- 'The Strategy of Sister Madeleine'
- The Story of a French Captain's Escape from the Germans
- Told by himself, and translated by G. Frederic Lees
Escaping the Germans in Belgium, 1914
French troops at the battle of Charleroi - a sketch from a British magazine
Few men who have succeeded in slipping through the clutching fingers of the Mailed Fist have such a moving record of adventure to their credit as Captain X — — , who here relates his remarkable experiences. There is the true Stevensonian flavor in some of the episodes narrated; and at the same time the story has real historical value, since it opens with a graphic account of the Battle of Charleroi, which has not yet been described by the French Staff, or by any of the unofficial historians of the war. The officer's name is suppressed in deference to his own request when he related his experiences in the Wide World Magazine.
I — My Experiences at the Battle of Charleroi
In relating my adventures, extending over more than fifteen months, I cannot do better than begin with the starting-point of the whole affair — the Battle of Charleroi. To describe the events which grouped themselves around August 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and 25th, 1914, seems like telling old news, but, as a matter of fact, the gigantic struggle named after the Belgian town of ironworks and mines has yet to be recorded. The French Staff has published nothing, unofficial historians — eager to be the first to place their researches before the public — have only given general and often erroneous descriptions of the advance of Von Kluck, Von Buelow, and Von Hausen against Sir John French's forces on the Conde-Mons-Binche line and the Fifth French Army holding the line of the Sambre, and the newspaper accounts are sometimes contradictory.
I am not going to weary you with military technicalities ; we will leave questions of strategy and tactics alone and direct our attention to the battlefield as seen from two points of view: that of myself, an officer in the French Army, and that of an inhabitant of Charleroi, with whom I was later thrown into contact, and by whose . observations, made from the roof of -his house, I was fortunate in benefiting.
Picture to yourself the sinuous Sambre, flowing in its deep bed through the densely-populated suburbs of Charleroi and the southern end of this formerly fortified town. The town itself, imprisoned by its walls, is but a small place of some thirty thousand inhabitants, but the population is swelled to five hundred thousand by the contiguous suburbs of Montigny, Couillet, Marcinelle, Gilly, Chatelet, Marchiennes, Roux, Jumet, Gosselies, and others which cluster around the ancient nucleus and stretch principally northwards. To fight a battle on such a ground as this was impossible, so the German forces, descending from the north and the east in unknown hundreds of thousands, determined to make for the open-wooded country which lies beyond the southern suburbs of the town. Two tremendous obstacles stood in their way — the closely-packed houses of the suburbs and the strongly-held river. The inhabitants soon learnt to their cost how the first of these was to be overcome. Suddenly, shortly after the appearance cf the advance-guard of the German army, violent explosions were heard, accompanied by the pop! pop! pop! of machine-guns and the discharge of musketry. The Huns were blasting a broad way through the suburbs, setting fire to the houses, and — under pretense that they were being fired upon by civilians — shooting the people down in their houses and in the streets. Right through the quarters of Gosselies and Jumet they penetrated; then branched off to the right and left, one band of incendiaries reaching the river through Marchiennes, the other cutting its way through the town and reaching the bridge which connects Montigny and Couillet. These two points were where the enemy first succeeded in crossing the Sambre.
Later, when we had begun our retreat southwards, owing to pressure from Von Hausen's army massed in the Northern Ardennes, they crossed at two other places, east of Charleroi. Thus, on Sunday, August .23rd, the preliminaries of the great battle were carried out.
South of the river the ground rises gently until it reaches the wooded heights in the neighbourhood of Beaumont, Thuillies, Nalinnes, and Sonzee. I was stationed at the first of these places — a little village on High ground, with a commanding view of the green country-side. Who would have thought, but for the deafening roar of cannon, the incessant rattle of the machine-guns, the occasional whir of an aeroplane overhead, and the puffs and rings of white smoke high in air, that we were looking on a battlefield ? How empty it was! We could see from the flashes of the carefully-hidden guns whence death was springing; but in the early stages of the struggle only small bodies of the enemy, whose greenish-grey uniforms mingled well with the verdure, were from time to time visible. At night, however, it was different. The red glare of burning villages and farms, set on fire by shells, lit up the sky and provided a terrifying spectacle, night after night, for the anxious watchers of Charleroi.
