H \ GIFT OF The Scene of Scene of War BY V. C. SCOTT O'CONNOR (ODYSSEUS) AUTHOR OF 'THE SILKEN EAST* The battle-line is a secret world." The Great Push. William Blackwood and Sons Edinburgh and London 1917 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 03 TO FATHER AND MOTHER ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR MARRIAGE 4945U6 PREFACE. IN the early days, when this Catastrophe in which the world has been plunged was still at its beginning, we used to hear a good deal of " The Fog of War." It was a phrase which was meant to keep us quiet, like children in a nursery, and it served its purpose. But there never was a Fog of War. In its place rather was some- thing very like an iron curtain, behind which we were not permitted to look. That iron cur- tain still exists, and it is necessary that it should ; but the world has had many glimpses of what goes on behind it, and it has even grown tired of looking. But I wished to see for myself, and it was this longing that first sent me on a journey that has grown to dimen- sions I had not foreseen. Whether I am right in troubling others with this picture of the things I saw is perhaps open to doubt. The French have a feeling that only those who have fought in the War have any business to write about it. I think there is much in that viii PREFACE feeling, and it has made me pause in the task of which this book is the outcome. But I have gone on with it, because I am not sure that that is the whole truth. For one thing, this War affects us all. It is changing the world for us, and it will make another world for our children from that into which we were born. No man can foresee its ultimate consequences. There is far more indeed than the military question that is at issue. There is another reason also. I have been deeply impressed, as I have gone along, with the necessity I would say the absolute neces- sity of a better understanding between all those of us and we are more than half the world who are fighting to a common end. Even now it seems to me that profound misunderstandings exist in many of our minds about each other, and as to what each of the rest of us is doing. There have been times when this absence of understanding must have been a serious menace to our common fortunes. I was in Italy in the summer of last year; in France in the autumn. I know something of the feelings that lie there beneath the surface of our common endeavour. I should say, perhaps, that lay there, for the position changes from day to day and hour to hour. In Greece and Switzerland, where we have many well-wishers and some enemies, I saw things from the angle of a neutral country. I saw a little more clearly wherein we the Allies have failed. In Egypt and in India there are other forces at work : the deep stirring PREFACE ix of long quiescent pools. I heard a good deal of Mesopotamia and West and East Africa, from relatives and friends who had come from those battlefields. It seemed to me that there might be some justification for a book that would gather these fragments together into a composite whole ; and as to the method, I came to the conclusion that the best course was to describe things exactly as I saw them, from moment to moment, and under the impulse of each scene, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions. Perhaps I might have tried to formulate my own; but I have not had the time to do that. My book goes out as it was written a contemporary picture of the War and if it should help to touch the chords of feeling that unite us, it will be sufficiently justified. There is the Enemy, too, of course; we all have our feelings about him. We do not wish to deny that he is brave, that he shares with us many of the qualities that stir men .to great deeds. We recognise his power of toil, his efficiency, his thoroughness. We know well that the War must have brought grief and darkness into his homes as it has into our own. We know that he is human like ourselves. But we believe that his conception of life is evil the Prussian element in it in particular. "His honour rooted in dishonour stands" I suppose that some day we shall be friends again, it seems a very long way off. But that x PREFACE day can only come for most of us when he has confessed his sins and paid the price the bitter price of his wrong -doing. I don't think we go in much for hatred and violence in the form of hymns and so forth, but we are determined that Justice shall be done. That is a sentiment more lasting than hate. In the meanwhile we have other things to attend to, and of these the most vital is to strengthen the chords that bind us to all who stand with us upon our side of the battle both now and after the War. This book is a modest contribution to that end. It could not have been written without the help and the kindness of others; but it is not possible to acknowledge such help in detail. Customs and conventions vary ; but in the main one has to omit names during the currency of a war. I can only say that I am grateful for the facilities accorded to me, and that I bear in my heart the kindness and generosity of my own personal friends, without whose help I could have seen little or nothing. For the article on Mesopotamia I am indebted to a near relative, who served for a year in that country, and is now in France. I omit his name at his own request. O'C. CONTENTS, BOOK L GREECE. PAGE ALEXANDRIA ...... 3 CRETE . . . . . . .6 ATHENS ....... 9 VENEZELOS . . . . . .11 VOYAGE TO SALONICA . . . . .14 8ALONICA ...... 22 FLYING ..... .28 ENTRENCHED POSITIONS . . 37 A DAY WITH THE BRIGADIER . . . .46 BOOK II. ITALY. A GREEK SYMPOSIUM ..... 55 AN IDYLL OF PELION ..... 58 THE GULF OF CORINTH . . . .62 THE ADRIATIC ...... 64 ROME ....... 66 THE ZONE OF WAR ..... 71 THE ISONZO ...... 74 UDINE IN WAR-TIME . . . . .89 SICK AND WOUNDED ..... 95 VICENZA ...... 99 THE WAR IN THE TRENTINO . . . .103 NOVEGNO ... 114 xii CONTENTS PIOVENE . . . . . .121 VENICE IN WAR-TIME . . . . .129 THE WAR IN THE DOLOMITES .... 133 BOOK III. INTEKLUDES. INTERLUDES . . . . . .151 BACK IN BLIGHTY ..... 156 ACROSS THE CHANNEL . . . . .161 BOOK IV. THE BRITISH IN FRANCE. A VISIT TO ARRAS ..... 167 TANKS ....... 179 THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME THE EVE OF BATTLE . . . .183 THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF . . .185 APPROACHING THE BATTLE . . . 190 MEDICAL SERVICES ..... 205 BOOK V. FRANCE AT WAR. ON THE SOMME ..... 215 THE SAUSAGE ...... 237 GENERAL JOFFRE ..... 243 SENLIS .... . . . 248 THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE OURCQ . . . 258 THE MARNE ...... 265 RHEIMS ....... 272 A QUIET DAY IN THE ARGONNE . . . 285 BOOK VI. FRANCE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. FRANCE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN . . . 299 MUNITIONS . . . . . .311 THE JVRIEN DE LA GRAVIERE .... 318 MALTA 327 CONTENTS xiii BOOK VII. EGYPT. THE CANAL ...... 337 THE WAR IN EGYPT ..... 347 ISMAILIA ...... 358 THE DESERT EXPRESS ..... 363 AUSTRALIAN CAVALRY ..... 368 SUEZ ....... 379 BOOK VIII. MESOPOTAMIA. MESOPOTAMIA ...... 389 BASRA ....... 395 THE MARCH ...... 401 KURNA ....... 403 AMARA ....... 407 SHEIKH SAAD . . . . . .411 ORAH CAMP . 414 BOOK I. GKEECE THE SCENE OF WAR. ALEXANDEIA. WE are at anchor in Alexandria harbour, wait- ing to sail for Greece. In these simple words there is a magic of sug- gestion that transports one into a bygone age. How many have waited here since Herodotus came wandering to these shores; how many a traveller has looked out upon the wine-dark sea that links these aged sites with the classic beauty of Hellas ? But it is another world to-day. The ship is in the hands of the police, and upon each deck and in a variety of secluded corners there is an African in uniform, while a couple of officers smoke cigarettes and pass the day on deck. Nobody knows when we shall start; but some say it will be soon, pointing to the steam at the funnel, and others say it will be never. I ask one of the officers why we are detained. His view is that transports full of troops are pass- 4 THE SCENE OF WAR ing across the Mediterranean, and that until these are far on their way and out of sight we must wait, lest we should give information of their whereabouts to a German submarine. For all Greek ships are suspect, and my in- formant has no doubt that they have given help and information to the enemy. There are rumours also as of ancient days that the Greek Cabinet has resigned, that Athens is in a tumult. Who can say ? Yet here are facts. For even as we talk a troop -ship full of khaki -clad men from India, Australia, New Zealand, the islands of Great Britain, weighs anchor and steams majestically out to sea, her stern gun pointing defiantly against the sky. The same sinister token pre- sents itself at the stern of all the ships in port that do not sail under a neutral flag ; and an old battleship stands sentinel at the mouth of the harbour. There are hospital ships, too, white and dainty as a summer girl, with broad green stripes, like ribbons, and red crosses on their sides, waiting for their freight of wounded and dying men. But for these symptoms of the times Alex- andria smiles as of yore, the small-winged yachts sail to and fro, and the sun shines on the blue waters. At night the scene in the ancient harbour is yet more beautiful : the red and green lights make a jewelled pattern against the crowding hulks of the colliers and the transports; the stars shine out in the clear Egyptian sky; the sea, a lustrous ultramarine, ALEXANDRIA 5 sways with a placid content; and the light- house flames and fades and flames again, like the beating of a heart that is never still. Does it matter, after all, whether we sail or not ? CRETE. WE are moving at last towards Crete. It is a still day of the halcyon kind that stirred the poets of old, and life is for the moment a price- less gift. Now and then a gull flies past, a pair of doves flutter beside the ship, and a quail out of her reckoning falls bewildered on the deck. It is hard to believe that under this smiling surface submarines are afoot, and that the great sea-going ships, with their freight of women and children and men going to and from our East, pass across it at the peril of their lives. But we are soon reminded of the fact by the sight of a little fleet of trawlers and destroyers upon the horizon, and the approach of one of the former, which sends a boat off to us, while the destroyer moves in a great circle about the ship. Two naval officers climb up a rope-ladder to the deck; the Archon, or Capitano as he is known in the vernacular, is summoned and his papers examined, while the boat with four sea- men sways and swings beside the ship. When the scrutiny is over, the officers go over the side by the rope-ladder; the boat moves off with the splash of oars, the destroyer sweeps CRETE 7 round once more in a final circle of inspection to see that nothing has been thrown into the sea; and the picture that lingers of the blue heaving waters, the little white boat making across them, the hard -looking grey destroyer, is one that those of us who are British regard with a touch of silent pride. For it tells us that the dominion of the sea is ours. The propellers begin to revolve, and we are once more free to move upon our voyage, the outlines of the Isle of Crete faintly visible through the sun- haze on the horizon. At dawn, when I awake to the roaring of the crane and the sounds of cargo being unshipped, there is the moon hanging low over the snows of Ida, and the gleam and flash of a lighthouse over the white houses of Herakleion. At eight, in the bright sunlight, we make in a painted boat for the little harbour, and enter within its old fortified walls, that still bear upon them in escutcheon the winged Lion of St Marc. The scene is one of clarified beauty, the white walls and the lighthouse tower shining against the blue water and the grey -green slopes of the mountains. Within the safe enclosure there cluster the small island craft, laden with wine and firewood ; the sailors are busy caulking and climbing about the cordage, and from the old grey walls of the fort that Francesco Morosini defended so valiantly against the Turks, there hang the brown nets of the fishermen, like a shroud of lace. 8 THE SCENE OF WAR We climb the marble stairs that usher the traveller into this ancient seaport of Knossos, past fading buildings and new embellishments, into the little agora or market-place, where a great fountain of marble with lions and bas- reliefs testifies to Venetian glories. The narrow streets are full of Christians and Moslems, now apparently at peace with each other, and over the front of the barracks where Prince George as High Commissioner lived, a Turkish inscrip- tion on grey marble still gleams in the Cretan sun. A little way off there is a Turkish ceme- tery full of marble gravestones with turbaned heads. And beyond these there are the green slopes of the lower hills, and high pyramidal peaks, and the snow-splashed flanks of Ida. ATHENS. I CAME to Athens with my mind set upon the War and its incidents, resolved to spare no time for ancient memories. But there are some things that are impossible. Constantine, Venezelos, the indefatigable Baron Schenk, " qui a achete' tout le monde," as they tell you here ; the politics of modern Europe and the sway and swing of the War, seemed to dwindle into insignificance at the Parthenon, when the setting sun bathed its fluted columns, and the lovely women of the Erectheion came to life once more in its glow. And that immortal landscape with its violet and tawny hues, its gleam of grey-blue sea, its dark cypresses and silvering olive-trees, its historic sites that are for ever a possession of the human race; how it turned one's thoughts away from the incidents of the hour. For here was some- thing that was perfect and therefore never to be surpassed, rendered immortal by the magic of Art and the soaring spirit of Man. In the evening I joined the populace on the terrace by the Zappeion. I saw before me the thronging crowd, the statues, the gardens full of stocks and orange-flowers, whose perfume filled 10 THE SCENE OF WAR the air, and beyond these the Corinthian columns of the Olympian Jove ; the Acropolis, silent yet eloquent as the Gods and I wondered how long the Greeks would be content with the humili- ating role that has been forced upon them. For wherever I went, and to whomsoever I spoke, I learnt that the hearts of the people were with the free nations that they hated the Prussian ideal, and longed for the hour when they could step out upon the right road, the path to Honour. There were exceptions, of course : there was the money instinct in those who were gaining by their neutrality ; and there were the upper classes. " Tout le snobisme est avec le Roi," as an old Russian Diplomat, who was once an Ambassador, put it to me. But there were many also who revered the King and were grateful to him for what he had done in the past. " If we could but have the King and our Veneze- los together, all would be well," they said ; yet they spoke as it were in terms of a vain expectation. Listening to all these people, I could not doubt that after a period of travail the Hellenes would rise once more for the honour of Greece ; for one cannot live in the shadow of the Gods without being stirred to great undertakings. 11 YENEZELOS. ONE morning it was ray fortune to call on Venezelos. The great statesman's house is near the Place of the Constitution, which confronts the Royal Palace. There is a certain fitness in such neighbourhoods. You turn up it through the street of Lycabettos, and if you have an eye for the permanent you will stay your footsteps more than once to look up the entrancing vista of the sunlit street ; of the grey-green hill that was here before the Achaeans came to Hellas ; of the Attic blue of the sky ; and of the white clouds shaping and changing upon its face. It was upon those things that my eyes were set, when my companion touched my arm and said " We are at the house of Venezelos." He knocked at the door, and after some delay it was opened a few inches, and a rough Cretan face looked out with an air of reserve and inquiry. Behind it, in the shadow, I could see that there were others. It was evident that Venezelos was guarded. Upon the stairs there were yet others : simple men from the island, who love this man of their own blood, the champion of their race. 12 THE SCENE OF WAR From those feudal, almost primitive, surround- ings, I passed into a large hall, and so into an ante-room, in which others were waiting. Thus, if I had not known who the occupant was, I should have known that I was in the house of some great personage whose business it was to play a part in the world, a man who was looked up to and sought after by others, yet one who was simple in his ways. In this ante-room there were two portraits, one of Venezelos, the other of the King. So it is throughout Greece. I had leisure to study them both, and while I was doing so the door opened, and I was alone with Venezelos. Slightly grey, the man before me had a fresh and healthy look, clear, firm blue eyes, or so they seemed, full of a limpid intelligence and percep- tion. His manner was simple and kind, and only so far reserved as his place in the world neces- sitated. One felt instinctively that he was a man who had nothing to conceal. It was a face altogether pleasing, considerate, yet strong, by reason of the intellect behind it. It was the face of a thinker, who in grappling with the immediate issue sees always before him the far distant conclusion. A man whose face inspired confidence by its quiet strength, and affection by its benevolence the face of a civilised man. There was humour in it too, and a touch of irony. And as he spoke, playing with a little ivory paper-cutter in his hand, shrewdly cog- nisant of the issues involved, tranquil as a child in spite of his own critical position and that of his country, I realised that I was in the presence VENEZELOS 13 of one of the world's great men of a man of genius. I thought that he might be deemed impulsive in the sense of warming to a great ideal ; but it was evident that his body was under perfect control, his will the instrument of a brain that was clear as crystal. And yet there was a touch in his grey-blue eyes of the Dreamer, of the man who sees visions. And that no doubt is the secret of his greatness, as it is of his momentary eclipse. For all men do not see far. There was a piquant contrast offered by an autographed portrait of the King which I saw in the ante-room. Here was a royal personage a soldier, bluff, resolute, proud, and obstinate ; the brother-in-law, as we know, of an Emperor, but also a man overmatched in intellect by his great Minister. Here it may be in a nutshell is the whole story of present-day Greece, and it is in the clash of these temperaments that the conflicting streams which have left the country enfeebled at a great crisis in its history find their source. The position has been a difficult one for both ; but whereas one could at best have snatched but a temporary success, the other has been eternally in the right. Nature will have her way ; and in this little peninsula, whose fame is written upon the souls of men, there is no room for any but a free people. King Constantine, for all his faith in the German armies, for all the support of his friends, has never had the shadow of a chance. 14 VOYAGE TO SALONICA. IT was nine o'clock of a clear night and the scent of the Orange Gardens was filling the streets of the city when I left Athens for Salonica. The Piraeus was very beautiful, with its numberless lights reflected in the still blue waters that yet swayed with some hidden impulse of life, and the pattern of its masts and rigging cut in intricate fretwork against the starry sky. In the rough wine -shops by the quays, girls were dancing before the foot- lights for the pleasure of the assembled mariners, and the sounds of music and of voices were borne into the still purity of the night. There were no steamers in the days of Themistocles ; but in all other ways the life that confronted me was the life of those bygone days when Greece was at her prime. I took a boat across the harbour to an Italian ship, whose smoking funnel showed that she was under steam for an early start. I was the only passenger. For the Greeks, profiting by their neutrality, carry nearly all the maritime trade; and it is only a traveller who is pressed for time who will travel by a militant VOYAGE TO SALONICA 15 boat. The Stewardess informed me that her last ship had been submarined off Crete; and the Purser drew my attention to a pig upon the sideboard that was carved out of a Citron with the legend " Guglielmo and Co." inscribed upon it. I turned into my cabin, opened the port-hole to let in the soft night air, and slept till morning. The next day was one of the most perfect that I have ever spent in my life. When I rose and went on deck, I found that we were leaving behind us the Saronic Gulf, with Cape Colonna, the ancient Sunion, on our left, and Keos the Isle of Simonides a little ahead of us on the right. It was a morning for the gods: the sea an Attic blue, the sky luminous and puffed with white clouds, while a host of fishermen's boats, with their white sails spread to the wind, pur- sued their vocation in the front of Keos, long, blue, and mountainous beyond them. Then sud- denly we came to a pause ; a signal or message was run up at the mast-head and a black trawler was seen approaching with a touch of white foam at her prow and the tricolour at her helm. She came on to challenge our purpose, and we waited for her quietly, for she was a friend. "It was just so," said the Stewardess, "that the Boche came up to us and gave us five minutes to leave our ship before he blew it up," and as she spoke the gulls flew low about us, and the sea was as tranquil as summer sleep. It was a scene of peace and beauty, upon which these episodes of war seemed entirely irrelevant. 16 THE SCENE OF WAR The trawler, with her guns pointing fore and aft, sent a boat alongside, and the crew stood to their oars, while the officer in khaki came on board, saluted the captain, and accompanied him to the chart-room on the bridge. The ship's papers were examined with care, some questions were put, and the visit came to an end after fifty minutes of detention. Upon the invitation of the Skipper I remained on the bridge enjoying the exquisite view that spread before me, through the tracery of masts and rigging, of a blue sea and jutting headlands, and gulls flying in the sunlight; and as we advanced into the Golden Channel there was Andros the bounteous Isle of Dionusos on our right, with cloud shadows playing above his brows, and white lustrous reflections from them on the tranquil sea; with Euboea like the main- land on our left. The Canale d'Oro, whose name recalls the days when Venice ruled along these shores, is a strait some eight miles wide, though to the eye of the traveller it looks much less, and it is very carefully guarded, as we could see, by the submarine destroyers and trawlers of the Allied Fleet. So the day went on and we took our placid course in Elysian weather, slowly leaving Andros, which has become known since the war as the Isle of the Forty Millionaires, on our bows as we turned Euboea and made northward between it and Skyros and the Sporades. A sailing boat, a cabin stored with books and rugs, a halcyon sea such as this, a woman VOYAGE TO SALONICA 17 to share these things and lend them the one additional grace ; upon such pleasing fancies did our minds run under the serene influences of the hour and the place. But nothing lasts for very long, and by six o'clock the day was closing in, grey and sombre after its brilliant noon, and we found ourselves passing by some instinctive emotion from the irresponsibility and contentment of the day into a state of some uneasiness as night approached. For now behind us upon the darkening horizon there were visible the vast outlines of a cruiser and transports laden with Serbian troops from Corfu for the Balkan front. They rapidly approached us, and the captain gave them his close attention. He was not happy in their company. " In the night," he mumbled, " who will know the difference between a ship full of troops and mine ? " And with that the telegraph rang and the ship made a great semicircle out of her track, leaving the ship of war and her transports well to the starboard. At this moment we were running parallel to Skyros, with Euboea faintly visible on our left. Half-way through dinner, the captain came down to the saloon with an old-fashioned " Bon appetit, Monsieur," and presently poured himself out a glass of Marsala, cleared his throat, and unburdened himself of the object of his visit. "During the night," he said, "we shall be incurring the minimum of risk, for all the lights on this ship will be extinguished ; so B 18 THE SCENE OF WAR that, unless we have the bad luck to come plump on a submarine," and he laughed un- comfortably, "we shall be safe; but at dawn well, I tell you frankly anything may hap- pen at dawn. You will at the least be well advised to sleep in your clothes, and to have yourself called at 4 A.M. They do not usually touch our ships, but avec ces sales bStes, who can say ? " And he shrugged his shoulders with loathing and contempt. The burden of his after- talk was of these Boches who kill women and children ; of the Greeks, who want everything without fighting for it; of the Americans, who are like the Greeks on a large scale ; and of "Wilson, who writes Notes." I could see that he was anxious and worried, and the strain of these eighteen months was written on his sea- worn face. The sky was partially clouded overhead as I turned in, the stars only showing here and there through their drifting veil. A light twinkling some distance ahead of us came from the tail- end of the cruiser as she piloted the Serbian transports, themselves invisible in the sombre night. Our own ship moved without a light, like a ghost upon the seas. In the early morning when I went on deck I was greeted by the majestic vision of the Thessalian Olympus, his massive brow silver - white with snow and half -veiled in moving clouds. The white villages clustered like infants at his knees, and a white - winged ship sailed upon the quiet sea. There also was the snowy cone of Ossa, with white hamlets on his slopes, and VOYAGE TO SALONICA 19 behind us Pelion, grey and cold. On our right were the islands of the Sporades. The Olympian chain extended along the horizon. It was natural for the Greeks to connect the great mountain with their gods, for it manifestly dominates this world, and by its great beauty claims as of right the wonder and the homage of men. Like the Pyrenean Canigou at the other end of the Mediterranean, it rises straight from the sea into the sun- light, 9794 feet in height. And here at its base, the lovely vale of Tempe with its Peneios rushing to the sea, lies in sheltered security. It was in the midst of these classic scenes that we were once more confronted with un- mistakable signs of modern war. Beside us a trawler was persistently busy with her net dragging the placid sea for mines, and as we approached Salonica another steamed before us to indicate the passage. A low green coast lay upon our right, and in the distance behind the city stretched a line of mountains, and yet another, upon whose uplands three-quarters of a million of men were waiting to engage each other in battle. Under Cape Kara Bournu lay the wreck of a transport, which was torpedoed here in the very waters we were now crossing and in sight of the city. And as we sat on deck enjoying the warm and heartening sun- shine, the tranquil scene, there came the sudden whirring of wings as of a great dragon-fly, and a hydroplane flew overhead. The sound of her flight lessened, she passed almost out of sight, 20 THE SCENE OF WAR then turned and approached us once more, the noise of her engines increasing as she dipped to the water and swept past us with a perfect grace, the airmen waving their hands at us in salutation. And then she flew away and was lost to sight in the blue distance above the white sails of the Italian fishermen and the green fields of the mainland. We had looked for an instant upon the beauty rather than the horror of war. The low coast-line had the soft air of some Hampshire countryside by the fringes of the Solent; the clouds soared upwards from the serried mountains in great castles of opal and blue. Upon the foreland of Little Kara Bournu spread the tents of a British encampment. I had last looked upon them in the Sinai desert. A mist lay over Salonica through which there were faintly visible houses and trees and battle- ments, the walls as of some old fortress, climbing the downs; while the dark hulks of ships lay brooding in the foreground. It was such a picture, with its diaphanous mists, its touches of blue and green and white, as Turner would have painted. Slowly we turned to enter this magic place, the crinkled sea interspersed with spaces of silk-like calm. I climbed for a better view to the bridge, where the Captain stood with his megaphone, and there grew up before my eyes a scene of entrancing interest and beauty. But a hundred yards ahead there moved slowly, with a gliding, sinuous motion, a torpedo-boat, and we followed her every movement with a faithful VOYAGE TO SALONICA 21 compliance through the mines and nets which spread like fishermen's floats across the vast spaces of the harbour. Beyond them lay the battleships and transports, riding securely at peace; and above them rose the mountains and the cloud-enamelled sky. As we came at last through the intricate maze, and the destroyer which had guided us moved aside with the grace of a python, I heard beside me, where the skipper stood in the stillness, a sigh as from one whose soul was quit of a burden that had lain upon it. And as I turned to look back, there, behind us, came a boat in full sail, with Olympus shining in blue and silver through its rigging, and lifting his stately brow to the heavens. 22 SALONIOA. SALONICA presents a scene of extraordinary in- terest and of piquant contrasts. The site alone is one of the finest in the world. Its harbour, doubly sheltered, looks as though it might hold a thousand battleships, and the sea here, as at Constantinople, comes bowing up to its very portals, deep and tranquil, the slave alike of its pleasure-seekers and of the dark and terrible ships of war that hold the city in fee. Behind it, as though to shelter it from all contact with a rude northern world, rise in a crescent low green hills upon which the cattle pasture ; and the ancient town rises slowly up from the sea to these pleasant heights, protected by walls and towers and battlements that display all the charm of the Middle Ages. These old walls have now seen their day ; they are visibly fall- ing into decay, and the newer city of villas and workshops has already spread far beyond their limits. They are like some old fighter, brave of heart but frail of body, who is eft behind in time of war in the company of the women and the children, and of little consequence now, though great in his day and generation. SALONICA 23 It is a city with a great future, but no one knows what that future will be. Here for the present are the French and the English estab- lished in great force, with their ships upon the sea and their armies spread afar upon its en- circling mountains, and its streets are thronged with the soldiery of the Western Powers. No scene from a play could be more divert- ing or vivid than that which groups itself about the Cafe of Bastazini on a Sunday afternoon. The Rue Venezelos is a wide thoroughfare where it abuts on the harbour front, with the sea and its shipping at one end, and afar off at the other a dim Turkish bazaar, full of the senti- ment of a vanished age. It is here in this wide thoroughfare, closed to wheeled traffic, that the world collects. French- men, Englishmen, Canadians, Australians, Ser- vians, Greeks, Jews, Turks, all are here in bewildering variety, and there are others to come. Generals, colonels, subalterns, corporals, rank and file; little boys and girls who go to and fro selling papers and furtively collecting those left behind to sell again ; older girls, pink of cheek and trim of figure, a little fluttered at the presence in such numbers of the bolder sex ; here and there a broken - down old Turk or grave Moslem turning his beads and clothed in dignity ; a Spanish Jew ; a porter laden with the bulk of some vast burden, his eyes down- cast upon the hard cobbled street. Opposite, a shop, a branch of the Levantine Harrods, built in the newest style with plate -glass and gilt and a sphere upon its roof that stares you in 24 THE SCENE OF WAR the face and distracts your gaze from the Olympian Jove. There is money in plenty, and this city which has slept so long under Turkish rule is out to gather in with all possible speed the harvest of half a million men who draw pay and have gold to throw away. Now and then from afar off behind the Balkans there comes a Zeppelin or a flight of German planes, and a bomb crashes into the midst of the city. But Salonica lives in the present, and Jew and Greek are instant in their search after the Allies' wealth. Unfortunately for each of these interesting communities there are both Jews and Greeks, and this goes to the heart of the Children of Israel, who were so happy here in the days of the simple and proud old Turk. "Two Der- vishes cannot sleep under the same blanket," as the proverb has it; and there is a sting in this competition under the smiling and prosperous surface of life in Salonica. It is a comedy still when there is so much money to be shared; but a comedy with tragic possibilities when Greek and Jew are left to struggle with each other, and the Allies and their lavish ways have gone. Hence it comes that Israel is hopeful that the Allies will not march away, and that the brave General Sarrail may elect to stay for good in this delectable corner of the world. And meanwhile the flood of wealth pours on. The proprietor of the Zenodochion Themistocles, now known as the Cafe of Impregnable Verdun, goes happy to bed with 3000 francs a day in his pocket, instead of the 300 which, before the SALONICA 25 Allies came, marked the highest level of his prosperity ; and Solomon figures out that that new contract with the British Army will make him richer by some forty thousand pounds. In most cities which live by the sea, the port is a quarter left to mariners and shippers and the riff-raff of the harbour; but at Salonica, as at Constantinople and at Venice, port and city are one, and along the narrow Strand you have the hotels and the shops and the big houses on one side of it facing the sea, and on the other the crowded shipping of the harbour. Nearest of all and in contact with the sea wall are the sailing ships of the Island Greeks, the schooners that carry casks of wine and oil and firewood and coal and all the small trade of the country. They lie here in a serried line, swaying and plunging with the sea, their masts and rigging making their old-world pattern against the scene. Each boat has its small cabin, and the name of its owner and the island he hails from written in classic letters on its stern ; and the life of the seafarers clustered within it goes on from morning till dusk, a world apart from the thronging street. Along the street the electric trams shriek and grumble from dawn to mid- night, laden with more people than they can properly carry; transport waggons grind along the cobbled way ; infantry march with a rhythmic action, the legionary tread of the British soldier, the quick step of Piou-Piou ; horsemen in the khaki of England, the blue- grey of France, the dragon with his horse-tail plumes, the lancer with his pennon, ride upon 26 THE SCENE OF WAR big horses that have come here from English countrysides and Irish farms; from Normandy, Picardy, and Toulouse ; from Australia and New Zealand across the wide imperial seas. But in the old city on the hill where the Moslem population still clings to its homesteads, one is in another world. It is a world of quiet enduring people, who know that they have lost their tide; of great plane-trees spreading their chequered gold over the cobbled streets; of white mosques and soaring minarets, the sym- bols of a departing faith ; of cypresses that sigh beside old fountains inscribed with the names of God ; of old ramparts and battlemented towers that still stand up at bay, as though to shepherd the people within. It is by CQntrast a silent world, invaded only by the sound of church bells, the cry of the Muezzin, the murmur of a people, vague, indefinite, as if it wished to speak, but knew not what to say. Down the green slopes of the hills come the cattle at evening from their pastures ; outside the old grey walls the people sit : Turkish women in black with their children about them, and the tranquil beauty of the Madonna on their clear-cut faces ; old men, too weary and resigned to go away and fight under the banners of Islam. Here, too, under the old walls, there is the English Cemetery, where lie together the English and the German dead of a past generation, as members of the one Protestant Communion. There was a time when we even thought of them as next of kin ! SALONICA 27 And as you look from here beyond the threshold of the city to the sea, your eye is caught by the dim grey outlines of the battle- ships and destroyers of the Allied Fleet ; the summits of the mountains and the sun's red globe, sending his wide rays of gold, as from a mighty searchlight, down upon the marshes of the Vardar Plain. 28 FLYING. OUT beyond the limits of the city and the rattling of its trams, its little pretences after civilisation and all that goes of bad or good to make a city, there spreads a green world that is entirely given up to peace. The soft grass under foot, the larks singing overhead, the wide sea spreading away beyond the gentle slopes, make a scene that might be culled from the very heart of England. And yet it is manifest that even here one is upon the very scene and edge of War. The green headland, with its Turkish name, is white with the British tents; the bay is alive with ships, and mules and horses. Here, under the awnings of the long lines of hospital tents, the convalescents sit of an evening, enjoying the soft air, looking across the sea to Olympus and the setting sun, smok- ing their pipes and playing Bridge, in their blue hospital clothes. Here across the fields the nurses walk in twos and threes, the surgeons take the air, when the day's work is nearly done. A little way off some cavalrymen are at work on their horses, and their English FLYING 29 voices " Now then, now then ! " ring sharply as across an English yard. There are vineyards and corn-fields here, and orchards and mulberries and apricots to the edge of the cliffs overlooking the sea ; and along the pathways soldiers in khaki walk solid, phlegmatic, pipe in mouth, unmoved by their strange environment. Down by the sea a man is riding a horse through the waves ; and in a trough of the downs where some fences have been put up, an officer is training a cob. The bay is alive with ships, and the air with the music of the French aeroplanes, as they come buzzing overhead with the purr of a great beetle and the wings of a buzzard. One, two, three, four I can count them as they come ; one afar off and high in the heavens, another circling low in narrowing orbits, till it comes like some feline thing to rest upon the sward. And then away they go again, filling the air with their deep vibration, one after another, into the world that lies beyond Hortiach and the British entrenchments, until they are lost to sight and sound. After they have gone one stays on to look with a complete contentment at the world as it passes through the phases of approaching night. For there is nothing so wonderful as this daily event in all the handiworks of man. The winds die down, as if in homage to the retreating sun ; the sea is calm and still. Upon its surface lie the battleships, as creatures that would be at peace. Upon the north, there by the soft green hills, spreads the ancient city, with 30 THE SCENE OF WAR the light upon its walls and towers, so far off that no murmur from it reaches to this place of quiet. Facing me, afar in the west, there is a long chain of mountains transfigured in the gold of the sunset, and capped by great puffs of clouds that are rimmed and encircled by fire. Away there upon those golden summits, the Bulgar hosts await the onset of the allied armies; and now and then, if you listen closely, you will hear the concussion of the bickering guns blup, blup . . . A little further towards the south the great chain of golden mountains approaches the sea, and rising to a height of close upon 10,000 feet, dazzles the imagination of men as the Thessalian Olympus. Here the fires of the sunset reach only in washes of rose, and the mighty brow of Jove flushes with a virginal beauty. From instant to instant the scene changes, for the great cosmic processes know no pause in the divine harmony of their action. Fans and searchlights of flame break out through the assembled clouds, reaching far up into the lucent sky, descending in glory upon the sea. A battleship caught in them is trans- formed from darkness and iron into a mist of gold. And then, little by little, the shadows of approaching night enfold the world. The fires pale, the crescent moon rides high in the heavens, a star shines forth. And it is now that the air is once more thrilled by a murmur that seems to come from afar. One turns to discover its origin, and there beyond the peak of Hortiach, in the paling sky, is a Farman booming like a great FLYING 31 bird a-wing. It is so high and so remote that I wonder how it will descend ; but the sound of its music increases, it grows larger to the vision, it makes wide, sweeping circles, descending from plane to plane ; the air is filled with its vibration ; I can faintly distinguish the form of the pilot ; and in the last gleam of the sunset I can see, like the under-plumage of a bird, the concentric circles that are the badge of the French aviators. The plane is flying now over the tops of the houses and circling for its place of descent; it glides over the grassy meadows, almost brushing them, as it were, with its wings ; it touches earth with a faint concussion, and then at last it comes to a pause, though its propeller continues, as with a grumble of protest, to work for some moments longer. You feel that it is not a machine, but a live thing ; it looks in the far sky like a bird to the life ; and in its last moments, as it finally comes to earth, it is for all the world like an eagle returning with its prey. It is otherwise when you climb into this crea- ture and fly. It is, let us say, a grey morning, an hour before sunrise. The city is asleep. Upon the long sea-front, where the traffic roars all day, there is nothing moving but a solitary motor- van, which has been out all night upon some busi- ness of war. Down by the hangars, where the road turns off, the acacias are in bloom, and the still air is heavy with their perfume. A nigger from Lake Tchad stands like a column at the gates, his bayonet fixed, his white teeth 32 THE SCENE OF WAR shining, clad in the uniform of France. He speaks French a good deal better than the average Englishman. "Lieutenant M will be here in five minutes." As I look about me, there is the green sward of yesterday ; in those vast sheds the aeroplanes are at rest, save one, which a number of men are bringing forward into the open. In an ad- joining canteen some hot coffee is being poured out into cups. Lieutenant M appears, his blue eyes shin- ing brightly, his manner alert and distinguished, his costume rather like that of an Eskimo or a baby. In a moment we have climbed into the car, the propeller has begun to revolve, the plane is pushed forward, the rubber wheels bump lightly on the grass, and then by some magic we are in the air. I can see that we are ascend- ing, but slowly, as one moves up-stream ; the sound of the propeller fills one's ears ; one's eyes are fixed upon the receding earth. At one's feet there is a celluloid pane through which one can look, and below this is the neat receptacle for bombs, which you can drop with a touch of the pedal. A wind blows hard against one, even on this still somnolent morning. And then every- thing begins to lose its natural appearance, and the world stands out in a new perspective. The bell-tents of the soldiery, in each of which there are sixteen men, look like the icing on the edge of a wedding-cake; the long lines of cavalry horses and mules look like the needles in a musical box ; the Serbian army is displayed like FLYING 33 a child's toy ; a Turkish village, with its grey fortified tower and tall minaret, looks like a pretty incident in a large picture ; the straight white military roads are like bits of ribbon arranged across the green chequer of the earth. Leaving the sea, we ascend towards Hortiach, whose summit is 4000 feet high; the mountain- sides rise up to meet us ; we pass over them ; the world becomes visible; every detail of it is spread at our feet. We can see the little smoke of the morning fires, the connecting roads. . . . We are on a level with the summit of Hortiach ; . . . we ascend above it; there is a streak of yellow sunrise; the plane moves with a solid, easy composure. It becomes a little cold. And now we are over the divide the peri- meter of hills that shelters Salonica, the Torres Vedras of Macedonia. The whole of Lake Lan- gaza is become visible. Below us there is the velvet green of corn-fields, the rougher fringe of the moors ; and the British trenches look like the workings of white ants. There is the little strip of the Via Ignatia, the old road that linked the city of Constantine with Rome. We are above the lake now, its olive -green luminous with the reflection of the rising sun. o At one end there is a cluster of boats under an old weather-beaten tower; at another, safe from intrusion, a flock of white birds, that are seem- ingly still asleep. Beyond the lake rise the outer Balkans the outposts of the Allied armies. Over there the guns bicker, the cavalry scout; there is the growling that precedes attack. Behind that c 34 THE SCENE OF WAR grey veil there is hidden the glamour of the Coming Event. We turn a little aside, and, leaving the lake, fly up the long valley, over the peak that is called Gibraltar. The trenches are like a tapes- try at our feet, and we can see their purpose and plan. The sides of the water-courses are white with an inner lining of tents. A village deploys, the totality of. its ancient life exposed to our gaze. We see it in the aggregate, and forget that in each homestead there are human creatures, whose joys and sorrows are similar to our own. I can understand now the indifference with which men fling bombs upon a crowded city, as impartial as Fate. Everything, it would seem, is a matter of perspective. Most of us would walk (without a pang) over a colony of ants, its ordered life and tense activities. We recross the axis of the hills and face the marshes of the Vardar. Before us gleams in its wide circuit the Bay of Salonica, with Olympus grey and cold beyond. I can see the brown fans of the Vardar mud, the deeper blue of the sea near the quays, where the battleships anchor. Away there on our right spread the French en- campments, line upon line in serried masses. Here below us, visible through the celluloid pane, is the whole of Salonica, within its old grey walls, like sheep in a pen. But we move swiftly, and a moment later the harbour lies below us : the sailing boats like little butterflies under glass; the battleships like canoes; and as the out-going steamers move upon their way we can see how they skirt the visible limits of the FLYING 35 Vardar mud. You don't realise that as a pas- senger. Beside the cruisers the submarines nestle, like the small fish that travel with the shark. And then we begin to descend the revolu- tions become slower, the sound of the propeller, abates; we make giddy circles descending; the world goes round ; we ease down ; and once more the comfortable earth is very near. Familiar objects assume their natural proportions. The aeroplane is very low now, and racing, like a bird about to alight, over the fields; and here for almost the first time one has the impression of speed. The rest of it has been like sitting in a chair. We touch earth with the lightest of contacts ; the little wheels run along the grass ; the men at the Aerodrome run forward and guide the plane to its place of rest. We have travelled at a moderate speed of some eighty kilometres an hour, and in fifty minutes have seen three armies in position. Eighteen hours on horse- back showed me but a fraction of this. I am back in time to catch the first tram as it leaves its shed. From this superb movement I am reduced once more to commonplace things, the jolting tram, the foot-passengers on the pavements. When flying is made safe it will surpass all other motion ; but it will make for the Lucretian view. One will trace the causes of things ; the world will become a map rather than a picture ; the little homely incidents will be lost; the wooded glen with its stream purling through 36 THE SCENE OF WAR it, the haunted pool, the mountain withdrawn in its dread majesty, these will become but topographical incidents. The beautiful bay, with its smiles and its sunlit waters necked with ships, will be no more than a ground-plan ; the city, with its monuments, its human souls, its homes, its griefs, joys, aspirations, and despair, will seem to one in the air but a cluster of houses and streets, and scarcely discernible pin- nacles. Many of the things we love and strive after will become insignificant and unsatisfying ; there will be a reason for everything. Will that homestead with its carefully-tended garden be anything to you when you have seen it as scarcely more than a pin-point in a hive ? that cherished acre anything but trivial when you have seen a million such spread, the one in- distinguishable from the other, under your momentary gaze ? that battleship, with its great guns, anything but a trivial toy invented by the child Man ? But there will be compensations. The world will become clearer, and the spirit will soar, as did the soul of Lucretius, into the outposts of space, into new spheres of imagination and awe. A new poetry will arise, and the fabric of thought will be changed. And something of this we shall owe, amidst the general wreckage, to the stimulus of the Great War. 37 ENTRENCHED POSITIONS. AT Salonica one is concerned with the comedy of life. It is a place of politics, of subtle issues, of under-currents and passionate rivalries, and of rumours and tales that swell like the clouds into illimitable space, for the most part to vanish and fade away into nothingness. But out upon the green hills that encircle the city one is in another world. And it was my fortune to see something of this world upon more than one occasion. The episode began outside the old Turkish Consulate : a villa amidst pine-trees and flowers on the edge of the sea. The pansies and roses which graced its entrance, and its name over the lintel, the Villa Ida, were a relic of its late occupants. The British sentry at the gate, standing stiffly erect with his bayonet fixed, was more in harmony with the uses to which it was now being put; for it was the Head- quarters of the British Army under General Sir Bryan Mahon. It continued, upon a journey that was to carry us far afield from the sights and scenes of the city, into the open countryside, where our people were assembled for war. But at 38 THE SCENE OF WAR first we motored slowly through the city over its cobbled streets, the General saluted at every turn by Englishmen, Frenchmen, Greeks, and Serbians, through the dimness of the Turkish Bazaar, and the scenes of a vanished supremacy. A little while and we were out upon the white Seres road that takes its way over the Greek hills, in the company of hundreds of great Argentine mules, of transport carts, motor-lorries, guns, and infantry and cavalry on the march. How different were these things, these hills and encampments, these men astir upon the business of war, from the pleasant town with its quays and ships, its pretty women, its loafers, intriguers, and idlers, its timid populace ! Here was another world. Then the motor drew up by the roadside, and the General gave his chauffeur instructions to meet him four hours later at the village of K . We walked down to a cluster of tents, and a groom came forward. "I will ride the black to-day, Smith," said the General. "And saddle the chestnut as well." "Yess-sir," said the smart groom turned soldier, saluting; and presently, as we waited by the tents and the banks of a little stream that came purling through the green valley, the black and the chestnut were brought up, and we rode away. W T e were a party of seven, including an Aide-de-camp, jovial and large of figure, whose function it was to take a rosy view of life, and to spread contentment about him wherever he went. Twenty years before ENTRENCHED POSITIONS 39 I had met a kinsman of his with the same gift. For the rest we had an escort of four, one of whom bore the pennon of the Army Commander. Thus we rode over the green hills, leaving the Seres road behind us, and meeting all sorts and conditions of men in khaki. Here a High- lander on guard over an ammunition store that lay buried deep under the turf; there a train of mules, wilful, squealing, obstructive ; Cana- dians, Australians, Irishmen, some asleep by the pathway in the oblivion of fatigue, others climbing the long telegraph-poles and linking up the wire as it spanned the blue cloud-capped sky above the green margin of the hills; field batteries rumbling to their places. The big men on the big horses flung out each an arm sharply to attention, and saluted like an image as the General passed. Fresh of hue, superb of figure, martial of countenance, and in the very prime of life, these men touched one's pride. "With such men we should win battles," I ventured ; and the General, looking at them with a critical affection, said, " Ah ! yes ; they are fine fellows." Next we came to an Indian Transport Corps, and the men with the faces of those you will see on the Pindi-Kashmir road, at the villages where the tongas halt, sat their horses well and saluted as we rode by. But a year ago their brethren had clustered round me, proud of having sent their sons and brothers to the Great War, and all eager to know if it was really true that the German Emperor had become 40 THE SCENE OF WAR Moslem, so widely and well does a lie travel until it is killed. A little farther and we came to the summit of a hill where a new-made trench wound with its white sandbags like a particularly tortuous snake over the skyline towards the hollow on the farther side. And from here we looked upon a scene that is intimately concerned with the history of this war. For at our feet there lay the wide Vale of Langaza, smooth as the floor of the sea; with villages and white minarets, and fields of butter- cups that lay like a patchwork of gold upon the grass, and fir plantations, and here and there the tumulus as over in Ireland of some dead personage of ancient days. The valley bore down upon the Lake of Langaza, blue and sleepy in the haze of this summer day, and beyond it rose the Krusha Balkans and the Beshik Dagh, from three to four thousand feet in height; and yet again, in the distance, the Belashitza, hard by Doiran and the line towards Rabrovo, where the 10th Division under General Mahon, the men of Connaught and Munster and the Dublin Fusiliers, held the Bulgar armies at bay from the 5th to the 9th December, an act of war that their brethren of Irish blood will not wish to forget. The General was silent, after the manner of his kind, about his own part in the fighting of those three or four eventful days, when the French, hard pressed in their retreat along the Vardar line, were hastening down through the ENTRENCHED POSITIONS 41 Demir Kapu defile to the junction of their right wing with the British forces; but he looked quietly for a moment or two in that direction, and, pointing his hunting crop towards a big blue mountain transfigured afar off in the sun-haze, said "D'you see those two mules up there against the skyline and the high mountain there be- yond ? Well, that's the Bulgarian frontier." Upon those high hills, the Krusha Balkans and the Beshik Dagh, between which to its descent upon the farther side across the Struma river there winds the Seres road, our advanced cavalry and guns were stationed; and each morning our horsemen bickered with the Ger- man patrols. But no trace of all this was visible from here. There was only the peace- ful valley sleeping at our feet and the cloud shadows as they wandered over the everlasting hills. But about us and near at hand as we de- scended towards the intervening vale were the British trenches, and dark caves in the hills for men to shelter in from gun-fire, and a small enclosure that a little way off might seem no more than a shepherd's camp on the hillside, and this was the headquarters of a brigadier. It was, for all that science has added to the business of war, a return to the primitive life. We continued to descend, and in the green valleys where there were pools there were men, white and naked, bathing and drying themselves in the lustre of the sun. So it was when the 42 THE SCENE OF WAR world was young and the gods lived upon the mountain-sides. Then the horses, sweating from the heat and the stiff ascent, stopped as of right by the stream's edge, where some dead Turk had carved a marble trough by a fountain, and they drank with a profound contentment, their necks strained forward, their lips to the music of the running stream. It was such a group as you will see in many a picture : the horses drinking, the men dismounted beside them, the flowing stream, and from a lance-head the General's pennon fluttering in the breeze. "All this water," said he, pulling out a vast aluminium cigarette-case, " goes to waste. And just look at that valley there what a place we could make of it ! " I suppose that in every Irishman's heart there resides this instinct for the land. When we came to the level valley, we mounted again, by a line of trenches that lay flat upon its green surface, and cantered over the soft turf, by the cruel lines of barbed wire, over fields of blood-red poppies and acres of daisies, by purple thistles and fields of buttercups, the big chestnut swinging over the yielding turf with the clean stride of the high-caste horse. A little way ahead of me rode the General, easy in his saddle, as a man is easy in his home ; with the seat of the hunting-man the man from Galway. His hair was a little grizzled about the ears, his figure clean - built and slim ; his skin was tanned to a dark brown, and the clean line of his jaw showed the man of action. It ENTRENCHED POSITIONS 43 seemed to me then that there was very little about a horse that he didn't know, and that he looked upon life through the plain, direct gaze of a soldier who knew the world. His talk, as we rode, was of India and Africa, and of the sport and service that carry men of our race from quiet countrysides to the uttermost parts of the earth. And yet, since we all love the countryside, he turned every now and then to dwell upon the wild flowers by the wayside, and the shadows of the clouds upon the hills. Leaving the valley now and the edge of Lake Langaza, we turned back to the upland moors, and were once more behind the scenes of a modern entrenchment, amidst the hospitals and the first-aid stations, the bomb-proof shelters and the business of supply. The sultry noon, which had flecked our horses with foam, gave way to a breeze from the sea, and upon these high moors the air was delicious, and full of sustenance. The men as they marched past us looked the very image of health, with their tanned faces and blue eyes; and the twang of their speech was the twang of many an English county Oxford, Buckingham, Wilts. Once, before leaving the crest of the hill, we turned to look back, and there was a picture apt for the painter. A green knoll where sheep were browsing; a herd of tasselled goats re- clining in the shelter of the scented shrubs ; a shepherd-lad piping to the morning; a patch of corn with the wind blowing over it; and in the midst of all, the climbing road made by the British Pioneers, along which the General's escort 44 THE SCENE OF WAR was passing, its pennon displayed. Far down below lay the steely blue of Lake Langaza, half asleep in the summer haze ; beyond it rose the line of the Krusha Balkans, with shadow and sunlight ever changing on their surface; while above them the cloud castles soared high into the heavens ; and afar off lay the Bulgar out- posts, invisible in the sun-mists on the horizon. It was a scene so peaceful and heavy-lidded with repose, so silent, so motionless, save for a hawk winging his flight in circles overhead, that one might have fallen asleep looking at it, and never dreamt that here was a scene of im- pending war, which held within its compass armies that were only waiting their summons to battle. That great summons has since gone forth : the guns have begun to rumble over the white roads, the infantry to march, and the great issue is ioined. The moment for action is come. But upon that summer day these things seemed but an illusion of the spirit, and the realities of war little more than the phantasms of a dream. And then a year or two later, when the war is over, and the great battles have been fought and won, and men have died, and peace is once more upon the land, there will remain here, to mark this conflict of the world, little more than these white ribbons of road along which the slow people of the countryside will toil with a greater ease; and here and there an earthwork will survive, to tell that there were gathered ENTRENCHED POSITIONS 45 upon these hills, as of old before Ascalon and Antioch, the allied hosts of England and France. Passing rapidly down the seaward slopes, through a smiling valley of vineyards and fruit-trees, interspersed with corn, we reached the village of K , with its tall church-tower, its red-roofed houses, its plots of garden and field, and left our sweating horses for the car. The highway, which was also the main street of the village, was so narrow here that we had to wait till the motor-lorries and the mules that were already engaged upon it had come through, and the telephone operator in his tent by the wayside had sent word of our passing to the farther end. We were not long in transit, but just long enough to catch a glimpse of the tranquil life of the village of the grocer's shop, the Post Office, the little inner courtyards bright with wistarias and white Banksia roses, the pots of carnations, and the faces of women and children at the windows. They told me once more that war is but an incident, and that the peaceful life of the countryside is the one permanent thing that persists through all vicissitudes. A few moments more, and we were back upon the cobbles and in the midst of the shadowy bazaar and the people by the quays ; and here was the sea, swelling by the walls like a giant at play, tossing the sailing barks and the serried ships; and afar off through the forest of masts and the lace-work of the rigging, remote and unearthly, rose the front of Jove, the Thessalian Olympus. A DAY WITH THE BRIGADIER. IT is a grey morning and a thin rain is falling, wetting the cobbled streets and making splashes of mud on the clanging cars, the big horses of the Army Service Corps, and the people hurrying along the harbour wall. It is such a rain as one is on terms with in England, and at times it ceases under a grey sky, and at others it drips on all through the day. The motor-car carries us beyond the Venetian walls and towers of the city, its dark pointing cypresses and soaring minarets, into the green hill-country beyond. Here we are in the midst of a column of French infantry on the march in their grey-blue coats and slate-coloured helmets of steel, looking strong and vital after the manner of French soldiers, as they swing along. Beyond the village of K we stop in front of the headquarters of the XVI. Division, and are met by the Brigadier. Our course now lies over a plateau, where a base of supplies, with forges and workshops, is established ; as also a field hospital, with its com- fortable tents for the sick and wounded, its group of small tents in a separate field for the nurses, A DAY WITH THE BRIGADIER 47 its green lawn and its flagstaff flying the Red Cross with the Union Jack. A company of pioneers is at work upon the road, men of the X. Division who held the line from Rabrovo to Doiran last December, when the French Army was fighting its way down the Vardar. You cannot doubt that these are Irish faces some with the big fighting jaw, and others with the wild Irish gleam in their eyes ; and all with the brogue upon their lips. The recruiting, unfortu- nately, is not filling up their depleted ranks as fast as could be wished, and Englishmen are taking the place of Irishmen in these historic regiments Munsters, Connaughts, Dublin Fusiliers. It is for my countrymen to wipe away this reproach, and to fill once more their regiments with their own sons. In front of us rises to a big pinnacle the peak of Hortiach, and below it there is a salient whose fate as the emplacement for a battery is to be decided to-day. Here, it is evident, is a great natural belvedere, from which the surrounding world is visible. At our feet lies Langaza grey and silent under the rain-laden sky ; beyond it the strip of level land that divides it from Lake Beshek whose corner is visible from here; and climbing up to us in successive waves are the foothills which the enemy would have to storm if he wished to get as far as this. Afar off on our right are other hills whose slopes descend towards the sea, and these are the eastern limit of the position ; while across lake and valley there are the great masses of the Balkans and the threatened frontier of Greece. 48 THE SCENE OF WAR As we stay here while the Generals debate upon the question of a battery, boom, boom, the sound of distant guns is borne upon our ears, and the sound of each shot comes with the sullen sleepy music as of defiance and lethargy inter- mingled. At Avrili, whose church tower is so notable a landmark on the hillside, we stay our horses for a rest ; and as we sit here by its ancient parapet the old people gather in groups at the corner, and the children, open-eyed and hopeful, assemble about us. Under the grey walls there lie the marble columns of some old Byzantine church that stood here in the better days before the Turk had come and when the Greeks were still a people. There is a field telephone in the village, and a couple of Irish soldiers sit in the place under a mulberry -tree where a stream tumbles on its way to the valley below. It is a rough poor village of little account, but this church is its symbol of life and unity with Christendom, and beneath the humble faces of the people there dwells the tenacity that has kept them here survivors of centuries of alien rule to meet the new day that is dawning for the Balkan people. From Avrili we rode down to meet the old Roman road, the Via Ignatia, that is still the highway of Salonica. Here by a stream amongst the pleasant shelter of trees a body of troops was encamped and a great base of supplies was estab- lished. Up and along the stream came in a long line the Bharatpur Transport Corps with a smart young Indian officer, who rode in advance of it ; A DAY WITH THE BRIGADIER 49 while an old veteran marched beside it, his beard wrapped up to his ears after the manner of the Sikhs, and upon his face the patient, enduring look of one who plugs along the path of duty, unmoved by any other impulse, his brown old face almost ruddy under this northern sky. Leaving this sheltered and pleasant spot, we rode out into the plain where the first -line trenches lay and the wire entanglements spread their tentacles; but it was hard to believe that there could ever be war upon this spot, for there were lush meadows and herds of sleepy cattle browsing on the grass, and daisies by the million under foot, and by the lake shores there were trees about a hamlet, and the sky was soft with grey clouds, and we might almost have been in England. Returning to the hills down which we had come, we saw the main outlines of the British positions developed before us : low foothills, with here and there a village church tower ; deep ravines ; a middle space of moor and upland, and the high peak of Hortiach, 3500 feet above the level of the lake, an impregnable position. We rode on mile after mile up the foothills and over the moors, where in sleepy hollows vast flocks of black and white sheep were resting, and the shepherds sat apart over their rough noonday meal. With the 1st of May they had begun mov- ing up from the lowland pastures, and they are now passing the summer here upon the hills, re- mote from towns and the ordinary avocations of men. For them the world has changed but little since Alexander of Macedon came this way. About us spread a host of wild flowers daisies D 50 THE SCENE OF WAR where some pool or spring had made the grass green beyond the common; honeysuckle in the shrubs; lilies, jasmine, and the wild rose. The Brigadier, who seemed to like this place, said that a short while ago it was full of violets and primroses. We drew up at last after some eight hours in the saddle, for we had long since given up the car before the Brigadier's Headquarters, and went into the little mess cottage for an English tea. The rain was pouring outside, and the sight of the quartern loaf on the table, the blackberry jam, and the pot of tea, was like balm in Gilead. The inner walls of this celibate abode were lined with reeds from Lake Langaza, which gave them an effect as of a Japanese tea-house of a virginal simplicity and neatness. At the partitioned end was a small sitting-room, with a vase full of purple and white iris, which grows here as abun- dantly as it grows in Kashmir. A file of English newspapers and a couple of new books were upon the table. Outside the handy-men of the brigade for the new army contains all the talents had laid out a garden with paths and flower-beds, classic vases moulded in cement, and seats under the trees. At the porch there were lilacs and nasturtiums in bloom ; but the masterpiece the garden was but three months old was its Flag- staff, with a hunting scene to the life, cut out of a biscuit tin, the hounds and the five-barred gate and the rider on the big horse, a bit of England against the sky. And what shall I say of the Brigadier and his ways ? I began after a while to realise how A DAY WITH THE BRIGADIER 51 agreeable life must be to a pretty woman whom every man is eager to please. But who am I that I should be looked after as I was; that the Brigadier, who fought at Mons and Le Gateau, who took his share in driving back von Kluck, and in the course of a whole year of war in the trenches was only home twice for the inside of a week, should be so solicitous of my welfare ? Nobody, of course; it was only the Brigadier's way. He seemed to know by instinct what the stranger from without would like to see. There, if I wouldn't mind turning aside a little, was a fine place for a view; and along that lane the wild flowers were really worth looking at, and if we were to go up to that village we could find a really nice spot to lunch in. " And that reminds me," said he, " that I have brought a packet of sandwiches for you, if you don't mind their being a little sloppy;" and would I like to go down there by the lake and see the trenches ? and wouldn't I like now to put on my mackintosh as the rain is coming on ? and, look here (this as I was leaving after eight hours of his company), wouldn't I put on his spare coat instead of my wet one, the car could so easily bring it back ? and finally, " Well, if you would like another ride over this division just let me know by tele- phone, and we shall be very happy to arrange it for you. No, no ; it is a great pleasure to us to see any one from outside." But what I liked best of all about him was his love for the French. "They're wonderful," he said. "They are heart and soul in this war; they have put their all into it their women, 52 THE SCENE OF WAR their children everything. They understand war, they do, a military nation ; and their army is wonderful, a perfect instrument. And they love their Joffre, and have the greatest trust and faith in him. He is a good old man, about the best they could find, very cautious and sensible ; and his orders to the Army of the Marne, bidding it to advance, are a striking military document." " They are very clever too," he says, " at con- cealing their guns better than we are," and he laughs. " After all, we are not exactly a cunning nation." This general is a young man, a staff officer. His gaze is fixed more often than not upon the ground, like Chaucer's. He turns over your suggestions for a moment before he replies. His face shows traces of eighteen months of war ; the lines are cut rather deeply on it. But he has not the war face of the Army Commander, nor yet his inimitable seat upon a horse, it is only the hunting-field that gives one that. There was a subaltern also at headquarters, a very quiet, serious, and thoughtful young man. He also could tell by some instinct just when you might like some more blackberry jam, and when your cup would like a little more tea in it. A lady would have liked him to see after her little wants. We talk much in our deprecatory way of our island manners, and it may be with some reason ; yet I sometimes think there are no manners in the world like our English manners, just as there is no food so good as our English food ; for when these are good, they are very very good. BOOK II. ITALY ITALY notifies that she has conquered since the beginning of the War 1200 square iniles, shortened her front by 125 miles, and taken 85,000 Austrian prisoners. She has 469,000 munition workers, of whom 73,000 are women. A GREEK SYMPOSIUM. IT was my intention to have gone to Kavalla, but the sailing of the Greek steamers was not to be relied upon, and the prospect of another week of detention on these shores was uninviting. Greater events were impending in Italy, and the Adriatic beckoned me across its waters. We left Salonica about three o'clock of a sunlit day, and made good headway as far as the outer Cape of Kara Bournu, but were soon brought to a standstill by the French authorities, who con- trol all departures from the port. There were other boats assembled for the same purpose about the guardship, and from moment to moment the boats which carry the coasting trade, with all their panoply of sail, drew up with the grace of a bygone age by the grey ship's side. Then at last after many delays we were re- leased from this bondage ; some one gave the signal to start, a torpedo-boat led the way through the maze of mines, and steamers and sailing craft followed anxiously in its wake until we had passed into the freedom of the open sea. The evening sunlight was bathing the low green 56 THE SCENE OF WAR shores of Kara Bournu and its salmon - tinted cliffs, and making a haze of purple and silver along the brows of Olympus as we passed upon our way. At nightfall, after dinner, a great political argumentation took place in the saloon. The ultra- Venizelists assembled about the person of the Chandler to the Allied Fleet upon the one side, the Royalists, led by the Captain, on the other ; while an old Greek officer took up a place in the centre, with one or two others whose attitude was that of reserve. The Chandler and the Captain were evidently the protagonists of the debate, and each as he became seized with the afflatus of speech rose from his chair, advanced with a menacing air towards the opposition, and flung his arguments with great force and passionate declamation within an inch of their faces. Then all joined in with loud voices but the one or two, and there was a Babel of speech throughout the little saloon, from whose walls a portrait of the Scotch owner gazed tranquilly upon the excited com- pany. Venizelos, Constantine, English, French, Germans, Rumanians, were names that stood out like prominent landmarks from the tropical forest of their speech. After it was all over, my cabin companion, a clever and ardent soul, said that there would soon be a Revolution, that he loved the English, that it was a pity Venizelos had not long since sent a great personage about his business when he had the chance, and that in short the world of the Hellenes was all awry. A GREEK SYMPOSIUM 57 But one of the most serious and reserved of those present said to me that he had little use for such ill - considered arguments, that his country was passing through a difficult crisis, and that while most were for Venizelos, they also had a good king. He frankly admitted that in his opinion the best thing that could happen for Greece would be an inconclusive peace. This man had lived in England, France, and Germany ; and his personal sympathies, he said, were with England, which he considered the most civilised and the most liberal country in the world. " In Salonica," he said, " we are all of one mind that the English officer is a thorough gentleman ; there is no one else his equal." Leaving the assembly to its loud deliberations, while the Chandler, worn out with the fury of his speech, lay with his head lopping over his neighbour's breast asleep, I stepped outside to see the crescent moon sending her trail of silver down the sea, the dark outline of Olympus with a faint shimmer of snow upon his brows, cut clear against the starry sky. The ship sped gallantly forward upon her destiny, the night was of a soft and clarified beauty, and bright lights burnt over the bows, where there was painted in blue and white the neutral flag of Greece. It was in the nature of a litany to the marauding Hun, "Spare us, good Boche." 