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The Times HISTORY OF THE WAR Vol. III

PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE. 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY "THE TIMES"

PRINTING HOUSE SQUARE, LONDON. 

1915

CONTENTS OF VOL. III. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 
The Advance on Ypres 



PAGE 



CHAPTER XLVII. 
Fbom the Fall of Antwerp to the Battle op the Yser 1 



15 



CHAPTER XLIX. 
The Intervention of Turkey... ... ... ... 41 

CHAPTER L. 
The Turkish Army ... ... ... 55 

CHAPTER LI. 
The Outbreak of War and the Campaign in the Caucasus ... ... ... C7 

CHAPTER Lll. 
The Invasion of Chaldea ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... SI 

CHAPTER LJII. 
The Second Three ^Ionths of Naval War ... ... ... ... ... 121 

CHAPTER Ll\'. 
The German Counter-Offensive and the Belgian Battle of the Yser ... 161 

CHAPTER L\'. 
Russia's Problem... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 201 

CHAPTER L\'I. 
The First Invasion of East Prussia ... ... ... ... ... ... 223 

CHAPTER LVII. 
The Russian Conquest of IUlria ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 241 

CHAPTER lATII. 
The Problem of Egypt: A New Regime ... ... ... ... ... ... 281 

CHAPTER LIX. 
The German Failure in Poland ... ... ... ... ... •■• ... 321 

CHAPTER 1^. 
Second and Third Austrian Invasions of Serbia : Fall and Pecapture of 

Belgrade ... ... ... ••• •■• ••• ■•• ••• ••• ••• -^^'l 

CHAPTER LXI.^ 
The Autumn and Winter Campaign in Eastern Fr.\nce 401 

CHAPTER J.Xll. 
The Battle of Ypres (First I'hase) -l-'l 

CHAPTER J.XIll. 
The Franco-Belgian Battle of the Yser -^^'^ 

CHAPTER LXIV. 
The South African Rebellion '^^ 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

FROM THE FALL OF ANTWERP 
TO THE BATTLE OF THE YSER. 



The SiTiTATiON October 9 — The Retreat of the Belgians from Antwerp — The Advance of 
THE English — The Belgian Retreat to Ostend and the French Frontier — German 
Occupation of Ghent, Bruges, Ostend— The Flight to England and France — German 
Mistakes — Their Possible Explanation — Want of Accurate Information — Failure oh 
THE German Cavalry — Their Aeroplane Service — The German Gains. 



BY October 9, the date of tlie fall of 
Antwerp and the day before the 
bombardment of Lille, the anny of 
General de Castelnau, with General 
Brugere's Territorial Divisions, stretched across 
the Plain of the Somme from the region of 
Compiegne to the heights north of that river. 
Castelnau's left wing rested on the Ancre west 
of Bapaume. Upon the hills northward 
between the Ancre and the Plain of the Scheldt, 
as far as the region of Bethune, were disposed 
the troops forming the army of General de 
Maud'huy, a detachment of wliich in the centre 
held Arras at the edge of the plain. Since 
October 6 that city had been bombarded by the 
enemy. Facing Maud'hiiy's Army (the 10th) 
extended a lino of Germans forming a continu- 
ous crescent from the region of Bapaume to 
La Bassee. The left wing of this body held 
high groimd between the Plains of the Somme 
and the Scheldt. The centre was in the Plain 
of the Scheldt west of Douai ; the right wing 
passed east of Lens through Loison to La Bassee 
on the Canal St. Omer-Aire-La Bassee-Lille. 
This canal enters the canalised river Aa a little 
to the south of St. Omer. At Wat ten, five miles 
Vol. ill.— Part 27. 



to the north of St. Omer, it meets a canal which 
runs eastward — througli Furnes — to Nieuport 
and thence into the Canal de Ghent between 
Ostend and Bruges. 

From Watten the Aa flows past Gravelines 
to the North Sea. It meets the Canal de 
Calais going west, and next, from the east, 
another canal, which enters the sea at Dunkirk, 

The Canal de Calais, the canalised Aa. and 
the portion of the Canal St. Oraer-Airc-Betluino- 
La Bassee-Lille which lies between St. Omer and 
Bethune skirt the liilly district extending from 
the south of Calais to the south of Arras. 
Together these waterways formed a deep ditch 
in front of the low ramjiart of hills which from 
Calais to Peronno barred the advance of the 
Germans to the English Channel. The army of 
General d'Urbal, to whose support the Cavalry 
Corps, the TIL and the II. Corps of the British 
Expeditionary Force* were being rai)idly 
transported, held both banks of the ditch and 
also the line of the canal which from Wattcii 
runs south of Dunkirk through Furnes and 



* To fncilitato refeionce tlio British Army Corps are 
iiuinberod tlius : I., II.. HI-, IV., &e. ; tlio divisions niid 
brigades 1st, 2nd, 3rd, iXi-. 



THE TIMES HlhTORY 01 THE WAR. 




MAJ.-GEN. THE HON. JULIAN BYNG. 

Nieuport to the Canal de Ghent. But d'Urbal's 
Army, on October 9, was only in process of 
formation. 

Further to the east was Lieut. -General Sir 
Henry Rawlinson \\ith the 7th Infantry Divi- 
sion and 3rd Cavalry Division. They had 
disembarked between October 6 and 8 at Ostend 
and Zeebrugge. On the 10th the 3rd Cavalry 
Division under Major-General the Hon. JuUan 
Byng was south of Bruges, round Thourout and 
Ruddervoorde. The task of Sir Henry Rawlin- 
son was to prevent the Germans, who had crossed 
the Lys west of Ghent, seizing Bruges and Ostend 
and cutting the retreat of the Belgian Ai'my 
and its British auxiliaries retiring from Antwerp 
on Bruges, Ostend and Nieuport. 

One by one the national defences of Belgium 
against an invasion from the east had fallen 
into the possession of the Germans. First had 
been lost the Meuse and the Ardennes, then the 
Dyle and the Senne, next the Dendre and the 
Scheldt, and now the Lys. In the oblong plain, 
roughly 60 miles by 30 miles, wliich is bounded 
by the Lys from Aire to Ghent, by the canal from 
Ghent to Zeebrugge, by the sea from Zeebrugge 
to Calais, and by the canal and the canalised 
Aa from Calais to Aire, the Germans had 
occupied Ypres, the long, narrow ridge of hills 
to the south-west of it, and Baillevil. Their 



outposts were close to Hazebrouck and Cassel, 
and they were advancing up both banks of the 
Lys from Armentieres towards Aire ; they held 
the bridges and fords of the river between 
Courtrai and .Merviile and even fiu"thor 
west. 

South of the Lys and between it and the 
Scheldt the Germans were surrounding and 
about to bombard Lille, sternly defended by 
French Territorials. 

This and the next chapter deal chiefly with 
the important movements between October 9 
and 20. During this period the Germans pur- 
sued the Belgian Army through Ghent, Bruges 
and Ostend to the Une of the Yser from Nieuport 
to Dixmude, and they succeeded in capturing 
Lille. But, at the same time. General d'Urbal's 
Army (the 8th), wliich was daily growing in 
mmibers, and the British Cavalry Corps and 
the III. Corps, with the assistance of the I\'. 
Corps — i.e., the forces vmder Sir Henry Rawlin- 
son — drove the Germans east of Y^pres. 

The oblong Aire-Ghent-Zeebrugge-Calais is 
divided into two more or less equal sections by 
the canal from Comines on the Lys to Ypres, 
by the canal from Ypres to the Yser, and by the 
canalised Y'ser through Dixmude to its mouth 
at Nieuport Bains. The Germans were ex- 
pelled from the western section of this oblong 
and from a part of the eastern section. South 
of the oblong, in the " Black Coimtry " of 
France, Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, with the 
II. Corps, and General Conneau's Cavalry 
Corps pushed the Germans some distance back 
towards Lille between the Lys and the Aire- 
Bethiine-La Bassee-Lille Canal, and the armies 
of Maud'huy and Castelnau continued their 
struggle with the Germans from Bethune to 
Compiegne. 

Meanwhile Hindenburg in the Easterii Theatre 
of War, after his defeat on the Niemen at the 
battle of Augustovo (September 25 to Octo- 
ber 3), had advanced on Warsaw, and in South 
Africa, on Octol:)er 13, Maritz raised the stan- 
dard of revolt. 

Of the above events in the Western Theatre 
of War, the first to be described will be the 
retirement of the Belgian Army from Antwerp 
to Nieuport and the hue of the Yser. 

Antwerp, " the pistol aimed at the heart of 
England," as Napoleon had called it, was in 
the grasp of the mailed fist, but so long as the 
Kaiser respected the neutrality of Holland he 
could not load and fire the weapon he had 
filched. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 




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GENERAL MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE OPERATIONS 
FROM OCTOBER 9 TO OCTOBER 20. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




LILLE. 



Nevertheless, the capture of Antwerp — held 
by tlie ignorant to bo iin]3regnable — was not 
without influence, especiallj- in Germany, 
where even the bombardment of an open sea- 
side town in England is regarded as a notable 
military operation. Antwerp had long been 
coveted by German captains of indvistry, like 
Herr Ballin : German capital had been largely 
invested there and, before the Great War, it 
w as fast assuming the appearance of a German 
port. Whether it was the fall of Antwerp that 
decided Beyers and Do Wet to f^tart their 
abortive rebellion in South Africa may be a 
moot point ; but it is certain that this success 
put fresh life into the German forces in Europe. 

It was an excellent augurj'^ for the impending 
marches on Warsaw and Calais. Also, it again 
enabled the German commanders on the Oise 
and Aisne to look forward to the resumption 
of the march on Paris. 

So long as Antwerp was in Belgian hands, the 
German commixnications back through Liege 
were perpetually menaced. For the two towns 
were only sixty miles apart — i.e., roughly fom- 
days' march — so that if the Allied force at the 
former place was materially strengthened it 
would need no great effort to thrust Beseler 
back on Liege or be\'ond. Then not only 
would the whole of the German communications 
through Liege have been cut, Init tliose south 



of Liege through the Ardeniies would have been 
rendered precarious. 

While Ostend and Zeebrugge were Belgian 
ports, and the line of the canal from Ostend 
through Bruges to Ghent and the line of the 
Scheldt from Ghent to Antwerp were held l>y 
the Allies, the Belgian Army in Antwerp miglit 
be rapidly reinforced either from Great Britai-a 
or from France by the railways and roads along 
the French coast to Dunkirk. From Dimkirlc 
a single-line railroad ran through Furnes and 
Dixmude to Thom*out : through Thourout 
passed the double-line railroad* from Courtrai 
to Ostend and the single-line railway from 
Ypres to Bruges, Steam tramwaj^s joined 
Furnes and Dixmude to Ostend, and, until 
the Germans occupied Hazebrouck and Ypres, 
troops could be transported from St. Omer, 
wdthout going north to Dunkirk, through 
Ypres and Thourout to Bruges. There were 
also, of course, plenty of highways on \^'hich 
men and material could be carried by auto- 
omnibvis, that new and useful military vehicle, 
from France to Ostend or Bruges. 

The German Staff had, therefore, to face 
the possibility, or rather probability, of 
the areas between the Dutch frontier and 
the Canal de Ghent and the Scheldt, between 

* The line between Courtrai and Thourout was single 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



the Lys and the North Sea, being suddenly 
filled with armies from England or France. 
From Antwerp those armies could be directed 
on Liege, Brussels, Namur. Lastly, as a 
springing- off point for air-raids on Aix-la- 
Chapelle, Cologne, Diisseldorf, Essen and the 
cities of Westphalia the country round Antwerp 
woxild be invaluable to the Allies. 

By the capture of Antwerp and by holding 
Brussels and Liege the Germans opposed a 
strong bai'rier across the road to the Rhine. 

But, though the Germans had taken Antwerp, 
crossed the Scheldt between Ghent and Ant- 
werp, and forced a portion of the Belgian and 
British troops on to Dutch soil, the remainder 
of the Allied forces had reached the line 
Ghent-Selzaete in good order. There was a 
chance that the German forces which had 
occupied Ypres on October 3 and had spread 
out towards Hazebrouck might move froixi 
Ypres to Bruges and Ostend and cut off the 
retreating Belgians and British at those points. 
To provide for this contingency. Lord Kitchener, 
as mentioned, had dispatched Sir Henry Rawlin- 
son with the 7th Infantry Division and the 3rd 
Cavalry Division to Ostend and Bruges. 
Between Ypres and the canal connecting 
Ostend with Bruges was no serious natural 
obstacle to delay the German movements, and 
oops alone could stop a German advance in 
force. On the 9th — the day after Sir John 
French's interview with General Foch at 
DouUens — the Cavalry Division, under Mcxjor- 
General the Hon. Julian Byng, concentrated at 
Bruges, where it was joined by a detaclunent of 
armoured motor-cars. The next day, the 10th, 
it moved towards Ypres, the 6th Cavalry 
Brigade to Thourout, and the 7th Cavalry 
Brigade to Ruddervoorde. The day after. t!.o 
armoured motor-cars " di-ew first blood," 
capturing two officers and five men in tlic 
direction of Ypres. On the 12th the Division 
held a line stretching through Roulers from 
Oostnieuwkerke on the west to Iseghem on the 
east. From Roulers a canal runs to the Lys. 
During the next day the Cavalry reconnoitred 
towards Ypres and Menin, wliilo the 7th 
Infantry Division reached Roulers. At 9 a.m. 
on the l-lth Byng's Cavalry entered Ypres, 
which had already been occupied by Franco- 
British troops on the 13th ; Byng was followed 
by the Infantry of the 7th Division. 

Three days before (October 11), as will bo 
related elsewhere, the II. Corps (Sir Horace 
Smith-Dorrien's)had coiuinenced its luoi'chsouth 



of the Lys from the Aire-Bethune Canal to turn 
the position of the Germans at La Bassee. The 
French Cavalry Corps of General Cormeau was 
to his left ; on Conneau's left — round Haze- 
brouck — was the III. Corps (General Pulteneys), 
and beyond them, to the north, the Cavalry 
Corps (General Allenby's). The Cavah-y Corjjs 
had captured the western end of the ridge to 
the south-west of Ypres. On Ypres itself the 
87th and 89th French Territorial Divisions, 
coirunanded by General Bidon, had been directed 
by General d'Urbal.* 

Thus any German intention of marching from 
Ypres on Bruges had been frustrated by the 
advance of Rawlinson from Bruges on Ypres, 
combined as it was with the movement eastward 
of d'Urbal's and Sir John French's Armies from 
the line Dunkirk-Bethune. In the next chapter 
that movement \\ ill be narrated in detail. 

In the meantime the Belgian and British troops 
who evacuated Antwerp had halted round 
Ghent. They were threatened by the German 
forces at Lokeren, north of the Scheldt, and at 

* " When I arrived in the Nord I found in all two 
divisions of Territorials and some Cavalry." — General 
d'Urbal. 




THE BELGIAN WAR OlFIGK. 
Villa Louis XIV. at St. Adnsse, near Ilnvre. 

27—2 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIL 



Alost, on the Dendre.which flows into the Scheldt 
east of Ghent from the south. A Taube had flown 
over Ghent and dropped — for a wonder — not a 
bomb but a proclamation. On the morning of 
the 9th Uhlans were repulsed by some Belgian 
cyclists at Quatrecht, but, later in the day, 
German field artillery opened on what remained 
of the village of Melle, which three weeks before 
had been visited by the Kaiser's professional 
mcendiaries. Quatrecht and Melle were south 
of the Scheldt and east of the Lys. 

Bj' 5 p.m. the Belgian artillery was over- 
powered and withdrawn, and a column of 
German infantry pushed forward. Passing under 
a long railway bridge they were mown down by 
some Belgians in ambush. 

Nor was that the end of the Belgian successes. 
Batteries of quick-firing guns had been quietly 
brought up into positions from wliich they could 
enfilade the German guns. Suddenly they 
opened fire and the hostile batteries were put 
out of action. More guns were moved forward 
by the enemy, and at midnight the Germans 
renewed the battle. Fmally, in the early hours 
of the morning of October 10 the Belgians 
marched tlu'ough Melle, fired on the Landsturm 
troops entrenched in the fields to the east of the 
village, and charged them with the bayonet. 
The Germans fled, losing heavily in dead, 
wounded and prisoners. 



The next day (Sunday) the people of Ghent 
s[)ent in peace and at liberty. The streets were 
filled with refugees. As Ghent and Bruges were 
to Belgium what Verona and Venice were to 
Italy, it had been decided to give the demolishers 
of Louvain and Mahnes and the bombarders of 
Antwerp, Reims, Arras, Lille no excuse for the 
exercise of theu* pecuUar talents for destruction. 
Ghent and Bruges were to be left open cities ; 
the town m which ]\Iaeterlinck had been born 
was to be surrendered on the morrow to the 
followers of the Kaiser. 

On Monday, October 12, three German 
officers m a motor-car drove up to the Hotel 
de Ville, and arranged with the Burgomaster 
for the " peaceful occupation." After the 
motor-car came some cyclist soldiers, next 
troops of cavalry. An hour later the German 
flag was hoisted over the Hotel de Ville. 

From Ghent one body of Germans proceeded 
to Bruges. Half way between the two cities — at 
Ursel, to the north of the Canal de Ghent — 
there was a brief engagement. Another force 
marched by Thielt towards Thourout and 
Roulers. 

At 2 p.m. on October 14, forty cyclist 
soldiers rode into Bruges, and some of them tore 
down the British and French flags from the 
Hotel de Ville. Out of derision they left the 
Belgian flag flying. The "All-highest" had 




A BELGIAN FIRING LINE. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




FRENCH CITIZENS TAKEN PRISONERS BY THE BAVARIANS. 



not proclaimed himself King of Belgium ! The 
day before, at 8.30 a.m., the Belgian Govern- 
ment, the personnel and families of the Ministers, 
had sailed for Havre ; the King and the Minister 
of War remained behind. To receive the 
exiled Goverimient the French Minister of 
Marine had left Bordeaux for Havre. The 
official announcement was made in the following 
terms : 

The Belgian Government, finding no longer in Belgium 
the necessary freedom for the full exercise of its authority, 
asked for the hospitality of France, and indicated a wish 
to transfer its residence to Havre. The Government of 
the Republic replied at once that, even as it made no 
distinction in its solicitude for the Belgian and French 
Armies, so it would heartily receive the Belgian Govern- 
ment and would assure it full sovereign rights and the 
complete exercise of its authority and governmental 
duties. 

It had been arranged that the Belgian 
Govermnent should have the same rights at 
Havre as were accorded by Italy to the Pope 
under the Law of Guarantees. The King of 
the Belgians thanked M. Poincar6 : 

" We await," he telegraphed, " the hour of 
mutual victory with unshakable confidence. 
Fighting side by side for a just goal, our courage 
will never fail." 

The Belgian Prime Minister, M. de Broque- 
ville, at the same time assured M. Viviani 
that Belgium, who sacrificed everything for 



the defence of honesty, honour, and liberty, 
regretted nothing. 

Bruges seized, the Germans rushed on the sea- 
side resorts of Belgium from Ostend, the Monte 
Carlo of the North Sea, to the picturesque httle 
village of Knocke, with its golf greens. Ostend 
and Zeebrugge (connected with Bruges by a 
ship caiial) were the termini of the Belgians 
escaping to England ; those flying to France 
were pouring either along the coast from 
Ostend through Nieuport and Fumes to 
Dunkirk, or by the more inland roads. 

Never before this war had such sights been 
seen. Ever since 1870-1 the French, who had 
then learnt the real nature of those Prussians 
idolLsed by Carlyle and his school, had been 
expecting the Prussians to commit atrocities. 
But living Belgians as yet had had no experience 
of Prussian Kullur in war-time. 

Remembering this fact, picture the scene 
at Ostend. Of those unable to bear arms, some 
with stoical resignation were awaiting an in- 
vader who at any moment might behave as he 
had behaved at Louvain, Malines, or Termondo. 
The remainder, abandoning businesses whicli 
they had built up, Icavijig the posts which 
asstu-ed their livelihoods, snatched up a few 
clothes and portable objects of \altu>. 
escaped with their womenfolk and childnn 



8 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 




A SUSPECTED SPY STOPPED BY GERMANS OUTSIDE BRUSSELS. 



from the houses which had sheltered them, 
leaving their furniture, objects of art, trinkets, 
books, letters, pictures, portraits, photographs, 
which meant so much to them, to be stolen, 
destroyed, or defiled by the German house- 
breakers. The rich, who had no money 
invested out of reach of the Germans and their 
Allies were, unless they had had the prescience 
to convert their wealth into gold and silver or 
jewels, reduced to the level of the poor. 

On the quays at Ostend, and in the Square 
fronting the Gare Maritune, were collected old 
men, women, children, infants in arms, town- 
folk, farmers, peasants, waiting under the 
drizzling rain to be shipped in the chilly month 
of October to an island of whose inhabitants 
but few spoke French, and hardly any Flemish. 

They embarked on trawlers, fishing smacks, 
even row boats, as well as on steamers. Between 
dawn and 9 a.m. of October 13 a vast crowd 
awaited the mail boats. The arrival of the 
ships Avas the signal for a frantic rush to board 
them. Hundreds jmnped from the landing 
stages on to the decks. Cliildren were separated 
from their inotliers ; wi\-es from their husbands ; 
the old were trampled on. It was like the 



stampede which takes place in a theatre on the 
cry of " fire." 

Overhead flew a German biplane, whose 
occupants coolly inspected the horrible scene 
below. After gratifying their curiosity they 
departed to observe what was happening at 
Zeebrugge. 

When the last boat put off (October 14), the 
scene was indescribable. Nearly 4,000 parsons, 
mostly women and children, were gathered in 
and round the boat station. Many of them 
had tasted neither food nor drink for twentj^- 
foor hoLU-s. As the boat pushed off there was 
a wild rush, and several persons were flung 
forward into the water between the pier and 
the ship's side and were drowned. 

A Times correspondent witnessed the heart- 
breaking spectacle on October 14 : 

Ostend had a great alarm this morning, and the panic 
at the time I write is much worse than yesterday. 

This morning two mail boats had cleared loaded to 
the gunwales with a varied human freight, when certai i 
persons among the crowds on the quays forced thoir 
way through the struggling mass shouting out that all 
the remaining vessels in the port had been requisitioned 
to carry oS the wounded soldiers, hundreds of whom 
had been hurried in from Knocke, Blankenberghe. Coq, 
and other coast villages between Ostend and the Dutch 
border, and so save them from falling into the clutchss 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



of the Germans. The alarmists — they were both men 
and women — added that the enemy had already occupied 
Bruges, and was marching on Ostend in force. Women 
fainted, children shrieked, and men ran hither and 
thither as if possessed. Only when three more steamers 
drew alongside and the people were permitted to board 
them without any such formalities as ticket examina- 
tion and production of passports did the terror abate. 

To make matters worse, the familiar Taube made its 
morninc; call, and dropped a bomb. This fell in the 
Rue Peter Bsnoit, close to a group of refut^ees, who 
scattered in all directions. LuckUy no one was injured. 
To-day practically nobody remains in the hotels, and 
the shopkeepers are putting up their shutters. Hun- 
dreds of woimded — those on the way to recovery — have 
crossed to England to-day, but a large number remain 
with few Red Cross people to care for them, and to add 
to their misery and that of the town in general food has 
become very scarce. 

One of the War Correspondents left for 
England in a paddle-wheel steam-tug. Nomially 
it took 50 ; that night it had to accommodate 
200 or 300 persons. At 9 p.m. the passengers 
went on board. There was neither light nor 
food nor shelter ; rain swept in from the sea ; 
a heavy mist penetrated everywhere. Not 
till 7 a.m. was a start made. Then the pilot 
remembered that he had left behind him his 
wife and children. The tug returned and was 
made fast to a large mud barge. At last, with 
the pilot's wife and her belongings, which 
included a pet dog and a canary, they put out 
again, and it was then discovered that the 
compass was out of order. Fortunately the sea 
was calm, and by following another vessel the 
tug reached Folkestone in safety. 

But all could not obtain passages for England. 
AVlien day broke (October 15) men and women 
sat shivering on the Digue, some reading the fol- 
lowing proclamation : 

Fellow citizens, countrymen ! For two months ai.d 
a half, at an heroic price, the Belgian soldiers have 
defended inch by inch their homeland. The enemy 
counted on the annihilation of our Army, but a retreat 
cariied out in admirable order has, at the same time, 
wrecked his hopes and assured to us the conservation of 
our military forces, who will continue to fight to the 
bitter end for the highest and most just of causes. 
From now onwards our Army in conjunction with the 
Allies will operate on the southern frontier. Thanks to 
this valorous cooperation the triumph of right is certain. 

To the sacrifices already made and accepted by the 
Belgian nation is added another. So as better to bring 
to nauglit the designs of the invader the Belgian Govern- 
ment has provisionally established itself in a place 
where on the one hand it may rest in contact with the 
Army, and on the other, with the help of France and 
England, it may better exercise and continue the 
national sovereignty. That is why it has left Ostend, 
carrying with it the memory of the warm reception that 
town extended to it. The Belgian Government goes to 
Havre, where the noble friendship of the French Republic 
willpermitit at the same time the fullness of its sovereign 
rights and the complete exercise of its authority and its 
duty. 

This momentary tribulation to which our patriotism 
ought to yield will have, we are convinced, a prompt 
revenge. The public services in Belgium will continue 



in such measure as the local circumstances may permit. 
The King and the Government count on the wisdom of 
your patriotism. On your side count on the ardent 
devotion, on the valour of our Army, ami the help of 
the Allies to hasten the hour of the common deliverance. 
Our dear country, so odiously treated by one of the 
Powers which had sworn to guarantee our neutrality, 
has excited an astonished admiration throughout the 
entire world. Thanks to the unanimity, the courage, 
and the clear-sightedness of all our children, she will 
remain worthy of that admiration which comforts her 
to-day. To-morrow she will emerge from her tribula- 
tion greater and more beautiful, having suffered for the 
justice and for the honour of civilization itself. 
Long live Belgium. Free and Independent. 

A Belgian galloped up shouting : " The Ger- 
mans are coming. The Germans are coming."' 
A lieutenant and six Uhlans trotted into 
the central square ; behind them was a 
detachment of twenty cyclists. Half-an-hoiu- 
later General von der Goltz, the ex-trainer of 
the Turkish Army, author of " The Nation in 
Arms," and Governor of Belgium, motored in, 
and soon after left with the Burgomaster 
for Bruges. The day afterwards Ostend was 
filled with German officers and soldiers. The 
3rd German Reserve Corps was quartered in 
or around it, and forty officers of the Staff were 
feasting at the Hotel Royal du Phare. Magnums 
of looted champagne and quarts of stolen 
Burgundy " lined the centre of the two long 
tables." 