II — "We Mowed Them Down with Machine Guns"
As the Germans advanced and the battle raged from morning to night, it became more and more evident that we were hopelessly outnumbered. Possessing an advantage, however, in being on high ground, it was clear that we could hold out for a considerable length of time and make the enemy pay dearly for every yard .of ground we had to give away. When once the greenish-grey uniforms began to appear in any considerable number, they came on in solid masses, which we mowed down, time after time, by rifle and machine-gun fire. and by showers of shrapnel from our "75's." But others quickly filled their places, and thus the human tide advanced, until at last the order had to be given for the retreat. This was on August 25th, by which date, after the enemy had been obliged to suspend operations for twenty-four hours to collect the wounded, they had lost over forty thousand men.
Ah? les gredins! how well they deserved their fate for the shooting down of peaceful citizens in Charleroi and the unspeakable crimes committed in the communes on the wooded heights of Lover val, Acoz, Montigny-le-Tilleui, and Somzee! With what satisfaction our small detachments, hidden in the woods, let the German scouts pass on in order to open fire at close quarters on the masses of troops which followed! They paid, then, for the outrages perpetrated by the Uhlans. You ask for an instance. Here is one which was related to me by my friend of Charleroi — he who viewed the battle from his house-top, and afterwards explored the battlefield to come face to face with this grim picture. A typical instance of Teutonic cruelty, I give it in his own words:
"A little way out of the village of Somzee was a small farm inhabited by a young household, including three small children. Honest, courageous, and economical folk, they had toiled season after season to pay by annual instalments for their property, which they had agreed to purchase some eight years ago. The last payment had just been made; the children were growing up; the little family was happy. But the German monsters came. In a few minutes this hardly-earned happiness was shattered. The Boches seized everything — the few cows, the dearly-loved horse. They set fire to the farm, shot the farmer, and drove before them, into the distance, the poor widow with her four weeping and terrified children. What a sinister picture it makes! It was at the close of a splendid August day. The little isolated farm is burning. A few yards from the door the dead man is lying on his back. On the side of the hill which descends to the main road are the silhouettes of the Uhlans disappearing in the gathering darkness of night. Tongues of flame on the horizon mark places where similar dramas had been enacted."
"Now then, boys, let them have it hot. Pick off the gunners one by one. Marcel, Gustave, Francois, do you keep an eye on the officers. Ah, les gredins! we'll teach them!"
It was the day after the battle of Charleroi, and whilst our troops were retiring in good order, my men and I, after the fashion of many other small detachments, were holding a German battery in check. So near were we to the enemy that we could hear the harsh, guttural commands of the artillery officers — so different from the tone of camaraderie we adopt towards our men in the truly democratic army of France — and could see them, though indistinctly, urging on their men to the attack. From our trenches on a wooded knoll on the outskirts of Beaumont, we kept up a steady fire on those who were serving the guns, around which the Boches, falling like flies, quickly began to accumulate in heaps. Fresh men incessantly replaced those who had fallen, who at last lay in such numbers that the officers, in order to make room for the gunners, had the dead dragged away to the rear by the feet. Company after company of men fell in this way until the German officers, who had either been shot or had decided to withdraw, could be heard no more. A lull occurred. Bringing my glasses to bear on the battery, I could see no sign of life save the convulsive movements of a few of the prostrate men around the guns.
"It looks as though they had had enough," said I, to my friend Marcel, a private who comes from the same place as myself — Loctudy, in Brittany. "I wonder if we could capture those guns ?"
Before he had time to answer a hurricane of bullets came from a hidden machine- gun, and one of them found its billet. My poor friend, shot through the head, fell into my arms. We laid him gently down, thinking of the sad news that would have to be broken to a sorrowing mother at home, and then, anger mingling with regret in our hearts, once more directed our attention to the invisible enemy, in whose direction we hastened to send our compliments in the form of a stream of prunes.
