The Children's Story of the War 2
CHAPTER XVIII.
STORIES OF THE BATTLE OF VERDUN.
A TIMES correspondent, writing from "before Verdun, 4th March," tells us that the great German assault was intended to take place long before the day on which it was actually launched, but that it was delayed by spells of bad weather. He also tells us that things went wrong with the Germans in other ways. A Zeppelin that was to have blown up important railway junctions on the French lines of communication was brought down at Révigny. On the evening of 21st February, the day on which the great guns began to thunder before Verdun, the stationmaster of Révigny saw a Zeppelin approaching. On a siding there were seventy wagons filled with munitions, and he realized at once that they would be a good mark for the bomb-droppers. A pointsman and a locomotive driver rushed up at his call, and within a very few moments all the wagons were speeding away from the danger zone at top speed. For their promptness and resource the three railwaymen afterwards received decorations.
A man who saw the Zeppelin brought down describes the incident as follows : "The Zeppelin made its appearance suddenly in the bright beam of a searchlight. It was not more than 1,800 metres (6,000 feet) up, and it looked like a gigantic fish. Its nose offered a good enough likeness to the tapered head of a pike, and the pike's long body was represented by the carcass of the dirigible. At short intervals I heard loud reports. These came from the batteries of motor guns which were firing on the airship. The Zeppelin seemed to pause, and afterwards for a few moments went forward again in a southerly direction. Then it put about, and sought to escape; but the searchlights and motor guns of Révigny pursued it, and the cannonade became more violent. Suddenly an immense burst of flame gushed upwards into the sky, and from all of us who were watching broke the same cry, 'It's hit ! ' In less than ten seconds the airship, a flame from end to end, turned on itself two or three times, and came whirling to the earth. While the blazing Zeppelin was falling, one of the crew climbed over the side of the car, slid down a rope, and fell to the ground from a height of 1,000 feet. He was dead when picked up."
It was the L77 which had thus been destroyed, and the gun that brought it down was one of the famous French" 75'S."
After something like twenty shots," says a correspondent, the gunners got home with one which sealed the fate of the pirate craft. French artillerymen are not accustomed to hide their feelings, and their enthusiasm got the better of them. Some of them danced round the guns, embracing their comrades, while others gave vent to their joy in song."
The French "75's " are such wonderful guns, and they played such an important part in the Verdun battle, that I cannot do better than give you a description of one of them. First of all, what is a "75" ? It is a field gun whose calibre - that is, the diameter of its bore - is 75 millimetres, or nearly three inches. Its length is nine feet, and it is the best man-killing machine which the world has yet known. Formerly artillery fire was slow, and this was due to the fact that, after the gun was laid and fired, the shock of the discharge so upset the aim that the gun had to be relaid for the next shot. The French set the best brains of their country to the work of inventing a gun which might be fired again and again and not need relaying. The "75', which was served out to the French gunners in 1898 was the result. The old form of gun was attached to its axle-tree, but the new gun was fixed to a buffer in a cradle, which not only absorbed the shock of the recoil, but ran back the gun so exactly into its former position that no second laying was necessary. You can easily understand that the new gun could be fired much more rapidly than the old ; indeed, it could discharge its shots as fast as the gunners could adjust the fuses to the shells.
If you look at the French "75" you will see a cylinder beneath the gun barrel. This cylinder contains a combination of glycerine, compressed air, and springs which take up the recoil. The exact proportions of this combination are a secret which is most jealously kept. Many " 75's " have fallen into the hands of the Germans, but they have not been able to discover the secret. The moment they open the cylinder the air escapes, and the secret with it.
Now that the French had made a very rapid-firing gun, the next problem was how to increase the rate of fuse-setting. Probably you know that if a shell has its fuse too long or too short, even by a little, it cannot do its work accurately. Before long the French had invented a machine which set the fuse exactly and very rapidly. The gunner pulls a handle like that of a beer engine, and with one clean, crisp stroke the shell is properly fused. I cannot tell you how this machine works, for its details are a secret.