GENERAL MAUD'IIUY (right) 
Talking to a French officer. 



10 



THF TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




BRITISH TROOPS AT OSTEND. 

Simultaneously with the exodus to England 
by boat, there had been an exodus on foot or 
on wheels to France. Vehicles of all sorts, 
crowded with hmnan beings or piled high with 
their belongings, had been rolling along the 
muddy, cobbled roads to the French frontier. 
An endless stream of men, women, and childi-en, 
sopked to the skin by the incessant rain, some 
with their clothes reduced to rags, sleeping for 
the most part in the fields, unfed, unwashed, 
their feet lacerated by their unwonted exertions, 
straggled slowly across the border. How many 
died, how many were crippled for life, how many 
lost their reason will probably never be known. 



Behind, or among the fugitives, marched or 
rode what remained of the heroic Belgian Army. 
As early as October 12 the vanguard passed 
through Fiu-nes. A Times correspondent on 
that day saw it defiling through the streets of 
the little town. 

I have just returned from Fumes, the first town 
across the Belgian frontier on the road to Ostend. There 
I met the head of the army. They began to arrive 
yesterday between 5 and 6 in trains, in trams, and by 
road, and completely upset the Sunday evening calm of 
the little town. The people were just trickling out of 
church, and the priest and his surpliced choir boys were 
slowly walking in procession across the square when the 
first transport motor-cars arrived. Then came a Red 
Cross detachment, a mixed bodj' of soldiers, civilians, and 
priests, who had come by tram from Ostend ; they were 
followed by the troops themselves, and an hour later the 
little square with its high crow-stepped gables was 
crammed with parked autonmobiles, and a steady stream 
of infantry, wagons, and guns was moving by in the 
lamplight. 

Most of the troops had marched out of Antwerp three 
days ago. The town wa^ becoming untenable and a field 
army could do nothing. " We have done our best," the 
soldiers kept saying. There was little sign of demoraliza- 
tion among them. The infantry in particular seemed 
glad to be out of Antwerp, where they were at the mercy 
of the Germans' big guns, and to have a chance of 
meeting them again in the open. Fighting is all very 
well, but sitting in a trench without firing a shot, while 
100 lb. shells come shrieking over six or seven miles of 
country to kill and bury you at the same time, is a 
depressing occupation. Such, at least, was what the 
infantry felt, and they were glad to have done with it. 

All the coast district from here to Ostend is crowded 
with refugees who have fled from Antwerj) to Ghent, 
from Ghent to Ostend, and are now making their way 
into France. The French Consulate at Furnes was 
besieged by hvmdreds of people waiting to get their 
passports vi/id. As the railway is now entirely reserved 
for military purposes, the roads are black with travellers 
in every sort of vehicle. Many of them have no fixed 
idea of where they are going, and move on from place 
to place wherever they can find beds. Several thousand 
are stranded at Panne, a little village on the dunes near 
Furnes. for the sole reason that it is the terminus of a 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



11 



local tramway, and once thcro they can get no further 
without going back the way they came. 

Others are going to Calais in order to take the boat 
to England. Again and again I have been anxiously 
questioned by poor people about the price of living in 
England, and as to where it would be best to go. I have 
es.sured them that everything would be done to help 
them in England, and that those who had not frienda 
there already to go to would speedily find them. 

A portion of the Belgian Army halted on the 
Yser and faced the hated foe ; the rest retired 
into France. " You can imagine," wrote a 
Belgian officer to a friend, " with what grief I 
crossed the frontier, followed by my squadrons, 
and left our native soU. I do not even hide 
from you the fact that I rode ahead of my Staff 
so that they might not witness my emotion. 
But let us hope," he added, " that God may give 
us the happiness to recross it, driving before us 
these slave-merchants of the twentieth century." 
Though the uniforms of the Belgian soldiers 
were caked with mud or soddened with rain, and 
their boots and gaiters were adliering to their 
swollen feet, though the plight of Belgian 
civilians was a miserable one, all alike, from 
their King downwards to the boy of eleven 
who was observed riding on a tall horse and 
smiling to the passers-by, were resolved to 
assist the French and British now hurrying up to 
avenge the outrages committed by the " slave- 
merchants " from beyond the Rhine. But for 



a time nine-tenths of Belgium was left to the 
mercy of her enemies. 

Here one criticism may be safely ventured on 
the German strategy. Before Sir Henry Ra\\ lin- 
son's force landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge 
there appears to have been nothing but the 
two French Territorial Divisions and some 
cavalry roimd Dunkirk to prevent a Gennan 
Army crossing the Lys between Ghent and 
Courtrai and advancing tlirough Roulers and 
Thourout on Bruges and Ostend. Even after 
the British IV. Corps (minus the 8th Division 
which was not yet mobilised) had issued from 
Bruges, the German leaders, considering the 
railway and road facilities and the motor 
traction at their disposal, ought to have been 
able to concentrate between the Lys and the 
Belgian coast overwhelming forces. Had they 
done so and the movement been properly timed, 
they might have occupied Ostend and Bruges 
before, or inmaediately after, the fall of Antwerp. 
In that case it is difficult to see how the 
Belgian Army and its British auxiliaries could 
have escaped destruction or capture. 

To have permitted the mass of the Army 
defending Antwerp to retire to the line Ghent- 
Selzaete may have been pardonable. Until 
Antwerp was actually taken the garrison could 
not be pursued through the city, and to cut 




A BELGIAN ARMOURED TRAIN. 



12 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



thoir retreat by crossing the Scheldt between 
Antwerp and Ghent in face of desperate troops 
well supplied with artillerj^ was no light under- 
taking. But it was a different matter to 
traverse the undefended Lys and move over the 
easy country from that river to the environs of 
Bruges and Ostend. 

Two explanations for the strange behaviour 
of the German General or Generals may be 
hazarded. They undoubtedly overestimated 
the numbers of the French troops spread out 
from Dunkirk to Lens ; they may have imagined 
that Lord Kitchener would pour a much larger 
force than he actually did into Ostend and 
Zeebrugge. The overestimate of the French 
forces resulted from a variety of causes. 

One of the chief advantages with which the 
Germans had started the war had been that the 
countries invaded by them were swarnaing with 
the Kaiser's spies — often in the possession of 
wireless installations. By October, however, 
the nmnber of spies and traitors within the 
Allied lines could have been but small. The 
Belgian and French officers and officials had 
not played with espionage ; among German 
spies the mortality had been very high ; and 
shot or hanged spies could not quickly be 
replaced. 

From Belgians and Frenchmen no reliable 
information could be obtained by the Germa;ns. 
The latter's ferocity, greed, and insolence had 
united their neighbours against them to an 
extent wliich would never have been credited 
before the war. Cosmopolitan Socialists and 
Republicans had become the bitterest ojjpo- 
nents of the Germans. A rigid censorshijj of 
letters, postcards, and telegrams had, too, 
minimized the chances of useful information 
with regard to the Allied Forces reaching Berlin 
through Great Britain or neutral countries. 

The German leaders had now to rely for 
their knowledge of the Allied movements 
mainly on the reports of their cavalry, auto- 
mobolists, cyclists, and airmen. Unfortunately 
for them the German cavalry woiild seldom in 
equal nmnbers face the British or French, and 
the Allies, although badly provided with 
armoured motor-cars at the outset of the war, 
had in October a sufficiencj'^ of land cruisers to 
render the expeditions of German automobilists 
in advance of the main bodies very dangerous. * 
We have seen that the British IV. Corps was 



* See an interesting article, " La Guerre en Auto- 
mobiles," in the Lectures pour Tous of January 15, 
1915. 



accompanied by several armoured cars, which 
rendered an excellent account of themselves. 

As for aeroplane reconnaissance : the French 
and British aviators were more than a matcli 
for the Germans, and the scouts on " Taubes," 
when reconnoitring, found it more and more 
difficult to survey at their leisure the country 
beneath them. Even when undisturbed by 
enemy air-craft or fire from below the aerial 
observer, however skilled, was liable to make bad 
mistakes. In August, when the days were 
long, the weather fine, and the air clear, watching 
from the skies had been comparatively easy. 
But the nights were lengthening, rain coming 
down, and mists and fogs covered the surface 
of the ground. The leaves had not j'et fallen, 
and were turning the colour of khaki, and so the 
woods afforded considerable cover. 

For all these reasons the German Staff could 
not see clearly the forces opposed to them on 
the huge chessboard. Taken prisoner in the 
fighting round Dixmude, which will be described 
in a subsequent chapter, a Prussian Major asked 
his captors the number of the forces opposed 
to the Germans at that point. 

" Forty thousand, I suppose ? " he queried. 

" Yes, yes," answered a French officer, 
indicating by his manner that he was not 
answering the question. 

"But tell me how many," pleaded the 
German. 

" Six thousand," was the suave reply. 

The other burst into tears. 

" Ah ! if we had known ! " he cried.* 

The strategy of Joffre and his Ueutenants also 
mj'^stified the Germans. 

" I have attacked the Germans to make 
them believe that I was in force," said General 
d'Urbal, referring to the fighting in the first 
fortnight of October. " T have multipUed the 
actions, I have harassed them day and night 
without giving them a moment's rest. Mean- 
while, my army was being formed ; each day 
reinforcements were reacliing me." 

The other explanation why the Germans pro- 
ceeded with so much caution and by the wrong 
route to Ostend and Bruges is that they could 
not read into Lord Kitchener's mind and know 
what forces he was sending to Ostend and Zee- 
brugge. Mr. Winston Churchill's presence at 
Antwerp must have suggested to them that the 
British set immense importance on the retention 
by the Allies of that city and a fortiori on the 

* Lectures pour Tous, January 15, 1915, p. 426. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



13 




A BRITISH HEAVY GUN. 
The markings are daubs of paint which help to render the gun invisible. 



holding of Ostend and Zeebrugge, from wliicii 
submarines and aircraft could operate in the 
Straits of Dover and the estuaries of the 
Thames and Medway. That the First Lord of 
the Admiralty should have rushed away from 
tlie most responsible duties to lead Marines iu 
Antwerp must, it may be surmised, have made 
the Staff officers round the Kaiser pause. 

Since 1807 the military policy of Prvissia had 
been always to run no excessive, no avoidable 
risks. The Prui-:sian Ai"my did not desert 
Xapoleon I. until they were aware that nearly 
the whole of the Grande .\rmee had jierishecl 
in Russia. Even then they waited for t)ie 
advancing legions of the Czar to arrive. The 
Prussians had attacked Denmark in 18(>4, but 
they had the Austrian Army supporting them ; 
they attacked Austria in 18(>6, after Bismarck 
had induced Italy to help thorn and Napoleon 
III. to remaiii neutral. In 1870 IJismarck 
had Moltke's and Roon's assurance that the 
German Armies were immeasurably supei'ior 
to the {""rcnch, and the Czar's promise that 
Russia would not permit Francis .losepli to 
assist Napoleon 111. In the light of subsequent 
events it may seem strange, but there can V)e 
no doubt that the Kaiser and his oilicers had 



entered on the Great War in the fiiiu belief 
that they would break up the French in the 
first three weeks of the struggle. 

To calculating schemers of the Prussian 
type unexpected moves were most distiu-binir. 
The regret felt by the Germans that a civilian 
was not British Minister of War must at this 
moment have been intepj5e. Unable to surmise 
their astute and experienced adversary's hand, 
unable to look over his or Jof^re's shoulder, they 
hesitated, played for safety, and the oppor- 
tunity of capturing or annihilating tlie Belgian 
army and the British IV. Corps was lost for 
ever. They had to content themselves with 
having obtained an unfortilied post, Ostend. 
70 miles distant from Doxcr. which foruicd 
the first milestone on the road to London. 

But though the enemy's army had escapnl, 
the conquest of the Belgian coast line between 
Ostend andliie Dutch frontier, the ncqui.sitioi. 
of Ostend, of Zeebrugge, and th(> ship canal 
from Zeebrugge to Bruges, of the Canal div 
Ghent, of the Scheldt from (ihent to Antwerp, 
and of the railways from .Antwerp to the coast. 
were from th(> i'an-German jjoint of view i\<> 
mean achicxcmcnts. Tin- Kai-cr liad perfDrnu-d 
part of hi< coMtr.ict. 'I'iic Gi-rmans liad l>e<-u 



14 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAE. 




ON THE GERMAN LINE OF COMMUNICATIONS. 



content to leave their liberties in liis hands on 
the understanding that he would deprive the 
British of the command of the sea. From 
Eniden, Wilhelmshaven, Bremerhaven, Heligo- 
land, Cuxhaven, and the mouths of the Elbe and 
Kiel Canal to strike at the British Fleet, to raid 
the British naval bases, to invade the British 
coast, l\ad hitherto been proved to be imprac- 
ticable. 

Ostend and Zeebrugge once gained, all 
attempts of this kind might be feasible. The 



German " High Seas Fleet " being intact sub- 
marines could be transported to Zeebrugge, 
or built there ; boats and barges for the 
transport of troops to Kent or Essex might be 
accumulated in the watervvay.s between Aj\\- 
^^'erp and the coast, as Napoleon had done a 
hundred and ten years before. 

Abo\-e all, a convenient base for aeroplanes. 
Zeppelins, and Par.sevals, which might bombard 
Portsmouth, Dover, Chatham, Harwich and 
London, had been annexed. 




CHAPTER XLVIII. 



THE ADVANCE ON YPRES 



The Plan of the Allied Advance — The French Cavalry Cross the i-,Ys— The Attack 
ON the German Line between Kstaires and La Bassee — The Field of Battle — The Batti.I'; 
OF La Bassee — The Fall of Lille — The Movement osi Ypres — Actions of Meteren and 
Mont-des-Cats — Occupation of Ypres, Bailletjl. and Armentieres — Attempt to Cross 
the Lys near Menin — End of the Allied Offensive. 



WHILE the Belgian Army was with- 
drawing to the banks of the Yser 
and the British IV. Corps (Sir 
Henry Rawhnson's) was protect- 
ing the flank of the retiring divisions by occu- 
pying the country between Bruges and Ypres, 
the third attempt of General Joi^re to turn the 
right wing of the main German army was in 
progress. Lille, the importance of which to the 
French was explained in Chapter XLVL, 
p. 479, had been bombarded on October 10. 
As detachments of Germans had passed west- 
ward between this town and the Lys and were 
to the north of the St. Omer-Aire-Bethune-La 
Bassee-I.iille Canal in the vicinity of Merville, 
and as the right wing of the army opposing 
Maud'huy extended to La Bassee, Ijille ran the 
risic of being completely isolated and its garrison 
of French Territorials captured. To obviate 
this disaster the offensive had pronijjtly to be 
resumed. It had been brought to a standstill 
after Maud'hiiy's unsuccessful advance through 
Arras. 

For a renewed offensive there were available 
on the 9th the skeleton army of General d'Urbal 
based on Dunkirk and the British 7th Infantry 
Division and IJrd Cavalry Division round 
Bruges. Ypres was in the hands of the Ger- 
mans and the latter were operating on both 



banks of the Upper Lys. The comparatively 
small Allied forces north of the Lys were, 
therefore, fully employed, and the only 
hope for Lille lay in the now rapidly- 
approaching II., III. and Cavalry Corps of the 
British Expeditionary Force coming from tlie 
Aisne. 

It will be remembered that on tlie 8tli General 
Foch had arranged at Doullens with Sir John 
French that Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien with the 
II. Corps should arrive on the line Aire- 
Bethune by the 11th. This corps was to 
prolong Maud'huy's Army to the north and, 
pivoting on the French position to the west of 
La Bassee, attack in flank the German troops 
stationed there. The Cavalry Corps under 
General Allenby, of which the 2nd Division 
(General Gough's) had marched from Com- 
piegne on October 3, was, with (Jeneial 
Conneau's Cavalry Corps, to protect Sir Horace 
Smith-Dorrien's left flank from the attack of 
the Germans north and south of the l.,ys. 
When the III. Corps (GeJieral Pulteney's) \uni 
detrained at St. Omer, north of the Lys, wliich 
would not be till the 12th, Allenby — but not 
Conneau — was to move to rulteney's U-ft 
wing. General d'Urbal's 87th and 8!)t li 'l\ii i- 
torial Divisions under GenerrJ Bidon, to l)t' 
supported later by foiu* French Cavaln 1 )ivi.sn)ns 



16 



16 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



under General de Mitry, the British Cavalry 
Corps and the III. Corps were to sweep the 
Germans east of the line Dixmude-Ypres- 
Comines and effect a junction with the British 
IV. Corps (Sir Homy RawHnson's) and the 
Belgian Army. Into JJixmude wore to be 
thrown a ))ody of French ^Marines under Rear- 
Admiral Rornarc'h ; into Nieuport, at the 
mouth of the Yser. a division of French troops 
commanded by General Grossetti. 

Obviously, this ])lan for the employment of 
the British Expeditionary Force — 7ni)ius the 
I. Corps (Sir Douglas Haig's), which it was 
calculated \\ ould not reach St. Onier till about 
October 19 — contemplated, besides the saving 
of Lille, the probability that the Germans north 
of the Lys might make a rush for Calais and 
Dunkirk or endeavour to envelop and destroy 
the British IV. Corps and the Belgian Army 
retiring behind it. Otherwise the Corps of 
AUenby and Pulteney would have remained 
south of the Lys, and supported Smith-Dorrien 
in his advance on Lille. 

Foch's decision to leave Smith-Dorrien with 
Maud'huy to save, if they could, Lille, was a 
wise one. The misty weather had hampered 
aerial reconnaissance, and the numbers of the 
Germans north of the Lys could only be guessed. 
Weighed against the preservation of the Belgian 
Army, of RawHnson's Corps, the forces of 
d'Urbal, of Calais and Dunkirk, the safety of 
Lille and its garrison had to be subordinated to 
the major interests of France and the Allies. 

The stakes were too tremendous for senti- 
mental reasons connected with Lille to affect 
Joffre and Foch. Nearly the whole of Belgium 
had been overrun by the Germans and, accord- 
ing to M. Clemenceau, Count Bernstorff, the 
Cierman Ambassador at Washington, had de- 
clared that the only conditions of peace whieli 
the Kaiser would grant to France were : 

1. The cession to Germany of all the territory north 
and east of a straight line drawn from the mouth of the 
Sonime to Lyons — in other words, the redviction of 
millions of French men and women to a worse position 
than that of the Alsatians before the war ; the loss of 
some of the most venerated places and monuments in 
France — e.fjr., the battlefields of Valmy and Montmirai!, 
the Cathedral of Reims and the cottage of Joan of Are ; 
the acquisition by the Germans of the rich coal coimtry 
round Lille, of the vineyards of Champagne and Bur- 
gundy, and the extension of the German frontier to the 
outskirts of Paris and Lyons. 

2. The surrender to Gennany of Algiers, Timis, and 
all other French Colonies, and also the French Pro- 
tectorate of Morocco. 

S. The payment to Germany of a War Indemnitv of 
£400,000,000. 

4. The transfer to Germany of ."J.OOO.OOO rifles, .3,000 
guns, and 40.000 horses ; the dismantling of all French 



fortresses, and the suppression of recruiting in France 
for twenty-five years. 

5. .A.n alliance with {jcrmany against Great Britain 
and Russia, and a cominereial treaty with Germany 
for twenty-five years. Under the commercial treaty, 
(Jennan merchandise was to enter France free of duty, 
and Kronch patent fees were not to be payable by 
(iermans. 

Wlu'ther M. CU-menceau were ill-inlormed or 
not as to Coimt B(?rnstorff's statements, there 
could be little doubt that if the Allies were 
defeated and France conquered, a treat\- on 
some such lines as the above would be imjjosed 
on the French. " France," had written General 
Bernhardi, " nuist be so completely crushed 
that she can never again cross our path.' 

On October 9, 2,000 French Dragoons from 
Aire were ordered by General Conneau to dis- 
lodge the German cavalry lining the south bank 
of the Lys from Mer\'ille to Estaires, The 
crossings at those places were covered by 
machine guns, and after sunset they were 
illuminated by searchlights. The French com- 
mander assembled his men on the north bank 
at a point west of Merville where the current 
was very swift and the water deep. The Ger- 
mans had regarded the river as unfordable at 
this point, but a trooper who was a good 
swimmer stripped and. pulling after him a 
light line, swam to the right bank. The line 
at the other end was tied to a heavy rope and 
when the diipping soldier stepped out of the 
water he hauled the rope across and fastened 
it securely to the trunk of a tree. The other 
end was similarly secured and, assisted by the 
rope, the men on horseback filed one by one 
across the river during the night. At daybreak 
(October 10) the w^hole force had passed safely 
and the hostile horsemen retired in the direction 
of Estaires.* 

The character of the fighting in ^\hich 
Conneau' s Cavalry was engaged was ^\ell 



* It was east of Estaires, at Sailly, that Lieutenant 
Wallon the well-known rider, fell a victim to German 
perfidy. He was advancing with .some Dragoons ta 
seize the crossing of the Lys at that point. Some 
distance from the village which was held by the Germans 
the party entrenched itself. They beat off an attack 
and shot several German scouts. Soon eleven "' pea.- 
sants " with picks and spades over their shoulders were 
-een moving towards the French. When these 
" peasants " were within 40 yards or so of the trenches, 
they suddenly dropped their stolen implements and 
drawing concealed revolvers emptied them into the 
French, while their comrades in front of the \illage 
opened a general fusilade. A ball struck Lieutenant 
Wallon in the chest. He dropped to the ground. 
Sergeant Rossa, in spite of the woimded man's protests, 
dragged him to the rear and placed him on a cart. 
Shortly after he expired. The eleven " peasants " were 
shot and the village taken. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



17 




FRENCH INFANTRY GUARDING THE RAILWAY LINES SOUTH OF LA BASSEE. 



described in the Standard on the authority of 
a ^\ ounded French ofHicer. " There are no 
longer," he said, "massed charges in \vhicli 
tlioiisands of men collide in formidable shock, 
hut cngagonients of detail, in which ruse and 
decision play the greatest part. The side which 
succeeds in surprising the other, in filtering 



through its lines, in gaining ground without 
arousing the attention of the enemy, obtain^ 
an indisputable advantage." He illustrated 
the point by two examples. 

A regiiucTit of Fren<h Cavalry wius deputeil 
to cross from the south to the north bank of the 
Lys. The Gennan.s had here broken down tlie 



IS 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




GERMAN PRISONERS IN CHARGE OF SPAHIS. 



bridges and their giuxs commanded all the 
fords. In the middle of the night a reservist, 
and four troo}:er-;. like the Dragoon who swana 
across the Lys between Aire and ]\Ierville, 
plunged into the river at a spot where it was 
\mfordable. They reached tlie left bank and 
installed cables which permitted a bridge to be 
rapidly constructed. An hovir later the whole 
regiment was north of the Lys. 

The other incident occurred between La 
Bassce and Estaires. At dawn some 600 
l^lilajis, taking advantage of a thick fog, 
occupied one among the numerous villages 
tliat stretch like a chain from the La Bassee- 
Lille Canal to the Lys. A captain, with the 
officer who told the storj', was sent with 80 
Cuirassiers to reconnoitre. In half an hour they 
were tliree hundred yards from the village, and 
halted. Dismounting, a sergeant and four men 
crept forward through the dense fog. They 
found the Uhlans camped in the streets or 
resting m the houses. On hearing this the 
Cuirassiers resumed their march. Suddenly a 
(jlerman patrol appeared through the fog. It 
was immediately captured, and the French rode 
on. Close up to the village church the French 
captain gave the order to charge. The Germans 
offered little resistance ; many were killed and 
\\ ounded ; 2.50 were made prisoners ; the rest fled. 

This example shows the repeatedly-proved 
inferiority of the German Cavalry to that of the 



Allies, which was, indeed, one of the most 
marked features of the war. 

The French and British Cavalry habitually 
routed the vaunted German horsemen. Re- 
membering the past history of the Prussian 
Cavalry, an explanation is not diflficult. Cavalry 
is an arm particularly liable to impressions. 
On the results of the fu'st collisions largely 
depend the futiu-e conduct of the arm. Thus 
it was that Frederick's cavalry won for him 
the battles of the Soor, Hohenfriedberg and 
Rosbach. For the above reason forty years 
later it \\ent down before the French horse at 
Auerstadt and Jena like corn before the sickle, 
and made no further effort during the war. 
It cut but a sorry figure in 186G, but in 1870 
did good service. In this war the encounters 
of the German with the British Cavalry were 
a revelation to the former. Their previous 
training led them to think themselves invincible. 
The belief was as erroneous as it was in 180(), 
and, after the first few shocks, they seldom tried 
to meet the British cavalry, and nearly always 
tied before them. The same was true when 
they were opposed to the French. The moral 
of their opponents was superior to theirs, and 
this was because the individual men were 
more rationally trained, better led and better 
manaPu\Ted. 

Conneau's Dragoons were south of the Lys 
on the 10th. The next day (October 11) 



THE TIMEIS HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



19 



General Gough with the 2nd C'a\iilry Division 
cleared the German cavalry from some woods 
north of the Bethune-Airo ('anal. The 
Division i^laced itself astride the Lys, its right 
wing in touch with the left of the II. Corps, 
which had crossed the canal and was moving 
in a north-easterly direction. Goiigh's left 
joined hands with the Divisional Cavalry of the 
(itli Infantry Division (III. Corps) near Haze- 
brouck. 

The right of the German front rested on 
I\[ont-des-Cats, a hill some 500 feet high " from 
which radiate spurs like fingers from the jjalm 
of the hand " * at the western end of the long 
ride south-west of Ypres. Mont-des-Cats is 
opposite the little hill on which stands Cassel, 
and is eight miles or so north-east of Haze- 
brouck and a little to the south of a straight 
line drawn from Cassel to Yj)res. From Mont- 
des-Cats the German line ran south through 
Meteren to Estaires on the Lys and from Es- 
taires due south for three miles tlu-ough very 
intricate country. It then tiu-ned slightly to 
the south-east, " passing about three miles 
east of Bethune " tlirough La Bassee to Ver- 
melles. West of the German front were de- 
tached bodies of cavalry and infantry. It was 

* The Eve-witness, October 17. 



with some of these that the French dragf)ons 
who had crossed the Lys above Merville and 
General Gough's cavah-y had come in contact. 

The task allotted to Sir Horace Smith - 
Dorrien with the 11. Corps was to pierce 
through the German line between Estaires 
on the Lys and La Bassee ; he would be aided 
by Conneau's Cavah-y Corps on his left. The 
-Vllied troops were then to wheel to the right 
against the right flank of the Germans en- 
trenched round La Bassee, which would thus 
be exposed, while, to hold the latter fast. 
Maud'huy was to attack them in front. 

