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. I New Edition. 3/6 net ; by post, 31 1 1 IAN HAMILTON S DESPATCHES FBOM THE DARDANELLES. 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