The French had now produced a gun easily able to fire twenty-five aimed shots a minute ; but they were not content with anything short of perfection. They gave their new gun an increased range by lengthening the barrel to nearly nine feet an hitherto unheard-of length for a field gun-and they provided it with shrapnel and high-explosive shells, which raced away on their mission of death at a higher speed than had ever been known before. Then they invented a method by which they could get three different kinds of fire from the gun without relaying it. By means of a worm and wheel gear they were able to make the gun spray its shrapnel right and left, just as a field labourer swings his scythe when mowing grass. This they called "mowing fire." Next they fitted mechanism to the gun which enabled it still without relaying - to follow up men as they ran towards it or away from it. Finally they combined this forward or backward fire with the "mowing fire," and so were able to spray any piece of ground so thoroughly with shrapnel that nothing mortal could live on it. Over and over again, not only at Verdun but on a score of other fields, the French gunners were able to destroy advancing columns by means of this dreaded rafale.* Were four battalions, massed in a brigade formation, to come within three and a half miles of a battery of " 75's," at a range known to the gunners, they would probably be beaten flat to the earth in less than half a minute, and not a single man of them would escape wounding!
Let us watch a battery of "75s' in action. The battery commander rattles off a string of words, telling his men their target, the range, length of fuse, angle of deflection, and so forth. While he is speaking, the gun layers are at work, and the fuse setters are punching the shell noses. Then the breech of each gun swings open, the shells are inserted, and "as the captain finishes on a sharp note of command, each gun, being laid on an axis parallel to its fellow, whizzes off a string of eight shells in two groups of four, and ceases fire. As the last shell leaves the gun the loader swings open the breech and stands easy. The whole process has taken exactly twenty seconds and somewhere about two miles off there is a patch of mother earth the size of Trafalgar Square, every scrap of which has been so beaten by shrapnel bullets that there is no unprotected living thing on it."
Such is the French " 75 "-the pride of the French army, and the most effective piece of artillery known to man. It is said that the Germans strove hard to obtain the plans of the "75," and that the French prepared a set which were apparently perfect, and let their whereabouts be known. A German spy was allowed to steal the papers, but when his masters made the gun from them they found that it wouldn't work. The Germans had obtained possession of dummy plans!
A French doctor, who describes the first four days of the fighting before Verdun, tells us that on the first day he was in the Caures Woods with a battery holding an advanced position. Behind the battery the Germans had created two or three zone of curtain fire, through which the supplies of ammunition had to be brought up and the wounded removed. This was done with wonderful calm and heroism. One gun of the French battery was damaged by a German shell, and had to be withdrawn to the rear. There remained three "75's," which fired ceaselessly. As soon as the doctor had finished binding up the wounded and sending them to the rear, he lent a hand in passing up the shells. An 8-inch German shell passed between the legs of one of the men serving the battery, and failed to explode. A little, later a 12-inch shell caught this same man as it rebounded over the gun, and landed him head foremost a dug-out. The man scrambled out again, saying, " Doctor, I really believe I can't be hit."
Meanwhile the guns grew hot and tired. The man had gone back to his piece while the doctor attended to the wounded twenty yards to the rear. Suddenly the gun burst. Raising his eyes, the doctor saw two of the gun's crew dead, and the poor fellow who thought he couldn't be hit in his last agony. The burst gun was removed. There now remained two guns, one of which had a hole in its rifling, and the other had its brake smashed; but still they fired. The gunners were splendid; they stuck to their work as though nothing had happened. Then the Germans opened fire with their Austrian 4.1-inch guns, which are the nearest thing they possess to the French 75's." The result was awful, but nothing compared with the moment when the German machine guns began to play, for no cannon is so terrible as a machine gun.
The men were dead tired. The severely wounded were tied on to the empty ammunition wagons, and back they went, plunging in and out of the enormous craters which the German heavy shells had made. At last the German infantry advanced from the woods at a trot. "Our fellows," says the doctor, "fired until the enemy was within 300 or 400 yards. Then, not wishing to be caught, they retired. That was the worst moment of all. The men retreated foot by foot. It made one's heart bleed. The retirement lasted twenty-four hours.
Then came a moment of mad delight. Our attacking corps appeared. On they came, with great speed and power. My poor fellows, worn out and lying flat, watched them as the torrent of men and guns rolled forward. They dashed onwards, never stopping, with wonderful spirit and 'go.' Never have I felt such joy. From that moment we all knew that the Huns were done for, and that their advance was stayed."