The locality in which Sir Horace was to 
operate was the " Black Country " of France, 
" similar," as Sir John French observes, " to 
tliat usually fomid in manufacturing districts 
and covered with mining works, factories, 
buildings, &c." The desperate and bloody 
Battle of Charleroi (August 21-2) had been 
fought under analogous circumstances. 

Like the rest of the plain of the Scheldt, the 
country was very flat. The word " plain," 
however, which is associated with long and 
uninterrupted views, does not convey an ade- 
quate idea of the district between the Lys 
and the Bethune-La Bassee-Lille Canal. The 
military Eye-witness at the British Headquartei-s 
sketched the landscape in graphic language. 




MACHINE GUN SECTION GUARDING A ROAD. 




20 



22 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




BRITISH INFANTRY: EXAMINING ARMS. 



" It is mainly," he says, " an industrial region, 
and, with its combination of mining and agri- 
culture, might be compared to our Black 
Country, \vith Fen lands interspersed between 
the coal mines and factories. In some direc- 
tions the villages are so close together that this 
district has been described as one inunense 
town, of which the various parts are in some 
places separated by cultivation, and in others by 
groups of factories bristling with chimneys. 
The cultivated portions are very much enclosed, 
and are cut up by high, unkempt hedges and 
ditches." 

Such was the new field of battle as it appeared 
to Sir John French and the officer on his Staf¥ 
who supplied the descriptive accounts of the 
movements of the British Expeditionary Force. 
The enemy had barricaded themselves in many 
of the villages. Nearly all these villages were 
defended by a series of narrow, inconspicuous 
trenches. Driven from these trenches the 
Germans retired into the village itself, the 



streets of which were commanded by machine 
guns. To hide them from observation these 
were often placed in the centre of roo as. 
^Vhen the village was in danger of being taken 
incendiaries set fire to the houses on the out- 
skirts and. under cover of the flames, the 
defenders retired to the trenches behind t'.ie 
village. If the British or French put the fires 
out and themselves occupied the village it \\ as 
heavily shelled. 

Another difficulty encoimtered was this. 
Some of the villages on the line of march were 
held, others were left undefended. It was not 
imtil the cavalry, cyclists and advance guards 
had thoroughly recormoitered a village and, if 
it was held, drawn the enemy's fire, that the 
troops behind could be brought through it. 
The danger of ambushes in this network of 
buildings and mounds was very great, and the 
ambushes of the past were by no means as 
dangerous or as difficult to detect as those of 
modern warfare. In 1914: two or three men 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



•23 



liidden with a machine giin might destroy a 
cohimn of soldiers. 

The soldier of 1914 had, in fact, to be as 
meticulously vigilant as the n:iodern surgeon. 
Behind every embankment, spoil heap, hedge, 
in thickets, in houses, cottages, factories, as 
well as in villages, might be lurking Germans 
with rifles and mitrailleuses. Broad and deep 
dykes traversed the fields and meadows betw een 
the villages, and, if the troops had to deploy on 
either side of a village, farm, or factory, they 
were likely to be met by these obstacles, for 
the crossing of which planks or ladders had to 
be carried. 

Sir Jolin French and Sir Horace Smith- 
Dorrien were not Hindenburgs and Kluclis. 
They regarded the soldiers entrusted to them 
as their comrades, and not as " cannon-fodder "; 
to attempt to surprise the villages by clothing 
their men in the dress of German soldiers or 
French peasants or workmen was in the eyes 
of British officers dishonourable ; to place 
prisoners, much less civilians, in front of a 
column of attack was to the Allied leaders as 
an abominable crime. The appropriate tactics 
from the British and French standpoints was 
to deluge the villages and buildings occupied by 
the enemy with common shell and shrapnel, 
and when the enemy's nerves were shaken and 
their machine guns destroyed or buried in the 
ruins, to order an attack with the bayonet, 
which the Germans seldom faced. Unfor- 
tunately, as mentioned, the weather was misty, 
and the flatness of the country and its enclosed 
nature rendered it very difficult even for 
howitzers to find and get the range of a village 
unless, indeed, its presence was indicated by a 
church or a factory chimney rising above the 
trees surrounding it. 

Met with such difficulties it might have been 
expected that the III. Corps would have halted 
on the edge of the " Black Country " or joined 
the TI. Corps and the Cavalry Corps to the 
north of the Lys ; and, as Lille fell on Octo- 
ber 13, it may be plausibly argued that either 
course would have been preferable to that 
which was actually adopted. Had, however. 
Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien not attacked, the 
Germans might have poured most of the troops 
contained by him across the Lys, employed them 
against Sir Heru-y Rawlinson's and General 
d'Urbal's forces, and turned the line of the Yser. 

Indeed, if the British II. Corps had followed 
the III., the Germans between the Lys and 
the La Bassee-Lille Canal would have certainlj 



been sent to strengthen the front between 
Mont-des-CatsandEstaires. Had then, d'Urbal's 
Divisions, with the II. and III. Corps and the 
Cavalry Corps, been imable to pierce or 
turn the German line the lY. Corps (Sir Hem-y 
Rawlinson's) might have been caught between 
the Germans advancing through Ghent to 
Ostend and the army facing d'Urbal and Sir 
John French. By thrusting the II. Corps 
against the flank of the army engaged in a 
desperate struggle with Maud'huy's force 
Sir John French destroyed the last chance the 
Germans had of oxerw helming Sir Henry Raw- 
linson's Corps and the Belgian Army. The 
vanguard of the Belgians reached Fumes on 
October 12, the day Sir Horace commenced 
his attack. Other points had their weight. If 
Sir Horace and General ^Nlaud'huy had cleared 
the enemy from La Bassee, Lille would have 
still svurendered, but the effect of a vict£)ry at 
La Bassee might have been decisive on the 
long-drawn Battle of Arras. The tenacity 
with which the Germans coritinued to hold on 
io La Bassee shows tlie importance they 
attached to it in their scheme for crushing 
3Iaud'huy. 

On the other hand, if ^laud'huy had been 
driven to the Somme, the main communications 




MAJOR-GENERAL H. de la P. COUGH. 



•24 



THE TIMES HISTOUY OF THE WAR. 




NEWS FROM THE FRONT. 
Germans in the trenches writing hurried letters home. 



of d'Urbal's, Sir John French's and now King 
Albert's Army would have been cut, and the 
whole of the Allied Forces north of Bethune 
would have had to be based on Etaples, 
Boulogne, Calais and Dimkirk. Needless to 
say, their position would have been most pre- 
carious : most, if not all, of the gigantic army 
hurled a week or so later by the Kaiser into the 
battle which goes by the name of Ypres 
would have been directed against them, and, 
in the event of defeat, they would have had to 
embark at three small ports, an undertaking 
M'hich, in the days of guns and howitzers with 
a range of from five to ten miles and of sub- 
marines and bomb-dropping airships and aero- 
planes, might have led to a frightful catas- 
trophe. To add Smith-Dorrien's Corps to 
Maud'huy's Army and to help Maud'huy to 
achieve a victory or to avoid a defeat was, 
therefore, the wisest course open to Joffre, 
Foch and French. But it led to a terrible 
strain being put on the heroic body of troops 
who at the Battle of Le Cateau had saved the 
British Expeditionary Force from annihilation. 
Happily the II. Corps was no longer opposed 
by troops of the same quality as those they had 
.net in August, nor were the conditions under 
which they opposed them so unfavourable. 
Judged by the following Order of October 7 to 
the German 14th Reserve Corps, the directors 
of that vast organisation, the German Army, 
-were already experiencing difficulties in feeding 
and munitioning the soldiers : 



It is notified that the troops must no longer count 
on the regular arrival of supplies. They must, there- 
fore, utilize the resources of the covintry as much and as 
carefully as possible. 

'J'he regulation for the use of the iron rations must be 
strictly observed. 

In spite of all precautions complaints are conlinually 
being received that supply and ammunition columns 
constantly fail to arrive becaiise they are stopped and 
unloaded by unauthorised persons. It is again notified 
that only the avithorities to whom the supplies, &p., are 
eon--igned have the right to take dehvery of them. 

To terrorise the Belgians and the French the 
disciples of Bernliardi had relaxed the bonds 
of discipline ; they had encouraged the men to 
murder, rape, burn, get drunk and loot. It 
was not to be expected that, after their de- 
baucheries and crimes, the soldiers would 
rigidly obey the call of duty and behave with 
the carefulness of ordinary men. 

The TI. Corps had reached the Aire- 
Bethune Canal on October 11. As related, it 
crossed the Canal the same day, its left wing 
moving in a north-easterly direction. Sir John 
French decided that on the 12th this wing was 
to be brought up in the direction of JVIerville, 
from which the Uhlans had been driven by the 
French Dragoons of Conneau's Cavalry Corps, 
who had crossed the Lys east of Aire. Sir 
Horace Smith-Dorrien was then to move to the 
line Laventie-Lorgies. The former place is a 
little to the south-east of Estaires, the latter 
a few miles to the north of La Bassee. He 
would then be threatening the flank of 
the army strtiggling with Maud'huy's. On 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



'25 



October 12 the 5th Division (Sir Charles 
Ferguson's) " connected up " with Maud'huy's 
left, north of Annequin, which is south of the 
canal and to the west of La Bassee. 

To counter this manoeuvre the Grermans 
extended their right. The 3rd Division (Sir 
Hubert Hamilton's) now d ployed on the left 
of the 5th Division and the whole of the II. 
Corps advanced to the attack, but, owing to the 
obstacles already described, they could make 
little headway. Several counter-attacks, how- 
ever, were repulsed with heavy loss to the 
enemy, who abandoned a number of machine 
guns. Conneau's Cavalry Corps joined in the 
battle, following the roads between Estaires 
tuid Fle.urbaix, Laventie, Vieille Chapelle, 
Lacouture and Richeboiu"g. The Germans were 
defeated in almost every encovmter. At Vieille 
Chapelle the church was bombarded and left 
in ruins, and in the kitchen of a house a French 
Chassem" engaged in an Homeric contest with 
a Uhlan. Thrusting and cutting at the German, 
the Frenchman drove him into the backyard, 
where both fell mortally wounded. Thej' were 
biu-ied in a neighbouring field. Richebom*g 
was set on fire by the Germans as they re- 
treated. The first bviilding bvuiied was a 
factory which gave employment to the village. 

On October 13 Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, 
pivoting on Givenchy — a village two miles due 
west of La Bassee — wheeled to the south and 
endeavoiu-ed to get astride the La Bassee-Lille 
road in the neighbourhood of Fournes. Thence 
he would menace the enemy's position on the 
high ground south of La Bassee. In the course 
of the advance, near Pont Fixe, the Dorsets 
and other regiments of the 7th Brigade es- 
pecially distinguished themselves. They, like 
the enemy, were entrenched. During the night 
the Germans sapped towards them, and they 
towai-ds the Germans. At daybreak a British 
shell dropped into and burst in one of the 
advance trendies of the enemy. Five Germans 
were taken ])risoners. " I saw the fellows," 
wrote a war c orrespondent of the Daily Chronicle, 
some days later, " and they undoubtedly 
belonged to the last line of the German Reserve. 
One felt sorry for them, they looked starved, 
dirty and weary to death." The British guns 
shelled, and the infantry fired at the (Germans 
till 5 p.m., when the latter abandoned ail but 
the last trench. 

By this time only a ploughed field and a 
couple of ditches divided the two infantries, 
and the soldiers on cither side could be heard 



cursing each other. At last the order was 
given to the British to fix bayonets and charge. 
^^'ith a yell they rushed forward and, in the 
expressive language of a corporal, " dug 'em 
out same as you'd dig bully beef out of a can." 
Then they rushed for the Aillages behind tiie 
trenches, clearing the enemy out and capturing 
a mitrailleuse. For two miles the chase con- 
tinued. 

In the morning of October 14 the battle was 
continued, the advance being in the same 
direction. 

It was on this day that the 3rd Division and 
the nation suffered a heavy loss. WTiile riding 
along the lines the Commander of that Division, 
Sir Hubert Hamilton, was struck by a shrapnel 
bullet. He fell from his hor.se and died im- 
mediately afterwards. At night he was buried 
in the churchyard of the little village of Lacou- 
ture, three French Chasseurs being interred 
near him. An eye-witness described the scene 
to a Times Correspondent : 

The darkness of the night was profound and the 
mourners had a difficulty in distinguishing the features 
of their neit;hl)ours. The group which gathered round 
the grave at the entrance of the httle village of Lacouture 
included the General Staff of the 3rd British Division, 
delegates of the Headquarters Staff, the oiticers of the 
II. Army Corps, led by Genera! Smith-Dorrien in person, 
and some French officers attached to the British General 
Stnff. 








GRAVE OF GEN. HUBERT HAMILTON 
At Lacouture. 



26 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




INDIANS NEAR LA BASSEE. 



Owing to the proximity of the enemy absolute silence 
was observed, except for the low voice of tho priest, 
advantage being taken of a lull in the attack. Just at 
the moment when the priest was saying the last pra3'ers 
the guns began to roar agam, and projectiles whistled 
over the heads of the nnourners. The German attack 
was directed from a distance of a few hundred yards. 
The moment was well chosen, for the volle\s fired by tl;e 
troops of the Allies in honour of the dead, gloriously 
fallen for the common cause, were at the same time 
volleys of vengeance. Crackling reports of rifles con- 
tinued round the ruined church, but the \'oice of the 
priest, reciting the last words of the Requiem, lost 
nothing of its calm and clearness. 

Soldiers in single file acted as an escort to the cemetery 
beside the little church, which is now a Tnass of ruins in 
consequence of the bombardment. 

Afterwards Sir Hubert Hamilton's body was 
removed and reburied in his native land. 
Among the wreaths on his tomb was one from 
Lord Ivitchener. Hamilton had been among 
the ablest of Kitchener's pupils ; he had been 
liis ^Military Secretary in India, and had shown 
marked ability in the retreat from ^lons and 
at the battles of the Marne and Aisne. 

The death of their leader was avenged by 
the 3rd Division on tlie 15th when, as Sir John 
French wrote, " they fought splendidly." The 
dykes in their way were crossed with planks, 
and they " drove the enemy from one en- 
trenched position to another in loop-holed 
villages.'" By nightfall they had tlirust the 
Oennans off the Estaires-La Bassee Road, and 
they were established on the line Pont de Ham- 
Croix Barbee. On the 16th the left of the 
II. Corps was in front of Aubers, wliich was 



strongly held. The next day this village was 
captured by the 9th Infantrj- Brigade^ and at 
dark the village of HerUes, south-east of 
Aubers, was carried at the point of the bayonet 
after a fine charge. " The Brigade," remarks 
Sir Jolin French, " was handled with great 
dash by Brigadier-General Shaw." At this 
time the beUef was that the II. Corps was 
being opposed by a portion of the 14th German 
Corps, by several battaUons of Jaegers, and by 
the 2nd, 4th, 7th and 9th German Cavalry 
Divisions. 

With the capture of Herlies the offensive of 
Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien came to an end. 

The Kaiser was about to begin the counter- 
offensive, whicli is known to the public imder 
the name of the Battle of Ypres. Sir Horace 
Smith-Dorrion had not been able to drive the 
Germans out of their position at La Bassee nor 
to save Lille. 

Before describing the bombardment and 
surrender of Lille let us look at some details of 
the fighting between the Lys and the canal, 
\\liich have some value in completing the 
pictvire of the war. The British " Eyewitness " 
states : 

Parts of the legion where fighting has been in progress 
now present, a melancholy aspect. Many of the once 
prosperous homesteads and hamlets are literally torn 
to pieces, the walls still standing pitted by shrapnel balls, 
and in some of the villages the churches are smouldering 
ruins. Dead horses, cows, and pigs which have been 
caught in tlie hail of shrapnel litter the village sti-eets;. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



27 



iind among the carcases and (M'lris wander the wretched 
inhabitants, who have returned to see what they can 
save from the wreckage. Here, blocking up a narrow 
side street is a dead horse still harnessed to a trap and 
beside it is stretched the corpse of a Jiiger ; close by, in 
an enclosure where a shell has found them, lie some thirty 
cavalry horses ; a little farther on is laid out a row of 
German dead, for whom graves are being dug by the 
peasants. 

The work of buriul falls to a great extent on the 
inhabitants, who, with our soldiers, take no little care in 
marking the last resting-places of their countrymen and 
their Allies, either by little wooden crosses or else by 
flowers. Amidst tVie graves scattered all over the 
countryside are the rifle pits, trenches and gun emplace- 
ments, which those now resting below the sod helped to 
defend or to attack. From these the progress of the 
fighting can be traced, and even its nature, for they v'ary 
from carefully constructed and cimningly jilaced works 
to the hastily sliapeil lair of a German sniper, or the 
roadside ditch, with its sides scooped out by the eutronch- 
ing implements of our infantry. 

The unfortunate inliabitants, too, had to 
suffer from friends and foe alike. For the 
British had liad to destroy the farms and 
cottages which had sheltered a large number 
of industrious families. 

Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, we have seen, 
began his advance towards Lille on October 11. 
But on the 10th the Germans, unable to break 
their way into the city, had resorted to their 
favourite procedure. They bombarded Lille 
with their heavy artillery. The city had been 
seized by them in August and a war indemnity 
levied on it. It was a flourishing town of over 
200,000 inhabitants ; the fine public buildings 
and the splendid Art INIuseum bore witness to 
its prosperity, and to the innate culture of the 



French which distinguishes them from most 
industrial races. The Germans affected to 
treat the French as decadent. A A^alk through 
Lille should have dispelled that illusion. 

In 1792, when the I'rusiians and Austrians 
endeavoured to reimpose the yoke of the 
Bourbon despotism on France, Lille had been 
.vainly bombarded by the Austrians. A bom- 
bardment in 1914 was not so likely to be ineffec- 
tual, for the weapons employed had fifty times 



«.<. ■ 





AN INTERRUPTED GAME OF CARDS. 



28 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




LILLE DURING THE BOMBARDMENT. 



the power of those brought to bear on the town 
a hundred and twenty-two years before. 

On October 10 a small body of German 
cavalry rode up to the Town Hall and inquired 
for the ]\layor. AMiile they were demanding 
hostages, French horsemen arrived, and the 
Germans, after a brief encounter, fled. At 
5 p.m. the bombardment began, a shell bvirsting 
above the Town Hall. It was the furst of 
several. A panic started and the streets were 
soon a seething mass of excited men and women 
flying for refuge to their cellars. A Taube 
hovered and dropped a bomb, which killed a boy 
and a horse, and injured a woman. At 7 p.m. the 
bombardment increased in violence and several 
houses in the Rue Nationale were destroyed. 

The night was comparatively calm. On 
October 11, from 8 a.m. to nightfall shells 
fell incessantly. Numerous public buildmgs, 
houses and factories were on fire, and the 
jDeople were flying in all directions. The next 
day, at 6 a.m., the Germans resumed their 
work of destruction. Far off could be hetird 
the French artillery replying to the German 
heavy guns. On the 13th, as there was no 
hope of succour, to save the city from total 
destruction it was surrendered. Five or six 
thovisand shells had been fired into it, the Art 



]\Iuseum was damaged, some quarters of the 
city were in flames. The Germans, who after- 
wards systematically pillaged the to\\"n — 
packing up and dispatching to Germany 
furnitLU-e, Imen, and even clothing — sent for 
the fire engines of the neighbom"ing places and 
the flames were finally subdued. According 
to the official report 882 buildings, amongst 
them some of the finest, had been destroyed 
and Ij.jOO damaged, but the loss of life had been 
small. The Mayor, Bishop and Prefect and 
several coimcillors were taken as^ hostages. 

A gentleman who was in Lille during the 
bombardment and for a week after the Gennan 
occupation ^^Tites as follows : 

The two most prominent buildings in Lille were 
untouched by the shells, but the splendid art gallery 
had suffered. There were holes through the roof, but 
I do not know what damage was done to the pictures. 
In the Rue de la Gare two solid blocks of buildings were 
destroyed, and from the Place de la Republique to the 
Gare du Nord the buildings were terribly damaged. The 
Cafe Joan, known to every Englishman and American 
who has visited Lille, was in ruins. 

The Germaiis on the entry behaved well. Tliey were 
apparently mider strong and admirable discipline. They 
set themselves at once to put out the fires. Buildings 
were dynamited to prevent the flames from spreading. 
The ordinary police were left in charge of the town, 
although there were German soldiers stationed in all the 
streets. The people were told to remain witliin their 
liouses with the blinds down. Civilians with arms in 
their possession were told that thev were liable to be 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



29 



shot at once. Owners of motor-cars were bidden to 
report the- fact to the authorities. The Germans com- 
mandeered all the horses, motor-cars, and bicycles — in 
fact, every means of transport. 

During the bombardment few civilians suffered. I 
saw one civilian dead in the street. Among the defenders 
was a small party of Algerian troops. While they were 
defending the gates one man was left in charge of the 
horses, just off the Rue de la Gare. A shell burst just 
by him, and I saw the man and thirteen horses lying dead 
in a heap. 

For a week after the German occupation I remained 
in the town. No attempt was made by the Germans to 
dig trenches. I saw twenty-five big guns brought into 
the city. 

My papers were inspected by, the German military 
authorities, who were satisfied of my neutrality, and I 
left Lille and came to England through Belgium. As 
we passed through we saw entrenchments and barbed 
wire defences being constructed around the towns. 

The German soldiers entered Lille accom- 
panied by bands playing their favourite music. 
They were singing and smoking, but many 
were in a state of complete exhaustion. A 
prominent resident who escaped from the city 
stated that several soldiers lay down on the 
pavements and slept for hours and that some 
of the cavalrymen could scarcely sit their 
horses. Later, regiments of white-haired old 
men, and boys between the age of 16 and 18, 
in brand new uniforms arrived. They had been 
told that France was conquered and that they 
were to be reviewed by the Kaiser in Paris ! 

The feelings of some of the Germans may be 
surmised from the letter below found on the 
body of a dead soldier : 

Perenchies, near Lille, 

16th October 1914. 
Dear Brother, — Taking the opportimity of a five 
hours' pause, which is the first chance of writing I have 



had, I hasten to inform you of my present position. On 
the 5th October came the order that the XlXth Corps 
should leave the Third Army and form part of the First 
Army under General Kluck. The march from St. 
Hillegras to Lille, 180 kilometres (108 miles) in five days 
was very exhausting. In Lille hostile infantry was 
reported, and we were engaged in street and house 
fighting on the 13th and 14th, and it was only by t'.ie 
19th Heavy Artillery that the town was compelled to 
surrender. Lille has already been taken by us three 
times, and if troops or supply columns are attacked again 
the place will be razed to the ground. The shell fire, 
although it only lasted an hour, has cost the town at 
least a hundred buildings. Here, also, in Lille the 77th 
Field Artillery has manj' of our comrades on its con- 
science. 

Of prisoners we have absolutely none at present, 
since the wretches put on civilian clothes, and then one 
can look in vain for soldiers. We lie five miles from 
Lille and are to hold up the English who have landed. 
This will be no light task, since we are not fully informed 
as to their strength. It gives one the impression that 
the war will last a long time. Well, I shall hold out 
even if it goes on for another year. In front of us we 
can hear heavy guns, so we may easily have more 
fighting to-day. W^e have had no post for fourteen days, 
for the country here is very unsafe. 

Thus Lille — like Liege, Namur, Charleroi, 
Louvain, Malines, Brussels, Antwerp, Mons, 
Tournai, Valenciennes, Maubeuge, Cambrai, 
Douai, Rethel, Mezieres, Sedan, Montmedy, 
St. Quentin, Laon — was in the possession 
of the Germans. The day before (October 12) 
they had seized Ghent ; the day after they were 
to occupy Brixges, and, on October 15, Ostend. 
North of the Lys, however, the tide of invasion 
had tiu'ned. The British IIT. Corps and 
Cavalry Corps with d'Urbars Territorial Divi- 
sions and Cavalry were driving the enemy from 
Ypres and its vicinity at the very moment 
Mhen the Germans entered Lille. 




FRENCH SEARCHLKJHT 
Thrown on attacking (jermans. 



30 



THE TIMES IllSTUliY OF THE WAR. 



The tuminGT movement prepared by Joffre 
and French, north and east of the Aire-Lillo 
Canal, had on the centre and left been more 
successful than on the right. This was due to 
two causes. The obstacles had been fewer, 
and less serious than those encountered by 
Sniith-Dorrien's and Conneau's Corps ; the 
enemy had been less numerous. 

From the Lys to the sea is a distance on an 
average of tMrty miles. Wliile the population 
of Lille was over 200,000, that of Ypres, one 
of the largest towns in the inland portion of the 
oblong Aire-Ghent-Zeebrugge-Calais was under 
20,000 — 10,000 less than that of Armentieres, 
on the south bank of the Lys to the north-west 
of Lille. Crossing the Lys one passed from an 
industrial to a rvu-al neighboiu"hood, to villages 
instead of towns, to farnxliouses instead of 
villages. Except for the liill on which Cassel 
stands and for the INIont-des-Cats, and the long 
ridge which stretches from it eastward, the 
whole district was either fiat or gently imdu- 
lating. Next to the coast were reclaimed 
marshes drained by canals and dykes. On the 



edge of the sea were dunes. Hedges and 
belts of trees restricted the view ; the main 
roads, though straight, were badly paved ; 
the by-roads were winding. 

On October 11 the whole of the coast and 
reclaimed marshland was in the hands of the 
Allies, and the German line, as already men- 
tioned, stretched from Mont-des-Cats (south 
of the road from Cassel through Poperinghe 
to Ypres) to Meteren (on the road from Cassel 
via Bailleul to Armentieres) and thence to 
Estaires on the Lys. This position could be 
turned froin the nortli by an advance of d'Urbal's 
troops from Dunkirk through Bergues and 
Poperinghe to Ypres or on the south by Con- 
neau's cavalry crossing the Lys east of Estaires. 
To the rear it was threatened by the move- 
ment of Rawlinson's Corps from Bruges. By 
the 10th the head of Byng's Cavalry Division 
was at Thourout ; and on the 12th the 6th 
Cavalry Brigade held the line Oostnieuwkerke- 
Roulers, the 7th that of Rumbeke-Iseghem. 

The aim of the Germans was to remain on 
the defensive vmti] the army released from 




A BELGIAN LOOK OUT IN FLANDERS. 
Finding Ranges. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



31 




WOUNDED BRITISH IN THE STATION AT BOULOGNE. 