58 AN IDYLL OF PELION. AT dawn we entered the Gulf of Volo, and in the vivid sunlight came to anchor opposite this little town and in the midst of its wide circle of hills. A carriage carried us a party of three, consisting of the Lover of England who wished for an inconclusive peace, the Widow of a Serbian colonel who had been killed in the retreat to Valona, and the writer up the steep slopes of Pelion to the village of Porta Ria, which was a revelation through its cleanliness and its charm of what a Greek village can be. There never was anywhere in the world a sweeter spot than this. To the devotion of one of its citizens it owes its fine hotel, its admirable school, its excellent drainage, and the costly road that makes it ac- cessible to carriages and motor-cars from Volo. For it is an endearing custom of the Greeks, when they have made their fortunes abroad, to return for their remaining years to their native towns and villages and to bestow upon them the surplus of their wealth. It is mainly to such contributions that Athens which belongs after all to the whole world, and not merely to the AN IDYLL OF PELION 59 modern Greeks owes its beautiful public build- ings, and the manifest progress of the past six- teen years. Whatever their faults, there is no question that these people love their Hellas with a sincere and fervent devotion. Alas ! that they should have suffered its honour to be tarnished in these fallen days. To Nature, Porta Ria, like its neighbouring villages, the famous Twenty - Four of Pelion, owes a site that overlooks the lake -like ex- panses of the Gulf of Volo, its noble plane- trees, its running waters, and its meadows full of flowers. It is in truth a rural Elysium, and its people spare no efforts to maintain its char- acter. The village Place is flagged with slate and roofed with the foliage of magnificent plane - trees, the eastern chinar ; and the school is bright with roses, lilacs, and beds of poppies. We entered this model place to find all the little boys and girls assembled, and were shown the very neat kindergarten objects made by the children. Our proposal to pay for one or two that were given us was rejected with ex- clamations of denial. The little Achilles and Persephones sang a national song about the planting of the Greek Flag on the walls of Constantinople, unaware of the decline in the fortunes of their country; and upon my asking the name of one of the prettiest little girls, I found that it was Aphrodite ! The schoolmistress was a practical little woman, born of the village, and as much as possible like a schoolrna'am from a New 60 THE SCENE OF WAR England State. The children varied from light blondes with blue eyes to dark brunettes with Mahomedan faces, and in this little com- munity of mixed blood there was, as sometimes happens when North and South meet, one with the most beautiful shade of auburn imagin- able. They all liked being patted on the head, and were evidently affectionate and well brought-up. We looked in at an adjoining cottage, and found its inner court so charming with its marble fountain and pergola of vines, its syringas, lilacs, and roses, its mayflower in bloom, its absolute purity and cleanliness, that we crossed the threshold and were greeted by a friendly and happy - looking old man who invited us to enter, brought chairs for us to sit on, and introduced us to his mother, a white - haired old woman with the most gentle and considerate face. This family had lost twelve thousand pounds at Dedeagatch on its transfer to the Bulgars, but had accepted their losses with a quiet resignation. "We are happy," he said, "in our native place, in this little home. We have health and peace of mind. As to the money, we have but to cut down our expenses and live more simply." In the garden of the hotel, where we took a siesta, there were pansies, daisies, stocks, wall- flowers, campanulas, roses, and guelder-roses, and a Marechal Niel spread its wealth of yellow over the walls. AN IDYLL OF PELION 61 Even the common houses were beautiful, with their waterfalls and wooden seats under the great trees, and their glimpses of the sea. It was in the midst of these rural scenes that I came upon a remarkable figure, the Parisian Bohemian to the life, no less a person than the late editor of 'The Figaro' and a former Prefect of Seres. He also was a native of Elysium, and was returned here to shelter in the afternoon of his life. If I have dwelt thus upon the charms of this village of Pelion, it is because not only are they incontestable, but they met one as it were 'twixt wind and water, between the martial airs and subtle policies of Greece and the thunder of real war upon the Western Front. " Pauvre Serbie ; oh my unhappy country ! " I heard our Serbian companion say more than once as we looked upon this happy place ; and turning to us she said, "Oh, gentlemen, if you but knew what we have endured the horrors, oh ! the horrors they have perpetrated in homes just like these. Cannot you understand ? And you, sir, if your country had but known, would it ever have left us to our fate ? " But the Cautious Politician only shook his head. For him there was no solution like that of an Inconclusive Peace. 62 THE GULF OF COEINTH. MY last recollection of the Piraeus is of the chief officer, seated on the railings at the stern of our ill-found ship, shouting at the top of his voice to the crew, and gesticulating with a pas- sion and fervour that left me dumb. I came to the conclusion that these southern races, with all their excitability, must have the strongest nerves of any people in the world, for the way in which they pour out their vital forces over next to nothing is little short of stupendous. We wriggled slowly out of the crowded har- bour, where a number of German ships were taking a holiday, and with an increasing speed made for the Bay of Salamis, where in the distance the Greek fleet, bound for Nowhere, was emitting clouds of dense black smoke. Salamis and the fleet of Greece ! What ironies does time accomplish. Our course lay through the Corinthian Canal, whose walls rose up magnificently upon either hand like the bulwarks of some Titan's castle. They might have been sliced with a sword. The sea lay very clear and green below, and THE GULF OF CORINTH 63 the colour of these walls was a golden yellow. Upon the bridge that spans the canal a sentry stood with his fixed bayonet, like a little tin soldier, far above our heads. We emerged where Corinth suns herself under the grey dome of her ancient Acropolis, and were enraptured once more with the memories that throng about these classic shores. Does any one, I wonder, ever forget such things ? As we steamed through this inner sea the broad round mass of Helicon rose upon our right, and Parnassus with his stately summit glittered in the sky. There were sailing ships as of old running before the breeze, and white villages along the shores. Upon our left the land rose high and moun- tainous, its summits still white with snow, and it came to the sea's edge not in a single wall but in successive stages, so that in the grey evening they looked like the shadowy and mysterious outworks of another world. And this was the Peloponnesus we were looking upon, and the Spartans of old lived beyond these mountains in their innermost recesses. For me the night as we sailed through it was weighted with these shadows of a mighty past. I could think but little of the war. 64 THE ADEIATIC. TOWARDS morning we passed by Cephalonia into the open sea, and it might have been thought that here upon the fringe of Italy, hard by the Austrian shores, we should have felt the impact of the war ; but it was not so. An air of great peace and tranquillity lay upon the ship ; no one spoke of torpedoes or submarines, and no one came to detain us or to inspect our papers. The swallows flew round us in swift circles and sat in lines upon the rigging, and a small bird frightened out of its course came and found a momentary rest upon a man's shoulders. It was a halcyon voyage, unflecked by any incident. This man whom the bird had selected for its confidence was a doctor from Corfu, and he told me some terrible things of the Serbian retreat through the mountains. " You can have no conception," he said, "of the pitiable condition in which they arrived. Their clothes were in tatters, their beards had grown long ; they were gaunt, famished, and stricken with disease. Upon their first arrival hundreds died daily ; and many who had died on their way from Durazzo were thrown into the sea. For seven THE ADRIATIC 65 days, during the agony of their retreat, these people were without food; and even when they got to Durazzo, they had to pay as much as twenty francs for a bit of bread. Their hearts," he added, "are burning with hatred for the Bulgars and the Austrians; and with indigna- tion at what they consider the treachery of our people. But they have made an astonish- ing recovery, and a hundred and twenty thousand of them are now well fitted for war. You will see what an account they will give of them- selves. Dysentery, cholera, these were the diseases that slew them. If you could only have seen them when they arrived ! " 66 ROME. AT Messina we lay for a season in the clutches of the war, but at Naples the world wagged very much as of old, save that happily the Boche was not abroad. The countryside, as the train bore me to Rome, was full of peace and of the beauty of Italy, Virgilian in its suggestion, with its wedded vines and elms, its serried acres and its olive groves silvering upon the hills; its lordly towns and rich pastures, with the milch cattle lowing in the fields. But two thousand addi- tional years of toil had left their impress upon the scene, and the scarped hillsides over which the furrows passed had been smoothened down to gentle billows and waves of land. All the grandeur and the softness of Italy were here. As the evening dusk came on, the mountains receded and the plain became wide and apt for a great city. We had reached the Campagna. The lights of passing trains twinkled across its surface, and here and there upon its monotony glowed the little village constellations. The towns on the hillsides near Rome shone with their electric fires, each one separate in the pervading darkness like a ship at sea; and in the greyness there loomed the mighty forms ROME 67 of aqueducts, like ghosts from a vanished past. I felt that I had come through a land touched with mysteries of landscape, and old with the imprints of mighty generations of men, yet land that was peaceful and lovely and unaware of war. And thus we entered the thronging streets of Rome. It was another world that I looked upon amidst the glories of the Palazzo Colonna. For here, through the enterprise of Prince Colonna, a collection of French pictures of the War had been gathered together, and so engrossing were these in their character that one had no eyes for the older beauties of the building. Yet were they for the most part lacking in genius, and in the gleam of great Art. For modern war is not a beautiful thing; nor does it lend itself much to tli e Art of the painter. It is Science in a brutal form. Its influence upon all Art will probably prove to be destructive ; and at the best the War will be an interlude that Art will willingly forget. A large number of these pictures was con- cerned with the brutality of the Hun ; with the harshness of burning towns and ruined churches ; with the agonies of women and children suffering at the hands of the Barbarian ; and with the Boche's coarseness, self-indulgence, and thieving in occupied country. The worst horrors, of which the stern and terrible record is written in the French official publications, were not depicted here. For there are some things that even real- ism jibs at. But there were some vivid impres- 68 THE SCENE OF WAR sions one, for instance, which depicted the War as a cyclone driving furiously upon its course with the cruel faces and the brazen helmets of the Boche in its midst, while the earth lay prone at its mercy below ; and there were pictures which touched the War from the Christian stand- point, but, as it seemed to me, with little convic- tion. The painters, were evidently more concerned with the vileness of their enemies than with the sinfulness of War. I do not remember to have seen even one that rose above such themes to the contemplation of the War as a possible chastise- ment from God of the sins of men ; or as Rodin put it to a friend in Rome, " C'est un fldau que nous avons m6ritt." Amongst the better pictures were those which touched human emotions of a universal kind : such as George Scott's " Last Vigil," showing a dying General watched over by a dragoon, a candle blown by the wind, and the dawn break- ing through the window. Another showed an emaciated peasant soldier straining up in his last moments to kiss his poor old mother. " Maman . . . Maman" were the words upon his lips. This was from the bedrock of human nature in France ; for it is to his mother that the Frenchman turns in his agony. Of the glory, of the splendour of war as in bygone days, there was nothing. One could see that here was a people defending itself against a bully, a people willing to die for its honour and its love of country, but not from the desire as of old to conquer and annex. There was no trace in these pictures of the Napoleonic spirit. ROME 69 More interesting than our own were the por- traits of the French Generals a remarkable series. The incident of the death of General Castelnau's son Va mon fits ! tu as la plus belle mort que Von puisse souhaiter" was the subject of a picture ; and in all these there was evident the French attitude of devotion, as of children to a father, to those who lead them in war. They love their Generals, these French, not as the Peninsular soldier loved his Iron Duke, or as the British public loved its " K. of K.," but as the Old Guard loved the Little Corporal. They say that France has changed, but in these respects she has not changed. You will see here written plainly in these pictures the greater emotion, the Celtic strain, in the soul of her people. There are documents other than those issued from official sources, and it seemed to me that through this collection of pictures gathered to- gether in Rome, I had seen a little way into the Soul of France. For Rome herself one had no heart in the circumstances of the hour. One's mind would not settle to her ancient glories, her great galleries and stores of Art ; St Peter's ; the Vatican. . . . These things failed to attract. The pictures of her Masters, their Madonnas and Saints, left one cold and unmoved. They seemed dead and ir- relevant, like the modes of a bygone day. Yet was the city beautiful; yet were there moments that lay like a benediction upon one's spirit. As I sat by the high wall of the Pincio one 70 THE SCENE OF WAR evening, the sun shone bright and golden over the Eternal City. A thousand swallows flew overhead; the inner spaces of the garden were dark with velvet shadows, along which the level sunlight poured in glades of light; the noble trees of the garden, the green lawns, the bright flower-beds, the beautiful large-eyed women, the general air of courtesy and of regard for others, the record of three thousand years that lay spread before my gaze all these things were here. Here I listened, as it were, to the last words of a civilisation that had slowly and through all vicissitudes attained to this pitch of perfection ; here was the marvellous output of a people who are perhaps the most gifted of the peoples of the world ; here was a very sanctuary of Art, a store- house of the Soul; and there . . . Well! there was the Trench, a cut in the earth, a ditch, in which some fifteen hundred millions of men were gathered together with but one purpose to kill or to be killed ; yet inspired with a valour and a patriotism that no age has equalled. Behind all these strange and bewildering contrasts I could not but think that there moved some inscrut- able purpose of God, to which, in the gathering darkness, I could find no clue. 71 THE ZONE OF WAR. MILAN, the great northern city, has its life in war as it has in peace, a nucleus of energy and wealth and toil ; and you wouldn't know that War was abroad as you walk along its busy streets, if it were not for the presence of soldiers in the grey of the Italian army and the occasional flight of an aeroplane overhead. But from the moment I passed into the rail- way station, I passed into the shadow of the war. It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and the train was full of soldiers, and the platforms were so crowded with them that there was scarcely room to move. A little later, in the quiet stillness of midnight, we lay alongside a train of wounded from the front. The red moon was sinking in a streak of blood upon the horizon. In each car the stretchers were slung, and the sick men lay very peacefully there in the light, their wounded limbs bound up, and now and then one turned wearily and drew his cloak over him, his cap over his eyes. It must have been some instinct that brought us all to the windows at this solemn hour. 72 THE SCENE OF WAR In the eyes of more than one woman there were tears ; in their forms a shrinking as if they had been hurt. As we moved, the whole length of the train of the wounded defiled before us. In one carriage the blinds were down, and there was a great quietness. " The Dead ! " whispered the onlookers. And then another train came by that was full of Austrian prisoners. At Vicenza the Italian searchlights were play- ing upon the horizon, and the sound of guns was audible in the night's stillness. "The Austrians are but fifteen miles away," said the man next me, with a strain in his voice. At Mestre, the gate of Venice, we left the train for Udine. The station restaurant was full of officers in uniform; the waiters were flying up and down with their pots of coffee and milk. The platform was thick with men. We were here upon the very fringe of war. At every station there was a place for the military commander; wherever a stream flowed under the railway line, wherever a road crossed it, there stood a soldier with his bayonet fixed. In the fields the women were driving the great cattle through the serried fields. Along the border rose the Friulian Mountains in a great blue wall, the summits of the Alps beyond them white with shining snow. Up there the world was at issue. It was a pleasant country at foot, stored with memories of Venetian supremacy. There were castles and country-houses on the lower hills; campaniles of the Venetian style; streams and THE ZONE OF WAR 73 meadows, plane - trees heavy with shade ; white roads, and the peasantry moving along them as in days of peace. And yet the impress of war was visibly writ- ten upon the quiet scene. As we crossed a river we looked down upon the Italian trenches upon long lines of shelters for riflemen. At the larger towns there were mountain-guns, and cavalry at exercise and infantry on parade. There were hangars, grey and elephantine in the green fields. In great barns by the roadside there were sentries with bayonets fixed, and groups of men in the grey uniform amidst the yellow hay. There were strings of fretful mules; Alpini with the eagle's feather in their hats ; Bersaglieri with their cock's-plumes falling about them in a shower ; the gendarmes, two by two, their customary splendour veiled in dusty grey. At the wayside stations there were free refreshment stalls for the soldiers, served by ladies in white. And so we came to our destination. 74 THE ISONZO. IT is a quarter to nine, and the powerful Fiat which is to carry us beyond the Isonzo is waiting outside an old palace in the Venetian town, where the headquarters of the army are established ; a beautiful old town, inscribed with memories of the Great Republic. A couple of minutes suffice to carry us beyond its precincts ; and my first sensation is one of rushing through the fresh morning air, along a white country road, at fifty miles an hour. Avenues of plane-trees, meadows full of flowers, fields of corn, vineyards and orchards ; these pass rapidly like pictures on a screen. Beyond them shine the white summits of the Carnic Alps; and the blue forefront of the mountains stands like a giant's wall upon our left. Villages that in ordinary times might tempt us, by their simple old-world charms, to linger by the wayside, are passed in a flash, and it is not till we enter the old fortified town of P , with its emblazoned gate and its walls and bastions of the days of Louis Quatorze, that the motor slows down to the kind of pace that makes for detailed ob- servation. Yet how many have been the in- THE ISONZO 75 cidents by the way ! Motor - lorries returning from the front, one after the other, in rapid succession; Sicilian hay -carts, bright with pic- tures of saints and kings ; and thousands of brave men in the grey of the Italian army, in barracks by the wayside, in carts and on horse- back, who pass by us as the film of a cinema passes before the eyes of the spectators. Some of these men have blue eyes ; some have rifles ; some laugh, arid some stand to attention and salute; some ride easy in the saddle as to the manner born, others apprehensively as the motor rushes past them on the crowded road ; and some are slight and tall, and others stout and short; cavalry, infantry, guns. They pass so rapidly that one guesses at rather than sees these details. There is dust along the highway, and in places where some lorry or automobile has passed it lies like a yellow cloud ; and we run into it, and for a brief moment see as little of the world as one might see through a storm in the desert or a London fog. And thus far, travelling as we are at high speed, we have either met or overtaken all other travellers on the road ; but there comes a moment as it comes to all men soon or late when we realise that there is some one of Greater Con- sequence upon the road than ourselves. A keen blast as from a syren bursts upon us from be- hind, the car swerves a little to the right, and in a flash a grey automobile with four occu- pants has passed us, and is leaving us rapidly behind. 76 THE SCENE OF WAR "II Re" murmurs the officer beside us, touch- ing his cap. We can scarcely distinguish his small, ardent figure; but no Italian is ever in doubt about his brave little King. Beside him is Porro, the Chief of the Staff. They are bound for some point on the front it is the natural home of the House of Savoy but to-morrow the swift traveller will be in Rome strenuously at work, the leader and servant of his people. Following the King, who has disappeared as if by magic, we cross the frontier, and are entered within the territories of Austria, now redeemed to Italy. The Isonzo lies before us, with two bridges across it one of iron for the railway, the other of wood. Here at the bridge- head a gendarme in grey, with dust upon his sunburnt face, and the stern, serious look that men wear in the zone of shells and gun-fire, stops us and asks to see our credentials. Even the officer beside us has to submit to this test. And then with a quick, searching, half -dubious glance at each of us, he withdraws a step, and the car moves over the planks of the bridge. Here, upon many a day since the war began, the fire of the Austrian guns has been concen- trated, and time and again this bridge has been set alight and damaged by violent cannonade. To-day we pass it without incident, more for- tunate than some who have come thus far and have had to return, their desire unsatisfied. It is all a matter of luck. If you look at a map of this country you will see that the road from the bridge-head at THE ISONZO 77 the Isonzo to Monfalcone runs in a line that might have been drawn along a ruler. It thus offers an ideal mark to the Austrian batteries on the opposite heights of the Doberdo plateau (since won by Italian valour), and a motor pass- ing along it presents a very tempting object to the Austrian gunners. For this reason screens of leaves have been hung a few feet above the road and across it from the trees upon either side, and upon our left there are hurdles and branches of trees, wherever a gap in the hedge leaves the road exposed. Along this interesting thoroughfare the car races at ninety kilometres an hour; and there is no traffic here, but that of an ammunition lorry rumbling on its way, or a despatch-rider bending low over his machine. Thus we come to Monfalcone, a town that lives under the guns and rifles of the enemy. It has no inhabitants now but soldiers. Every house in it is bespattered with bullet - holes ; nearly every pane of glass in it is broken ; and there are vast rents in its walls and roofs, where shells have exploded. What was once a church by the principal thoroughfare, is now a space within four battered walls, filled with shattered timber and fallen frescoes, and gaping to the sky ; the sides of some of the houses have been rent away as by the claws of a great beast, exposing, as in earthquake pictures, the interiors of the rooms. It is a scene of desolation. Here is what was once a barber's shop its plate-glass smashed to pieces, the legend over it torn away ; here what was once a pretty villa, 78 THE SCENE OF WAR with dainty rooms and a garden bright with flowers. It is now a shambles, and the garden is run wild, for it is more than a year since Monfalcone felt the sirocco of War. Here is a big building, in which the boys of the town were taught all the virtues of civilisation, now a somewhat precarious barracks, with sandbags under its roof and soldiers' heads peeping over its barricaded windows; and here, where you might least expect to find them, are the Head- quarters of the Brigadier in Command. The car is left in the shelter of a stable where some mules and horses are tethered; we cross a cobbled yard and pass along a sand- bagged alley, and enter a small dark room in the basement, where the General and his staff are at work. The room is hung with an old brown and crimson paper; there is a sofa at one end, a cheap oleograph on the wall, an Austrian stove, a writing-table covered with military forms. One wonders idly who were its former occupants. The General is a tall, lean man, with a stern but kindly face; and he might pass for an Englishman, were it not for j ust that indefinable something which distinguishes men of one race from those of another. Perhaps we might say that his manner is softer and more equal than that of an English officer of his rank. We are barely introduced when a soldier- waiter brings in a tray of glasses and a bottle of wine; and the General, with a gesture of apology, invites us to share his modest hospi- tality. Then, upon a map, he marks with a THE ISONZO 79 blue and red pencil the opposing trenches and the line of battle we are now to see. His in- structions are given to a young officer on his Staff, a man of quite striking beauty, whose classic features, blue eyes, and abundant hair,, cut and groomed in the present mode, might take any woman's heart. "You will take them," he says, "to the old Austrian tower on the hill, and down to the first line of trenches ; and thereafter along Joffre's Camminamento, to the railway station. You will be careful there, and there." "Well, good-bye, gentlemen, and I wish you an interesting tour." My next recollection is of slowly climbing the side of a pine-clad hill in the full glare of an Italian sun, which made me realise how little anything in the world matters, so that one's body is comfortable; and just then an Austrian 77 came whizzing over the tops of the pine-trees, with a wheezz . . . eet, and fell with a burst and a puff of white dust and smoke some thirty yards away. I found myself ducking with a sense of ignominy upon me. It is a curious instinctive sensation, bringing a crick to the back of one's neck, and a protest to one's lips with a secret resolve not to be caught at it again. But the very next shot finds one involved in the same ignominy, until use hardens one to the sensation. Then we turned aside from this shattered path that was strewn with the ddbris of past cannonades, into the bedraggled wood, where there were trenches, and so came to the old Venetian tower with its inscription of the year 80 THE SCENE OF WAR 1615, whence there is now, as of old, a com- manding view of the military position. We stood on the safe side of the tower, but even here there was evidence of recent explosions, while upon the exposed side, which we ap- proached with some care, it was evident the Austrian batteries had concentrated their fire. Large masses of the ancient walls, whose cement was now as hard as iron, had been torn away by its furious impact; yet the old castle stood bravely fronting its enemies, who were but the other day its masters, while new walls were being built up beside it from day to day to repair the damage that was done. It must be an odd sensation to be locked in here, when the guns are at work, for there is little more than a shallow ravine between it and the Austrian emplacements. From here we passed down the hillside, along the narrow trenches of communication, cut in the solid rock, to the first line, whence over the sandbags and through the cemented loop- holes we looked upon the scene of war. It was a scene designed by Nature with a hand lavish of beauty; for there beyond the brook, and the low hills upon its farther shore, spread a blue -green world, with shadow and sunlight chasing each other across it in lazy pursuit, and beyond it the high ramparts of the Julian Alps, like the walls of some Titan's castle, whose keep was made splendid with the luminous brightness and gleam of snow. Here were majesty, dominion, and power. And then one's roving eye came back to the THE ISONZO 81 low bare foot-hills opposite, the dread Carso where so many men have died, to the Austrian trenches, yellow where the sandbags and the parapets ran like a sheep -pen along the ridge ; dark and sinister, where the barbed wire, rust- red, the colour of old blood-stains, lay like a trap for those who would venture into this dreadful web. And then a little nearer it fell to the Italian trenches, which ran in places parallel to those of their enemies, and at others jutted out sharply in a sort of pyramid or lance-head, almost to the very edge of theirs; and yet again, as seen by the eye from here, in a line that seemed to take up and continue along the brink of the plateau the line of the hated Tedeschi. And here, immediately below the cemented loophole, was our own barbed wire, tangled and sinister; and beyond its coils, in an outpost of observation, a grey soldier reclining, with his rifle by his side, and his gaze fixed on the enemy opposite. Every now and then a puff of cloud appeared over the crest of the hungry hillside, and the boom of a big gun filled the air; and every now and then, more frequent and more insistent, the scream of a 77, travelling swiftly overhead, fell sharply upon our ears, and made us stoop a little lower behind the line of sandbags. I felt that I wanted to be alone. I should have liked to spend a day and a night here, and to have seen the life of the soldier through at least one circuit of the revolving world the benediction of the night falling upon friend and F 82 THE SCENE OF WAR foe alike, the gleam of the dawn on the snowy summit. But such things are not permitted to the passing guest. All that I could attain was to leave our party, where the General's Aide-de- camp was explaining the military positions, and look out upon the strange scene from another embrasure, of which I was the only occupant. Here, in the narrow loophole, there lay a little pile of empty cartridge - cases, that told their own tale. I wondered how many had found their billet, and whether the man himself had been killed. There was nothing to show. A soldier touched me on the elbow, and pointed down the dark communication trench along which the rest of my party were dis- appearing. It took us into a strange world, for here were men lying wrapped in sleep, head to foot, careless of all but rest. The trench was narrow, and we had to step past them, and over them, with care ; but they slept on. In places the trench became a tunnel so dark that we could not see, and every now and then there was a barbed door, that could be swiftly closed in case of invasion. Thus we came of a sudden into the sunlight once more, and upon the man with his rifle in the observation-post, and saw all that any man can see of his enemy, until the moment comes to rise up and rush across that brief space that divides one people from another. The scene before us was historic, for it was the edge of that Carso plateau whose name is as familiar as Mons. Some of the hardest fight- ing of the Italian war has taken place here. THE ISONZO 83 Bare, hard, and yellow, with scarcely a tree upon it, it ends on the Italian side in an abrupt wall, but slopes downward, once the ridge has been won, towards Trieste. Its lack of cover, its iron surface, place the advancing Italians at the mercy of their enemy, who long before the war took care to prepare a shelter for his guns, in deep cuttings and caves and tunnels in the rock. Time and again the valour of the Italian attack has been broken before the formidable obstacle, and thousands of men have died in the effort to win even that line of trenches along the crest, which if you look upon it, on even a large - scale map, seems so small an accomplishment. That low hill yonder, to which the plateau rises with a slight ascent, is known amongst the men here as the Hill of Death; and each soldier who went forward to the attack had to carry his sandbag or spadeful of earth, to make a shelter for himself it might be, but more often for those who came after him, when he was dead. But the hardest part of it all is, that even when the plateau is won, its further slope, ex- posed to the fire of heavy guns on the Austrian heights beyond, makes it a deadly thoroughfare for those who would march along it to Trieste. So it happened that the plateau still remained in the possession of Austria, and that as we looked across towards it that day, we could see the line of the trenches as plainly as our own. We spent nearly an hour here along this 84 THE SCENE OF WAR front, gazing through the loopholes, talking in whispers over the difficulties of the position, sheltering every now and then from the almost tropical sun, being warned when we became careless and stood erect; and all the time, with a sort of cruel leisurely persistence, the Austrian 77's flew over our heads, seeking the Italian pioneers at work on a railway some hundred yards away. Then we went on through trench after trench through caves and tunnels, through the pine- woods and the subterranean fortress in whose endless ramifications we were involved, till we came with a sudden joy upon a glimpse of the sea, far -spread below us, blue, tranquil, and asleep, under the Castle of Dwina, the villas of Miramar, and the long-coveted, still-distant city of Trieste. We had now passed into the second and third lines of trenches, and the grey soldiery clustered about us, thick as summer flies. Some of them lay by the trench sides, sunk in sleep ; others were writing post -cards and letters to their women at home. Here was one with a bit of canvas spread over his head, drawing a pair of love-birds with laborious care, "to pass the time," he said; another stolidly eating his macaroni; a couple more carrying a hundred- weight of the morning paper, slung over a pole, like grapes of Eschol ; while those who had already been supplied were busy reading and tracing with their fingers the news of the Russian victories. When they looked up it was with a gleam in their eyes, as of men who had THE ISONZO 85 seen a vision. In a cave that went deep down into the bowels of the hill, an officer was seated at a table, writing official papers; in another, whose front was decorated in plaster with a figure of the Virgin, the name and the number of a regiment, a hundred men sat close about the narrow stairs that descended sharply into the blackness of the earth, sheltering from the sun; and every here and there a man lay in some small hollow scooped out of the side of the trench the Camminamento Joffre his helmet over his eyes, his body relaxed in sleep. These men, into whose world we had come with a feeling almost of intrusion, looked at us, some with friendliness, some with curiosity, some with indifference. More than once the American accent broke the comparative still- ness. "Say, Mister, yore Eng-lish, ain't yer?" "Hah! I guessed that." "Oh yes, I been in Canada; plenty good money out there. I go back soon as this war be over ; but glad to come and fight for my country. Sure. So long." Life was not so still and quiet here in these back trenches. Yet were there abundant evi- dences of war. The sparse pine-trees were torn and mangled by the passing shells; there were gaping holes in the ground and in the walls, and unexploded shells that were turning yellow with the rust. One of these, a 405, had found its resting-place, nose imbedded, in the inner wall of the trench along which we passed. Through this odd world we descended upon what was once the station of Monfalcone. But 86 THE SCENE OF WAR little of it now remained. Its windows and doors, long since shattered to pieces, were built up with sandbags; its walls were pitted with bullet - holes, and rent with shells; its interior was a wreck. Upon the walls in the passage where the ticket - checkers stand, there still hung in strips the time-tables for May 1915. The little station hotel outside was but a shell ; yet the name of its proprietor, forlornly visible, rattled over the lintel of the door. As we walked past it across the open space where the cabmen and the commissionaires wait, a shell came shrieking over our heads, and fell with a roar in the wood through which we had come. It was a scene, as I have said, of desolation; and even the wild flowers that had come with the summer looked faded and worn amidst these harsh surroundings. I stooped to pick a few, and as I did so my fingers touched a clip of five cartridges that must have dropped here from the hand of a soldier, to whom they could be of no further use. From the station we returned to the streets of Monf alcone ; and as we passed along its chestnut avenues another shell tore through the branches and exploded in the garden of a villa, against whose walls the resulting fragments of stone rattled with a patter like that of hail. Along the forsaken streets soldiers passed in twos and threes, taking little notice of such incidents, careless of where they walked; while from a neighbouring barracks, in the intervals between the shells, came the tinkle of a piano and the sound of laughter. THE ISONZO 87 " In war," observed the Lieutenant, " all men are fatalists." Our visit ended in a battery of 75's. These were dexterously concealed in a wide open court, and there was nothing of them visible to our eyes as we turned in at the great gates but the browning grass, and here and there a hole made by some vagrant shell. But presently we descended into a narrow tunnel, and so came to the guns, each of which lay here as scrupulously clean as a dainty' woman, in a little chamber of its own. Instead of the gun facing its embrasure fair and square, as in the old fortifications, it hid itself coyly in an angle ; beside it in a secluded corner lay its shells ; and while one of the gunners slept like a log upon the barrow, another sat with the soap upon his face and a barber at his elbow, unmoved by the sound of the enemy's shells flying overhead. " Behold our impressionability ! " laughed the Lieutenant ; " we have acquired, as you see, some of your Northern sangfroid" The Latin peoples have, it seems, learnt this lesson ; and a cool self-possession seems to be the characteristic of the Italian Army, from the General and his staff to the dusty carabinero on the road. I came away, indeed, with the happiest impression of a cheery, efficient people ; of strong, brave men, who think little of death as they go up to the fighting line ; and of many with strong, noble faces, the very image of their Roman ances- tors, whom I turned instinctively to look at more than once. In other days, I will confess here, I have been apt to think, like many others, of this loved Italy 88 THE SCENE OF WAR as a land of beggars and priests ; of palaces and churches; of a people indolent, easy, artistic; of its officers as rather romantic persons in flowing cloaks that were drawn about them with a dramatic grace ; of soldiers who, if they deserved success, had been cheated of it; of many who were, so to speak, the derelicts of life, broken and thrown upon the charity of the world. But to-day I do not know where all these people have gone. There seem to be only young men in Italy : clean-built, clean-shaved, hardy, erect, and as matter-of-fact as our own people. Like our own men, too, they are devoid of the Prussian brutality, and mingle with the rest of their countrymen as simply as ours ; and yet there is a certain hardness and air of readiness about them as of men who are bent on some great purpose. Our visit had been one of the most absorbing interest, yet it was with something of a sense of relief that I found the motor speeding away from Monf alcone, its falling shells and its ruined homes. It was as though a weight had been lifted, and a feeling amounting to delight swept over me as I saw once again a woman by the wayside, a child upon a doorstep, and labourers busy in the fields. The brutality of war was there at the end of that white road, by that shattered inn and railway station, in those hard-looking trenches, and in the insensate flight of those shells whose only message was one of destruction ; but here were the joy of life and the beauty of the world once more. It was much to have seen Monf alcone, but more to have left it behind. 89 UDINE IN WAR-TIME. UDINE is a little town hall-marked by Venice. In its square there is a miniature palace of the Doges. Opposite, there is a square tower with two bronze figures striking a bell, as at the gate- way of the Merceria ; and there are two marble columns, as in the Piazetta, sustaining the winged Lion of St Marc and a figure of Justice; while the Lion is again to be seen recessed in the walls of the public buildings. At night, when the streets are but faintly lit by the little blue globes of electric light, and dark shadows lie across the streets and about the corners of the buildings, one might be back in the days when a Doge sat enthroned in Venice and the Procurators of the Republic ruled in Udine ; instead of being, as one is, at an impor- tant centre of the Italian army. At the inn, as one dines in the old-fashioned courtyard, overhead there is a canopy of wis- tarias, through whose interspaces one can see the swallows wheeling and hear them twittering; and beyond them, high up, the war-planes buzzing and circling in the summer sky. This evening, they are our friends up there, 90 THE SCENE OF WAR and we sit at peace ; but the enemy's planes are frequent visitors, and Udine has suffered at their hands. When dinner is over, I go away and sit for a little while under the chestnut-trees by the square outside the gates; and as I sit here in the Sabbath calm, I see the little milliners crossing and recrossing with their bandboxes on their arms, the boys at play, and the carts of the peasants entering and leaving the town. I see a funeral procession go by, the white horses with their sky-blue cloths, the priest in his vest- ments, the candle -bearers and the sexton, and a whole company of girls in white. It is a bit of the old-world life of Udine, untouched by the events of the hour ; and yet, just across there by that big house, where a general officer of one of the Allied Powers lives, there are still traces of the big hole made by an Austrian bomb ; of the fragments that were blown into the house, damaging its windows and its walls and nearly killing its occupants ; while in the neighbouring cemetery lie those innocent persons who, happening by a blind chance to be passing at the moment, were killed outright by the explosion. The Castello stands with a sort of majesty upon the Hill of Attila, four-square, barrack-like, yet touched with the grace of Italy. From this spot, raised by the labour of multitudes to enable him to gaze upon the spectacle, the great Barbarian is said to have looked upon the burning of Aquileia. His successors would, no doubt, be glad to emulate him. UDINE IN WAR-TIME 91 But to-day it is a beautiful world that encloses me as I stand here and look about me. I can see the Friulian Mountains, the Carnic Alps, the sea afar off, and the Tower of Aquileia. I see a landscape of light blue touched with silver,, of bright green fields and red roofs, with here and there a solemn cypress-tree, bathed in the summer sunlight, radiant and joyous; and as I look upon it through the great windows of the Hall of the Castle, and from the Venetian balcony, the air is laden with the engulfing music of the guns. Overhead I hear the droning whir of the great Capolani as they circle and watch over the safety of the city, and against the skyline I can trace the muzzles of the defending guns. In spite of its tranquil beauty, Udine is given up into the hands of war. The museums, the Castello, are closed, and their pictures concealed in the vaults of the mighty building. . . . It is grey dawn when I am awakened from deep sleep by the ringing of all the bells of Udine and the loud blast of a syren that would have roused the Seven Sleepers. It is that early hour when the darkness of night is passing away, when there is light to see, but the world is still wrapped in sleep ; when the tiger springs on his prey, the Afghan launches his attack; when the marauding aero- plane looks for a chance of flinging its bombs upon some city or place of war. I descend to the basement to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and find a great com- 92 THE SCENE OF WAR pany assembled there in its night-clothes, in- cluding the Countess de V. and her daughter, Captain M. of the Italian Cavalry, who is attached to the Russian Mission during its travels in Italy, and the maids and porters of the hotel. An Austrian plane has been sig- nalled, and Udine is advised to betake itself to its cellars and basements. After a while the bells cease ringing and the syren its naval blare, and in their place the grind- ing music of the Capolani fills the air as they circle in the dim heaven in search of the enemy. Then a bell rings out announcing that all danger is over, and Udine turns on its side and sleeps again. At eight o'clock I go down to breakfast in the little al fresco courtyard, where the wistarias make a canopy over the head of the visitors to the hotel as they feed, and I am just starting off on my rolls and hot coffee and a plate of peach jam, when again the morning peace is broken by the sudden blare of the syren and the ringing of the Cathedral bells. Some run out to look up into the sky, where an Austrian plane rides high above the city like a bird of prey; while the more timid, including the maids, the porters, and an old peasant from the country with a great black hat upon his head and a flowing white beard, cluster about the inner doorways like a covey of frightened partridges. It is a little scene for a painter. Then the guns begin to fire, and the air is loud with their repeated detonations. "Bang bang bang," they go, and I begin UDINE IN WAR-TIME 93 to wonder where their bullets and the frag- ments of their shells will find a resting-place, for everything must come to earth somewhere. Overhead there still rides high the Austrian plane, seemingly unconcerned, while now the . grind of the Capolani is added to the other sounds; and so I carry my breakfast into a safer place and resume operations on the peach jam and the rolls and the hot coffee a little less hot now from this interruption. And then as the Capolani rise high into the air and gather impetus, the Austrian withdraws and passes away out of sight, and the incident comes to an end. The barber in his shop winks an experienced eye and says, " The Russians ; it was to pay them a visit." The market-place fills with the farmers of the countryside; and men go to and fro, fingering the yellow corn, appraising the lowing stock. Udine is once more bent upon the business of its everyday life. Such incidents were not infrequent; and I heard of a lieutenant in a fourth-floor room who slept peacefully through it all, untroubled by war's alarms. For my part, I could never resist the fascination of the sky; and one morning as I was starting for Vicenza I saw a beautiful sight. It was about seven o'clock, and the ringing of the bells and the hooting of the syren an- nounced the arrival of an Austrian plane. I went downstairs and into the square of the 94 THE SCENE OF WAR XXth September, and looked up into the sky above me. It was very blue, of the colour that one de- scribes as electric, and only here and there a wisp of cloud floated across it. And then there appeared in the flawless dome overhead a puff of white cloud, which swelled and descended, and then another and another, until there were presently seven, like a new sort of constellation ; and then there was something in the midst of them, like a moth with the light on her wings, or it might be a piece of thistledown caught by the sun, and it began to float and as it were melt away into the empyrean. This was the Austrian plane, flying at great speed far up above in the spaces of heaven. Two Capolani were following it in swift pursuit, and these also faded and vanished from sight. Then others came and circled angrily over the town, buzzing as they flew, like hornets about a nest; and once more the world re- turned to its customary avocations. 95 SICK AND WOUNDED. UP there at the front, the overwhelming instinct of every man is to kill. But just a little behind it there springs up the instinct to save life, to ease the pain of the dying and wounded ; to succour with a gentle hand even the vanquished enemy. Men up there will even die to save another's life. It is a strange contrast part of that dual nature which is the tragedy and the hope of the world ; and it is hard to say where and when one begins and the other ends. One morning I went, with some shrinking, to look upon the wounded in the hospitals of Udine. There was the hospital for those wounded in the face. In one room of it there was a sort of jaw factory, where hundreds of plaster casts made from the jaws of each patient lay in rows upon the shelves, and parts that had been blown or shot away were being made to replace them. Many a poor fellow was evidently disfigured for life ; some including an Austrian from Bosnia were visibly in pain and distress, and ate with the greatest difficulty from the bowls of food before them. 96 THE SCENE OF WAR In another ward there were those who had been frost-bitten, and some of these had lost the greater part of their feet. Over the lower ends of their beds were small hooped frames to relieve their maimed limbs from the pressure of the bedclothes. The long rows of white beds filled each room from end to end, and in each room there were nurses of the Ked Cross Italian ladies who were giving their voluntary services to their country. One could see what a comfort their presence was to these wounded and broken men. We passed by the operating-rooms where the surgeons were at work in their white robes and aprons ; by the disinf ecting-rooms and the bath- rooms, into which those fresh from the trenches are taken on entering the hospital, and through the kitchens, where the pleasant odour of warm and well - cooked food filled the air ; and so through the big Hall where some wounded officers were seated, and into the open street and the everyday life of Udine. The Medical Officer in charge, gravely court- eous and kind to the last, saw us out, and the door closed on him and his hospital of six hundred wounded men ; a little empty just now, for the tide of battle had rolled away to another part of the long Italian front. Upon another occasion I spent an hour with Colonel S , the P.M.O., at his big hospital for 3000 men, outside the town. The little Colonel took a fatherly pride in this thing of his creation ; for a few months ago it was a SICK AND WOUNDED 97 Cavalry Barrack, and I could not but appreciate the adaptability and skill with which he had turned it into a modern hospital. What were once horse stables were now immaculate bed- rooms, and the feeding-troughs with white lids on them were now as white as snow. " Pure air, abundant water, absolute cleanli- ness these," he said, "are my three remedies; the rest I leave to Nature, and she knows her business. But you will see also that we have the very latest, the most modern appliances. Here, at each end of each ward, is an X-ray installation, the most perfect that money can buy. Look at those transparencies there against the light ; they will tell you of the strange places into which the bullets penetrate. " And here is our Bacteriological Section. Every patient is examined here, and you see our books show that over 15,000 have been tested in this way. No man can leave this hospital and carry disease abroad with him into the country. This was especially necessary when cholera and typhus prevailed in the Austrian armies. " And look at my steam laundry ; it is a great instrument of the cleanliness at which we aim ; and at the trees see how they are growing up. But a year ago this was a bare barrack-yard. Gardens, trees, flowers everywhere, everywhere ; I love them ; they are great healers. They rejoice the eyes and cheer the hearts of our men." The Colonel, it was clear, had an inclusive mind ; and his hospital was a triumph of fore- thought, sequence, and skill. It was all so good, and so simple. G 98 THE SCENE OF WAR As we came away I saw a man lying ill of typhus in the Infectious Ward. Beside him sat, one on each side of his bed, his father and mother; typical old peasants silent, enduring, patient. " Ah ! poor things. I let them come not regular, perhaps, I had not the heart to turn them away. I have given them a room here, and they have food from the hospital kitchen. They are happy ; and their son he will re- cover." You cannot keep the human touch out of Italy. "Always flowers," he murmured, "always trees, gardens happiness, and cleanliness. They soon get well, and when they go back to their homes after this war they will never be dirty again, as they were. It will be a new Italy." And so it will : a great Italy, with its soul bathed in the waters of sacrifice, and its vision purified by endeavour. 99 VICENZA. ALTHOUGH at Udine one was at an important centre of the Italian Army, the stir of life was at this period to be found at Vicenza ; for it was the base from which the affair of the Trentino was being worked. It came about, therefore, that before long I found myself on the road to Vicenza. The country smiled about me, and the earth was fat with her harvests of corn and wine. The trains were full of the Italian soldiery, some returning from and others going up to war ; cheery, strong, and resolute - looking men. It was evident from their faces that the war was popular, and that Italy was glad at last to be at grips with her old enemy. Vicenza is less happy in its site than Udine, and it lacks the beautiful perspectives of the Castello and the Piazza of Victor Emmanuel; but it is a finer town, enriched by the genius of Palladio, and by many stately monuments of Venetian supremacy. I shall not easily forget my first impression of the Basilica, as I passed down the Via del Monte, from the crowded and sombre Corso, into the Piazza de' Signori. It 100 THE SCENE OF WAR was bathed in sunlight, and the white statues along the skyline were transfigured as if they had wings and would fly into space. Upon my right hand there were the rich carvings and pillars of the Municipio, and before me, across the square, were displayed the balanced arcades and beautiful details of the Basilica. So vivid was the sunlight that I could scarcely keep open my eyes as I crossed over to the corner whence Palladio looks with his inspired gaze upon his handiwork. There was an equally lovely vision from the far end of the Piazza, where the Vene- tian columns rise, white and slender, in the fore- front of the old Campanile. And here again were the winged Lions of St Marc and the magic impress of the Queenly City to which in those romantic ages Vicenza owed her fealty. In the midst of the square the pigeons fluttered about a group of officers in grey, who threw them some handfuls of corn. Over the shops the cinnamon awnings spread their eastern glow, and the people walked under them, sheltered from the dazzling glare of an Italian sun. A little way off rose the Duomo, with its lofty choir, and as I entered within its solemn walls a service was going forward in the Chapel of Montagna's Madonna, the priests in crimson and lace and copes of gold were immersed in their old-world ritual, the censers were swinging, and the organ filled the church with its resounding harmonies. A few miles away, upon the hills, the greatest battle that Vicenza has ever known was going forward, the streets were full of sol- VICENZA 101 diery, and Italy was holding her breath before the Austrian advance. But what trace was there of all this within these secluded walls ? The ritual of the hour went forward as of old, and it was as though upon entering one had been plunged into a sudden slumber, and were peace- fully dreaming of the Middle Ages. And yet only last Sunday, some forty hours ago, an Austrian plane in passing had thrown its bombs into the crowded city and killed its people in the streets. It had hit the hospital where the wounded lay, and shattered more than one building ; but it might as well have hit this solemn and beautiful fabric, and slain the con- gregation on its knees. Outside in the Corso there was all the stir and movement of War: the ceaseless grind of the great lorries, the rumble of carts laden with hay, and drawn by teams of massive horses ; the splutter of motor-cyclists leaving and returning from the front ; the monstrous transit of a pon- toon bridge in sections that filled the streets ; the perpetual movement of officers on foot, and in high-powered cars that dashed past with little of ceremony. The great palace of Scamozzi was full of sol- diers ; its courts were thronged with gendarmes, who would let no one pass without a permit; and the demand for passports, safe - conducts, credentials, was insistent. Out there upon the mountains men carry themselves with a frank and open countenance, but here in the rear there were furtive looks and veiled suspicions. For wherever the war reaches, there the Boche is 102 THE SCENE OF WAR busy with his spies, his espionage, his long- planned, deeply - laid intrigues. . . . And the Boche has to be met on his own ground. But here we touch the seamy side of War the burrowing of the mole, the slime of the rodent in the dark. . . . What wonder that honest men prefer the battle-front, the open music of the guns? 103 THE WAR IN T HE TRENTINO. AT seven o'clock, the hour appointed for our departure, the Tenente who was to accompany me to the front was still in bed. In Italy, even in these glorious days, one must not be too exact- ing. It was with unimpaired good-humour that we met at eight and set out on our journey. We were to visit scenes that will become his- toric, and our visit was to be paid at a moment of surpassing interest. For the Austrian thrust in the Trentino was at its height ; the possibility of their entering the plain was being openly dis- cussed, and if they were able to do this, the whole of Venetia would be seriously endangered, and the gains on the Isonzo would be lost to Italy. Such was the general opinion, but the General Staff probably had other views. We left Vicenza by the Porta Castello, by a special permit, for an Austrian plane was flying over the city; the bells were ringing, and all traffic was suspended in the streets. At such times the populace is warned to take shelter, and a fine of fifty francs is imposed on any one who exposes himself in the streets. This fine has been more potent than the fear of death. 