A French soldier who took part in the fight at Ornes wrote as follows : "I have fought right through from the beginning. It was so frightful that I, who have seen my comrades fall almost with indifference, shudder when I look back. Battalions of the Germans advanced on us in close ranks-twenty men abreast. The shrapnel from our '75's ' and our heavy artillery rained on them. It was blood-curdling. You could see great gaps being made. It was as if a man had been passing through the German ranks with a scythe steadily mowing them down. Each time the shells exploded human fragments fell around us."
One more story about the guns before I pass on to other aspects of the battle. An artillery captain said to a correspondent : " It was in the full height of the assault, and our guns had been firing round after round at the highest speed. After seven or eight hundred rounds the '75's ' became so hot that it was impossible to fire any longer until the pieces had been cooled. Our guns reached this stage of heat, and there was no water left except in the men 5 water-bottles. The men were almost dying of thirst, and yet of their own free will they refused to drink a single drop, reserving all the water in their flasks for the cooling of the pieces which were defending the infantry a mile or two away."
When the Germans entered the village of Samogneux, two French companies of infantry holding some ruined houses were cut off, and had no time to retreat. Their leader was a young captain, who determined to die rather than surrender. Happily, the position was a good one. The Germans were exposed to the fire of the French machine guns, and the French could take refuge in cellars from the bombardment of the German artillery. Twice the Germans attempted to rush the position, but both times they were repulsed. The number of the defenders, however, gradually grew less, and their ammunition began to fail. When at last the captain saw the Germans preparing to make a third attack, he knew that it must end in the destruction of his little band. At once he sent off an orderly with a message to the colonel, saying that he meant to attack the enemy at three o'clock, but he hoped to be relieved before that time. If not, nothing remained but for him and his men to die for their country.
Slowly the time went by. At five minutes to three the captain called his men together, and told them that when the hour struck they must attack the enemy. If help arrived in time they might be saved ; if not, it was certain death. " Let us, at least," he said, " show the Boches how French soldiers can die."
At the hour fixed he gave the order to attack. His men leaped forward to the fray so fiercely that the Germans were forced to fall back. Before they could rally for a counterattack, French cheers were heard in the rear. The troops so long waited for were advancing, led by the orderly who had been sent to summon them. The men came up at a rush just in the nick of time, and enabled the gallant little band to make good its retreat.
It is said that the Germans made no less than eighteen attacks on the village of Douaumont on 28th and 29th February before they entered it, only to be thrust out again. The French fully admitted the bravery of the enemy. "Not knowing that they were advancing to their death," wrote an officer, they came on as if on parade to within twenty yards of us, and then rushed forward, crying, ' Vorwarls! ' A salvo from our machine guns mowed down the first line, and then the order rang out to charge with fixed bayonets. Terrible hand-to-hand fights ensued in the darkness. Frightful mistakes were made by the enemy. We found the body of a German officer pierced by German bayonets. An enemy company charged a section which was coming up to support it. The fight lasted till daybreak, when the approaches to Douaumont were covered with dead and wounded. We planned a counter-attack, which enabled us to gain a footing in the little redoubt north-west of Douaumont, from which the Germans were firing on us with machine guns. Calm returned in the morning."
How the two thousand Brandenburgers were trapped in the fort of Douaumont is told in the following extract from a French newspaper
Our counter-attack was carried out so rapidly that the unfortunate 24th Brandenburg Regiment, which is one of the crack corps of the German army, could do nothing but hide and take cover in the casemates of the old fort of Douaumont, where it found nothing but stones. To-day (29th February) this regiment is completely surrounded, and dare not come out. No doubt they are afraid of being shot by us; and they have good enough reason for believing this, as, before sending them to the assault at the very height of the battle, under the eyes of the Emperor and the Crown Prince, their commanders said to them, 'Don't forget that the French do not take prisoners.' When the position was recaptured, our men showed great enthusiasm. The generals commanding the reinforcing armies massed in the rear announced the success in the following words: 'The -- Corps has retaken Douaumont.' On all sides rose the cry, 'Vive la France ! ' Every band played the ' Marseillaise.' It was a moment of supreme emotion."