Antwerp, and the reinforcements which had 
crossed the Scheldt and were now hurrying 
to the Lys, joined hands with them. They took 
every advantage of the ground, concealing 
themselves in ditches, woods, and villages, 
and behind hedges, and a network of telephone 
wires warned them of the Allied movements. 
The line, however, they had to defend was 
longer than that from Estaires to La Bassee, 
and, while the commander opposing Smith- 
Dorrien and Conneau had one wing resting on 
the Lys and the forces from Estaires to Mont- 
des-Cats, the other on the Canal La Bassee- 
Lille, the right wing of the Germans north of 
the Lys was in the air, while their left wing was 
threatened by the movements of Conneau and 
Smith-Dorrien south of the Lys. 

The resistance of Lille was another important 
factor in the situation. Troops badly needed 
between Estaires and Mont-des-Cats had to be 
held back till Lille surrendered. The inhabi- 
tants of Lille and the French Territorials there 
have the gratification of Icnowing that, like 
the Belgians in Liege, they largely contributed 
to the coming success of the Allies. If LUle 
had surrendered on the 9th, and not on the 
13th, it may be doubted whether d'Urbal and 
the British would have reached the canal from 
Comines to Ypres, and from Ypres to the Yser. 

The misty and, occasionally, rainy weather 
and the hostility of the civilian pop\ilation 



were also to the disadvantage of the Germans. 
There can be no question that they believed 
they were being attacked by a much larger 
force than was actually the case. The reports 
of their air-scouts were defective, and the 
Allied Cavalry, assisted by armoured motor- 
cars, screened the advance of the infantry. 

From now onward the armoured motor-car 
began to play an important part in the schemes 
of Joffre and French for defeating the invaders. 
One of the many examples of their use is given 
by the British Eye-witness : 

On the 16th the crew of one of our armoured motor- 
cars obtained information that a party of hostile cavalry 
was in a farm. They enlisted help from ten men of the 
nearest battalion, who stationed themselves on one side 
of the farm while the motor-car waited on the other. 
Being unable to bolt their quarry, our men carried fire 
to the farm, which had the desired effect and resulted in 
two Uhlans being killed and eight captured, no cosualtiea 
being sustained by the attacking party. 

The Belgians showed special aptitude for 
this kind of warfare. They " appeared to regard 
Uhlan-himting as a form of sport," and often 
ventured miles ahead of their own troops, 
and seldom failed to return with spoils in the 
shape of helmets, lances, and rifles. At the 
opening of the war the Germans had scored 
heavily with their miniature forts on wheels, 
but with every day their superiority in the 
mere machinery of war was diminishing. 

It will be recollected tliat on October 11 
General Gough with the 2nd Cavalry Division 



a2 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




GERMANS ON THE DUNES 
Watching the Allied Fleets. 



had driven the German Cavalry from woods 
to the north of the Bethune-Aire Canal, and 
Unked up with the Divisional Cavalry of the 
6th Division (part of the III. Corps) in the 
neighbourhood of Hazebrouck. On the 11th 
General Pulteney had practically completed 
the detrainment of that corps at St. Omer, and 
moved it east to Hazebrouck, in and aroimd 
which town it remained during the 12th. 

The same day a Taube ventvu-ed over St. 
Omer and dropped three bombs on the Rue 
Carnot, killing a laundress and a small child in 
her arms and woimding a man. It was imme- 
diately pursued by five French aeroplanes. 
The " passenger " \\ as shot by the pursuers in 
the head. The Taube swerved, but the pilot 
managed to right it and flew away at full speed. 
Another shot struck the pilot and the machine 
" fell like a stone to the ground." At Pradelles, 
on the road from Hazebrouck to Bailleul, a 
German officer wished on the 12th to make 
some observations from the tower of the church. 
He applied to the Abbe Bogaert for the key. 
The Abbe could not find it. He was taken to 
Strazeele, where he was murdered. Extra- 
ordinary and horrible as such incidents as the 
above would have seemed in July, in October 
they attracted little attention. 

On Tuesday, the 13th, the advanced guard 



of the III. Corps, consisting of the 19th 
Infantry Brigade and a Brigade of Field 
Artillery, moved eastward to the line St. 
Sylvestre-Caestre-Strazeele Station. Three 

miles out of Hazebrouck the 1st North Stafford- 
shire Regiment came under shell fire at 7. 30 a.m. 
" Lost Private Ward," notes a non-com- 
missioned officer, " about two yards in front 
of me — ^struck dead by a shell. He had just 
lighted a cigarette, and said it might be his 
last." Through Strazeele the Staff ordshires 
advanced to Merris, south of Meteren, " where 
we reniamed in position under sheU-fire for 
Ih hours, holding up the Bosches." Merris a 
few days before had been the scene of an act of 
atrocious cruelty. Uhlans had pursued an old 
man to the " Bon Bovu-geois " Inn. He had 
hidden in an oak chest. Discovered, he was 
at once shot with a revolver. 

At St. Sylvestre and Caestre the British were 
on the main road between Cassel and Bailleul ; 
at Caestre they were across the single line 
railway from Hazebrouck tlirough Poperingh© 
to Ypres ; at Strazeele Station they were on 
the double-line railway from Hazebrouck 
through Bailleul to Armentieres and LUle. The 
Germans held the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats 
between Godewaersvelde (on the railway from 
Caestre to Poperinghe) and Bailleul. They 



THE TIMES HlSTOliY OF THE WAR. 



33 



were in force at Meteren foui* miles or so to the 
east of Caestre and two miles west of Bailleul. 
The Fourth German Cavalry Corps and some 
Jaeger Battalions were known to be occupying 
the neighbourhood of Meteren and were believed 
to be supported by the advanced guard of 
another German Army Corps. The high ridge 
of the Mont -des -Cats extends eastward to 
the road from Armentieres to Ypres. It ends 
round Wytschaete and, south of Wytschaete, 
round Messines. 

Sir John French now ordered General Pul- 
teney to push toward the road between Armen- 
tieres and Wytschaete. The latter village is four 
miles south of Ypres, seven from Armentieres. 
In heavy rain and fog and through very en- 
closed country the III. Corps marched for- 
ward. The artillery gave little assistance 
because objects could not be seen distinctly ; 
the roads and fields were bad going. By night- 
fall, however, the British had routed the enemy 
in all directions and captured Meteren, and 
Oultersteene to the east of Merris. " We lost," 
says the non-commissioned officer, " another 
seventeen men in taking Oultersteene. . . . 
Were not the villagers pleased to see us ! But 
what a toll ! I do not take into account the 
battalion or brigade — only my company. We 
got two machine guns, a dead German officer, 
with the Iron Cross ; cycles. Repaid our 
losses," he adds, "With interest." 

On account of their deeds at ileteren the 
Medal for Distinguished Conduct was awarded 
to Sergeant E. Howard of the 1st Royal 
Lancaster Regiment, to Sergeant H. Duckers 
of the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers, to Sergeant 
G. A. Hodges of the 2nd Essex Regiment, and to 
Private C. Rowley of the 1st Royal Warwick- 
shire Regiment. Howard, at very great risk 
to himself, had crawled to 12 men of his platoon 
who had ceased firing. He found they were 
all dead. Duckers had handled his platoon 
with remarkable skill, both at Meteren and on 
other occasions. Hodges, shot througii the 
shoulder, continued in command of his platoon 
and led it forward to the firing line. Rowley 
had volunteered under a heavy rifle fire to go 
back from the firing line to the support trench, 
a distance of some 300 yards, for ammunition. 
He reached it and, later, recrossed the same 
piece of ground under similar conditions. 

Meanwhile General Gough, to the left of the 
III. Corps, had not been inactive. As had 
been arranged, the Cavah-y Corps, after the 
arrival of the III. Corps, had moved to the 



north of it. On tlio 1 2th Cough's Division 
had ridden through Fletre (between Caestre and 
Meteren) and on the 12th-13th engaged the 
right of the enemy at Mont -des -Cats. In this 
action Prince Max of Hesse was mortally 
wounded. He lies buried in the grounds of the 
monastery wliich crowns the hill, together 
with three British officers and some German 
soldiers. This day a cavalry patrol came sud- 
denly upon a German machine gun detachment. 
The subaltern gave the order to charge ; the 
Germans were killed and scattered and the 
gim captured. For his gallantry and deter- 
mination at Mont-des-Cats Lieutenant C. J. 
Aris of the 16th Lancers obtained a D.S.O. 
He had charged and driven off a German 
patrol, and although twice wounded, persisted 
in sending in his report to liis squadron leader. 

It was on the 13th-14th that French and 
British troops marched into Ypres. 

On the 14th tiie 1st Cavalry Division joined 
up with the 2nd, and the whole Cavalry Corps 
under General Allenby moved north, and in 
face of considerable opposition seciued the 




»» 



MORTAR CAPTURHD IN A GERM.\N 
TRKNCH. 



34 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



high ground above Berthen round Westoutre, 
whoso Mayor, it will be remembered, had been 
lashed across the face by a German cavalryman. 
Further to the north the 87th and 89th French 
Territorial Divisions were marcliing from the 
direction of Dunkirk on Poperinghe, Vlamer- 
tinghe and Ypres. The 3rd Cavalry Division 
(Byng's) on the 13th had reconnoitred towards 
Ypres and JNIenin.* Patrols had been sent 
forward towards Comines and Wervicq. At 
Comines — the birthplace of the historian Philip 
de Comines, who deserted Charles the Bold 
for Louis XI. — the canal from Ypres enters the 
Lys. Both places are on the Lys between 
Menin and Armentieres. The 7th Infantry 
Division (Major-General Capper's) had occupied 
Roulers, menaced by the Germans from Thielt, 
and Sir Henry Rawlinson ordered B^mg to hold 
the line Dadizeele-Iseghem.t 

* The latter town is on the Lys a few miles west of 
Courtrai. It was at Menin that Scharnhorst, the Hano- 
verian who reformed the Prussian Army after the Jena 
catastrophe, had first distinguished himself in war. 

t Roulers had a population of over 25,000 ; on June 13, 
1794, the French under Pichegru and Macdonald he. I 
Jiere defeated the Austrians under Clerfait. The Battle 
of Roulers had been the prelude to that of Fleurus, the 
first battle in wliich a captive balloon was used — by the 
French — for military purooses. 



The next day (October 14) considerable 
bodies of Germans, believed to belong to ti e 
12th Corps, were reported to be moving 
from the vicinity of Balleul towards Wervicq 
and Menin. Consequently Byng, followed b\- 
Capper, was directed on Ypres with orders to 
reconnoitre to the south-west. At 9 a.m. 
Byng's Division v,as at Ypres and the 6th 
Cavalry Brigade proceeded to the line La 
Clytte-Lindenhock. Near Ypres the Brigade 
with rifle and revolver fire brought down a 
Taube. The pilot and observer fled to the woods, 
but were capttired. Accompanied by armoured 
motor-cars, the advance guard pushed on 
towards Xeuve Eglise, killing and capturing 
numbers of the retreating enemy, No 
" formed bodies " were, however, met with. 
From the direction of Bailleul heavy firing was 
heard. At dusk the 7th Cavalry Brigade 
moved into billets at Kemmel, west of the 
Ypres -Armentieres road ; the 6th were at 
Wytschaete in touch with Cough's Cavalry 
Division, with which they had established con- 
tact during the day. On the 15th, the day of the 
German entry into Ostend, Byng's divisionrested. 

As the Germans, issuing from Ostend, Bruges, 
and Ghent, might be expected to advance on 




MOTOR FOR HEAVY TRANSPORT WORK. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



35 




GERMAN CAMP OUTSIDE OSTEND. 



Ypres, Sir John French on the 16th placed 
the 3rd Cavalry Division round Langemarck 
and Poelcapelle north-north-east of Ypres and 
south of the Foret d'Houthulst. The Division, 
with the 7th Cavalry Brigade leading, moved 
via Ypres and Wieltje to the line Bixschoote- 
Poelcapelle. It was reported that the enemy 
in large nmnbers were in the Foret d'Houthulst 
and Oosfehieuwkerke, and a patrol of the 2nd 
Life Guards was obliged to withdraw from 
Staden. There was intermittent figliting diu-ing 
the afternoon, and at dusk French troops 
relieved the 7tli Cavalry Brigade, which was 
then billeted at Passchendaele, south-east of 
Poelcapelle. The 6th Cavalry Brigade w^as south 
of it at Nieuwemolen. The 7th Infantry 
Division extended east of Ypres in the wooded 
district from Zandvoorde through Gheluvelt to 
Zonnebeke, south of Xieuwemolen. SujDport- 
ing Sir Henry Rawlinson's Corps was General 
Bidon W'ith the 87th French Territorial Division 
in Ypres and 'N'^lamertinghe, and behind it, 
on the road to Dunldrk, the 89th French 
Territorial Division in Poperinghe. Sir Henry 
Rawlinson was to support the Cavalry Corps 
and the III. Corps on the Lys if he was not 
attacked by the Germans advancing from 
Ghent, Courtrai, Bruges, and Ostend. 

The next day (October 17) four French 
Cavalry Divisions under General do Mitry 
deployed on Byng's left and drove the vanguard 
of the Germans from Ostend and Bruges out of 
the Forot d'Houthulst. 



The day before the German Army coming 
from Ostend had commenced its attack on the 
Allies defending the Yser. 

A glance at the map will show that on October 
14 the Germans, who were originally on the 
line Mont-des-Cats-Meteren-Estaires, were in 
imjiiinent danger of being enveloped and 
their retreat cut. The operation orders of the 
6th Bavarian Cavalry Division which were 
captured stated that, the right of the line 
having been forced to withdraw, the left was 
compelled to follow the movement. 

While Rawlinson's Corps moved against the 
German rear, and while the French Territorial 
Divisions and the Cavalry Corps crumpled up 
the German right, the III. Corps moved on 
towards Bailleul, which was entered at 
10 a.m. on October 14, and where many 
\\ounded Germans were captured. The town 
had been pillaged ; a war-tax of £2,000 — paid by 
the farmers of the neighbourhood — imposed, 
and several houses burned. Fourteen men of 
military age had been shot. There was a 
lunatic asylmn in the town. With Teutonic 
liLunour, the Germans turned the hundi'ed 
imnates out of doors. These poor creatures 
wandered about the country and many were 
afterwards found dead by the roadside or in 
the woods.* That night the III. Corps occupied 
the line St. Jans Cappel-BaUleul. 



* See the account givoa by a imtivo of Biiilloul in tho 
Daily Chronicle of October 20 : " Tho Oormims." he 
says, "arc not soldiers so much as brigands and assassins.' 



3G 



THE TIMES HISTORY UF THE WAR. 



The advance was resumed on the loth in 
very foggy weather. The enemy offered a 
stubborn defence. As Ypres and Wytschaete 
Mere now in the hands of the Alhes Sir John 
French had altered the direction of the III. 
Corijs. He pushed it to the north bank of the 
Lys between Sailly and Armentiercs. It 
will not be forgotten that Conneau's Cavalry 
Corps Avas on the south side of the river in 
the region of Estaires. By nightfall the 6th 
Infantry Division was at Sailly-Bac St. Maur, 
tiie 4th at Nieppe on the road from Bailleul 
to Armentieres. On the 15th the Cavalry 
Corps had been ordered to make for the Lys 
below Armentieres. There had been an en- 
counter near Messines on the 14th, and Sergeant 
C. Graham, of the 5th Lancers, for engaging 
with his revolver the enemy behind a barricade 
and, although badly wounded in the hand, 
giving a clear account of liis reconnaissance 
whilst his hand was being dressed, subseqiiently 






!S.-' 



received the Medal for Distinguished Conduct. 
At sunset all the country on the north bank 
to some six or seven miles below Armentieres 
(on the south bank) and all the bridges above 
it from Aire eastward were held by the Allied 
troops, ^^'arneton, six miles or so east of 
Armentieres^ was taken in the following 
circumstances : 

At tne entrance to the town the Germans had 
constructed a high barricade loopholed at the 
l)ottom so that men could fire through it 
from a lying position. A squadron of British 
Cavalry rode up in the dark (October IG), 
but, nothing daunted, obtained help from the 
artillery, who man-handled a gun into position 
and blew the barricade to pieces. The cavalry 
then rode into the middle of the town. Hardly 
liad they reached the further end of the large 
Place, when " one of the buildings appeared to 
leap skj'wards in a sheet of flame, a shower of 
star shells at the same time making the Place 
liglit as day." The enemy from the houses 
round the Place fired on the horsemen from 
rifles and macliine-guns. The squadron retired 
with the loss of an officer wounded and nine 
men killed and wounded. Determined not to 
leave the wounded to the mercy of the dervishes 
of Central Eiurope, some troopers took off their 
boots, went back into the Place and succeeded 
in carrying away their bleeding comrades. 
W'arneton was captui-ed, but the bridge had 
been destroved. 




AN ADVANCED POST. 



THE TIMES HISTORY • OF THE WAR. 



37 



Armciitieres lies to the south of the Lys. A 
bridge connects it with Nieppe. After a few 
shells had been fired at the barricade on the 
bridge the Germans evacuated Armentieres 
(October 16), leaving behind them fifty wounded, 
rifles, ammunition, and a motor-car. The river- 
line, almost as far east as Frelinghien, was in 
British or French hands. Ai'mentieres had 
been systematically plundered. The members 
of the INIvmicipal Council and prominent 
factory owners had been arrested and held as 
hostages. The inhabitants, it need scarcely 
be said, welcomed with joy the British troops. 

From the condition of the bridges over the 
Lys it is clear that the Germans had been 
completely surprised by tlie rapid offensive 
of the Allies. At Warneton the damaged 
bridge was being repaired ; at Frelinghien 
the bridge had not been demolished and 
was defended ; further west, at Houplines, the 
bridge was destroyed, but at Nieppe both the 
rocid bridge and railway bridge leading to 
Annentieres were only barricaded, and the 
bridge at Erquinghem, west of Armentieres, 
was neither defended nor broken. The Lys 
in this part of its course flows through a slight 
depression in the plain. It is from 45 ft. to 
7.5 ft. wide, and only 6 ft. deep. At places it 
had been canalized. Many of the bridges 
were of the draw or swing type. 

Accordingly, on the 17th, when Smith- 
Dorrien's Corps — the right wing of the Allied 
Forces engaged in the battle between La 
Bassee and Nieuport — had ended its offensive 
and the Germans from Ostend and Bruges had 
already* begun their attempt to break through 
the left wing on the Yser between the sea and 
Di.xmude, the 3rd Corps (General Pulteney's) 
had crossed the Lys and occupied Arinentieres. 
" Took up outposts," writes a non-com- 
missioned officer of the 1st North Staffordshires, 
" near Armentieres at Wez Macquart and 
dug ourselves in." Both banks of the Lys up 
to Frelinghien were held by the Allies. To the 
north of the Lys the Cavalry Corps had taken 
Warneton and were reconnoitring towards 
Alenin. " With a view to a further advance 
east," wrote Sir John French in his dispatch of 
November 20, 1914, " I ordered General 
Allenby, on the 15th, to reconnoitre the line 
of the River Lys, and endeavour to secure the 
passages on the opposite bank, pending the 
arrival of the III. and IV. Corps." From 
the 15th to the I'Jth this reconnaissance was 

* The Battle of the Yser bogau on Octol)cr 16. 




LOADING AN 18-pr. GUN. 

most skilfully and energetically carried out, 
but, although valuable information was gained 
and strong forces of the enemy held in check, 
the Cavalry Corps was unable to secure pas- 
sages or to establish a permanent footing on the 
southern bank of the river. On the 17th the 
III. Corps (Pulteney's) was on the line Bois 
Grenier-Le Gheir. The enemy were holding a 
line from Radinghem through Perenchies to 
Frelinghien and thence along the south bank of 
the Lys as far as the crossing at Wervicq. 

On the 18th Sir John, trusting to the Belgians 
and French to maintain the line of the Yser, 
and to the Cavalry of de Mitry and the Terri- 
torials of Bidon to stop any German advance 
on Ypres through or past the Foret d'Houthulst, 
ordered up Sir Henry Rawlinson's Corps — i.e.. 
Capper's Infantry and Byng's Cavalry Divi- 
sions — to the support of the Cavalry Corps. 
The 7th Infantry Division (Capper's) was to 
drive the Germans from Menin on the north 
bank of the Lys between Warneton and Courtrai. 
" I considered," says Sir John, " that the pos- 
session of Menin constituted a very important 
point of passage, and would much facilitate the 
advance of the rest of the Ai-my." Sir John 
still hoped that the offensive of the Allies might 
be continued. The left of Capper's Division 
was to be supported by Byng's Cavalry and 
by the French Cavalry operating on the ea,st 
of the Foret d'Houthulst in the neighbourliood 
of Roulers. Sii' Hemy Rawlinson reprosentod 



:i8 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAU. 




A GERMAN RANGE FINDER. 

to Sir John French that large hostile forces were 
advancing upon him from the east and north- 
east and that his left flank was severely 
threatened, but Sir John, now that the I. Corps 
(Sir Douglas Haig's) was detraining at St. Omer, 
decided that Rawlinson's Corps should run the 
risk of an attack of the Germans on his flank. 

The following account by a Flemish gentle- 
man of the fighting roimd Roulers to the North- 
east of Ypres on October 18 and 19 will help 
to explain Sir H. Rawlinson's objections to 
Sir John French's plan : — 

About the middle of this month thousands of German 
soldiers appeared in Roulers. On the doors of the houses 
they chalked the nimiber of men to be billeted under 
each roof. The requisitions were numerous^-carriages, 
barrows, horses, cycles, hay, oats, etc. Everything had 
to be supplied so quickly that the invaders had no time 
to give coupons. But as a reward they chalked here and 
there on a house the words " Good people." 

On October 17 the German troops marched ofi in the 
direction of Dixmude, towards the coast, to strengthen 
the (Jerman forces between Ostend and Nieuport. A 
hundred men remained in occupation of Roulers. Early 
next morning, Sunday, the cry was heard along the road 
to Dixmude, " The French are here ! " Seventeen French- 
men appeared from the direction of Ypres and two hours 
later 200 French dragoons followed them. They con- 
cealed themselves in a little wood. The hundi'ed Ger- 
mans in the town got to know their whereabouts, perhaps 
through spies. A skirmish occurred in the little wood, 
and at 3 o'clock in the afternoon only 40 survivors of 
the German troops went back to the town. 

The same evening many French troops marched into 
the town, and more arrived during the night. They 
built in the market-place and the streets barricades of 
mattresses, sacks, and barrels. Mitrailleuses were 
stationed behind pillar-boxes and in the porches of corner 
houses. Guns were placed in position at one of the 
approaches to the town. 



The next morning, Monday, many Genm n tro ip- 
appeared from the direction of Bruges and Ghent, i'hey 
placed I heir guns in three villages, Hooglede, Ardoye, 
and Iseghem. At Hooglede they had a .specially good 
position, on the ridge of a hill, which runs straight 
through West Flanders. The Flemish people say that 
the threshold of the church of Hooglede lies as high as 
the top of the tower of Roulers, which is about 245 feet 
high. 

The Germans placed their guns in front of the church 
of Hooglede, whence they saw Roulers lying below them. 
The French artillery began the action, but the Germans 
for a time did not answer. The clock of Roulers had 
struck 12 before they opened lire, and it rained ;-hells 
on the town. Its population escaped into the cellar-^, 
anxiously awaiting the fate of their beloved town. The 
bombardment went on. Roofs fell in, walls reeled. 
The tower of the church of Notre Dame leaned over. 
A shell fell through the roof of St. Michael's Church and 
did much damage. Flames went up on several sides. 

In the meantime German infantry tried to approach 
the town. Their advanced troops fortified themselves 
in railway carriages at the shunting station on the line 
Beveren-Roulers, but the French artillery on the Dix- 
mude road shelled and destroyed the carriages. More 
troops were brought up and, towards evening, the 
Germans succeeded in forcing their way into the town. 
The fight was continued in the streets, but the French 
were obliged to retire. They fell back in good order, with 
all their guns, and took up new positions at East Nieu- 
kerke, about three miles to the south-west. 

Night came, and from afar one could see the fierce 
glow of burning Roulers. That night, however, the 
British advanced from Ypres and camped near Moors- 
lede, with the French lying near the old battlefield of 
Roozeheke. 

At the same time as Rawlinson's movement 
on Menin the III. Corps was to move down the 
south bank of the Lys from Armentieres to 
assist the Cavalry Corps to cross to the right 
bank. To do this, the enomy between the 
III. Corps and Lille had first to be vigorously 
pushed back. On the night of the 17th the 
III. Corps and Cavalry Corps were being opposed 
by the 19th Saxon Corps, released from Lille 
after its capture, by at least one division of 
the 7th Corps, and by tliree or four divisions of 
cavalry. Reinforcements for the enemy were 
known to be coming up from the direction of Lille. 

Despite the odds against hun, Pultenej'^ 
attacked on the 18th, but he made little pro- 
gress. At nightfall his 6th Division had taken 
Radinghem and was holding Radinghem, La 
Valine, Ennetieres, Capinghem, and a point 
300 yards east of Halte. A wounded soldier 
described the attack of Ennetieres to a Times 
correspondent : 

The advance began early yesterday morning. The 
enemy was driven out by shell fire. They retired towards 
Lille and shelled the village in their turn. Not a habit- 
able house was left standing. The Allied troops 
advanced round the village under a terrible fire, talcing 
cover under the walls of factory buildings. The enemy 
had taken the range of the buildings. Their fire was 
accurate. An officer with two companions mounted to 
the roof of a factory to make observations. A shrapnel 
shell burst on them at once, and all three were killed. 
In the village 500 German dead were found. The cart- 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



39 



lidges foiuid upon them wero of the old Snider type 
\<nt]i large lead bullets, some flattened at the top. I 
have seen two of them. Infantry succeeded in entrench- 
ing themselves on the farther side of the village. But 
their trenches were not more than two feet deep, and they 
had to lie full length in them. It was here in the trenches 
that my informant was wounded. A shrapnel struck the 
pile of earth in front of him, and a bullet from the bur-ting 
ghell hit liim on the head It was a glancing shot, which 
inflicted a severe scalp wound. Just previously he had 
seen a shrapnel shell burst immediately over the heads of 
six men. " They arc gone," he thought. But when the 
smoke had cleared away all six rose from the ground, 
luiscathed. 

It is clear that in the operations of the past week our 
troops have gained much ground. They are now, how- 
ever, coming into touch with the main German position 
at Lille. Our men are now " digging themselves in " 
to hold their ground until the necessary reinforcements 
can reach them. 

The 1st North Staff ordsliires were engaged 
roiind Wez Macquart. A non-commissioned 
officer mentions that a Roman CathoUc Father 
gave his chiim and him a bottle of wine at 
J 0.30 p.m., which gave them sleep. " iNIay God 
bless him for it," he observes. 