104 THE SCENE OF WAR The streets lay clear before us. The chauffeur, a private in the Italian army, with a jewelled ring on his finger and a light touch on the wheel, was a master of his job ; and his thick neck, powerful shoulders, and ruddy cheeks, spoke of a man in the very prime of life and vigour. Almost before I had time to take in our sur- roundings, we were in the small town of Isola Vicentina; the Austrian plane was lost in the void of heaven, and the sound of the air-guns was hidden in the world we had left behind us. Monte Pulgo, some 1600 feet in height, and the green spurs of the Vicentine hills, with their rich woods, rose upon our left. Another swift run and we were at Schio, which is the terminus of a railway that has ceased to run for the convenience of the general public. Here there was just time to notice the stately eighteenth-century church, with its classic air, lifted with a bold architectural impulse high above the Place. Never in Italy is one long without such evidences of her ancient civilisation. We were now ourselves at an elevation of six hundred feet, and before us rose the mountainous defile, the Valli de' Signori, which leads to the Piano delle Fugazze, some 3500 feet higher. All along the road as we had come, I had seen whole regiments on the march : rnotor-lorries ; hay-carts drawn by teams of horses ; carts return- ing with the empty cartridge-cases of the Italian guns ; Red Cross motors ; all the sights and scenes that are incidental to a line of communication near the battle front. But in the midst of these, THE WAR IN THE TRENTINO 105 I had also seen the peasantry driving in their waggons along the roads, working in their fields ; women before their homes, and children in the streets ; and I had not yet heard the thunder of the guns, or looked upon wounded men ; and we had moved over an almost level plain. We were now to enter the precipitous valley of the Leogra, and to climb, and turn, and turn as we made the steep ascent ; and ever as we climbed, there were troops by the wayside and hidden guns, and mules and horses, and tents and encampments in increasing numbers. At Tagliato the road ran through a fortress, which was itself commanded by another above it, and here and at two other places on our journey we were stopped by the gendarmes and closely scrutinised, in spite of the Tenente and the soldier chauffeur and his mate in the grey uniform. It was a pleasure to see these men at work. Big and powerful, ruddy of hue, bold and strong of feature, often with the features of ancient Rome, they went leisurely through each Safe- Conduct and necessary paper with a clear and firm decision. They were determined to do their duty; but they did it with a grace and a grave courtesy that could not have been surpassed. At length we reached the Austrian Custom House, now passed out of Austrian keeping, and so climbed to the Hotel of the Dolomites. Here we were evidently in the very thick of events, for the mighty Dolomites rose in tragic forms about us; the neighbouring woods were thronged with men and horses and guns ; the wounded were being carried past us in stretchers from the first-aid hospitals, and the air shook 106 THE SCENE OF WAR from moment to moment with the loud impact of the Italian guns. A staff officer received us with the courtesy of his people, and proceeded to explain the state of affairs at the moment, upon the great map on the wall. We were not to be allowed, he said, to climb up to Monte Pasubio. The General, he feared, could not permit that, for military reasons. Moreover, the wire railway to the summit had been destroyed by the Austrian guns, the mule-track which alone served to feed the troops on its summit, to carry up relays of men and to bring down the wounded, was exposed to their fire, and it would take hours to climb up to the top. But we were to be taken to "The Observatory," so that we might look thence upon the valley of the Leno, the Vail' Arsa, and the Austrian positions at Santa Anna. Speaking generally, the military position this day was as follows: Along the Vail' Arsa the Austrians in their recent offensive had forced their way up some two-thirds of the valley as far as Santa Anna, and were held there now by the Italian forces at Parmesan. On the left they had made a series of bloody attacks on the Pass of Buole, which, if they had been successful, would have cut off the high peak of Coni Zugna, facilitated their advance up the Leno, and exposed the Italian positions at Ala and other points on the Adige to the direct fire of their guns. These attacks had for the moment been repulsed, and en THE WAR IN THE TRENTINO 107 revanche the Italians had made a counter- offensive, and taken the heights immediately above Parmesan. On their right i.e., looking down towards Rovereto from the Piano delle Fugazze the key of the Italian position was at Monte Pasubio, some 7000 feet in height, great spurs from which run parallel to the Leno in the direction of the Austrian base at Rovereto. One of these, the peak of Col Santo, 2100 metres high, and another, Monte Testo, 2005 metres high, had been forced from the possession of the Italian army in the recent offensive, but no farther advance was possible in the direction of Vicenza and the Italian plain so long as Pasubio held out. Farther afield the Austrians, crossing the Terragnolo and seeking a way into Italy by Arsiero and along the valley of the Posina, were stopped by the curve of mountainous positions which, extending from Pasubio to Priafora, were held by the Italian infantry and guns. At this moment His Excellency the Lieutenant- General came in, a small man in a grey fur-lined coat (for the weather was cold at this altitude), with keen penetrating eyes, and a brisk manner. After a few kindly words and a humorous wave of his hand at the staff map and the officer who had been expounding it, he retired, saying, "Well, you had better go off now. You will soon find yourself in Austrian territory, and when you get to our Observatory, you 108 THE SCENE OF WAR will see before you the valley of the Leno and the whole position down the Vail' Arsa." And as he spoke the building shook with the concussion of the guns, and their deafening music bellowed throughout the mountains ; while their puffs of white smoke came drifting through the pine-trees past the windows of the house. We reached the Observatory, and saw the great view that lay spread before us in all its wonderful interest and beauty. There in the precipitous winding valley we could see Parmesan and Santa Anna (Italy and Austria), lying very near each other, with the one sunlight covering them both, and upon the skyline on our left the great ridge of grey- green mountains that extends from Monte Corega splashed with snow, along the Buole Pass to Coni Zugna, a high conical peak, up to which there wound in sharp diagonals a military road. Beyond it the Sierra declined towards the valley of Rovereto. On our right, below the spot upon which we stood, the white highway of the valley took its leisured way, descending along the easy middle slopes, the river far below it on the one side, the grim crags and precipices of the mountains high above it on the other, in mass upon mass of tremendous bulwarks and sharply accentuated peaks. The clouds hung in grey ragged fringes about the summits, and from moment to moment the Italian shells went flying overhead into the blue-green valley, and over the intervening mountains to the Austrian positions beyond. THE WAR IN THE TRENTINO 109 We could not see them, but we could hear them swirling along with an engulfing music as they flew through the air, echoing and reverberating amidst the chasms and bastions of Pasubio. We could hear less plainly the heavy Austrian artillery; the sudden sharp sting of the mit- railleuse. The slopes of the wooded mountains from the valley to the Pass of Buole were patterned with the shadows of the passing clouds, and the scene was one of tranquil beauty. Yet it was just here, under the Pass, which looks little more than a knife-edge in the long serrated line of the mountains, and amidst these shadowy woods, that the Austrians had spent the lives of many thousands of their bravest infantry in the vain attempt to carry the Pass. At our feet there were flowers, and in the trees a summer breeze that came and went. As though to remind us that life was some- thing more than a spectacle, an Austrian shell now burst over our heads, but a little behind us on the hill upon whose slopes we were gathered, and its fragments with bits of rock and stone came whistling like hail through the lazy foliage. It had come from Monte Testo, over the intervening heights; and it was followed by another which fell near it, ploughing up the green sward and making a great hole in the turf. It seemed that we had been observed. We returned to the inn, where a surgeon in a white apron stood by the wayside, and a first-aid hospital was established in a tent under the trees. The wounded came by upon their stretchers, ever 110 THE SCENE OF WAR so quiet, with their grey cloaks drawn over them some already unconscious of the world, others just lifting an eyelid to see us standing in the road. But they were all very still, and no one made any stir as they went by, for it was a familiar sight. Only the bearers walked very gently, and there was compassion in their faces. Up the steep mountain path to Pasubio long files of mules, led by the Alpini, were climbing with 'military stores and the red carcasses of slaughtered cattle, which swayed from side to side, the blood dripping from them to the ground, as the beasts moved. Bang ! bang ! at rapid intervals the guns about us bellowed their music, and for a moment the lifting smoke revealed the batteries hidden amidst the rocks and screens of foliage. From the belvedere before the hotel we could see down the valley to Schio, and along the succession of spurs from Pasubio by Forni Alti, Monte Alba, Cogolo, Novegno, which we were to visit, as far as Priafora, a bit of whose contour of the palest blue was just visible under the grey curtain of the drifting clouds. This was the nucleus of the Italian positions as far as Arsiero, where the Val Astico embouches on the Italian plain. It was while waiting here at the General's headquarters that I met a young officer, with a fresh, clear-cut, and clean-shaven face, a powerful figure, and very much the air of a British cavalry subaltern blunt, amusing, vigorous, and full of chaff. He came of a wealthy family in Rome THE WAR IN THE TRENTINO 111 who had a factory in Belgium, where he re- mained for several months after the German invasion, and saw the Boche at work. He was now an Officer of Exploration, whose business it was to climb the high and less accessible passes and to search out practicable paths, with a small escort of the rough hill-men whom he cheerfully described as "Banditti." He left upon me a vivid impression of the splendid spirit of the Italian soldiery. He claimed that no troops in the world could have done better, and that few have had to face such extraordinary difficulties and hardships as the Italian Alpini. Guns have been hauled up sheer precipices, " far more diffi- cult than those which you see there," pointing to the almost vertical Dolomitic crags about Pasubio; wounded men have been sent down from almost inaccessible peaks, suspended from the telephone wire and fired at by the Austrian riflemen, as men fire at game. It is a point of honour with this Corps never to abandon its sick or wounded, whatever the difficulties of the ground. There have been times when detach- ments of the Alpini have been left in the snow, in mid- winter, under a storm of Austrian shells, with only their marching-kit, for three days and nights, unable to stir, while the Austrians have literally swept the snow from about them with their searching fire. They have been frost-bitten in June, and cut off from their base by violent storms in the mountains; and they have been gay and cheery and resourceful and tireless through it all; the men from Sicily and the South entering into this unique life with as 112 THE SCENE OF WAR much zeal and dash as the most hardened Piedmontese. And then he laughed. "Not a bad life, as you see " (looking about him with an ironical air), "for have we not everything that a man can desire fine air, good appetites, plenty of excitement, and nice views; everything except the society of women." He accompanied us back to Vicenza on a week's leave, and, by way of meeting this de- ficiency, started a violent flirtation with the lady next to him at the inn where we lunched. At dinner, little Monsieur C of the 'Lausanne Gazette' showed me an article he had written for his paper describing this visit. It was far better and more complete than my own, clear, detailed, and authoritative, and I realised with a pang of regret how much more one man sees than another. The brave little man is fifty-seven, but indefatigable in the pur- suit of his calling, and he is here on the Italian front taking his share from month to month of the fortune of war, mainly because he would not dissemble his love for the Allies as a Parliament- ary Correspondent at Berne, which was markedly pro - German at the commencement of the war. These long letters of his to his paper are first written in Italian, which is his mother-tongue, and then put by him into French, and posted within a day of the events he describes. "You are the most civilised people in the world," he tells me ; " and we know well that this war is a conflict between a higher and a lower civilisation, and sincerely hope that you will win." THE WAR IN THE TRENTINO 113 I left him to finish his task, and walked through the quiet streets of Vicenza, past its wonderful old palaces with their Venetian windows, with their Palladian fronts and their inner gardens, and saw the old women sitting quietly before their doors, the girls talking to- gether, as if there was no war a few miles away ; as if an Austrian plane had not twice this month thrown bombs upon Vicenza, shattering its homes and killing its inhabitants ; and as if Bersaglieri, despatch - riders, and vans full of troops and officers in motor-cars were not continually pass- ing even at this peaceful hour. The moon was rising over the Duomo as I came up the Corso, and in a little church on the street there were tapers burning on the altar, and in the mystery and gloom there were silent figures kneeling at prayer. In the Piazza de' Signori, under the moon, the Venetian columns rose into the sky with the grace of dignity, and the Basilica was as fresh and beautiful at this hour as when Palladio built it, and the slim red tower beside it was bathed in the moonlight far above the shadowy city. What a day it had been ! War up there in the mountains, with its extraordinary efficiency its multitudes of men, its motors, horses, roads, supplies; its wounded and dying; its terrific music; and then here the ancient peace of the old Italian town and its people at prayer. 114 NOVEGNO. AFTER the Piano delle Fugazze, which displayed the battle for the Vail' Arsa and the heights above the Adige, I was taken to Novegno, which during the past two days had been subjected to a violent attack by the Austrians at Priafora. It was the centre of the mountain wall from the Vail' Arsa to the Astico, which the Italians were defending against the Austrian thrust upon the plain of Italy, and the position was one of critical importance. Thousands of men had been hurried up in motors to this point of danger, and a heavy artillery action was still in progress. Immediately we left Schio it was evident that we were upon the fringe of these great events. Regiments of the Alpini were marching by the wayside, their carts laden with their baggage, tents, and rifles; cavalry officers on reconnais- sance rode by with their escorts a squadron was drinking by a stream, its grey horses contrast- ing with the fields of waving corn. Before us rose the peak of Novegno, with a new military road ascending to its summit in a series of sharp diagonals, the line of the outer Dolomites sharply cut against the blue expanse of sky. NOVEGNO 115 We left the main road that skirts the plain and turned up a narrower mountain road through vines and corn-fields, cherry-trees in fruit and hedges of thorn, and ever as we climbed we were in the midst of the grey infantry, of regiments of Alpini returning from the battle for their share of repose; firm, strong, and resolute men, showing no trace of their recent experiences under the heavy fire of the Austrian guns. Mules were being led one by one along the side- ways strings upon strings of them ; horses were ranged under leafy stables in the fields ; soldiers' kitchens were busy preparing the noonday meals ; carts laden with hay and loaves of bread; Red Cross waggons returning with the wounded; here and there a coffin in which some dead officer was being carried down to his home in the plain ; guns, more guns, and waggons laden with shells and cartridges, all the paraphernalia of war thronged the narrow road, barely leaving us space to pass. Behind and below us spread the Vicentine plain; Schio, Thiene, the Astico winding across its green enamelled fields. Above us hovered an Austrian Taube ; and upon the skyline, afar off, five little flecks of cotton cloud appeared upon the blue. The motor faced the great wall of the moun- tains before us with a splendid energy, turning and ever turning, and often checked by the acute diagonals of the road or the passage of a hos- pital lorry. At any other time the whole of our thoughts would have been given to this master- ing of the road, to this perfect instrument that 116 THE SCENE OF WAR was carrying us up a mountain like the wall of a house with a faultless precision. But to-day we took all these things for granted, and our thoughts were given only to the battle in the mountains that developed under our eyes as we ascended. A steep sierra descends from Novegno towards the plain, and from the valley beyond it there came in rapid succession white puffs of cannon smoke. The batteries on the Sette Communi belched their noise and smoke, the Austrian guns exploded their shells, Asiago lay between them a gage of battle. All that we had read, with but a vague per- ception, of this fight for the plateau of the Seven Communes, became suddenly clear as glass. There was the plateau, and there the Italians entrenched upon its southern rim, with the plain of Italy behind them ; while upon the other side, advanc- ing from their northern strongholds, were the Austrians, eager for their wonted prey. Meanwhile, above us and about us, the air battle was developing in all its wonderful beauty. I fell to counting the little puffs of shell high up in the summer sky first one and then another, and then another expecting each moment that the next would reach its aim; but the Taube flew high and serenely above them ; the cloudlets lost their clean outline, faded and floated away into the void. Yet ever as we climbed, turning and turning with a remorseless frequency, the lines ever hardening in the chauffeur's face as he fought with the difficulties of the road, the air battle went on, absorbing all our interest. Now the Taube was directly over us, motion- NOVEGNO 117 less, observant as a hawk now curving towards the sun like a bit of gold on the wing, now in- visible for an instant as he turned away, now the centre of a little constellation of his enemies ; and the air was filled with the barking of the guns. High up on the green summit of the hill of Novegno a wooden cross was cut clear against the blue, and by the roadside in the valleys there were chapels with frescoes of the Christ, blessing the little children, preaching Peace upon Earth and goodwill amongst men. We reached the summit and passed over it into a shallow saucer of green turf and grey stone. Over its farther lip there was Priafora and the Austrian position. We were in the midst, as it were, of the pit of this theatre of the War. The motor, after its hard labours, rested by the roadside, and we went on to pay a visit to the General in Command in his hut. He met us there, a big man, over six feet in height, ruddy of hue, with blue eyes, a little white pointed beard, and the genial, comfortable air that makes a man friends as he goes through life. He was clad in a long grey coat trimmed with fur, and received us with the greatest kindness. He had been sent here to meet this emergency, and during the past two days had been in the very centre of a storm of shells, whose ravages were plainly written on the landscape about him. His hut itself had barely escaped destruction; the crater made by a 305 yawned beside it, while the fragment of another had blown away half the wall of his bedroom, leaving a hole that had not yet been repaired. The hillside was literally scarred with shell- 118 THE SCENE OF WAR holes, and fragments of the shells lay in plenty about. The bombardment, an artillery officer told me, had been terrific; the telephone wires had been smashed to bits and all communications had for a time been interrupted. "That made it so important for the General to remain absolutely at the front, to see with his own eyes and give his orders on the spot ; " and then with a sudden Italian fervour he added "Ah ! but he is such a fine soul, a really fine man from within. He is not only big as you see him." The General himself spoke in the warmest terms of his men. " In one of our Alpini regiments," he said, "only two officers, a lieutenant and a sub- lieutenant, survived; all the rest were killed or wounded. We are quieter to-day, for they have turned their attention towards Asiago; but yes- terday and the day before they concentrated the whole fire of their guns on this position, and as you see," he laughed, "they did some damage. That iron building, of which you see traces there, was hit, and the telephone officer and his men inside it were killed; the Fort over the hill was the centre of a storm of shells. We use it as a decoy. But one of our heavy guns there was hit, and another is on the way up ; you may have passed it on the way. Quite so ! not what you would call a healthy spot." He spoke cheerily enough, and his jovial face and manner inspired confidence, but I noticed that when he raised his glass to the success of Civilisation against "Les Barbares" his hand shook. For there is a limit to the strain which NOVEGNO 119 nerves and muscles will stand, and the General had passed through a very severe ordeal. He had come up at a critical moment and there had been no time to provide for his own safety. It seemed to me, as I looked at his slender hut in the midst of the general destruction, that he and his staff had only escaped by a miracle. As we talked, there was the sound of frizzling from the kitchen, and the smell of luncheon get- ting ready, while afar off on the Asiago plateau the guns were thundering with undiminished intensity. From time to time an observer drew attention to the approach of an enemy's plane. " Ecco" he said, " un aeroplano nemmico." And as the Taube sailed over with its grinding music we withdrew from the sunlight that was so welcome at this height, into the cold blue shadows of the hut. "It probably means a fresh attack," said the General ; and presently a message came up from the telephone to report that the trenches on Monte Giove were being heavily bombarded, and that there were several casualties amongst the ad- vanced sections. "Let them withdraw into the gun - proof shelters," said he; and to a staff officer " There is too much movement in those trenches there. Megaphone to them not to show them- selves; the position is too exposed." Ten seconds later three shells from an Austrian battery of 305's burst in their midst, and the air about us was filled with echoes, and the blue sky was grey with dust and smoke. 120 THE SCENE OF WAR " You see," he said, " we have to be careful ; but if you had come here early in the morning you could have looked from Fort Rione upon their positions, and upon one of the finest views in all the world ; for our neighbours," he laughed, " are not early risers, and seldom disturb us till the sun is well up in the sky." And so we left Novegno and the brave General X , and the battle on the hills, and took our way down to the plain once more. 121 PIOVENE. AT Magre, at the foot of the Vicentine hills, there is a little village, which shelters upon the very fringe of War. At Schio, which is near by, there is the perpetual tramp of guns and infantry on the march; its streets are thronged with soldiers, and its inns are so crowded with hungry men that food is to be had only by patient waiting. So we turned away from Schio into the peaceful back - water of Magre, and found there all that any man can ask for in the way of a tranquil hospitality. The daughter of the inn, a blond-haired beauty of the Titian type, waited upon us, and at the long table of solid wood at which we sat we were served with an excellent meal. In the cobbled yard, under a pergola of vines, sat the parish priest, sipping his coffee with a benevolent smile; a cat purred at his feet, the inn dog slumbered in the sun. Along the white highway there passed the slow patient people of the countryside, and War seemed as infinitely remote as if it had never been. I was myself steeped in this illusion, and in the physical contentment that comes of an 122 THE SCENE OF WAR appetite appeased, when the motor came up to the door of the inn, and the Tenente observed that we had better be moving. " At Piovene," he said, " we shall find General Y , the Major - General in command, and turning up the Astico, we shall observe the development of the Austrian attack that is threatening the valley." So we bade farewell to Magre and the rose- hued daughter of the inn, and the motor raced along the road that runs past San Torso, under the mountains that overlook the Italian plain. It might have been some ten minutes later that we were rudely awakened to a realisation of the War by the deafening explosion of a shell over our heads, and soon after we had drawn up at the headquarters of General Y . The scene before us was in singular contrast to that at Magre. A building across the road had been ripped open from top to bottom, and by some freak of chance the only article of furniture that survived the general wreckage was a por- trait of two old people, a man and his wife, which hung suspended in a gilt frame over a gaping hole in the wall. The house adjoining the General's villa lay shattered beyond recognition, its debris strewn along the road. Four men had been killed and some twenty-six wounded in this explosion. The villa itself, a graceful Italian building with a beautiful paved court and wide arcades and terraces descending to the road, was yet un- touched, but the statues which graced its terraces PIOVENE 123 lay prone upon their faces, their arms and legs broken, with a curiously human suggestion. A heavy artillery battle was in progress, and from moment to moment the Austrian shells came swirling over the hill, and the Italian batteries responded with loud and violent explosions. We put the motor in the yard, where a group of very cheerful soldiers from Egypt was as- sembled, and entered the darkened chamber in which the General sat at work. It was upon the ground floor, and all but one of the shutters were closed. He explained the situation, and upon a great map showed the development of the Aus- trian attack. " They are now at this moment," he said, " at Monte Cengio, of which they hold the summit and the farther slopes; but upon this side our troops are entrenched, and an attempt made by their infantry to descend the valley of Canaglia and to enter vid Cogollo, the Italian plain, has been repulsed, as well as their attack on Monte Pau, which is one of the keys of our position." "What, then, is the object, General, of their dropping their shells here where we stand ? " " I suppose," he said, with rather a grim smile, "that / am the object of their attention." It is all very well to pass an hour or two where such things are happening, with the know- ledge that in a little while you will be safely out of the way; but it is quite another to be pinned down to a villa, part of which has been blown to pieces, while the rest, with yourself and your belongings, may at any moment follow suit. The General, I could see, was anxious, but he 124 THE SCENE OF WAR seemed more concerned for our safety than for his own. " You will have to be very careful," he said, " and if you are continuing in your motor, I beg of you not to pause by the way. Drive as rapidly as you can, for the position is one of no little danger." " Tres dangereux," he added, shaking his head " Tres dangereux." We left the motor where it was, and ascended to a Post of Observation behind the villa; and from there the whole scene of the battle lay manifest to our eyes. Through the profound valley of the Astico the little river came winding on its way from its junction with the Posina near Arsiero. High above it, grey and grim under the ragged fringes of the clouds, rose the heights of Monte Cengio, with the precipitous ravine of the Canaglia descending between it and the Monte Pau ; while the long grey - green back of Sunio, with its following peaks, spread away to the Brenta river. It was upon these hills, which are the southern boundary of the Seven Communes, that we had observed from Novegno the progress of the artil- lery duel in the course of the morning. At their feet lay the carpeted plains, the villages of Cal- trano, Calvene, Lugo, exposed to the Austrian shells. The Italian batteries were concealed in the picture before us, their presence revealed only by the incessant thunder of their guns and their momentary clouds of white drifting smoke. Some were in the plain and others upon the hillside; PIOVENE 125 while in the river-bed, in the midst of a thick wood, a heavy battery belched its fire under the command of a prince of the House of Savoy, the eighteen - year - old son of the Duke of Aosta. Upon the summit of the hill, along whose slopes we were now making our way, another battery was busy responding to the Austrian challenge. Shell after shell from Monte Cengio came whirling through the sky, exploding with a loud overbearing sound, spreading a cloud of dark smoke and debris, now over our heads into the Italian battery, now into the villages of Caltrano and Calvene, now by the Prince of Puglie's battery, by the white obelisk and the stone bridge over the river. But one seems to get accustomed to most things, and we soon accepted these astonishing events as a matter of course. The scene before me was one of the most absorbing interest : beautiful, as Italy is beau- tiful, with her plains and mighty bulwark ; terrible, as the thunder of the guns, the swirling music of the shells passing to and fro upcn their destiny, could make it; ominous, for the Austrian shells were already falling upon the long-coveted towns and hamlets of the plain. If Pasubio, Novegno, Sunio were to fall, the her- editary invader would once more sweep upon this ancient people, who have so often suffered at his hands. It was thus the epic contest of two races and of two civilisations upon which we were looking from this our place of vantage. The wood through which we climbed was heavy with the shade of Spanish chestnuts, dappled 126 THE SCENE OF WAR with the gold of the sun ; the grass under our feet was green and emblazoned with flowers. Yet in the very path along which we walked there lay half buried the fragments of recent shells; the turf was flung up and scattered in brown patches, as a horse flings the turf from under his feet; and as we left the wood and emerged upon the open summit of the hill, there was a hole in it big enough for an elephant, made by an Austrian 405, that had fallen upon this delectable spot. We had, of course, no business to be here at all. The Observatory to which we had started out to climb was no longer a tenable position, the battery had been withdrawn to a more sequestered point, and an observer whose head peeped out from the ground warned us to take cover as speedily as possible, for the place had become a target for the enemy's guns. We returned, therefore, to the wood, and walk- ing along to its edge came to the new position, whence an officer signalled to us mutely to lie down. I for one was glad to get a rest here after the heavy climb. After a while the Colonel sent an officer to say that he could not leave his post of observation and the telephone, but the Tenente would explain the position ; which he did in a whisper, while the guns banged behind us with loud, explosive voices, the shells of both the combatants shrieked overhead, and the Austrian 405's fell in the valley with terrific sound. My nearest neighbour was a young " Egyptian " corporal, who had the Cross for Valour on his breast, and I was charmed, PIOVENE 127 whenever I could turn my eyes from the scene of the conflict, with the gay and debonair smile upon his face. For here was one whose spirit exulted in danger. Then we went on, and followed the path once more along the wood's edge; down the winding road with its finger-posts pointing to the various batteries; past mules carrying up fresh supplies of shells, right under an Italian battery, whose gunners, in their blue steel helmets, look at us curiously through the screen of leaves; saw a man severely wounded and apparently dying, for his body lay limp on the stretcher and his face was covered with a handkerchief, being carried down to the first-aid hospital in the village ; saw men in reserve resting along the sheltered side of the road, somewhat strained and out of humour ; reached a fountain where we drank from their water-bottles ; and so got back to the Church of Piovene, with its soaring tower of stone, to the motor; and tore back to Schio, as the shells were falling in increasing numbers in the plain, sending up great columns of dark smoke; and presently were safe as if we were a hundred miles away from the seat of war. It had been a wonderful day, rich in experi- ences, and it had brought a modern artillery battle home to one in the most explicit way. No doubt it must be terrible when the shells are actually falling on one, killing and maiming one's companions and friends; but we escaped precisely that experience, though we got rather nearer it than any one intended. Near Schio the artillery officer who had come 128 THE SCENE OF WAR with us from Novegno left us to visit the other half of his battery, and in leaving thanked us for giving him a lift, in the straightest, most chivalrous way imaginable. I heard him say to the Tenente in his rich Italian voice, "La ringrazio estremamente per la sua gentilezza." He had arrived only the night before from Albania, still wore his blue steel helmet, and was full of geniality and good fellowship, with- out a trace of arrogance, but with a fine noble sort of air soldier and gentleman in one. As we went on, we passed once more through long columns of Alpini returning from the front, their mules carrying their mountain - guns, the men equipped with pickaxes, staves, rifles; the mules with food, ammunition, tobacco, cigars, all in separate labelled boxes, with hay and oats, with heavy hobnailed boots, tents, cooking-pots, and even a sewing-machine ! " Everything," said an officer, " that men in the mountains can require they have with them." These mountain gunners were superb men, big of limb, erect, bold, and handsome of coun- tenance. Bronzed and reddened by the sun, covered with the dust of the wayside, long on the march, but patient, strong, and unwearied, they were a wholly admirable and splendid company of men. It was an honour to travel upon the same road with them. 129 VENICE IN WAR-TIME. VENICE in war-time is like the Sleeping Beauty : in danger of being slain before she can open her eyes to an expectant world. She is other things as well, amongst them a base of the Italian Navy ; and for these and other reasons she is jealously guarded; but it is in her old-time character as the Queen of Cities that most of us adore her, and so will continue to do. I was glad, there- fore, to have visited her in her hour of danger and as yet seriously unhurt. But in a war like this one never knows what the morrow may bring forth. Rheims, Louvain, Arras, Ypres; must Venice be added to their number ? After leaving Mestre, crowded with troops on their way to the Isonzo front, and still obsessed by visions of War, I was suddenly seized with an impression of clarity and of a luminous horizon. It was the sunlight reflected on the lagoons, in whose midst afar off I could see the domes and campaniles of the City of Cities. It was a new sensation, for hitherto it had been my fortune to arrive at Venice at mid- night, and to pass as in a dream from the shut- tered train into the gloom and wonder of the canals; and so to that side-door in the Rio del I 130 THE SCENE OF WAR Vin, which ushers one into Danieli's and its warmth and glow of hospitality. But to-day I came in the full sunlight, and found the famous inn all but empty ; and this was but June ! I had even to call aloud before a waiter came running in haste from the inner hall, where even at midnight one was welcomed by half a dozen persons. Some white tables were spread at the farther end, and in all we were a company of eight people. The manager shook his head ; the waiter looked apologetic; and Danieli's was as it were on board-wages. The annexe was now become a Military Hospital, and as I looked out of my bedroom window, my neighbour across the gleam- ing canal was a soldier in grey, with his head bound up in a white bandage. The Palace of the Doges was built up with bricks on its ground floor, and with timber sup- ports under its beautiful arches. St Marc's was half hidden behind a wall of sandbags, and its horses were taken away and placed in a cellar for safety. But the priceless building could not be moved, and it stood there in all its opulent beauty, exposed to the hazard of War. There were dim lights still burning on its altars, and at stated hours the worshippers still gathered for prayer. One passed it with a shudder for the fate that might yet be in store for it. Opposite, there rose the Campanile, more beautiful than I had ever seen it before, a vision of light and grace a thing re- born; but even here the sandbag and the palisade were evident. The Piazza, which at this season is prone to be VENICE IN WAR-TIME 131 so full that one can scarcely walk in its galleries with comfort, was all but empty. The pigeons had it almost to themselves. At Florian's, at five o'clock, I was the only customer. A sentry with his bayonet fixed marched outside the Palace. The famous shops were either closed or were selling off, and near the Quadri a Red Cross flag drew atten- tion to things for sale at scrupulously low prices. . In a glass box there lay in a confused heap a wonderful collection of gold and silver trinkets, and old jewellery, and a hundred other things of some value, thrown into it by the patriotic. I took the water. All the great hotels were hospitals, with sick and wounded men in grey at their windows. The Giudecca was thronged with torpedo-boats; a small cruiser lay by the Public Gardens; armed launches raced up the Grand Canal. Gondolas were few and far between, and the old gondolieri, who pull in your boat for a halfpenny, looked in their tattered guise like denizens of an Italy that had ceased to exist. They were not of kin with the clean, firm, de- termined men in the grey uniforms, who crowd in their tens of thousands the white highways and the mountain passes the reconquered soil of Italy. For these are a new people. But the city lay beautiful as ever in the sun- light, like a precious jewel carefully guarded, immortal in her manifestation. In the late even- ing San Giorgio Maggiore was bathed in amber light, and the columns of the Lion and St Theo- dore stood out like the portals of a magic world. On the other side the mysterious gloom of the Merceria drew one like a page of the Arabian 132 THE SCENE OF WAR Nights. The red masts from which there once fluttered the emblems of Cyprus, of Candia, of the Morea, stood proudly beautiful in the empty Piazza, aloof yet suggestive of the tides that are once more sweeping from Italy about those shores. As I sat by the little windows that open with an unrivalled charm upon the Schiavoni, and saw the world passing, ascending, and descending the Bridge outside, it was mostly grey soldiers that I saw, where in bygone times I have looked upon an endless stream of beautiful women, and of travellers from the ends of the earth. The stakes by the Piazzetta stood lean and solitary and forlorn. At the Cappello Nero I dined in the company of naval officers and soldiers. There was not a woman in the room. The city, I was told by many, was dull just now, and hardly worth visiting; but indeed its beauty was as great as I have ever known it, and a dignity as of sacrifice and truth lay upon it, that shed a greater glory on it than all the murmur and the stress of the thronging world that makes a pleasure haunt of it at other times. And at the Church of the Scalzi I learnt of the tragedy that Venice has so far escaped. The lovely ceiling was blown to bits, and the floor was littered with the debris of the roof. The workmen were busy putting up a scaffolding to restore the building; but there are some things that can never be restored. As I came away across the shining lagoons, their stillness was broken by the impact of the guns bellowing out their music of war upon the Isonzo front. 133 THE WAK IN THE DOLOMITES. IN this war that embraces the world, that ex- tends in its tragic and terrible incidents from the Falkland Islands to the Arctic seas, from the sands of the desert to the summits of mountains veiled in perpetual snow and ice, it cannot be given to any man to see more than his little portion. I was therefore grateful for all that I had seen. But there was, as it happened, one more episode, and it carried me into perhaps the most romantic area of the war. While at Udine I had asked a young officer who, while he was still scarcely fledged from the schoolroom, had visited the Himalaya and ex- plored with de Filippi some of the highest lands in the world, where I could best obtain an impres- sion of the grandeur and beauty of the Italian Front, and he had said at once at the Tofana and the Cristallo, by Cortina d'Ampezzo. So to Cor- tina I went. The road, leaving the plain of Italy at Treviso, ascends the valley of the Pieve to Belluno. It is a country dominated by two memories the one of Venice, the other of Napoleon. Bassano, Treviso, Feltre, Belluno ; who ever heard these names 134 THE SCENE OF WAR without thinking of the great Captain, who shed about him such a glory that even his Mar- shals remain, after a hundred years, enshrined in the thoughts of men ? But at Belluno itself one can think only of Venice, for it carries the im- mortal impress of the Great Republic. On arriving there I called upon General F . In him I found a wise and helpful friend. At my request he telephoned to Udine to ask what had become of the Tenente who was to have accom- panied me on this visit, and meanwhile spoke to me of the Front and its extraordinary difficulties, spreading before me the most remarkable series of panoramic maps of the Tofana and Cristallo and other peaks and valleys, taken from aeroplanes, and with long-distance lenses. The Italian photographs are unrivalled for their beauty, and these showed me not only the configurations of the mountains in a very striking way, but every detail of the valleys, their church towers, their clusters of houses, their fields and pasture - lands, and their connecting ribbons of white roads. I pointed to one that lay there, as it were, smiling before me in its corporate life and beauty, but he shook his head a little sadly and said " Destroyed and by our own artillery fire." He spoke, it was evident, with the regret of a man kindly by nature and trained by centuries of an old civilisation; and one realised at once the gulf that divides such men from the Boche with his cold sneering face and hard lips, who thought it a good thing to shoot a lonely and devoted Englishwoman; and from all who are THE WAR IN THE DOLOMITES 135 responsible for the destruction of Louvain and of Rheims. " When you go to Cortina," he said, " you must go to Col, where my son is an officer of Alpini, and he will help you to see all that you wish to see of the frontier there. But stay I will write you a line of introduction," and as he turned to write he put his hand into a drawer and pulled out a photograph. "My son," he said very simply, but with a tender inflection in his voice ; and at the same moment, as chance would have it, the door opened and his son was announced. The young man bowed very gravely and re- spectfully to hisj father, the Captain of Alpini, to the Major-General and Chief of the Staff. The General explained that he wished me to be taken up by Pieve di Cadore and the valley of the Auronzo to La Misurina, and thence round by Cortina to Belluno. This, he said, would give me an idea of the country and its exceptional char- acter, and later I could go up one of the moun- tains and see it at more leisure. He had asked Lieutenant to accompany me, as he spoke English very well " If you are staying a couple of days," he added, " I will get some of those photographs printed for you." The Lieutenant on entering proved to be a mighty man, a cavalry officer with an English air. As soon as we had left the more formal surroundings of the General's room, he unbur- dened himself. " Sure," he said, " my tutor was an Irishman, 136 THE SCENE OF WAR and I am sartain that we shall get on. I daresay that you will notice that I speak English with a bit of a brogue ; " and it was so. This officer was an accomplished chauffeur, and he drove the red Fiat with a skill and vigour that would take no refusal. Our way lay up the valley of the Pieve, amidst bold and massive scenery, and along a road that was perfect in its surface and gradation a triumph of Italian engin- eering. It carried us before long into the little town of Pieve di Cadore, where a statue of Titian graced the market-place. For it was here that the great master first saw the light in the days when Venice ruled these mountains. Before us rose into the sunlit sky the superb masses of the Marmarole, while upon our right there was Monte Tudajo. But these names give no more than a sound to the splendour of the Dolomites, which climbed about us in an amphitheatre of grey and silver, to heights that dazzled our eyes with their beauty and splendour. We now bore up the valley of the Auronzo, and passing by the townlet of that name ran through the Forest of St Marc, which in bygone days supplied Venice with her ships; and so looked upon the startling beauty of Sorapiss, which soared in a series of snow-white grey-fluted pin- nacles and bastions, to a height which might have been the very summit of the world, though the maps show it as something under ten thousand feet. The Dolomites are well known to the traveller, and I had once had a glimpse of their visionary beauty over the meadows and fields of flowers THE WAR IN THE DOLOMITES 137 which make the Southern Tyrol so entrancing a world in itself, but here by some magic I was in their very midst. It is a world that is as gigantic as it is fairy-like and beautiful. Those mighty citadels and sharp-edged blades look as if they had been designed by some God for his own pur- poses of War ; but the light on them, the wisps of cloud that float about them, suggest the inter- vention of a spirit radiant with the joy and the wonder of life. It was here in the midst of this astounding world, in a small house by the wayside, that General F had had his headquarters through the winter before he passed on to his present post ; and I was tempted to wonder how any one living in the midst of a world of such haunting beauty could give his mind to the iron business of war. And yet War is romantic here, in a degree that is perhaps unequalled anywhere in the world. The woods are beautiful with tapering firs, the green meadows are bright with flowers, by the wayside the stream runs its appointed course to the sea; the memory of the Great Republic endures in the towns in the lower valley, in the stately houses of that Gothic type that was peculiar to Venice, in these very woods, and even in these crystalline peaks; for if you look up at Sorapiss, you will see there one that soars up some eight thousand feet, that is still known by men as The Peak of the Doge. As we turned away towards L , there was Cristallo, gigantic on our left, Cristallino, a miracle of beauty, and before us the Austrian frontier, the Three Peaks of Lavaredo reaching 138 THE SCENE OF WAR like fingers up to heaven, and those other marvels that veil their splendour like our Himalayan K. 2, under the prose of the Numbers Eleven and Twelve. All these were strongly defended with trenches and guns, and we stood here in this fairyland in the very midst of a mighty theatre of war. At L we came upon a little lake, and on learning that the road beyond to the heavy batteries in position was practicable for the moment, we continued our journey on foot. It is not always so, for this strip of country that runs downhill from Italy to Austria, beautiful and infantile, the haunt of pleasure-seekers and the newly wed, is now seldom immune from the searching fire of the Austrian guns. At L I noticed a big hole in the wall of the General's inn that had been made by a recent shell, and across the emerald waters of the lake a summer hotel that had had its roof blown in by another. It was manifest in these and many other ways that war had laid its heavy and brutal hand upon the scene. Yet there is, I suppose, no gentler, no more charmingly courteous man in the world than the little General F , who lives here in the inn with the hole through it; and when I went in to call on him, he ordered tea at once, and in- sisted on pouring it into my cup through the little silver strainer which he held with his other hand, as though he had been serving his grand- daughter. Courtesy comes easily to most if not to all Italians; but it seems to increase the nearer you get to the Front. Perhaps it is be- THE WAR IN THE DOLOMITES 139 cause the true soldier prefers to be found there ; perhaps because it is there that the life of cities, with its varying currents and its conflicting streams, is changed to the primal issues of life and death. As the General talked to us, his Staff stood about him like members of one family. It was a bare uncarpeted room, but upon its walls there were superb pictures of the soldiers' life in the mountains, more graphic than any words. The General chuckled over the German naval victory of Jutland. " It grows less and less," he said, making a little diminishing movement with his fingers, "every day, and soon there will be nothing of it left, nothing whatever at all ! " " And how many troops have you now in the field ? And when do you expect to move ? " All this with great civility ; although one knew that there were many misunderstandings prevalent in Italy at that time regarding the British share in the War. " And here is the latest news from the Russian Front. It comes to us daily by telephone, and is rapidly distributed along the trenches. It keeps us, you see, in touch with the world in spite of our limitations," and he smiled as he pointed through the window to the havoc of the shells outside. The road along which we took our way was bordered on one side of the narrow valley through which it ran by lush meadows of peaty soil, which had been literally ploughed up by the Austrian shells. Hundreds upon hundreds of them had been flung with the recklessness of 140 THE SCENE OF WAR rage into this beautiful valley. In many of the holes there were now translucent pools, in which all the beauty of the Dolomites was mirrored : and it was somewhere in this neighbourhood that I had the luck to see an Italian battery of 305's in action. A heavy gun at home is a wonderful thing. This one lived in a circular space like a bear- pit, and if you were in a hurry you might easily have passed it unnoticed; for though it stood but a yard or two from the road, it was screened by a semicircle of fir-trees that had been brought from elsewhere and planted like Christmas trees about it. At the moment when I first saw it, it lay with its nose down like a great reptile asleep. Beneath it there was a bed of concrete made to yield to its reaction, and with the power- ful springs which sustain it, to break the force of its violent retreat. Behind it in the hillside there were trenches lined and roofed with fir and packed in the inner spaces with the green branches; and here there were many strange things of a secret and subterranean kind. For instance, there was the inner cave with some forty feet of hillside above it as a roof, in which the gun's provender was kept, safe and sound: a mass of quiescent death and de- struction awaiting the fulfilment of its destiny. Then there was a sliding panel in the trench wall, like one of those hiding-places the medi- aeval romancer loves, behind which rifles were stored to meet an unlocked - for attack, and there was the little bureau or office -room one always conies back you see to the human brain THE WAR IN THE DOLOMITES 141 in which the officer commanding the battery does his work of control. On the wall there was a telephone, and upon a lofty peak that rose up, grey and shining with silver snow, there was an observer who could tell him all that there was to be seen from that superb position of outlook. Of what he could see that was of interest to the battery there was a small map roughly drawn on the Commander's table, and here I found depicted a railway line, a railway station, an hotel, and certain other things. Every shot that was fired from this almost subterranean place was noted by the man up there in the midst of the snow and ice, and its effects reported through the telephone. And thus it came that the seemingly blind envoy was in reality a creature instinct with a definite aim and purpose a thing of almost conscious life. To see a 305 fired for the first time is to have an experience that one does not easily forget. It is all very slick, and quiet, and pre- ordained; and the human element that works it is a happy family inspired by but a single purpose and will. There is little or no Prussian pedantry here in Italy, and officers and men are comrades and friends. First, if you wish to know, the inner lining of the gun is given a good bath of glycerine, then one of the big shells from the niche in the wall is nipped by the claws of a travelling crane and gently deposited in a receiver by the gun. This swings round and places the shell in 142 THE SCENE OF WAR position ; a little push that savours of persuasion, and it is safely home in its place; and a little more, and this dread and terrible thing will have gone irrevocably on its way. And that little more consists of a small loose sack of ballistite that looks as innocent as char- coal; but a flash applied to it converts it into a very devil of explosive wrath, who sends the great shell with a furious thrust upon its mar- vellous flight high over the intervening wall of the mountains, to its bourne some eight or ten miles away. By the side of this little sack of explosive, and before the door is closed upon this terrific event, there is thrown in, as it were by hazard, a little bit of stick, whose simple purpose it is to keep the shell from sliding down out of its place when the barrel of the gun is raised. It is these artless extras that always fascinate one in the midst of the most complex machinery. The next step is to lay and to point the gun, and this is where the captain's brain and the telephone message from the snowy heights above come in. And now at last the fateful moment has come. A gunner stands holding a bit of string it is only a bit of string he gives it a pull, and the world seems suddenly in con- vulsion. There is a blinding flame, a cloud that is like the pillar of fire, and through its midst a dark momentary object gliding upon its way. That is what one sees; but one's frame re- sponds through all its nerves and tentacles to the tremendous concussion; and one's ears are THE WAR IN THE DOLOMITES 143 filled with a roar that is beyond the roaring of all the lions in the world. It echoes and re-echoes, reverberating through all the circuit of the surrounding Dolomites. And its sound is like the very trump of Doom. A few seconds more and the missile has fallen, who knows with what consequences to the men in that far invisible valley beyond ? and not only to them, but to those who pray and hope and send forth their appeals for intervention to the personal goodness of God. Sometimes they have very narrow escapes. Thus, a previous shell from this gun fell within fifty yards of a moving train; but had it fallen that distance nearer to the right it must have fallen plumb into the middle of it and left very little of it in existence; and there would have been rejoicings in the gun -pit and in the little bureau, and sorrow and lamentation upon the other side. To-day the message from the watcher on the crystal peak is a singular one. There is a wind down in the valley, he says, and the shell has fallen a little short. Only to think of it, that even this terrific thing, which moves upon its way as if nothing on earth could deflect it from its purpose, is subject to such impalpable influences ! The Battery Commander marks it all down on his chart and in his notebook, and is as solid and self-possessed as you or I might be when entrenched behind an office table ; but his eyes ah, his eyes are eloquent. They are bright and incandescent; they shine in the darkness 144 THE SCENE OF WAR with a sudden glow as though some part of his own soul had gone out with that shell upon its way. Then he takes me across to his place of habi- tation the little wooden hut in which he has spent the last eight months of his life. It is as simple as the chamber of a nun. There is his little bedroom, with just enough of space for a camp - bed, a small writing - table, some racks upon the wall. The nose of an Austrian 305 serves to keep the door ajar. An atlas he used at school lies torn into ribbons by the fragment of a shell ; the wooden walls are pitted with little holes. Life is not very safe for him even here. In the battery canteen adjoining there is a yet more remarkable sight. It is a copper bucket perforated with holes, and it was in this bucket that a man was weighing out a charge of ballistite when a shell from the enemy exploded and riddled it like a sieve. The big gun itself was not exempt. I see in it a deep dent as though it had been made by a steel axe, and several small wounds, as one might say, in the barrel, made by the square ingots that burst out of an Austrian shell. These wounds have been neatly healed, but one can see the patches quite nicely in the polished surface of the steel. Under the green fir-trees by the road's edge there are the graves of the men of the battery who have been killed. It was in the canteen also that I saw one of those little things that so often impress one more than the big ones. It was a scrap of a type- THE WAR IN THE DOLOMITES 145 written message from the telephone to say that the Austrian army had been cut in two near Cernowitz by the Russian advance. I felt the immense yet subtle power that lay in that flutter- ing bit of paper. It told me that Everything Counts. It said that every success heartens those who are on the winning side, that every loss is felt throughout the armies of the losers more by some perhaps than by others but to a certain degree by all. Only the other day I received a little souvenir of my visit from the officer in command of this battery with the following message, warm with Italian feeling a message to one who was no more than a passing acquaintance : "Con la piu viva ammirazione e sentite con- gratulazioni per la vittoriosa avanzata dell' Esercito Inglese bene augurando per le future azioni e per la vittoria degli alleati. Affetuo- samente devotissimo, Capitano V A ." And when I opened it here in England I saw once again the little battery canteen and the little slip of paper fluttering there with its news of our long-hoped-for advance on the Somme. It is true that we are for the most part an inarticulate people, and that the great victories speak for themselves ; but it is the little things that mount up, and no effort should be spared in the days now coming to keep in touch with our friends. In feeling, as well as in fact, we must be One. But this was not so in those days, and I was K 146 THE SCENE OF WAR often conscious of misunderstandings that could very easily have been removed. Before leaving the Battery, we climbed a little way up the turfed hillside, where the Austrian fire had been heaviest, and looked from there into a No Man's Land, that was too deadly a place for any one to live in. And yet it was enticing in its beauty and its tranquil charm. Amidst the serried fir-trees wound the white road to Schuder- bach, past a little summer hotel; and round an inviting corner there was the Via Allemagna, the great military road of the Germans through the Dolomites. Upon the other side it swept along by the base of Cristallo to the lovely valley of Cortina. Straight before us rose the big brown flanks of the Monte Piana that was like an Italian bulwark in the face of the enemy. From this near side we could see the mule-track wind- ing upwards with its traffic of supply ; and on its far side, though concealed from our vision, were the Italian trenches, under the fire of the Aus- trian guns. The Col of Mezzo, some 7000 feet in altitude, was hidden by this intervening hill, but we could see the Three Peaks of Lavaredo, and the tops of the Dodici, glittering like swords in the amber light. Leaving this favoured spot, we motored over the old frontier line into the valley in which Cortina d'Ampezzo lies enshrined. On our way there was another battery of 305 's concealed in the pine - woods, and belching out its roar and music of destruction ; but my mind was now too absorbed by the beauty of the scene, and the evening sunlight playing upon the mighty peaks THE WAR IN THE DOLOMITES 147 of the Toi'ana across the valley, to give it much attention. The low green slopes were soft as velvet, and the long shadows and glow of even- ing lent them a wonderful depth and richness of surface that was in striking contrast with the bare, grey, snowy citadels and peaks, now slowly turning to yellow and rose. We did not stop in Cortina, but went across the valley to Po Col, and spent an hour with the officers of an Alpini regiment. Here I was shown their workshops, in which they make all their telephones and instruments, their stores of mountaineering requisites, and a portable im- promptu trench which an officer had just in- vented. Many of these officers spend years up in the mountains, and, as they tell me, seldom go down into the Italian plain. They all speak with admiration of their men, and take pride in their exploits. One of the most remarkable developments of this war is the way in which the infantry of the plains of Lombardy, and of the far South, have adapted themselves to the life of these high alti- tudes rivalling the very mountaineers and the trained Alpini in their splendid deeds. You have to see the mighty mass of the Tofana and its Olympian peaks glittering with snow in mid- summer and then to be told that the Italian troops took those summits, evicted the Austrians from their tremendous vantage-points, and in- stalled their guns and dug their trenches up and stuck to them all through the winter to realise what the Italian army has done, and what diffi- culties, as in some Titanic conflict, it has overcome. BOOK III. INTERLUDES INTERLUDES. FROM Italy I passed through Switzerland. The transition is marked as one passes in this way from a country at war into a country at peace. One's first emotion is one of relief. For war in these years of grace is emphatically a burden upon the spirit of the traveller. Apart from the risks of travel at sea, the considerable dis- location that there is in the conveniences of civilised life, the uncertainty of trains, the pre- occupation of most of those whom one meets, with the one sombre thing that obsesses their minds, there is active or veiled hostility. Every traveller is suspect. The passport business is a long and wearisome affair, the formalities endless in their details. For the small functionary, the creature of red tape, this is the time of his life. The Jack-in-office feels himself exalted to the condition of a patriot, and every little official becomes a Cerberus of the national honour. If you are given to speaking the truth, it is not pleasant, after you have offered all the requisite assurances in reply to questions asked, to find that you have spoken in vain. Intrigue and suspicion sour the air. You begin to realise what autocratic power means ; you perceive dimly what it must be like to have no personal rights 152 THE SCENE OF WAR whatever. You are here because some one per- mits you to be here; but you can be detained or put under restraint, and generally speaking treated with little or no consideration, according as the fancy moves this powerful personality under whose licence you move and live. Over and above this, you have to suffer fools gladly ; and fools abound. If you are careful to secure personal introductions from and to people of con- sequence on the road, things are made easier, and at least the necessary inquisition is accompanied by an expression of courteous regret ; but I speak of the ordinary traveller. Delays in any case are unavoidable. Your reason tells you that all this is inevitable ; your philosophy may enable you to take it with a smile, but you are glad when it is over, when the frontier is crossed, and the burden is lifted from your shoulders, as it is in a quiet pleasant land like Switzerland. Your next emotion it comes more slowly is one of pity for those who, unlike yourself, are out of the War. You believe as we the Allied peoples rightly believe that the War is being fought for the triumph of Right over Wrong, for Liberty and Freedom, for the rights of the small and the humble, as well as for those of the great and the mighty for the ultimate Civilisation of the World. And then, though you are in love with the quiet and the peace of a country like this that is not at war, you are glad that you do not belong to it. The spiritual is greater than the material, and it is better to die for a good cause than to live without honour. This country, like other small states, knows that we are fighting for its right to exist the ideals INTERLUDES 153 of Liberty and Freedom it holds in common with ourselves. It is content to let us do the fighting. We do not blame its people; it is their own affair. Many of them, we know, are passionately opposed to the cruelty and injustice of the War. " We, who are no better than embusquds, what right have we to speak ? " said one of them, a man of consequence, to me, with a bitter inflection in his voice. There is no country in the world that is less resentful than ours of the neutral attitude. I believe we may claim in this respect to be the most tolerant people on the face of the earth. We are considered on the Continent to have carried our honesty to the verge of the quixotic ; our treatment of the Greeks, for example, to the extreme of weakness : that may be so, or not ; but in our hearts we are glad, whatever the price, that this War has found us in the forefront of the battle. A great people cannot live without honour. There was one other thing that impressed me, and that was the efficiency of this little State. The towns are so perfectly ordered, so considerate of the comfort and convenience of their inhab- itants, roads, parks, hotels, trams, trains, and steamboats are so good of their kind ; the houses are so well-equipped and supplied with the neces- sary comforts of life ; one can easily get here so much that even in France or England one would not look for in a small town, that one realises that thoroughness and competence are qualities that need have no connection with militarism and greed of power. It is a valuable lesson. I left for Paris. The country through which the train runs to Vallorbes is almost English in 154 THE SCENE OF WAR its rural peace and beauty. One is in the middle of green swelling meadows, in which the freshly- cut hay lies in swathes ; of dark leafy woods with the peace of evening brooding over them. At Vallorbes there is a strict custom-house examina- tion ; and at Frasnes we go through a pen, one by one, to show our passports. Here for the first time I see the old style of French soldier in his madder trousers and long blue coat, a relic of days that are as dead as the mastodon. We are in France. The sky is starry over- head, with wisps of flying cloud; the night is cold. We have a long time to wait for the overdue train. When it comes at last, with its lights shining in the darkness, its sudden rush and swirl of movement, we are sealed within it from the outer world, and pass without incident or observation across France. But in the morn- ing the scene outside our windows is one that is culled from the very heart of this bountiful land. The sky is radiant with light, the gently undulat- ing plain spreads from horizon to horizon, the great rivers flow placidly through the richly tilled soil, unheeding of the War. It is France at peace, smiling, but implacable in her toil. We arrive at the Gare de Lyon, and I feel that I am already half in England. Two British soldiers in khaki, with their plain solid air, are poring over a paper. In the buffet two officers are phlegmatically going through an early break- fast, one with an eyeglass, the other a son of Anak. And from time to time others come and go : now an Australian soldier with his plumed hat and bandolier, racy and warlike: now a General of the same breed, burly and fresh of hue, with INTERLUDES 155 an officer of his Staff, a man with the slim refined face of a naval officer. There is a French officer, too, whose breast is covered with medals, which look a little odd, like those of a professional athlete, suspended on his breast. The British ribbon is more reserved. Paris is quiet, devoid of her wonted brilliancy, her air of luxury. She is not sad, but she has become dowdy, and is given over to the common- place. The War has robbed her of her glitter and foam, the sparkle of her rings. She is a little dull. . . . When one is far away in foreign lands the prevailing doubt, the veiled distrust of our arms somewhat settles upon one's mind; but one's spirit rises in contact with the British soldier. One knows at once that in him there still re- sides the greatness of his country. In these cold, unimaginative faces, under their air of reserve, their lives a quality akin to that which made the Romans the masters of the world. We make many and grievous mistakes, and have paid a heavy price for them, but we shall win through at the end. Neither in Italy nor in France have I felt this conviction so strongly as I do now that I am again in touch with the spirit of our people. The hour, too, is full of the magnetism of impending events. It is the 30th of June. The voices of the English guns are being heard afar off in our country villages and inland towns. The world is expectant; there is a stillness in the air, like that which precedes the Sirocco; the long-hoped-for advance of the British army, they say, is about to begin. 