One of the most thrilling adventures of the fighting described in the preceding chapter was the escape of a young lieutenant who was acting as observer to the artillery in a captive balloon high above the roar of the battle. Suddenly he discovered that the steel hawser connecting the balloon with the ground had been severed by a shell, and that he was drifting towards the enemy's lines. Thousands of anxious eyes were directed towards the little speck, which grew fainter and fainter as the southerly wind wafted it towards the German positions. Four aeroplanes at once started off in the hope of rendering assistance ; but every one felt that the lieutenant was doomed. Minutes passed. The balloon kept on rising, and only the car could now be seen. Then suddenly a tiny, grayish speck was noticed to drop from the balloon, which shot up a thousand feet. The speck, instead of falling to earth, seemed to be hanging in mid-air. By the aid of glasses observers saw that the speck was a human body, suspended from a parachute. A mighty cheer arose when, twenty minutes later, the parachute descended into the French lines with the young officer safe and sound.
His own story of the adventure is as follows :-"I first knew that something had gone wrong when I felt a slight shock. I thought the telephone cable had parted. All at once I became aware that the other balloons were growing smaller, and I grasped the fact that I was adrift. A glance at my barometer told me I was already five thousand feet up. I tried to pull the cord working the valve, but it had become entangled and would not act. I tried to climb up to it, but failed. Then I feared I was lost. My first thought was to destroy my papers; then I thought of blowing out my brains, to avoid falling into the hands of the Boches. At last, however, came inspiration. Why not try the parachute? I had to be quick, for I was now 11,000 feet up. The cord which was tied round my body was 6 feet long, so I had to jump that distance into the void before the box containing the parachute could open and set it free. For a few seconds I held on to the car by my hands. Then I let go. I must have dropped over a hundred feet before the parachute unfurled, and it was not an agreeable sensation. But after that I did not mind, and was able to look about me. When I was only 2,500 feet from the earth I became aware that the wind was carrying me towards the German lines. Then I seemed to lose consciousness. I rebounded three times before I finally landed, and discovered I was 300 yards from the enemy. I had been twenty minutes falling. I am only slightly bruised."
A correspondent * who visited the battlefield in the first week of March tells us that "Verdun lies in a great basin with the silvery Meuse twining in the valley. The scene is, on the whole, Scottish. Verdun, from where I saw it, might be Perth, and the Meuse the Tay. Small groups of firs darken some of the hills, giving a natural resemblance to Scotland.
"The town is being made into a second Ypres by the Germans. Yet as it stands out in the sunlight it is difficult to realize that it is a place from which the people have all gone, save a faithful few who live underground. The tall towers of Verdun still stand. Close by us is a hidden French battery, and it is pretty to see the promptness with which it sends its screaming shells back to the Germans within a few seconds of the dispatch of a missive from the Huns. One speedily grows accustomed to the sound and the scene, and can follow the position of the villages, about which the Germans pretend to mislead the world by wireless messages every morning.
We journey farther afield, and the famous fort of Douaumont is pointed out. The storming of Fort Douaumont, as related by the German dispatches, is on a par with the sinking of the Tiger and the recent air bombardment of Liverpool. All the world knows that the Tiger is, as she was before the Germans sank her in their newspapers, one of the finest ships in the world, and that the air bombardment of Liverpool was imagined in Berlin. The storming of Fort Douaumont, gun-less and unmanned, was about as important. It was a military operation of little value. A number of Brandenburgers climbed into the gunless fort of Douaumont, and some of them are still there, scantily supplied with food by their comrades at night. They are practically surrounded by the French, whose Headquarters Staff regards the whole incident as a simple episode in the give and take of war.
The same writer tells us that the prisoners taken by the French were miserable creatures, and that he could hardly believe that they belonged to a crack German corps. " One ill-favoured youth hailing from Charlottenburg was barely five feet four inches high. Narrow-chested and peak-faced, he had the quick-wittedness of the town recruit, but seemed far better fitted for his stool as a railway clerk than for the life of the trenches or for the ordeal of battle. Yet he had been taken at the end of 1914 and sent to Flanders after six weeks' training, 'educated ' in trench-making for another month, then left to himself and his comrades as a full-fledged Prussian eaglet. Like the bulk of the other prisoners, he had been withdrawn at the beginning of February from the Flanders front and sent to the neighbourhood of Verdun.
Of one thing he and his fellows were heartily glad-to be taken away from the neighbourhood of the 'frightful English and nearer to the kindly French. From all the reports which these men had received from their families during the last two months, it appears that, in the words of one of them, there reigns in Germany considerable misery.' . . . The chief longing of the men, as of their families, was for peace.'