The 4th Division held the line from 
L'Epinette to the Lys at a point 400 yards 
south of Frehnghien and thence to a point on 
the Lys half a mile south-east of Le Gheir. 
The Corps Reserve was at Armentieres station, 
with its right flank in touch with Conneau's 
Cavalry Corps. South-west, at Aubers, began 



the left wing of Smith-Dorrien's force, which 
dui'ing the 18th was violently but unsuccess- 
fully attacked by the Germarus between Lille 
and La Bassee. Tlie left of Pulteney's Reserve 
joined hands with the Cavalry Corps, and, 
beyond the Cavalry Corps on the north bank of 
the Lys, the 7th Infantry Division was advanc- 
ing on Meuin. 

On October 19 Sir H. Rawlinson — with 
Byng's Cavalry Division on his left — tried to 
carry out Sir John French's orders to drive the 
enemy through Menin, but the task was beyond 
his power. His Corps (the IV.) was worn out by 
constant marching and fighting, and the Ger- 
mans were in overwhelming force. By 10 a.m. 
the 7th Cavalry Brigade, attacked by bodies of 
the enemy from Roulers, which had been 
occupied by the Germans, fell back three- 
quarters ot a mile to a strong position. " K " 
Battery of the Royal Horse Artillery, which had 
been attached to the Brigade, came into action 
north of IMoorslede and rendered great assist- 
ance. The 6tli Cavalry Brigade, with " C " 
Battery, advanced from So. Pieter and, after 
a brisk little action captured Ledegehem and 
RoUeghemcappelle. But the enemy from 
Roulers continued to press on, and the 7th 
Cavalry Brigade was withdrawTi to the high 




BRITISH MOTOR-AMBULANCE WRECKED BY GERMAN FIRE. 



40 



THl-: TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



ground east of Moorslede. This exposed the 
ihnik of the (itli Cavalry Brigade and, as large 
hostile forces were reported advancing from 
Courtrai, it was ordered to fall back gratlually 
on ^loorslede and thence to withdraw to 
billots at Poelcapelle. Its retirement was 
covered by the 7th Brigade, which, under heavy 
shell fire, retreated to Zonnebeke. The French 
took over Passchendaele, north of Zonnebeke. 

The pressm-e of the Germans on BjTig had 
decided Sir Henry RawlLnson not to attack 
Menin. " He probably exercised a wise judg- 
ment," says Sir Jolm French, " in not com- 
mittmg his troops to tliis attack in their some- 
what weakened condition ; but the result w a^ 
that the enemy's continued possession of the 
passage at Menin certainly facilitated liis 
rapid reinforcement of liis troops, and thu?' 
rendered any further advance impracticable." 
Tlu-ough Menin ran the railway from Lille to 
Roulers, and one from Courtrai. 

The 1. Corps (Sir Douglas Haig's) had com- 
pleted its detrainment on the 19th and was con- 
centrated between St. Omer and Hazebrouck. 
" A question of vital importance," writes Sir 
John French, "now arose for decision." To 
which point of the line of battle should the 
I. Corps be dispatched "? The enemy on the 
Lys, it was apparent, were in very superior 
nmnbers, and the II., III., IV. and the Cavalry 
Corps were holding a much A\ider front than 
their strength w arranted. Should the I. Corps 
his sent to the line of the Lys ? The objection 
was that the German 3rd Reserve Corps and 
at least one Landwehr Division were Icno^v^^ to 
be operating in the region north and east of 
Ypres, and that the enemy were bringing up 
large reinforcements from the east, which for 
several days could only be opposed by two or 
three French Cavalry Divisions, the two 
Territorial Divisions and the Belgian Army, 
which was badly in need of a rest after its 
heroic exertions. Unless some substantial 
resistance could be offered on the Yser and 
between the Yser and Ypres the Allied flank 



would be turned and the Channel Ports laid 
bare to the enemy. " I judged," says Sir 
John, " that a successful movement of this 
kind fon the part of the Germans] would be 
fraught with such disastrous consequences that 
the risk of [the II., III., IV. and Cavalry 
Corps] operating on so extended a front must 
be undertaken." 

On the evening of the 19th Sir Jolm had a 
personal interview with Sir Douglas Haig, and 
the latter was instructed to advance with the 
I. Corps through Ypres to Thourout. His 
immediate objective was to be the capture of 
Bruges. If Bruges were taken the communi- 
cations of the Germans attacking the line of the 
Yser would be cut. When Bruges was cajitured 
Sir Douglas was, if possible, to drive the enem\- 
towai'ds Ghent. But it was left to him to 
decide after he had traversed Ypres whether 
he would move on Bruges or towards the Lys. 
Sir John had arranged for de ilitry's Cavalr_\- 
to operate on the left, and Bj-ng's Cavalry 
Division on the right of the 1st Corps. The 
7th Infantry Division (Capper's) was to " con- 
form generally " to the movements of the 1. 
Corps, iis for the Cavalry Corps and the III. 
and II. Corps on the north and south bank'^ of 
the Lys, they were to remain on the defensive. 
The forces which the enemy had accumulated 
on their front precluded ai^}' other course. The 
Lahore Division of the Indian Expeditionary 
Force was arrivmg in its concentration area in 
rear of the II. Corps on October 19 and 20. 

The I. Corps on October 20 reached a line 
from Elverdinghe to the cross-roads one-and-a- 
half miles north-west of Zonnebeke. Why 
Sir Douglas Haig w as unable to carry out Sii- 
John's plan for the capture of Bruges will be 
described in a subsequent number. The 
Battle of Ypres was about to begin ; the Battle 
of the Yser had been in progress for foxir days. 
The reader must not forget that during the 
fighting from La Ba.ssee to Nieuport the Battles 
of Arras and Roye-Peronne continued to the 
south along a Une of about 100 miles 




CHAPTER XLIX. 



THE INTERVENTION OF TURKEY, 



Turkey and Greece — The Crtsts in 1914 — German Policy at Constantinoplk — Great 
Britain and Turkish Ships — Goeben and Breslau in the Dardanelles — Grand Vizier's 
Promises of Neutrality — Diplomatic Negotiations — Abolition of the Capitulations — 
Germany Forces War — Entente Ambassadors Leave Turkey. 



WHEN the European crisis gi-ew to a 
head in the closing days of July, 
1914, it obscured a minor, but very 
acute, crisis between Turkey and Greece, which 
seemed to mean that we were on the eve of a 
war between those two countries. There had 
been a series of shameless persecutions of Greek 
Christians in Asia Minor, and there still 
remained as a legacy from the war of the 
Balkan Allies against Turkey the question of the 
future ownership of the islands of the Dode- 
canese. The dispute was further aggravated 
by a contest for naval supremacy. Turkey 
had ordered two battleships in England, which 
were expected to be ready for delivery in the 
autumn, but Greece had retaliated, and fore- 
stalled her rival, by the purchase of two 
cruisers from the United States Government, 
which were expected to reach Greek waters 
at the end of July. Both countries had British 
naval missions hard at work, increasing the 
efficiency of their fleets, and it was obvious 
that if war were declared in the summer the 
arrival of the American cruisers would give the 
advantage in the Aegean Sea to Greece, while 
if Turkey protracted the crisis until the delivery 
of the British-built Dreadnoughts a superiority, 
at least in tonnage and in guns, woukl rest with 
Vol. JIT.— Part 28. 



Turkey. M. Venezelos, who always showed 
high qualities of moderation and statesmanship, 
made a final and, as it was then believed, 
despairing attempt to compose the quarrel. 
A meeting was arranged to take place at 
Brussels between M. Venezelos and Prince 
Said Halim Pasha, the Turkish Grand Vizier. 
M. Venezelos duly left Athens for Brussels, and 
proceeding up the Adriatic to Trieste reached 
Munich. The Grand Vizier, however, who was 
to have left Constantinople at the same time, \\ as 
so much impressed by the growing gravity of the 
crisis that he failed to keep his engagement, 
and did not leave Constantinople. By the 
time M. Venezelos had reached IMunich the 
Austrian Ultimatum to Serbia had been 
launched. Europe was on the eve of wai-. 
and the railways in Austria and Serbia were 
already in the hands of the military authorities. 
Greater evils drive out loss, and not the least 
astounding result of the outbreak of the groat 
war in Europe was the fact that the minor 
danger of war between Greece and Turk(\\- 
disappeared for a time. Yet neither country 
could be indifferent to the great conflagration, 
and here, too, as might have been ex]jfcted, their 
sympathies were on opposite sides, Turkey 
had for years past been to all intents and pur- 



41 



42 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




THE SULTAN 
Leaving the Mosque after the declaration of war. 

poses a member of the Triple Alliance, and if 
not a very effective partner she had in hei' 
sjTnpathies been a much more real ally of 
Germany and Austria than had Italy — the 
nominal third member of the Triple Alliance. 
It IS true that there was somewhat of a diplo- 
matic tangle. With Italy Turkey was at war 
from 1911 to 1912, and with Austrian diplomacy 
also she had had stormy passages in recent 
years, notably after the Young Turk Revolution 
when the Dual Monarchy in October, 1908, 
suddenly declared the annexation of the 
already occupied provinces of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina, but with Germany, since the 
advent of William II. to the throne, she had 
increasingly intimate relations. Bismarck may 
have declared that the Eastern Question was 
not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier, 
but in this domain as in others Bismarck's 
politics were entirely discarded in modern 
Prussia. It had been long decided that Ger- 
many was to be Turkey's patron. In the days 
of Abdul Hamid's tj-ranny it was a simple 
matter to buy the Palace clique at Yildiz Kiosk, 
and by this means she had begun the policy 
of securing political and commercial ascendancy, 
of advancing her trade interests, and of exploit- 
ing the great mineral wealth of the Empire. 
The Kaiser himself went to Constantinople 
and visited Palestine, for it was to Asiatic 



Turkey that Germany's longing eyes were 
turned. " Peaceful penetration " was her 
method, and with the ever pecuniarily 
embarrassed Turk she found many oppor- 
tunities of strengthening her hold in his country. 
To build and own his railways, to be his banker, 
to teach his soldiers drill, to sell him Kriipj) 
guns, and to dominate his dii)lomacy, wore the 
objects which she pursued, in the hope that 
one day, either by some dramatic turn of events 
or gradually and almost imperceptibly, the 
Sultan's sceptre in Asia would pass from the 
feeble Oriental grasp into her own firm hands. 
The advent to po%%er of the Young Turks in 
1908 temporarily checked the march of German 
influence at Constantinople, and the friends of 
Abdul Hamid were out of comt. But Germany 
had the good fortune to be represented at 
Constantinople by Baron IMarschall von Bieber- 
stein, a singularly able diplomatist, who rapidly 
gained the confidence of the new party, and 
cleverly represented to it that whether Old 
Turks or Young Turks were in power the 
interests of the Empire in its relations with 
foreign Powers remained precisely the same, 
and that, whatever might have been the defects 
of Abdul Hamid's internal adminLstration, his 
foreign policy had been conducted with real 
regard to the safety of his country. Yet it 




THE GROWN PRINCE OF TURKEY 

(centre). 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



43 




CONSTANTINOPLE, 
Showing the Golden Horn and Stambul. 



might have been apparent that this was pre- 
cisely the reverse of the truth. For Abdul 
Hamid, in his long years of feeble tyrannj', 
had not only brought Turkey to the direst 
straits internally but had greatly imperilled 
her international position, exposed her to a 
long series of humiliations and severely tried 
and chilled the once wann and well tried 
friendship of Great Britain and France, the 
two naval Mediterranean Powers which held 
Turkey in the hollow of their hands. 

The Aiistrian annexation of Bosnia and 
the Italian declaration of war against Turkey 
placed Germany in an exceedingly difficult 
position, but she managed to maintain her 
influence at Constantinople through these 
trying periods. Then came Turkey's disastrous 
war with the Balkan Allies, in which Germany's 
sympathies were on the side of Turkey, though 
German friendship was confined entirely to 
good wishes and Turkey was left to stomach 



her defeats as best she iniglit. There follo\M'd 
the war between Bulgaria and her former 
Allies, Serbia and Greece, and when^ at its 
conclusion, the Treaty of Bukarest was made, 
the German Emperor busied himself to secure 
the retention of Adrianople by Turkey. Doubt - 
less he and the German General Staff had been 
sadly disillusioned as to the military capabilities 
of their friends, but they were still determined 
to continue their old programme of exploiting 
Turkey, and they had a definite plan for 
dragging her into the European conflict whicli 
was not far distant. 

When at last the Great War broke out it 
became evident that Turkish neutrality was 
not likely to endure for long. Complications, 
also, very soon sprang up. On August 3 
Sir Edward Grey instructed I\Ir. Beaumont, 
the British charg6 d'affaires, to inform the 
Turkish Goveriunent that Great Britain do- 
sired to take over the Tiu-kish battlecship, 



44 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




THE bHElJvH-LL.lSLAM PROCLAIMING A HOLY WAR. 



Sultan Osman, then under construction by 
Messrs. Armstrong, Wliitworth, and Co. The 
. Grand Vizier gave an assiu-ance that Turkey 
intended to observe .a strict neutrality, and 
explained that the Turkish mobilization, already 
begun, had been ordered only because it would 
take months to complete, and because the 
Government wished not to be taken by surprise 
in case of any aggression. Sir Edward Grey 
replied by expressing his conviction that the 
Turkish Government would understand the 
necessity for Great Britain to keep in England 
all warships available for England's own use, and 
gave an assiu-ance that all financial and other 
loss to Turkey would receive due consideration. 
Fiu-ther, he added that if Tiu-kex- remained 
neutral no alteration would be made in the 
status of Egypt. 

Germany, however, rapidly thickened the 
plot. At 8.30 p.m. on August 10 the German 
warships Goeben and Breslau reached the 
Dardanelles. It was the duty of Tiu-key. as 
a neutral Power, to see that they did not pa.ss 
through, and that they should either leave 
before twenty-four hoiu^, or be disarmed and 
laid up. The next day the world was astonished 
by the news that the Ottoman Government had 
bought the Goeben and Breslau. The Grand 



Vizier informed the British charge d'affaires 
that the piurchase was due to Great Britain's 
detention of the battleship Sultan Osman. 
Turkey, he said, must have a shjp to bargain 
with in regard to the question of the Islands 
on equal terms with Greece, and he declared 
that the purchase was not due to any intention 
to make war upon Russia. At the same time 
he asked that the British Naval Mission might 
be allowed to remain. To tlus request Sir 
Edward Grey replied that if the crews of the 
Goeben and Breslau were returned at once to 
Germany there would be no need to withdraw 
the Naval Mission. Thereupon Admiral Limpus 
received a message that crews would be made 
up for the Goeben and Breslau, and that there 
was no mtention of sending the two slups 
outside the Sea of INIarmora until the end of 
the war. This was on August 14, but on the 
very next day Admiral Limpus and all the 
officers of the British Naval Mission were 
suddenly replaced m theu" executive command 
by Turkish officers and were ordered, if they 
remained, to work at the ^Ministry of Marine. 
A dehghtful Turkish explanation of this volte 
face was given by the Grand Vizier, who, on 
the following day, solemnly assured Great 
Britain that Turkish neutrality would be 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



45 



maintained. A certain number of German 
experts would be left on tlie Goeben and 
Breslau, owing to the inability of the Turks to 
liandlo tliese ships themselves. " It would,"' 
fie declared, " have been an impossible position 
for Admiral Limpus if he had had under his 
direct orders a mixed crew of Turks and 
Germans, and perhaps the reason of his with- 
drawal fj-oiu executive command may lie in 
this consideration." 

The Grand Vizier, who daily distributed 
smooth assurances to the Ambassadors of the 
I']ntente Powers, may have been weakly anxious 
to preserve neutrality, wliile the \Var IMinister, 
Enver Pasha, carried on a strong propaganda 
in favour of immediate adhesion to the Triple 
Alliance. Not only was the army mobilized, 
but a new field of mines was laid in tiie Dar- 
danelles in the first week of August, ajid 
warlike preparations were daily more and 
more in evidence. The attitude of England 
was one of marked forbearance. On Avigust Iti 
the British charge d'affaires was instructed, 
as were his colleagues of the Entente, to declare 
to the Turkish Government that if Turkey 
would observe strict neutrality during the war, 
England, France, and Russia would uphold 
her independence and integrity against any 
enemies that might wish to use the European 
conflict in order to attack her. When the 
British Ambassador, Sir Louis ]\Tallet, wlio 




TALAAT BEY, 
Minister of Interior. 

had been on leave at the outbreak of the 
European War, returned to his post he tele- 
graphed to Sir Edward Grey, on August 18, 
that he had been aacorded a moHt cordial 
reception by the Gi'and Vizier, and that 
though the situation was delicate he had 




CROWD LISTENING TO THE READING OF THE PROCLAMATION. 



:s - 2 



46 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




A VIEW OF THE BOSPHORUS. 



great hopes that if His Majesty's Govern- 
ment would exercise patience it might yet be 
saved. In reply to his inquiry as to whether 
the German crews would be removed soon, 
and what guarantee the Grand Vizier would 
give that the Goeben and Breslau would be 
used neither against Great Britain nor Russia, 
the Minister replied that neither -would go 
into the Black Sea or the Mediterranean. 
Sir Louis Mallet added, " His Higlxness was 
much impressed and relieved when I informed 
him of the declaration authorized in your 
telegrams of August 16. He said that this 
wovUd be of enormous assistance to him, and 
he assured me that I need not be anxious lest 
Turkey should be drawn into war with Great 
Britain or with Russia. The present crisis 
would pas;^. I am convinced of the absolute 
personal sincerity of the Grand Vizier in these 
utterances." 



Nevertlieless, the fissure between the two 
parties was so great that on August 19 Sir 
Louis Mallet telegraphed : '"In view of the 
possibility of a coup d'etat being attempted 
with the assistance of the Goeben in cooperation 
with the military authorities under German 
influence, who exercise complete control, I wish 
to inake it clear that in my opinion the presence 
of the British Fleet at the Dardanelles is wise. 
I am anxious to avoid any misunderstanding 
as to the gravity of the situation notuith- 
ptanding the assurances received from the 
Grand Vizier." 

In order to avoid a conflict Sir Edward Grey 
was prejiarcd to go so far as to recogiuzo the 
sale of the Goeben and Breslau provided it were 
a genuine one. He informed the Turkish 
Ambassador in London tliat Turkey would 
have nothing to fear f roin , Great Britain, and 
tint her integrity would be preserved in any 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



47 



conditions of peace which affected the Near 
East, provided that she preserved a real 
neutraUty during the war, made the Goeben 
and Breslau entirely Tiu'kish by sending away 
the German crews of those vessels, and gave all 
ordinary facilities to British merchant vessels. 
Turkey, however, greeted tills striking conces- 
sion in a most remarkable manner, and on 
August 20 Djemal Pasha, the Minister of 
Marine, called on Sir Louis Mallet and made 
the astonishing proposal that the Capitulations 
should be abolished immediately, that the 
two Turkish battleships acquired by Great 
Britain at the outbreak of war should l^e 
returned immediately ; that interference in 
the internal affairs of Turkey should be re- 
nounced ; that Western Thrace should be 
restored to Turkey if Bulgaria were to join 
the Triple Alliance, and that the Greek Islands 
should be restored. Even in the face of these 
extraordinary demands Sir Edward Grey 
replied that he did not wish to refuse all dis- 
cussion, and the English, French and Russian 
Ambassadors addressed the following communi- 
cation to the Porte : " If the Turkish Govern- 
ment will repatriate immediately the German 
officers and crews of the Goeben and Breslau, will 
give a written assvirance that all facilities shall 
b3 furnished for the peaceful and uninterrupted 
passage of merchant vessels, and that all the 
obligations of neutrality shall be observed 



by Turkey during the present war, the three' 
allied Powers will in return agree, with regard 
to the Capitulations, to withdraw their extra- 
territorial jurisdiction as soon as a scheme of 
judicial administration which will satisfy 
modern conditions is set up. They will, 
fiu"ther, give a joint guarantee in writing that 
they will respect the independence and integrity 
of Tiu-key, and will engage that no conditions 
in the terms of peace at the end of the war 
shall prejudice this independence and integrity." 
This remarkable pronouncement was made 
in vain. The war party in the Cabinet, 
although in a minority, relied on the guns oi 
the Goeben to overawe the Sultan himself, if 
necessary, and continued to drive their im- 
willing colleagues. On September 9 the Porte 
sent a Note to the Powers, in which it 
announced the abolition of the Capitulations, 
as from October 1. Even the German and 
Austrian Ambassadors made a show of resenting 
this unwarrantable act, and on the following 
day identical Notes were addressed by the six 
Great Powers to the Sublime Porte, in which 
it was pointed out that the capitulatory 
regime was not an autonomous institution 
of the Empire, but the resultant of inter- 
national treaties, diplomatic agreements and 
contractual acts of different kinds. It could 
not, therefore, be abolished without the con- 
sent of the contracting parties, and, in the 




RECRUITS AND RESERVISTS FROM PALESTINE, on the lett ; 

Regulars oa the right. 



43 



THi: TIMES HISTORY OF IHE WAIL 




SIR LOUIS MALLET, 
British Ambassador at Constantinople. 

absence of any understanding between the 
Ottoman Clovernnient and their respective 
Governments, the Ambassadors refiLsed to 
recognize the executive force of a vuiilateral 
decision of the SubUme Porte. 

The whole area of the Dardanelles, Con- 



stantinople, and the Bosphorus w«u» rapidly 
becoming neither more nor less than a German 
enclave. Special trains full of Ciennan sailors 
with officers were run through Bulgaria, and 
by tiic end of August the total passed tlirough, 
over and above the original crews of the Goeben 
and the Breslau, was over six hundred. In 
addition to these, many German military 
reservists arrived, and were posted to garrison 
the Dardanelles forts. The German admiral 
on board the Goeben and the German Govern- 
ment were the absolute masters of the situation 
and were in a position to force the hand of the 
Turks at anj^ moment which might suit them, 
and steady pressure was exerted to prepare 
public opinion for hoslihties. Sir Louis Mallet, 
m the dispatch wherein on his return to 
London he summarized the events which 
led up to the final rupture of diplomatic 
relations, showed clearly enough the methods 
employed. German success in the Eiu'opean 
war was said to be assured. The perpetual 
menace to Tvirkey from Russia might, it was 
suggested, be averted by a timely alliance \\ ith 
Germany and Austria. Egj'pt might be re- 
covered for the Empire. India and other 
^Moslem countries, rejaiesented as groaning 
under Christian rule, might be kindled mto a 
iiame of infinite possibilities for the Caliphate 
of Constantinople. Turkey would emerge from 
the war the one Great Power of the East, even 




TURKISH TROOPS LEA\ING FOR THE FRONT. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



49 



as Germany would be the one Great Power of 
the West. Every agency which could be used 
to stimulate public opinion and to inflame it 
against the Allies was set at work, with the 
connivance, and often with the cooperation, 
of the Turkish authorities. All the Turkish 
newspapers in C'onstantinople became German 
organs ; they glorified every real or imaginary 
success of Germany or Austria and minimized 
every disaster or reverse. The semi'official 
telegra^jhi.? agency, which was practically p. 
department of tlie Ministry of the Interior, was 
placed at the disposal of the German propa- 
ganda. Through all these channels unhmited 
vise was made of Tiu-key's one concrete grievance 
against Great Britain as distinguished from 
other European Powers, the detention of tlie 
two Dreadnoughts, the Sultan Osman and the 
Reshadie. The populace had contributed freely 
to the fund raised by voluntary subscription 
to defray the cost of these much-desired 
vessels, and there is no doubt that bi1t(>r 
disappointment was felt when the turn of 
events prevented or postponed their acquisition. 
The "Committee of Union and Progress," 
the chief organization of the Young Turk 
Movement, which had its origin in Salonika, 
had been torn by many intrigues and feuds 
since its first great public triumph in 1908. 
But a rump remained of which the most 
powerful members were Enver Pasha, the 
Minister of War, Djemal Pasha, the ^linister 
of Marine, Talaat Bey, the Minister of the 
Interior, and Djavid Bey, the Minister of 
Finance. Of these Djavid Bey alone was a 
champion of neutrality, and Berlin, finding his 
opposition uncompromising, in the end forced 
his resignation. Enver Pasha was an open 
and whole -liearted partisan of Germany. Talaat 
Bey, described by Sir Louis Mallet as " the most 
powerful civiUan m the Cabinet and the most 
conspicuous of the Committee leaders," was 
no less real an adherent, though it was not till 
early in October that he was openly reckoned 
as a member of the war party.. Djemal Pasha, 
likewise, wore the mask of neutrality for long, 
but only in order to attempt to conceal the 
pre]iarations which were being made. Against 
these, at least apparently, were ranged the 
Sultan, the Heir Apparent, the Grand Vizier, 
Djavid Bey, and the remaining members of 
the Ministry — enough to constitute a clear 
majority against a desperat(> \'enture, but 
unfortunately the majority' had no means 
of asserting itself against the folly of the 




TEWFIK PASHA, 

Turkish Ambassador !n London, leaving the 

Embassy. 

fire-eaters, who in the last resort were prepared 
to train the guns of the Goeben upon Con- 
stantinople itself. Both the j)ro-Germans and 
the Germans themselves, however, were anxious 
to retain the Grand \'izier in office if possible, 
and to avoid a coup d'etat. As Sir Louis 
Mallet later pointed out, it was clearly only 
as an extreme step that the Monarch whom 
Pan-Islamic pro-C!ermans acclaimed as the 
hope of Islam, and whom the devout in some 
places had been taught to regard a-s hardly 
distinguishable from a true belie\'er, would 
run the risk of scandalizing the Moslem world, 
whom he hoped to s(!t ablaze to the undoing of 
J'^ngland, Russia, and France, by using the 
guns of the Goeben to force the hands of the 
Sultan-Calij)li. 

On September :21 I lie I'ritish Ambassador 
saw the Sultan for the last lime, au'l read to 
him a personal message from King Ccorge, 
who ex]iress(>d his profound r(>gret that "' the 
exigencies of unforeseen circumstances " had 
compelled (Jreat IJritain to detain tlu> two 



50 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




MOBILIZATION. 
Marching into Constantinople to join the Colours. 

warships intended for the Turkish Navy, 
and expressed the hope that the decision to 
return these vessels to Turkey at the end of the 
European War would suffice to prove that 
their detention was dvie to " no unfriendly 
intention towards an Empire bound to vis by 
a friendship of more than a century." " My 
Sovereign," said the Ambassador, " trusts 
that Turkey will do nothing to prevent his 
Government from acting up to this decision, 
that she will maintain strict and absolute 
neutrality during the present war, and tliat 
there will be no delay in putting an end to 
certain facts contrary to neutrality which have 
caused some anxiety as to the attitude of the 
Turkish GoN^ernment." 