156 BACK IN BLIGHTY. I ARRIVED in England this morning, the 1st of July. Last night in crossing from Havre I shared a big cabin with a dozen other men, all British and Australian officers going over on duty or short leave. Some of the younger men were of superb physique. It is a finer stock this than that of Italy or France; more erect, lithe, vital; and unlike our friends, full of fun boyish, chaffy. Even the old Australian Colonel walking about in his shirt, and without his trousers, is like a boy in his cheery enjoyment and fun. The ship's officers and stewards are so brief, helpful, matter-of-fact, and wholly un- concerned about tips. There are many women and children, well-cared-for, soberly attended to. "Slept like a top," says the Highland officer with a laugh, as though the sea was the safest place in the world. So did I. Havre was full of our people, British and Australians big strong men at every corner of the old seafaring town. Its lineaments were French, but the spirit that moved in it was the spirit of our race. The Irish sergeant of the Scots Guards, who stood on duty at the pass- port wicket, was a giant, who could have carried off a gun on his shoulders. " Ladies in fursst," BACK IN BLIGHTY 157 was his chief preoccupation; very disturbing to the closely - packed queue, yet was one secretly proud to find the old chivalry still at work. It was the first time I had noticed it between Salonica and Havre. At Southampton all went quickly, orderly, and effectively; the calm British spirit presid- ing over all. And then as the train moved, the soft countryside unmatched in the world the open fields, the fat hedges, the noble trees and sheltered homesteads, slowly deployed before my eyes. Was it five years ago, or was it yesterday, that I was here ? London is so vast and complicated; so much that in some lesser space would fascinate the eye and seize the imagination is here lost in the swirl and movement of the City the Greatest City of the World; there is so much for one to do and think of, after a long absence, in this capital of an empire, that since coming here I have all but forgotten that we are at war. And I suppose it is because of all these things that it is impossible to seize upon any one impression and say such was London in the great days of the War. Soldiers throng her streets in such numbers that you might think there was no battle -line at all; there are so many wounded men about that you might think you had run into a convales- cent hospital; the pavements are so crowded with people, the streets so dense with traffic, that you might think the life of London was completely aloof from the life of the world and its passion of conflict. So many trains come and go, so many motors speed along the streets, 158 THE SCENE OF WAR the hotels are so full, that at a first glance you might think the war not touching the people of this country at all. There is no lack of wealth, no visible abatement in the expendi- ture of the people. Plays of the most brilliant and gorgeous description, got up regardless of cost, are a feature of the hour. Every seat at the principal theatres is booked in advance. The life of this marvellous city goes on seemingly as though the world was not in tumult, and twenty million men were not at death -grips with each other across the width of Europe. And yet the War is evident at every turn. The voices of the newsboys ring with legends of Victory; the newspaper bills are big with headlines of battles won, of strongholds forced, of feats of arms, of prisoners taken by the thou- sands ; the Roll of Honour fills the wide columns of the journals with the names of those who have died for their country, the Roll of Sorrow some of us call it. And yet again there is no mourning in the streets. You do not find here any impression of grief or loss. Those who are stricken know what is in their hearts ; but they keep the know- ledge to themselves. In the thoroughfares there is laughter, and a determined enjoyment of life. Upon the great bridges that span the river, upon the fringe of the great crescent of twinkling lights that marks the flow of the City and its history from the days of the Conqueror to this year of grace, lovers abound, and the tide of life and passion flows on unheeding, like the waters whispering on their way to the sea. Yet are there times when the heart almost BACK IN BLIGHTY 159 stops beating, and one's soul is rapt in communion with the brave. I was at a theatre to-night the first I have been in since I arrived ; and I laughed, and wept a little, with the sentiment of the play, and lived for the moment in another world of the writer's imagining. Then I stepped out into the solemn street, with its veiled lights, its mystery of people, its ghost- like fantasies, each taxi-cab or motor- bus a potential instrument of death. I suppose that Venice may have left some such impression when the veiled gondolas swept by upon their business, and the shadows were dark with in- trigue. Yet there, there must always have been silence, while here there was the complex music and thunder of the great city Vaga murmura ROTTICB. I walked towards Trafalgar Square, where the revolving searchlights meet and intermingle in the far-flung spaces of heaven, and the flying clouds were lit from moment to moment as they swept on upon their ardent course. It was a scene of indescribable beauty, full of a strange portent of the days to come. They were seeking, one knew, for the enemy in the sky. . . . And then, as if by some instinct of consola- tion and assurance, they came low and bathed in their lustre, transfiguring it, the slight heroic figure of The Great Captain; and it was as though he lived again, and the spirit of Nelson was there keeping watch and ward over his England. There were not very many people in the Square, but as I turned up towards Charing 160 THE SCENE OF WAR Cross the crowd thickened on the pavements, and I could hear the sound of cheering. It being now well on towards midnight, I wondered idly what was the occasion, when there came towards me, down the silent, almost empty street, a motor, grey and vague in its outlines, but glowing like a heart on fire, with the red symbol of the Cross. It passed, and as it went by I saw within it a Nurse bending over the shattered forms of four brave men come home again from the Wars. And after it, through the crowd that had gathered up to the walls of the station, came ambulance after ambulance full of others such as these. Some sat up and cheered as the roses fell at their feet ; others lay still and silent, too broken by pain to make any response. And the mob who threw the roses, the women as they strained forward, of what were they thinking ? Of Nelson and the Empire ? Of the clash and murmur of history ? It seemed not. " Pore fellers," said one. " I see'd 'im," said another, laughing lightly as at a show, " through the winder." "'Im" was no one to her in particular, but Curiosity being a lady, was satisfied. "Lovey," said a New Zealander, pressing his temporary girl closer to his side. "You'se a beauty," she said ardently, looking up into his bronzed face, moved by the hidden forces of life. It all comes down to that in the end. The woman loves the brave man, as in the dawn of things; and the brave man finds some sort of compensation in being loved. Even Nelson, you know, was like that. ACROSS THE CHANNEL. IT is the 23rd of September, and six o'clock in the morning. The full tide of London's traffic has not yet begun to roll upon its way; the streets are still half empty ; the day has hardly yet begun. The City lies grey and mauve in the breaking light; the river is veiled in mists. High up in the heavens the first rays of sunlight are painting an opal sky. I pass into Charing Cross, and the shadow of War. The platform by which the Folkestone train is waiting is crowded with officers and soldiers going to the Front, and the P. and 0. passengers, manifestly well-to-do and luxurious, are seated in the Pullman cars. Week after week they go away thus to their jobs in the East, to waiting husbands and fathers who have not seen them for years; the Commis- sioner's wife, the General's daughter, to that India which still draws to itself some of the best blood and brains this land can produce. It is "Business as usual" with them Boche or no Boche, submarine or no submarine. Weekly the tide flows Eastward, and the Empire holds. I enter a third-class carriage with nine privates L 162 THE SCENE OF WAR of the line. The train moves through Kent; England but faintly visible, green and lovely through the drifting grey and amethyst of the morning haze. The Nine Men do not talk. One or two slumber, the rest smoke and are silent. The red-eyed wives and the light-footed sweet- hearts who came to see them off have vanished into the past; yet if one could look behind the stoical face of this man of forty, one might see there a picture of his home and of little John and Mary ; and, behind the mask of that chap there with the hard eyes and the clean-cut jaw, a grim softness for the girl who kissed him last night. Only when we reach Folkestone is the silence of this company broken. " 'Ome again," says one with a bitter humour ; and to the clatter of accoutrements and am- munition boots the carriage rapidly empties of its burden. As I tsep out on to the platform, an exquisite picture assails me : of a crinkling sea and a pale blue mackerel sky; of white chalk cliffs and green downs that reach over to the very edge of the waters; of a little harbour full of fishing craft and their old-world tracery of masts and nets and rigging. The world moves on, but these things were here before England became England, and when Britain was still a little Celtic island hidden in the mists of the Northern Seas. A regiment of Australian infantry marches down the long pier-head, thud, thud, thud, with the tramp of a Roman legion ; but whistling and humming a tune, cheery and joyous, the Free- men of the World. ACROSS THE CHANNEL 163 How it touches one, this flowing in to their old home of all the moving tides of the Empire. Upon the decks there are officers standing in groups, hawk - nosed, beribboned, aristocratic ; men of the old wars. There are Frenchmen and Belgians, women in costly furs, ensconced in deck- chairs, luxurious. We move past the transports full of troops in khaki, and the air is rent with their cheers. When these men die they will die like victors ascending to a banquet of the gods. As we move it is evident that this crossing of the waters is not without its risks. Every one on board wears a life-belt. It is a morning of great beauty, and as I look over the ship's side towards the receding English shore, it is a green sea that I look upon, patterned with the white lace of the wash, sunlit here, shadowy there, where the grey clouds made by the trailing smoke lends an added wonder to the scene. It leaves upon one an indelible impres- sion, as of a strong hand guarding our rights upon the sea as of a force that is alive and vigilant, and will neither be resisted nor within human limits be taken unawares. What must it be out there in the grey North Sea, where the Grand Fleet keeps its unceasing watch and ward? We have left behind us the cares and the insouciance of the common life, and are at one stroke involved in the stern and simple business of War. Our decks are crowded with troops infantry, cavalry, gunners, each with his rifle and his arms. There is something primal about this fellowship of the man and his weapon. The 164 THE SCENE OF WAR officer is secondary, necessary, but less immediate. The private, in his simplicity and directness, is the type of the man-at-arms. His task is plain, and he is equipped to perform it on the instant. We reach Boulogne. It is the same land of green downs running in billows to the sea ; but there rests upon it the indefinable impress of another race. It is less homely, less exquisite ; its architecture makes for display. The Italian was longer here than he was in England. But the pier upon which one has so often stood in times of peace, with the pain of parting still fresh in one's heart, is to-day itself an intimate part of our soil. The British army is in occupation, and English is spoken upon every side. Never in the history of the world have so many of the island people stood upon the soil of this continent of France. Let our friends not forget the impulse that has sent them here; loyalty to them, devotion to a great Cause; the driving-force of five million freemen self-enlisted for War. BOOK IV. THE BEITISH IN FKANCE Quand il apprit le desastre d'Arras, Tattegrain voulut voir et peindre les mines de so, chere ville, et peut-etre le pinceau qui avait evoque le Champ de bataille des Dunes, les Fugitifs de Boulogne en 1544 et les Cassellois demandant merci nous eut-il donne un chef-d'oeuvre plus poignant encore. Mais, atteint d'une maladie de coeur, Vartiste ne put surmonter demotion. Quand le tableau de desolation s'qffrit a sa vue, il s'e/ondra lui-meme sur les ruines, foudroye par la mort. a ENLAET> A VISIT TO ARRAS. OUR course to Arras lies through an ancient forest, past the little town and chateau of , which have stood here for a thousand years. Upon the horizon there is war and the sound of guns ; but here is a little corner left over from the Middle Ages : one can see at a glance the relationship of this little cluster of men to the castle on the hill ; and when one passes from the cobbled street under the gateway of the chateau it as though a magician had waved his wand before one's eyes. The castle belongs to the Duchesse d'Uzes, to whom it has descended through generations of princely men. There is no quieter spot in the world than this old half -ruined fortress with its vivid beds of flowers, its fruit-trees on the walls, its grassy courts, and its brave old walls of a bygone age, when men lavished upon stone the patient toil of a jeweller working in gold. Here the Black Prince lodged in his forays, and Marl- borough fired his guns, shattering into fragments more than half the castle. As I walk in, there at one end are the rem- nants of the banqueting hall, with its rich Gothic tracery and lovely windows, in which Edward 168 THE SCENE OF WAR Prince of Wales is said to have feasted in the company of his friends; the old keep, for all the perfection of its masonry, ruined by Marl- borough's guns ; the moat with its golden foliage and slumbering peace; the sunlit rooms with their vast south windows overlooking the humble feudal town, and the rolling weald, luminous in the September sun. Beside the parlour there is the kitchen with its pleasant odours, its battery of cuisine the speciality of France. In a wing of the chateau there are the rooms reserved for the Duchesse's use when she comes at intervals to this old haunt of her people. The memory of this place must be of a par- ticular fragrance to those who have found in it a momentary shelter from the stress and fury of war. The long white road along which we are travelling has brought us to the very edge of the battle, and we dare not follow it any farther. There is no visible barrier; but if you look at the map you will notice that in this month of September 1916 the frontier line lies very near the broken city. We hold what remains of it; it has passed for ever out of the hands of the barbarian; but the tide of battle still ebbs with sudden bursts of rage at its gates. To enter the city we must make a side detour. But before we do so, here is a village which, in the lottery of war, has retained its peaceful air and untouched perfection under the very muzzles of the German guns. In the fields the women toil; the haymakers are busy ; the great farm-horses wait, with their A VISIT TO ARRAS 169 wonted quiet, for the burden of the day. In the streets a man stands with his little daughter of three in his arms, his face beaming with affection, his dog wagging his tail about his legs. There are roses still upon the cottage walls, and through the old door of the church there is wafted into the daylight the scent of incense, the voice of prayer. And yet there across the low valley, where that church spire cleaves the air, and that wood displays its contours, under that line of trees, there are sure enough the German trenches. As we enter the proud old city, upon its threshold where the British sentries stand im- movable, there rises, rich with its Gothic tracery, a convent whose roofs and walls have been torn by shells, whose interior is a scene of ruin. Wherever a shell has entered the building, there everything within its reach lies torn and twisted and broken, as if it had been seized with some terrible convulsion. The moulded ceilings, the white walls, the stained-glass windows, the chapel of the convent, the high altar these are a total wreck. Only at the end of the apse, where there lingers a fragment of the roof, a figure of the Christ still stands serene and whole amidst the general desolation. In a side chapel a statue of the Virgin and the Child remains upon its pedestal, but some freak of explosion has carried off both their heads. We descend into the cellars, where some sick are lying, waiting for carriage to a hospital in the rear. They are still in their khaki uniforms and long coats, and they lie here exhausted and asleep, in the abandonment of fatigue, their heavy 170 THE SCENE OF WAR boots upon their feet, the iron on the heels glinting in the gloomy shadows of the vaults. Below these again there are the dark Spanish cellars and secret ways, a whole world of under- ground intrigue that linked this place with St Eloi. The story of the destruction of this convent is one of the most poignant imaginable. In the early days of the War it was the principal hospital of Arras, and the Red Cross floated from its steeple when the invader, singing a Bavarian hymn, tramped past it along the Rue d' Amiens. In May 1915, 1200 wounded were cared for within its walls. In October of that year its destruction was decreed. As the first shells began to fall, all those who could walk were told that they could leave, if they wished, for Aubigny, seven miles away. The whole of the little colony of sick and wounded said they would go. They would rather die on the road, they said, than fall into the hands of the Boche. "It was a lugubrious flight," says one who looked upon it, "dreadful to contemplate. They went on their hands and on their knees ; they rolled over down the stairs ; they took chairs with them as a prop for their broken limbs. Men with abdominal wounds, who had been obliged to lie absolutely still, dragged themselves along after the others. And this rather than submit to the mercies of the Boche. " My eyes filled with tears as we wished them God-speed, for I knew only too well that many must die on the way. It was a moment of horror which I can never forget." A VISIT TO ARRAS 171 A small handful of the most grievously stricken remained. These were in so bad a state that the doctors would not risk moving them into the cellars. But the women who cared for them would not leave them to the more certain death upstairs. One by one these broken men were carried down by them at the imminent risk of their own lives. "As we did so," says the same observer, "a violent explosion occurred; the glass fell about us in a thousand fragments. We thought the whole building was doomed. A blinding, but luminous dust enveloped us. I was covered with bricks and plaster. A bit of glass hit me, and my face was sheathed with blood. The wounded cried out in their agony. And then we heard above the tumult the clear voice of the Abbe Gengembre absolving us from our sins. Upon our knees, and with bared heads, we received this final benediction. But in the kitchen Sister Mary, the cook, went to and fro, attending to her duties with her wonted care as if Death were not knocking at the door ; on the upper floor, Made- leine Bracq, a girl of twenty, stood at the bedside of the wounded, in the midst of the falling shells." The Roman soldier who died at the destruction of Pompeii was not braver than she. In the following March there was a fresh bom- bardment. A "Marmite " hit the upper walls and penetrated to the basement. You can still see the path along which it came. Five devoted men and women were killed. The ambulance, which had struggled on so long, ceased to exist. 172 THE SCENE OF WAR It was not till the 8th of December 1915 that the ruin of the spire and of the chapel was decreed. The German shells followed each other at two minutes' intervals ; few missed their easy target, and in a little while the destruction was complete. . . . One emerges from a place like this with some- thing of a sense of physical pain. It is as though one had received a blow over the heart. " Well, sergeant," said the General to the Irish Guardsman at the gate, " is it safe for us to go into the town ? " " Sure, ye niver know, sirr, what the divils 11 be at ; but it's aisy they are this morning." So with gas masks handy and steel helmets upon our heads there is always the risk of being killed in Arras we went down the cobbled street, through rows upon rows of shattered houses, to the Cathedral and the old Spanish Place. It was like going through a city seized with the plague, or some other mysterious infection. The shops and places of business opening on the street were shuttered and nailed down with boards ; the slates upon the roofs were shaken from their places; the window-panes were jarred and broken to bits ; the walls were twisted and awry, and wherever a shell had fallen, there was a gap of ruin, what was once a home being now but a mass of match- wood, or a torrent of disembowelled stone. And yet in the very midst of all these symp- toms of disaster, there were evidences that the people had not wholly abandoned their homes. Outside one there sat a white-haired old lady of eighty, with her feet resting upon a stool and a A VISIT TO ARRAS 173 parasol over her head tranquil with the peace of those for whom death has no longer any sting. Let him come and find her if he would in the shadow of her own roof. This was her Nunc Dimittis. Outside another, in the shelter of a wall, a girl wheeled a perambulator with a new- born babe inside it asleep. There were even chil- dren playing in little groups at the street corners. But there were hardly any men, except the British soldier in his helmet of steel ; and we found him here as cool and phlegmatic and as much at home as if he had never crossed the seas. The Grande Place, with its superb Belfry, its ruins of old Flemish houses, its noble Hdtel de Ville, was an absolute wreck. The Pride of Arras was humbled to the dust. The Belfry was the labour of a hundred years the gift, not of a Prince, but of a people proud of their civic life and hard -won liberties. For four centuries it had dominated the Artois plain its lofty Tower with its Crown, its heraldic Lion and its Golden Sun, a landmark to all the countryside, a superb example of the secular Gothic of its time. . . . Beside it the Hdtel de Ville rose, a rich and beautiful struc- ture, in which the corporate life of the city had for generations found its expression. It was on the 7th of October 1914 these dates are important that the Germans, driven from Arras, resolved upon the destruction of these monuments. Incendiary shells fell thick upon the Hdtel de Ville; its roof took fire; its splendid interior, rich with old oaken wainscot and price- less tapestries, was seized by the eager flames ; its mirrors and chandeliers cracked and were shiv- 174 THE SCENE OF WAR ered by the heat ; and the fires, leaping up to the Belfry spire, lit the wide landscape, across which the people of Arras were to be seen flying for refuge to the neighbouring villages. The Belfry survived in a damaged state till the 21st of October, when the crime of its destruction was consummated. Sixty-nine shells were fired at it, and in fifty minutes the old tower, its carillon bells sounding for the last time, fell with its Lion and its Crown and its Golden Sun into the ruins of the Place and upon the Hotel de Ville. The Emperor William is said to have looked from a neighbouring eminence upon its fall. From this scene of cruel desolation we went to the Palace of St Vaast. This immense building, once a Benedictine abbey and episcopal residence, contained at the time of the bombardment the museum of the city, its library and pictures, its irreplaceable archives and 1200 manuscripts. It was gutted in two days. The shells were directed not only on the building, but, as those who laboured to save its most precious contents affirm, in the form of a barrage, designed to make the efforts impossible. Notwithstanding this, many of the most valuable objects were moved into the cellars and saved from destruction, but many were lost for ever. Of the 50,000 printed volumes in the library only one survives, and that, in the bitter words of one of the townsmen, was a rare little volume obligingly lent to Carlsruhe a short time before the war. The Cathedral adjoining it, a vast structure A VISIT TO ARRAS 175 with accommodation within it for 8000 people, was a ruin, more impressive now perhaps than in its prime. Its walls, with gaping rents in them made by the passing shells, were still standing ; but the whole of the vaulted roof, with the excep- tion of a single filament of arch, lay in fragments upon the floor. So vast were the fragments that it was like climbing up a hill to advance across them to the depression in which the High Altar once stood. The great gates of the Cathedral lay shattered, and their hinges and debris lay in fragments on the lofty stairs that ascend to the floor of the building. This was the work not of one but of many bombardments. On the 5th and 6th of July the Cathedral was near its end. Its treasures had already been carried into the safest corner of the building, but there was no longer any safety there. The devoted servants of the Church laboured to save what still remained. The Vicar has written an account of those tragic hours. "It was near eight o'clock," he says, "in the evening of the 5th of July. But five of us remained. We carried behind the pillars of the Choir all the candelabras and chandeliers of the Altars, and then with much effort the beautiful but heavy statue in marble of the Sacred Heart. We would have tried also to save the statues of Joan of Arc, of St Francis of Assisi, of the Blessed Virgin; but the situation became im- possible. The flames had reached the Vestry of 176 THE SCENE OF WAR the Canons, the smoke was asphyxiating, and the shells were bursting from moment to moment within the walls. It was half -past nine, and we could not stay. "We carried upon our shoulders, as in a funeral procession, the great Christ of the Calvary, and it saved our lives; for as we emerged two shells burst over our heads, and fragments of stones hit us as we passed before the gate-keeper's lodge. "A terrible scene was displayed before our eyes. The Palace of Saint Vaast was in flames. The roof of the Parish Church was burning ; clouds of smoke, sheets of flame, and showers of sparks enveloped the scene. The beams collapsed, the walls fell in. For the space of an hour the Germans poured upon the city incendiary shells, with the object of preventing us from limiting the spread of the fire." On the 10th of July the dome and the roof of the Cathedral finally fell in, and the ruin was complete. These were the principal buildings destroyed in Arras. It would be a long story to tell in detail of the rest: of the hospitals, the asylums of the old and afflicted, the convents and churches that bore the brunt of the enemy's chivalry. But there is one little scene that is burnt into one's mind by its pitiless tragedy. We know what almshouses are in England. This was one for the aged, beside an asylum for the deaf and dumb. The most active of these old people had already been moved to the Chartreuse of Neu- A VISIT TO ARRAS 177 villed, when upon the 30th of October 1914, in the early hours of the morning, the German guns were trained upon those who remained. This company of old and feeble people was assembled for the last time, preparatory to their departure, when a shell struck the building. They were carried floor and all into the base- ment, in a horrible chaos of the dying and the dead. Thirty were killed and seventeen wounded. The spectacle, says one who saw it, was inde- scribable ; and the Archbishop, who came over at the imminent risk of his life to solace the Sisters and these forlorn and broken old people, was so moved by it that he burst into tears. The Archbishop of Rheims, writing from his own desolate city, addressed to the German people these solemn words, that will be en- dorsed by all impartial men: "The assaults upon cathedrals, upon persons consecrated to the service of God, upon women and children, upon the aged and the wounded; the bombardment of open and unfortified towns, the incendiary fires lit in private homes with inflammable pastilles : all these are crimes which you refuse to believe, because they appear to you to be unbelievable, and because they reflect dis- honour upon the German soldier. " But all these things are true, and every one of these crimes your soldiers have committed, not only with the consent of their officers but at their express command, in conformity with their theory of war. The barbarity of your armies is inscribed in letters of fire wherever they have passed ; the M 178 THE SCENE OF WAR vengeance of history will perpetuate the memory of these events, and humanity will never consent to forget them." And if any after this be in doubt, let him go to Arras; let him look upon the spectacle of woe ; let him gather the truth from the lips of those of its people who still survive. 179 TANKS. WHEN these words appear in print, the Tank will have become as well known in its way as the Dreadnought or the 75. But at the time of my visit the Tank had just made its sensa- tional ddbut in the field of battle. People were laughing and crying over it by turns. The tears were from the Boche. The world was agog to know what it looked like, and curiosity about it was on edge in the allied armies. Raemaekers, the great cartoonist, whose pictures are of a faithful accuracy, depicted it as a snorting monster before whose progress the Boche was flying in terror. He was right about the Boche, but it was evident he had not seen the Tank. It was my luck to find the Tank at home, in the heart of a pleasant countryside, manoeuvring and dressing for battle, and I do not think that I have ever in my life seen a more diverting sight. It was a sleepy landscape upon which I gazed, with a faint autumn haze brooding over its woods and fields : here and there a hay-rick ; hedges and secluded farms, where children were at play and cattle pastured, and the slim farmers' girls, in the absence of their lovers, drove the great horses to 180 THE SCENE OF WAR the fields ; and in the midst of this ancient peace, in a field shorn of its harvest, there was a com- pany of the oddest creatures imaginable Ichthy- osauri for choice grubbing about, and emitting from their nostrils a light-blue smoke like some poisonous exhalation. I began to wonder if they were real things, or merely an illusion of the autumn mists. But they soon started out to explain themselves. Collecting together, they drew up across the landscape in line of battle, and, at a given signal, advanced towards me with a slow, ponderous, and inexorable movement that was like the march of Fate itself. Inspired, as it seemed, with some obscure but terrible purpose of offence, they came on, descending the steep ridges, marching with an animal -like action over the yawning trenches, leisurely, slow, and careful as Behemoth himself ; climbing the low hills, going straight over high walls of sandbags, plastering out barbed wire as if it were paper; unmoved by any external in- fluence ; slow, slogging, and determined ; now in line, now in couples, with their great noses side by side ; now coming on one by one ; glowing in the sudden sunlight, swathed and enveloped in mists of lucent smoke, moaning internally, as they moved upon their course. Add to all this the roar of battle, the bursting of shells, the splutter of machine-guns, the flash of explosions, the shouts and cries of men in the throes of conflict, " Kamerad, Kamerad!" the squelch of the deadly bayonet, and you will have some faint idea of the amazing pitch to which Man has carried his passion for War in TANKS 181 this year of grace, 1916 years since the advent of peace and goodwill upon earth. Even upon this quiet countryside, far from the noise and din of battle, with the farmers' chil- dren peeping through the hedges in spite of the mounted guards, there was something so im- pressive and terrible about these slow, strange, animal -like forms, so lifelike in their moving guns as they rose and fell and circled about like the projecting eyes of crabs; so melancholy in their moaning, as if they suffered from the pangs of a great thirst for human blood, that one stood spellbound and caught, as it were, in the toils of some bygone evolution. The world seemed to be going back into the dark ages, and civilisation to have failed by its own mastery over matter. And yet the Tank, or " Creme de Menthe" as he is now familiarly known in the French army, is little more than the modern equivalent of the armoured knight; the men who live inside him are not less brave, and his power of movement is almost as circumscribed. Mechanically, he is put up to meet the machine-gun, which the Boche used without pity or mercy against our human flesh and blood in all those early and long-drawn months when the supremacy in material lay with him. And it is characteristic of him to cry out now that the tables have been turned. But the Tank has come to stay, and while he has his limitations and is far from being invulnerable, he will evolve in time into something much more formidable and effective than he is even at present. THERE is no doubt that the enemy's losses in men and material were considerably higher than those of the Allies, while morally our advantage was greater. Four-fifths of the enemy divisions on the Western Front were thrown successively into the battle, some twice and some thrice, and undoubt- edly, towards the end of the operations, the enemy's power of resistance was very seriously diminished. These results by troops, the vast majority of which were raised and trained during the war, constitute a feat of which the history of our nation contains no equal. The enemy power is not yet broken, nor is it possible to estimate the period before the objects for which the Allies are fighting will be attained, but the battle of the Somme has placed beyond doubt the ability of the Allies to gain those objects. The German army is the mainstay of the Central Powers. Fully half of that army, in spite of all the advantages of the defensive and supported by the strongest fortifications, suffered defeat on the Somme. Neither the victors nor the vanquished will forget this, and although the bad weather has given the enemy a respite, there will undoubtedly be many thousands in his ranks who will begin the new campaign with little confidence in their ability to resist our efforts. SIR DOUGLAS HAIG. 183 THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME. " Cette revelation magnifique de la guerre : I'Arme'e Britan- nique." French Daily Paper. THE EVE OF BATTLE. THE Battle of the Somme has been in being now for nearly three months, and foot by foot, yard by yard, mile after mile, the Boche has been steadily driven back, evicted from his trenches, forced out of strongholds he believed to be in- vincible, killed in his tracks. Again and again have his counter-attacks been brushed aside. The end is not yet, but it is the beginning of the end. Of the dead that have been piled up on both sides, of the wounded who have passed through the clearing stations, of the millions of slowly- earned wealth that have been poured out in shells and guns and implements of war upon this small fragment of France, who shall ade- quately tell the tale ? These fields have been watered with blood and paved with gold. And of the human record, the secret history of the soul, the anguish of broken hearts, who can attempt to speak ? 184 THE SCENE OF WAR But to-night at the Chateau which is for the moment one's home in France, all is peace. The sky is clear and bright with the undying stars ; the air so still that the faint trickle of water through the park, the cheeping of a cricket, are the only sounds. The music of War might never have been heard in the world. Yet there is War there sure enough, beyond that dark outline where the rolling countryside goes up to meet the stars. The great guns there are thundering and pounding away, and they will go on pound- ing and thundering away all through the night ; and men are waiting there, some wakeful and some asleep, each after his own mood, for the big thing that is due on the morrow. Over there in England, under the green South Downs across the Channel waters, the night is broken to listen- ing ears by the boop, hoop, boop of these distant guns; and many an anxious woman turns rest- lessly on her pillow with the anguish of those who are afar off and can do nothing, though all be at stake. Many by to-morrow will have lost their all. But here, by some mystery of sound, so near the battle-line, we can hear nothing. The night is tranquil as unbroken sleep, and to- morrow will be the sixty - seventh day of the Battle of the Somme. 185 THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. THE Advance is timed to begin to-day at half- past twelve, and it is now ten o'clock. The Sun is shining through the golden haze of an autumn morning, bathing the long low valley, the yellow hay -ricks and the shorn fields, the rolling downs and misty woods, in waves of light. About us the women and the children of France are at work on the soil of their country, restoring by their cease- less toil the insensate havoc of war. And yet for all their presence the countryside lies drained and empty. The men of France have all gone up to war, and we have the long white road almost wholly to ourselves. Carts and horses are few and far between, and private motors have ceased to run. Our only companions are the partridges, which rise up in flight before us, and sink with their customary grace into the oblivion of the quiet fields. To the English who hold this end of France with a great host of men the sight is a little tantalising, for the French will have no shooting while the war is on ; and we love and respect the French. But we sometimes wish that they were less inexorably logical. And here we are at the headquarters of General 186 THE SCENE OF WAR Haig, Commander of the greatest army the British race has ever put into the field. You might expect a stir and movement in this neighbour- hood: a brilliant staff; the coming and going of men; something of the splendour of War; the outward signs and manifestation of Power. There is nothing of the kind. The Chateau in which the General is lodged is half a farmhouse ; its most notable feature a vast semicircle of granaries and haylofts and stables for cattle and horses. A single sentry stands at the gates, with the quiet air of the British soldier. Within there are flower-beds and lawns, and a waggon and horses are moving across the yard. Some French officers of rank are seated in the hall ; the General is at work in his room. And as we wait here, as one might wait upon the threshold of a country- house on a hunting morning, an odd thing happens, the very last thing you would have thought of in advance. An old lady with silvery grey hair comes up the gravel to the house, with a group of children about her; she mounts the steps to the door, the little boys and girls bow and smile, the aides-de-camp respond, and the whole party passes on through the assembled officers to the interior of the house. In another hour to-day's battle will begin, and four thousand guns will open their fire, as of hell let loose. It is an unrehearsed effect, and it has a simple explanation. When the Commander - in - Chief chose this Chateau for his advanced base, he would not allow its occupants to be disturbed. He was content to share it with them. And so it THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 187 happens that when he comes out of the big room where he works, where the map of the battlefield lies spread before him, and the fortunes of the day are told to him from moment to moment, it is the smiling little faces of these children that he is apt to see, and the sound of their discreet merriment that is carried to his ears. It is a study in contrasts, but there is another which it is worth while to make in the interests of the psychology of this war. " The German Staff," says M. Gabriel Faure, 1 describing his visit to the Chateau of Mondement a month after the Boche had been driven from the Marne, " were installed here in comfort, and it is possible that one of the Emperor's sons took part in the orgies of champagne, to which the piles of empty bottles heaped up in the yard bear witness. When our regiments dashed forward to the assault the Staff had barely time to escape, pro- tected though they were by the Prussian Guard. Our troops entered the Chateau . I am shown the dining-room, in which our Turcos found the table furnished with the finest vintages of the Chateau, the glasses still half full of the wine which the Staff had not had time to finish before they fled. Next to it was the Salon, where it seems that two officers, killed by the bursting of a shell, remained in the positions in which death had overtaken them, one at the piano, the other playing the violin." The door of the big room opens, and I am told that Sir Douglas Haig will see me. I enter to find a strongly built, resolute, handsome man of 1 * Pay sages de Guerre.' 188 THE SCENE OF WAR about fifty, his hair slightly grey, advancing to meet me with a courteous and friendly air. Upon the contour -map in papier-mache, which lies upon the table beside his desk, he explains to me the general position. As he does so, there is a characteristic movement of the hands, elucida- tory, incisive. " Let us consider the matter ; and then let us get to the point," is their message. He shows me at once how we have taken nearly all the high ground, and driven the Boche into the less eligible valley. It is all very quietly done, but he gives one a top-dog feeling. " You will go there and there," he says, " and you will see the attack we are delivering to-day on Thiepval, Gueudicourt, and Morval." "Be careful, S ," he adds, addressing the General whose guest I am, "not to go too far in that direction." And to me "Don't let him lead you into danger; he is much too fond of exposing himself." This kind of solicitude for one's welfare is one of those things the non-combatant has to put up with, with the best grace he can muster. It is a pleasant room in which these words are spoken, with big French windows opening on the sunlit green of the inner garden; and the man who speaks them is plain and simple in his speech, with just a touch of the homeli- ness one meets north of the Tweed, a Scottish gentleman. Oxford man, cavalry officer, strong leader of men, D. H., as he is known in the Army, has borne for the past twenty - five months his full share of the brunt of this war. THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 189 We do not forget the part he played in those early days when the world was at stake, and "the contemptible little army" was fighting its great fight upon the left wing of France, nor the tribute borne to his leadership by Sir John French in those wonderful despatches that we know almost by heart; and it is generally felt here in France that we have in him the right stamp of man to force his way to victory. You have only to look at the line of his jaw, and the Scots tranquillity in his eyes, to realise that. 190 APPROACHING THE BATTLE. As we draw near the Front incidents quicken, and the scene becomes one of increasing ani- mation. Here is Albert, whose church stands shattered beyond redemption; while from the summit of its shell - riddled steeple the golden figure of the Virgin, dislodged from her pedestal, leans far over towards the earth, holding the infant Christ in her arms. It is as though in her own downfall she would protect her people from pain and ruin. So impressive is this attitude that a legend has grown up through all this part of France that she will not fall to the ground till Peace is declared. As we stand here and look upon her bending over the ruins of the town, company after com- pany of Canadian infantry march past, the sweat upon their faces, their rifles in their dust-stained hands, steel helmets on their heads. Tramp, tramp, tramp, the sound of their measured foot- steps fills the deserted and ruined Place with its echoes. For my own part, I never see these people marching from the ends of the world to the edge and forefront of our battle without a deep APPROACHING THE BATTLE 191 emotion. There is a pretence across the Atlantic that Europe is worn with its old wars, obsessed with its ancient rivalries, that it knows not for what it is fighting. Let our Freemen from the Australian seas, the snows and forests of the North, give the answer. Far as we can see beyond the shattered town spread the British encampments : the white tents, the lines upon lines of dark- cavalry chafing for action. The transport waggons fill the road, de- spatch-riders ride furiously past on their motor- cycles, infantry come marching up to the focus of battle. Guns lumber past, the gunners firm and hard -cut against the sky. The dust rises in clouds about us ; the beauties of the country- side cease. It might be India, so brown and wasted is the landscape, so insistent the dust, so drab the prevailing note of colour. Hospital ambulances rumble past. The Pioneers are busy laying down new lines of rail towards the ad- vancing front. We are now entered into the territory won back from the Boche since the battle of the Somme began, and the lines of his captured trenches spread in a network of white on the hillsides, filled up already for the plough. His dug - outs and sand - bagged bastions line the road, and his barbed wire rusts in the autumn sun. These are the emblems of the great wave of Destiny that is sweeping on, slowly but surely, over the German field of war. All that he has taken from others will be forced from his greedy and blood-stained hands; and the time will come when the havoc and misery of 192 THE SCENE OF WAR war will engulf his own people and the home- steads of his Fatherland, and the bitter penalty will be paid for all the wrong that he has done to others. The structure of the world would be meaningless otherwise, and the war a tragedy without relief. The nearer we come to the battle - front, the more desolate and devastated becomes the land- scape, and no imaginable destruction could sur- pass that which has overtaken the little towns and villages that once smiled here in this worn corner of France. At Monfalcone I have seen a town shattered by gun fire, and at Arras a hideous destruction of beautiful things an ancient town in ruins; but in all such places there still survive the lineaments of a place of habitation; there are still visible, if broken, the roads and squares; there are still streets upon streets of surviving houses, and in some there are still inhabitants. But here there is com- plete annihilation. All semblance of human settlements has vanished. There are no more any streets, or walls, or houses; nought but the earth, riddled and scarred and torn as if by some horrible disease. " That," says the General, " was the Mairie, and that was the Church, and that was the village Place ; " but that when you look at it is a heap of soiled mud and stone, or a hole in the earth littered with dead things, or something so non- descript as to be indescribable. And the woods that once graced the environments of these settlements of men are the strangest spectacle APPROACHING THE BATTLE 193 of all. Gaunt and bare and stripped of their foliage; twisted and torn into fantastic shapes; burnt and blasted by the fire of the shells, poisoned by their fumes, they look if they look like anything at all like the dead wast- age of a planet that has ceased to support any living thing. And now we are upon the very edge of the battle. We have come through Fricourt, where The King stood amidst the waste and ruin during his last visit to the Somme; passed Montauban and Mametz, which have ceased to exist ; and the fury of the artillery battle is raging about us. Conspicuous beyond any other feature of the conflict are the captive balloons, the Drachen, which swell in fantastic shapes and colours that vary with the incidence of light, in a great half- moon above our heads. The more venturesome are ringed about with incessant puffs of shrapnel from the German guns. Three thousand feet in the air, these floating posts of observation survey the enemy, locate his guns, mark the falling of our shells, trace the movement of men in the long lines of the enemy's trenches. And all that they see they tell of through the telephone wire, which is invisible in IJae sunlight, to the battery com- manders and the Generals in the field. They look like fantastic, sometimes beautiful, toys ; but in fact they are the eyes of the guns ; and their crescent line marks the wave of battle. Beyond them the British planes fly low and defiant over the enemy's trenches, like eagles regardant of their hunting-ground, and wherever they fly they are followed humbly by the burst- N 194 THE SCENE OF WAR ing clouds of the enemy's shells. But they fly on with a cool and hard indifference, intent upon their purpose, and it is manifest beyond question that in this air-battle we are supreme. No German Fokker dares this morning to cross the British line. About us rages the heavy British artillery. One says it rages, for that is the inflection of its voice, and in the roar of its music we cannot hear each other speak ; but in the action of the men who fire these mighty guns there is no trace either of fury or haste. Each gun stands here with its black muzzle pointing towards the Ger- man lines, its pile of shells glistening in the sun behind it, and about it "in masterful groups, the gunners, their coats off, their braces hanging at their waists, quiet, persistent, and utterly un- moved by the roar of battle. They work as if such a thing as danger or risk of death did not exist in the world. Beside them we can see, a little apart, the well-groomed figures of the officers cool, erect, and observant. You will not find here any trace of haste; but you will not find here either any loss of time. Shell after shell is carried from the gleaming pile to the gun's breech, and from instant to instant the vivid sunlight is painted with a flash of red flame, and the air is shaken with a fierce concussion. And these guns are themselves an army ; not by ones and twos are they reckoned, but by thousands. Behind them, withdrawn with a sort of stately majesty from the storm of battle, are the mightiest guns of all, with their long black barrels pointing APPROACHING THE BATTLE 195 with a hungry menace towards the German front. Great is the roar of their voices, blinding the flash of their flame, swift is their sudden recoil, as they send their envoys flying through the heavens, to where the Boche believes himself secure. We can hear, too, every now and then, through the heavier din, the sudden splutter of the machine-guns, where the advancing British are sweeping the enemy before them. There, in those zones of Death, the Black Marias and other German shells are falling in hundreds, sending up great clouds of dark smoke, and geysers of earth and stone; but here, where we stand, in the comparative safety of the second line, so com- plete is the mastery of our guns, so intensely is the Boche preoccupied with the urgency of our attack, that he has almost nothing to say. Yet is there a harvest awaiting him here, could he but turn aside to reap it. The road is crowded with men and horses and ammunition, with waggons laden with shells, with ambulances and despatch-riders, and so great is the congestion of traffic that from time to time it is held up as in a London thoroughfare. Along this road there come marching a dis- hevelled and broken company of men, the first of the German prisoners taken in this sector of the British advance. A couple of German shells might sweep the whole three hundred of them away, so closely are they packed along the nar- row road. At their head comes a corporal of the Guards, with three Prussian officers who have surrendered to him. A cigarette in his mouth, 196 THE SCENE OF WAR his steel helmet at an angle on his head, the sweat and dust of battle on his brick-red face; he is in high feather. " These here fellers," says he, " comes along and surrenders to me." " Orficers ? " " Oh yes," as he casts a patronis- ing look at them ; " they're orficers. One chap there's got the Iron Cross, and some of our fellers wanted to take it from him, but Discipline, says I ; you just leave that there soo veneer alone." One of the captives still wears his heavy Ger- man helmet, the others stand with their close- cropped bullet-heads bare to the autumn sun. One is a spectacled person with a bandaged face, the other two big men of the bullying type not gentlemen according to our ways of thinking who are promoted for their animal strength and power to lead; and they show this in the half- defiant, explosive way in which they reply to the General's questions. But it is evident that they have been much shaken, and the big man with the Iron Cross shrinks with a curious phys- ical wincing from the General's hand, as though he feared a personal assault. But the General is chivalry itself. " Quite right, Corporal," he says ; " remember that they are officers, and see that they are treated as such; and look here," he adds, "you take my advice and put that Iron Cross of yours into your pocket, it will be safer there ; and re- member, we treat you like gentlemen, which is more than you do to our officers." A look of relief sweeps over the man's face, he clicks his heels, and says " Yes, Generall," and APPROACHING THE BATTLE 197 removing his badge of valour, puts it inside his pocket. " Mustn't put temptation in their way," chuckles the General. "That fellah looked as if he thought I was going to strafe him." l The corporal takes his leisurely way with his trio under his wing, and the main body of Prus- 1 A correspondent of the ' Morning Post,' writing on the day of the battle, describes how he met these prisoners at a later stage. "As the victors of Lesboeufs and their companions, the be- siegers of Gueudicourt, kept streaming into the field ambulance, the road alongside their dressing-stat/ion held groups of forlorn wholly discouraged prisoners. Most of them were hatless ; one or two wore their cumbrous sniper's helmet ; one had on a British metal helmet. One group of perhaps a hundred Prus- sians two hatless dignified officers among them halted just beyond the field ambulance to rest beside the road. Then I witnessed what I think is one of the strangest scenes of this great battle. Curious but not unfriendly British soldiers grouped around the Prussians, looked at them, and even gave them cigarettes. The stout hatless lieutenant, who had com- manded a company of the 240th Regiment, stood bolt upright in the centre of such a group, with his spectacled second-in- command a slender beardless youth, whose head was bandaged beside him. He was impassive, even dignified, quite cool, stiffly courteous in intelligible English when questioned. The ribbon of the Iron Cross was on his dusty tunic. A British soldier asked to see the Cross itself. The lieutenant gripped his tunic pocket and tightened his lips. ' Your General,' he said, ' told me that I should keep my my ' (he searched through his rusty English for a word) ' should keep my little souvenir that I have win.' '"Tell him we don't want it,' said the soldier to the other officer, whose English was less painful. ' We only want to look at it.' "The young man explained rapidly. His companion looked less perturbed. He thrust his hand into his tunic and brought out the black metal cross he had received for valour. The soldiers fingered it curiously, and handed it back. Again the lieutenant held it up so that those behind could see, then thrust it back into his pocket." 198 THE SCENE OF WAR sians follow; but they are a sorry company of beaten and dejected men no match for those to whom they have surrendered. Beside them march a few British soldiers, bayonets fixed, good- humoured, tolerant. " 'Ere, you blighter," says one, leaning over to the wounded man who marches beside him " 'ere's a smoke for yer. What, yer ain't got no match, and yer 'and's 'urt, is it ? Well, blast yer, I'll light it for yer ; " and with that he strikes a match, shelters it carefully from the wind, and, having lighted it to his own satisfaction, transfers it from his lips to those of his late enemy. This war is a hard war, that is going to be fought to a finish; and in those blood-stained trenches yonder, where Boche and Briton meet in the heat of battle, there is apt to be little quarter, especially when the Briton is a man with a bayonet from Overseas. But hereabouts, where the field has been won, the Boche is treated with a good-natured toleration and plenty of rough kindness. "Why, bless your heart, they treat 'em like tame rabits ; make pets of them," said the General, laughing grimly at some of these incidents. The Boche, as we know, does not respond in kind. Sixteen prisoners taken at Thiepval, as they came down the road in the care of two British infantrymen, suddenly turned on their captors and severely mauled them, and would have killed them both but for the unexpected arrival of help. The prisoners pass on, but the battle goes forward with an increasing wrath. The air is APPROACHING THE BATTLE 199 violent with the crossing and re-crossing thunder of the guns ; the wounded come trooping in with bandaged hands and feet and bloody heads ; the R.A.M.C. ambulances fill the thoroughfares on their way to the Advanced Dressing Station ; dead horses lie by the wayside, a prey to the clustering flies; the ground under our feet is littered with the debris of battle and scarred with shell-holes. Beyond that wood the enemy's dead still lie unburied. Every inch of the soil we stand on has been fought over in the great advance, and the landmarks about us Longue- val, Montauban, Contalmaison are already an immortal part of the history of Great Britain. Over there in London streets the newsboys will soon be shouting of the latest British victory on the Somme ; of the taking of thousands of pris- oners; of the fall of Gueudicourt, of Lesboeufs, of Morval; of the fight for Combles, of the gallantry of the Guards Englishmen, Irishmen (somewhere ahead in that front of battle the Prince of Wales is "doing his bit"); of the decline in the morale of the Boche; but here these things are actually happening, and, even as we stand upon their fringe, the tide of battle is rolling forward, and the harvest of Death and Victory is being gathered in. Beyond Montauban there grins the skeleton of Bernafay Wood; beyond it the path runs on for Guillemont and Combles, under the JBois des Trones. It is here upon the edge of the rising ground that we stand to observe the progress of the battle. Upon our right front, in a hollow, lies the fortified village of Combles ; but so sub- 200 THE SCENE OF WAR terranean are these modern positions, that we can form no conception of its strength. A little beyond it, on our right, the French battle is going forward ; we can hear the mitrailleuse, the rending music of the 75's; we can see the long avenues of trees on the Peronne-Bapaume road, where our gallant allies are at grips with the Boche at Rancourt, cutting his connection with Peronne. Straight ahead of us lies Guillemont, beyond it, on rising ground, Morval and Les- bosuf s ; and it is there that the fierce fighting of the first line is in progress; that the bomb and the machine-gun, the hand grenade and the cold steel of the British bayonet, are murderously at work ; and it is there also that the German bar- rage fire is concentrated, leaving us just behind it, immune. A thousand guns are pouring their shells into this portion of the Front alone. Of the gallantry of our men, of the close and bitter fighting in that hell, of the deadly hand- grips of men who must kill or be killed, we can see nothing from here. Their record is told to the writers of history by the returning victors. But we can see the white seamy lines of the trenches, the black smoke-fountains of the fall- ing shells, the sudden flame of the guns in the brilliant sunlight, and then from time to time the receding harvest of battle, the captives and the wounded. . . . The Dead we cannot see. For all who are over there it is a great lottery; and no man who goes into the fight can be any- thing but a Fatalist. He is moved from one end of the battle -line to another at the will of a higher command; he is hit or not, killed or APPROACHING THE BATTLE 201 wounded, touched or maimed for life, under the blind play of Chance. There is a native valour which sustains men in the hour of danger; a courage greater, or some physical reaction more intense, that inspires one man to deeds more daring than those of another ; but there is also in these great battles of munitions and transcendent material forces the sure knowledge that there is little a man can do that will change or deflect his destiny. Observe this congested road upon which these men are moving, these batteries beside it belching their flame and wrath; does any one here, I wonder, save the one or two who are free to retire, feel that he has any control over the business of Life or Death ? He must know well that he has none. A blind Fate rules over all. Even we realise this as a couple of isolated shells fall beside us in the blistered soil, flinging up great jets of earth, filling the air with their violence of sound. All the foresight, all the prudence and care that you and I, dear sir, take to arrange our lives, to secure this or that of happiness or prosperity, is here brutally nega- tived. An insensate Fate drives on, heedless of whom it spares and whom it kills. We had tea in a Field Ambulance tent, where upon the long deal table thin slices of bread-and- butter were cut and laid as neatly as when the demure maid brings the tea into an English drawing-room. Outside the ground was littered with "souvenirs," with trench mortars, unex- ploded shells, hand grenades, and all the jetsam 202 THE SCENE OF WAR of battle. Through the open flaps of the tent we could see the dark columns of smoke, the silvery Drachens in the sky, the bursting clouds of shrapnel, and the sound that filled our ears was a| sound such as has never before been heard upon this earth. 1 Yet even here the din of battle was abroad. Some of the heaviest guns were hidden here, their long threatening muzzles directed towards the enemy's lines, and the red sunlight grew redder with their flame, and the earth shook with their impact and music of sound. It was here, too, that the graves of departed warriors lay like an army in line : Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Celts, Anglo - Saxons, Australians, New Zealanders, men of the North and men of the South, all lay here sleeping their last sleep together side by side. " Us out voulu senraciner sur le sol de France. Qu'ils y demeurent a jamais ensevelis" said a Frenchman in the bitterness of his heart, as he passed these German graves. But we must be gentle with the dead. Such was the Battle of the Somme as I saw it in the course of one eventful day. Its ultimate impression that survives is as of some vast mate- rial force at work, some mighty organisation of a war of munitions, transport, apparatus ; but side by side with these mechanic things, inspiring the 1 Mr Muirhead Bone, the artist, who was present with us on this occasion, has published an interesting picture of the scene in his collection of war sketches entitled "Waiting for the Wounded." APPROACHING THE BATTLE 203 Frankenstein monster with human passion and life, were a gallantry and valour unsurpassed if they have ever been equalled in the history of the world ; cold and unmoved here in the second line ; fierce and pitiless there in the couloirs and avenues of Death; genial and tolerant once the point of victory has been reached, the enemy beaten. It was indeed the British spirit and temper that I looked upon ; and as the men served the great guns with a leisured speed, moved without visible emotion into the fighting zone, returned with the dust and sweat of battle on their hum- orous faces, ignoring their wounds and indulging their enemies, I understood why, if we are slow at the start, we never fail to win at the finish. The Boche saw our easy, tolerant, individual outlook on life, and in the pride of his jealous heart said he would overcome us by his cold and scientific organisation, the secret, devilish pre- paration of years. He would take from us the beautiful thing we had made, and besmirch our ideals with his own. But he reckoned without the British spirit just that fibre of individual thought and feeling of which we are made. And now that we have drawn up to a level with him in this matter of guns and mechanism, who can doubt, who has seen them together in these naked moments on the battlefield, that the Britisher is a bigger man than the Boche ? We are beating him now at his own game and on his own ground, and let no one harbour any doubt upon that point. "The English," says he, "never lack the in- 204 THE SCENE OF WAR explicable spirit of Sport. Fighting to us is a Duty, not a sport, as most Englishmen take it, to our bewilderment." The hosts of the Great King were equally bewildered when they saw the Spartans combing their locks and indulg- ing in games before the conflict that was to end their lives. We propose, therefore, to retain this inexplic- able spirit, believing it to be nothing less than the old Elizabethan sense of proportion our humorous antidote to the blind obsessions that fog the toiling mind of the Teuton. " Endless streams of our men were coming up," writes an officer from the midst of the British advance, " anxious to be ' in it/ without a care as to whether they would ever come back. All around expressions of delight and confidence were flying about, and a jingling song was on their lips " ' We beat 'em on the Marne, We beat 'em on the Aisne ; We gave them hell at Neuve Chapelle, And here we are again.' " No wonder the Boche is bewildered ! 205 MEDICAL SERVICES. I SUPPOSE that we are all conscious of the primitive instinct, most evident in the gentler sex, which lays a greater stress upon the deeds of the soldier than upon those of the non- combatant the destroyer rather than the healer of men. And we feel that there is some reason in it too, when we think of the greater risk, the heavier losses, to those who go up into the fore- front of battle. Yet the tale of our medical officers and surgeons is a moving tale, illumin- ated by many acts of bravery and self-sacrifice, the equal of those of the fighting soldier, and, in the cool scientific calculation of war, scarcely less contributory to the final victory. 1 It was my fortune during my visit to France to see a great deal of the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Red Cross and allied organisa- 1 In ' The Times ' of October 4, 1916, Lord Northcliffe, in his able article on " War Doctors," gives the losses incurred by the R.A.M.C. from July 1 to September 30 three months only as Officers. N. C. 0. 's and Men. Killed . . 53 Killed . . 260 Wounded . . 208 Wounded . .1212 Missing . . 4 Missing . . 3 206 THE SCENE OF WAR tions, and without attempting any statistical narrative, which would be beyond the scope of these personal impressions, I shall endeavour to say something of what I saw. Yet there is one statistic very greatly worth remembering, and that is, that the medical services in France under the control of Sir Arthur Sloggett, the Medical Commander-in-Chief, run to a force almost the equal of that " contemptible little army " which stood up to the Boche in his brutal plunge on France. It was not my luck to see the regimental surgeon working in the forefront of the battle, the regimental stretcher - bearer going out into the hell beyond the trenches to rescue the wounded and help the dying. I cannot, there- fore, say anything of their work, though I can form some conception for myself of the agony of those who, but for their devotion, might lie out there in the waste of " No Man's Land," their lives ebbing away, their throats parched with thirst, their bodies torn and buried under the debris of shell explosives. . . . But all else that is connected with this great organisation I saw. I saw an underground dressing station in a world that was scarred and desolate with shell-holes, almost the only habitable place that survived, and so near the battle that it required something of an effort to emerge from it into the open light ; I saw the wounded coming into the collecting stations, Boche and Briton together ; the surgeons at work there in the din and roar of the artillery battle, and I said to myself if these men were not so MEDICAL SERVICES 207 busy attending to their own business they could tell one all there is to know of a modern battle, better perhaps than those whose function it is to describe such things. I saw the motor ambulances rolling up to the very edge of the battle, crowded in the narrow ways with ammunition waggons and guns, ex- posed without any possibility of escape to the risk of being hit. I saw the Corps Collecting Stations, where the most urgent operations are done, and a man's chance of life or happiness hangs on the skill and swift accuracy of the surgeon's hand; and behind these again the Casualty Clearing Stations, where the khaki- coloured Ambulance Trains were waiting to carry all those who could be moved to the great Base Hospitals by the sea, and over the water to England. Here those who were not yet fit to travel lay worn with pain and weariness, being ministered to by the comforting and gentle hands of women, with flowers by their beds, and pictures to cheer them on the walls, and books and papers to read ; while outside under the tent-flaps, or in the lee of the hospital huts, amidst the flower-beds and the grass, were those who could lie in chairs under the open sky. Of the many pitiful sights I saw the Gas cases struggling and drowning for the lack of breath; the wounded with their white faces, their amputated limbs, their harsh abdominal wounds, their faces bandaged beyond recogni- tion; of the dying, who could never again look upon their homes, or say their last words of 208 THE SCENE OF WAR farewell to loved ones, of these I shall not attempt to speak. Yet one who would know what war is like must see these sights, and learn for himself, as the surgeon and the nurse do, the pity and the devilishness of it all. Happily for one's faith in the power of good over evil, it is just here and at such moments that one is brought into fellowship with the redeem- ing qualities, the patience and fortitude of the afflicted, the tenderness and devotion of those who care for them, and the charity of the thoughtful, who, though they cannot see, can understand. Wherever I went I saw Ambulances, Hospitals, Apparatus, the gift of individuals and societies ; books, papers, " comforts "; all those little things that we are apt to smile over when we see the earnest busy over them at home. But let us not smile at them again. Let us remember that in this matter of the War Everything Counts. If you cannot go up into the line of battle yourself, you can help with your money ; and if you haven't money, you can render personal ser- vice ; and if even that is impossible, you can give your thoughts and your feelings. Amongst these women who were content to work here amidst these wearing and pitiful scenes, to perform every menial function that the helpless can require, even for those who had killed their own flesh and blood, there were many who had been trained to a very different life, women of refinement, of title, of means; amongst these surgeons, whose identity was lost in the universal khaki, were eminent surgeons whose names are famous in England and the Empire, able and rising men MEDICAL SERVICES 209 who had left their homes and their practices behind them ; amongst the rank and file of the Hospitals were Peers working as common attend- ants; well-known and wealthy people on the Stage dealing out stores or brushing out dormi- tories ; " Sun-dried Bureaucrats/' who had earned by years of exile in hard climates the peace and quiet of retirement, hiding their light under the bushel of the hospital menial. All these people, in their own quiet, unassertive way, were busy here setting a shining example to those who still fail, whether from thoughtlessness or the lack of imagination, or downright cold- blooded selfishness, to bring their tribute to the common cause. My journeys carried me so far over this wide corner of France that is become, by the best of ties, a corner of England. I saw so many scenes that in ordinary times would have left an indelible impression upon my mind, that I find it a little difficult to disentangle one from another, and to give those who read these pages anything like a clear picture of what all this hospital business means. It was like an army within an army, a world in itself. Here, if you wish to see it, by the wayside, under the shattered church of St Eloi, is a Clear- ing Station, within reach of the German guns. A hospital orderly is at work quietly sweeping the floor ; the warm autumn sunlight is invading the long room in which the wounded are lying ; the nurses are busy smoothing their pillows, easing their maimed extremities, helping them on the difficult road by their womanly voices. The o 210 THE SCENE OF WAR surgeons are gathered outside, snatching their momentary rest, men of the same fibre as those who are fighting beyond the hill in the trenches of Neuville St Vaast. Here, in a field, is a great fleet of Motor Ambu- lance Cars, drawn up in reserve, to meet the needs of the next big push. They look like live things almost in this quiet corner, with the sun sinking in a splendour of gold beyond the trees, an aeroplane returning over their heads from the battle to its place of rest. Here, moving like a gilded shuttle through the darkness of the night, is a long khaki-coloured train with its red-cross emblem, symbol at once of pain and compassion. Put yourself in the place of one of those poor fellows laid out there, and think for a moment of what he has gone through to be there, of what the rest of his life may be. And here from this hill -top overlooking the sea is a view that reminds me of nothing so much as the Delhi Durbar, so far-spread is it, so wonderful in its improvisation. Here are thousands of tents and twinkling lights; beds for thirty thousand sick and wounded men. If you go down into their midst you will find there all that is meant by the good word Organisation ; all that prevision and money can buy for those who have deserved well of their country. Extravagant ? not a bit of it. Nothing can be too good for them. The only extravagance is that of those who live at home at ease. And here, too, side by side with them, you will find the enemy, cared for, looked after, just as MEDICAL SERVICES 211 though he was not an enemy at all. I do not know what they do over there in Bocheland with our sick and wounded ; but if they seek to dis- criminate, let them remember that we are good to their people that Chivalry still exists here on this side of the battle-line. Here is a German ward. The first patient is a Prussian officer with an amputated leg. In spite of the pain and loss of blood from which he has suffered, his will is still resistant; his replies to the General's questions short and resentful; his body big and powerful. Next to him there is a lad of eighteen, also a Prussian officer, very white of face, feminine in his youthfulness. A Volun- teer, he says, who joined the Army straight from school. Next to him a small man from Baden, who lies with a quiet stillness and a mute appeal in his eyes. " Puir laddie," says the homely Scotchwoman in charge of the ward, " he's slowly dying ; par- alysis of the spine. He's a good laddie, and gives me no trouble." At her elbow stands a soft-faced Saxon, a medical student, who is well enough to move about the wards and act as a help and interpreter. No warrior this, and very glad, says he, to be finished with the War. In a tent by themselves there are some cases of sickness, dysentery and so forth. They are looked after like the rest, but there is not much sympathy to spare for the sick man in this ward ; rather hard on him when you come to think of what sickness means, and what it must mean above all to the brave man out of the fight. A little way 212 THE SCENE OF WAR off, in the midst of the mundane charms of Le Touquet, is the Duchess of W 's hospital, a hospital de luxe. It is lodged in the ex-Casino, and is reserved for British officers. The Duchess " does her bit," looking after the bed-linen and helping in the X-ray room. You can have tea there and admire the water-colours painted by the Y.A.D. nurses when they are not busy nurs- ing the wounded ; and when you look down from the late music-gallery upon the white ballroom, the refinement and luxury of its equipment, the bright flower-beds and lawns warming themselves like the convalescents, in the bright sunshine, you realise that you have come a long way from the surgeon's tent on the battlefield, with its mud floor and its canvas stretchers ; farther still from the hell of No Man's Land, where the regimental stretcher-bearers move amongst the shells. One more scene, and it is in the little seaport town where the Hospital Ship is waiting to carry its freight across the Channel " back to Blighty." Evacuation, evacuation, that's the idea ; to move on with all possible speed and care the wounded from the bottle-neck of the Front to the ever- widening base, till the hunter is home from the hill and the exile is back in his home. BOOK V. FRANCE AT WAR THE WAR IN THE AIR. SUPREMACY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. THE. Allies during 1916 carried out 750 aerial bom- bardments, of which the French were responsible for 250 and the British for 180. From Salonica 174 bombardments were effected. The French brought down 450 aeroplanes and 40 balloons and the British 250 aeroplanes and 27 balloons. ON THE SOMME. "Allons-y ! c'est pour la patrie." I HAD seen the mighty effort of our people on the Somme, and had witnessed the battle for Morval and Lesboeufs from a point very near the left wing of our gallant allies ; but I had not yet seen the French in action. I was therefore glad to know that an opportunity was now to be given me of doing so. Our headquarters were in an old Cathedral town, in whose streets and squares there were almost as many Englishmen as Frenchmen ; while at our hotel the khaki and the grey-blue were closely intermingled. It was the meeting-point here, a little in the rear, of the two armies. The early morning found us on one of those straight, logical roads unlike our own that run with their French directness and singleness of purpose from one considered point to another. It was a road animated by all the stir and pre- paration of organised war ; which, as it is devel- oped by the patient and strenuous industry of her people throughout France, comes slowly, like the shaft of a lance to its blade-point, to its final 216 THE SCENE OF WAR conclusion here upon the Front. So overwhelm- ing is the interest of the Fighting Line that strange, shifting, and tragic area, where the thoughts and ideals of men are brought to the anvil of war that one is prone to neglect these mighty preparations, this patient and faithful toil that is the prelude to victory. As we swept along the straight white road, it was thronged with these symbols of the will and tenacity of France. "Under the light, sparkling surface of this people," said my companion, " there resides a core of indestructible granite, and the Boche is up against it now." So he is; and the granite is legible upon the faces