Overhead we could hear the humming of one of our aeroplanes, and through an opening in the tree-tops momentarily caught sight of it as it moved over the German lines, reconnoitering. Rings of smoke from bursting shrapnel broke far beneath it. Its mission over, it moved swiftly back to our lines, and within ten minutes Marcel and many other brave fellows were avenged. Our "75's" got the range of the battery in front of us with marvellous exactitude, and for five minutes poured upon it such a rain of shells as to make it seem impossible that anything could live within a distance of a hundred yards. The dead around the guns were scattered like chaff in a high wind. A great silence followed that series of violent explosions. For five minutes, in accordance with orders, the men were busy cutting steps with their entrenching tools in our trench, so as to spring out of it quickly and proceed to capture the guns. Caution prompted another five minutes' wait, during which there was not a sign of life before us.
"Now, then, mes gars! time's up," I cried, as loud as prudence would allow. "Fix bayonets! Out of the trench as nimbly as you can. Take cover, when in the open, as much as possible. Are you ready? Forward, for the sake of France!"
III — "Dead on the Field of Honour"
We advanced towards the guns at the pas de gymnastique and reached them without mishap. Some were too shattered by the recent bombardment to be of any further use, but others were still intact, and these, as it was difficult if not impossible for us to get them away in a retreat over a hilly wooded country, we determined to destroy. Ordering some of my men to do what was necessary, and as rapidly as possible, the others and I kept a sharp look-out. The enemy gave not a sign of life. The fuses having been attached to the breeches of the guns and lit, we began to retire whither we had come, but had hardly gone more than fifty yards, and heard the successive explosions of the guns blowing up, when, on looking over my shoulder, I saw a body of Germans emerge at a run from a coppice about two hundred yards to our right, and heard them open fire upon us. At the same time I felt a sharp, burning pain in my side; a curious sensation of intense weakness filled my being ; and, with a vision of men falling to the ground with extended arms, I, too, bowed down, unconscious, to Mother Earth.
That night, as I afterwards learnt, I was posted as "dead on the field of honour." After eleven hours of oblivion, I came to myself in a German ambulance. My first impression on recovering consciousness was that of hearing the gruff, peremptory voice of a German Herr Doktor at my bedside; my second, when he had passed on to another sufferer, that of seeing a sweet French face bending over me.
"Where am I?" I asked.
"Hush! the doctor says you must speak as little as possible," replied the nurse, in a French which I at once detected to be that of an educated person. "I will tell you all that you need know for the present. You are in our little ambulance at Erquelinnes, on the frontier between Belgium and France — a German ambulance. But fear not" — this in a lower voice — "my country is France, and I am not without influence, or I should not be here. Your wound, though serious, will get well in time. Only you must be sage, and obey me. There, now! Cela suffit! Try to get a little more sleep; the more rest you have the better."
It needed but the invitation, the sound of her soothing voice, like that of a tender mother speaking to her child, and especially those singularly calming words: "Fear not — my country is France," which seemed to wrap me within the protective folds of the tricolour, to send me back once more into that state of semi-unconsciousness which appears to transport one to the borderline between life and death. Loss of blood during those many hours while I had lain forgotten on the battlefield had, indeed, brought me to so weak a condition that, as my benefactress told me later, the doctor had hardly expected to pull me through. My wound was one of those which have been encountered so often in this war; it exhibited the curious vagaries of which bullets are capable. The projectile entered my right side, travelled along a downward, curved path, and, avoiding any of the vital organs, came out at the other side. A millimetre to right or left, and it might have either killed or paralyzed me. As it was, the injury and loss of blood were serious, and could only be repaired by many weeks of immobility, coupled with skilled medical aid (and I must do the Herr Doktor the justice of recognizing that he was highly capable) and the devoted attention of my nurse. Ah! kindly benefactress of the ambulance of Erquelinnes, know, should you ever read my words, that I can never thank you enough for all you did for me. To have shown my gratitude too openly amidst the surroundings where your lot was cast — under what circumstances I have often tried to imagine — would have betrayed you. But, knowing how one French heart can understand another without the passing of words, I doubt not that you have long since comprehended the gratitude of the soldier of the Republic whom you befriended and saved.