Tlie Sultan listened to his communication in 
silence until the Master of the Ceremonies 
translated the clause containing the words 
" certain facts contrary to neutrality." He 
then broke in with an eager disclaimer of 
any unneutral conduct on the part of Turkey. 
The rest of this interesting interview is best 
recorded in the Ambassador's o\\ n ^vords : 

On my mentioning, as a specific instance, the retention 
of German officer's and crews on board the Goeben 
and Breslau, His Majesty explained with some lucidity 
that they had been kept for a short time to train the 
Turkish crews. Tlie " captains " available in the 
Turkish Navy were unequal to the task, and it was 
necessary for that reason to do what had been done. 
The German crews would be sent away in " five or ten 
days," and the officers also. Only one or two of the 
latter would be retained. He would speak franklj', he 
said. Great Britain was a great Power with a great 
navy, and had no need of the two ships of the Ottoman 
fleet. Great Britain had taken them, but he knew 
they would be given back at the end of the war. On 
my remarking that Great Britain wished to make 
absolutely sure of the position at sea, the Sultan again 
said that she was too great a maritime Power to need 



these ships, but he once more stated his conviction 
that they would be given back. Anyhow, he and hia 
Government were not going to depart from their 
neutrality. His Majesty repeated this more than once, 
saying that they knew that that was the only path of 
safety, and that his great desire was to keep the peace. 
He laid stress on the friendship between Great Britain 
and Turkey. This was the more striking, because the 
words were not put into his mouth, as might be sup- 
posed, by myself, the Master of Ceremonies having quite 
failed to render the parts of my communication in 
which I dwelt on past relations between England and 
Turkey. 

When referring to what the Sultan had said about 
the need for training his navy, 1 expressed regret that 
the British naval mission had not been allowed to 
complete that task. His Majesty did not seem to grasp 
the main point, but on mj' referring to the circum- 
stances of Admiral Limpus's departure, he broke in with 
some emotion, and said twice over that it was not by 
his wish that the admiral had left Constantinople with- 
out an audience. The admiral had not asked for one or 
come to the Palace. Had he done so he, tho Sultan, 
would have postponed all other business in order to see 
him. I said I would convey this to Admiral Limpus. 
I also promised to communicate the Sultan's assurances, 
which I said I sincerely believed, to the King, who would 
be gratified at receiving them. 

Just before I took my leave. His Majesty was good 
enough to express his warm personal regard, and made 
some further kind remarks about the value which he 
attached to his personal relations with me. The Sultan 
spoke throughout in the most homely language, but 
with great liveliness and point, and with obvious 
sincerity. His assurances about his desire to observe 
neutrality and remain at peace rather lost than gained 
in force by the way in which tho Master of Ceremonies 
(whose mind is slow and whose French is defective) 
translated them. His remarks on the embargo on the 
two ships were plainly, but not discourteously or resent- 
fully, worded. 

Amongst the " facts contrary to neutrality " 
there was much more than the case of the 



THE TIMES HIS'J^OEY OF THE WAR. 



51 



Goeben and tlie Breslau. British merchant 
vessels carrying cargoes from Russia to the 
Mediterranean liad throughout August been 
subjected to delays and searches at the Dar- 
danelles, and for one incident at the harbour 
of Chanak the Turldsh Government had been 
oompelled to tender an apology. On the other 
hand, the case of the Goeben and Breslau had 
compelled the British Navy to keep a close 
watch at the entrance of the Straits, which 
greatly perturbed the Turks. On September 26 
a Turkish destroyer was stopped outside the 
Dardanelles and turned back. Thereupon 
the Commandant of the Dardanelles closed the 
Straits, and in spite of assurances given by the 
Grand Vizier they were not re-opened. The 
Goeben and the Breslavi made cruises in the 
Black Sea, and niimerous German vessels, 
of which the most important were the Corco- 
vado and the General, served as auxiliaries to 
tliis German Black Sea Fleet. Secret com- 
munications with the German General Staff 
were established early in August by means of 
the wireless apparatus of the Corcovado, 
which was anchored opposite the German 
Embassy at Therapia. Other German ships 
played with the Turkish flag as they pleased, 
in order to facilitate their voyages, or cloak their 
real character while in port, and a department 
was constituted at the German Embassy for 
the purpose of requisitioning supplies for the 



use of the German Govermnent and their 
ships. 

By the middle of September it was calculated 
that there wei-e over 4,000 German soldiers and 
sailors in Constantinople alone. The oflficers 
of the German military mission, under General 
Liman von Sanders, displayed " a ubiquitous 
activity," and were the main organizers of 
preparations in S^Tia which directly menaced 
Egypt, and became a source of pre-occupation 
and a theme of remonstrance to the British 
Government. 

In October a new weight was cast into the 
scale by the importation of large quantities 
of bulUon consigned to the German Ambassador, 
and delivered under military guard at the 
Deutsche Bank. The total amount was esti- 
mated at £4,000,000. A definite arrangement 
was arrived at with the war group of ^Ministers 
that as soon as the financial provision reached 
a certain figure Turkey could be called upon to 
declare war. The attempt to win over the 
Grand Vizier and induce him to make the 
declaration was finally abandoned, and by 
the last week in October it was decided that 
drastic steps to provoke the outbreak must be 
taken. On October 29 it was reported from 
Cairo that an armed body of 2,000 Bedouins 
had made an incursion into the Sinai peninsula, 
and occupied the wells of Magdala, and that 
their objective was an attack on the Suez 




BEDOUIN INFANTRY 



62 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




[Barrat!. 

PRINCE SAID HALIM PASHA, 
Grand Vizier, and Minister for Foreign Affairs. 

Canal. On the uiorning of the same daj' three 
Turkish tori)edo-boats raided Odessa harbour, 
sank the Russian guardship Donetz, damaged 
the French ship Portugal, killing two of the 
crew, and also damaged three Russian steamers. 



Some loss of life was caused m tlie town itscUf 
hy sliell-fire. Tlieodosia was likewise bom- 
barded. The British Ambas.sador records that 
it was certain that the actual orders for 
these attacks were given by the German 
admiral on the evening of October 27. Tlie 
grave new.s reached Constantinople on the after- 
noon of October 2!». .M. Bompard, the French 
Ambassador, and Sir i^ouis Mallet immediately 
called on M. de Giers, their Russian colleague, 
and decided to ask for authority from their 
Governments to confront the Porte with the 
alternative of the rupture of diplomatic rela- 
1 ions or the dismissal of the German naval and 
military missions. 

In the following words the British Ambassador 
describes the end of that friendship of more than 
a century, of which Eong George had so lately 
and so vainly reminded the unhappy Sultan 
Mohammed V. : 

On tb.p morning of the 30th, liowevor. I learnt from 
my Russian colleague that he had recived instructions 
from his Government immediately to ask for his pass- 
))orts. He had written to the Grand \'izier to ask for 
an interview, which his Highnt^ss had begged him to 
postpone until the following day owing to indisposition. 
The instructions of my Russian colleague being in a 
categorical form, he had therefore been constrained to 
address a note to the Grand Vizier demanding his 
passports ; and I and my F'rench colleague, acting on 
the instructions, with which the Ambassadors of the 
allied Power.-; had at my suggestion already been fiimLshed, 
to leave Constantinople simultaneously should any one 
of them be coinpelled to ask for his passports, owing 
either to a Turkish declaration of war or to some intoler- 
able act of hostility, decided without further delay to 




GENERAL LIMAN VON SANDERS (centre) AND HIS STAFF. 



THE TIMES HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 



53 




IHE "BRESLAU" ("MIDILLU") 
Flying the Turkish flag. 



write to the Grand Vizier and ask in ovu- turn for inter- 
views to enable us to carry out these instructions. In 
view of his Highness'* indisposition we had not expected 
to be received that day, but a few hours later the Grand 
Vizier sent us word that he would, nevertheless, be glad 
to see us, and notwithstanding the excuse which he had 
made earlier in the day he received the Russian Ambas- 
sador also in the course of the afternoon. My interview 
with the Grand Vizier partly coincided with that of 
M. de Gicrs, and preceded that of JI. Bompard. It was 
of a painful description. His Highness convmced nie 
of his sincerity in disclr.iming all knowledge of oi partici- 
pation in the events which had led to the rupture, and 
entreated me to believe that the situation was even now 
not irretrievable. I replied that the time had passed 
for assurances. The crisis which I had predicted to 
his Highness at almost every interview which I had 
had with him since my return had actually occurred, 
and unless some adequate satisfaction were immediately 
given by the dismissal of the (Jerman missions, which 
could alone prevent the recurrence of attempts upon 
Egyptian territory and attacks on Russia, war with the 
Allies was inevitable. My Russian colleague had already 
demanded his passports, and I must, in pursuance of 
tlie instructions I had received, follow the same course. 
The Grand Vizier again protested that even now he 
could undo what the War party had done without his 
knowledge or consent. In reply to the doubt which I 
expressed as to the means at his disposal, he said that 
he had on his side moral forces which could not but 
triumph, and that he meant to fight on to the end. He 
did not, indeed, hint at a possibility of immediately 
dismissing the German mission, but he informed me 
tliat there wa^ to be a meeting of the Council at his 
hou.se that evening, when he would call upon his col- 
leagues to support him in his determination to avert 
war with the allied Towers. 

The Council was duly held, and, as ho had predicted, 
the majority of the Ministers supported the Grand 



Vizier, who made a strong appeal in favour of peace, 
and was seconded by Djavid Bey. But the powerless- 
ness of the Sultan's Ministers to do more than vote in 
the Council Chamber was evident. The question of 
dLsmissing the German naval oificers was discu.ssed, but 
no decision to do so was taken, and no Minister ventured 
even to propose the e.xpulsion of the military mission. 
In the interval the War party had sealed their resohi- 
tion to go forward, by publishing a conununiqu6 in 
which it was stated that the first acts of hostility in the 
Black Sea had come from the Russian side. Untrue 
and grotesque as it was, this invention succeeded in 
deceiving many of the public. 

It is not possible to establish by proof which of the 
Ministers had pre-knowledge of the German admiral's 
coup, but it may be regarded as certain that Enver 
Pasha was aware of it, and highly probable that Talaat 
Bey was also an accomplice. 

The story of a Russian provocation was plainly an 
afterthought, and if the oHicial report of the R\issian 
Government were not suiTicient to disprove it. I could 
produce independent evidence to show that the orders 
to begin hostilities wei-e given at the mouth of the 
Bosphorus on the evening of October 27 as the 
result of a conspiracy hatched between the German 
representatives in Constantinople and a small luid un- 
scrupulous Turkish faction. 

My Russian colleague loft C-instantinoplo without 
incident on the evening of October ,"{]. Jly own 
departure was eventually arranged for the following; 
evening, when I loft for Dcdcagatch, accompanied by 
my stall of sixty ollicials and their families ; the Britislj 
advisers in the service of the Turkish Government and 
some other British subjpct.s also travelled with me. My 
French colleague and his staff left by tlio same train. 

Owing to the wanton refusal of the niiliiary authorities, 
at the last moment to allow the depart uro of a grcvit 
number of British and Frencli subjects who were to- 
ha\(' left by an earlier train than that which liail been 



28 3 



54 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




DJEMAL PASHA, MINISTER OF MARINE 

(fifth from the right), with Turkish and German Officers on board the 

(" Sultan Yawuz Selim "). 



Goeben" 



placed at my disposal, the station was for some hours 
the scene of indescribable confusion and turmoil. 

My protests and those of the French Ambassador 
were disregarded, and after protracted discussion, we 
agreed to leave matters in the hands of the United States 
Ambassador, who undertook to use all his influence to 
procure the departiu-e of our fellow subjects on the 
following day. The " sous-chef de protocole " of the 
Sublime Porte and the " chef de cabinet particulier " of 
the Slinistry of Foreign Affairs were sent to bid farewell 



to M. Bompard and myself at the railway station, and 
two Secretaries of the Political Department of the 
Ministry accompanied us to the frontier. 

^Ir. ^Nlorgenthau, the United States Ambas- 
sador, was left in charge of both French and 
British interests at Constantinople. The Italian 
Ambassador fulfilled a like function for Russia. 




CHAPTER L. 



THE TURKISH ARMY. 



Turkish Military System — German Reforms — Difficulties of Conscription — The Balkan 
Wars — The Macedonian Problem — Enver Pasha and the Revolution — Sketch of the 
Young Turk Movement — Enver's Career — German Intrigues — The Liman Military IVIission 
— Its Difficulties — Peace Strength of the Army — Distribution of Army Corps. 



OF all military forces in Eiirope the 
Turkish Army is the most difficult 
to estimate with any approach to 
accuracy. No Government by skilful 
artifice could be inore successful in baffling the 
curiosity of the outsider than is the Turk by 
the simpler means of statistical incompetence 
and a natural disinclination to make practice 
march with theory. 

In the years immediately preceding the war 
the army had been subjected to a series 
of successive reforms, carried out under 
the guidance of German officers, and no 
exact accounts were ever published of the 
extent or nature of these reforms. Indeed, it 
may be said with confidence that so great was 
the tangle of Turkish military administration, 
so incompetent and weak the central control 
over provincial commands, contractors, and 
remote officials, that the German reorganizers 
of the Tiu-kish Army must themselves have had 
but an inaccurate knowledge of the reserves in 
men and material at their disposal. There are 
many signs that, over a long period of years, 
both before and after the l^alkan Wars, and 
into the present campaigns, they had con- 



sistently overestimated the military possi- 
bilities of modern Turkey. 

Theoretically the Turkish system bore a 
general resemblance to that of the rest of 
Europe. The principle of conscription had 
long been recognized, but during the reign of 
Abdul Hamid the Christian population of the 
Empire was not allowed to serve in the army 
and was forced to pay a heavy tax instead. 
^Vith the advent of the Young Turks to power 
there came a supposed change, and under the 
Constitution Christians were liable for military 
service. The Balkan Christian, as might have 
been expected, did not prove a very enthu- 
siastic defender of the Sultan's power, and the 
Turks complained bitterly that in the battles 
of Kirk ICilisse and Lule Burgas, fought in the 
Tliracian campaign of 1912, the Christian 
soldiers deserted in large numbers to the 
Bulgarian standard. The Balkan War and the 
treaties of London and Bukarest deprived 
Turkey of the most w arlike Christian population 
of the p]mpire. The Ainnenian and the Syrian 
added little strength, and since the disasters of 
1912 and 1913 the Yoimg Turldsh experiment 
of using Christian material had been discredited. 



3i> 



56 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



Jews figured in the army, but they were not a 
very important element, and in the main it may 
be said that the Turkish Government had to rely 
tor its defence upon a system of conscription 
applied only to the Musulmans of the Empire. 
This statement, unfortunately for the Turk, 
requires another important qualification, for 
the Turlcish writ ran but lamely amongst the 
Arab provinces. The Yemen had for many 
years been in a state either of active or simmer- 
ing rebellion, and instead of being a source of 
supply had been a grave for fine battalions of 
the Tiu-kish Army. It may be calculated 
that out of an Empire which may be estimated 
as containing 20,000,000 inhabitants the Turkish 
Anpy could only draw soldiers from a population 
of some 8,000,000 — men, women, and children. 
Men were liable for service from twenty to 
forty years of age. Nine years were spent with 
the First Line or Active Service Army, of 
which in the case of infantry three were with 
the colours, in the case of cavalry and artillery 
foiu- ; six and five years respectively were spent 
in the reserve. Nine years were spent in the 
Redif, or reserve of the active troops (Nizam). 
There was, properly speaking, no second line, 
and the Redif corresponded to the German 
Landwehr. The last two years were spent in 
the Territorial Militia (Mustafiz). This line is 
sometimes referred to as the Landstuim, but 
it possessed no cadres in peace time, and was 
most generally found without arms in war time. 



In principle a Turkish Army Corps con- 
sisted of three divisions or thirty battalion.s. 
It had thirty batteries of field, three of horse, 
and three of mountain artillery. A battery 
had six guns, and each corps had 216 guns. 
A field battery had four officers, and 120 non- 
commissioned officers and men ; a mountain 
battery had three officers and 100 non-com- 
missioned officers and men, and a howitzer 
battery had four officers and 120 non-com- 
missioned officers and men. There were eleven 
battalions in all of jDioneers, railway troops, 
telegraph troops, sappers and miners, etc. 
There were in 1912 140 quick-firing Krupp 
mountain guns of 7'5 cm., the majority of 
which fell into the hands of Bulgars, Serbs, and 
Greeks. Since then, however, 108 Schneider 
quick-firing mountain gvms were received 
from France, and the Austrian Skoda 
Works had doubtless by the date when 
Turkey entered the war delivered the 
large order given them for 10' 5 cm. quick- 
tiring howitzers. Many batteries had, instead 
of the regulation T'f) cm. quick-firing Krupp 
field gim, the old pattern field gun of 
8-7 cm. 

In October, 1912, only eight army coqjs 
took the field, and these lost the greater 
part of their field artillery. Under German 
reorganization most of the batteries seemed 
to have fovir guns, but some had six ; 
a four - company organization appeared 



-iPt 4 % 




TUKKISH CAMEL TRANSPOKT. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



57 




TURKISH AHivOi'LANIi ABoUT TO tL\ FKOai Si. STEFAiNO TO CONSl AN TiNOPLE. 



to have replaced the old five-company battalion. 
The infantry of the first line was armed with a 
7*65 mm. Manser magazine rifle. The Redifs 
were supjjosed to have the same, but many 
had the 9*5 mm. Mauser, and the supply was 
eked out with Martini-Henrys. 

The cavalry consisted in 1912 of 40 regiments, 
or 200 squadrons, of 70 men, arn:\ed with a sabre 
and a Mauser carbine. One of the peculiar 
institutions created and fostered by Abdul 
Hamid was the Hamidian cavalry. They con- 
sisted of bands of Asiatic tribesmen, chiefly 
Kurds, whose official business was to protect 
the frontiers that look towards Russia and 
Persia, but whose actual duty, carried out with 
great zest, was to make life a burden to the 
Christian inhabitants of the Armenian vilayets, 
where they slaughtered, pillaged and ravaged 
to their hearts' content. Under the Turco- 
German reform scheme the Hamidian cavalry 
were abolished, and 24 regiments of tribal 
cavalry, organized on a militia system from 
the Kurdish and Arab tribes in Asia Minor, 
were substituted for it. The leopard, however, 
does not change its spots, and the Kurdish 
tribal cavalryman, whether styled Hamidian 
or not, probably remained very much as he was. 

The Minister of War was entirely responsible 
for the army, but he was assisted by the Chief of 
the General Staff, and by an Under-Secretary, 
or Musteshar, who was always a general officer. 



The General Staff department consisted of four 
sections, and outside these there was a director- 
general of military factories, a sort of master- 
general of ordnance, who was formerly coin- 
pletely independent, but was made by the Young 
Turks subordinate to the Minister of War. He 
still had his own independent budget, which was 
presented separately to Parliament. For the 
last two years, however, before the war tlio 
authority of the ]Ministor of War had been 
daily abdicated in favour of General Liman 
von Sandars, otlierwise known as Liman Pasha, 
who was the chief of a very numerous German 
military mission to Turkey. The history of 
European reform in the Turkish Army is a long 
record of failure. During the Crimean W^ar, 
when Turkey and Great Britain were allies, 
British officers in considerable numbers were 
accredited to the Turkisli Army, and succeeded, 
temporarily, in the face of intrigue, corruption, 
jealousy, and heart-breaking obstacles of every 
kind, in working considerable improvement and 
in nuvlving good use ox the always magnificent 
material which the Turkish Army provided. 

The story of General Fenwick \\'illiams' 
heroic defence of Kars is a typica\ example of 
the work which Englishmen were called upon to 
do and of the tremendous obstacles which they 
had to fight, but there have been many minor 
parallels to this striking and well-known case. 
Williams was sent to Kars as a British Commis- 



58 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




TURKISH INFANTRY. 



sioner, and, strictly speaking, his only duties 
uere to transmit to his own Government a 
report of the state of affairs in the Turkish 
camp. He arrived in the autumn of 1854, and 
it is more than probable that, if he had confined 
himself to his duties, there would have been no 
Turlcish Army in the following year. But this 
remarkable man, who had spent the greater 
part of his life in the East and had been many 
years in Turkey, was not content to be an 
observer in such critical hours. He saw the key 
of Turkey in Asia defended by an armed rabble, 
which had already been ruined by its own 
officers and was rapidly dissolving owing to 
plunder and peculation. The position which he 
found was " an innovation in all military 
science." The artillery was nearest the enemy, 
the infantry close to the city, and the cavalry 
far away southwards on the road to Erzrum. 
The Commander-in-Chief was supposed to have 
a Staff, but the only plan of operations in his 
mind was the vague one that he had to fight 
the Giaours. 

When the news was spread that a British 
Commissioner was arriving there were frantic 
efforts made to burnish up accoutrements and 
introduce a little order into the camp, but 
^Villiams was not to be deceived. He at once 
interfered, and, as has been well said, he thereby 
committed a breach of etiquette, but saved 
Asia Minor. Instead of accepting the muster- 
rolls of the troops which were handed to him, 
he had the men counted, and, suramoning to his 
presence all the gang of corrupt officers and 



contractors, he called them sternly to account 
and immediately establislied a strong personal 
ascendancy which he never afterwards lost. 

In all the history of Turkish official corrup- 
tion there has been no more disgraceful instance 
than that of Kars in the Crimean War. The 
Englishmen in the town came to the conclusion 
that, dishonesty was the only system which 
appeared to be well organized. They were, in 
fact, thoroughly disgusted with their allies 
and acquired a great respect for their enemies, 
the Russians. Then, as now, the Armenians 
were strongly on the side of Russia, and one 
of Williams' officers records that the Tsar, 
throughout all his vast dominions, did not 
possess more staunch and zealous partisans 
than these Ottoman subjects. But, he added, 
*' our indignation at their open and industrious 
partisanship in favour of the enemy was 
somewhat modified when we heard of the wrongs 
and oppressions which had been abundantly 
heaped on them." In spite of lies, treachery, 
and cholera within, and of the complete 
failure of Omar Pasha to relieve him from the 
coast or Selim Pasha 'from Erzrum, Wilhams 
held the fortress till the end of November, 1855, 
when at last he was compelled to surrender. 

Later on another Englishman, General 
Valentine Baker, known as Baker Pasha, 
established, like Williams, a strong personal 
influence over the Turks, and during the 
Russo -Turkish War of 1877-8 achieved a great 
military position. Yet so great was the Turks' 
distrust of foreigners that Baker complained 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



59 



that up to the end liis authority could only be 
exercised in an indirect manner, and that he 
was never actually allowed to command troops 
or to give a direct order. 

A similar bitter experience befell the officers 
who at various times were the instruments 
of the refonn schemes of the great Powers in 
Tiu-key. Their work, it is true, was not in 
the army, but in the gendarmerie, but what 
is true for one is true for the other. Owing to 
the turbulent state of the Empire and its lack 
of cohesion, it was necessary to maintain a 
large gendarmerie, and the force consisted 
actually of some 42,000 men, of whom 16,000 
were mounted. After the BerUn Treaty in 
1878, British officers under Baker Pasha for a 
short time attempted to reorganize the gen- 
darmerie in the Armenian vilayets. They did 
extremely good w'ork, and their presence 
afforded a measure of protection to the op- 
pressed Armenians, but their successes were 
rather those of military Consuls than of com- 
manding officers, for they were unable to get 
the reins of power into their own hands, and 
shortly after INIr. Gladstone's return to office 
in 1880 they were withdrawn for some reason 
which has never been sufficiently set forth. 

In 1903 the Emperors of Russia and Austria 
met at Miirsteg, at a shooting box of the latter, 
and devised a programme for reform in Mace- 
donia. As a result of this, the Macedonian 
vilayets were divided into sectors, and Austrian, 



British, French, Italian and Russian officers 
were sent to undertake the reform of the gen- 
darmerie. Germany refused to participate in 
this scheme, in order to avoid giving offence to 
Abdul Hamid, to whom all attempts at reform 
were thoroughly distasteful. The officers of 
the foreign Powers, in spite of stupendous 
difficulties, succeeded in effecting a certain 
measure of reform, and the British in their 
sector at least managed to turn the gendarmerie 
into a smart, well-dressed and well-drilled force, 
for which the insistence of the Powers seciored 
regular pay. Nevertheless, the Sultan obsti- 
nately refused to allow any foreign officer to 
have any executive authority whatever, or to 
issue a single order. But the British took 
charge of the gendarmerie training school at 
Salonika, and in this manner succeeded in 
working wonders with the recruits, and thereby 
benefiting the gendarmerie throughout the 
sectors. 

This gendarmerie reform scheme had tre- 
mendous political and military consequences, 
and was, indeed, the spark which kindled the 
amazing Young Ttu-k Revolution of 1908. The 
presence of European officers and the forcible 
imposition of reform from without were in- 
supportable mortifications to the Turks and 
established in the army a bitter hatred of the 
corrupt Hamidian rule at Yildiz Kiosk, which 
by its feeble tjTanny was exposing the Empire 
to a long series of humiliations. The smartness 




A TURKISH OFFICER WITH BEDOUIN SOLDIERS. 



»;(i 



THH TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




TURKISH SOLDIERS GROSSING THE 
EUPHRATES. 

of the gen»larmerie force under foreign officers, 
although their authority was hampered at every 
turn, was the most striking demonstration of 
the Turkish Government's ineptitude. The 
contrast between the condition of the gen- 
darmerie luider foreign officers and of the 
unpaid, ragged army under their own shiftless 
rulers was a very unpalatable one for both 
officers and men. There was also a conviction 
among the Turks in INIacedonia, more parti- 
cularly at Salonika, that the Sultan's handling 
of the Macedonian question would inevitably 
end in the loss of the whole of European 
Turkey. The meeting between King Edward 
and the Tsar at Reval, in June, 1908, when 
Macedonia \Aas the subject of discussion and 
Russia and Great Britain agreed upon the 
necessity of imposing a much more drastic 
reform scheme, brought to a climax the anxieties 
of the Young Turks for the future, and in the 
following July they struck their blow. 