of all those men who toil upon these long white roads that are the arteries of war. Gone for the moment are the vivacity and the joy; but the infinite patience, the undying valour, these remain ; and let us bow to them when we meet them on the road. Here are the menders restoring to the road its traditional perfection ; reclaiming it foot by foot from the indignity that has been put upon it. Here are the drivers of the waggons, carrying to their brethren the provender of battle : the food and the fuel they need for their sustenance, the shells and cartridges they claim for the intruder upon their ancient soil. White with the dust, seamed with the sweat and the stress of their traffic, hard and enduring, these men have but one purpose at heart, one end in view; and to this their strength is uncomplainingly directed. Beside them, along the Light Railway that ON THE SOMME 217 cleaves the fields, there move the great guns, the armoured cars and gallant engines, the steel waggons full of shells. The Light Railways converge at the temporary terminus a little behind the battle-line, and a great activity is concentrated here at the base of supply. Here are planks by the million for huts and trenches; hurdles upon which in the approaching winter the tired soldier may sleep without becoming imbedded in the slough and mud ; lines upon lines and masses of shells, like a vast army waiting to go up and slay the enemy ; sidings and platforms for each variety of goods; shining rails of steel as complex as the network of Clapham Junction; stores of every imaginable kind. Side by side with the Poilus works the captive Boche. " I ask from him nothing more than I do from my own people," says the Colonel in command, "and if he would work nearly as well as my own Peres de famille of forty-five I should be content." He doesn't, of course ; but then the Father of Forty-five is a freeman, working of his own will for the good of his country; the other is a captive. It is a busy scene, interrupted from time to time by the thrust of war. The German aero- plane, when it can get so far, drops its bombs under cover of the night, upon the little colony, killing friend and foe alike ; and Fritz and Fran- yois lie beside each other stricken by the same missile. The sound of the battle is heard in the 218 THE SCENE OF WAR distance, and the shadows of evening are lit with the summer lightning of the guns. Farther upon the road are the great guns that travel by rail, and heave their shells a distance of twenty kilometres. You can see them in the autumn mists like mammoths pointing their trunks towards the invader, and from time to time you can see the flame as it issues from their lips ; you can hear the thunder of their voices as the gros obus go hurtling through the sky. If you go up to them you will find them like Leviathan at home in a field, and behind each gun the waggon of steel in which his provender is laid. When the door of the waggon is opened, one of the sleeping creatures is nipped by the claws of a travelling-crane and deposited like a puppy in a cradle that moves along an aerial line of rail, until it is arrived at the mighty breach, its last resting-place, before it fulfils its destiny. The slow twisting of a screw behind it sends it forth with a persuasive impulse into the open breach ; the door is closed upon its mystery ; and then with a mighty music it sweeps upon the world, a living thing. Beside this portent the quiet cattle pasture, indifferent even to its voice; the women toil with bent shoulders in the fields they love, and the life of the hamlet moves upon its ancient course. When evening comes, the people of the gun gather together like factory - workers after the day's toil, and you can see them in a dark ON THE SOMME 219 silhouette against the reddening sky, as a truck carries them away to their billets. One of the last to leave is the Battery Commander, a man who is the human equivalent of his charge; solid and direct; a hard and determined hitter. And here in another corner of the world, upon the fringe of the Fighting Line, is the Aviators' home. The place pulses with the very Spirit of Attack. The French airmen, like our men, hold the initiative, and seek out and destroy the enemy wherever he is to be found. As we stand here upon the wood's edge, facing the open plain, the Aeroplanes come home from their raids across the frontier, and the still country air resounds to their flight. The music of their pinions is like the sound of the sea afar off; or, as they come near, like the vibration of a great beetle homing in Brobdingnag. First there is one, and then another, until the host is assembled and dormant upon the grass. But there is one that has not come back. Has he fought his fight for the last time, and will his comrades see him no more ? We search the sky with a sharp inquiry, but there is no reply. Inside the hangars there are some new models French and English. These are the fighting planes, for one man only. You can see where he sits with his eye upon the world, his time- piece before him, his feet upon the pedal, his hand upon the machine, the trigger of his gun apt for his instant use, the long roll of cartridges 220 THE SCENE OF WAR gleaming on the tape below, the engine upon which his life depends, the linen wings of flight, the slender wires of steel that stand between him and sudden death. High up there, 10,000 feet above the earth, the solitary flier fights and makes his battle alone. In a world that is drilled and driven as if the human entity were nothing, here is a corner in which the individual attains once more his right to exist/ And it is here where you might look to find this that the Briton and the Frenchman are supreme. The man triumphs over the machine. You can see it in the faces of those men who ride the air. Youth and gaiety revive here in the hearts of our friends. It is no longer endurance but victory that meets us in their eyes. These are the men of the new generation that will transform France in the coming years. "You wish to know something of the mechanism of our latest machines," says the Commandant; "well, you cannot do better than have P , he will tell you all about them;" and with this he turns towards a bright -faced boy and puts his arm affectionately about his shoulder. " Sub-Lieutenant P ," he says, " has brought down six of the enemy's planes." The Sub-Lieutenant is as cherubic and serene as a midshipman. His manner is cheery and confident, his brain as clear as crystal. We learn from him all about the new machine that there is to tell; and one of us is so impressed that he murmurs something ON THE SOMME 221 about the airman's superhuman task. " Oh ! nous" replies the Superman, " on ne fait pas de gros travail. . . . On nous dit: 'II y a la ou la trois Boches, qu'il faut tuerJ Alors nous, on y va, et on les abat si Von peut. C'est tout." It was Bolcke, one of the bravest of the German airmen, who could not fathom the in- explicable British spirit of sport. The French, he said, take their flying fatalistically, with the grimmest earnestness. But he reckoned perhaps without the rising generation. In one of the tents in the bosom of the wood there is gathered together each day the harvest the aviators bring home. Here are photographs of the most wonderful description, showing with the accuracy of a Recording Angel every detail of the German lines; and from these there is prepared from day to day one might almost say from hour to hour a map, showing the development of the enemy's trenches as he is driven from point to point, the emplacements of his guns, his captive balloons, the point at which his aeroplanes were brought down. You are seized, as you look at these, with a sense of the painstaking science of war. It is in a place like this that you learn once for all what Air Supremacy means, its part in the coming Victory. I have claimed for these our people that they surpass in their individuality the enemy; so do the French machines. The Boche has made the mistake that you would expect of him of trusting to a standardised type, produced in 222 THE SCENE OF WAR large numbers in factories. The Frenchman, with a finer instinct, has allowed for a diversity of type. For the functions of air -machines in war are of many kinds. To record a few of the most obvious : there is the Plane that takes photographs; the Fighting Plane, with a superb turn of speed ; the Bomb-Thrower ; the Artillery Plane, that guides the fire of the guns; the Infantry Plane, that helps to keep the advancing troops in touch. An expert could no doubt explain all this in a more intimate way. The photographs are taken from a height of from between three to four thousand feet; and as soon as they are handed in they are put rapidly through the developer, and printed so swiftly that within a day thousands of them are ready for distribution. Each of these photographs is examined with a searching eye, with magnifying glasses or stereo- scopes, by men specially trained for this job. Inferences are drawn from pin-points that could mean nothing to the casual observer ; and a marvellous array of facts is placed at the dis- posal of the attacking troops. Thousands of lives are saved by this agency alone. Later, when the attack has been launched and the fight is at its fiercest; when the telephone wires have been snapped and uprooted from the earth; when the Barrage fire makes a deadly wall which even the gallant Liaison messengers, the bravest of the brave, can scarcely penetrate it is again the aeroplane, with its wireless ap- paratus, that comes to the help of the soldier, and enables the Army Commander to control and ON THE SOMME 223 direct the movements of his force. It is the aeroplane that saves men from that most bitter of all inflictions the fire of their own guns. The task of the aviator, as he flies low over the deadly undUe, is full of peril ; and it calls for a mind that will work at its finest under a hail of fire, indifferent to all personal risks. You must be a brave man, with nerves of steel, to play that game. Take the record of but one of these heroes "Lieutenant . He fought six combats in the air, forcing two of the enemy's planes to the ground within their own lines. He showed in these circumstances the most absolute contempt for death, paying not the slightest attention to the fact that in four of these fights his plane was repeatedly hit by the machine - gun fire of the enemy. On the 15th of March 1916, although his mitrailleuse had jammed, he carried out the task assigned to him, scattering the enemy's planes by a series of audacious manoeuvres, and returned to headquarters with his machine riddled with bullets." But the number of such episodes is legion. ****** Beyond the great guns and the Aviation Camp, the road now carries us into the dread Land of War. You cannot mistake it if you have once seen it here in France, for it is the negation of all that you have held most dear upon this earth. In this land Ruin walks hand in hand with Death. The green meadows and the russet orchards, the lovely woods that should be turn- ing to gold and amber and cinnabar ; the creepers 224 THE SCENE OF WAR that should be climbing in crimson upon the cottage walls; the old people at their doors, the children at the gate, the rose - cheeked maidens blushing with the sap and flow of life; the blue smoke of each homestead curling into the quiet sky; the lights at the windows; the stir and music of the street, all these have gone. Aceldama, it has become a place of woe ; and Golgotha, a place of skulls. One cannot convey to another, who has not seen it, the desolation and horror of the scene. The fields are of a melancholy brown, where dying weeds hang their dejected and tattered heads ; the woods are ghostly remnants of what once were trees, but are now misshapen and tortured forms that grieve the open sky; the houses where they retain any form at all are ruined beyond the semblance of human habita- tions, with roofs that grin at one like the teeth of a skull, and walls that look as if a leprosy had fastened upon their tottering remains. The white highway that was once so superb and finished a thing, the lineal heir of Rome, is now as weary and as broken as if it led to Hell. A side-road from it one of those familiar and domestic things we love leads to the hamlet and Chateau of D , and it is the most pitiful sem- blance of a road upon which human footsteps ever echoed since man began to call himself civil- ised. In its earlier part we can still discover the alignment of its avenue, its outline of what once were trees. Some, hit in the middle by a furious shell, lift the dark fragments of their trunks a ON THE SOMME 225 few feet above the soil; others stand like shiv- ered masts against the grey weeping sky. Upon none is there any sign or tremor of life, save where the bark flaps with a melancholy insist- ence as if it wished to speak. The fields upon either side of it are completely bereft of every- thing that grows, and so pitted with the accuracy of the shells that they are like a smallpox that has fastened upon the face of the earth. Its surface is littered with the debris of battle ; with helmets and water-bottles riddled, like those who owned them, with bullet-holes ; with bombs and hand-grenades and unexploded shells and unused cartridges; and fragments of men's clothes and accoutrements. Even to walk here you need to exercise a vigilant discretion, for a touch of the foot might stir any one of these sinister things that look like rattles and fir-cones into violent life ; and it is well not to look too closely into the pits where the remnants of human creatures protrude from the sheltering earth. When you look up from these pitfalls and these gins, you see about you the torment of what is called a Reciprocal Bombardment. From the wood you have left behind you there come the incessant flashes of the French guns; upon the pocked fields there fall from moment to moment the shells of the German howitzers, sending up columns of black cloud and geysers of mud, and the grey void over your head is peopled with the voices of invisible hosts. You cannot see them, yet you feel every time you look up that you ought to see them, so near are they, so insistent is their cry. There is the P 226 THE SCENE OF WAR crash of the German 77, the rending tear of the soixante - quinze that almost splits your ear- drums, the deep - toned cooing howl of the howitzer followed by its appalling smash, the false note of the ill-made shell that knows not whither it is bound, the sudden cry and rattle of the mitrailleuse seeking its prey. Such is the orchestra of the battlefield; but terrifying as it is, you soon get used to it, and go plodding along the road with scarcely a touch of physical discomfort. Presently some one will know how to get a picture of these invisible agents of death, a record of their devilish voices ; and then with the film of the cinema before you, showing men in the instant of death, you will have your battlefield displayed for your edifica- tion without moving from your chair. But for the moment a little effort is needed to know what these things are like. ****** In the midst of these surroundings, in the shelter of a cemented and bomb-proof casemate taken from the enemy, is a Poste de Secours, or advanced dressing - station for the wounded. It is so dark in here that you need a few mo- ments to adjust your vision ; but in a little while the dim crowd at the entrance resolves itself into its component units, and in the considerate shadows you can see the newly wounded, the dying, and the sufferers from shell - shock. I doubt if there is anything more pitiful than the sight of these broken men. A wound you can understand, but here is something that goes deeper. They sit here, in their grey-blue uni- ON THE SOMME 227 forms, their trench helmets still upon their heads, but bowed down and unable to speak. The fire has been stolen from their hearts. "A couple of days' rest," says the Surgeon, "and they will be all right." So they will but think of what they must have gone through to be here. When these men hear the sound of a gun their bodies wilt as if they had been hit. A little way beyond stands the Chateau of D , a heap of rubbish; and if it be your purpose to call upon the Officer in Command, you must burrow into this rubbish - heap, and pass, like the wolf and the cony, from the light of day. There you will find him in the cellar of the Chateau, a brain at work by the light of a solitary lamp. In one dim corner there lies in a dejected pile the library of this country house, rescued and brought together by these kindly people; and if books are anything to you, if they have solaced your grief or added to your joys, you will feel as distressed by the misery and ruin that have overtaken them as by all but the human agony that meets your eyes. Some of them bear the arms of the Dukes of Chaulnes. Do you remember how Madame de Sdvignt loved this neighbourhood, " si beau, si charmant ? " In another dim corner, with their faces turned to the wall, are the family portraits. Upon the narrow deal table that is supported at one end for want of a leg by a Louis XVI. settee up- holstered in watered silk, there are the wonderful staff-maps of the advancing line of battle, show- ing the enemy's trenches, the emplacements of 228 THE SCENE OF WAR his guns, his fortified positions. All that the aeroplanes see from the heaven above is recorded here. Here is the place they are going to take to-morrow the Sucrerie of Genermont. " Voilcu un gros morceau" says the Colonel, tapping it cheerily with his finger. "We give them no rest ; trench by trench, foot by foot (and a foot here is often a hundred metres), we drive them before us. Our men are simply splendid. But we do not waste them. No ! In this war of Exhaustion it is our business to kill, not to be killed." And this is the lesson that the French, with their keen intuition, their genius for war, have learnt, perhaps a little quicker than we have. "Deux petits blesses" said the General to me this morning, " in exchange for seven hundred prisoners. We pounded them to the last fraction of a second, and when our men fell upon them it was ' Kamerad.' " It is not always so ; with the best of prepara- tion there is often both hard and bitter fighting to be done ; there is the revenge of the enemy's artillery when his ruined trenches are taken by our troops ; but in the long-run this is the lesson we are learning from two years of war ; and it is the gun-factories and the munition-girls who are helping us to apply it. The Boche says, " Look at the map " ; we reply, "Look at our prisoners and at your dead." In this chamber of the Chateau the French when they advanced found six German officers killed, not by wounds but by the concussion of ON THE SOMME 229 a shell. " It fell there," said the Colonel, point- ing to the circle of light by the hole through which we had come ; " and when we entered we found them with the blood oozing from their ears and noses, their blood-vessels ruptured, but otherwise intact." Their brains had been reduced to pulp. He shrugged his shoulders, and put up the palms of his hands. " We should do no better if one fell there now " His manner was cheery and vital, the faces about him smiling and courteous. He might have been the Master of the House receiving us in the big drawing-room upstairs. " Why ! Yes ! " he said, " I have no objection to your going up to the First Line; but be careful, I pray you. I should be desolated," and he smiled with a touch of irony, " if any- thing happened to you." As we emerged into the daylight, a French plane came flying low over the ruins of the Chateau, ringed about with black puffs of shrapnel, which pursued her like hounds. All about us lay the remnants of the Chateau. That rubbish-heap there was its farm, and that blistered spot upon which no blade of grass was visible was its lawn. Those withered trees were its sheltering wood, and here and there we could trace the fragments of its encircling wall. The whole of its area was seamed with the German trenches. An officer who was with me looked at it with a cool and deliberate air. "Quite done for," he said, "and I happen to 230 THE SCENE OF WAR know that De K spent three hundred thou- sand francs on it just before the war broke out." It is thus that you realise what France has endured. We were now obliged to enter the shelter of the long communication trench; and from time to time as we stopped to look over its walls we could see the Artillery battle progressing with an increasing fury, the flight of the German Aero- planes, and the falling ever nearer and nearer of the shells. Here and there in the general waste there survived the fragment of a wall, a solitary tree which helped to mark the direction we were taking. All else was a void, blistered beyond all earthly semblance. The black face of a nigger peeping out from this Inferno was a startling apparition. We found him presently, one of a party, clear- ing the ruined trenches. Pipe in mouth, clad in the same blue helmet and uniform, they worked here side by side with their French brethren. Brethren they were, too, in their easy and friendly companionship. In the hospitals, also, you find them so black face and white face near each other, bound by the tie of a common sacrifice. Every here and there a small wooden cross, standing up from the walls of the trench with some simple inscription, " Un brave Franpais," showed where lay the remnants of one who had died for his country. And then we came to a point which the diggers had not yet reached; whence the tide of battle had barely ebbed, and the trenches still lay as they had been left by the beaten enemy. ON THE SOMME 231 "Here, where we stand now," said one who was with us, "you see the debris of a barrage across which the Boche and our people threw hand-grenades at each other, until we broke through and drove them before us." Every few yards there was a shaft leading down from the trench into a dug-out, and in each of these dug-outs there lay rifles and bandoliers and gas-masks, hastily abandoned by the enemy ; and sometimes these dug-outs were sealed by the explosion of a shell, and in them there lay those who had been killed or buried alive. And so we came to where the dead still lay unburied ; the human creature with all his poten- tialities, reduced to that which had better remain undescribed. . . . We still went on, and as I turned to look back I found that I was alone with C , an officer of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, who strode on before me gay and exultant. " We are about 300 metres now from the Boche ; let us see what's happening," said he, and climb- ing a little way up the broken wall of the trench, he looked out upon the howling waste. It was the same tragic scene that had met our eyes since first we embarked upon this journey but more deadly, more intense in its mournful expression. The increasing battle, the loud ex- plosions of the shells, the rattle of the machine- guns, the German planes venturing here and there within our reach and observing our move- ments, the rising columns and masses of black smoke, the dead men lying below, gave me an impression that can never fade of the hell into 232 THE SCENE OF WAR which the best and bravest of the world go with a smile. And then a little incident occurred which brought the scene to a sort of personal climax. For as I stood here, absorbed in its detail, I saw approaching me, racing across the grey waste, like some footballer dashing for his goal, a small black creature, clearly visible, swaying from side to side, yet furiously intent upon its course. I dropped into the trench to the sound of a smash- ing explosion; a shower of mud, and a heavy fall as de G , who had been following us, rolled over at my feet. "Nous I'avona dchappd belle" laughed C , brushing the mud from his tunic, and as I did the same a heated fragment of ruptured steel fell from the folds of my coat. " It was the wind of the damned thing that knocked me over," said de G , picking himself up, somewhat abashed. We found the shell on the lip of the trench fuming as if with rage at having failed of its purpose. We were evidently in luck; for Mr Bass, of Chicago an old campaigner who carries with him a wound from the Russian front who should have been where it fell, had fortunately dropped a couple of yards behind. The rest of our party, farther off, seeing the shell fall, retired to a dug-out, assured that we should never meet again. A pause of a second or two a yard this way or that, such is the interval between all that life means to us and the bleak oblivion of death. ON THE SOMME 233 It is a risk that the soldier at the Front takes every day of his life. " Don't be distressed for me if I fall," says he, writing to mother or wife, " it is a glorious death to die." ****** We ate our lunch in an underground mansion, which for the past two years had been the home of a German General and his Staff. It was a very elaborate piece of subterranean architecture, right under the metalled surface of the Route Nationale that runs from Amiens to St Quentin, and if you look out for it you will find a water- colour of it in the best of all the illustrated papers of the war. Its fa9ade, to which we descended by a flight of steps, was after the style of a Bavarian chalet, with a spirited inscription in German Gothic, to the effect that, in spite of old Joffre's ugly faces, no shells could reach them there. Beside it, on the cemented side- wall, there was a neat little tablet of a later date and of a chaste simplicity "OFFERED TO OUR GENERAL BY HIS BRETONS." There were sandbags and cemented works to enhance its safety ; and within there was the parlour where we lunched, with a piano against the wooden walls and a frieze of vines along the cornice. Behind there was the General's bedroom, with a spring mattress stolen from the nearest chateau; a big gilt mirror in which he might survey his person ; an arm-chair covered in crim- son velvet, in which he might take his after- 234 THE SCENE OF WAR luncheon nap ; and pictures of the Fatherland upon the walls to soothe his sentimental soul. Where, I wonder, is that German General now ? The kitchen was a dream ; and since the great must have the small to wait upon them, there were cabins, not quite so luxurious, for his per- sonal attendants. There was electric light. Clearly this warrior had an eye to the amenities of life, and it was our luck to profit by them. The fare was good, the roof shell-proof, and as we sat together here about the table in the happy fellowship that comes of association with the French, the most delightful of all people at a meal, we laughed over the incidents of the morn- ing and forgot the roaring of the guns outside. And when we had finished, we climbed out into the open again to find Francois Flameng, with his fresh face and cheery air, his blue trench helmet on his head, and a pipe in the corner of his mouth, painting the villa. The French officers of our party were delighted to see him. There was much handshaking and friendly chaff, and we had the honour of being introduced to the painter. It seems that M. Flameng has permission to go where he likes and to paint whatever pleases his eye. Since the beginning of the War he has been busy in this way, and there is no one better known in trench and camp than this distin- guished and joyous personage. It was a great and a very unexpected pleasure to see him at work. The scene amidst which these events transpired ON THE SOMME 235 was of an impressive character. Above it there rose in its tragic and misshapen lines the gaunt skeleton of a wood. At one end of it there was a cemetery of new-made graves, each with its wooden cross and simple inscription : " Guyot Pierre, Soldier of France" "Lieutenant M , an affectionate tribute- from his Company." Be- side them stood a tall man in a long buff coat with his cassock peeping from under it, a trench helmet on his head, and a face like that of Christ, with his blonde beard and gentle eyes. Next to him stood the Divisional Surgeon, a humorous character : " Un vrai type," said an officer, laugh- ing at his singular manner and speech; about them there moved upon their varied business the French infantry, hardy and matter-of-fact. With a sudden whirr an aeroplane came flying over the tree-tops, almost brushing them with its wings. And beyond these the heavy batteries roared their menace, and the ground shook with their wrath. It was a beautiful sight, too, in its way: the low concealed valley; the blue figures moving amongst the trees; the Battery Com- manders, cool and icy in their places of control, their clear peremptory voices cleaving the welter of sound ; the men at the guns like stokers at a furnace ; the sudden flash, the bursting roar, the recoil ; and in the grey sky, visible to the eye, the Messenger of Death upon his way. Over all, ceaseless in their brooding, the French aviators flying low over the field of vision, the eyes of France fixed upon the enemy. We met the General at work in his dug-out in another part of the field. It was another habita- 236 THE SCENE OF WAR tion to that of his German rival. " Voila mon Cabinet de travail" said he, ushering me into the smallest of little rooms by the roadside, with a table in it, a chair, a telephone, and a staff-map upon the wall. Some steps cut in the mud led down to his bedroom, which was like a steamer cabin. The bulb of an electric light hung beside his bed. "A present from the Boche," he said. Next door his Staff were at work, the telephone was constantly in action, and a despatch rider occasionally came peppering up the road. We climbed up into the field above. The same desolate waste, the same mournful void that war creates wherever it places its deadly hand. Upon the skyline I could see the faint outlines of the Trones Wood, by which I had stood on the day of the British battle. French and English, hand in hand, good friends and loyal comrades, we go forward, never doubting, to the ultimate goal, sealing our compact with the blood of our peoples. Can we ever forget them, or they us ? And then, as I stood here with the General a man of the old type, vivid and martial, a soldier of France some homing pigeons came flying through the grey sky, gentle of wing and faithful to their cause ; and out of the tarnished waste a lark rose singing into the heavens, above the griefs and the turmoil of men, unconscious of the tragedy about her. 237 THE SAUSAGE. THE first time I saw the Sausage was at Venice. It hung there in the drowsy air over the public gardens, a blot upon the horizon of the beautiful city. It seemed to remain up there interminably, and one saw it swelling at the end of every canal, bulging over every spire and dome. It was an eyesore, and the one ugly thing in the magical perspective. It bore too familiar a resemblance to the beer-swilling Boche. One saw it again frequently, less obtrusive in the soft misty island air, brooding over the might of London. It did not inspire respect or liking. Its amorphous lines, its very captivity, were against it. But one took it for granted, though always with a touch of resentment. And then I saw it over the battle of the Somme, filling with wind, and seemingly mov- ing in a crescent line, like the Armada when it came sailing up the Channel. It, the Sausage, was beautiful then, with the sun painting colours on its curves, and the shrapnel bursting about it in puffs of cloud and fire. If there was any one that one envied on that occasion, it was the man in the Drachen, at whose feet the biggest battle in history was developing in all its mar- 238 THE SCENE OF WAR vellous detail. But life, as poor Trilby might have said, is not all beer and skittles up there; the Drachen sometimes becomes excited, and, breaking its nose - string, rushes off to immola- tion, or the shrapnel just happens to burst in- side the observer's car; and in any case one is liable to be very sea-sick up there. To be sea- sick at an altitude of 3000 feet, over the greatest battle in history, might be worse than death. In the end I got my chance of going up in a Drachen and experiencing some of its emotions for myself. It was upon the great Chalons plain, looking towards the Montagne de Rheims, where the observers learn their job. It was a cold grey evening, lit with the fires of the set- ting sun. Upon the earth below the Drachen there was drawn up a squad of French infantry, the section attached for duty with it. In a dug-out that was open at either end there was a motor with a roll of steel the connecting- cord and a reel of telephone-wire. When the Drachen is stationary, the motor lives in this shelter; but when it moves the motor emerges, and noses its way steadily in pursuit. Upon the nearest road there is the equipment of the Drachen, consisting of trucks laden with shelter for the men, and a moving bureau in which there are maps and papers, and a journal that is full of striking pages. It is the record of all that the observer has seen: the march of the enemy's infantry through his trenches; the location of his guns; the damage inflicted on him by the French artillery; the lie of his country. It is the record also of the risks and THE SAUSAGE 239 dangers to which the observer has been subjected, and it tells you something of the winds and tem- perature up there above the scene of conflict. The car is a wide square basket into which you climb as the Drachen sways and bulges above you, impatient for flight. A heavy fur coat, and a helmet to save your neck in case you should incontinently fall out, are part of the equipment. There is a loaded rifle, a telephone, a pair of glasses, and the parachute. The para- chute lives inside a cylinder, which is fastened with cords and strapped to your back. All you have to do in case the Drachen is set on fire, or shows a disposition to go over to the enemy, is to climb on to the edge of the basket, stand there for a second, and jump over. For a hundred feet or so you have the sen- sation of your life. You drop like a stone at an altitude of say 3000 feet. Then with any luck your weight pulls off the lid of the para- chute which is falling less rapidly than you are its silken folds expand, and you ride the air with a graceful motion, till you touch the solid earth once more. The man who does this sort of thing must have a sound heart, good nerve, and abundant faith ; but he must feel every time he does it that he has known the sensation of plunging into Eternity. Nothing on the other hand is easier or more pleasant than the ascent in a Drachen, especially one of the perfected kind we owe to the genius of the French army. Compared with an aero- plane, it is like a sailing ship in calm weather. No engine throbs beside you. It is so still that 240 THE SCENE OF WAR you might hear the beating of your heart. You are lifted gently above the earth like a bit of thistledown. Fields, roads, villages, and trees drop away from you, as if withdrawn by an invisible hand. The earth becomes like a piece of shot silk; here and there across it you can trace the winding of a little stream, the glint of a pool touched by the rose of the sun. The squad of French infantry look like tiny little soldiers of lead, and then you forget their ex- istence. Overhead the brown folds of the Drachen swell like the trunk of a mammoth. A wind blows through the rigging, and the suspension cords float in the air like bits of thread. The operator is busy at his telephone. There is a sudden flame showing where some gun is con- cealed. The news sweeps swiftly down to the Battery Commander. He trains his weapon on the enemy. There is a spurt of dust, the flash of an ex- ploding shell "Fifteen yards to the right." " Right, but your shells are falling short." " Ha ! very near that time." " Got him, by God ! " That is the sort of thing in outline. We are learning, remember. This is not a battle. Still we are near the front. Up here in the still and quiet spaces of heaven we can hear very plainly the music of the guns; we can see upon the horizon their lightning-flash and then over the wires "On guard; an enemy's plane is coming towards you." The corporal, who is eighteen, smiles in- dulgently THE SAUSAGE 241 "Je ne m'occupe pas de tout ca" he says, turning to his pencil and his bit of paper. "Crash, crash, crash," we can see the aero- plane bearing down upon us like an eagle in the sky, with the puffs of red cloud burst- ing in a circle about him. The Drachen floats on, like a great caterpillar, squidgy, amorphous a tempting prey. But the guns keep the Fokker at bay ; his reception is too warm ; he turns and sweeps back in a wide circle to- wards the German lines, the clouds pursuing him. The first stars begin to shine in the sky. The corporal laughs. " It would be chic to have one's girl up here all to one's self ! " But again it is not all beer and skittles. It is bitter cold up here, and the night-shifts are long and lonely. Upon active service the Drachens are often hit, and the soft bulbous creature set on fire. When this happens it falls for all its bulk like a drop of flaming wax from a candle. In the aviator's record you will often see the Drachen amongst his trophies. Thus " Sous-Lieutenant N " " N ombre de ses Victoires ; 10 Avions et 2 Drachens." It gives you an uncomfortable sensation to remember this, when you see an avion coming towards you from the enemy's lines with feloni- ous intent. Suppose the parachute don't work? But why suppose anything ? In this war it is best to smile like the corporal and go on with your job, whatever it is. Q "You have won the greatest battle in history, General." The General was silent for a moment, and then in a quiet voice he replied "What I have won, I hope, is the prospect of retiring in peace to my little house in the Pyre'ne'es Orientales." 243 GENEKAL JOFFKE. BEFORE the 1st of August 1914 the name of Joffre was unknown to the world, yet the General was already marked out for the supreme command of the armies in France. We have all heard the story of General Pau, the one-armed soldier of 1870, to whom this post was offered; but chivalry still lives in France, and General Pau said : " No ! Joffre is the younger man ; you must have him instead of me." (Wasn't it Outram, the Bayard of India, who made way likewise for the gallant Havelock ?) The choice of General Joffre was also the choice of the French people. Great men do not rise to eminence by chance; and great nations, we believe, are inspired in times of crisis to select the man who best represents the spirit that is moving amidst them. General Joffre embodied the spirit of France before the War. A great soldier,l)ut pacific ; a great man, but a faith- ful public servant ; a General who would fight and endure ; but a cautious fighter who would not lead his people into brilliant adventures. A Leader as impartial as Fate itself. France be- lieved in him as England believed in Kitchener. Joseph-Jacques-Cesaire Joffre is as sure to-day of 244 THE SCENE OF WAR his place in the history of the world as Quintus Fabius, the Cunctator, who saved Rome. It was my privilege recently to be received by the General at his headquarters in France. It was a beautiful place this in which he lived, when he was not engaged upon the very scene of War ; so quiet, so imbued with the traditional perfection of France, that it was the last place in which the layman might expect the com- mander of a mighty army to be found. But there are many things about this War that the layman does not understand. There was also an absence of state and cere- monial, which those who understand the temper of this simple man might well have looked for. A sentry in the blue of the French army, his bayonet fixed, his steel helmet on his head, stood smartly to attention as we turned in at the gate. There was something in his air which seemed to say : " Yes, I know that I stand at the General- issimo's gate." There is always the making of the Old Guard in the French soldier. The great traditions live on. It was a small house that rose behind him, embroidered with a crimson creeper, and adjacent to the public road. There was no long avenue of approach. We entered, and passing through some little rooms in which the officers of his personal staff were at work, we came to one that was empty and quiet. It was a very small room, very simply furnished, yet touched with the grace and lightness of the French spirit. Then some one opened a connecting door, and I was shown into the cabinet de travail, in GENERAL JOFFRE 245 which the Generalissimo did his work. At the farther end of it it is a long narrow room I saw his familiar massive figure, in a dark- blue uniform, slowly rising from the table to come towards me. I was struck at once with his shyness, so little to be looked for in the commander of millions of men, so entirely unlike that of the typical French- man. It recalled to my mind upon the instant Pierre Loti's impression of a great Indian prince the Maharana of Udaipur his possession, as he happily puts it, of a " certaine forme particuli&re de timiditd que je riai jamais rencontrde que chez de trbs grands seigneurs" Those who know His Highness the Maharana have recognised the fidelity of the picture. General Joffre leaves upon one at the first meet- ing something of the same impression. The Maharana claims to be descended from the Sun he lives at the very summit of the Indian pride of race ; the General stands for the people of France; yet they have in common this subtle mystery of personality. Perhaps it is that they are both conscious of the great thing for which they stand ; perhaps it is that a certain simplicity is at the end of all the panoplies of life, like the ray of white light that comes of manifold colours. The fact remains. And then the next thing that struck me about the General was his blondness, his slumberous blue eyes, his yellow hair turning to grey. After a little while I began to realise that the man before me was not a Frenchman at all. The thing has happened before. Neither was 246 THE SCENE OF WAR Napoleon. Venezelos, I have heard it said, is not a Greek. Beaconsfield, the pride of the English Tories, was a Jew. The leader of Eng- land at the present hour comes from the " Celtic Fringe." The speech of General Joffre recalls the unmis- takable brogue of the Catalan. When the sound of it fell upon my ears, I was back once more in the Eastern Pyrenees. It is odd that this little province of Spanish descent the Cinderella of the family should have thrown up a leader of France in her critical hour. In the days of Mazarin its people were passionately opposed to union with the French people. But the French have the art of Assimilation. As this big man, with the big brow and the calm shy manner, stands talking to me with his arms folded across his breast, the fingers hidden, the thumbs showing it is his characteristic pose, one realises that there are depths in his nature, simple as it is, which it might be difficult to sound something of that mystery we call genius. I suppose that the General himself is unconscious of these depths. "The Catalan," I wrote some years ago, in a book about his country, " is like a still pool in the volatile sea of France." It is of the still pool that General Joffre re- minds one. There are two clearly marked types in that province of the South, that is as far south as Rome the blonde and the dark, You see the streams flowing side by side in all the little villages of the hills the Gothic and the Iberian. GENERAL JOFFRE 247 Who knows what blood has gone in the unwritten past to makes this soldier of France ? The General's heart is soft, like that of all those people down there, for his native country. He spoke to me of the Cerdagne as we speak of Kashmir, and as all the Catalans speak of that jewel of the Pyrenees. Far beyond the borders of France, into the Spanish Peninsula, the people recognise him as one of themselves ; and I doubt if Paris can be prouder of her Chief than is Bar- celona, that thronging and restless city of Spain. The General is not a talker he is one of those who listen ; but when he speaks it is to the point. Our conversation turned upon the war, and the prevailing note of feeling in Germany. " J&videmment" he says, " Us ont grand besoin de la paix, mais nous ne pouvons pas leur en accorder beaucoup. Discuter de la paix est inutile. Us ne sont pas prdts a accepter les seules conditions que nous leur imposerions. Alors,ilfaut continuer, jusqu'a ce qu'ils soient vraiment battus." You cannot better express the view of the Allies. 1 Upon the top of an arm-chair in a corner of this room I caught a glimpse of the General's red kepi with its braid of gold. It was put away there carelessly, as a schoolboy might drop his cap on coming in from out of doors. The French call him Grandpapa Joffre; it is their way of expressing their confidence and affection; but there is something still of the child in this great Soldier and Marshal of France. 1 These words were spoken early in October 1916. 248 SENLIS. IN the complex and intricate history of this war, with all its modern embellishments, there is nothing more striking than the way in which, as of olden days, the movements of men have been dictated by the framework of the Earth. It is, I suppose, the last occasion on which this will be so. The Zeppelin and the Aeroplane definitely mark the opening of a new era, and the wars of the twenty-first century will be fought in the uncharted world of the sky. When our little army fell back before the Vandal hordes at Mons, it found no rest till it had been enabled to place between itself and the headlong rush of the enemy " a line of natural defence," and the history of those mighty days, till the deadlock of the trenches supervened, is the geography of France : of the Oise, the Aisne, the Ourcq, and the Marne ; of that Isle of France which is the cradle of the race. If you look at the map you will see how these rivers bear down upon Paris, the goal of the German armies. The Oise is joined at Compiegne by the Aisne, and at Senlis the great highways from Soissons and Compiegne converge. That SENLIS 249 is why Senlis, the chosen of kings, has borne the brunt of every invasion directed against Paris from the north ; and its fate upon each occasion has been the index of the fate of Paris. In 1870 it was held by the Prussians for thirteen months, and Paris was taken. In 1914 it was held by them for eight days, and Paris escaped. But the escape was a reprieve that reached her only in the moment of execution. The Prussian infantry entered the beautiful woods of Chantilly, and the Uhlans, their mouths watering with desire, looked upon the city lying at their feet. It is said that the plan of invasion included a threat to destroy her as the means to an imme- diate and disastrous peace. It was the fate of Senlis to illustrate to the French people the punishment that awaited their further resistance. One cannot read the poignant story, as it is told by eyewitnesses to the German occupation, without feeling sure that behind the specious excuses, the cynical regrets, there lay a consistent and determined plan to destroy this little town of the Valois kings. " The General has decided to make of your city a second Louvain. Not one stone of it shall rest upon another," was the statement made by an officer of his staff. And a second Louvain it would have been had time permitted. As it was, Senlis bears upon her to this day The Mark of the Beast. Here in a few words is the story of the German occupation. "On the 30th of August the sound of ap- proaching guns was first heard in Senlis. The 250 THE SCENE OF WAR British aeroplanes flew over the town; a part of the British staff retreating from Compiegne entered its limits. Within a few hours they had gone, and Senlis knew that she must face the invader alone. All her citizens who could go had left by train and automobile, with such of their possessions as they could carry into safety. But many remained; and at their head the Mayor, who, with the fidelity of the French official, stayed at his post, as his father had done before him in 1870. It was the fate of this good and devoted man to die for his native town. The story falls like an old Greek tragedy into the compass of a single day. Early on the 2nd of September the Germans, forcing their way through the forest of Hallate, advanced on Senlis. The French infantry and guns resisted, and some fighting took place which lasted a couple of hours. The enemy's shells fell within the upper portion of the town, damaging the cathe- dral and all but destroying its spire. The French then withdrew, the guns ceased firing, and the invader marched into the town. Upon the steps of the Mairie there stood the Mayor, respectful, devoted, the representative of his people. He was asked if there were any troops still in Senlis. He replied, so far as he knew, that there were none; and assured the General, in reply to the rude and violent ques- tioning to which he was subjected, of the pacific character of the inhabitants. There is no ques- tion that he spoke the truth. He had been continuously at his desk since the guns had SENLIS 251 ceased firing, and could indeed know no more than the General himself. He was ordered to prepare a dinner for thirty at the Grand Cerf , and to go at once with the General to the hotel. This was at a quarter-past three. At half -past three the Germans, advancing in the direction of Paris, were met at the end of the long High Street by a fire from the rearguard of the French, who were concealed in the woods and buildings on the outskirts of the lower town. According to the German account, which is discredited by the French, an officer was shot in the Rue de la Re*publique before the combat began. The Germans were furious at this unexpected resistance. An exhibition of " Frightfulness " was at once resolved upon, if indeed it had not already been arranged. Over a hundred houses in the lower town were fired, and the towns- people, who were evidently as much surprised by the reopening of the battle as were the in- vaders, were seized promiscuously as they were found in the streets, and made to march in front of the advancing troops. Amongst them was a woman with her little granddaughter, who was wounded. It takes a brute to fight behind the cover of a child. The Mayor and six unfortunate workmen, who were found in the streets, were seized and carried off with other hostages to a field near the Chateau of Chamant. During the journey the Mayor was treated with brutal indignity. His gloves were pulled away from him and flung in his face ; he was hit over the head with his own cane. At 252 THE SCENE OF WAR eleven o'clock, after the General and his staff had dined at the Chateau and done themselves well on its resources, an officer came up to the Mayor. " Are you," he said, " the Mayor of Senlis ? " " I am," said Monsieur Odent. " Monsieur le Maire, you have fired upon, and caused others to fire upon our troops. The penalty is death." "I have done neither the one nor the other," replied he. But he spoke to no purpose : for his death had already been resolved upon. ****** Two years have passed since then, but Senlis still bears upon her the scars of those eight days ; and even when they are healed, the memory of the Hun will survive in the records of the old town, and in the hearts of its people. It is not possible to forget such things. We entered Senlis on a soft autumn day from Chantilly, at the very point where the last fight took place in the lower town on the road to Paris. There is an old hospital there, which is half an almshouse a legacy from other days. We could see upon its walls the marks of the mitrailleuses, a hole made by a shell, and the spatter of the rifle fire. Within it there were long rows of beds, on which wounded men were lying, and the Matron told us of the fight that centred here on that September evening. When the first shots were fired, she said, an old pen- sioner, stricken by curiosity, went out to the little door that opened on the street. He was SENLIS 253 deliberately shot as he stood there by a German soldier. Inside the hospital we were shown the ward in which the German wounded were cared for by these devoted Frenchwomen. As we looked up the street, it was clear that it had been systematically fired. The men had entered the town equipped with the instruments of destruction: with tubes containing inflam- mable spirits, sponges soaked in petrol, and fire- grenades. In addition to using these, they fired at the houses through the windows. In one house that failed to catch fire we could see the glass of the windows in the upper stories shat- tered by bullets. Many old houses, some that were relics of the fifteenth century, were de- stroyed in this way. Five hundred in all were said to have perished. The inhabitants were forced to come out into the open street, into the midst of the hail of bullets, while the combat was still in progress. They were forbidden to take any steps to extinguish the fires or to check them from spreading. It was strange, in the midst of the general ruin, to see many houses still standing appar- ently untouched. One was taken and another left. Many that were not burned were sacked. "Everything," says a citizen, who entered the house of his friends in their absence, "was methodically overhauled even to a locket which contained the photograph and a lock of hair of a dead child. It was forced open to gratify a moment's curiosity. Boxes and cup- boards were emptied, drawers were forced open, the silver was stolen. In the children's music- 254 THE SCENE OF WAR room their instruments lay broken and in a heap, after having been used. The Hun likes music. He had danced and sung in the midst of his thieving and of the destruction of this house and its little domestic joys, and as a final legacy he had left behind him in the drawing- room the impious inscription : ' With God, for Emperor and Fatherland/ " The Cathedral, of which not only Senlis but the whole of France is justly proud, upon which the piety of so many kings was lavished, nar- rowly escaped destruction. This beautiful old church, of the days of Philip Augustus and of Francis the First, the shrine of centuries, was made the target of the Hun's artillery, fifty shells falling within its precincts and all but unseating its exquisite spire. He would have burnt it too. Almost the first thing he did on entering the town was to force his way into it, on the pretext that it had been used for military purposes. " I was in my house near the Cathedral," says the Cure', "when I heard a loud hammering on one of the doors of the Sanctuary. The Germans had seized a gargoyle that had fallen under their fire, and were using it as a ram to force their way in. I went out to them at once, and, perceiving that they wished to go up into the belfry, made a sign that the door was on the other side. The party consisted of six, of whom one was an officer. They covered me with their revolvers, and, the moment the sounds of firing broke out in the lower town, one of them seized me brutally by the shoulder and SENLIS 255 told me I was his prisoner. I explained to them that I was very willing to open the door, but that I must go into the Vicarage for the key. Two of them escorted me on this errand. On my return with the key I preceded them up the ladder. They followed close upon me, re- volvers in hand, insisting that they had been fired on from the tower. This was not only untrue, it was impossible. I alone had been up in the belfry, from which I had observed the earlier phases of the battle, and the key had remained throughout in my possession. When they were able to satisfy themselves that there was not the slightest trace of its having been put to any military use, and that no one was concealed there, they came down again, and the officer saluting me said I was at liberty to return to my quarters. But I was not there very long before I was ordered to appear at the Grand Cerf as a hostage. " A Colonel whom I met there said : ' The wisest thing you can do, M. le Cure*, is to stay where you are, and not to leave these premises. Within an hour your town will be burnt.' " ' Burnt ? Great God, Colonel, is it possible ? And why ? ' " ' Because your people have fired at our troops from the tower of the Cathedral.' " The Cure*, moved by emotion, convinced the Colonel that there was absolutely no truth in this assertion. " ' If that be so,' he replied, ' you have rendered an inestimable service to your town. War has cruel necessities; we do not wish to act with 256 THE SCENE OF WAR severity. The General has resolved to make another Louvain of Senlis, but I will tell him what you have said, and I shall hope to lighten the rigour of his decision.' " We know with what result. The Cathedral was spared for the moment, but who can doubt that it would have shared the fate of Rheims, had the tide of battle not swept von Kluck and his guns out of reach of Senlis ? Happily it stands untouched, though wounded, in the fulness of its perfection ; a beautiful vision as it soars above this town in which Henri Quatre first saw the light; slender and carven, framed in the gold and brown of its chestnut trees, whose foliage lies at this season of the year, like a carpet on the cobbled close, soften- ing the footfalls of those who pass; a haunt of ancient peace, enriched with memories of the past. At Chamant, amidst hedges and avenues, and a rural charm that any one who loves an English countryside can imagine for himself, there spreads the field, by a little wood, in which the Mayor and six of his brethren gave up their lives for Senlis. The shallow grave in which he lay, with his feet protruding above the soil such was their derision of this faithful servant lies empty now in the turnip-field, his body having been carried into the town; but a marble cross marks the scene of the tragedy. A little way off the spire of the Cathedral rises high above the trees. It must have been the last thing upon which his eyes rested as SENLIS 257 the flames of his native town rose up about it into the starry night. " They brought him here," said my companion, " because it was the nearest convenient spot for a murder." Of the six others who died with him, one was a lad of seventeen, another an old man nearly seventy years of age : taken haphazard from the streets. The rest of the hostages lay out in the field all night, in imminent terror of death. The Hun is an expert in mental as well as physical agony. 258 THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE OURCQ. THE Battle of the Ourcq was one of the most impressive and vital of that series of engage- ments from Paris to Verdun, which in their entity are known as the Battle of the Marne. It was an attack in flank on the German Army so dramatic in its character that it has deeply impressed the imaginations of men. How von Kluck swerved from Paris at the last hour, how Gallieni rushed his garrison up to the Ourcq in 1100 taxi-cabs, and how Maunoury drove the Huns across the river into the arms of the advancing British, these are become a legend, and savour of the romance of war. There is no battlefield of these two years that is more legible in its compact and impres- sive details. I turned aside from Senlis with the express purpose of following as closely as might be the line of the German swerve, and the principal incidents of those five fierce days from the 5th to the 10th of September 1914, when the fortunes of France were on the turn. The Forest of D'Ermenonville lay upon our right, dark and sombre upon the horizon. The THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE OURCQ 259 road to Nanteuil le Hardouin stretched before us through the open fields, a highway of war. We could see that an army moving across the undulating plain from the Oise to the Ourcq must take this way. It was a soft autumn evening with grey clouds in the sky, and a deep silence lay upon this corner of France. We met no travellers on the road. Yet the place was peopled with memories, and with the mind's eye one saw upon the road the grey legions of the invader as he moved upon his way. From Nanteuil we continued on to Betz, which is some seven miles from the Ourcq, and thence we turned at a right angle, moving parallel with the river towards Meaux. Here as nearly as possible was the axis of the battle, though it passed through many phases of attack, retreat, and counter-attack during its momentous pro- gress. The turning took us, I remember, into a golden lane that might have been the approach to the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty, it was so still and perfect in its repose. The trees seemed to be holding their breath and the world under a spell. Thus we came to the neighbourhood of Villers St Genest and the monument that has been raised here to the dead of France. It stood by the wayside, on the rise of the superb plateau which was the field of Victory, and the graves of the brave filled the landscape, under the lifting edges of the clouds. There were not one or two but thousands; and the black crosses were like an army in mourning amidst the gilded splendours of the sky. Wherever the battle had gone, there 260 THE SCENE OF WAR lay the French dead : solitary in the tilled fields, in serried ranks and masses where the fight had been hottest. This monument is one of the first of those tributes that France will raise in stone and marble, in poetry and song, in the imperishable records of her people, to those who died for her in the Great War. No doubt it is well from his own devilish point of view for the Hun to carry War with its cruelties into the fields and homesteads of other lands, but there is at the least some compensation for the Frenchman in this, that when he is dead he sleeps at last in his own soil and in the care of his own people. And France is caring for her graves: wherever a man lies dead there rises a cross, and the little Tricolour flutters beside it. The plough turns aside when it reaches a grave; and the old peasant woman with her hoe amidst the turnip- fields makes the sign of the Cross upon her breast when she pauses here, relentless in her toil. There was hard fighting here as late as the 9th of September 1914, when the Battle of the Marne was almost won. The German rearguard attacked at Antilly and Betz to cover the general retreat, and an unlooked-for brigade suddenly came down from the north along the Nanteuil road, compelling the French to beat a retreat. But the orders of General Joffre were imperative. The enemy was being driven back all along the line of the Marne, and it was essential to press him to the utmost upon his flank. A supreme effort was necessary, and weary and worn though THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE OURCQ 261 the French were by the continuous fighting of four days, they fell upon the enemy and forced him to give way. It was upon this luminous plateau, where the graves lie so thick, that they fought. Near Villers St Genest the road runs through a little wood, and here again it was evident from the scattered graves, the barbed wire, and the broken walls of the chateaux by the roadside, that there had been close and bitter fighting. We turned aside through Acy-en-Multien, one of the pivots of the battle, to visit Rosoy, a little village in the valley of the Gergogne, where it runs down to meet the Ourcq. It lies here in a sheltered hollow, concealed from the eye, and apt for a hospital base, for which purpose it was used by the enemy. Eight hundred of his wounded were left here as he fled across the Ourcq. " How many of the Germans were here ? " we asked the women of the village the men, as all over France, being gone to war. " How many ? " they replied ; " a hundred thou- sand. Ah! ces Messieurs ; they committed every villainy, except murder. It was always, ' Madame ! Madame ! ' and a revolver at your head ; and, 'bring out your eggs and fowls.' Ces cochons. The shells went flying over our heads to Vincy ; the aeroplanes passed up and down ; oh ! we remember those days. And then they went off in a hurry, leaving their wounded to be looked after by our people. 'Madame! Madame!' and always the revolver ; but we hid our eggs ; ha ! the Boche did not get those." 262 THE SCENE OF WAR She was a splendid old woman this, with the face of a Roman, who spoke for the party, with an indignation that was superb in its expression. Beside us rose the grey old church of the village, with its crown of fleur-de-lis over the portal; beside it a farmyard in whose inner courts we saw more duck and geese and fowls than I have ever seen together in one habitation the hidden eggs had evidently made good and in the small Place under the walls of the church there stood a group of the village boys, with bright smiling faces, the hope of France. Sixty, seventy, eighty years hence, they will tell their grandchildren of how the Hun came to Rosoy and stole the poultry and ran off leaving his wounded, and of the War as they saw it during those eventful days, through the eyes of children. From Rosoy we went to Vincy and Etrepilly, whose houses were in ruins, and thence a little to the west, to the farmhouse of Champ Fleury, in a commanding position on a hill, which was the headquarters of von Kluck. There is a won- derful view from there of the hill of Monthyon, upon which when the fortunes of the battle hung for a time in the balance, Maunoury was preparing to fall back; and, indeed, of the whole field of action. If you look at the map you will see that it is almost at the centre of the quadrilateral that runs north and south from Betz to Meaux, and east and west from Nanteuil and Dammartin to the Ourcq. This is one of those commanding places fated to play a part in war. In 1870, when the Prus- sians came through to Paris, it was also the THE BATTLEFIELD OF THE OURCQ 263 headquarters of a General, with whom the pres- ent owner's father became acquainted through many months of an enforced association. All about it the barbed wire still rusts in the air, the deep-dug trenches still remain unfilled ; but the lower rooms have been made inhabitable. Here in the solemn gloom, with scarcely a light. or a fire in the house, two old ladies sit in silence, one on each side of the empty hearth. They have come back to the old home battered as it is, the only home they know. We are taken into the billiard -room upstairs. Its walls have been blown in by shells, the table is a wreck. " When we came back," says the owner, "it was full of our dead. The walls and the floors were stained with blood. There had been fierce bayonet fight- ing inside our house. Outside, the Germans had made a great pile and burnt their wounded alive. How do I know ? Because some of them still moved when I came back. "They left in a hurry, and the grass in the inner court was strewn with the fragments of a dinner that was uneaten fowls and bread and bottles of wine. . . . Here is an inscription they left behind on my table : ' Why did you not stay to welcome us, dear sir ? We could have enjoyed a pleasant game of billiards together. Excuse the damage we have done to your house. But war is war.'" The cynical insolence of these people is beyond expression. We took the road once more, following the quiet roads, the searchlight, flinging its arc before us along the avenues, lighting the fluttering pennants over the numberless graves of the dead. 264 THE SCENE OF WAR " The Sixth Army," said General Maunoury in the famous proclamation issued to the troops under his command on the 10th of September 1914, " has sustained during five entire days, without respite or rest, the burden of battle against an enemy strong in his numbers and exalted with the sense of victories. The fight has been a hard one : our losses from the enemy's fire, our exhaustion from want of sleep and often from the want of food, have surpassed all that the imagination could have conceived. You have borne with these, with a valour, a firmness, and a tenacity that words cannot express. Comrades 1 your General-in-Chief asked of you in the name of your country to do more than your duty. You have responded to his call. You have achieved the impossible, and victory has crowned your standards." Upon this old battlefield, crowded with the memories of those days, these words ring true. 265 THE MARNE. EIGHT o'clock of an October morning, Paris lies behind us, and the long pavd runs on before us through avenues of golden poplars on its way to Meaux. Here in this old town, with its ancient houses standing in the midst of the waters of the river, its market-place busy once more with the life of its people, we touch the limits of the German flood, and the pivot of the great Battle of the Marne. I was at the other end of the world in those days when the news first came through that the long and bitter retreat from Mons had at last been stayed, that the tide of battle was turning, and the invader being driven back upon his tracks. The memory of those days is inscribed in indelible letters upon the tablets of one's mind. ... If the marching soldier bore the brunt of them in his person, the mental anguish was not less ours. For we were afar off: we understood oh ! we understood very well but we could not help. And to-day I am to look upon the very scene of those events. I have with me a little narrative paper written 266 THE SCENE OF WAR by the Cure of Germigny 1'Eveque, a village in this diocese, describing his own impressions of that fateful time. He will allow me to borrow from him the mirror in which he reflects the passing of the British army. " It was on the night of Wednesday, the 2nd of September," says he, " that the British army in full retreat passed through our city of Meaux. Never shall I forget that interminable and melan- choly procession. A doleful silence brooded over the city, broken only by the measured tread of the soldiers. On the morning of Thursday, the 3rd of September, the air resounded to the noise of formidable explosions. The bridges and boats were being blown up. A man came running up, his voice choked with emotion : ' Monsieur le Maire,' he said, ' the English say that they must blow up the Market Bridge/ " M. Lugol rushed off at once to the Bridge, and found there General Haig, who had passed the night with his Staff at the house of M. de la Villeboisnet. He begged of him not to destroy the Market Bridge, but rather that of Cornillon, as in 1814 and in 1870. He pointed out the danger to the Mills, which are the beauty and the wealth of Meaux, and the hardship to the people of cutting the city in two. But the General, after consulting his map and his En- gineer officers, replied that it was impossible, and that the Bridge would be blown up immediately the last of his soldiers had passed across it. " All the roads leading to it were now barred by the English ; and when I arrived at the Rue du Grand Cerf, a group of working men in their THE MARNE 267 shirt - sleeves clustered about me and began to talk. M. Gustave Huin, a bank clerk, alone wore a coat. " An English officer looking at them said, ' Only the poor have remained/ " ' We are/ he continued, ' great marchers/trained to physical pursuits ; but the Germans march even faster than we do. For the last five days they have pressed us relentlessly, without a pause even for sleep. They have covered as many as sixty kilometres a day. It is a desperate struggle of endurance, of marching power, in which we are involved.' " But in the end," adds the good Cure, " it was the English, you see, who prevailed. The Ger- mans were unable either to destroy or to disor- ganise them ; and when the Allies, on the 5th of September, with a marvellous recovery, regained the offensive on the Marne, the English were ready, and they played in the great battle a most brilliant part." On the 7th of September Meaux was in the midst of the battle. The British guns pursued the enemy, his retreating artillery flung their shells into the town; but by six o'clock in the evening of that day Meaux was freed from the horrors of War. As we follow the line of the river and its tribu- tary the Petit Morin, it is sacred ground upon which we tread ; for many a British soldier lies dead here in the fields, far from his native land, his home and kindred. At Montmirail we stand for a moment under the grey column with its eagle, which the people of France have erected 268 THE SCENE OF WAR here in memory of the battles of Napoleon a hundred years ago. Along this road the German right wing, under von Kluck, marched in those urgent days which preceded the Battle of the Marne; and as their columns swung past they looked upon this memorial to a great soldier, and left it untouched. In the little inn of the town, as the people who keep it will tell you, von Kluck sat at lunch on the 4th of September, and upon the countryside the blood of the contending armies was poured out in these desperate hours when the world's history was on the turn. Suzanne upon our right was not occupied by the invaders; but it was here that the divi- sions of General Foch attacked the Prussian Guards and slew them amidst the Marches of St Gond. Thousands of them lie there to this day. The Chateau of Mondement, which lifts its proud front high above these level spaces, was in the very centre of the storm. After a tremendous bombardment which lasted two days and two nights, it was carried by the enemy, but retaken by the French after three furious assaults. For some anxious hours the great Battle of the Marne, working though it was with a superb symmetry of design, hung at this point in the balance ; but Foch is a man made for Victory. At the most critical moment he transferred the whole of his 42nd Division from his left to his right wing, and fell upon the German flank which had driven a wedge into his line as far southwards as Fere Champenoise. Mondement was finally taken, and the armies of von Billow and von Hausen were driven for ever across the Marne. THE MARNE 269 Behind these great events, whose memory is still so recent, there broods upon these fields, in such names as Montmirail, Vauchamp, Champau- bert, the mighty genius of Napoleon. How often have we said in the course of this war: "If Napoleon had been alive ! " We put the map of France on the grass by the wayside, and in the soft autumnal haze, where the barbed wire still rusts in the fields, and the trenches of those days are still visible, try to reconstruct the scene. But it is already two years since the great battle was fought ; its scars are hidden in the beauties of the land- scape, the people are moving along the roads as of old, and it is hard to believe that the world was in conflict here. The beneficent hand of Nature is wiping away the tears. But we who are of this generation can never forget those urgent hours when the French, and the English under Sir John French, turned in their stride and flung the Boche from them ; when Joffre, carrying the fate of Europe on his back, issued his famous order to his people to advance or to die where they stood ; when Paris, upon the edge of woe, sighed her relief. Leaving the wide highway to pursue its un- bending course to Chalons on the Marne, we turn towards Rheims, and stay for a moment at the Chateau of Montmort. This superb old place, haughty with its lions at the gate, its moat and ancient keep, its winding stairway within the Castle, so made that a man can ride up to the very Hall, was the headquarters of the Ger- man Commander, and his name is still written 270 THE SCENE OF WAR over the door of the apartment reserved for his use HIS EXCELLENCY GENERAL VON BtLOW. " He occupied my little daughter-in-law's room," says Madame, " and, as you see, it is a beautiful chamber; but she will not sleep in it again. Never ! "Yes, that door was broken open by our un- invited guests ; we shall leave it as it is. It was where we kept our silver, and I need not add that they stole it, and carried it all away with them. "No, they did not do what you would call any wilful damage. Our furniture, as you see, our pictures and carpets, were left intact. Their attention was confined to such little things of value as could be easily carried away our miniatures, for instance ; " and with this she opened the door of a little boudoir, in which, in a glass cabinet, the miniatures lay with bits of china and other bibelots of the kind you will find in old houses, endeared to their owners by family memories and ties of sentiment. The door of the cabinet is still locked, as it was when the Hun entered, but the glass in front of the shelf upon which the miniatures lay lies shivered into a hundred bits, as by the blow of a sword. Through the gaping hole his thieving hand removed the objects of his desire. The lower shelves with their china remain untouched. Upon the white door of the room there is written in pencil the designation of the person to whom this room was assigned. THE MARNE 271 It is a damning piece of evidence, which it is open to His Excellency to rebut ; and meanwhile we shall take leave to call it a calculated and brutal theft. "No," says Madame, as she speaks of these things with a quiet and gentle restraint that is in singular contrast with the evidence, "unfor- tunately I was not here when they came. I had hurried off to Albert to bring my grandchildren into safety at Paris. We had not expected them so soon. But had I known, I should have met them here upon my doorstep, as my father did in 1870. " You see," she adds, with a smile that is half- proud, half- wistful, "we are accustomed to such incidents; our home stands upon a highway of invasion." We pass out of the Chateau into its beautiful grounds, in which von Billow, with the swank of the German Commander, placed his escort of guns, and from the altitude of its inner courts looked down upon the great avenues that reach away from it, east and west, and south and north, like envoys to the four corners of France. It is a place stamped with dignity, old with memories, bathed at this season in the gold of autumn, steeped in refinement and peace. Von Billow, von Kluck, von Hun, what have they in common with places such as this? 272 E H E I M S. WE are now upon the road to Rheims, and the car carries us with its swift untiring beat along one of those arrow-like avenues which take off from the Castle, past fields in which the women and the children toil, through burnished wood- lands, and upon roads where the French cavalry ride, and the long supply-waggons of the Army roll slowly and doggedly on their way to the battle line. It is one of the strange facts of the War that for two years Rheims has been completely cut off from railway communication with the rest of France. All her approaches, except by road, are in the hands of the enemy. We come to Epernay, with its tall spire and cluster of houses in the hollow amidst the bare hills of Champagne, and the serried vines paint the landscape with the colour of the wine. The soft October sunlight, pouring through the high clouds, veils the famous town in its luminous haze. We cross the Marne, and running through the forests and uplands that rise beyond it the RHEIMS 273 grey mass of the Cathedral rising proudly before us as if Death had not taken it by the hand we descend to the chosen of kings, the ancient city of Rheims. The car draws up in the Place du Parvis, where Joan of Arc rides with her knightly and youthful grace in the forefront of the great Cathedral, untouched by the troubles of the time. A sudden impression, as of something blistered and shrunken and old before its time, assails one's eyes. It is like coming to look upon one whose face we last saw in the pride of beauty, now worn and broken with disease. It is a dreadful thing to have to do. " It gives one," says a French officer beside me, " a heartache to look at it." Its rich and splendid portals are hidden behind sandbags that time and weather have turned to mildewed black ; its great rose - windows, that were once the pride of the world, gape in their empty sockets like the eyes of the blind ; the statues and columns on its front are shattered and twisted as if in a convulsion of pain; the knees of its Christ over the northern portal are broken, His face is torn away ; its saints, apostles, and kings; its soaring towers, its vaulted roof; its centuries of toil, the willing labour of men to whom their work was like a prayer, all these, and more than these, are involved in the tragedy of destruction. A nail has been driven here into the very heart of France. 