel was found in the fort, and it was impossible to bring 
 any up. Both officers and men live on biscuits or bread 
 and canned meat, as it is impossible to do any cooking for 
 a similar reason. The barracks for the garrison consist 
 of long vaulted chambers radiating from the galleries, and 
 containing double rows of wooden bunks. Inside you see 
 hundreds of warriors off duty rolled in their blankets 
 asleep. 
 
 Especially interesting was the spot in the upper galleries 
 where the 400 mm. shells had entered. Dawn was breaking 
 and the pale light was shining through this arch cut out 
 of the solid concrete by these heavy shells. Sentries stood 
 guarding the aperture which was rapidly being put in a 
 state of repair. You look out and beyond on to a sea of 
 huge shell craters. There are no luxuries or comforts of 
 any sort for the garrison, for it has only been possible to 
 carry up the bare necessities of life and a reserve supply of 
 ammunition. I made my way through all these long 
 galleries, damp, cold and filthy and studied the heroic 
 defenders. They are great fellows, these Chausseurs. 
 They are cold and caked with mud and weary from the 
 incessant labour of carrying up supplies, but ever deter- 
 mined and indomitable. They have got back the fort and 
 will never give it up again. The French officer is supremely 
 efficient. He understands his job and revels in his work. 
 This young commandant had every detail at his finger-tips. 
 
A NIGHT VISIT TO FORT DOUAUMONT 185 
 
 He knew to the last biscuit and tin of meat exactly 
 what suppUes he had in the fort and how he could daily 
 augment his reserves. Every step necessary for the defence 
 of the fort is being taken by him. His machine-guns cover 
 every avenue of possible approach. As he completes new 
 embrasures for these, the German gunners endeavour to 
 smash them up. * All day and all night this work of putting 
 Douaumont in fighting trim again goes on. It will soon be 
 just as good as it ever was but for its battered exterior, 
 which must remain as it is until the end of the war. 
 
 By the time we had completed our inspection of the 
 interior the commandant remarked : " You ought to 
 leave at once if you wish to get down before the barrage 
 commences again." We had to go, but the prospect of 
 going outside when you felt so safe after the night's 
 adventures was not a pleasant one. Endeavouring to 
 show a detachment we were far from feeling, we said 
 good-bye and made our way to the narrow exit. It was 
 now broad dayUght. A stream of men were working their 
 way amidst the shell-holes to the fort. They were laden 
 and could hardly walk or even crawl in the heavy mud. 
 Some were canying a dozen water-bottles, others biscuits, 
 others sacks of bread, others petrol ; everything in fact 
 necessary to keep the fort and the garrison going for another 
 day. One man reached the door and collapsed from sheer 
 fatigue, dropping his burden with a crash. His officer 
 helped him up, remarking : " Allez, reposez vous unpen." 
 The man dragged his weary feet down the gallery and 
 disappeared. It was terribly hard work, this carrying 
 supplies to Douaumont. These figures stumbUng, rolling, 
 and picking themselves up again amidst the countless 
 miniature lakes, made a curious picture. They hardly 
 resembled human beings, so caked were they with mud. 
 They looked like mud balls animated with life, but with no 
 control over their limbs. Do not imagine that the sheUing 
 had stopped. Far from it, but it was not so heavy as when 
 we entered, and now we could see our way a Uttle. Even 
 as we cleared the narrow entrance, a succession of three big 
 
i86 SOME OF MY EXPERIENCES 
 
 shells burst within a few yards, throwing the mud in all 
 directions. 
 
 We did not linger in that horrid ditch, but climbed the 
 counterscarp as quickly as possible and passed on down the 
 slope towards Thiaumont. It being dayUght, we were 
 able to see the exact nature of the ground over which we 
 had passed in the darkness. The marvel was that we ever 
 succeeded in getting into the fort at all without faUing 
 into the innumerable shell-holes which contain 6 feet to 
 8 feet of water. Some of these pools looked clean and 
 fresh, others were covered with a dark slime, and yet others 
 were bright yellow caused by the explosions. In some of 
 these holes, bodies were protruding above the water ; in 
 others fragments of humanity were floating. Others con- 
 tained broken rifles, bits of uniform, fragments of shells, 
 and the countless debris of the battlefield. We found we 
 had passed over an open cemetery. You could not move 
 a yard without treading on or jumping over what was once 
 a man or a portion of one. Every square foot of this 
 ghastly wilderness was sown with human bones. Over 
 this ground infantry had fought for months. The majority 
 of the corpses were German as you could tell by the frag- 
 ments of uniform and equipment. God knows how many 
 thousands must lie in that waste. There had been no 
 effort to bury the dead, or if there had, the bodies had been 
 thrown to the surface again by the incessant shell- fire. 
 The smeU was revolting. Our clothes carried the odour 
 away from Verdun, and we could not get rid of it, because 
 all through the night, unknown to ourselves at the time, 
 we had been crawling over this cemetery. On our way down 
 we passed the endless swarm of blue, sweating, cursing, 
 toiling human ants, who were carrying up suppHes to the 
 fort. Some got there, some were killed, and many wounded, 
 but the stream never stopped. A dehcious sense of relief 
 comes over you as you get farther and farther down the 
 slope of this ghastly ridge, the bloodiest and most vile in 
 the whole world. How you pity the poor devils who have 
 to make their way up. Farther on you find a battalion 
 
A NIGHT VISIT TO FORT DOUAUMOXT 187 
 
 of Territorials endeavouring to make a road amidst the 
 mud. The task is ahnost beyond human powers, and all 
 they can do is to throw shell-holes into one another. We 
 had yet further trials to face. The hour of comparative 
 respite was soon over, and we were chased by the enemy's 
 shells right back into the town of Verdun. But we had 
 been into Douaumont, and we felt that was an achievement. 
 Some one asked if we wanted to visit another fort. This 
 bad joke did not go down, and we entered our motor-cars 
 " fed up " with forts, mud and shells. 
 
 Frintad by Butler & Tanner, Frame and London. 
 
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 DESPATCHES 
 
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