IV — On the Arm of Sister Madeleine
A month in bed brought me the period when I was declared out of danger, and was allowed to sit up in a chair near a window overlooking a little garden bright with hollyhocks and sunflowers. Then came the day when, leaning on the arm of Sister Madeleine — the name under which, she said, I was to know her — I took my first walk and descended into that garden, to lie there for the best hours of the day on a chaise longue, conversing with her, or, when she was occupied with other wounded, reading and reflecting. It was Sister Madeleine who told me of passing events. But, oh! how discreetly she broke the news of the triumphant march of the German armies southward to Dinant and westward to Maubeuge! It required no great psychological insight on my part to detect where her sympathies lay. Her looks when, the wind being favourable, the faint sound of cannon reached us, the tone of her voice when France was named, her significant reticence on certain occasions, told me much more than actual words. One of these occasions stands out in my mind with particular prominence, owing to my having read in her words a warning, and conceived for the first time the idea of escape.
"The Herr Doktor is immensely pleased with the progress you are making, Captain X — — ," said Sister Madeleine, rising from my side to pluck some Michaelmas daisies from an adjoining border. "He says you may be allowed soon to take a little gentle exercise in the garden, and do a little gardening, too, if you are a flower-lover, as I doubt not. Are you inclined that way ?"
"I shall be delighted to turn my hand to weeding and planting," I replied. "The garden indeed needs attention !"
"N'est ce pas? Poor Jean, our gardener, now with the French colours, would be heartbroken if only he could see the wilderness his little earthly paradise has become. How grateful he will be to you when he returns — if he ever should return after this dreadful war — and finds that someone has been tending his beloved chrysanthemums and dahlias. When the mobilization order reached him he was in the midst of potting slips of geranium in the tool and potting shed yonder" — motioning to a little wooden construction at the end of the garden — "and everything there is just as he left it. A heap of withered slips lies side by side with rows of empty flower-pots, whilst in a corner I saw his working-clothes, which he hastily changed before he came to the house to wish us good-bye and passed into the unknown."
"I must try to prove myself to be a worthy successor to the brave fellow," I said. "Don't you think, Sister Madeleine, that in one respect — my unkempt appearance — I shall not make a bad substitute?"
Walking back to me with her bouquet, she gave me a critical look and laughed. Certainly, no one at home would have recognized me as I now was, with my long beard and moustache and uncut hair. All at once her face became serious, and, without replying to my question, she said: —
"There is no reason why you should not start to-morrow. But don't do too much to begin with. Though I should like to have you here much longer, it would grieve me if that were the result of a relapse. You must get back your strength by degrees. And I fear you will need every ounce of it in the future. No; do rather too little than too much. I have no wish to hear that the Kommandatur at Charleroi, who, I understand, is showing great severity just now towards French prisoners, should decide that you have recovered sufficiently to be included in the next batch to be sent into Germany."
And with these significant words Sister Madeleine left me, to carry her flowers to the bedsides of her other patients, and, possibly, to allow me to reflect.
Was it not clear that, indirectly, she had indicated a means of escape? A feeling of quasi-loyalty towards those who had enabled her to nurse one of her countrymen back to health and strength prevented her from bluntly saying: "There is a tool-shed, in which you will find a suit of old clothes; disguise yourself in them and flee." But her meaning was plain. The key to freedom had been placed in my hands, and it was for me to use it.
V — "I Plan to Escape Disguised as the Gardener"
I began pottering about the hollyhocks and sunflowers and dahlias the very next morning, taking care to alternate my spells of gardening with fairly lengthy rests, on the principle laid down by Sister Madeleine. Not that they were altogether unnecessary in my still weak state. However, my strength returned with remarkable rapidity, after the first week of this light work, and every additional day found me more fit to carry out my plan, the details of which I had ample opportunity of working out. The garden was surrounded by a high wall of irregular construction, thus affording a foothold to a skilful climber, whose task could be made still easier if he chose — as I had determined to do — that portion of the enclosure which was masked by the tool-shed, between the back of which and the wall was a space of about a foot and a half, providing an additional support for one's body. My resemblance to Jean, the gardener, had, by the by, become more and more perfect, thanks to work with spade and hoe, and perhaps, at times, owing to rather too close contact with the soil. That it would be perfection itself when I had donned his garb, at the close of an afternoon's work just before turning-in time, I felt convinced.