274 THE SCENE OF WAR Within, as one enters, it is as though the soul had fled from the body. This shrine of France lies empty of its mystery. The dim glory of its interior is changed to the light of common day. Its "Rose au coeur vermeil" trembling with jewelled lights, is a ruin ; its altars are unseated, its pictures and its damasks are taken away. Its choir is a pitfall of holes, and the dark stains of fire besmirch the creamy pillars, at whose base in their carven stalls the canons and the choristers chanted the litanies of Christ. The great church is dead, and here, where the Kings of France for fourteen hundred years came to be crowned, pigeons are now the only occu- pants, and the floor of the Cathedral is littered with their dung. It is said by one who was present and over- heard him speak, that General von Billow, when his army took possession of Rheims, entered the Cathedral, and marching up the aisle with a stiff military gait, stood upon the High Altar, with his face towards the Choir, and looking down upon the assembled people, the Canons at prayer, observed them in silence for some moments ; then with an angry emphasis said (I give the words in French as I heard them) "C'est une erreur effroydble" Whether he spoke of the destruction of the city for it had already begun or of the heresy of the Catholic Faith, remains unsettled. It is open to His Excellency to enlighten us. Whether this Shrine of France will ever or RHEIMS 275 can ever be restored is yet uncertain. The structure of the building has been seriously shaken, and a great hole recently made by a shell in the roof has so damaged the vaulting that the whole of it may have to be renewed, if the task be not impossible. Moreover, the prospect of further damage exists. 1 "It seems most likely that we shall end by restoring it," is the hope of those who are charged with the care of it; and the Church would wish to revive as far as might be this ancient symbol of the Divine Faith ; but, on the other hand, there are those who passionately hold the conviction that it should remain un- touched, as a monument to the travail of France and the crimes of her invaders. From the Cathedral we pass on through street after street ruined by the bombardment the losses caused to the people are estimated at twenty million pounds, past the Archbishop's Palace, which has ceased to exist; past piles of twisted iron and heaps of stone; past broken shops and houses and inns, till we are led to pause at the hospital, the ancient Hdtel Dieu, upon which, as upon the Cathedral, the fury of the German guns was visited. Upon its walls there still hang, though in a shattered state, the marble tablets upon which the names of bene- factors to this old foundation were inscribed. 1 Since these words were written, Rheims has been savagely bombarded once more in revenge for the fall of Douaumont and Vaux. 276 THE SCENE OF WAR They are a record of 1450 years, and for nearly a thousand of these the stream of constructive charity has flowed on in its beneficent course with scarcely an intermission. It has been left to the destructiveness of the present age to undo the goodness and the piety of those bygone gen- erations of men. In the East one is confronted at every turn with the message of the transitoriness of things, with the shadows of cities that were once great, with the forgotten graves of Emperors and Kings who were the elect of their time, and one's spirit is shaken by the evidence they bear to the vicissitudes and failures of civilisa- tion. If this war is to be but the prelude to other and greater wars to come, as so many seem to believe is certain, as some half hope in their hearts, it will not be necessary to go east- wards for such commentaries. It was on the 3rd of September 1914 that the Huns entered the city of Rheims. On the 4th, without excuse or justification for it had sur- rendered and was actually in the possession of their people a battery of Artillery of the Guard (whose fate it was a few days later to perish in the marshes of St Gond) opened fire on the densely inhabited city, and in the brief space of forty -five minutes poured 200 shells into it, damaging its churches and killing outright sixty of its citizens who were walking in the streets. RHEIMS 277 "A mistake," said the officers present, "such as frequently occurs in war ; let us proceed with our requisition." Nothing is more evident in these narratives of eye-witnesses than the thinness of the veneer of German manners. "You have such a beautiful Cathedral," says the Commissary -General Zimmer, turning his crocodile eyes upon this Shrine of France, as though he would apprehend its meaning; and then flies into a rage at the delay in pro- ducing his 100,000 kilogrammes of bread, his oats and vegetables, and the million francs of his requisition. " You have not had time ? Faugh ! that is what you people always say. In France every- thing ends in talk. You are a parcel of idlers and talkers. But you will pay for this, I tell you; you will pay, pay. The Emperor has said that he will drive you to the Pyrenees. You will see . . ." " No men ? Then why the devil don't you make your women work ? " One can see and hear this Vulgarian raging. Two German officers, a von Arnim and a von Kummer, having gone astray, a staff officer from General von Billow comes in a fury to the un- fortunate Mayor of Rheims. " If you do not produce them within an hour your city will be blown to pieces, and you and ten others will be shot. The lives of a hundred thousand of your people are of less consequence 278 THE SCENE OF WAR than the lives of these two, the friends of the Emperor." Talk of megalomania! So infuriated was this person that the words with difficulty issued from his mouth, and at times he became quite inarticulate. And this was no common man, but a gentle- man of the Staff. When the facts are humbly explained to him, he calms down and disposes of the incident with a wave of his hand. " If what you say be true, we may consider the matter as closed." On the 4th of September a large body of Saxon troops marched through the city, with their usual parade, singing the " Wacht am Rhein" The square before the Cathedral was crowded with men and horses, and laid with straw for the men to bivouac on. On the 5th of September the Allied armies began their offensive. On the 7th the German wounded began to pour through the city. The sound of guns came steadily nearer, till on the 12th it enveloped the city. On the 13th the French infantry entered Rheims. On the 14th the ejected Huns began their bombardment; on the 18th they resolved to avenge their defeat and to strike terror into the people of France by an act of special " frightfulness." The Cathedral, the crowning place of so many kings, the off- spring of two centuries of toil, the very flower of Gothic Art, with its 2800 statues of varied and exquisite beauty, the mirror of their age, its rose- RHEIMS 279 windows and its painted glass, softened to such harmonies as only time can bring, was to be destroyed. "The blood of our soldiers is of more conse- quence than all the monuments of France," was the arrogant the idiotic boast of the German General. Yet even the blood of his wounded, left to the mercy of the French, did not suffice to stay the fury of his hand. On the 17th of September the German wounded had been carried into the Cathedral. The Red Cross floated from its spire. The Prince Augustus- William, a son of the Em- peror, had himself desired that an ambulance should be established there during his occupation of the city. On the 19th, the noble and beautiful fabric, the Westminster Abbey of France, was in flames. "I climbed," says one who kept a faithful record of these events from day to day, almost from hour to hour " I climbed up into the garret of my house, from the cellars in which we had taken refuge, and I saw the whole of the great edifice enveloped in smoke. This was the prelude to the worst misfortune that could have over- taken us. "The scaffolding of the north tower rapidly took fire, and its beams in falling made an im- mense brazier in the courts of the Cathedral. " Higher up the flames reached the lead of the high-pitched roof, at the northern angle of the nave, and mounted up on the other side to the 280 THE SCENE OF WAR top of the Galerie du Gloria, of which a portion was destroyed. " They licked a part of the scene of David and Goliath, damaging at the same time the sculp- tures and mutilating the statues of the Saints of the Diocese along the whole length of the eastern portal. The great roof was next involved, the molten lead running in streams and zigzags with extraordinary rapidit yalong the top. The superb oak rafters of the nave burnt in their turn. At about four o'clock the scene I gazed upon from our house-top was a spectacle of horror, reviving memories of the terrible fire of 1481. The roof of the transept was next reached, and the base of the central steeple glowed with the fire of the beams. At its summit we could see the clock, the peal of bells, and even the bell that tolled the hours ; and then all suddenly fell and vanished, crumbling upon the vault in a mass of glowing timbers, twisted iron, and molten lead. We could see the Archer, recently renewed in mahogany, at the summit of the south transept, take fire, and slowly consume himself away in his leaden bonnet. "The apse rapidly followed suit; the Spire of the Angel trembled on its base, divested of the leaden figures that made about it so picturesque a crown, and crumbled away on the side of the Archbishop's palace. The slate roofs of the towers flanking the transept were at the same time destroyed. Flames and clouds of white smoke began to issue from the towers of the RHEIMS 281 great portal, and we wondered what would be the fate of the bells. In the north tower, which was like a chimney on fire, the eight bells of the famous chime des Cauchois three of them sus- pended and five upon the ground were attacked by the flames. The south tower was untouched by the conflagration, and its two big bells stood intact under the roof. " While the fire thus devoured the high-pitched roof of the Cathedral, the interior was also alight, the flames being fed by the straw which had been laid upon the floor, the chairs heaped up in the choir, and by the wooden tambours or vestibules over the great door. "Out of this hell there emerged the German wounded, whom the crowd, maddened with rage, would have done for, had they not all, with scarcely an exception, been saved by the clergy of the Cathedral and a few brave citizens, at considerable risk to their own lives." The Palace of the Archbishop, a relic of the fifteenth century, with its priceless contents, the accumulation of centuries, was next destroyed. Its tapestries, its books, its portraits, its archives, its royal apartments and banqueting hall, the Salle des Rois, in which so many kings of France had lodged upon the eve of their coronation; its neighbouring museums, the Library of the Academy of Rheims, memorials of the historic life of the city, these were the silent victims of the German rage. The unhappy citizens were reduced to a sub- 282 THE SCENE OF WAR terranean life in their cellars, and exposed to imminent destruction in the streets. Thousands of them fled from this city of woe, leaving behind them for ever their homes and possessions and all that had made for the joy and the happiness of generations of their ancestors. The record of these events is a terrible one, burnt into the heart of France ; but it is only the surface of it that you see in the wasted city. The inner history of those who have suffered can never in its fulness be told; the evil that has been done can never be repaired. "Those," in the words of our Thomas Hardy, " who have studied in close detail the architecture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, are aware that to restore the Cathedral in its entirety is impossible. " Much of what is gone from this fine structure is gone for ever. " The magnificent stained glass of the Cathedral how is that to be renewed ? Then the sculp- ture, and the mouldings, and other details. " Moreover, their antique history was a part of them, and how can that history be imparted to a renewal ? " Heine, who well understood the German spirit, foresaw that this evil would come. The day would come, he said, when the old Gods of the Germans would rise from their tombs, and Thor, with his hammer in hand, would utterly destroy these Gothic cathedrals. The dread prophecy has come to pass with the RHEIMS 283 relentless march of a Greek tragedy, the conscious act of the German people. "Our armies," they said on the 5th of September 1914, " have already passed the second line of defence of the French forts, with the exception of Rheims, whose royal splendour, reaching back to the times of the White Lilies, will not fail to be ground into the dust, under the blows of our 16-inch guns." "... S'avouant incapabies de nous vaincre sur les champs de bataille, nos sauvages agresseurs osent nous tendre le piege grossier d'une paix pre- maturee. Tout en ramassant de nouvelles armes, ils crient ' Kamarad ! ' Vous connaissez ce geste. ... A leurs hypocrites ouvertures, la France a repondu par la gueule de vos canons et par la pointe de vos baionnettes. Vous avez ete les bons ambassadeurs de la Republique." General MANGIN to his victorious divisions, north of Verdun, the 15th of December 1916. 285 A QUIET DAY IN THE ARGONNE. IF you look at a map of Eastern France you will see how the forest of the Argonne, with its crumpled hills, lies astride of the great road that leads from Verdun to Chalons, and you will understand at once why the Hun, eager to capture Verdun and drive another wound into the side of France, fought so hard for a foothold in this difficult country. It was a desperate business this fighting in the Argonne mud and the Ar- gonne valleys and woods, with mine and counter- mine, with the bayonet and the hand-grenade; a bitter, relentless, obstinate struggle of man against man, trench against trench, of assaults and counter-attacks ; of bloody and terrible con- tests, of which only the distant sound, like the murmur of a city afar off, has reached the ears of our people. But the French know what the Argonne fighting has been, and they know that they have won, as at Verdun, by dint of their pluck and tenacity, the bull-dog courage that has hitherto been the special characteristic of the island soldier. That is why the French are proud of the Argonne. And those of us who love this gallant 286 THE SCENE OF WAR people, who have known them of old as the embodiment of all knightly and chivalrous quali- ties, from the days of St Louis to this present hour, rejoice with them in this fresh exhibition of the undying qualities of the race. Verdun and the Argonne, these are in a special sense a monu- ment to the new France. It was not my fortune to see Verdun. The fierce blow at the Hun, which was to drive him with an unmistakable significance from Douau- mont and Vaux, was on the eve of its accomplish- ment, and the curtain was down between Verdun and the Argonne. But we got some little way on the road. From Chalons we made straight for St Mene- hould, only stopping at 1'Epine, where a company of French infantry were drawn up in the Place before the church a stout hard-bitten lot of men under the command of a young officer of fine proportions, with the air of one who would lead them anywhere. The war has had rather a curious effect in this way : it has withdrawn, as it were, the mask under which the Napoleonic soldier has hidden himself for a hundred years. When you see these men in their blue uniforms marching out to fight, these remarkable-looking men who lead them, you understand in a flash what is meant by the military tradition of France. The palimpsest runs clear. The church beside this little company of men was a beautiful thing in stone, with its sculptures without and its solemn peace within ; and I could not resist looking in at the ceremonial that was afoot within its walls, the lights gleaming like A QUIET DAY IN THE ARGONNE 287 stars amidst its gloom, the robed priest before the altar, the kneeling women at prayer. For these also are an inextinguishable part of France. At St Menehould we entered the forest-clad hills of the Argonne, and the road carried us through the beauties of the autumn woods to the village of Les Islettes, scarred by shell fire and maimed by the proximity of war. Had we gone on to Verdun we should in a few moments have been at Clermont, twelve miles in a line from the famous fortress ; and from Clermont, had we gone north, we should have travelled upon "the road to Varennes" But we had another destination to-day. Cross- ing the miniature valley of. the Bie*sme, which bisects the Argonne from north to south, we ascended the farther ridge and drove the car along the road that runs through the forest to the French entrenchments. Upon either side of us the trees rose like a wall, sombre where the firs stood in sentinel line, golden where the autumn colours marked the passing of the year. Under our wheels the mud was churned into a cream the mud of the Argonne. We had come into a land of the forest-dwellers. Deep in the glades were the huts of the French infantry. In a clearing by the roadside spread the graves of those who have died here in the Argonne. Even in these quiet days this sacred spot is the daily target of the German shells. It stands at a cross-roads where the traffic meets, and the dead you see have to be buried. It is their comrades assembled for the last 288 THE SCENE OF WAR tribute that the shells seek out at these solemn moments. A little farther through the forest and we are close up against the Four de Paris and the enemy's lines. And here, seen from within, is the little world in which the soldier of the Argonne has his being. In these woods there are the huts in which he must live till the war is over, or the line of battle has advanced across the Rhine. The ground in which they are imbedded is a puddle, and a glimpse into thieir interiors shows a long double line of beds and cubicles lost in the gloom of the farther distance, with rifles and accoutrements and the personal belongings of each soldier hanging from the walls and wooden posts. Each bed is raised above the ground, its framework of wire spread tightly across from post to post, and on it a layer of sacking and blankets. In this place a man can be warm and dry and sociable ; but it is a hard life, redeemed only by the love of country, the pride of beauty, the contrast with harder things sickness and wounds and death, redeemed also for many by the ties of comradeship and fellowship in danger ; for others, the solitary, made difficult by the fortuitous character of this very association. We are proud of our public schools, but there is no public school like the barrack behind the fighting line for its discipline and its lesson of human equality. A man who rises out of these dim surroundings into the light of acceptance A QUIET DAY IN THE ARGONNE 289 by his fellows, as one who is better than them- selves, is surely a man. The French soldier has more to put up with than our own. His pay is microscopic ; his com- forts are reduced to the minimum necessary for bodily efficiency ; his amusements, if any, are provided by himself. In places like this, where he must pass a year or more of his life, there is no Y.M.C.A. to cater for his larger needs ; no place of common meeting where books and papers can be read or letters written; concerts and similar entertainments do not appear to be organised. A frugal hardness is the predominant note of the French arrangements. On the other hand, the habit of games is not in- grained in the Poilu ; the smack of the football is seldom heard behind the front of battle. The more active indulge themselves in gymnastics, and these are encouraged from a military point of view. I saw groups of men busy in this way in the Argonne. But gymnastics are not games. They do not help a man to forget himself in the same way. Is there any solvent for care like a twelve-minute chukker on the grass the rush after an elusive ball ? But there is some joy for Fra^ois in the Co- operatifs, where the men assemble in hundreds, making shift in the mud and the wet of the yard, till their turn comes to enter the little shop and make their purchases. The store- keeper is a brisk, capable man trained to the job, a Paris chemist or a grocer from some provincial town, and as each soldier enters he reads from a slip of paper, on which he has made a list of the things he wants for himself T 290 THE SCENE OF WAR and comrades 12 pats of Norman butter, 6 packets of biscuits, 6 tins of sardines, 200 cigarettes, 2 bottles of good wine. There is evidently to be a small party in the barrack, and the purchaser goes off with his goods in a capacious knapsack, and a quiet look of con- tentment on his face. A little extra food, a smoke, a gulp of wine that is what it all comes to, and the Poilu plugs along, hardy, enduring, dutiful. He will be glad when the war is over, and he can go back to his mother or his wife, to little Jean and Marie, to the ancestral acre or the family shop ; but mean- while, for rich or poor, ignorant or cultivated, nobleman or peasant, priest or layman, there is the one pre-eminent call his country, his beau- tiful France, must be saved, the brute that has fastened on her driven from her soil. Whisper in his ear the word " La Patrie," and he is stirred to the roots of his being. There is no love greater than this. As to Glory and Honour and Empire, these are of a music to which his soul has been attuned through centuries of a splendid history ; but they can wait. The first thing is to kill the Boche and drive him from the sacred hearth; and the knowledge that he is doing this is the consola- tion of the French soldier. In the first year of the War he used to ask when the War would end; he does not ask that question now. The granite is exposed. He knows the answer. There are few places on the long French line where the destruction wrought by artillery fire is exhibited in a more contrasting form than A QUIET DAY IN THE ARGONNE 291 here. One travels here for mile after mile through the forest, geeen in the spring-time, golden at this season of autumn, its soil carpeted with the brown tapestry of the fallen leaves, one's vision limited by the thronging trees. Here is a woodland as nature made it, rejoicing in its little valleys, its secret fountains and running streams ; and there, as though it had been ravaged by a fire and swept by disease, upon the very edge of these secluded beauties, is The Desert of War. A few trees stand out of it, gaunt and dis- torted, like criminals who have paid the price of their sins. The limbs and the skulls of dead men bleach in its precincts. There is nothing else. You must not look at it, except through a slit in a peep-hole, lest the enemy, suspecting your presence, should put a bullet through your enterprising head ; and you must not think about it too much, lest its beastliness should obscure the ideals for which it is worth a man's while to die. And yet you must look at it well, and dwell upon every circumstance of horror and pain connected with it, lest you should ever be tempted by the illusion that war is a glorious and a splendid thing. At an earlier period of the war the fighting on the Argonne was of the most bitter and ob- stinate description. To know how bitter and obstinate it was you must have been there or have spoken to those who went through it ; but failing this you can learn something of the story from such a book, for example, as Jean Le'ry's 'Battle in the Forest.' Mine and counter-mine, 292 THE SCENE OF WAR attack and counter-attack ; artillery preparation ; close trench fighting ; men at handgrips ; knife and bayonet, whole companies and battalions wiped out; the fierce will to win through, met by a fiercer refusal to make way ; and in the end the triumph of the stronger will the Huns' growing acceptance of failure. The fight still goes on ; the pioneers are busy on both sides making their tunnels we went down into these and exploding their mines. From trench to trench where they meet on the brow of that hill, men still shoot and slay each other at sight; it is still unwise to talk above a whisper as you move along the hidden ways within a few feet of the enemy; the air still resounds to the violent crash of the howitzer, the splitting roar of the 75 ; scarcely a day passes that some one is not killed or maimed. But in effect the battle of the Argonne is over, and the Hun has lost his tide. ****** Behind the trenches there is the post of the officer in command. The hills run down here on both sides, leaving a little valley between them; and in this valley there moves the life of the line in reserve. The dug-outs in which the officers and men live are caves that have been excavated in the valley slopes. Here is the Colonel's cave, with a little inscription beside it that speaks of the affection of his men. They have made it as comfortable for him as they can. It must always be a credit to a man in authority to be loved by those who work under him. It is the touchstone by which we judge him. A QUIET DAY IN THE ARGONNE 293 There is a fireplace in this cave, and a table and a bed, and the smallest of verandahs under the logs of the projecting roof in which you may suppose that he can sit on a quiet day. Upon the walls there are the wonderful maps which make all things plain, and sketches done by skilled hands. There is a telephone on the table. Near by there is a cemented chamber, with an immensely solid roof, into which the commander and his staff can retire should the enemy's artil- lery become too violent. It is seldom used now. Beside this, again, there is the hospital, with its kitchen at the mouth of the cave, and its wounded men within, upon bunks fixed like racks against the wall. There is only a dim light here, and the men lie very still. Those who can be moved are sent very rapidly to a hospital at the base. " It is damp in here," says the Surgeon, " but we cannot help that. We do what we can to keep the place warm and dry." Outside the blue infantry move amidst the gilded trees, the smoke of their fires rising slowly into the clearing of the sky. From time to time the shells burst in the road beyond, and the shrapnel bullets scatter with a noise like hail through the autumn leaves. One or two fall at our feet. Such is a quiet day in the Argonne. ****** When I think of it all the pleasantest memory is of the men one meets in such places. There is no people more agreeable than the French, either as hosts or guests. They understand the pleasantness of intercourse, and to their wonted 294 THE SCENE OF WAR courtesy there is added these days a frankness and grave simplicity that appeal more especially to ourselves. The War has drawn us together in more than words. At C no visitor is allowed to pass without an invitation to the General's Mess. Many must carry with them the memory of that cheery and distinguished company. Upon the long table there reposes a delicious centre-piece in plaster, made by an artist in the ranks, of two Cupids embracing each other one with the French helmet on his head, the other wearing the cock's plumes of the Bersaglieri. This was a little tribute to General Cadorna when he came here. "Two days ago," said the General, "we had Lord French here." General Joffre, the President of the French Republic, his Royal Highness of Connaught, brother of le feu Roi Edouard whom the French loved as one of themselves and how many more have been here. Upon the mantelpiece there is one of those winged bombs, or aerial torpedoes, they fire into the trenches, made into a lamp of the most at- tractive design. The General himself is the typical soldier of the 'seventies, with his French imperial and social grace. Forty years of service have not dimmed the charm of ; his manner : forty years before him his father was also a General of France. General Gouraud, whose guest I was to have been, is absent, called away by the news of his A QUIET DAY IN THE ARGONNE 295 brother's death at the Front. You have seen that wonderful portrait of him with the blue eyes in ' L'lllustration ' ? It will do you good to look at it, and if you compare it with the coarse and brutal features of a Hindenburg or a Btilow, you must understand why the world is on the side of France against the Hun. The War is summed up in these faces. " Quel beau regard ! " says one of this General, "plein de limpiditd et de male Jnergie. Quelle belle tete de soldatt Je songe, en le quittant, a ce qu'on disait d'un des grands gdndraux de Napoleon : les gens devenaient braves rien qu'en les regardant" In the Argonne mud, as we tramped along to the splutter and crash of the shrapnel overhead, of which he took not the faintest notice, I had the fellowship of a man who looked like a Viking with his red beard and noble stature. His name is well known in Paris as an art critic, and it was in the midst of these unpromising surroundings that he gave me the benefit of his views on the War, and its effect upon literature and art. "In the days of our children," he said, "the War will bear fruit." And there was another, an officer whose medi- tations on the beautiful old themes of Duty, and Honour, and Love of Country, inspired by the life of the trenches, have won favour as part of the current literature of the War, whose company I enjoyed upon the same occasion. He was going on five days' leave to Paris, and I had the pleasure of meeting him there with his wife, a vivid and charming Frenchwoman, the helpmeet of her 296 THE SCENE OF WAR husband, and the partner of his fortunes. She thoroughly understood his point of view and his work, and between them they are raising up for the next generation no less than five sons. His book is dedicated to these children, in the good hope that when they grow up they may prove themselves "men of honour, strong, free, and brave." Thus it is in the future that these men live. To-day there is for them the trench, with its mud and its physical misery ; the hospital where they lie wounded ; the narrow, maybe the nameless, grave : the morrow is for their children, the new generation that will carry on the proud and stately tradition of France. From the Argonne ridge, as we came away, we could see the smiling plain where Clermont lies in ruins, and Verdun and the Meuse lay beyond; but these were hidden from our eyes. At Valmy on its ridge we stayed to look at the column of Victory, where the heart of Keller- mann lies buried. It marks the limit of the Teutonic hordes as it did in the days of Attila and of the armies of the Revolution; we could hear from it, in the late evening as we went upon our way, the sullen thunder of their guns. BOOK VI. FEANCE IN THE MEDITEEEANEAN FRANCE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN. "The sea of civilisation and all history." To go from the North of France on a late day of November, with the early snow lying thin upon the fields, and the long roads where the traffic of War rolls endlessly upon its course, churning the mud; to pass from the grey skies weeping with rain and the winter-chill, into the South, where the Mediterranean suns herself under the Maritime Alps, is to change one's soul. It is another world ; and the poet who said this thing could not be done was wrong. Insensibly one's spirit takes on a new complexion, and Life and Death rise up before one envisaged in other forms. The stern purpose of War, its unbending rigour, and implacable devotion to one single end, relax their grip. There is space here in the sun- light for softer things. If you could move the whole line of the contending armies for but one winter day from the northern trenches, into this blue and gold country by the sea, Capua would have its way, and the War would surely end. At least the reflection that it might, showed me how much my own spirit had changed in the 300 THE SCENE OF WAR transit. There was another transition too. East and West, we are told, can never meet. But, indeed, they are meeting all the time. Where, I wonder, does the one end and the other begin ? The bright warm sunlight in the Cannebiere, the autumn gold that still lingered in the trees, bare skeletons up there in the North, the palm-trees and the cypresses, the splashes of bright colour in the streets : these were enough to tell one that the East was near at hand. Facing me at the Station Restaurant, as I took my morning coffee, there sat a little man, with the band of a muni- tion worker on his arm, bright-eyed, with small tiands and feet, supple, olive-skinned, intelligent : the Oriental. You may be sure that if you had seen him as an infant, clotheless, happy in the dust of some Eastern byway, you would never have labelled him French. He was neither Jew nor Arab, but just a little man of the South. More obvious were the dark-skinned folk, whom France has summoned across the waters to her standards. Here were the Arab of princely mien, his desert burnous flowing about him, the Turco, the Spahi, the jet-black nigger from Senegal; and colour was with all these people, and the East in their poise. The nigger is so frankly of Africa that you hesitate a moment at the thought of him in this war, in which the best blood of the world is engaged. But then you harden your heart. If the brute-force of Prussia is to govern the ideals of men, the nigger from Senegal is more than justified. From Marseilles I went to Toulon, to the head- quarters of the French Fleet. The Mediterranean FRANCE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 301 rolled lazily at the foot of the mountains; the vineyards lay like a crimson carpet upon the lower hills; the olive groves were grey in the wind ; and upon the green meadows the shepherds grazed their flocks of slowly wandering sheep, as if 'twere still midsummer. Death is not so bad when Nature is harsh and overbearing; but it must be hard for one born to these things to willingly surrender any fraction of his life before the appointed hour. . . . Flowers abound even at this late hour of the year; and the "beaux palmiers" the "vues Ms belles sur la mer," and the other distracting joys to which the little guide-books of the coast draw attention, are much in evidence. But even here there is a whisper of graver things. " On y cultive" say the books, "la fleur d'immortelle dont on fabrique des couronnes." There is need for such in France to-day. It was twenty years since I had seen anything of the French Fleet. Twenty years ago, from my father's house in a western seaport of France, I had become familiar with its coming and going. I had, like others, visited the Admiral's flagship, met some of the younger officers, shared in their hospitalities. In the cold spring days I had seen the fishermen of the coast the Pe'cheurs d'Islande, the backbone of the Navy assembling for the voyage to the Newfoundland Banks, singing their endless ditties Femmes pour etre heureuses Epouser des marins, Jamais d'humeurs fdcheuses, Jamais des noirs chagrins. 302 THE SCENE OF WAR I had seen them sail away with ritual and cere- mony into the grey wastes of the Atlantic on this voyage, from which there were always some who never returned ; and I had come to know some of them very well in the course of my own little voyages about that iron coast. There was Eugene Be"zard, who helped with the boat, ever bragging of his skill as a sailor ; and Marie Rose, his wife, who frowned upon her man's vaingloriousness ; and Pierre and Henri, their sons, both of whom were drowned in after years at Miquelon. But why should I dwell upon these personal memories, except that they belong to the category of days spent in France some of the happiest days of one's life. . . . At Toulon I found the Vice- Admiral at work in a quiet room skied away under the roof of the Prefecture Maritime. It is an old place this, stamped with Heaven knows what memories of the past of France. The present building, "pre- ceded by a garden of beautiful palm-trees," dates to the year 1786. Much has happened to France since then. Outside the Admiral's room, after I had passed the shrewd mariners in the vestibule, I found a naval officer at a little table, with the gold aiguillettes of an aide-de-camp upon his breast, and within, in the dimly-lighted room, the Admiral himself. No sea-dog this with hard, fighting jaw ; but a man with a gentle and rather fragile air, such as Nelson might have worn had one found him seated beside a table. The Admiral has played his part. On the 2nd of August 1914, when the succour of the British Fleet was yet uncertain, he moved out with his FRANCE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 303 small array of six old cruisers for the strength of France had been concentrated in the Medi- terranean to close the Channel to the Boche. It was a brave adventure that happily did not mature. And now he sits here as Prefect Mari- time, Governor of Toulon, Commander-in- Chief, and I know not what other titles, that linger about his office from the days of Louis Quatorze. Upon the great coloured map on the wall, with its wide spaces of blue sea, its fringe of shore so different to the staff maps of the land-fighters there are pinned the movable labels that mark the voyages of the French Fleet. The enemy would give a good deal to penetrate into this innermost sanctuary. In France it is the Army that has always counted for most in the affections of her people ; but the French are proud of their seamen the little blue-eyed Bretons of the West, the yellow- haired Flemings of the North, the Latins of the South ; of their dead admirals, whose names still live in the nomenclature of their ships; of the gallant and chivalrous record of their people upon the seas. They know that in this vast War the Fleet of France must of necessity play a minor part, but they are glad to think that it has been an honourable and an effective one. It is possible that we, who own the greatest Fleet in the world, do not realise how much our friends have done. Long before the War they released the British Fleet for service in the North Seas, and made possible that ascendancy which from the first day of the conflict has controlled the destinies of the 304 THE SCENE OF WAR German Fleet and the ultimate issue of the War. In the Mediterranean they have played a capital part. During the long months that preceded the entry of Italy into the War, they sealed the Gulf of Otranto to the Austrian Fleet. It was no sinecure this. Up and down they went, night and day, ceaselessly vigilant, straining for the fight that never came their way, patient, ob- stinate, enduring. For the gallant French spirit, imaginative, sensitive to the impressions of the hour, borne down by the griefs of their invaded land, eager to attack, fretting for glory and honour, those long months were a period of travail nobly borne. Far from France, from any base of their own, exposed to the insidious attack of the submarine, the mine, and the torpedo, their task was necessarily one of peril as well as of endurance. The Lton Gambetta, struck by a tor- pedo at midnight in the light of a pale moon, went down with all but 137 of her crew. The Vice- Admiral and all her officers, without a single exception, were lost. Some of the letters of those brave men have been published. It was no un- looked-for death that overtook them. " One day," wrote a young officer, the son of an Admiral of France, " they will probably get us. But we have all offered up our lives to our country in advance, and are no more troubled. I only pray God not that He will spare me, but that He will sustain me in the moment of battle and in the hour of death." "Always en 1'air, never at rest," wrote the Admiral ; " we have an ungrateful task that never comes to a head, and is profoundly monotonous. FRANCE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 305 Never even to see one's enemy when one is at war, that is too cruel a trial. So it is that, in spite of all the physical and moral suffering we endured there, my thoughts go back to those days at Tuyen-Quan when I was in command of the little gunboat Mitrailleuse, when the shells and bullets sang night and day in my ears, and I asked myself if on the morrow the Chinese would not get hold of me and saw off my neck. There one was filled with a sort of intoxication at feeling oneself alive in the midst of that hell, whereas here ! " But the Admiral who wrote these words had fought his last fight, and the ungrateful seas were to close over him in silence. The share of France in our own tragic failures at the Dardanelles is more widely known. We remember how the Gaulois and the Suffren 1 brought their guns to bear upon the Turkish for- tresses, how the Bouvet went down in something less than a minute after taking a gallant part in the attack on The Narrows. Of the very few who survived her loss there was one whose com- pany made pleasant my stay at Toulon, Lieutenant de Vaisseau Q , an aide-de-camp of the Admiral, who was picked up, smiling, out of the water. He retains that cheery smile. And since then the French have taken their share in guarding the waters of the Mediterranean, in fighting the submarine, conveying the expedi- tionary force to Salonica and their own colonial troops to France, upholding the Allied cause in Greece, refitting the Servian Army ; in this, as in all things, heart and soul with us in the common 1 Both these ships have since been lost. U 306 THE SCENE OF WAR cause ; good neighbours and chivalrous and gallant friends. The morning after my visit to the Prefecture Maritime, De V came over to my hotel, and said the Admiral wished me to be taken up to the fortifications on Mount Faron, that overlook the harbour at an altitude of 1500 feet. It was diffi- cult to believe, as we made our way across the palm-fringed Square, that this was the end of November. The sun shone as upon a summer day in England, but the quality of his light was such as has never penetrated to our islands. The fresh morning air, the landscape of increasing beauty, the warmth of the sunlight these, as the motor carried us ever higher towards the summit, filled my spirit with the wine of life. I reproached myself for being here, remembering the mud of the Argonne, the trenches on the Somme, the grief and the pain and the desolate wastes of war. It was as though one had passed from the brink of the nethermost pit to the summit of the moun- tain, at whose feet there spread the tempting world. The joy of life, the pleasure of the sun, the beauty of the earth all these must a man be willing to give up if he is to save his own soul. It was, moreover, as though one had dropped four centuries of time. This old fortress of the Croix de Faron, with its coat of arms upon the gate, that dominates the surrounding world, was designed by Vauban in the days of Louis Quatorze. It bears upon it the impress the pride and the beauty of those bygone days. Le Roi Soleil might have stood here and looked with compla- cence upon the kingdom at his feet. Below it, FRANCE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 307 half-way down the mountain, there is another fortress, with high walls rising from its moat, like the Bastille, and the grand air of a castle ; and between them there are covered ways and gun emplacements of the sort that Vauban loved. You can never mistake his hand. There is still a garrison within the walls, and since the natural site retains its potentiality for war, the road to it is closed to the curious a military road. But in truth it is a thing too beautiful for modern war. A pair of young lovers might wander here absorbed in the mystery of Happiness. Upon the farther side, whence the snows of Corsica across the sea, the nearer Alps, are visible, the foundations of this eyrie drop, like the stronghold of some Rajput chief or medi- eval baron, twelve hundred feet to the green valley spaces patterned with olive groves and hamlets ; and a man of that age might well as he stood here have believed himself exempt from all possibilities of disaster. But no one thinks of these things now ; the six-foot trench is become a far more formidable bulwark. I shall reveal no secret if I say that the best of the guns of Faron have been sent away to other places than this. Yet it might have been otherwise. Had Italy gone in with the Central Powers, Toulon would have become, as of old, a place of capital import- ance, and these brave old forts and harbours might have awakened, like Troy and Abydos, to the stir of mighty war. To destroy and to take Toulon would have been a feat of arms worth accomplishing. " Those were anxious days for us," said De 308 THE SCENE OF WAR V , "when Italy was yet uncertain. Her neutrality first, and then her alliance, were of the greatest value to us. We cannot forget our debt to Italy." As I stood here upon the edge of this fortress, looking down upon sea and plain in a mist of sunlight, I felt dimly conscious of hidden things. Behind the creed of power, the dominion of force, the tramp of armies, and the sound of guns; behind all the bestial forces of a materialism that has numbed the imaginations of men, I could hear as afar off the rhythmic beating of the world's heart, the moving of those spiritual tides that in their ebb and flow are slowly lift- ing up humanity and carrying it on its difficult road towards perfection. No ! I said. We are not going back to Thor and Woden, and the brute is not going to win. The Isles of Hyeres, the alluvial plains, the sheltered harbours of Toulon, the ships, the woods, the mountains, and the sea all that goes to the miracle of a Mediterranean land- scape, its beauty, the imprint upon it of number- less centuries of men lay spread beneath my vision. I, for one, could not doubt the ultimate end. We descended to the plain, and passing through the gorges of Ollioules, which the Revolutionary armies forced in the course of their siege of Toulon a hundred and twenty-three years ago, we came into a little valley watered by a stream, and crimson from end to end with the falling leaves of Cherry Orchards the Vallee des Cerisiers they call it. The patient toil, the FRANCE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 309 intelligence, the infinite love and care of the French peasant for his fields, were visibly written here. The ordered life was pursuing its course, the women and the children taking the place of those who were gone up to the battle. We stopped in a village to which the people of Toulon come picnicking on Sundays, at the door of an old inn that might have been here in the days of Henri Quatre. Over a side door in the high granite wall there was an inscription that caught my eye : " Grande Reserve des dcrevisses " it said. "My little son," said De V , a little shy of such domesticities under his gold aiguillettes, " asked me to be sure and get him some forevisses. If you wouldn't mind ? " So we knocked at the door of the inn, and the innkeeper's wife came to us on the threshold, weighty and competent, but sombre and devoid of joy. She brightened at seeing De V . " Ah," she said. " You are Monsieur De V . You are always welcome here." He laughed and cheered her with old memories. " Do you not remember," he said, " when I was a boy and you were a girl, and I used to come for ecrevisses to your father's door ? Well, I have come now for my son." " Ah," she said sadly, " those were other days, Monsieur De V , other days happy days, it is not so now," and her voice broke as it fell to something like a whisper; "this war there are two of mine up there, all I have. But oh ! they will never come back to me. No ; I know it, I know it. No one ever comes back from there ! " And then, looking sadly upon the 310 THE SCENE OF WAR ground and wiping her eyes with the corner of her vast apron, she said "Mais, c'est pour la patrie" which gave her courage. "Come, Monsieur," she said, "we will see about the forevisses. We have not so many now, and the price you know has doubled since the War ; " with which she faced him with the firm glance of the French woman of business. De V only laughed as he pulled out his purse. In the Cherry Orchard, under an old grey wall, where a stream ran through cool and shady places, the forevisses were taken from under their potsherds dismayed at this descent of Fate and carried off in her apron to the weighing scales, of Gargantuan size, a hundred years old, and there weighed up with scrupulous care and billed for after a patient calculation, for they were a fraction over the kilo. It is from such homes that France derives her sustenance. 311 MUNITIONS. IT was another scene that I looked upon in the old Arsenal of Toulon, whose great gateway stands here by the busy street where the trams go by, a remnant of days that have long since gone. Designed by Vauban, when the fourteenth Louis was king, it fronts the world with some- thing of the pride of that stately period. To enter this guarded place in time of war is no small privilege. Even in times of peace it is almost inaccessible to a stranger. " Faire la demande" say the regulations, "A 2 heures apres-midi, exactement, et justifier de son identiU et de sa qualiU de Franpais. Le Ministre seul pent donner Vautorisation aux Grangers" But I was carried through it, without a murmur from the sentry at the gate, past old- world squares and ancient buildings, upon which there still lay the impress of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, into yards and factories, where men and women by the thousand were at work upon the most modern instruments of Death. " Munitions " we call these things, and 312 THE SCENE OF WAR having said the word pass on, little realising what it means. What it means is that the Big Blonde Brute has turned the greater part of the civilised world into a factory of Destruction. He has taught us, who were slow to learn this lesson, that it is not safe to live with a hyaena at your doors, and until the brute is slain, or his instincts changed, the world that we had fashioned cannot again be a homely decent place in which to live. It is in factories such as this that we are slowly forging the instruments of his conversion. But what a task ! Here are incredible numbers of the biggest shells, each one of which weighs 900 kilos, and stands almost as high as a man. The purpose of this formidable engine is not merely to kill, but to penetrate. It is designed in a special way to fulfil that purpose. The fuse that explodes the 75 at the instant of contact is here put far away in the rear of the shell, and its steel nose is fined to a point and made of extraordinary strength, so as to go through an obstacle, such as plate armour or cement, before it explodes. This vast missile is filled with melinite. You see the toilers at work, stirring up the explosive like treacle in a great cauldron, heating it to a high pitch of temperature, and then pouring it into the up- turned hollow of the shell. When the treacle cools it contracts and hardens into rock, and then a little more is added to fill the remaining space. A hole is drilled into the finished mass at its base, and into this there is inserted an explosive yet more violent and quicker in its rage than even the deadly melinite ; and then comes the fuse MUNITIONS 313 that is to set the whole sinister thing aflame. These vast cases of steel have already come a long journey before the explosive is added that gives them life. I must not say what each of them costs; but it is enough to keep a whole family of humble people for a year. As to the melinite, it lies upon the face of everything that comes within its circuit. The ground is yellow with it ; the hands and the clothes of the work- men take its colour; the white factory horse is tricked out with it like the processional steed of an Indian Prince. For some hours after I came away it stained my fingers. Men who came within reach of a bursting shell are turned yellow by it in the hour of death. At the other end of the scale, through many gradations of calibre, there is the shell of the 75, slim and golden, beautiful as a girl in her prime. Here is the brass tube which holds the powder, and beside it the actual missile. Powder the word suggests to one's medieval mind a fine black substance in a little pile ; but here it is a bundle of flexible strips of chocolate tied together with a bit of string, and two of these bundles go into each tube. The shell itself is an amazing piece of mech- anism. The fuse consists of no less than nineteen separate parts, each of which has a special func- tion of its own; and it is only when all these parts co-ordinate that the Creature lives and moves. Some of these parts are so minute that they look like the tiny links in a lady's chain; but if you look closely into one of these you will see that in each of them two microscopic holes 314 THE SCENE OF WAR have been drilled for the silk-like thread of ex- plosive. Each one of these parts has to be care- fully made, carefully adjusted, firmly and exactly fixed in its place, if the shell is to fulfil its purpose of death. The work is so precious that it approaches the refinement of the goldsmith's trade. Each of these elegant shells when it is finished has cost the taxpayer forty francs ; the speed at which they can be fired is something incredible, surpassing that of any other gun of the like kind in the world ; and the quantities that are fired in the course of a big battle run into wonderful figures. I have seen the empty cases, lying in vast piles and little mountain heaps upon the battlefield, being carried away in trucks and waggons, in a seemingly endless procession, across the fields of France ; and then when they are all gathered together, they are brought here to be washed and cleansed, to be burnished and coaxed into their original forms, to be filled once more with death. Each time they return a little mark is made on them, and I have counted as many as five of these little symbols engraved upon the brass. As I looked at them here going through this process of renovation, it was with a strange emotion that I realised that men have come to be regarded in the same light. Like these empty cases, they are carried back sick, wounded, shaken, to be repaired, refitted, refilled with a missile energy, before they are sent once more to the battle-front. Man, the individual, the complex, the finished creature, the heir of all the ages, the MUNITIONS 315 ultimate fruit of time, has come to be reckoned in these last days as little better than a cartridge. That is what the Brute has brought us to in this year of grace. They call it man-power, but in truth it is the destruction of the best and bravest of the world. It will be strange indeed if there is not a violent reaction the most violent in the history of man against this astounding heresy when the War is over. Every night from these factories a train leaves the blue edge of this old-world sea, here by Toulon Arsenal, laden with the produce of this people's toil, the hard, unwearying, patient toil of France. It goes somewhere to the Front. Every little piece of separate mechanism, every touch of each woman's hand, has its ultimate purpose and destiny of destruction. The dread sequence is complete. As to machinery, organisation, material, a cer- tain weariness overtakes the spirit as one observes these things. One is invited to admire them, to be struck with their amazing skill and mechanical prevision, as something superhuman and beyond the ordinary compass of men. But this is an illusion. There is nothing wonderful in machin- ery except its invention. For the rest, it is a pedestrian thing, like a bureaucracy or a Govern- ment department. A poem or a picture that can live is a miracle beside such things. More impressive, more wonderful than all these things in this vast workshop of destruction, was the quiet room in which the babies of the factory workers are cared for. I suppose that in the 316 THE SCENE OF WAR secret heart of each woman, as she fills the shells with destruction for the enemy, there is the knowledge that she has laboured more truly for her country, for humanity, by passing on to another her torch of life. The State cares for these children, and does for them all that is necessary, at least while the mothers are at work. I confess that I was unprepared for this spectacle. The building in which they were housed was like any other in which the shells were being made. There was no hint of what lay behind that closed door. But very different was it within. It was with a feeling of something like amazement that I entered it my ears still deafened by the grinding of the wheels, the fall of iron upon iron ; my eyes dazed by the flame of the fur- naces and the circling of the endless bands. It was so quiet here, and white; each child in its cradle, a mysterious being with the hint of im- mortality in its eyes. A capable woman went to and fro amidst the white curtains, looking to the needs of the inmates. By some miracle they were all very quiet and good. War babies, it seems, are like that. Enfants de la patrie. And then there was another thing. The work- shop superintendent who had shown me over the factory was a man of the type developed by engines. Think of some lean engineer in a ship's company, one of those hard-bitten, quiet men, who seem to live aloof from the other officers and take no part in the lighter joys of a voyage; a stiff, competent, unbending sort of democrat. Such was this man. There was no MUNITIONS 317 fraction of his machinery with which he was not familiar; no question you could ask him, whether of principle or detail, to which he could not instantly reply. But withal you would say he was a man uninteresting, except in the matter of his machines. When at last he had taken me everywhere and showed me all that was to be seen, he came to a stand in the yellow melinite slush of the yard. " I would ask you," he said, "before you go, to look at Mont Faron. We have a view of it from here that is unequalled anywhere on the coast; and that tint of rose that you see on it at this hour is of a colour unsurpassed in the world." I could believe that what he said was true. The whole mass of the great mountain that im- pends above Toulon was seized with a divine radiance, and was aglow with a flame that might have been reflected upon it through some jewel in Space. If you know these Mediterranean hills, if you have seen them change from yellow in the sun's glare to exquisite rose at evening, to violet, to the grey of mysteries of night, you will gather some impression from these words of the beauty to which my attention was thus drawn. But if you could have looked at the long-nosed face of this maker of implements of war, touched with the emotion of the scene, and rapt in the beauty of this, his own corner of the earth, you might have understood something of the fire that burns in French hearts when they speak of "La Patrie." It is always there that sacred flame, and only the fool Boche would have thought of trying to put it out. 318 THE JURIEN DE LA GRA VIERE. FROM Toulon my fortunes carried me across the Mediterranean in the French cruiser of this name. It was a singular privilege, and one that I am not likely to forget. The evening previous to our departure I had seen the grey ship lying at anchor in the Petite Hade, her guns slumbering at her side an instrument of war, asleep. In the harbour there was a Zeppelin taken from the Boche; a Dreadnought in dock, like some majestic castle of iron, with guns upon guns in her turrets and casemates, upon which the workers were busy to the sound of clanging iron, refitting her for battle; vast buildings and workshops, the grands bdtiments de la marine de guerre that make Toulon so vital a place to the French in the Mediterranean. Against the walls of the Darse Vauban, the submarines basking like lizards in the sun. It is an odd world down there in the bowels of the submarine, with its network of intricate tubes, its compressed air, its electric batteries, the periscope in which you can see re- flected the outer world going about its business, its little cabin for the two officers in command, the compass by which it steers through the blind THE JURIEN DE LA GRAVI&RE 319 darkness of the sea. Above the wooded slopes of the promontory of Sicie, that projects into the sea like a ram, dividing the two harbours the one from the other, I had seen the fort called after Napoleon, and the Batterie des Hommes sans peur. These are names that take one back to the days half fantastic when the Great Captain was emerging from the obscurity of his youth into the flame of history. The Revolutionary armies were besieging Toulon, the British Fleet was at anchor in these very waters, when Napoleon came upon the scene. His quick eye seized the importance of this promontory our people had given it the name of the Little Gibraltar the fort upon it was carried by assault, the guns of Napoleon were turned upon the harbour, and Toulon fell before his prowess. It was the beginning of his wonderful career. There were many other things that appealed to the eye in this ancient place that has seen so much of history in the past: memories of the passing of Rome, of the Barbarian hordes, of the rush of the Mussulman invasions ; of the late glories of Charles V. and Henri Quatre and Louis the Fourteenth; of the ebb and flow of fortune over a thousand years that still leave France in her seat of honour and fame throughout the world, with the added lustre of these two years. The morning found me by the Darse Vieille, the old floating dock of Henri Quatre, the sea a-shimmer in the sun ; and as I stepped into the motor launch that had been sent off for me, the 320 THE SCENE OF WAR petty officer, with a grave courtesy, asked me whither I desired him to proceed. " To the Jurien de la Gravidre" I said. He knew, of course; but in France there are old traditions. When we came alongside, he stood there at the salute with the satin water swaying about him, till I had reached the top of the companion, where I found another like himself ; and when I entered into the solemn interior of the ship it was to find the Commander waiting there, with his principal officer, to give me a welcome. I was the guest, you see, of France ; and to be a guest of France is to find yourself, however undeserv- ing, clothed in a robe of honour. As I passed into the Commander's quarters, I noticed in the companion-way that leads to the quarter-deck a coat of arms emblazoned on the walls, with the coronet of a nobleman, and his motto "Integer Vital." One does not look for such things in Republican France ; but the Navy is old and maintains her traditions. Generation after generation the same families enter the ser- vice of the sea, and many of the officers one meets are the sons and the grandsons of admirals. Of these Juriens de la Graviere, two were Admirals of France, and one a peer, who was also a member of the Academy a man of letters, and the author of 'Guerres Maritimes.' Their portraits hang from the wall of the Commander's saloon, and as we stood before these, he spoke with some feeling of the exquisite urbanity and distinction of mind that characterised the greater of these two men, after whom his ship was named. Thus, though long since dead, these memories of the departed THE JURIEN DE LA GRAVI&RE 321 survive, touching with their line of gold the duller fabric of our times. The Commander himself and if these lines should ever come to his notice, he will, I hope, forgive me for so personal a note was a man worthy of such ancestry. I had noticed him before we met at my hotel at Toulon, with his wife and his son of twelve the man grave and dark-haired, singularly resembling in the firm dignity of his features a late Viceroy of India his wife, fair as an Englishwoman their boy, a smiling lad, who might have come from a public school; and I had read their little history. At Toulon, whence the ships go to their destiny upon the troubled seas, you will notice many such gatherings of farewell the simple women of the sailors, with the tears filling eyes that would yet be brave for their country the officers' wives with the proud smile that so often covers a gentlewoman's aching heart, many such epi- sodes, running like an undertone through the southern exuberance and sunshine of this meri- dional port. We spent many hours together in the privacy of his saloon over charts and maps, speaking of the War and its incidents; upon the bridge by the conning tower; and at meals, when leaving his grave functions on the Commander's deck, he would come down to entertain his guest. I cannot repeat here all that he told me; but his company and his fellowship, his ungrudging kind- ness and frank acceptance of one who was but a little while before a stranger, warmed my heart towards him and his country. There seemed to x 322 THE SCENE OF WAR me the widest gulf between men such as these, and the scoundrels who are set to sink without warning ships carrying women and children, and even the sick and wounded. It seemed to me that men of the type of this Commander, and the grave admirals upon the wall, would refuse, upon whatever pretext, to be drawn into such mis- doings. I cannot imagine Englishmen, Americans, doing such things. We lay at anchor for a while at Toulon har- bour, while the gulls fluttered over the sombre remnants of a battleship, and the boats came swaying over the water with their burden of fresh-eyed men. By the time they had all come on board, the ship was crowded with them, as with a great company. The water lay still and silent below us, and as I looked over the cruiser's side, I could see there the blades of the side- propellers, like the fins of a great shark, flapping and bending as if alive. It was only an illusion of light, for the propeller was still at peace. Then of a sudden the blades began to revolve, and once more were still. A bubble rose upon the silken surface of the sea. But when the last man was aboard, and a signal was given from the shore, we moved in earnest. The blades of the great screws swung swiftly round and were veiled under the swirl of waters, and the Jurien de la Gravidre was launched upon her course. That first day of her voyage is indelibly fixed upon the tablets of my mind. I know not what of perfection there was in it, but if life had many such days no one would ever wish to go to Para- dise. It was a day late in November, the Medi- THE JURIEN DE LA GRATI&RE 323 terranean was like a thing alive and conscious of its beauty, the air pulsed with golden mem- ories of all the wonders that this storied water has seen. I have felt this sensation before in this clear clairvoyant air. I have asked myself upon such occasions whether any one ever dies ; whether it is not true that the souls of all the departed linger and live on about one ; whether it is not only our momentary passage through the flesh that draws a curtain about us, veiling the perpetual life. Certain it is that at such times and upon such a sea one is in communion with all that has been in the mighty past. What in this long sequence is the present War ? Its incidents fade and are forgotten in that vast company. As we bore upon our way the flushed snows of the Maritime Alps rose up in a great wall from the fringes of the sea. "Never," said the Commander with a sort of homage in his air, "have I seen them so bright and clear." Upon the blue surface that swayed about us like a vast sapphire inspired with life numberless white sails gleamed in the constant sun. The sky was unflecked with even a wisp of cloud. The islands of the coast rose up like the siren-haunts of another age. Here and there afar off there glinted the white walls of towns and villages the St Raphael, Hyeres. . . . The ship added to these things. The great French windows of the Commander's saloon framed and displayed their beauty. It was a drawing-room upon the sea. Across the port- hole by my cabin the long dark muzzle of a gun 324 THE SCENE OF WAR was drawn like a sword across the landscape. Upon the roof the stern-gun pointed hungrily out to sea, a man ever beside her, restless of eye and keen of vision. Her provender was laid in a pile beside her. Upon the bridge there stood the trumpeter, a man with a long dark beard and the far-off mystery of the Celt in his eyes Generations upon generations ago his people came to the wild Breton coast, driven eastward this time by the Anglo-Saxon horde. Inside the con- ning tower, in its circle of steel, a couple of men stood over a compass, like priests about a ritual. Outside upon the narrow bridge the Commander's fine face looked forward across the sea, its note of urbanity veiled under the shadows of com- mand. All that was in the ship was his, his will alone predominant. If trouble came he would be the last to leave her. Below him in her armoured casemate lay the forward gun, the van- guard of the ship. To starboard and to larboard a gunner stood by each quick-firing Hotchkiss, and in the open breach there lay a cartridge ready for instant use. It was a scene of pro- found tranquillity : the warm sunshine, the Elysian air, the stately progress of the ship, spoke only of a static peace. But under this surface there flowed, as it were in secret, a stream of vigilant attention, of potential wrath. There was ease here, but it was a feline ease, as of a great cat half -slumbering, yet awake to the rippling surface of his skin and the slight twitch- ing of his lidded eyes. I suppose that all battleships are like this. Another thing that seized me by its contrast THE JURIEN DE LA GRAVI&RE 325 was the fact that, though alone at sea, we were yet in intimate contact with the world. Upon the table at breakfast I found a typed com- muniqud relating the German version of the day's war. And from time to time I learnt something of the invisible messages that warn and guide a ship-of-war. " There is a submarine lying up for us near the north of Corsica," said the Commander with a cheerful indifference ; and then again, " We have one following close in our wake, but I take no account of him. Let him come on." The next day it was the 26th of November we ran into violent seas ; the great f or'rard gun was hidden under a tumult of breaking waves and a part of the bridge was carried away. It was the fickle sea once more the Mediterranean, true to her character " Placidi pallacia ponti" A light cruiser, swift and long and narrow as a racing skiff, is no bed of roses in rough weather. On the 27th the sea was calmer, but the Com- mander's face was grave beyond his wont. " One of our passenger ships has been sunk," he said. " We cannot be of any use." But had we known it then, there was worse afoot for France; for the Sujfren, that had so gallantly carried the flag of Admiral Guepratte at Gallipoli, went down that day with all her crew, unseen by any French eye. On that day, too, the City of Birmingham was torpedoed, and yet another of our ships. On the 28th, as we approached Malta, as I stood by the stern-gun looking out upon the still troubled sea, the body of a dead man went speeding by. His arms were extended 326 THE SCENE OF WAR upon either side, his face was hidden in the waters, part of his body was white and bare; but he wore the khaki of a British soldier. Owing to our own great speed, he swept past us as if impelled by some restless purpose of his own. But indeed he was dead, and unconscious of the world a derelict upon the seas. We knew not his name or his fortunes; only his calling was clear, as of one who had died for his country. " Many dead men," said the Com- mander, quietly baring his head, " are afloat upon the sea." 327 MALTA. IN the sun- mist of the afternoon Malta slowly emerged into being: long and low and tawny, a small fraction of earth to have played so notable a part in the world's history. But the island lies here an outpost of Europe, facing the shores of Africa and Asia, a place of vantage since men first sailed the inland sea. It is, they tell you, the most densely populated country in the world; but this is hard to believe as you approach its nude skyline from the sea. A battleship does not enter the port of another Power like some smack or ordinary liner. It is a ceremonial affair, this advent, full of veiled courtesies and deferences an intricate ritual. All hands, in clean jumpers, were mustered on the decks; flags fluttered at the mastheads; the trumpeter stood, with his shining tube, beside the conning tower; the officers moved restlessly upon the bridge ; the Commander looked straight before him into the dazzling glare of the sun. The pilot's tug drew up with a sudden grace, and the man himself climbed heavily up the companion - way. The Jurien de la Graviere moved at a solemn pace into the narrow mouth 328 THE SCENE OF WAR of the Grand Harbour the bastions of St Elmo, the tall houses of Valetta upon our right; the fortress of Ricasoli, like the paw of a lion couchant, upon our left. The sound of the escaping steam by the funnel was like the sound of an anthem as we moved. Ahead of us, in the blue waters of the harbour, lay a great com- pany of ships : transports crowded with British soldiers, their hands and faces rosy in the de- clining sun, good -humour upon their counte- nances ; a Hospital Ship, white and feminine, daintily moving slowly out to sea; a Ship of Battle, grey and superb in her lineaments, stamped with the pride of her people the British ensign at her prow ; and behind the low outline of the island the November sun was setting in a blaze of crimson and gold. The earth moved up wondrous and unceasing miracle; and as the fiery circle dipped beneath the horizon, a bugle rang out from the battle- ments, a puff of white smoke was blown from the walls of the Barracca into the clean lustre of the sky, and a sudden roar filled the harbour spaces, echoing and re-echoing from end to end of their haughty borders. The flags in the ships fluttered quietly down. Another day had closed in the history of our Race. The Jurien de la Graviere was by now at anchor. A British naval officer was come on board to welcome her, and I took my leave the Commander insisting that I should be taken ashore in his gig, manned by a dozen seamen. MALTA 329 By the time I was landed, night had come,, and Malta, which afar off looks so bare a habita- tion, was become like a city out of the Arabian Nights. The mystery of the East was abroad in its narrow and thronging streets. ... It can never be anything else but impressive, this African island, under a jewelled sky ; but the War has added to its attraction. The lights of the city burnt low and violet, the stars over- head in the narrow lanes of sky were of a bright- ness unparalleled in Europe ; the women in their black silken hoods were veiled from the eyes of the curious, and a great tide of life flowed through the Strada Reale to Fort St Elmo ; past the narrow shops, the stately buildings of the Knights of the Order, the plashing of the fountains in the dark. Over these Oriental wonders, this magic of a city of the South, there lay as insistently here as afar off up there in the North, the dread pervasive shadow of the War. There were thousands of soldiers in the streets from every part of our Empire; there were sailors and marines from France and Italy ; there was a sombre feeling abroad as of a be- leaguered fortress. It may have been somewhat like this in the grand days when La Vallette and his knights from all Christendom gave battle to the Turk. But Malta is not beleaguered ; that is only the illusion it gives one. It is the visible symbol of our majesty at sea, It is a resting- place for our transports as they come and go, to India, to Africa, to Salonica, to France; to the very ends of the world. 