It was in this Revolution that the 
much-discussed Enver Pasha, later to become 
Minister of War, made his first public appear- 
ance. It is commonly but inaccurately 
.supposed that he received his education 
abroad, and he is often referred to as a 
product of German training. It is, however, a 
fact that until he took up his post as military 
attache in Berlin after the Yoimg Turk Revo- 
lution Enver hnd not been in Western Europe 



at all. He w!i.s bom and educated in Con- 
stantinople, and wa,s a product of the Con- 
stantinople military school. He later learnt to 
speak and write both (ierman and English, 
but in 1908 his only foreign language was 
French. When the Young Turks formed a 
secret committee at Salonika in 1905, Major 
Enver Bey, who was then stationed in Mace- 
donia and was an A.D.C. to Hilmi Pasha, the 
Inspector-General of the Macedonian vilayets, 
threw in his lot with the committee, which 
concentrated all its forces upon a projiaganda in 
t!ic arm}'. It saw plainly that a Constitution 
could be wrung from the Sultan only by force, 
and it conceived a plan for a general strike of 
the troops upon some very critical occasion. 
The Third Army Corps, which was stationed 
both in Macedonia and in the vilayet of 
Smyrna, was the special field of its operations, 
and the propaganda spread like wildfire among 
the officers. Small local committees were 
formed wherever there was a garrison of any 
kind. An infinity of trouble was lavished 
upon this secret society. Books could only 
be smuggled in with great difficulty, and officers 
sat up at night stud3dng these perilous works, 
ransacking the literature of secret societies 
and the history of the French and other revolu- 
tions. The Balkans themselves provided models, 
and Prince Ypsilanti's Greek Hetairia, formed 
during the Greek struggle for independence, 
and the modern Macedonian and Bulgarian 
internal organizations w^ere models fertile in 
suggestions. A ritual of signs and counter- 
signs was created and Freemasons' lodges were 
also formed. These mysterious activities natu- 
rally could not continue indefinitely without 
coming to the notice of Abdul Hamid's spies, 
and in March, 1908, a series of raids was made 
and a Commission was sent from Constanti- 
nople to procure evidence against suspected 
persons. vSo widespread, however, had the 
conspiracy become amongst army officers and 
Government officials that it continued imabated, 
and in the following Jvuie the Sultan sent 
another Commission to imearth the Young T\irk 
leaders at Salonika. One of the first to be 
denounced was Enver Bey. In the paradoxical 
fashion common in Tm-key he was promptly 
invited to Constantinople with a promise of high 
promotion upon his arrival there. He realized 
at once that this treacherous offer probably 
meant that his body, like that of many another 
conspirator before him, would be dropped to 
the bottom of the Bosphorus. He therefore 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE 



WAP 



I. 



61 




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THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



saved himself by flight, and joined Niazi Bey, 
who raised the flag of revohition on JuJy 3 
in the Resna hills. 

In the subsequent proceedings Enver appears 
to have had no leading part himself, but owing 
to his prominent position in the committee at 
Salonika and to his having had the honour of 
being denounced by Abdul Hamid he was 
universally acclaimed as a hero of the revo- 
lution, and his name was everywhere coupled 
with that of Niazi. In the middle of the night 
of July 3 Niazi, at the head of a small body of 
Turks from the 88th Regiment, seized the 
money in the battalion treasury, seventy- 
five Mauser rifles, and an ammunition chest. 
He distributed the rifles to his men and took 
to the hills. The same night, at Presba, Lieu- 
tenant Osman with the rifles and cartridges of 
his own detachment reached Asiunativ, where 
be armed the villagers and proceeded to join 
Niazi. Next day 200 Musulmans from Ochrida 
and Monastir joined the little army and swelled 
Niazi's force to the number of 700. On the 
night of the 5th the committee placarded the 
town of Monastir with its constitutional mam'- 
festo, and on the 6th the officers of the garrison 
deserted to Niazi with their ammunition. 

Bands with officers at their head visited both 
the Christian and Musulman villages and 
quickly won over the population. Niazi met 
with no opponents, and consequently there were 



no casualities except some a.ssa.ssinations at 
Monastir and the shooting of spies. Deser- 
tions of both officers and men in the gendarmerie 
increased daily and the Albanian bands came 
pouring in. Soon the officials who had remained 
faithful to the Government had no forces at 
their disposal. The Young Turk Committee 
decided to make a demonstration at Ochrida, 
and thence march on Monastir. On July 19^ 
the Monastir garrison, previously reinforced 
by two battalions from Salonika, was further 
inert ased by 2,500 men from Smyrna, but these 
soon showed themselves partisans of the revo- 
lution. At midnight on the 22nd Niazi entered 
Monastir at the head of 2,000 men, captured 
tlie commandant, and returned with him to 
Ochrida. At noon on the 23rd a vast cro« d 
of Musulmans and Christians, the troops, the 
gendarmerie, the local officials, the clergj', 
and 1,000 insurgents assembled on the parade 
ground at Monastir, and the Constitution was 
proclaimed with a salvo of guns. An hour 
after midnight, after many telegraphic messages, 
and in the face of Niazi's tlireat to march on 
Constantinople, the Sultan sent an ofticial 
telegram according the Constitution. At noon 
on Friday, July 24, Hilmi Pasha proclaimed 
tliis somewhat sorry concession from the steps 
of the Konak at Salonika. 

This is not the place to write the chequered 
history of Turkey since that eventful day, but 




INSTRUCTION IN THE USE OF THE GERMAN SERVICE RIFLE. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



63 



it is important to notice that from that tiine 
forth the army, by means of which the Young 
Turks came to power, remained the dominating 
factor in Turkish politics, and it never escaped 
from the mastership of the small Salonika 
group. Within the conamittee itself there 
arose many feuds and factions, but a rump 
ever remained, the principal members of which 
were Enver Pasha, Talaat Bey, Djemal Pasha, 
and, for a long time, Djavid Bey. 

At first it was the role of the committee 
to play the part of the power behind the throne, 
and to put forward elder statesmen as their 
puppets. None of the members took office, 
and Enver Bey disappeared to Berlin as MiUtary 
Attache. When the counter-revolution came, 
in March, 1909, he hurried back to Salonika 
and once more figm-ed in the Umelight beside 
Mahmoud Shevket Pasha, when the latter 
made his triumphal march to Constantinople, 
suppressed the counter-revolution, deposed 
Abdul Hamid, and put the present Sultan on 
the throne. After this success the Young 
Turks to a certain extent modified their policy, 
and a few of their own members accepted the 
responsibility of office, but in a large measure 
they followed their previovis procedure of 
acting as an irresponsible and secret jiinta, 
outside of the Government which they con- 
trolled. Enver, despite ambition, declared 
by many to be his principal failing, still re- 
frained from pressing his claims, and returned 
to his post at Berlin, from which in the spring 
of 1910 he paid a visit to London. In the 
autiunn of 1911 Italy suddenly declared war 
and Enver Bey hurried to Tripoli, where, 
during the later stages of the campaign, he 
endeavoured to organize the Arab resistance 
to the Italian arms. A year later Turkey, 
menaced by the Balkan League, patched up 
a hasty peace with Italy at Ouchy, just before 
the outbreak of the Balkan war. Enver was 
still in Tripoli, and so swift were the blows of 
the Balkan Allies and so difficult did he find 
his return to Constantinople — he is stated 
to have crossed Egypt in disguise — that he was 
unable to take any part in the autumn fighting, 
thereby escaping the odiiun of any share in 
a disastrous campaign. When the first Balkan 
Conference met in London in 1913 Enver, who 
was then at Constantinople, directed all his 
energy to preventing any peace which should 
involve the cession of the beleaguered city of 
Adrianople to the Bulgars. When the Turkish 
Government finally made up its mind to this 




tNVER PASHA, 
Minister of War. 

sacrifice he appeared at the Ministry of War 
at the head of a crowd of demonstrators, and 
in the tumult that followed Nazim Pasha, the 
Commander-in-Chief, was shot, apparently 
by Enver's own hand. The generally-accepted 
version is that Enver was fired upon by some- 
one standing directly beliind Nazim, and that 
drawing his revolver vipon his assailant, he 
shot the former by mistake. The E n per or 
William, at the time, spoke openly of Enver 
as an " assassin." 

In any case the immediate object of Enver 
was achieved. Tlie Ministry of Kiamil Pasha 
was ejected from oflice and Mahmovid Shevket 
Pasha became Grand Vizier and Minister of War. 
This coup d'etat took place on January 24, 
1913. Mahmoud and Enver gave Nazim a 
military funeral, at which they appeared as 
principal moiu-ners. The Turkisii Government 
refused to cede Adrianople, negotiations in 
London broke down, and the second campaign 
began. This brought no credit to the Die- 
Hard Party, for Adrianople fell, and when 
peace was signed in London the Turks had to 
agree to the loss of the fortress and to accept 



<>4 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




PIGKHT OF TURKISH MARINES. 



the Enos-Midia frontier line. When; how- 
ever, the Balkan League broke up and Bul- 
garia came to blows with her former allies, 
Servia and Greece, while Roumania marched 
almost to the gates of Sofia, Enver seized the 
chance presented to him, and at the head of a 
Turkish army recaptured Adrianople. There 
was no one to eject them, and by the treaty of 
Bukarost Turkey was allowed to retain Adrian- 
ople. In June, 1913, just before these events, 
Mahmoud Shevket Pasha was assassinated as an 
act of vengeance for the murder of Nazim. and 
Enver became Minister of War, with the rank of 
Pasha. Prince Said Halim, Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, was made Grand Vizier, and still 
retained both posts at the outbreak of the war. 
As has already been said, the Young Turks' 
was essentially a military revolution, and it 
was natiu"al that the new party in power should 
concern itself with the question of army 
reform. Abdul Hamid first brought Von der 
Goltz Pasha to Turkey, and under the old 
reghne Germany was already the model for the 
army. The Young Turks applied to Great 
Britain for naval reorganizers and to Germany 
for their army reformers. A military mission, 
consisting of some twenty German officers, 
arrived in 1909 and set to work, but their 
efforts were severely hindered by the political 
unrest, by successive rebellions in Albania, and 
finally by the Turco-Italian and Balkan Wars. 
The culminating disaster of the Balkan War did 
not, however, diminish the determination of the 



Young Turks to proceed with army reform on 
German lines. Enver Pasha redoubled his 
efforts, and in the autumn of 1913 the German 
military mission was very much increased and 
further powers were conferred upon its new 
head, General Liman von Sanders. Germany 
accepted the invitation to undertake this new 
responsibility without any reference to the 
other Powers, and when the facts became 
known considerable dissatisfaction was ex- 
pressed. M. Sazonoff, the Russian Foreign 
Minister, was particularly indignant, because he 
had liimself paid a visit to Berlin and discussed 
the field of international relations with the 
German Chancellor at the very moment when 
Germany had accepted the Tiu-kish invitation, 
yet Herr von Bethmann-HoUweg had never 
mentioned the matter to him. Russia accord- 
ingly made a formal protest, which was met by 
German assurances of the irmocuous chtu-acter 
of the German mission, but in reality Liman 
Pasha became mihtary dictator of Constanti- 
nople, a city where martial law had reigned 
constantly for six years. The 42 officers with 
which he began his mission grew to an inxmensely 
greater number. The Turkish War Office was 
entirely under their control, and no important 
interview could take place without the presence 
of a German officer, nor could any contract be 
signed without his approval. Scores of Germans 
were distributed amongst the various com- 
mands, and the Turkish Minister of War was 
apparently the willing instrument of a definite 



THE T1ME>^ Hl;STURY OF THE WAR, 



65- 



attempt to make the Turkish Army simply 
and solely a weapon at the disposal of the 
Kaiser's Great General Staff. For the first time 
in history we had the spectacle of the Turk 
yielding up authority fully and freely to a 
foreigner. In face of all the past experience 
of many able soldiers — English, J^^rench, and 
others — it would, in any case, have been safe to 
predict that no such experiment could work 
duccessfully, that however wholehearted in his 
German allegiance Enver Pasha might be, the 
Turkish Army and the Turkish people could not 
be counted upon to follow his example, and that 
the German exercise of authority could only 
work with tremendous friction and with poor 
success. But there is no longer any need to 
make predictions in the matter, for much 
testimony has been forthcoming that the 
German officers were regarded with jealousy 
and suspicion by those in high places, were 
detested and despised by the rank and file of 
the army and the mass of the Turkish people, 
and had to contend against all the obstacles 
which Oriental apathy, ill-will, and capacity for 
deliberate obstruction could contrive to put in 
their way. They had, on the other hand, a 
thorough knowledge of their work, and strong 
determination, but they were utterly lacking in 
that experience of Musulman countries and 
that talent for the handling of native troops and 
tor colonial soldiering which stood Englishmen 



and Frenchmen in s-uch good stead in the 
past. 

It is not unconomon to hear the suggestion 
made that the Turkish Army had greatly 
decreased in efficiency since the advent of the 
Yoting Turks to power, and many people 
supposed that in Abdul Hamid's time it would 
have proved superior to the armies of the 
Balkan League. But this assiunption must not 
be made too lightly. The Turks were once a 
great conquering race, of whom all Europe 
stood in awe, and we cannot forget that in the 
seventeenth century they were at the gates of 
Vienna. But the qualities of generalship and 
leadership on land and of seamanship on sea 
deserted them, and the nineteenth century 
witnessed a progressive and obvious decay. 
The fighting qualities of the Turk remained and 
appeared to suffer no eclipse, but he was no 
longer led or cared for, and though we foimd 
the Turks brave allies in the Crimean War, 
courage and patience were the only military 
virtues they possessed. In the Russo-Turkish 
War of 1877-78 it was the same story. The 
Russians had to cross two tremendous obstacles 
— the Danube River and the Balkan Moiuitains 
— and it was in stubborn defence, assisted bj- 
these great barriers, and in the trenches at 
Plevna, that the qualities of the Turkish soldier 
were displayed ; but there were no signs of 
generalship and there was nothing worthy of 




TURKISH ARllLLEKY. 



66 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



the name of organization. Even in the Greek 
War of 1897, although for the most part the 
Turks had no enemy in front of them, they 
advanced with extraordinary slowness. After 
this, year by year, the condition of the army 
grew worse. It had neither pay, uniform, nor 
commissariat. The infantry got no musketry 
training and the artillery had no ammunition 
for their guns. When the Revolution of 1908 
came, an attempt was made to reform the army, 
hut there was no time before the crisis arose. 
There were two rebellions in Albania to be 
suppressed, as well as an Arab revolt ; then 
came the war with Italy, and lastly the life-and- 
death struggle against the Balkan League. 
No country had ever been in a strategic position 
at all comparable to that of Bulgaria for striking 
a quick blow at Turkey, and in a war with 
Turkey time is the essence of the matter. 
Unlike the Russians in 1878, the Bulgarians had 
to cross neither the Danube nor the Balkaas. 
The Bulgarian Army was universally admitted 
to be a most efficient fighting instrument. It 
had been trained and disciplined for one object 
and one object only — to fight the Turk ; and 
every Bulgarian soldier believed in his heart 
that the day of that fight would come. The 
Turks had an excellent plan of campaign ready, 
which had been prepared for them by the 
Germans ; but it is one thing to have a good 
plan of campaign provided by someone else and 
another thing to have the generalship to carry 
it out. Abdulla Pasha, the Commander-in- 
Cliief, failed in 1912 against the Bulgars in 
Thrace precisely as Enver Pasha failed in 1915 
against the Russians in the Caucasus. The plan 
which had been the inadequately concealed 
[purpose of the Turkish army manoeuvres of 
1909 and 1910 was fathomed by the Bulgars, 
and miscarried hopelessly, being in any case 
put out of court by the slowness with which 
Abdulla developed his offensive towards Kirk 
Kilisse. But it is probably true, as General 
Savoff and the Bulgarian Staff themselves 
stated, that the Turldsh officers were superior, 
the men better fed, better clad and better 
trained, and their war stores and equipment of 
every kind more complete at the outbreak of 
the Balkan War than they had been for some 
years. It is, however, possible, although in 
1912 the Turkish soldier showed liimself by no 
means devoid of his old qualities, that the Young 
Turk Revolution, the deposition of Abdul 



Hamid, and the spread of hberal ideas and 
" free thought," had lessened his simple faith 
in, and self-sacrificing subordination to, the 
powers above him, more especially the officers 
who led him. From the Balkan War the 
Turkish Army emerged manifestly weakened, 
but, as has been indicated, much energy was 
afterwards spent upon it. We may take it that 
General Liman von Sanders and his Staff had, 
at any rate, given most excellent advice as far 
as organization goes, and had taught strategy 
on sovmd principles. But possibly thej-- mada 
too little allowance for local conditions and for 
Turkish characteristics, and in any caso. 
however admirable their efforts, we may take 
it that they were hampered at every turn by a 
personnel none too honest, none too efficient, 
and none too earnest. It would be a inistake, 
however, not to assmne that the Turkish 
infantry would, as always, fight well, and in 
particular it could be relied upon for a stubborn 
defence. The Turks had always sho^vn great 
skill in entrenching quickly and ingeniously, 
and the tactics employed in 1914-15 on both 
sides in Flanders, for instance, were eminently 
suited to the Turkish miUtary genius. The 
Turkish gunners, on the other hand, were not 
remarkable for their skill, since they got no 
special practice, and the Turkish cavalry had 
few modem triumphs to its credit. 

The latest estimate of the total peace strength 
of the army in 1915 was 17,000 officers, 250,000 
men, 45,000 horses, 1,500 guns, and 400 machine 
guns. Under the army scheme in operation 
since the Balkan War there were nominally 
four army inspections. The first had the 1st, 
2nd, 3rd and 4th army corps, with headquarters 
at Constantinople, Rodosto, Kirk Kilisse and 
Adrianople ; the second army inspection con- 
tained the 8th corps at Damascus and the 
5th and 6th corps at centres undetermined. 
All the above had their complement of three 
divisions. The third army inspection was at 
Erzingliian, and included the 9th, 10th and 11th 
army corps at Erzrlim, Erzingliian and Van 
respectively. Of these the 10th corps had three 
divisions, but the 9th and 11th two only. The 
4th army inspection was at Bagdad, and 
included the 12th army corps at Mosul and the 
13th at Bagdad. They had two divisions. 
Lastly, there were the independent 14th corps, 
with three divisions at Sanaa, Hodeida and 
Ebka, and the Hedjaz division. 



CHAPTER LI. 

THE OUTBREAK OF WAR AND THE 
CAMPAIGN IN THE CAUCASUS. 

War Strength of the Army — Fields of Operations — The Caucasus Frontier — Tims — 
Difficulties of a Winter Campaign — The Turkish Advance — Concentration — German 
Strategy — Nature of the Offensive— Envelopment Foiled — The Russian Victory — 
Sarikamish — Russian Naval Success — The Persian Frontier — Turks Occupy Tabriz — 
Russians Relieve Tabriz. 



WHEX the European crisis developed 
cat the end of July, 1914, the 
Turks immediately began mobili- 
zation. This proceeded with ex- 
treme slowness, but by the end of October, 
when Turkey herself joined in the European 
conflict, it was estimated by The Times Military 
Correspondent that there were some 500,000 
more or less trained men in the Army, and 
another 250,000 trained men at the depots. 
The army corps were distributed as follows. 
At and near Constantinople were the 1st, 
3rd, and 5th Army Corps, and a portion of 
the 6th. There were also the Bosphorus 
Defence Troops, three or four cavalry brigades, 
some Kurdish levies, and a few depot troops. 
In all some 200,000 men may have been in 
the Constantinople district. In Thrace there 
were the 2nd and most of the 6th Corps, with 
three cavalry brigades and frontier guards ; 
these were distributed between Adrianoplc, 
Dimotika, and Kirk Kilisse. At Smyrna 
part of the 4th Army Corps remained, but the 
bulk of it was concentrated at Panderma. 

In Palestine the 8th Corps was at its full 
strength of some 40,000, plus numerous Arab 
irregular corps and cavalry. 



It is worth while to pause here and examine 
the object of this military distribution. In 
Europe the Tui'ks still retained territory in 
Tlirace as far as the Balkans in the north, 
and the towns of Adrianople, Dimotika, and 
Rodosto in the north and west. Tliis was but a 
remnant of the former Tiu-key in Europe, 
and in a military sense it was, as has been said, 
little more than a elacis to the famous lines of 
Tchataldja, which defend Constantinople on the 
landward side. Both before and after the 
Balkan War the main mass of the Turkish troops 
had been kept in Eiu-ope with the object of 
defending the capital, and also because it was 
the bvirning desire of the Young Turks to 
regain the territory' which Turkey lost m the 
last war. The second group of troops was in 
the Caucasus, directed against Russia, while 
the third group was concentrated in Sj-ria 
and on the borders of Egj-pt. So long as 
Bulgarian neutrality could bo counted upon 
the immediate task of the Turkish Army was 
in the Caucasus. The Oth, 10th, and 11th 
Corps were, by the begimiing of November, 
brought up to tliree divisions, and each division 
to a strength of ten l)at tnlions There were also 
three brigades of cavalry, and, in addition, the 



67 



68 



Till': TIMKS HISTORY OF THE 



WAR. 




DJAVID BEY, 
Turkish Minister of Finance. 

tribal horse was called out and partisans 
raised on the Persian frontier for a raid into 
Persia. 

As Turkey entered the fray at the beginning 
of November it was generally believed that no 
exterusive military operations could be under- 
taken immediately in the Caucasus, and that 
the real campaign must be postponed tintil the 
spring of 1915. With a long and arduous 
desert march before her towards Egypt; where 
the Suez Canal and all the other conditions 
piled difficulty upon difficulty, with Bulgaria 
and Greece still neutral, with the Russian 
frontier buried in snow, with the navy unable 
to take the open sea and incapable of more 
than Black Sea raids, it looked as if Turkey's 
participation in the war would be for months 
to come of little more than a nominal kind. 
In all of the numerous previous campaigns 
against Russia winter had checked the opera- 
tions in the Caucasus. It must be set down a-s 
a testimony to the energy and determination 
of the Turks under their German leaders that, 
contrary to general expectation, they refused 
to let winter pass without putting forth all 
their strength and did not fear to face the 
unspeakable horrors of a mid-winter campaign 
in those frozen snow-bound heights. The 
Caucasian frontier is, indeed, of vast importance 
to Turkey. Between herself and Egypt she 



has a desert barrier and far to the south-east, 
in Mesopotamia, she was probably unprepared 
for the swiftness with wliich the British sent 
an expedition from the Persian Gulf to the 
Tigris. But in the Caucasus she is for ever 
face to face with her ancient enemy, and when 
the fatal decision to make war was taken in 
Constantinople, evei-y Turk knew well that, 
whether in the winter or the spring, a desjwrate 
struggle must come between the Sultan's ho.sts 
and the might of Russia. Doubtless Germany 
hoped and believed that by an imrnerliate 
vigorous Turkish offensive in the (Auicasus 
Russia could be forced to detach considerable 
bodies of troop'^ from the Polish theatre of 
war, and thus relieve the ))ressure upon herself 
or Austria, but the Russians were fully prepared 
for Turkey, whose hand had been only too 
plainly shown from the very development 
of the European crisis. The Russian Army in 
the Caucasus stood fast at its post, and when 
Turkey declared war it was not thought neces- 
sary to transfer a single man from the Polisli 
front. 

There had been many alterations in the 
Russo-Turkish frontier in the Caucasus, but 
the wide isthmus between the Black Sea and 
the Caspian was still the inevitable theatre of 
war. Here Russia's southern frontier marched 
successively with Turkey and with Persia along 
a line that moved in a south-easterly direction 
from the Black Sea to the Caspian. The Russo- 
Turkish frontier was a mountain wall runninir 
from the Black Sea on the west to the great 
bulwark of Ararat on the east. At its western 
end there is a passage by the sea that may 
be compared to the road on the Franco-Spanish 
frontier which lies between the Western 
Pyrenees and the angle of the Bay of Biscay. 
The rest is a confused mountain wall dropping 
down through great ravines and climbing 
up again to ^Ararat. The Russo - Persian 
frontier, which followed on, ran through very 
level country along the course of the great 
riv er Araxes to the Caspian. The great Russian 
town of the Caucasus is the beautiful city of 
Tiflis, the old Georgian capital. Here was the 
half-way house between Batouin on the Black 
Sea and Baku on the Caspian, while north- 
wards from Tiflis ran a road and the new rail- 
way over the Vladikafkas Pass into Russia 
proper. Southward runs another railway, 
through the great fortress of Kars to a railhead 
at Sarikamish, close to the Turkish frontier. At 
Alexandropol there is a bifurcation and a railway 



■THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



69 



runs eastward through Erivan to ,hilt'a on the 
Persian Frontier. The Kars raihvay runs 
through high mountain ridges, and south of 
it there is a succession of peaks chniljing up 
to the Armenian plateau on the Turkish .side. 
Sarikamish itself is 6,000 ft. vip, and beyond.it 
are heights 10,000 and 11,000 ft. above the 
sea. There are no roads anywhere except 
across great heights, which in tlie winter are 
buried in snow. 

A few days after the first Turkish raid on 
the Black Sea coast the Russian troops crossed 
the Turkish frontier and, after various skir- 
mishes with advance bodies of Turkish troops, 
captiu"ed a position close to Kojirukeui. on the 
road to Erzrum ; but on November 1 3 they 
were compelled to fall back before superior 
forces ; reinforcements, however, came up, 
and after three days' fighting the Russians were 
once inore in possession of Koprukeui by Xovenn- 
ber 20. This initial Russian success, however, 
was but a demonstration, and not an advance 
in force. Transcaucasia was to Russia but 
a secondary theatre of war, and her general 
policy was to act upon the defensive during 
the winter months. The Turks, however, had 
no intention of remaining on the defensive, and 
at the end of November thej^ began to develop 
an advance. As has already been said, the 
9th, 10th and 11th Army Corps had a month 
previously been concentrated at Erzrum. 




SHUKRI PASHA, 
one of the Turkish Commanders in the Caucasus. 



Erzrum was Turkey's most important fortified 
place in Asia, and corresponded to Atlrianople 
on her European frontier. 

The Russian concentration had taken place 
at Kars, and it is important to note well these 
two frontier strongholds, as it is between them 




TURKISH CAVALRY. 