There was another thing of which I was certain: that Sister Madeleine instinctively knew the day and hour I had fixed for my flight. For she was so unusually silent on that day in the last week of October, when, according to my calculations, there would be no moon until late in the night, she was so serious in her mien, and she left me with such suddenness after advising me to come in, "now that the sun had set and the evenings were getting chilly," that I felt sure she comprehended.
"Thank you, Sister Madeleine," I replied; and I could not refrain from adding, in the hope that she would grasp my double meaning: "You have always given me such good advice. I shall never forget your kindness. But before coming in I must put away my tools."
Without daring to look her in the face, I turned down the path in the direction of the tool-shed. Five minutes later I left it, dressed in the gardener's earth-stained clothes, passed like a shadow to the rear of the building, and was over the wall in a trice.
I found myself in a field, and having not the slightest idea regarding the geography of Erquelinnes, went straight ahead at full speed. A quarter of an hour's steeplechasing across ditches and other natural obstacles brought me to a high road, and confronted me with the dilemma as to which way to turn. Without losing a moment's time, for I pictured the hue and cry my disappearance would soon be causing, I made off to the left. Fausse route! In five minutes I came within sight of the lights of the first house of a village, undoubtedly Erquelinnes itself. With a vague idea at the back of my head of gaining the Franco-Belgian frontier, and — avoiding all small places, where curiosity is most rife — reaching Maubeuge, where I might find an asylum' among my own people until an opportunity presented itself of getting back to the French lines, I struck off to the right, once more across open country.
The dark cloak of night had now fallen, making my progress necessarily slow. On and on I crept in the darkness. How long I continued I cannot say, but it must have been for several hours, for a great weariness suddenly came over me and impelled me to seek sleep. What was apparently a small wood lay in my path at that moment. Groping my way from bole to bole, I divined, rather than saw, a dry and sheltered spot under the trees, and, throwing myself down, quickly fell asleep, amidst the calling of the night-jars.
VII — "Hands Up — or I Shoot"
I cannot tell you how long I slumbered — probably until two or three o'clock in the morning. But I was awakened by the sound of the snapping of dry twigs and murmured voices. I sprang to my feet and listened. Nearer and nearer came the stealthy footsteps. I retired as cautiously as I could; but though I trod ever so lightly, it was impossible to avoid the crackling of dead wood, which seemed to my hypersensitive ears like so many pistol-shots. Even the thumping of my heart appeared audible. One curious thing, however, I noticed: whenever, after a noisy retreat, I stopped to listen, there was a corresponding stoppage and a long silence on the part of my pursuers. But, thought I, was it at all certain they were in pursuit? Would they not, in that case, have come on with a rush ? "Suppose I crouch down and run the risk of them passing without seeing me?" I thought. Whilst I was reflecting; with my back to what was apparently a fairly large tree, those who were advancing, emboldened by the silence which had intervened, came on with hastened steps, and got so near that I could hear their heavy breathing. I stepped quickly behind my tree, but too late to serve my purpose, for the next moment a stern voice rapped out an oath almost in my ear and a flash of light from an electric torch struck me full in the face.
"Hands up, or I shoot!" said the voice. "Who are you?"
"A Frenchman," I replied, obeying the command and deciding, on the spur of the moment, that one who spoke to me in my native tongue could hardly be an enemy. "And in need of help."
"Good thing you're not a Pruscot, mate, or you'd have been a goner. In need of help, are you? So are we. Aren't we, mes vieux!"
This last remark was addressed to the speaker's two companions, whose indistinct forms I could now make out.
"Very well," continued the speaker, slipping the revolver with which he had covered me into his pocket, "I take it to be a bargain. One good service deserves another. You help us with some of these parcels, and we'll help you. I'm not going to ask you too many questions, and we don't expect you to be over inquisitive about our business. C'est compris? But if we're to get there and lack before light we must be off. Come on!"