330 THE SCENE OF WAR When I had come away from the crowded thoroughfares, and stood alone by the walls, looking out across the vast spaces of the heaving sea, it seemed to me that I could hear in the stillness and the silence the note of that won- drous music that has gathered together for the victory of our peoples, the triumph of the standards and the ideals we cherish, all that we have to offer and give. From Malta I continued my voyage, but as an ordinary traveller. There was a P. and O. boat in the harbour, and I was able to secure the only berth that was left. Nothing is more wonderful than the way these ships go up and down in defiance of the Boche the Commander on the bridge, the passengers on deck, the children at play. If you look for an exhibition of British phlegm you will find it here. "The Mediterranean," I had been told at Malta, was " stiff with submarines " ; but these people were as tranquil to outward seeming there must have been many anxious hearts as if the peace of the world had never been broken. Upon the notice-board of the saloon I found an intimation that the second heat of the bull competition would take place the following morning, and the results of yesterday's sweep on the run were inscribed by the Honorary Secretary of the Sports Committee in a clear round hand. The Judge looked over his spec- tacles at me from the perusal of a novel, a lady was talking of her life in the Soudan, the deck steward was going about with straws and lem- MALTA 331 onade, a baby was giggling on its back. There was only this of difference that beside each one of these travellers there lay a life-belt ready for instant use. A destroyer gave us its escort part of the way, gallantly plunging through the half -troubled sea, and hour after hour, by night or day, it rode beside us, sustaining the faint of heart. But one morning the sea was very still, its surface a shimmer of ultramarine, and the snows of Ida glowed in the dazzling sun. The destroyer had vanished, and we were alone upon the waters. It was hard to believe that any danger could touch us, so warm was the sunlight, so quiet and tranquil the scene. Yet so it is that trouble comes. People who have been through such ex- periences will tell you how, upon just such a morning as this, as they sat at peace, a violent explosion was heard, there was a cry from some one who was wounded some woman or child the ship gave a heavy list, the boats were manned, and they found themselves struggling for life in the water. We escaped these experiences; but I shall be revealing no secrets to the enemy if I say that we met two of their submarines on this voyage. Neither attacked us, for the submarine is no gal- lant fighter. A passenger ship that is unarmed or unprepared is mercilessly dealt with; but a destroyer in the offing, or a good gun point- ing defiantly from the ship, is another matter. That is why we are armed, and it is the only way. 332 THE SCENE OF WAR The pretence that we are attacked because we carry a gun is the kind of pretence that prevails with none but the dishonest, and it only hardens our hearts. It is equally hypocritical to urge that in some of the ships that have been sunk there were arms, munitions, or combatants. Would the enemy at any time during this War have spared a ship of ours that carried none of these things ? At a later stage in this voyage we picked up some survivors from the City of Birmingham. Their ship was, as usual, sunk without warning. There were many women and children on board. Why do they travel in time of war ? If you ask them, you will find that there is nearly always a valid reason. This lady is going out because her husband has been ill and should have been in- valided; but he will not leave his job while the War lasts. She must go to him there and help him to see it through. This one is the wife of a man in a high place, with special claims upon him, and she must be there to help him to dis- charge them. This girl she has been working as a V.A.D. in France during the past year is going because the man she was to have married has been invalided back from Mesopotamia ; this lady with the little girl of five who sits mourn- fully proclaiming that all her dolls have been drowned well, it seems her husband has been fighting out in East Africa since the War began. It is three years since they have met. He thinks he may get over to India for six weeks this winter. The Chaplain's wife has asked her to MALTA 333 make a temporary home with them ; it was hard to miss the only chance she might ever have of seeing him again. " We were twice submerged," she says, " my little girl and I, and we were all but killed by the funnel of the ship as it broke and nearly fell upon our boat; but our worst moment was when the submarine came up to the ship as she was sinking, for we thought she meant to fire on us. You see, we were so entirely at their mercy." That is the kind of reputation the German Navy has made for itself in the hearts of the innocent. One day upon our voyage the ship slowed down in her course. The Commander stood in the for'rard hatchway, beside him the surgeon, grave of mien, the stewards and quartermasters in a little company. Before them, upon the ship's edge, there lay the wide English flag, and under it the body of a child. From the Book of Common Prayer before him the Commander read those last words, of stately and measured beauty, which consign the dead to the keeping of the sea. The propeller ceased to revolve. A solemn quietness lay upon the ship. Even the sea grew still. The sun, a glorious orb, lay upon the edge of the horizon; a great host of gilded clouds moved in procession about him. A quartermaster advanced towards the flag, the small object beneath it flashed and fell into the golden avenue of waters that reached away in the ship's track to the setting 334 THE SCENE OF WAR sun. One more citizen of the Empire had " gone West." Only an infant this time, saved for a few hours more of life from a torpedoed ship ; but a warning to such as would make peace with the unthrashed Hun. BOOK EGYPT 337 THE CANAL. EVER since the War began Egypt has played a vital if not a capital part in its progress; for Egypt is the Suez Canal, and the Suez Canal is a highway of the World. If you came upon it suddenly in the course of a journey across the Desert, you would see it lying there with the silvery sand-hills upon either side of it, a mystery asleep. Even if you had never heard of it before in your life, you could not mistake it for any ordinary water; it lies there so solitary, and silent, and unreal. You would ask yourself who made it, and why ? and as you looked up its course from North to South where it emerges from one sand-waste to pass on into the wide spaces of another, you could not but wonder whence it had come and whither it was going. What gives it its power is just this definition of purpose, as of something directed to a single end ; and there is a something appropriate, therefore, in its having sprung from a Frenchman's brain. It is more, too, than a Canal, for it is a part of that mighty element upon which our sea-power moves and has its being. If one could know the number of men, and guns, and implements of war Y 338 THE SCENE OF WAR (not to speak of the traffic of the world) that have travelled upon this narrow road since the conflict began, the record might be full of interest. We shall doubtless know some day. Yet it is more than a highway, for it is the moat also of a great citadel. Egypt lies upon one side of it, the desert sands of Sinai upon the other. It is the only water-way in that land of weariness and thirst. To hold the Canal, then, has been to hold Egypt from invasion, and to protect from harm an artery of the Empire. These circumstances have made it of singular interest to many thousands of our people, for to many this journey along the Canal has offered their only glimpse of War. From end to end of it they have seen nothing but soldiers and guns, and white encampments; cavalry on the march, camels moving along the skyline, military trains and convoys, the Flag of Empire. There upon that hillock of sand is the barbed wire of which they have heard so much ; there sure enough are the sand-bagged trenches; and there standing guard upon the parapet of a Fort, his bayonet gleaming in the fierce sunlight, his body erect if unimpressive, is the British soldier. To many, therefore, this transit from one continent to an- other, across a third, has been charged with the subtle joy of romance, almost of adventure. They have been taken by the hand and led for once in their lives along the Parapet of War. The tide of events is ever moving on, and what was true yesterday has ceased to be true to-day, and may take a different form to-morrow. I shall give away no military secret, therefore, if I THE CANAL 339 relate some of the incidents of a voyage on the Canal in the spring of this last year. It began at the Red Sea end, and as we approached Suez, a white fog that was half composed of the desert sand enveloped us and hid the world from sight. We might have been anywhere on earth, except for the sand and the locusts that were blown upon the ship's deck. For twenty-four hours we lay enveloped in this veil. But when it lifted, there was the magical perspective of Egypt, the iron hand of War. Across the yellow sands of the desert a regiment of Indian cavalry was moving at a rapid pace along the Asiatic shore. .Upon the other side the hills of Africa, enamelled with amazing colours, plunged their pedestals in the turquoise sea ; and in the lustrous water between a battleship lay at anchor, brooding over the gateways of the Canal. We embarked upon the Canal, the desert clos- ing in upon us on either hand. An Anzac horse- man in khaki, with a bandolier of cartridges upon his breast and a plume in his hat, came down to the blue edge and cantered along beside the ship. As we neared each encampment, the men swarmed out of their tents and came plunging and running over the sand-hills to^see the shipjgo by. An officer on board smiled indulgently as he saw them come. " I was encamped there myself," he said, " before I went to Mesopot, and every time a ship came by I felt the temptation of going down to look at it. Well, you see, it was going Home, and one liked looking at the women and children. I do not suppose you have any idea of what a ship looks 340 THE SCENE OF WAR like to a man who has been camping out there in the desert?" In the Canal itself hundreds of them plunged about and swam in the waters, their bodies burnt to a biscuit brown, their hands and faces almost black from exposure to the sun. Blue eyes look odd out of a tropical skin. If the passing of the ship was a source of enjoyment to the men on shore, it was no less diverting to the passengers on board. " Where are you from ? " " Syd ney ; Austri li a." " And you where are you from ? " A feminine voice " From In dia. Bom bay." " Good Luck to you Go od Lu ck." And then a laugh, with half a cry in it. " See, Dick ; look at that man. He is an Australian; come a long long way to fight for the flag." " Yes, Mummy ; don't you think I could go and swim with him in the water ? " Such are the innocent dialogues that pass from ship to shore, covering Heaven knows what emotions of pride and sacrifice. Simultaneously with these, there is a rush for the barman's stock of cigarettes, and the tins go flying through the air to the man in the water some falling short in mid-canal, others touching the banks ; the former to the powerful swimmers, the latter to the khaki crowd which is gathering in increasing numbers, the men simply rolling down the sand-hills in their desire to arrive. To the tobacco there is added a tempest of books and THE CANAL 341 newspapers, and the blue stream is littered with novels afloat, and rafts of picture papers. Each one of these gets home with more or less of adventure. Upon the banks, where the barbed wire comes down to the water, or a sandbag fortress makes a line against the sky, a sentry stands looking covetously upon the tins of good tobacco floating at his feet. The British soldier stands firm, resisting the temptation ; the Anzac, throwing discipline to the winds, makes a fierce dash at his prey, and seizing it returns to his place, hoping that he has not been seen by some blamed officer. There is a story they tell you here of a Commander-in-Chief who desired that there should be a little more saluting when General Officers rode by. The next time he passed this way, a hundred naked men at play in the water rose up from it, stood to attention, and gravely saluted His Excellency. It is Aus- tralia indeed, with its inextinguishable spirit of youth, that greets one here. These men in the water are of the superb Anzac build, and you ask yourself, in the case of some of them, what kind of women they are that bear such sons. Upon the foreshore there are ingenuous devices in white bits of stone, showing Australia upon the one hand, the British Islands upon the other; midway a heart, with the legend, " We are all parts of one mighty Empire" It is the best of all the bonds that time can bring. There is a singular contrast between these men 342 THE SCENE OF WAR on shore and the travellers on board. From the Commander's deck, an ex-Viceroy, for whom this place of privilege has been reserved, looks down upon the scene with a lustrum of history behind him. He has held what is perhaps the greatest office in the Empire, he has ruled with a personal touch over 315 millions of people, he has been to them in a sense the physical em- bodiment of the Crown which many of them worship; and of all these people he has been in his innermost heart one of the most lonely; for the office claims its sacrifice. If you could look into the mind of that Anzac soldier on guard on the sand-hills, and then into the mind of this great Officer of State, trained through generations to fill a high place in the world, you would find an astonishing difference of outlook, yet always with the one great thing in common : you may call it what you will. Upon the common deck amongst the other travellers, his little girl, who has not been in England for five and a half years, flies with ex- treme swiftness from starboard to larboard, laden with gifts, and uncertain which side of the ship offers the greater strategical advantage to the bestower. In a quiet corner a nun, soft-footed and silent, paces gently up and down, hushing to sleep another woman's babe. Every gesture and action of her is eloquent of a soul that is at peace. She is the earliest of all the passengers on board in her black robes, reading her breviary or look- ing quietly out to sea. Tranquillity abides with HER. THE CANAL 343 There is another figure scarcely less notable, the old Rajput chieftain Sir Pertab Singh, 1 also to be seen in the early morning light seated on a rail in an old shooting coat and a pair of Jodhpur riding-breeches he never wears anything else benevolently gazing upon the files of men at exercise. There is a profound contentment upon his face also, the look of The Happy Warrior. One charge, one bullet sums up his philosophy, and it is not a bad one to live up to in these times. These two stand apart from the rest of the company, in a sort of mysterious kinship. The gentle woman and the brave old knight have, I suppose, this in common, that they have accepted their vocation once for all. Upon each of them there lies the benediction of complete fearlessness, and the grace that comes of doing that which the heart most longs after. Sir Pertab Singh is the more talkative, and those who know him can guess the kind of racy and vigorous speech that flows from his lips. His command of English is limited, but he seldom fails for want of an expressive word. "When Lord Roberts die in St Omer, Sir Douglas Haig ask who ij his oldest friend ? "Then every one say Sir Pertab. "That very true. When Lord Roberts young subaltern, I boy of fifteen, and ride at head of my troop. Many English ladies and children I looked after in those days Mutiny days. " Any good news of War, Sahib, this summer ? 1 Lieuteuant-General His Highness the Maharajah Sir Pertab Singh of Idar, late Regent of Jodhpur. 344 THE SCENE OF WAR Ha ? You think will be hard fighting ? Some- thing for Cavalry to do ? Yes ? (Folding his hands) " Oh, I very happy ; I burning charge. Die in bed not good thing for sojer. Die in battle, old Rajput custom ; much the best. " So happy to be going back to Front. Never would have come away had Viceroy not ordered me to return for my nephew's coronation. But very ashamed. My name Singh, you know, means Lion. Rear not proper place for Lion; proper place for Fox. So when I came back Viceroy's order I wrote to my friends, only Pertab; no more Singh. Very much ashamed. But now returning to Front, can say Singh once more. " What I think of War ? "Always will be War; two lions cannot live in one cage. Germans ? brave men ; but not gentlemen. No ! (" Lady, you take my chair. Yes, yes. See, I very comfortable on floor. Ah ! thank you.") " Ha ! ha ! my father very strict with me when boy; no bed allowed; had to sleep in box; good hard box; only room for me and my sword. " English army too comfortable, I think. Too many plates, forks, spoons, knives. One quite enough for sojer. French ? Oh, French very good sojer, very brave ; and French women very wonderful say to man you go and fight; we look after everything. Don't worry. Wonderful people. Like Rajputs. " General's staff ? No ! no ! not for me. I THE CANAL 345 live with my Regiment, Jodhpur Lancers ; proper place for me." I was reminded of these brave words when upon the Somme. I asked for His Highness. He was nowhere to be found. "Wonderful chap old Sir Pertab," said the General, replacing the telephone receiver. " They don't know where he is at G.H.Q. ; F thinks he is camping out somewhere with his regiment." And somewhere there he was amidst the dark squadrons of the Cavalry Brigade, fretting behind the battle for the hour of impact, that last great charge of the Rajput Prince and gentleman. Froissart would have loved him, for he belongs to those gallant and courtly days when the world was younger, when France and England met upon the fields of Crecy and Poitiers. He is accompanied at the Front by his son, a handsome dark-eyed lad of fifteen, who acts as a sort of body - squire, writing his letters for him, cleaning his accoutrements, keeping his accounts, and faithfully carrying out his father's somewhat imperious behests. " Your son is rather young, Sir Pertab, for the War." " Prince of Wales also is young," is the con- clusive rejoinder. As the ship moves on, it is indeed of those bygone days that one is reminded, rather than of modern war. The desert sands are patterned by the white tents of the English host, and as 346 THE SCENE OF WAR the sun goes down, and the short twilight fades across the level spaces, the gleam of a hundred fires, the shadowy figures of men moving to and fro, the lustrous stars in the clear firmament, recall the days when King Richard rode his great War - horse to the gates of Ascalon, and the Oriflamme blazed over the heads of the Crusaders. 347 THE WAR IN EGYPT. IT was at a later stage that I was enabled to visit our Expeditionary Army, and to gain some impression of its activities, through the personal kindness of General Sir Archibald Murray. Few people realise the character and the extent of our efforts in this field of the War, though the de- spatches that have been published from time to time state the salient and principal facts. At the outset the object in view was purely defensive. It was known that the Turks, inspired by their German owners, would attack the Canal and attempt an invasion of Egypt. It was their hope that this would stir up the religious feel- ings of the Moslem communities, plunge Egypt itself .into rebellion, and cut this great artery of the Empire. But to do so it would be neces- sary for them to march across the Sinai desert, across a country which is one of the most barren and thirsty in the world, and remote from any real base of supply. Their attack was therefore awaited on the banks of the Canal itself. By dint of quite extraordinary efforts, which could not have sufficed for any purely European army, these long-suffering troops, driven by a 348 THE SCENE OF WAR stronger will than their own, reached the edge of the Canal, only to sustain there a fatal repulse. They had carried across the desert a number of iron pontoons, and one or two of these even reached the Egyptian shore. One can see them there now, riddled with bullets, in the gardens of the Canal officials, derelicts of this attack that was doomed to failure. The principal fight took place near Serapeum, upon the edge of Lake Timsah, when the Hardinge, an armed vessel of the Indian Marine, drew the greater part of the Turkish artillery fire. It is, upon such a day as I saw it, a singularly quiet and pleasant spot. The blue waters of the Lake spread about one, with scarcely a ripple on their surface; colonies of white gulls and sea- birds fly about and make this their home; the sand-hills, where they come to meet the Lake, are as smooth and flawless as the snow of high altitudes, with swelling domes and clean blade- edges of singular beauty of line. Upon the banks of the Canal itself there still linger traces of the positions held by our troops ; on the Asiatic shore the sand-bagged bastions and trenches, and the emplacements for our guns; and on the West bank, under a grove of Casuarina trees that sigh and sway with a peaceful melancholy, where an Egyptian Battery bore itself with honour. The Canal itself, although in many ways it offered an ideal line of defence, with its fresh- water canal and the resources of Egypt behind it, had two substantial defects. It presented a front of a hundred miles, and every yard of THE WAR IN EGYPT 349 that front was of vital importance to its exist- ence as a highway. The Turkish plan was to threaten it at several points at Kantara, Ferdan, Ismailia, Shalouf, and Suez but to make one big effort at Toussoum- Serapeum, where the Desert intervenes between Lake Timsah and the Great Bitter Lake. Upon our side it was necessary, while protecting the whole of this long line of battle, to be able to concentrate at the principal point of attack. For this purpose outposts were established at regular intervals on the Asiatic shore; armed launches of the Royal Navy sped to and fro between these posts ; a railway line ran parallel to the Canal upon the Egyptian bank, with troops and waggons in reserve ; and at intervals, where the Canal widens into the Salt Lakes, there were torpedo-boats, and ships of war with their heavy artillery the Swiftsure and the Ocean from England, the Requin and the D'Entre- Casteaux from France. It was from France also that there came the seaplanes that recon- noitred the desert, and with the help of our own airmen brought news to the General of the advancing enemy. Of them he wrote : " I cannot speak too highly of the seaplane detachment in reconnoitring the Syrian and Anatolian coast. Lengthy land-flights are extremely dangerous, yet nothing ever stopped these gallant French aviators from any enterprise." The Comte de Serionne, a kinsman of De Les- seps, at the head of the Canal officials, placed all the resources of the company at his disposal. To those who know the long history of French and 350 THE SCENE OF WAR British rivalry in Egypt, the story of the Canal itself, there must seem something peculiarly happy in this earnest co-operation to a com- mon end. On the 18th of January the French seaplanes brought news of an army of 10,000 men assem- bled at Beersheba, that ancient settlement that still marks the limit of Palestine. A week later the first conflict took place in the desert near Kantara, the enemy having seized the caravan road that skirts the Mediterranean to El Arish. On the 1st and 2nd of February 1915, bodies of the enemy were to be seen at various points on the Canal ; and in the darkness of the following morning they made their effort at Toussoum, firing their rifles and machine-guns as they ad- vanced, and making the best of the batteries of field artillery they had dragged across the yielding sands. All who crossed the strip of blue water were killed or taken ; and those who fought upon the eastern shore were driven from the trenches and positions they had hastily pre- pared. It was a futile attempt, and had it been possible to follow them up at once with a strong mobile force, few could ever have returned to their native land. As it was, their dead lay upon the edge of the waters, and far and wide over the desert sands, as they fled like the chil- dren of Israel across the wilderness. A small cross inside a wired enclosure upon the sand- hills where the ships go up and down, marks the grave of a German officer, a Major von den Hagen, who fell in this battle. In the sum-total of this wide war, it was only THE WAR IN EGYPT 351 a small fight perhaps, but it saved Egypt, and it kept open the road. Those who took part in it were assembled here from the four corners of the earth. There were Yeomanry and Territorials from English coun- ties ; New Zealanders from Auckland, Otago, and Canterbury ; Camelmen from Bikanir, where the sand -wastes spread mournfully as they do here; Cavalry from the uplands of Mysore and Hyder- abad ; contingents from the States of Alwar and Gwalior ; regiments from the Panjab plains, from the snow-covered valleys of Nepal, from Singa- pore, and from Hong-kong upon the edge of the Pacific. There is a deep significance for those whose ears are atuned to such music in those distant names. Amongst the Princes and noblemen who were present in this area of the War, were the Mahara- jahs of Bikanir and Idar, the Nawab Sir Afsar- ul - Mulk, Colonel Desraj Urs, and Mahomed Akbar, the Khan of .Hoti. An Egyptian Battery distinguished itself in the action at Toussoum one of its men who was killed, the Mulazim Awal Effendi Helmi, showing, in the words of the General, conspicuous gallantry, and fighting his gun under a heavy fire at short range. An Indian sepoy brought up ammunition under heavy fire nine times, and each time carried a killed or wounded man back 800 yards to the Dressing Station. Another, Havildar Muhammad Azim of the 92nd Panjabis, was wounded in the side, but remained in action encouraging his men, was present when the enemy surrendered, and 352 THE SCENE OF WAR marched back to camp with the guard on prisoners, refusing any attention to his wound till he got in. The Turkish effort was doomed to failure, in any military sense it was nothing more for those engaged in it than a forlorn hope ; but in the wider strategy of the war it served its pur- pose, and confirmed, if such confirmation were needed, the value of Initiative in War. That this narrow and vulnerable water should have survived the War is itself a remarkable tribute to the excellence of our arrangements. On the Canal, at least, we may say that "Business has been as usual." The Turkish attack having failed, the defeated troops withdrew into the centre of the Peninsula. The fierce heat of midsummer descended upon the shores of the Canal, and for a time all ex- pectation of a further advance in force passed away. The centre of gravity shifted to Gallipoli, where the Turks were gathered for the defence of Stamboul, and many thousands of our troops from Egypt were engaged upon that brave ad- venture. Such military activity as there was in Egypt was upon the Western border, where the Senussi, "becoming more and more truculent," eventually met us in open conflict, and sustained a decisive defeat, in the course of which the British Yeomanry and a fleet of Armoured Cars under the Duke of Westminster played a striking and effective part. The Frontier post of Sollum, which had at the onset been abandoned to the enemy, was reoccupied, and in little more than three weeks we had cleared the country of the THE WAR IN EGYPT 353 enemy for a hundred and fifty miles, had captured the Commander, had taken all his artillery and machine-guns, and had driven his scattered forces far beyond the Egyptian Frontier. This was at the middle of March 1916. In the Soudan also, Ali Dinar, the Suzerain Sultan of Darfur, at the instigation of the enemy, proclaimed a Jehad and sought to overthrow our power. The flower of his army was destroyed in battle, the tribesmen rushing to the attack with the utmost despera- tion, only to die within ten yards of our line. At the same time, the maintenance of a line of communications 300 miles long, over a water- less and roadless country, and the carriage of heavy material of war, cost us a considerable effort. Meanwhile greater events were afoot in other areas of the War. Servia was overrun by the Central Powers. In December 1915 the allied French and British forces, under General Sarrail and Sir Bryan Mahon, fell back after hard fight- ing on Salonica. By January the last of our troops in the Dardanelles had abandoned the Gallipoli Peninsula, and transports, laden with our men and blocked with munitions of war, were streaming across the Mediterranean to our base in Egypt. To an observer able to survey the scene, and conscious of all it meant, this passing of our armies must have been of the deepest interest. The pen of a Thucydides were needed to describe this Peripeteia, this latest of the great migrations across the historic sea. The streets of Alexandria and Cairo were thronged with our soldiers ; and the banks of the Canal, z 354 THE SCENE OF WAR even to the eye of a passing traveller, were thick with infantry and cavalry and guns. Circumstances, indeed, brought me at this period to Egypt, and I remember feeling that never in my life had I seen so many of our people assem- bled for war. On the other hand, our withdrawal from Gallipoli had released large forces of the Turkish Army, and a quarter of a million men were now at the disposal of our enemies for the invasion of Egypt. It was at this dramatic hour that the present Commander-in- Chief arrived in Egypt. To wait to be attacked on the banks of the Canal was not judged compatible with the true principles of strategy, as indeed it was scarcely consistent with the dignity of the Empire. The plan adopted was, while strengthening the defences of the Canal, to advance across the Sinai Pen- insula and drive the enemy from the invaded soil. The Russian victories at Erzeroum in the middle of February 1916 facilitated this policy. The Turkish armies in Syria dwindled to 60,000 men ; large bodies of our own troops were re- leased for service in France, and with the ap- proach of the hot season it became plain that the grandiose plans of the German Staff for the invasion of Egypt had ceased to have any reality. It remained for us to press forward and resume our hold over the Peninsula. The Canal itself ceased to play so important a part in this wide -world war, and the stir and move- ment of men passed on from its blue edges to the wide spaces and the ruffled hills of the Desert. THE WAR IN EGYPT 355 If you look at a map of this country, which from time immemorial has been a buffer be- tween the fertile valley of Egypt and the war- like peoples of Arabia and of Palestine, you will observe that there are in the main three routes across its inhospitable surface. The most south- erly of these runs from Akaba at the head of the Gulf of Akaba through Nakhl, where the Governor of Sinai resides, to Suez. This is the road that the pilgrims of Islam follow on their way to the tomb of the Prophet at Mecca. It leaves to the south of it the mountainous tracts of the Peninsula, as they narrow down towards the sea. The middle route, taking off from El Audja on the Turkish frontier, with Beersheba as a base of supply, traverses the Peninsula through the Megara hills and the Djebel Yelleg, to find its bourne at Ismailia, midway upon the ribbon of the Canal. This was the road followed by the Turkish army in its attack upon Serapeum and Toussoum. There remains the north road, which skirts the fringes of the Mediterranean Sea, through a country of sand-dunes and occasional oases from Rafa, hard by the land of the Philistines, and El Arish, to Kantara on the Canal. This is the only route along which water is found in any considerable quantity ; and this circumstance and its proximity to the sea have marked it out now, as they did when Napoleon carried his divisions across it to the siege of Acre, as the only suitable road for the advance of a European army. 356 THE SCENE OF WAR The history of our campaign in Egypt through- out the year 1916 has been the history of our advance along this thoroughfare, with some minor defensive measures along the banks of the Canal. Between January and June miles of road, miles of pipe - line, and miles of rail- way were constructed to these ends. At Katia the Turks, anticipating our advance, made a sudden raid upon our vanguard with momentary success; and there was sharp fighting between them and our Yeomanry, the Australian Light Horse, and our Flying Corps. But our troops remained on the field, and the advance slowly moved on upon its inexorable course. The world has learnt by now that when once we put our hand to the plough we do not easily turn back. In July and August the enemy once more en- deavoured to resist our progress. Austrians and Germans and Turks, with mountain - guns and howitzers and machine-gun units, came on with considerable valour to what has become known as the Battle of Romani. There followed some close fighting, in the course of which our cavalry and mounted troops especially distinguished them- selves ; and Scotsmen and Welshmen, Australians and New Zealanders, drove the enemy, 18,000 strong, from point to point along the northern road from Katia to Bir-el-Abd, and beyond it, in their retreat to El Mazar and El Arish. Four thousand of his prisoners remained in our hands, with batteries of Krupp guns and large quantities of his ammunition. Since then our advance has continued ; slow it THE WAR IN EGYPT 357 may be, but sure. The Desert Railway has ad- vanced from hour to hour; El Arish has been taken, the Anzac Light Horse once more distin- guishing themselves; and at Maghdabah, a little to the south of El Arish, our mobile columns have annihilated a detachment of the Turkish troops, capturing 1350 prisoners. The limits of Egypt have been reached, and the future lies upon the knees of the gods. Yet it is worthy of notice that Jerusalem lies no long distance beyond, the very heart of Palestine, and there is a magic in such names as Gaza and Ascalon, Jaffa and Acre ; while a little farther to the south there runs the Hedgaz Railway, which connects the Turkish province of Syria with the tomb of the Prophet and the territories of His Holiness the Sharif of Mecca. So much it has been necessary to say, in view of the ignorance that prevails of the Egyptian campaign. But it is with things seen that these pages are concerned, and I will therefore con- clude with my personal impressions of the War as I saw it in Egypt in the early days of December 1916. 358 ISMAILIA. FROM Port Said, where a great French battle- ship filled the vista with her mighty frame and panoply of guns, and De Lesseps, that great Frenchman whose genius gave us the Canal, looks out across the sea, I went to Kantara, where the station was thronged with our soldiery under arms, and thence to Ismailia, the central base of the Canal defences. Time has softened the harshness of this settlement won from the desert sands, and the fresh -water canal has filled it as it would fill all this wide waste were enough of it available with trees and gardens, and lawns and flower-beds, and the pleasantness of life. It was not so twenty years ago. Then, as I waited here in the old Shepheard's Hotel, I thanked Heaven that my lot was not cast in this rectangular townlet mapped upon the sand. It is another place now. In the General's house, where his courtesy had made me a passing guest, I was in a garden enclosed. There were roses upon the walls, a lawn that was like velvet, and a Bougainvillea that spread like an emperor's robe over half the building. Outside the gate a British sentry ISMAILIA 359 marched up and down in the shadow of the trees, stopping at the end of his beat, each time that he turned, to go through some ceremonial or ritual of his own. Across the way the Count de Se*rionne's house rose in its cluster of trees and flowers from a similar garden, whose latest ornament was one of those riddled pon- toons from Boche - land that the Turk had brought with him across the desert sands. And on the road itself there was all the charm of Egypt. The fellah went by on his little donkey, his feet almost touching the ground, a smile of contentment on his one-eyed face. I asked him why he had only one eye. "When I was young," he said, "my mother took no care of me, and the flies came and sat upon my eyelids, and I got blind. It is so in Egypt." "But why," I inquired, "did you not lose the other eye ? " " Oh," he said, " you see, when one has lost one eye, one is most careful of the other." I was struck with his remark, for in the East one is in the vein for parables. Gallipoli, Kut, Servia, and now Roumania, these, I said, not to speak of Belgium and Poland and an eighth of France, are the one eye that we have lost. Under the trees of the tasselled Avenues a soft riding-track was laid for the use of horsemen of a morning; beside it there gleamed the pleasant waters of the Fresh- water Canal; the blue sky was patterned with the tracery of sailing boats, their masts and cordage. In the rich fields, and upon the edge of the shining waters, the fellah 360 THE SCENE OF WAR in his blue gelabieh was at work ; the women went by in their black garments, their faces veiled but for their vivid antimonied eyes, their brazen pots shining like gold upon their heads. It was a picture of Egypt, and as one looked upon it, it might have been here for a thousand years. But upon the bridge that opened at times to let the dahabeahs pass, there stood a British sergeant in command; and across its swinging track there passed grey horses that had come from English fields, and military waggons upon which the khaki drivers sat erect and firm, call- ing to them in their clean peremptory words : " Now then ; now then ; steady there ; " and out of the desert beyond the trees there came a line of swaying camels, nose to tail, the long-robed camel-men shuffling beside them, their long sticks in their hands; and the avenue of overarching trees was filled with this pageant of the timeless East up to the very edge of the waters of Lake Timsah, where an Admiral's flagship shimmered in the increasing glare of the sun. From the General's house I went on to that Palace that was built in the summer of 1869 by Ismail, that Superb Splendour, for the reception of his princely friends at the opening of the Canal. The record of those days is pure Arabian Nights. Outside there were giant forces at work that were to wreck the happiness of France, and exalt the Hun to that giddy pinnacle that has been too much for his untempered brain; that were to plunge Egypt itself and the gorgeous Ismail into years of adversity and bondage ; but within, like Belshazzar, there sat the Giver of the ISMAILIA 361 Feast, with the lovely Empress of the French upon one side of him, the Emperor of Austria upon the other, and the Crown Prince of Prussia, a lesser light in that shining company. Sedan and the German Empire were not yet, though very near at hand. Over a million pounds, we are told, were spent upon these gilded ceremonies. It is another place to-day. As one looks out from a little window across the tawny sands, one's eye is caught by the march of a Desert column on its way. There go the dark squadrons of the British Yeomanry, the guns ploughing without a sound through the yielding sand; the stolid in- fantry; the long interminable lines of the ships of the desert. They move like the diameter of a great circle. The desert enfolds them, and they are lost in the shining void. Upon the other side, deep down below the parapet of Ismail's palace, there gleams the blue ribbon of the Canal. Its foreshore is thronged o with the traffic of War, and a movable pontoon spans its waters from sand to sand. A lone ship goes by bent upon some business of its own, its name concealed from the eyes of a curious world. Beyond, there spreads the vast and dazzling ex- panse of Lake Timsah, which it took the Canal, they say, five years to fill. Its surface, in the blinding sun, is like the surface of a gigantic heliograph upturned to the sky. On the far horizon of its waters one can trace the faint outlines of the ships growing slowly larger, and taking substance and form as they steal onwards from India, Australia, China. The suggestion of 362 THE SCENE OF WAR these things is of an infinite loneliness, touched only here and there by the passing phantoms of men. War and Peace follow each other; each War in its day the engrossing and fearful event of the hour; each interval of Peace like some static thing that men believe, or hope, may last for ever; but nothing stays. Even the desert and the sea and the everlasting hills change and change perpetually, and the universe draws on to its secret goal. Those days, when Ismail lavished his gold, and the world partook of his magnificence, seem very far away now; but in truth they were not so very long ago. The Emperor of Austria, the Crown Prince of Prussia, Ismail himself, are dead; but there is one who still lives on, who saw the German Empire arrive, and is likely to see it pass, like others, into the void. A good deal, it seems, can happen in the space of forty-seven years. From Ismailia I visited more than one of those lateral thrusts into the desert, which mark the defensive of the Canal. But one feels that their day is over. There is the road that takes one there, the encampment in the sand - hills, the barbed wire, the sand-bagged trench, the fort; and behind these a football ground, even a church. But the church is visibly in decay; the road is only moderately good; and it is no secret, per- haps, that in fort and trench there are no longer as many guns and men as there were a year ago. The tide of War is moving on. 363 THE DESERT EXPRESS. I LEFT these things, therefore, and crossing the Canal at Kantara, ran into the swarm of a great base of supply at that interesting terminus. Here was also the starting-point of the Desert Railway that is moving steadily on its way across the sands to Palestine. There were donkeys here, and mules, and horses; carts and waggons, and engines that screamed, and long trains that rumbled in, disgorging and carrying away large bodies of men. There were guns too, and piles upon piles of "munitions." An aeroplane lay with its wings spread out upon the level plain, where the camels grumbled, and the one-eyed drivers ambled about in blue. The train itself was no train-de-luxe. A third- class carriage with wooden seats was the sole accommodation reserved for superior travellers. Into this a motley throng of officers poured Highlanders and Anzacs ; Infantry-men, Cavalry- men, and Staff. Upon the mud platform a Subaltern officer of Engineers surveyed the traffic with a glass in his eye; a fatigue party of men loaded a waggon with planks; horses came up and were rapidly 364 THE SCENE OF WAR entrained. Every space was occupied, and the train suddenly set forth with a loud scream from the engine, and a series of violent and dislocating jolts that flung us all into each other's arms. The Desert Railway does not concern itself with the lesser amenities of life. Its function is to get there ; and this it does, with considerable travail and substantial success. I shall not attempt to describe those long hours, that weary road upon which so many men of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force have travelled. For me they were more than redeemed by the incidents of the wayside, the lure of action. As I looked out across the wilderness, I saw a regi- ment of Yeomanry on the march the plumes of the Anzac Horse. Once the Colonel of a regi- ment galloped across the sand and rode beside the train. " Are you all right in there ? " he said, waving his hand at the horses. " Yes, sir ; doing fine." "Well, just tell So-and-so that I shall be at Katia to-morrow; and look here " A good horse can keep level with the Desert Express, and the Colonel, as he galloped, jumping the scrub, was able to say all that he had to say. At a wayside station the Egyptian Labour Corps were busy digging, the broad backs and strong sinews that built the Pyramids, as useful as of old. It was a good-humoured company of men, who sang a verse from the Koran as they toiled in unison. As the train went on, we passed in succession each one of those places in the desert that has THE DESERT EXPRESS 365 gained a temporary fame under the magic glass of War. There was Bir-el-Duweidar. Then there was Katia (" where alone there is sufficient water-supply to maintain a large body of troops "), where the Turks fell upon and slew a number of our Yeomanry, and were pursued in their subse- quent retreat by the 5th Australian Light Horse ; and a Wing of the Royal Flying Corps made a bomb and machine-gun attack from a low alti- tude on their beaten troops. There was Rumani, across the sand-hills, where the battle of August 1916 was fought, and 9000 casualties were in- flicted on the enemy ; Bir-el- Abd, " where all the baggage - camels and ammunition - mules of the enemy detachment were destroyed in the course of a sharp action " ; and finally, Mazar, the base for the coming attack upon El Arish. The train came to a halt; it was an hour to sunset, and the scene that set in was one of indescribable animation. From the carriages the officers and men jumped out, throwing their kit out on to the yielding sand; the horse -vans emptied, the horses' ears twitching with excite- ment, their eyes bright with interest; the mail- bags were piled in a mountainous heap, upon which a fatigue party fell with the cool decisive- ness of the white man, rapidly sorting out the bags for each regiment. These had come straight from England, labelled and ticketed from there with precise instructions a precious freight. As each separate heap was collected, it was rapidly transferred to the backs of the camels, whose grumbling protests rose above the babel of sounds. Many of these were of the beautiful 366 THE SCENE OF WAR white Bisharin breed, and as they moved off one by one against the reddening sky, under a guard of cavalry or camel patrols, they made a picture of singular, almost romantic, charm. For when you come to think of it, a letter means a great deal to a man who is far from home. Let us climb up to this sand-hill, where the Base Commandant is at work from very early morning till late at night, and take a wider view of El Mazar. First, you will observe that a para- pet of sandbags is laid about each of these tents ; and at certain points there is a sandbag dug-out for use in an emergency. Yesterday the enemy's aeroplanes flew over the encampment and dropped a number of bombs, causing a certain damage and loss of life. The sound of their voices chanting steals over the desert above the louder din of the traffic. The day is closing in with a crimson splendour, and across the pageant of colour an aeroplane flies low, like a giant hawk on the wing. The desert, far-spread to the ultimate horizon in dunes and hollows that are like the waves of the sea, reflects the magic of the sky. Tints of rose sweep over it : the blues of violet and heliotrope, the ultimate greys of night. The stars begin to shine in the clear Egyptian sky, and the face of the desert twinkles with the lights and fires of the vast encampment. Down in the hollows the camels kneel in rows, feeding from the sand-troughs, their long necks stretched out, their drivers seated before them, quiescent, like images of blue por- celain. In his tent near by, the Intelligence THE DESERT EXPRESS 367 Officer is seated upon the edge of a camp-bed, immersed in a group of Turkish deserters. It is a long long story, of much winnowing for a little corn. Time and patience and perseverance, good- ness, firmness, "a smile and a stick," these are the solvents of the East. And there is another contrast. As the night closes in the British encampments become plunged in silence (save where a Scottish piper plays upon his pipes, the wild music filling the desert void with its ancient cry); but from the Egyptian swarm, from the labourers and the camel-men as they sit about the leaping fires, there rises far into the night the murmur of speech. If you could catch it all upon one vast cylinder, and unravel its thought, you might learn something of the souls of these people, who have changed so little in five thousand years. Not so very far away from here there is the sea, and desert though it is, this place has echoed to the solemn tramp and march of history. The Pharaohs knew it, and the Ptolemies. The firm hand of Rome lay upon it, and Islam swept across it with its kindling banners. Napoleon slept here, his slumber gilded by majestic dreams of Eastern Empire a second Alexander ; and his troops fell here by the wayside, dead of wounds and thirst and plague, as he walked beside them, flung back from Acre, brooding upon his star. 368 AUSTRALIAN CAVALEY. FROM El Mazar I rode out with a little group of Australian horsemen to the encampment of the Anzac Cavalry Brigade. I do not think I have ever enjoyed anything more in my life. The sand-dunes of this coast, which at first sight present an appearance of inextricable confusion, have in reality been built by wind and weather upon a simple plan. They run roughly in long valleys parallel to the sea, and our way across them lay transversely from north to south. Hence it was that at one moment we rode upon the crest of a hill with the face of the desert wide and inscrutable about us; and at another were involved in the hidden trough of a valley from which there seemed no outlet. Upon the northern slope of each dune or wave of sand the wind had built a domed surface, comparatively though not wholly easy of access ; but upon the south it fell like the inside of a wave, in a drop that was almost perpendicular to the base of the following valley. There was no track across this wilderness; a few snails alone found sustenance in the sand; there was no sign or symptom of life. No bird AUSTRALIAN CAVALRY 369 sang in the open heaven about us, no flowers bloomed at our feet. Yet life subsists even here. The silver sand was crossed and recrossed by the footprints of the Scarab, who goes here upon his business unconscious of a greater world, and millions of shells lay white and gleaming upon its surface. We were told that these were the manna of the Israelites. There were other wit- nesses too to this secret life of the desert, but a Fabre were needed to unfold the marvellous tale. As we rode, the sand showed traces of previous horsemen who had passed this way; but we seemed to be following no apparent course, and I began to wonder how the officer who rode be- side me could know his way, when upon the edge of a high dune we suddenly came upon the en- campment of the Australian Horse lying at our feet. It was a simple affair of men and horses outspanned in a valley of sand; yet it was as full of charm as anything I had seen in the most splendid theatres of the war upon the sword- edged Dolomites or the icy slopes of the Italian Alps. The gallant company in which I rode, the glamour of War, the romance of Empire, the deep underlying fascination of the desert, may have had something to do with it. I record only the sensation it brought me at the time As we bore down the hill and reached a small reed -hut which marked the Brigadier's head- quarters, a strongly-built man with a plumed hat and the crossed swords of a general officer on his shoulders came out to meet me. I knew in a moment from the thousand instant things that 2 A 370 THE SCENE OF WAR distinguish men of one world from another that this was not a British General, and yet he did not seem to be of the lithe, clean-cut, Austra- lian breed, of which a number now gathered about us. " I am General R ," he said, in command of the Australian Light Cavalry, "but" and he laughed good humouredly "I am not one of them. I am a South African. My home is in Natal." With this he gave me a hearty welcome into the reed-hut, where at a long table we sat like schoolboys at a feast, and partook of tea and cake and macaroons, the hour being eleven of the morning. " Tea," he said, " is our national drink," and I presently found that it was so, and at all times, and wherever the Anzacs were gathered together. We drank it out of mugs, and I heard some one saying in the midst of our talk that " the billy might be put on to boil again." The " Staff" here consisted of two very young- looking officers with boyish faces ; and from time to time other men dropped in in their shirt sleeves and gripped me firmly by the hand. It would have rejoiced the heart of Bret Harte to have shared their company. After a while, when it was apparent that we were all very happy together, the General suggested that we should mount and review his Brigade. The horses were brought round, the sun shone with a dazzling glare upon the silver sands, and, the General leading, we rode through 'the long avenue of horses with shining skins, the carbines AUSTRALIAN CAVALRY 371 piled in pyramids of four, their buts imbedded in the sand, the saddles and accoutrements, and the strangest, finest looking body of men one ever saw in one's life. Some were in full uniform, plumed hats, and swords beside them, and others in their shirt sleeves; and there was even one who stood in his shirt without any trousers on, and a twinkle in his eye. " Carry on, Boys ; carry on" said the General as we passed along, wheeling from squadron to squadron ; and every now and then he had a word of praise for the fine condition of the horses, the alignment of the equipment on the sand. As we passed from one regiment to the next the Colonel rode up superbly mounted, saluted, and fell into line. To one of these I spoke of the amazing physique of some of his men. " Well," he laughed, " we do manage to grow them rather large. I am one of the small ones myself, six feet five." He was every inch of that, and lean and sinewy as a lathe of steel. The badge of the Distinguished Order lay upon his breast. " But I was actually born in Bombay," he said. " My father was a Colonel there of Engineers." With the squadrons encamped, there were machine-guns, and anti-aircraft guns for visiting planes, and camels, and steel-waggons for trans- port. In a depression in the valley there was a large canvas trough that was being filled with water from a pump ; and a number of men were bathing there in the sunlight, more naked than Adam after his fall. There was a hospital tent, from which there rose into the blue sky of the 372 THE SCENE OF WAR desert, beside each other, a Red Cross upon a white field, and the Empire Flag dallying idly with the breeze. King Richard's pennon might have floated there with the same leisurely pride eight hundred years ago. It was a singular mixture of ease and of the very highest efficiency that met my eyes. The horses were in the pink of condition, the men as hard as iron, and as supple as a tempered blade. The General showed me his own tent. It was a bit of canvas spread over four sticks. His bed was like a sea-chest made of sandbags, with a single blanket to cover with, though the nights here are bitter cold in December. He washed his face in a horse-bucket, and shaved before a little mirror that lay upon an old packing-case. He told me in his modest way something about himself. " I am only a farmer," he said, " but I have been fighting, off and on, since 1879. I was in the first Zulu War. I was through the Boer War too, and served under Lord Kitchener." He bowed his head. " It was HE made me what I am. When this war broke out, he asked me not to come to France, which was the desire of my heart, but to join General Botha in breaking the Germans in West Africa. He said I could be more useful there. So I went and saw the end of that campaign. " / am only a drop in the ocean, of course." It was in his " tent," sitting on the old packing- case, that he told me this ; and an Empire that can draw such men to it from the ends of the earth seemed to me there a more wonderful thing than I had ever found it before. AUSTRALIAN CAVALRY 373 "We will go on now," he said, "and ride out to my pickets towards the Megara hills." We did so, and for my own part I was rather surprised that I ever got there, for this General of sixty rides with the fiery speed of a Rupert, and looks when he is in the saddle more like a centaur than a British officer. He carried me over those sand-hills that follow each other in long waves, mountainous upon one side, like the blade of a sword or the inside of a wave upon the other, at the rate of a whirlwind. It was an uncom- fortable journey, but I found some consolation in the sight of his superb unbending figure, and in the group of officers, some twenty in number, who rode beside him, Colonels and Aides-de-Camp, their emu plumes fluttering in the breeze, the very pattern of Chivalry. Every one of these men rode with the grace of a Cavalier the southern warmth of Australia lending to the heavier British stock, from which they have sprung, the lightness and flexibility that are their special characteristic. There is, I should think, no cavalry in the world the natural equal of these splendid horsemen. As we rode over the valleys and dunes, with the blue sky blazing overhead, my thoughts drifted away for an instant to an English hunting-field the big horses and the big-set men, here and there a pink coat, the Master and the huntsman, the pack moving as one across the grass, noses down, tails in the air, like a living carpet; the soft beautiful countryside, its trees and hedges and village spires transfigured in the island mist; and I perceived how varied is life, how by 374 THE SCENE OF WAR different ways men can come to the same goal. There was another little scene also that I beg to record. At Ismailia, in that house with the velvet lawn and the purple Bougainvillea and the disciplined sentry at the gate, I had sat at meat with half a dozen Generals, two at least of whose names are household words from the Cameroons to Mons, and the conversation turned, as it often does in such company, on the English public school. A junior officer was talking quietly, and a little proudly it might be, of Winchester. " Ah," said a General with a pleasant humour, " not a bad school that. How is it getting on now?" " Oh, very well, sir, thank you. It is only a few hundred years older than another called Eton." This sally delighted every one except the Corporal of the Guard, who waited behind the General's chair with the deferential solemnity of the well-born servant. But at the headquarters of the Light Cavalry Brigade the badinage took another form. It was about horses that they rallied each other. "Not a bad horse that of yours, Lieutenant; that tail and mane of his would look well in a picture." " Oh, thank you, sir, he's all right. Don't you feel a little sorry, sir, you didn't take him when you got the chance ? " The one loves his school, the other his horse. Now there is a great deal a man can learn from a horse. AUSTRALIAN CAVALRY 375 We drew up at last upon the crest of a sand- dune taller than any other, and looking out towards the distant, faintly visible sea. It was as clean and immaculate as snow, of a silvery colour, beautiful in its roundness, sharp as a knife towards the south. In the shelter of the near valley four horses were picketed in the care of two men ; while another two knelt on the sand, with a heliograph and their carbines handy beside them, looking out towards the Megara hills. They rose there, a ruffled line of red-blue across the skyline, sharply accentuated by the rolling ocean of sand. " We know," said the General, " that the enemy are there (Give me that map, Lieutenant) ; but we do not know in what numbers they are, with what complement of guns. We have to watch them with the utmost vigilance. Our job is to guard the right flank of the British Advance. It is true that they could not attack us here if they came, as we have done, across the sand-hills without being seen; but if they worked up quietly to the head of one of these parallel valleys, thousands of them might come down upon us in the course of a night, and fall upon my Brigade without a man being observed till the moment of attack. We have pickets, therefore, all along a wide circumference, and heliograph and telephone communications. You see they are speaking to us now from that outpost." And as he spoke the bright light of the desert flamed with the twinkling flash of a mirror brighter than itself. And at the same instant 376 THE SCENE OF WAR the sky over El Mazar was patterned with little puffs of cloud, faint and repeated concussions filled the desert silence, and the eyes of us all were turned towards the air battle that had suddenly come up between the enemy's planes and our guns. It is a spectacle that is always fascinating; but it is seldom so beautiful as it was here, in the midst of these mighty spaces. We turned back from here, returning more slowly over the sand - hills to the headquarters of the Brigade. 1 I touched very gently upon the question of discipline in the Anzac armies. "I have nothing to complain of myself," said the General. "You see, I know these men and understand their feelings. Their only fault is that they are too keen. If they are told to go forward to a certain point, they get there; but they cannot resist the temptation of going further." 