Taking two of the heavy packages which they were transporting, I followed them. In a flash, I saw that I had fallen in with a party of smugglers, who still continued to ply their calling in the neighbourhood of Erquelinnes and other villages on the frontier between Belgium and France. Men of nondescript nationality, though hating the Teuton with all the ardour of a Frenchman or a Belgian, and ready, if a favourable opportunity offered, to rid the world of every Boche who fell into their power, they made it their business to be on friendly terms with the Prussian officers who were in authority on the frontier. Many favours, in the early months of the war, could they obtain from them, in return for a discreetly-offered gift, such as a box of cigars, or a pound or two of tobacco. When taking any important consignment of goods to and fro between their depots on the road from Maubeuge to Charleroi, they had, of course, to resort to the traditional methods of their calling; and it was whilst on one of these nocturnal expeditions that I had encountered them.
VIII-The Forged Papers — to Safety
They were rough individuals, but loyal to their word. Feeling that I could not be in safer company, I threw in my lot with theirs for nearly a fortnight, hiding by day in the cottage of their leader, on the outskirts of a village "somewhere in France," but not far from Erquelinnes, and assisting them at night in carrying their goods along the little-known paths which intersect the Franco-Belgian frontier. Bit by bit I told mine host my tale. He was touched as much as you could expect a hardened smuggler to be, swore eternal friendship over an excellent bottle of wine, and promised that on the very next day he would bring me a surprise.
He was as good as his word. Out of his pocket he drew a paper — a duly-signed and stamped pass, obtained from the Prussian officer at the frontier village of — — , authorizing the bearer to cross into Belgium without let or hindrance. He did more than this: he gave me the name and address of a confederate at Charleroi, who would furnish me with the means of effecting my escape via Holland.
I crossed the frontier, wheeling a barrow belonging to a friendly peasant, who went daily to a bit of land he possessed on Belgian territory.
My twenty-mile walk to Charleroi, and a stay of a week in that city, were uneventful. On leaving, my smuggler's friend gave me a useful introduction to a person in Brussels, whence, with a little borrowed money in my pocket, I set off, towards the end of November. The train was still running the four miles between Charleroi and Gosselies. The thirteen miles to Nivelles I covered on foot; the eighteen miles past Waterloo and over ground every yard of which recalled memories of Napoleon and the closing scenes of the Hundred Days I traversed by train again.
The long sojourn which I was destined to make in Brussels was uneventful compared to my late experiences. There I obtained papers certifying that I was a Belgian commercial traveller, but discretion, you will readily understand, forbids me going into details. Oh, no; I did not put those forged papers to too severe a test by use.
As much as possible, I sought to remain hidden in the terrorized city, and to slip out of it for Malines and the villages near the Dutch frontier, without showing my papiers any more than was absolutely necessary.
The frontier between Belgium and Holland is of so serrated a nature that at the time of which I am speaking it was comparatively easy for a hunted man like myself to cross into neutral territory. To do so now would be almost impossible, so well do the Germans guard the irregular line, the configuration of which is such that it is difficult, in places, to tell whether you are in Holland or in Belgium. Fortunately, I had come into contact with a person who was expert in getting young Belgians across the frontier into Holland, and he agreed to help me.
Here, again, I cannot — on account of those who risked their lives in befriending me — go into too many details. Suffice it to say, that on the evening of my escape from the frontier village of A — — I was instructed to walk to a certain milestone, where I should find a man with a red muffler, sitting on a heap of stones.
There, sure enough, I found him — an elderly man with his hands folded over the top of his stick, his chin resting on his hands, and his eyes gazing innocently into the gathering dusk.
As I passed him I uttered the word "Belgica," which I had been told to pronounce, and keep on, without once turning my head.
Very soon I heard his footsteps and the tap, tap of his stick. He overtook me with alert step, and on reaching me, said: "Follow me."
We shot off from the main road into a small winding pathway, which we followed for some fifty yards. Then, suddenly stopping, the man in the red muffler exclaimed :
"Holland!"
No word ever before sounded to me so sweet as that.
Overcome by the thought that once more I was standing on free ground — that I had but to follow the pathway on which I stood to reach a Dutch village — and that the journey thence to a port and my beloved France via England, was but a question of time, I remained for a few seconds lost in reverie. At last, mastering my emotion, I prepared to set off before darkness completely enveloped the wild landscape which surrounded me. Before putting my best foot foremost, however, I was seized with a desire to thank the man who had guided me there, so I turned half-round to press his hand.- To my surprise, however, I found that he had disappeared, and that only the gleam of his red muffler marked his progress down the path.