1 Mr Massey, writing to ' The Times ' on the 21st December, thus describes this interesting country. He will allow me the privilege of quoting his words. "I rode from railhead to El Arish with a Mounted Brigade convoy, and the country, seen by daylight, deeply impresses one with the remarkable character of the achievement of the mounted troops in the dark. For the first eight or nine miles there is an expanse of rolling billows of sand, with valleys gradually getting deeper, and the scrub sufficiently thick to relieve the glare of the sun. Then begins a series of higher sand-hills, with no cover for vegetation. The dunes have sharp crests, their sides in many places being as steep as cliffs, and necessitating many detours. Hoof-marks on these gradients show that whole regiments often took a steep path in very yielding sand, while the seemingly im- possible ascents achieved make one regret that this night-work could not be cinematographed, so as to show people at home how these intrepid horsemen get to their objective." AUSTRALIAN CAVALRY 377 I smiled inwardly, for I seemed to remember something he had said about his going a good deal farther on a reconnaissance towards the Megara hills than was considered permissible. " That is why in a battle I never lose sight of them. I keep in touch with them all the time ; checks their impetuosity, you see." This time I laughed openly in the General's face. Was it not he who used up eight horses at the Battle of Romani ? And what was that little story the Aide- de-Camp told me of a wounded leg, and an impatient Brigadier who would not dismount from his horse, and dashed off before the winding of a necessary bandage could be completed, with the end of it floating after him like a pennon in the breeze ? If I dwell upon these little things, it is because the Australian Light Horse and their Brigadier have shown since that day the splendid metal of which they are made. At Magdaba, on the 23rd -of December (little more than a fortnight from my visit), a cor- respondent writes " We lost no time in getting to work. By 8 o'clock we had occupied a ridge 4000 yards from the enemy's position, and at 9 o'clock the Imperial Camel Corps, supported by the fire of our batteries, advanced to make the frontal attack. This was followed by an encircling movement by an Australian Light Horse Brig- ade and a New Zealand Mounted Rifle Brigade, which moved round the enemy's northern flank. Later in the day the General was informed by aeroplane messages that the enemy had been seen 378 THE SCENE OF WAR retiring. Our one object was to prevent any escape, so the Light Horse, &c. . . . Coming up under close-range fire, which threatened serious casualties among the horses, the Brigade had to get back to dismount ; but the cool way the men handled their horses under fire, and the steadi- ness and precision with which they manoeuvred at the gallop, were the admiration of all who watched them. As the day wore on the attack was pressed, and the fighting became more and more severe. A regiment of the Light Horse Brigade swept round the enemy's left flank, and coming right in behind the position, brought about the surrender en rnasse of the Turks. . . . They had quite expected to be able to get away, but they reckoned without the commander of this Desert Column and the keenness of his men." 379 SUEZ. IT is characteristic of the growth of the War, and perhaps also of human nature, that that army, like another that was deemed both "little and contemptible," is almost forgotten now. What are a couple of hundred thousand men in a host that is reckoned by millions ? But suppose they hadn't been there ? or that worse things had been ? The Boche hoped much from revolt in the East. Suez itself is a miracle of beauty; a miracle, because out of some very unpromising materials a desert, a range of barren, uninhabitable hills, a shallow water, an old and dirty town with some modern embellishments it makes a har- mony of the most exquisite colours. Its prin- cipal secret is light, with some added grace of form. But War also has come here to add to its manifest attraction. My quarters were in the old town of Suez, in an encampment that is known as the Indian Base Depot. Here is a sort of clearing-house for those who come and go from East to West and West to East. There is a little colonel in charge, who acts as a sort of father and mother to all these people. Everything about them he knows 380 THE SCENE OF WAR their languages, their customs, their prejudices, the shortest road to their hearts. The War found him in repose, after a service of thirty years ; it brought him back to the Flag. Suez was where they sent him, but it might, for all he knew, have been Timbuctoo; and at Suez he has established himself firmly in the hearts of that, polyglot colony. He has a French of his own for the wives of the Canal officials, a pat on the head for the Fellahin children, a uniform with ribbons across it like a rainbow for official use. And when the ships come in from India, he is to be seen there, renewing old acquaintances, ex- changing news and gossip he is a very clearing- house himself in that way helping people on their way; and withal he is, I think, the only contented man I have met in my life. Many years ago I played polo with him. At the end of each chukker he would come up to the pavilion with a grin on his face, and say " Ah ! thank God for that." And at the end of his cup of tea he was always of a frugal mind he would say " Now, thank God for that." And always with a twinkle in his eye, and never a complaint about anything on his lips. Cheeriness such as his is a public asset in these hard days. From the old town I went across in a lighter to Moses Wells, where the Indian troops were encamped. There was a sort of field-day in progress. In a redoubt out there in the desert, the General they told me he was one of the few officers of his Sikh regiment who survived SUEZ 381 the Dardanelles was standing with his Staff observing the progress of the battle. Infantry were moving across the sandy spaces, cavalry were galloping over the plain, the heliograph was flashing incessantly. The General was not satisfied. "I bet he gives them hell," said the officer of - - Rifles, in whose company I was. Beyond the plain, in the blinding glare of the desert sun, there rose the fractured uplands, the sharp peaks and precipitous outlines of the Sinai hills the Dyebel Raha. All that was the enemy's country. A few days previous, the Brigade-Major, out there on a recon- naissance, was shot through the head. Through that pass, which is like a cleft in a stick, went many years ago in the days of Gordon a Cam- bridge Professor, with a bag of gold to purchase the Bedawin tribes. He was killed there, being thrown with his companions, a naval officer and another, from the edge of a cliff into the rocky valley. Beside me, there bubbled with its mys- terious working the pool that is known as Ain Musa, the Well of Moses. These wells are upon the summits of hillocks, which rise above the general level of the plain, and are fed from springs that are secreted below. They have been here from immemorial time, and have always seemed a miracle to the desert tribes. The Children of Israel knew them as the Waters of Elim, and countless numbers of travellers have encamped beside them with their beasts, in the sparse shade of the palm-trees that grow by their edges. 382 THE SCENE OF WAR Napoleon visited them. They are like a fountain in a thirsty land ; and the same need, the same purpose, bring us here to hold them as a fortress against the Turk. At the other end of Asia there is something like them in the Mud Volcanoes of Minbu; but neither man nor beast nor blade of grass prospers in that blistered neighbourhood. In the midst of the palm-trees here, and upon the shining plain, there were squadrons of Terri- torial Horse from English counties, with regiments of Sikhs and Pathans, the white men turned brown, and the brown men turned black by the fierce sunlight. I rode on over the desiccated foothills and billows of sand : Africa upon one side of me, Asia upon the other; past forts and trenches, and long strings of camels, and huts and encamp- ments, and machinery and field guns, and all the lumber and stress of War. There was even a Turkish cemetery. But it was a receding tide that I looked upon the last lap of conflict at this end of the shores of Armageddon. A fortnight later Sikh and Pathan and Englishman were to make good the road to Nakhl ; and for all I know, the Governor of Sinai, whom I saw at Ismailia in a little room, with aeroplane maps of Turkish entrenchments on its walls, and the desert News- Bringers outside in the care of his Bedawin Police, has resumed his patriarchal functions at that smallest of all the capitals of the world. The curtain is rolling up, and this coming year will show us the map of the world in very differ- ent colours. SUEZ 383 At Port Tewfik, I sat in the late evening upon the terrace of the International Club. There were Italians there, and Frenchmen, and English- men ; soldiers and sailors. They were all talking about their own affairs and interests. " Well, I expect to be going next week to Montgomery with the men of the Indian Camel Corps. They are being sent home for a bit ; but we are keeping their camels (in a lower voice) for the advance on El Arish." " Where are we going after El Arish ? " " H'm ; ask me another. Jerusalem, perhaps." " Or Jericho." The Italians were busy over the question of Trieste, and the tiger-springs of Cadorna. "Your Kitchener was like our Carnot an Organiser of Victory. No! we cannot forget him. He fought for us in 1870. Kitchener and Carnot : these are names that we shall place side by side in our hearts, Monsieur. We must not forget our great men. Never!" The speaker was an old Canal official, who belongs to the days when France and England were in perpetual conflict. But we have come a long way since then upon a better road. Along the boulevard his wife and daughters were passing typically French. At an open-air cafe some British infantry were seated, an Arab waiter drifting up and down from the tables on the shore to the cafe across the road. A small white donkey with a coloured saddle stood meekly at a corner, his master huddled up inside a flowing robe, asleep. Straight from these humble forms, one's eye travelled upwards to the vast lineaments 384 THE SCENE OF WAR and crowding guns and turrets of a French ship of battle. The turquoise water lay about it like a sheet of silk. Every detail of the life on board it was visible to us from here. Following it in a line were other ships of war monitors from the Flemish coast, with long and threatening guns for land bombardment. These were the heavy artillery of the troops across the water. A hospital ship, white and green, and of stately beauty, came slowly up the ways with its tragic freight. The ruffled hills of the desert, which at noon are scarce visible in the glare, rose up before our eyes across the tawny sands, a marvel of red and purple, with the lustre of silk that has been crumpled. The day was passing, and upon the instant the full- or bed moon rose over the sand-hills, like patterned gold, sending her quiver of light upon the waters where sea and desert meet at the doorways of the Canal. "Like a play," said one; but in truth it was the universe we were looking on, moving upon its ordered course. The War and its incidents fell away from me. My soul was lost in the magical perspective, up- lifted into the great plan and divine harmony of creation. The words of Job, that Arab sheikh who lived upon these fringes, came back to me from those dim ages when man, though still in his beginnings, plumbed the very seas of life: " He stretcheth out the North Over the empty place, And hangeth the Earth upon Nothing. SUEZ 385 He hath compassed the Waters with bounds, Until the day and night come to an end. The Pillars of Heaven tremble And are astonished at his Rebuke. He divideth the Sea with his power, And by his Spirit he garnisheth the Heavens. Lo, these are but the outskirts of his ways ; But how small a whisper do we hear of him ? The thunder of his power Who can understand ? " 2 B BOOK VIII. MESOPOTAMIA MESOPOTAMIA. A KINDLY turn of fate transported me early in June from the sweltering plains of India to Quetta, that delightful spot on the mountains of Baluchistan ; and as I sat luxuriously on the Club verandah and revelled in the soft warm sun- shine, my thoughts turned to those less fortunate fellows I had left in the plains of India, before whom lay months of heat, hard work, and monotony. My day-dreams were, however, destined to be short-lived, for great things were afoot in far- away Mesopotamia. Daily bulletins brought news of victories and advances. Men one dined with on Monday would on Tuesday be running the gauntlet of that fiery journey across the Put of Sindh to the port of Karachi ; and it was not long before I too was caught in that flood, and found myself being whirled through clouds of dust in the mail to the seaport. Little news as to the climatic conditions of that seemingly remote land had come back to India, and the average Englishman's concep- tion of it was that of a vast desert of sand, waterless and treeless, subject to violent dust- 390 THE SCENE OF WAR storms, and not unlike parts of the Punjab and Sindh. It seemed advisable to probe deeper into this matter, and I beguiled the monotony of the rail journey to Karachi by studying such literature on the subject as I was able to collect. Chance brought before me the following de- scription of Mesopotamia by that experienced traveller David Eraser: "July, August, and September are months in which poor humanity exists by sheer mental effort alone, and when there is no hope for a fainting spirit. But in October comes a change, for the desperate heat begins to merge into a pleasant warmth. Nov- ember is cool, and in December people sit by the fireside and almost hanker for the summer, for the air is cold and raw. In March there is no more thought of fires; in April begins the hot breath of summer ; May and June are bearable ; and then once more the humid, enervating, suffocating heat of July." As regards Basra itself, he says : " Its European inhabitants only remain alive during the day through a perception of the humour of their situation, and by night through the agency of the prayers of their despairing relatives. For Basra has the most malarial air, the most choleraic water, and the most infernal climate of any spot in the world outside Tophet." This was not cheerful reading, but which of us can really picture conditions from a description however good ; and it seemed to me in that railway carriage, hurtling through clouds of dust and sand, in a temperature of some 118 degrees, MESOPOTAMIA 391 that I had touched the rock bottom of discomfort, and David Fraser ceased to have any fears for me. At Karachi one had little time to think. The port was full of bustle and haste. Troops and officers, guns, carts laden with every conceivable kind of war equipment, motor-cars, ambulance waggons and what not, moved in a steady stream towards the docks ; and it was not long before I found myself on the deck of the steamer heading for the Persian Gulf. The next few days, until we entered the estuary of the great river of Mesopotamia the Shatt-el- Arab were not unlike any other sea voyage in tropical waters, and we were fortunate in having a head wind all the time, so that we looked at each other and smiled, feeling that David Fraser had needlessly frightened us, and that Mesopo- tamia could not after all be the bogey he con- jured up. Then at early dawn one morning, when a few laggard stars still hung in the vault of heaven and the eastern sky had hardly begun to pale, some restless spirit, peering through his glasses, saw the land, and startled those of us who lay on the deck by exclaiming, " % Why, the place is full of trees, and no desert at all ! " In an instant all were hanging over the ship's side with glasses levelled at the distant shore. Here was a surprise for us ! Surely the skipper had missed his way, or Fraser had not travelled here. Surprise gave place to wonder with every mile we travelled, and then, as the shores grew nearer and the sun topped the horizon, we gazed on a landscape that could hardly be surpassed. 392 THE SCENE OF WAR Both shores of the river, right down to the water's edge, were densely clothed with the tall, graceful date-palm, vines trailed from tree to tree, the scarlet pomegranate peeped in the under- growth, and pink-and- white clusters of oleander dipped over the water's edge. For ninety or a hundred miles we steamed up the bosom of this mighty waterway. Clear blue sky overhead, a soft cool wind in our faces for the shimdl had set in earlier than usual, grassy banks as green as any on the Thames itself, and myriads of palms swaying gently in the breeze, casting deep reflections in the water, left the impression that here was the Land of Promise. At intervals some great tributary, such as the Karun, would flow down and mingle its waters with the great Shatt - el - Arab ; and countless creeks, as wide as the Thames at Richmond, would at intervals spring on one's vision as we steamed past, and open to one's gaze fresh vistas of palms and shadows stretching out towards the horizon until lost in their own sinuous curves. There was a general feeling of exhilaration and surprise. This was not what we had looked for. Here was no desert but a luxuriant garden, and we wondered where the desert could be. The captain of the steamer a genial Scotsman, who had steamed over the world's great waters until the war called him to these lesser voyages soon enlightened us, however, by inviting us on to the bridge. From here one's gaze stretched over the tops of the palms and beyond ; and we realised that the tropical luxuriance was confined to the water's edge. The palm belt was but a MESOPOTAMIA 393 couple of miles wide, and beyond lay the desert, flat and silent, losing itself in the skyline fifty or a hundred miles away. At noon the great ship cast anchor in mid- stream opposite Basra. The shimdl had died down, and we began to realise what the Meso- potamian sun meant. The shore, with its square yellow-brick struc- tures many but recently the trading houses of the Germans standing amongst the palms, looked inviting, and we made haste to land. Temporary wharves supported on wooden piles had been erected along the river frontage, and innumerable country boats, heavily laden with their freight from the steamers, either lay up against these wharves or struggled to find berths, their Arab crews, scantily clad or wholly devoid of clothes, shouting and gesticulating, and calling down the vengeance of Allah on those who elbowed them out. Hundreds of men and women toiled in the scorching sun unloading the multitudinous things that an army needs. Dotted about and jostled by this seething crowd, one saw the Britisher directing and guiding and producing order out of the seeming chaos. White men these, turned to the colour of mahogany by the sun, with shirt-sleeves rolled up to their elbows, large sun- helmets and spine pads, their khaki uniforms glistening almost black with the sweat that oozed from every pore. With difficulty our little boat threaded its way through this tangle of river craft, and at last we stepped on shore. We at once realised that David Fraser had 394 THE SCENE OF WAR painted with no fanciful brush. A few feet of dry frontage, and beyond one great swamp cov- ered with green scum and festering vegetation, exuding odours that could not be matched in any part of the world. Through these swamps stretched the roads laboriously constructed by our engineers in encasements of corrugated-iron sheets and planks. Some shade there was, for the palms grow close, but little comfort from that in an atmos- phere saturated with moisture, where the ther- mometer registers 120 in the shade. With sunset came some relief, and the early morning air brought refreshment. But the sun wakes early in this land, and one bestirs one's self very early to get through the day's work, for it is wise to be under shelter and lightly clad before he has gathered his full power. And so the long weary days of toil in the mornings and afternoons, and much groaning of spirit in between, would pass from week to week. 395 BASRA. THE native town of Basra, as distinct from the European quarter which fringes the river shore, lies two miles from the river among the palms, its farther end touching the desert. A wide un- metalled road, known as the Strand, connects it with the European quarter, and runs alongside the great Ashar creek, which, besides being the main channel of communication between the river and the town, is the main sewer. Twice a-day the Shatt-el-Arab rises with the tide from the sea, and twice daily the creeks, and the innumerable irrigation channels they throw off to water the date lands, are filled. When the tide is in, the creeks are gay with belems the small river punts, gaily painted, with their white awnings for protection from the sun and all the world that is on business or pleasure bent moves along these waterways. It is this that has stim- ulated some one to call Basra the Venice of the East. But when the tide is out, and the creek has but a trickle of water running between sloping banks of fetid mud, the wise man takes a cab, and with handkerchief to nose urges his arabanchee to greater speed. The cabs, or 396 THE SCENE OF WAR arabanas as they are called, are the derelicts of Bombay and other Indian towns. Rickety and almost springless, they sway and clatter over the corrugated roads. The driver, whose only notion of driving consists in waving the reins and plying the whip unmercifully, is utterly regardless of the ruts and holes that the road o is full of. His ambition is to get there. The comfort of his passenger is no concern of his. The town of Basra is not unlike any large native town in India, and the Arab trades with the same phlegmatic inactivity. Seated on his mat among his wares, fanning himself with a palm fan, he will show little or no desire at all to persuade the passer-by to buy his goods. If his happens to be a sweet-shop, flies and hornets are his chief customers, and these trouble him but little. They have been with him and his ancestors for generations, and he hardly notices their presence. When they are too persistent in their efforts to crawl into his eyes or preen them- selves on his lips, he will languidly brush them aside; but he does not mind how many crawl over his bare arms or legs or face, seeming hardly to realise that they are there. Some of the larger streets and market-places are roofed over with date matting, and the sun's rays only trickle through. The air lies heavy and immovable, and pregnant with noisome odours of every description. There are colonies of Jews and Christians who cluster together, each with his own kind, in the better parts of the town. These affect a Western civilisation, and deck their walls with pictures and ornaments, BASRA 397 and their windows with lace curtains, and in the evening one will see their wives and daughters sitting on balconies languidly fan- ning themselves. It comes as a surprise to one to hear that there are theatres. I was persuaded to visit one of these. We sat on the roof with the stars above us, for it was the coolest place, and looked down on the stage through clerestory windows. There was a primitive representation of a stage, and a few smoky kerosene -oil lamps did service for footlights. The audience consisted for the most part of melting Arabs, Bagdadis, Syrians, and Ethiopians, who sat in moody silence smoking the inevitable jiggara, the native cigarette. Presently the cretonne curtains of blatant design were drawn aside, and the orchestra, who were also the actors, struck up a melan- choly tune, while a lady of Bagdad, in a hybrid costume, half Oriental and half European, rushed out from the wings and treated us to an ex- hibition of a dance which fairly took our breath away. This dance, I might say, has recently been banned by the authorities in Egypt. .Then one of the orchestra would burst into a rhapsody of song, and intoxicate himself with the passion of his own words; then would follow another dance and song, and so the first part of the programme would drag its weary length along until the city gongs without struck twelve. Throughout the performance Arabs carrying great urns of coffee or cans of ice-cream, and clattering saucers of brass like cymbals, would walk between the rows of seats shouting per- 398 THE SCENE OF WAR suasions to the audience. The Arab, who is a great coffee-drinker at all times, would enter into a loud argument with these vendors, and finally coin and coffee would change hands. Meanwhile the orchestra would scrape away at its fiddle and twang its guitar, and the prima donna would strive to drown all other sounds. The second part of the programme consisted of a farce in which the audience took no mean part. Sallies of wit flashed from stage to pit, and since flowers are scarce, biscuits or sweets were the tributes of approval bestowed upon those acclaimed. No tickets are sold and no seats booked. One walks in and sits anywhere, and all through the per- formance an official, for all the world like a Bedouin brigand, wanders about collecting what- ever the audience is disposed to pay. The white man is mulcted of three rupees ; the native at his elbow tenders four annas, which are accepted with equal grace. In August and September the dates begin to ripen. The shimdl has long since ceased to blow, and the sun has now reached the zenith of his power. Life is difficult to support, and daily one hears of heat-strokes, and the little cemetery on the creek is fast filling with British lads. Far away on the desert men are living in deep dug-outs, and convoys bring their quota of sick and wounded to the hospitals. Steamers continue to arrive from India, and now there is talk of an advance. Things have begun to hum ; there is an accession of energy plainly visible ; all are work- ing at high pressure, and as each reaches his limit of endurance and falls out, another steps into his BASRA 399 place and carries on. The river steamers are being got ready, with barges lashed to their sides. Stores and ammunition for advanced bases on the Euphrates and Tigris are being shipped, cars are being armoured, airmen are practising morn- ing and evening, troops and horses and transport leave daily, and each of us wonders if it is to be his good fortune to march with the Army into Bagdad. But all cannot go, for there is much to be done at the base, and I find I am one of those who must remain behind. The days drag on. It is the end of September, and good news has come down the river. General Townshend has taken Kut-el-Amara, capturing 1153 prisoners and 14 guns, and the Turks under General Nur- ud-Din are in retreat. Then there is a period of silence, and we wonder how our gallant force is faring. There is some comfort in the know- ledge that the extreme heat has passed. It is early November, and the nights are growing chilly. The Arab has been very busy for weeks gathering his harvest of dates. In his eyes this is the most important of all things, since it really is his main and almost only source of revenue. More good news now reaches us. Azizyah has been captured. The Commander-in-Chief and his staff have gone up to join the victorious army, and we chafe at our own inactivity; shall we ever get away from Basra, we ask ourselves. A week or two passes, and there are confused rumours in the air: some have it that we have won a great victory, that we are entering Bagdad itself; others, better informed, look grave and are silent. It is not a time for talk, but the 400 THE SCENE OF WAR story has reached the Bazaars. General Town- shend has indeed won a great fight at Ctesiphon, but his casualties have been very heavy, and the Turk has been strongly reinforced, and we are in retreat, fighting a rearguard action as we fall back. Then comes the news that our force has reached Kut-el-Amara and is invested, and the Commander -in -Chief and his staff alone have managed to reach Basra. There is one grain of comfort, however, for 1300 prisoners taken by us at Ctesiphon are paraded through the streets of Basra: tangible evidence, this, that our small force had given good account of itself. Ugly rumours are afloat that there is unrest in Basra. The Arab freebooter Ajamie, with a large following, is said to be on the desert near Basra contemplating a raid. We are depleted of troops and times are anxious, but the Britisher keeps a firm upper lip, and the Indian has a stupendous faith in the White Sircar. Reinforce- ments are already on their way, and we shall see. Anxiously we await the arrival of these reinforce- ments, and at last the transports begin to arrive. Basra is once again tense with activity. Men and guns, foot and horse, transport and supplies, are being hastened to the relief of our comrades both by route-march and by river, and it is my good fortune to join them. 401 THE MAECH. IT is a perfect day. The desert is as level as a billiard table and firm under foot. The echelon swings along at a fine pace cavalry, infantry, guns, ambulances, ammunition waggons, trans- port and followers, stretching for miles along the plain. Ahead and on both flanks cavalry patrols are on the alert, for one never knows what the Arab tribesmen may be up to. It is true they have never loved their Turkish masters, but great efforts have been made to get them to regard this as a holy war against the infidel. At midday a halt is called, preferably by the side of some creek, and while the animals are being watered the men sit about in small groups and are soon busy prizing open tins of bully beef with their jack-knives. The Indian too sits, as is his wont, with his feet tucked under him, eating his "chupatties" that he has baked overnight. Officers forgather, mess boxes are unladen from mules, and there is much good- fellowship and camaraderie. Then pipes and cigarettes are lighted, and officers move about among their men until the whistle sounds for the march to be resumed. At sunset the camp- 2c 402 THE SCENE OF WAR ing -ground is selected, and in a few minutes the air rings with the sound of picketing ; tents spring up in orderly rows with surprising rapid- ity. Sentries and pickets are posted, and the smoke of a thousand camp-fires floats lazily upwards. By nine o'clock dinner is over; fires and lights are extinguished, and the tramp of a sentry or an occasional "who goes there" is the only sound that breaks the silence. Before sunrise the camp is astir again. There is a heavy mist from the river and tents are dripping with the dew. Once again a thousand hammers tinkle against iron pegs. Men rush about striking camp, horses are saddled and transport-laden gun-teams are being harnessed; a hasty breakfast eaten as one stands in the chilly morning air, some hot tea or cocoa, and long before the earliest of the city dwellers has stretched himself in bed the echelon is on the march again. 403 KURNA. SOME forty-five miles above Basra the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates combine to make the great Shatt-el-Arab. In the angle of their junc- tion stands the old and dilapidated town of Kurna. Here it was that at the end of May General Townshend with those gallant troops beleaguered in Kut fought and defeated six battalions of Turks, captured 1770 prisoners and 17 guns, and sinking the gunboat Marmaris. But Kurna, according to local tradition, has far greater claims to fame than this, for it is said to be the cradle of the human race. Here Adam and Eve wandered, and here grew the tree of the forbidden fruit. The inhabitants still cling to the tradition, and will point out the site of the garden of Eden, which, alas ! now boasts of nothing but the ubiquitous palm and a few dwarfed fig-trees. There is, however, in the market-place a tree common enough in India, but of its kind the only one above Basra, and Thomas Atkins has identified it as the tree of Scripture, and named the square on which it stands "Temptation Square." Here small Arab boys sell cigarettes, dates, tinned fish and fruit, 404 THE SCENE OF WAR to Tommy as he marches through, and do a thriving trade which perhaps suggests that the tree has not quite lost its efficacy. Excellent fishing is to be had at the confluence of the two rivers, and those whose lot has estab- lished them at this point on the line of com- munications beguile the tedious hours with rod and line. The Euphrates salmon, chaboose, will turn the scale at 40 lb., but is a poor fighter and soon begins to sulk. From Kurna we continued our march along the Tigris a few miles and the belt of palms on both banks of the river comes to an abrupt end, and but few palms are met with after that until Amara is reached. Heavy rain had fallen recently, converting the track we followed into a veritable quagmire of the stickiest and most slippery clay that one can imagine. Marching was no pleasure now, but real hard work. Men and animals would constantly slip and fall, and fatigue parties had to be told off to unload packs and help the mules on to their feet again; great masses of clay would adhere to men's boots, increasing in size with each step, and only breaking away with their own added weight. There were marshes and creeks to be forded, where the water would at times rise to one's waist. Biting winds and frost had taken the place of the phenomenal heat of July and August, and the discomfort of marching in wet boots and trousers needs to be experienced to be realised. Added to this was the discomfort of having to bed down for the night on ground KURNA 405 sodden with the rain, and to scramble into one's wet things in the morning when th6 pools by the wayside were frozen, and so to march for hours through more puddle and marshes. Few villages were met with, but whenever our route brought us near one the inhabitants would flock out with eggs and fowl for sale and cigarettes of the most fearsome brands. Some of us had run out of smokes and were driven to sample these, well, you can't expect much quality when you pay three farthings for a packet of eight. The country between Kurna and Amara, a dis- tance of seventy -five miles by road, presented nothing of interest, flat, treeless, and almost devoid of scrub as far as the eye could reach. The villages were mere wigwams of reeds, from which would emerge slatternly women and dirty children, most of whom would be suffering from ophthalmia or other diseases of the eyes; a few lean dogs would be nosing round the refuse- heaps, contesting the spoils with the village fowls and chickens. A primitive people these, living on eggs and the milk from their sheep, and bartering these for flour or dates or coarse cotton cloth with the boatmen as they sailed down the river. Twenty-five miles from Basra this monotony of the desert was broken by a grove of palms growing along the water's edge, above the tops of which protruded the blue -tiled dome of the tomb of Ezra. The tomb is in excellent pre- servation, and has been a place of pilgrimage with the Jews for hundreds of years indeed 406 THE SCENE OF WAR the Rabbi claims that his ancestors have been its guardians for two thousand years. A few Arab hamlets lie up against one of its sides, and there are ruins of brick houses and court- yards testifying to a departed glory and the fanatical assaults of predatory Arabs from the marshes. The Turk, on his retreat before us from Kurna, is said to have vented his spleen on the holy shrine, as is evidenced by the marks of bullets; but he was in too great haste to do it much damage. 407 AMARA. TEN days' march from Basra brought us to Amara, 120 miles from our base. This is a town of some pretensions and a big trading mart a sort of half-way house between Bagdad and Basra. It is situated in the fork of the Tigris and a wide canal, regarding the history of which I was unable to discover anything. The streets are wide but unmetalled, and there are no side-walks. The drainage and sweepings flow down the middle of the streets, and are sometimes successful in finding an outlet into the river or canal. There are some fine brick buildings along the river front, not unlike those one sees at Suez or Port Said, several of which had been commandeered by us for hospitals and offices, and much had been done to improve the sanitation of this part of the town ; but it would want all the waters of the Tigris to flow for many days over the native quarter and pur- lieus of the town to purify it of the dirt of generations. The rest-camp lay across the canal, and snipers and thieves would keep our sentries on the qui vive all through the night. The Arab is perhaps 408 THE SCENE OF WAR the most expert thief in the world : naked and oiled, he would, on all-fours, evade the most vigi- lant sentry, and enter the camp and steal rifles or whatever he could lay his hands on. Such was the experience of our echelon : and some who had gone up before us, and others who came after, fared worse than we did. We halted here for a few days to rest the animals and men and to refit, and took the oppor- tunity to replenish our mess stores. Everything one wanted was obtainable except tobacco, and report had it that the dealers had hidden away their stocks as a protest against an attempt made by the authorities to regulate the exorbitant prices they had been charging. The rain had ceased, and the last few days had been bright, so that we marched in some comfort when we moved on ; but the weather broke again three days after we left, and once more we floun- dered through oceans of mud, and had our camps on sodden ground. Our route now lay through country covered with thorny scrub, the rain and sun had brought up the grass, and the landscape was less mono- tonous. The Pusht-i-Kuh mountains in the dis- tance on our right, with their higher peaks capped with snow, grew more distinct with each mile that we traversed, reminding one of the great barrier of Northern India as seen from the plains of the Punjab. Almost every night we would be disturbed by snipers and rifle -thieves, and at times a hot f usilade would be exchanged between them and our sentries; but we were more for- AMARA 409 tunate than some who had marched up before us, and profited by their experience. I heard of an unhappy officer whose boots and trousers were stolen from his tent on two consecutive nights, and, as he had not made provision for such a contingency, he had to march in tennis flannels and rope- soled country shoes, and this through mud ankle-deep. The more determined of us, therefore, slept in our trousers, and used our boots as pillows. Six days after we left Amara we arrived at Ali-al-Garbi, one hundred and eighty-two miles from Basra, and camped on ground that had been used by previous echelons, and was now not much better than a bog. But there was no alternative, for we were now in hostile country, and trenches had been dug by our predecessors round the peri- meter of the camp, and it was well to take advan- tage of these. The weather had cleared again, and by scraping away the puddle and throwing up the flaps of our tents so as to let the sun get in, we managed to make the best of it. Our mahelas (country boats), laden with rations and supplies for the column, would be towed up the river each day by their Arab crews, and be moored to the bank opposite our camp each night. These boats had passed through many vicissitudes, and indeed it was wonderful that they were at all able to keep pace with us, for owing to the tor- tuous nature of the river's course they had to encompass many more miles, and frequently would not arrive at camp until midnight or later, and would have to be ready to start again before 410 THE SCENE OF WAR dawn. But the river Arab is a stout fellow and a patient toiler. Towing a boat twenty miles or more up-stream has no fears for him. At Ali-al-Garbi we were some twenty miles in a direct line from the battle front, and it was here that we first heard the dull booming of our heavy guns. 411 SHEIKH SAAD. Two days' march from Ali-al-Garbi brought us on to the battlefield of Sheikh Saad, where we had some three weeks before fought and defeated the Turk. It did not want any one to tell us what had happened here. The plain was littered with empty ration tins, derelict carts, fragments of shells, thousands of empty cartridge cases, and the embers of camp fires. The Arab had slunk down from the hills, when our force had marched on, and disinterred those who had fallen in the fight, and stripped them of the clothes they had been buried in, and the plain was dotted with the corpses of friends and foes alike. The Arab is no discriminator. To him the Turk and the Britisher are both intruders : in any case there is loot to pick up on the battlefield whichever side wins, and he slinks down from his hills or out of his marshes in the darkness of night and takes what he can find. The Turk likes him no better than we do, and it was commonly said that the Turkish Commander actually suggested to us a week's armistice, so that together we might wipe out this pest that murdered the wounded of both sides with an utter impartiality whenever the chance 412 THE SCENE OF WAR came his way. In fact, it actually occurred in one engagement that the Turks and we turned our guns for a brief space upon a horde of some ten thousand of these freebooters who hovered in the distance waiting for darkness to set in and the opportunity it would afford. During this day's march we had a somewhat exciting experience. The column had halted for the midday meal. Draught animals had been outspanned and pack-mules unladen and led away to the Tigris to water. Officers and men were seated here and there busy with their sandwiches and tinned rations, or talking and smoking, and there was little to suggest that it was not peace manoeuvres we were engaged on. Suddenly a trooper from an advance picket came tearing in to report that a large body of enemy horsemen were bearing down upon us from the direction of the hills. In an instant the alarm sounded, and men rushed to arms, while officers, with their field-glasses levelled in the direction indicated, anxiously scanned the horizon. In the far dis- tance appeared a great throng of horsemen, far flung across the plain, galloping madly towards us with their loose sleeves and voluminous kabas flying in the wind. This looked serious indeed. A laager was quickly formed, magazines were charged, machine-guns took up position, and men took what cover was to be found. A scouting party was sent off in the direction of the enemy, and with our eyes glued to our glasses we waited in tense expectancy, expecting every moment to hear rifle shots ring out. Then to our amazement we realised that our scouts had met and passed SHEIKH SAAD 413 through the leading ranks of the enemy, and still galloped on. A little farther and they halted and signalled back " Nothing in sight." It was a trick of the mirage, which has a way on these vast plains of producing the most extraordinary effects. That night we camped opposite the village of Sheikh Saad, six miles from our destination, having marched two hundred and seven miles o along the desert from Basra. The next morning we marched into Orah. 414 ORAH CAMP. ORAH, named after an ancient canal which takes off from the Tigris, was the farthest point up to which the relieving force had now reached. A city of canvas had sprung up here and stretched for miles along both shores of the river. A pon- toon bridge had been thrown across the stream, and the river was alive with mahelas, tugs, and paddle steamers. It was only by the most stupen- dous efforts and sacrifice that the force had got thus far, for the weather had been vile beyond description for the past two months; transport had been inadequate and comforts wholly lacking. The Turk had put up a stubborn fight and sul- lenly dug himself in as near as possible behind each position from which we drove him. The urgency of the beleaguered garrison had entailed continuous effort on the part of our forces, and battles had been fought in torrential rain and freezing gales over bogs and through marshes, and men had lain down to rest in puddles, soaked to the skin. But the will to conquer was there, and at last the Wadi had been reached and crossed, and now the Army camped to rest and await re- inforcements, for our casualties had been heavy. ORAH CAMP 415 General Townshend had found stores of grain buried under the floors of Kut, and the urgency of relief had grown less pressing. The Wadi is a tributary of the Tigris some twenty yards wide, and at low water runs between vertical banks twenty or more feet high. It has its source in a marsh at the foot of the Pusht-i- Kuh mountains, and is subject to violent floods, when it will rise with great rapidity and top its banks. It enters the Tigris on its left bank. From the right bank of the Tigris a little way below the mouth of the Wadi the Orah Canal takes off. The camp was therefore often spoken of either as Orah Camp or as Wadi Camp. The country here is as flat as a cricket-field, and there is not a tree to be seen in any direction, although there is a certain amount of low thorny scrub. The heavy rains in the mountains had now begun to influence the Tigris, which rose daily. The Wadi was within a foot or two of its banks, and it was soon evident that we would be flooded out unless a " bund " was thrown up round the camps. Later, indeed, the Tigris rose above its banks, and it was only our artificial barrier that kept the flood out. At one time we were actually living on ground below the level of the flood. When it is realised what an extensive area so large a force needed to camp on, some idea can be had of the labour this " bund " involved, and much of the work fell to the fighting troops. The Turk had dug himself in on both sides of the river, his trenches on the left bank resting on the Tigris on one side, and on the Suwaikieh marsh on the other. This marsh is some twenty miles in length, 416 THE SCENE OF WAR and extends from above Kut almost to Wadi, and is several miles in width. The position was known as the Hannah position, and was within a few thousand yards of the camp, so that when we and the Turk treated each other to a strafe, their shells would at times fall into our camp. February and March were spent in a desultory bombard- ment of each others' trenches, or in running saps into No-man's -land and extending our trenches nearer to his first line. On the right bank of the river the Turkish position lay farther up-stream, extending along a series of sand-hills from the Tigris to within five miles of the Shatt-el-Hai, so forming the base of a triangle of which the two rivers were the sides and Kut the apex. February and March were very wet months, and fierce gales would blow down the river for days, and then with no appreciable cessation the wind would veer round to the opposite quarter, banking up the waters of the Tigris and lashing them into fury, so that the river would swirl and leap and heave like a troubled sea. Life in shallow dug-outs and trenches for you cannot dig deep in a water-logged country was at these times difficult to support and severely tested human endurance. Those who lived under canvas regarded it as a luxury, even though the floor would be wet with " seepage " and the rain would beat in, and one brought in great masses of wet clay on one's boots when one entered, for there were no roads where the mud was not ankle-deep some of them might almost have been regarded as tributaries of the Tigris. It was no uncommon sight to see officers ORAH CAMP 417 and men caked with mud up to their thighs, and there was no difficulty in knowing who had slipped and fallen. As for the horses and mules, their iV trials exceeded anything one can imagine. Picketed in the open, they would stand in pools of liquid mud; and often it was necessary to feed them by hand, for there was nowhere to place their fodder except in the puddle in which they stood at night they would just have to lie and roll in six inches of slush. Fortunately, there would come days of sunshine, and the ground would rapidly dry, and all would be busy then cleaning the mud off boots and uni- forms, and scraping the caked clay off the animals. Hardly would this be accomplished when a gale would spring up, the clouds would blacken the face of the sky, and it all had to be gone through again. On these days one would shiver in a British warm and wear mittens, and when the sun came out men would work in their shirt - sleeves. It is a land of strange contrasts. In early February the desert lay brown and scorched, not a vestige of green anywhere, and by the end of the month it had blossomed into a meadow of rich green, for a few days of sunshine after the rains make the grass spring up almost in a single night. It was now possible to graze animals, and thousands of horses and mules would be seen pasturing in the confines of the camp. Armed escorts had to accompany them on such occasions, for the Arab hangs about to seize an opportunity for a quick raid, and, indeed, on one occasion a party of them succeeded in carrying off some mules and their 2D 418 THE SCENE OF WAR drivers to captivity in the mountains. This was the men's own fault, but one does not like to dwell on the lot of those unfortunates. Almost daily steamers would arrive from Basra with supplies or reinforcements, and the mails were looked forward to with great eagerness. The camps were very busy in these latter days of February and the early days of March. A constant stream of traffic flowed across the bridge. Aeroplanes would start out each morn- ing to scout over the enemy's positions to collect material for the making of maps, for of this theatre of the Great War no previous maps existed ; boats would be unloading ; troops march- ing this way and that to their allotted camping- grounds; convoys would be loading up supplies and ammunition for the troops stationed on the desert ; thousands of men would be working with pick and shovel making the " bunds " round the camp or digging trenches; bombers would be practising morning and evening. Then " Fazal," the Turk, would fly over in his Fokker to see what we were getting at, and our guns would turn their noses up at him and our maxims bark furiously. At sunset every day the Mantis, with her 6 -inch guns, would split the air with her roar, and clouds of dense black smoke would rise against the setting sun, showing where the Turk lay. The nights, too, would be lively with the constant rattle of carts and the exchange of rifle f usilades from the trenches and the frenzied stuttering of machine-guns. And so the days passed until early in March, when everything pointed to an advance. But OR AH CAMP 419 again the weather intervened, and there had to be a postponement, and our souls grew sick within us. Would this rain never cease ? How- ever, it cleared again, and in the silent hours of darkness a great host of armed men horse, foot, and guns stole silently across the vast desert to attack the extreme right of the enemy's position. At daybreak our batteries opened fire, and high- explosive shells and shrapnel burst like a torrent on the Dijilah Redoubt, and to those who saw it, it seemed that nothing could live in this tornado of lead and iron. Another division at the same time bombarded the Sin Ahtar Redoubt, two and a half miles away on our right, which formed the middle defences of the Turkish line of trenches, stretching for seven or eight miles to the Tigris. Later, the infantry sprang to the assault, but there was much dead land without a vestige of cover to be passed ; and although some small parties were successful in entering the redoubt, they were unable to hold their position against the counter-attack of the reinforcements brought up by the Turk. At sunset another attack was launched, but proved unsuccessful, and the force withdrew and bivouacked for the night on the desert. During the night the wounded were collected and attended to, and at daybreak the force started on its return to Drah, fifteen miles away. The attempt had failed, but no one was dispirited we would try again. But what must have been the feelings of those poor fellows in Kut, half starved as they were, for we had got to within eight miles of Kut, and the sound of 420 THE SCENE OF WAR our guns must have been plainly audible to them. The rains had now ceased and the days had begun to grow warmer, and the earth was covered with a rich mantle of grass. But daily signs of the approaching hot weather became only too apparent. The sand-grouse began to migrate, and myriads of them would fly over our camp heading for their breeding-grounds in the North. The black partridge would fling out his challenge at sunset, and the air would be alive all day with the song of the lark as he soared into the heavens, just as he does over the meadows of England. Wandering away from camp when the guns were silent one could fancy oneself back in some English meadow, for the desert was carpeted with clover and daisies and buttercups. There was little or no fighting during the rest of March, although at night there would be continuous and heavy rifle and machine-gun fire from the trenches, and at times the marsh Arab would creep up to the outskirts of our camp and treat us to a lively fusilade until driven off*. A fresh Division had now joined us, and feverish preparations were on foot for another attempt, for news had come from Kut that we must make haste. The garrison was reduced to extremely slender rations, and had eaten all their horses and mules. Our aeroplanes had for some days been flying over the town dropping such supplies and medical stores as they could carry, but it was evident that the gallant defenders were starving, and the hospitals were full of sick and wounded. ORAH CAMP 421 On the 29th of March all was ready, and then the next day the rain came down again in tor- rents. I find a record in my Diary on this day : " Still raining and blowing half a gale infernal weather for tent life my tent flutters and flaps like some demented thing. Awoke at midnight ; heavy firing in the advance trenches; compared to the lot of those in the trenches, my dug-out with its canvas awning is a paradise indeed." Then followed some bright days, and on the 5th of April the advance commenced. The day was heralded by a terrific bombardment of the Hannah trenches by scores of batteries. It was still dark when the guns opened fire, and the sky was illuminated with the flash of thousands of bursting shells. Surely nothing could survive this. Presently the barrage lifted, and our men leapt from their trenches, and in twenty minutes the position was won. It was found to have been but lightly held, for the Turk had apparently anticipated what was afoot, and had silently cleared out the major part of his force to a position a few miles in rear. Here we met with strong opposition, but our men were not to be denied, and by sunset the Fallahiyeh position was ours. We had progressed seven miles, but now the battle front was much constricted, owing to the encroachment of the Suwaikieh marsh, and was hardly a mile wide. The Turk had also flooded his front, and a triple line of trenches bristling with machine-guns now faced us. An attack on these trenches failed, and in the suc- ceeding days, up to the 25th of April, our efforts were directed against the Turkish positions on 422 THE SCENE OF WAR the right bank of the river. Here we gained some five or six miles of the enemy's territory, capturing several of his outlying trenches and inflicting heavy losses on him ; but we were finally brought to a standstill opposite his main position of Es Sin, which now extended from the Tigris to the Shatt-el-Hai. Our casualties had been mounting up, and our force was much reduced in numbers. We had been fighting for twenty days on end, and it was borne in upon us that we had shot our bolt, and could do no more until fresh reinforcements should arrive. But what of Kut ? They were at the end of their resources, and if they were to hold out until reinforcements arrived food must be got to them. The only screw steamer of the river the Julna had for some days been under preparation at Basra. Two thousand tons of supplies were loaded in her, steel plates were riveted to her sides, and a gallant band of heroes volunteered to run the blockade with her. No one there but knew that the enterprise was in the nature of a forlorn hope fraught with the gravest danger. The chance of her succeeding was one in a thousand, for she would have to run the gauntlet of the Turkish trenches which debouch on the river at Sanayat, at Bait Asia, on both banks at the Es Sin, and finally a triple row round Kut itself. The river now being level with its banks, her funnels and superstructure, and even her hull, would stand out clear against the sky. In the East it is impossible for anything to be kept secret, and it was known to many, two days ORAH CAMP 423 before the Julna arrived, that the attempt was to be made. At dead of night on the 25th she slipped her cables and stole up-stream. Thousands of anxious eyes were turned in her direction, and tense ears listened to the sound of her screw. Heavy with her load, the engines had to use their utmost effort to battle against the rushing flood, and whether it was the noise of her screw or that information had been conveyed to the Turk, one cannot say. Our guns strove by their din to distract the attention of the Turks, but the fates were not kind, and she was discovered a few miles from Kut. Her gallant Commander was killed, and our airmen brought the news next morning that she was a captive of the Turk. And so we had played our last card. The next few days were days of gloom and depression, and then on the 29th came news that the garrison had capitulated. I have heard strong men, who had cheerfully for months borne every kind of hard- ship, and faced death almost daily, say that they felt inclined to weep. All this sacrifice had been in vain, and our heroic comrades, British and Indian, were on their way to captivity. Before us stretched months of torture from the blazing sun on the open desert, in confined trenches with no head cover. Cholera, too, had broken out in the Turkish trenches, and the corpses of the victims of this fell disease floated daily down the river, polluting its waters. Orders were issued that all drinking-water must be- boiled, but fuel was scarce, and sun-scorched men cannot wait to slake the agony of a desert thirst. 424 THE SCENE OF WAR Myriads of flies swarmed everywhere, and, straight from the sun-blistered corpses on No-man's-land, would invade our trenches and battle for food even into one's mouth. All that was humanly possible to tide over the horrors of the summer was done, but resources were limited, and many a British lad lies on the desert of Mesopotamia. But all things have their end, and at last October with its cool weather is at hand. THE END. PRINTED BY WILLIAM ELACKWOOD AND SONS. By V. C. SCOTT O'CONNOR The Silken East A Record of Life and Travel in Burma With Map and 400 Illustrations, including 20 Coloured Plates after Paintings by Mr j. R. MIDDLETON, Mrs OTWAY WHEELER CUFFE, and Native Artists. In 2 vols., super-royal 8vo, handsomely bound in cloth, richly gilt and gilt top, 425. net. TRESS OPINIONS. Punch. Nothing is lacking to the rare perfection of a work interesting from first to last. The Athenaeum. Conveys well that strange blend of primitive simplicity and barbaric splendour which goes to make the Orient a place of undying fascination. The Spectator. This is at once the most elaborate and one of the most enjoyable books on Burma that has ever been published. Pall Mall Gazette. May be said to have added one to our collection of standard works upon outlying portions of the British Empire. The Graphic. Has all the freshness of a book of first impressions, and gives a vivid picture of that sensuous East which Rudyard Kipling's soldier " heard a-calling." Nothing worth seeing in Burma has escaped his eye. The Globe. We cannot leave his delightful book without drawing attention to the excellence of the writing, a quality rare indeed in volumes of travel. The World. Likely to remain the Standard Book of Travel where Burma is concerned. Full of beauty, of opulent colourful description. Daily Chronicle. Beautifully illustrated, sumptu- ously got up, and charmingly written. Bookman. A quite remarkable book. The Morning Post. In all the literature which Europe has produced descriptive of Burma and its people, we know of no book which catches and pre- serves for the delight and instruction of the Western World the peculiar charm and beauty of this radiant land more successfully than does Mr Scott O'Connor in these two superb volumes. The Sphere. He makes the richness and colour of this vivid Eastern land live between the covers of his two sumptuous volumes. The Daily Graphic. He has been everywhere in Burma and seen everything. So fresh and vivid are his descriptions that the reader is conveyed as on a magic carpet to the heart of that fair land, and can well-nigh see the gorgeous colours of the sunsets, hear the silver tinkle of the pagoda bells, and feel the soft evening breeze laden with the scent of forest flowers. Travels in the Pyrenees Including Andorra and the Coast from Barcelona to Carcassonne BY V. C. SCOTT O'CONNOR, Author of The Silken East,' ' Mandalay and other Cities of Burma,' &c. WITH 4 COLOURED PLATES, 158 OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS, AND A MAP Published at Ten Shillings and Sixpence. This Book describes the Borderland of France and Spain ; the Home of the Catalans, whose great exemplar is General Jojjre. REVIEWS. The Athenaeum. Mr Scott O'Connor is already known as an accomplished writer, and the excellence of his present work will add to his reputation. The best of his writing is that dealing- with the people and the country in the neigh- bourhood of Castell' Nou the Chateau of a thousand years, and he gives us delightful visions of that Corniche Road which overlooks the sheltered world of Pyrene, and of the flowers to be seen in spring. The Spectator. Mr Scott O'Connor gives us a very complete and a very delightful account of the Eastern Pyrenees, and draws a vivid picture of the towns on the Spanish side. Readers of this book will long to see for themselves the wonderful views and enjoy the southern sun- shine that his accomplished literary style brings so vividly before them. The Obsarver. Mr Scott O'Connor writes well and from an immense store of information. T. P.'S Weekly. The book is a delight. Fascinating. 4 Morning Post. Crammed full of anecdotes of gossiping simple people which will bring- a smile of recollection to every traveller who has used his ears as well as his eyes in the Pyrenees. The Daily Telegraph. Mr Scott O'Connor has already taken a high place with his delightful volumes on the East, and to those who have felt the charm of his earlier books, this, the latest, will need few words of commendation. His chapters are full of that fascination which makes the reader wish at once to put the book with some other travel neces- saries into a bag, and start forthwith for the thousand and one places of beauty and interest of which he has to tell. Whether he is telling of the ancient history of the places on this borderland of France and Spain, recording his impres- sions of the wonderful scenery, describing the villages and towns, or noting talks with the people, he is always interest- ing : firstly, because he himself is always really interested ; and secondly, because he has a very real literary gift. The Standard. Mr Scott O'Connor has written of a beautiful, an absorbingly interesting and yet very little known corner of Europe in a delightful way. He is as picturesque as he is profound, as illuminating as he is enter- taining ; his knowledge of his subject is as great as his love of it, and so we get a book to treasure. His enthusiasm for the land he writes about is not only understandable, but contagious ; its great natural beauties, its interesting popula- tion, its quality of being as yet unspoiled by contact with the world outside, and finally, its great past Roussillon, Gerona, Andorra places of memories going back 3000 years. Memories are there of the flowing tides of human progress or retrogression, of pitiless struggles of races and religions, of the clash of mighty empires, of the passage of the Giants of history. We recommend his book unreservedly to the reading public. Evening Standard. He has a command of powerful but apt English, level-headed and restrained, yet full of fire and beauty, and makes a new world for us of the Pyrenees. The Globe. One of the great charms of this book is its singularly happy combination of ancient history with modern description. This pleasant intertwining of old and new gives an indescribably agreeable flavour to his narrative, and enables us to realise the more vividly the reality of the life, so alien to our own, which has continued uninterruptedly for over two thousand years. The Daily Chronicle. There can have been no better book on the subject than this, so fresh, so full, so readable. Manchester Chronicle. Up to the present the world has heard comparatively little of the Mediterranean Pyrenees, where a whole land of Romance lies open and inviting to the holiday-maker in search of unspoiled loveliness. Its rare charms stand fully revealed for the first time in this book, and Mr Scott O'Connor writes of it with the opulent literary grace which has given his books on Burma a recognised place among the classics on the subject. Manchester Guardian. This is a book that the traveller in the Eastern Pyrenees ought not to leave behind, however light his luggage. The Liverpool Courier. A living and original first- hand account, with the open air singing through the lines. This man has seen with his own eyes, thought with his own brain, wrought with a carefully picked pen. His own curi- osity, his own joy in Pyrenean journeyings lift every page of his book into picturesqueness, quicken its pulse, give it all a bright originality and life. Nottingham Guardian. It is a decided pleasure to read this book. The bold mountain scenery is sketched with graphic power, while the historic associations crowd upon the imagination at every step. The Irish Times. Mr O'Connor has travelled exten- sively in this region ; he has travelled wisely and he has travelled well. He has been among the people if not of them, and he has approached his critical survey of them with a keen appreciation of racial characteristics. He is lavish of historical information, and his descriptions of the scenery are clearly written from the heart. On the whole this is a most interesting and valuable work which puts a fascinating country before us in fascinating colours. The Northern Whig (Belfast). Mr O'Connor jour- neys with the contented step of the man who finds every road enchanting, no matter where it leads. This is the fundamental qualification of the Traveller, who lacking it lacks everything. There is a touch of Borrow in him, with the result that his book has been written for the most part not in libraries, but by the wayside, in hay-fields and inns and coaches, so that one gathers something of the sun and the wind and the freedom of a Traveller who goeth where he listeth. The Glasgow Herald. His whole treatment of the subject is a fine blending of the historical and the descriptive, and will be widely appreciated. The Dundee Advertiser. A delightful experience awaits the reader who gets hold of this work. No summary can do justice to its wonderful scope, nor to the excellence of Mr O'Connor's recital of all that appealed to his keen sense of colour and the* spirit of the place, as he explored the romantic home of the Catalans. Aberdeen Free Press. Mr V. C. Scott O'Connor is well known as the author of that notable book, ' The Silken East,' and he has brought into his 'Travels in the Pyrenees' the literary and descriptive qualities which made his former work so popular. Both pictorially and in respect of its literary glow and animation the book is most fascinating. The author works on a large canvas, but the book has fine balance and perspective, and past and present stand out in 6 impressive relief. The effect is as of a romantic panorama, with many quaint figures and striking- scenes, and with that frequent jostling of the sublime and the ridiculous which, as he says, is to be looked for in a world of ironies. This book rivets the attention of the reader, enriches his imagination, and stimulates his thoughts. The Guardian. Altogether a very delightful book. The Catholic Times. Extremely interesting and very well written. The book is one of unusual interest and excellence. The Ladies' Field. The softness, the mystery, and the fascination of a rich antiquity and present seclusion are still present in the valleys and mountains of the Pyrenees Orientales, and it is on their present grace and mournful beauty that Mr Scott O'Connor dwells. Over all the land princely city, primitive village, soft old cathedrals and chateaux, blue Mediterranean sea-coast towns, and mountain-sides rosy or grey broods the Canigou, the splendid mountain that has ever been the theme of Catalan poetry. Mr Scott O'Connor is imbued with the spirit of this enchanted land, steeped in its history, and in- tensely sensitive to the glamour of its present that is so soon to be its past. He has written " a golden book " that comes at exactly the right moment. The Gentlewoman. A book to read slowly with the imagination alert. New York Herald. An entertaining volume, which should be in the hands of every visitor to France. Mr O'Connor loves the region which he describes, and he succeeds in imparting this love to the reader. Boston Transcript. His love and intimate knowledge of his subject, and his grace and charm of style, not only make us see the Pyrenees' lands and people, but recreate for us the splendid pageant of their Past. New York Book News. He brings home to us the charm of its quaint little towns nestling under great heights, and its lovely valleys spread along an azure sea. Chicago Record Herald. Mr O'Connor will take you wandering through the lovely valleys and villages of this region both in Spain and France, and only a few moments are necessary to discover the literary charm of his book. Its sustained freshness of spirit is very acceptable. The Pioneer. He has the power of carrying the reader along with him. We feel the intoxication of sunshine and fresh mountain air, the delightful sense of adventures to come, as we take coach with him. In his company the road is full of interest. Many and varied are the people to whom he introduces us. We find them all charming. He shows us not only modern life but mediaeval, for he has the power of re-peopling these scenes with those who lived among them in the past. By V. C. SCOTT O'CONNOR Mandalay, and other Cities of Burma TRESS OPINIONS. The Times. A new book by the author of 'The Silken East' ought to be assured a warm welcome. . . . This book ought surely to be read with delight. The Athenaeum. Students and lovers of Burma owe gratitude to Mr O'Connor for the beautiful books about that country which he has produced. Westminster Gazette. Grace, charm of style, intimate knowledge, and any number of fine illustra- tions, combine to make this one of the best works on Burma that have appeared. The Spectator. The author knows his Burma from end to end, he writes with equal sympathy of its past history and its wealth of natural and artistic beauty. 8 Morning Post. 'The Silken East' was a note- worthy achievement. In ' Mandalay ' Mr Scott O'Connor has excelled himself. The Outlook. Aims at bringing to life again the past of the country by means of a descriptive and historical treatment of the ancient centres of life. The struggles for supremacy of three races in Burma have left behind them two thousand years of vivid history; and Mr O'Connor's book is concerned to rescue from the swift advance of new conditions some of the splendour of that long record. The Globe. We had the pleasure of commend- ing warmly to our readers Mr O'Connor's fascinating volume on ' The Silken East,' and with equal pleasure commend to them its successor. Daily News. Mr O'Connor has been able to produce a book of much fascination. The Graphic. Mr O'Connor makes the dead past live again for us with all its romance, its bar- baric splendour, its gorgeous pageants, its cruelties and oppressions, its truly oriental uncertainties of life and fortune. Any Bookseller will supply these works. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 7Jin'65J D *TC'D l, D ^26165-,^ y mi n i 197-1 fi. vTut U lg ' O . RETURNED TO 1 ft.8 I 19Z4 LOAM A UJ-T *** iiN A H C L( D| 3l A-6o r4 3 7 , ; |5 u^ssstfassa-. 24 958 UVERS.TY OF CALIFORNU UBRARY NEW AND JOND-HAND BOOKSELLERS, 96, MOUNT STREET, LONDON w i