70 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



that tlio hulk of tlie rarly fighting took i)lace. 
The intervening distance is over 100 miles. 
Hotii are situated some 6,000 feet above the 
^sea, and tiio mountain road between them 
rises considerably liiglier. The whole inter- 
vening co'uitry is a tangle of mountain ridges 
and high snow-swept valleys. The plan pre- 
pared by the Germans for the Turks was the 
plan which is dearest of all to the heart of the 
German General Staff, Here they proposed to 
repeat \\ith the Turks the procedure which 
von Kluck had followed against the French 
and English armies in France, and von Hindor- 
biu-g against tiie Russians before Warsaw, and 
attempt the envelopment of the enemy. The 
Germans assumed, and rightly assumed, that 
the Russians would move forward their main 
army by the road from Kars to Erzrum, for, 
except on the Persian side, it is the only avenue 
for large masses of troops, and, moreover, the 
railhead at Sarikamish vipon this road was not 
more than 15 miles from the Turkish frontier. 
To engage and hold the Russians on the 
Erzrum road with the 11th Turkish Army 
Corps, and at the same time to send round 
columns on the left for an enveloping attack 
against Kars and the Russian right flank, was 



the essence of tlie German plan. In order to 
carry it out successfully it was clearly necessary 
that Enver Pasha i-hould dispose of more 
troops than the enemy. The 37th Division 
of the 13th Bagdad Corps was brought up 
to strengthen the 11th against the Russian 
front, and a portion of the Iht Army Corjis was 
brought by sea f i om Constantinople to Trebizond, 
to advance from the coast again.=t Ardahan 
and complete the extreme Turkish left in the 
enveloping movement upon the Russians. It 
may be estimated, therefore, that Enver Pasha 
disposed of more than 150,000 men, while the 
Russian forces were probably at most 100,000. 
The 11th Corps, as^sisted by a division of Arab 
soldiers from the 13th Corps, was to contain 
the Russians from Koprukeui, while the 1 0th and 
9th wheeled on its left to the line from Olty 
and Id to Koprukeui. The 10th concentrated at 
Id, and the 9th fell into place in the centre. 
Meanwhile far to the n( rth anotheu force, a 
portion of the 1st Corps, moved on Ardahan, 
with Kars and the cutting of the railway t ehind 
the Russians as its ultimate objective. 

When the Turkish offensive began the 11th 
Corps pushed the Russians back towards 
Khorosan, which is about 30 miles south of 




TURKISH EMISSARIES IN BERLIN. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAF. 



7J 




TURKISH CAVALRY. 



Sarikamish and held it tlirough heavy fighting 
in Christmas week. Meantime the 9th and 10th 
Corps were struggUng through icy winds and 
deep snow at tremendous altitudes through the 
moimtains, and reached but did not enter 
Sarikamish on Christmas Day. The 1st Corps, 
coming from the valley of the Chorok river, 
crossed a mountain pass 8,000 feet up and bear- 
ing down upon Ardahan drove out a small 
Russian force of some 4,000 strong on January 1 . 
It will thus be seen that with the Russian front 
checked at Khorosan, with the Saganuk heights 
at Sarikamish occupied by the 9th Turkish 
Corps, the 10th fiercely attacking the railway 
just beyond it, and the Ist in occupation of 
Ardahan, this extraordinarily ambitious scheme 
of envelopment came comparatively near 
success, in spite of the difficulties of carrying 
out a concerted occupation amongst the mass 
of mountains deep in snow, without roads or 
railways, and with little possibility of inter- 
conununication between the columns or of 
synchronizing action. In the end, as might 
have been expected, these difficulties proved 
too much. The 10th Army Corps was the 
first to suffer. About the afternoon of Decem- 
ber 29 it began to give way, and on New Year's 
Day it was driven right back. On January 3 
the Russians came up in force and drove the 
1st Corps out of Ardahan. With the 10th and 
the 1st Corps in retreat the 9th Corps, which 



was still fighting desperately at SarikainLsh, 
was completely surrounded and absolutely 
wiped out. The only unbeaten corps, the 
11th, could as yet do nothing to aid it, for it 
was fully engaged by the head of the Russian 
column at Khorosan, and it made no progress 
for over a week. Iskan Pasha, with the whole 
of his Staff, including the German officers 
attached, and the 11th Corps which he com- 
manded, or such portion of it as had succeeded 
in reaching Sarikamish, surrendered. The 
best resumes of these operations are the two 
following official communiques dated 
January 6. The first is froui the General 
Staff of the Army in the Caucasus : 

At the end of November the main body of the 
Third Turkish Army was moved in the direction of 
the region to the east of Erzrum. The army was 
preceded by two army corps, witli a reserve corps near 
Hassan Kala. 

In accordance with the plan of Enver Pasha, the 
Third Army was to operate as follows: The 9th and 
10th Corps wero to advance iu the direction of Olty in 
order to form tho wing of (ho Tmkish defensive, while 
the llth Corps was ordered to maintain its pos^ition, 
which was strongly organized, and to draw upon itself, 
by a strategic demonstration, our troops. In caso the 
Russian troops imdcrtook an energetic offensive, the 
llth Corps was ordered to fall back on tho fortress of 
Erzrum, drawing our forces with it. Tlie 10th Turkish 
Corps was to advance in two coKnnns, the first, one 
division strong, marching towards Id, through tlie 
valley of tho Olty Chai, while the second, two divisions 
strong, was to march on Ardost, through tlio valley of 
S<>rvy Chai. The Hth Turkish Army Corps wa-^ to 
assume the offensive in the gap between tho 10th and 
llth Corps. 



72 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WATL 




in. 
* — . 

< 

u 
< 

U 

DC 



o 

l-H 

u 






THE times; history of the war. 



73 




FORT CHANAK, DARDANELLES. 



Our troops in the region of Olty, in spite of the enemy's 
numerical superiority, courageously hindered a Turkish 
advance, and, by means of counter attacks, inflicted 
lieavy losses on the enemy. 

In the meanwhile, we ascertained that a strong 
Ottoman column, reinforced by the rebel Musulman 
population, was advancing over the Panjouretsk and 
Yalanuz-Djamsh passes towards Ardahan. Our garri- 
son, which was occupying this point, fell back slightly 
after fighting 17 days. 

The second communique of .January is 

from the Russian Headquarters' Staff : 

In the Caucasus, having received reinforcements, we 
attacked, on Sunday, the Turkish troops concentrated 
at Ardahan and inflicted a complete defeat on the enemy, 
taking from him the colours of the 8th Regiment, wliich 
formed part of the garrison of Constantinople. 

During the later development of the action we dis- 
covered that the bulk of the Turkish forces — namely, 
the 9th and 10th Army Corps — had taken the offensive 
against Sarikamish. This movement, undertaken by 
mountainous roads covered by snow, across extremely 
steep ridges, was carried out almost without supply con- 
voys or field artillery, although the Turkish troops were 
abundantly supplied with war supplies. 

The enemy planned this operation counting chiefly 
upon the sympathy and liberal help of the native 
Musulmans who had previously been approached by 
Turkish emissaries. 

The task of our troops was to check the largo forces 
of the enemy on this front and to create a barrier suffici- 
ently strong to defeat the 9th and lotli Turkish Army 
Corps. 

In spilo of the extraordinary dilliculty of this task, 
the rigorous winter weather, and the necessity of lighting 
in mountainous passes covered with snow anil at an 
altitude of 10,000 feet, our gallant troops of the Caucasus, 
after <lesporafe fighting, which lasted over 10 days, 
brilliantly fullillod the exceptional task which had fallen 
to them. 

Having repulsed the frenv.ied attacks of the Turks 
on the front and at Sarikamish, they enveloped and 
annihilated almost the whole of two Turkish Army Corps, 
taking the remainder of one of these corps prisoners, 
together with its ("oininandcr-in-(-hicf, thre(! Divisional 
Generals, the Staff, ninnerous officers, thousands oi 
soldiers, artillery, machine-guns, and baggage animals. 
Tho intense struggle on the principal front naturally 



necessitated a change in the formation of our forces in 
the districts of secondary importance, and the approach 
of certain of our detachments to the frontier. 

Our trophies cannot yet be precisely stated. 

The pursuit of the enemy continues. 

Iskan Pasha himself stated that he considered 
his defeat mainly due to the cold weather 
and the ahnost impassable condition of the 
roads. Out of the 9th Corps only 6,000 
reached Sarikamisli. Here the Russians engaged 
him, and after six night attacks he svirrendered. 
The prisoners, when captured, were scarcely 
able to stand from exhaustion and hunger. 
The officers were distracted by the insubordi- 
nation of the men, who threw down their 
rifles and hurried to the Russians in order to 
surrender. Several times the Russians moved 
their kitchens up to the front line, and the 
Turks, smelling the food, instantly stopped 
fighting and surrendered. When they were fed 
they kissed the hands of their captors. Des- 
criptions of scenes on the battle-field by eye- 
witnesses inake the blood run cold. Tlu> 
slaughter was particularly great on two heights 
with a slight dip between them. Here the 
battle had swept with sucli fury that it was 
literally impossible to move vvitlioiit treading 
on bodies, and I,.")00 dead were left in this 
small space alone. 

It would appear that during tlie wonderful 
defence of Sarikamish from December 2.") to 
December 28, a liaiidful of Russians assumed 
the offensive against an entire Turkisli division 
until reinforcements arrived. This heroic action 
alone saved the town. The Ru.ssians advanced 
by a forced march tliroiigli deei) snow, engaging 



74 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




ADMIRAL SAGHAN (centre) WITH 
HIS STAFF. 

the enemy in the evening about thirteen miles 
from the town. 

The ragged, hungry, half -frozen Turks rolled 
on in dense columns. The maclaine-gun detach- 
ments allowed them to approach within 3t30 
paces, and then literally mowed them down ; 
but ever new columns sprang up in their place. 
The Russians slowly retired eastward step by 
step. The enemy, realizing that every hour 
and minute was precious if Sarikamish was to 
be taken, came on with the madness of des- 
pair, fighting always in the darliness. The 
Turkish columns hurled themselves on the 



slender Russian line, which, coolly falling back, 
sold every inch of ground dearly. 

The Turks, drunk with fanaticism, fired 
standing. Thereupon tlie Russians resorted 
to the bayonet, and with ringing cheers charged 
home upon the enemy's masses, inflicting 
frightful slaughter. The enemy broke on several 
occasions, but German officers with loaded re- 
volvers drove back defaulters till the Russians, 
under the pressure of sheer weight of numbers, 
were forced to retreat two or three miles from 
Sarikamish. More Turkish artillery arrived 
at this juncture, but too late to claim the 
victory as the Russian guns were covering 
their own infantry, and roared forth an effective 
reply. Reinforcements poured in steadily, and 
the protracted engagement culminated in a 
brilliant victory. 

Russian valour thus vipset the grandiose 
plan of the German strategists to inflict a 
sudden stunning blow on inferior Russian 
forces, envelop the vanguards, rear, and flanks, 
emerge by a forced march on Sarikamish, cut 
off the Russians, overwhelm Ardahan, and 
advance far northward from a direction where 
they were least expected. 

The surrender of the 9th Corps at Sarika- 
mish, however, by no means exhausted the 
effort of the Turks. Although the 11th 
Corps had been unable to move in time to save 
the 9th, it made a gallant effort to relieve the 
pressure upon the retreating 10th. It pressed 
on beyond Khorosan and forced its way to 
Kara-Urgan, some twenty miles from Sarika- 




THE "MESSUDIEH," SU.SK IN THE l^ARDANELLES BY SUBMARINE Bll. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



75 




TABRIZ. 



inish By tiiis means the Russians were 
compslled to check in their pursuit of the 10th 
Corps, and instead of dispatching the troops 
which had wiped out the 9th on the heels of 
the 10th, they had to hiu-ry them up to Kara- 
Urgan, where a long fierce struggle began. 
Desperate fighting took place throughout the 
whole of the second week in January, but it seems 
early to liave turned to the advantage of the 
Russian troops, who on the lith amiihilated 
with the baj'onet the whole of the 52nd Regi- 
ment, with the exception of the commander, 
staff officers, and some men, all of whom were 
made prisoners. 

At Yenikoi a battle which was fought with 
great fierceness for two days ended in the defeat 
of a portion of the 32nd Turkish Division, 
wliich fled precipitately, after losing severely 
and abandoning two machine guns and its 
baggage train. In one cavalry charge alone, 
it is recorded that the Turks lost 300 killed and 
woimded by the sabres of a regiment of Siberian 
Cossacks. On January 17 a dispatch from the 
Army in the Caucasus announced that the 
battle of Kara-Urgan, which had been fought 
for three days in a ceaseless snowstorm, hail 
ended in a victory for Russia. Thanks to the 
\alour of the regiments of the Caucasus and 
Turkestan and the Siberian Cossacks tlie 
resistance of the enemy was shattered. His 
rearguards, which were covering his retreat, 
were amiihilated, the remnants of tlic Turkish 
army harried, and the flanks and front put to 
flight towardsErzrum. The puisuit was pressed 



vigorously, but the tremendous snow (h-ilt 
proved a giant obstacle, and the 11th Corps 
succeeded in making good its escape towards 
Erzrum. The Russians, however, harried it not 
only from the rear but from the right flank, 
thus depri\ing it of the opportmiity of proceed- 
ing along the Kara-Urgan-Koprukeui road. 
This accoimted for the heavy fighting west- 
ward, at Yenikoi, which represented the last 
stand of the 11th Corps. 

^Meantime in the north tlie Russians had 




A TURKISH SCRIBE READING IHE 
WAR NEWi IN THE BAZAAR. 



76 



THE TIMES HISTOm' OF THE WAB. 




ARABIAN INFANTRY DIVISION. 



cfjiitinued their successes against tlie 1st Corps, 
which had been driven from Ardalian, and 
cleared the whole of the Chorok valley of the 
enemy. The difficulties of the Turks were 
greatly increased by the action of the Russians 
in cutting their communications by sea. In 
the first week of January, almost simultaneously 
with the signal defeat of the Tm-kish land 
forces, the Russians obtained a \-ictory on the 
water. At Sinope a Russian cruiser engaged 
the Turkish cruiser Medjidieh, which was con- 
voying a Turkish transport. The transport was 
sunk and the Medjidieh fled. On January G 
the Black Sea Fleet engaged the Breslau and the 
Hamidieh and severely damaged them both, 
while along the coast a number of small Tiu-kish 
vessels were sunlc. The Ooeben was all this 
time out of action ; she w-as reported to have 
struck a mine at the entrance to the Bosphorus 
in December and was still under repair at 
Constantinople. On Sunday, January 1.5, 
Russian torpedo boats sunk the large steamer 
Georgios, near Sinope, and several sailing vessels 
which were supplying the Tm-kish army and 
fle<3t witli war stores, provisions, and coal. 
Before the destruction of these boats the crews 
were given the opportunity to go ashore, and 
those who remained were removed and conveyed 
to Sebastopol. 

Such is the record of the main fighting in the 



Caucasian area up to the end of the month of 
January, 1915. It left the Russians far on the 
road to Erzrum, where the Turks were hastily 
attempting a new concentration, while in the 
north-west the fragments of the beaten 1st 
and 10th Corps had effected a junction and 
were attempting a fresh offensive. In the 
country round the Chorok ri^•er and in the 
region of Sultan Selim the Turks on the morning 
of the 20th developed vigorous attacks, which 
were repulsed. At Olty they also re>mned the 
offensive, pusliing forward a colun^n which, how- 
ever, was thrown back w ith very heavy losses. 
We have now to turn our eyes farther east. 
When the Russian main column crossed the 
Tiu'kish frontier in November and pressed for- 
ward to Koprukeui, a second cohnnn entered 
Tiu-key 50 miles farther east, midway between 
Khorosan and Bayazid, and on November 8 
seized Kara Kilissa. A week later it met the 
enemy 10 miles to the north of Dutukht, and, 
driving him back, seized the town. In this 
district the Tiu'ks employed the Arab regiments 
of the 13th Corps, and, taking the offensive, 
delivered a fierce blow on November 22. The 
result was indecisive, and for the next montli 
desultory fighting took place in the Alusligird 
valley. Arab reinforcements kept coming in 
from Baghdad via Bitlis and Erzrum. Under 
the command of Ha-^san ed Din Pasha they 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



77 



developed a vigorous offensive in the middle of 
December, and an engagement took place at 
Dutukht in which an attempt was made to 
envelop the Russians. The latter, however, 
were on their guard, and withdrew in time after 
infiictuig heavy losses on the Arabs. During 
the month of January there was no news of any 
fiu-ther fighting in this direction, and it is very 
probable that the Turkish forces had to fall 
back towards Erzrum. 

A third Russian column advanced from the 
angle of the Russo-Turco-Persian frontiers, 
where the Makuli tribesmen are friendly to the 
Russian Army, and on November 3 occupied 
the famous, but now forlorn, town of Bayazid 
at the foot of Mount Ararat, and thence moved 
forward in the direction of Van. There is no 
further record of its achievements, and pre- 
sumably it cooperated with two Russian 
columns which crossed the Turco-Persian 
frontier. The operations in this last and 
most easterly frontier must now claim oiu- 
attention. 

The fact that, though Persia was neutral, 
Turkey and Russia carried on war on Persian 
soil requires explanation. It is not a little 
curious, but on examination the cause of it can 
be easily seen, and the inwardness of che 
situation will be most easily grasped if we 



represent the Russo-T;irco-Persian frontier in 
the form of a T thus : 



Russia 



Turkey 



Persia 
(Azurbeijan) 



In this simple diagram the Russo-Turkish 
and Russo-Persian frontiers form the top ot 
the T, and, if we neglect the niceties of geo- 
graphical position, maybe said to run from west 
to east. The Turco-Persian frontier is the leg 
of the T. Were Persia a covmtry with a settled 
frontier, were it able to defend itself, and were 
it secure in its inviolability, then Russia and 
Turkey would only fight in the left section of 
the leg of the T, where the rival strongholds 
of Erzrum and Kars on either side are set to 
guard the frontier. But Persia was not Ln\iolate, 
was incapable of defending herself, had a 
frontier the line of which had been the subject 
of dispute between herself and Turkey from 
time immemorial, and had suffered for years 
past from continued Tiu-kish encro^ichments. 
Numerous JMixed Commissions to decide the 
question of the Turco-Persian frontier had sat in 
the last 50 years. Great Britain and Russia, as 
mediating Powers, had always beeen represented 
on these Commissions, and it has been calculated 
tliat during this period tliis miserable dispute, in 




WOUNDED TURKS IN HOSPITAL. 



78 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIi. 




TURKISH ARTILLERY. 



which we had no direct concern, cost the 
British taxpayer £150,000 in expenses. In the 
year 1913 it really seemed as if the question 
was at last entering its final stage. An agree- 
ment was signed at Constantinople between 
the Turkish and Persian Governments, and 
still another Mixed Commission of the usual 
kind was formed to carry out the actual 
delimitation of the frontier on the basis of this 
agreement. The four nations, Russia, England, 
Turkey and Persia, were represented, and ]\Ir. 
A. C. Wratislaw, formerly Consul-General at 
Tabriz, was the principal English member. 
It began its operations from the Persian Gulf, 



taking the southern sections first, and was still 
at its labours when war broke out. 

The Turks for the previous ten years had 
been particularly shameless in their aggressions 
on the northern sections of the frontier, and had 
steadily moved forward the frontier stones and 
their own Customs' Houses until they had 
made themselves masters of all the strategic 
points on the western side of Lake L'rmia. 
The rich Persian province of Azurbeijan had 
sunk into a state of anarchy and weakness, 
and the authority of the Persian Govermnent 
counted for nothing. From a military point of 
view, therefore, the eartern section of the T 




TIFLIS. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



79 




RECRUITS FROM ANATOLIA. 



became of vital importance both to Turkey 
and Russia. With the Turks in occupation 
of all the strategic points, and well across the 
frontier, it was clear that in the event of a 
Russo-Turkish war Turkey could attack not 
only along the western section of the top of the 
T where the frontier is mountainous and diffi- 
cult, but also through Persia on the eastern 
section where the lie of the land is very much 
simpler. The Russians, therefore, had been 
forced to assert their influence and authority 
in Azurbeijan. An opportimity was offered 
in 1909 at a period of civil war in Persia, when 
the constitutional party in Tabriz was besieged 
by the forces of Mohammed Ali Shah. In 
April, 1909, the British and Russian Govern- 
ments were exercising strong pressiu^e at 
Teheran to force the Shah to grant a Con- 
stitution, but meantime Tabriz, which had 
stood a siege of three months, was reduced to 
the last extremities of starvation. The Shah 
]irocrastinated in his dealings with the two 
Powers, hoping for the fall of Tabriz, which 
would have immensely strengthened his 
position. In the city itself an attack upon 
the foreign consulates by the starving mob 
was feared, and both the British and Russian 
colonies made an urgent appeal to their Govern- 
ments to secure them military protection. 
Great Britain and Russia, therefore, decided 



that Tabriz must be relieved by the dispatch 
of Russian troops, and a military expedition 
was sent from Julfa to open the road and 
revictual the town. From that time onwards 
detachments of Russian troops were main- 
tained in Tabriz, and later it was found neces- 
sary to send a strong military guard to the 
Consulate at Khoi, the Turks retorting by a 
similar step at Suj Bulak. Both Russia and 
Turkey were, therefore, in military occupation 
of parts of this Persian province when war 
broke out, and both were forced to treat it as 
part of the theatre of war. Just as it was 
important for Russia that she should not be 
attacked along the whole of the top of the T, 
instead of on its western section, so it was 
equally vital to Turkey that she should not 
have her whole flank turned by finding Russia 
not merely at the top, but also along the leg of 
the T. 

Two Russian columns, therefore, were sent 
across the Persian frontier into Tiu-key by 
the Kotur and Khanesur passes, which are 
about 30 miles apart, and are between the north 
end of Lake Urmia and Van. These drove 
the Turks back in November and engaged 
them between Oilman and Kotur. On Decem- 
ber 1 they again defeated the enemy at 
Serai and Bashkola. The Turlcs retreated 
towards Van. lint were reinforetMl and again 



80 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




A BEDOUIN. 



assumed the offensive, only to receive another 
check. 

Farther to the south a mass of Kurdish 
levies from both sides of the frontier advanced 
upon Tabriz from the direction of Suj Bulak, 
Apparently the Russians did not expect that 
the Tiu-ks would show such a total disregard 
of the neutrality of Persia as to make a wide 
movement through Azurbeijan, and they had, 
therefore, withdrawn their small detachment 
of troops from Tabriz for use elsewhere, relying 



on Shuja-ed-Dowleh, the Persian acting 
Governor of Azm-beijan, to ofTer any necessary 
resistance to Kurdish forays. The Governor, 
however, was capable of no great effort, and 
after a skirmish at ZSIaragha the Tiu-ks occu- 
pied Tabriz in the early part of January and 
proceeded to Sufian and Maraud on the 
Julfa road. Their success was, however, a 
brtef one. A Russian detachment routed 
them at Sufian, and re-entered Tabriz on 
January 30. 




CHAPTER LII. 

THE INVASION OF CHALDEA. 

The Character of the Persian Gulf, Where the History of the World Began — How the 
Turks First Came to the Gulf — The Rise op the Wahabis in Arabia — Midhat Pasha's 
Annexations of Gulf Territory — The Dawn of German Influence in the IMiddle East — 
The K-aiser's Pilgrimages and the Baghdad Railway — The First Germans in the Gulf — 
Attempts to Seize Koweit and Various Islands — The Lure of the Gulf Pearls— The 
Diplomatic Negotiations in London — A Picture of German World -Politics in Miniature — 
Why Great Britain Claims Pabamountcy in the Gulf — Admiral Mahan's Grave Warning — - 
The Outbreak of War, and the Seizure of Fao — The Admiralty Oil- works on the Shatt- 
al-Arab — The First Turkish Attack — Arrival of General Barrett with British Rein- 
forcements — The Action at Sahain — The Battle of Sahil, which Decided the Fate of 
Basra — The Fall of Basra — The Advance up the River to Kurna — The First Action at 
Kurna and the Call for Reinforcements — The Fall of Kurna and Surrender of the 
Turkish Garrison. 



ONE of the immediate effects of the 
appearance of Turlcey as a com- 
batant was to extend tlie area of tlie 
war to the Persian Gulf. HostiUties 
quickly began between the Turks and a force of 
British and Indian troops at the head of the 
Gulf. In a very short time the British had 
defeated the Turks, captured the important 
port of Basra, gained possession of the delta of 
the Tigris and Euphrates, and driven the rem- 
nants of the Turkish forces a long way north- 
ward towards Baghdad. The operations thus 
initiated formed an entirely separate campaign. 
They were of great political importance, for 
they shattered at a blow Germany's dream of 
a dominion extending to the Middle East. 
Basra was to have been the terminus of the 
Baghdad Railway, which represented Ger- 
many's greatest enterprise in the domain of 
world politics. Its fall deprived the (Germans 
of that access to the seas of Southern Asia 
which they craved. The campaign, even in its 
early stages, further brought to a head and 
finally disposed of various important issues 
which had produced differences between Great 
Britain and Turkey for more than three de- 
Vol. III.— Part 2<J. SI 



cades. Its political consequences are likely im- 
measiu"ab)y to surpass its military significance. 

The recorded history of the world probably 
began in the Persian Gulf. All through the 
ages the destinies of empires have been swayed 
from its lonely shores, to a degree far too Uttle 
understood in the West. The Power that 
possesses maritime control of the Gulf can, if 
she chooses, exert a dominating influence upon 
the affairs of the Middle East. Germany per- 
ceived the value of the Gvilf long ago, and for 
ten years before the war had ;-t riven with 
limited success to establish her influence there. 
During the twentieth century the political and 
economic problems associated with the Gulf are 
bound to attract increasing attention. The 
war did not finally dispose of them, but a 
bettor conception of the character of the Gulf 
and of past events in its vicinity is essential to 
a right understanding of the larger issues which 
lay behind the war. 

No other inland sea is quite like the Persian 
(!ulf, none possesses so ancient and so strange 
a history, and none is so little known or visited. 
Its narrow entrance lies in a fur corner of the 
Arabian Sea, where the lees of the southern 



82 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



oceans collect and strange marine monsters 
disport themselves. Approaching the entrance 
from the Gulf of Oman, a ship may shape its 
course past the land-lT)cked harbour of Muscat, 
set like a sapphire in the midst of grim volcanic 
heights ; or it may coast along the desolate 
shores of British and Persian Mokran, where 
dwell the Icthyophagi, the fish-eaters, exactly 
as they did in the days of Alexander's retreat 
from Sind. Mark well the low, bare hills that 
fringe the beaches of Mekran. Beliind thena lie 
the long lateral valleys through which vast 
hordes migrated into India. They are perhaps 
the oldest of routes between East and West, 
a highway of trade along wMch were carried 
'the silks and spices that delighted the nobles 
of Rome, although they Icnew not whence 
they came. The entrance to the Gulf is 
guarded on the Arabian side by the bastioned 
steeps of Ras Musendam, the head of the 
massive deserted peninsula wliich constitutes, 
says Mr. Hogarth, one of the few bits of compact 
exploration still left to the adventuroiis. The 
mighty headland looks across the straits to the 
Persian island of Hormuz, whose vivid rocks 
glow lilce jewels in the setting sun, save where 
a dark and niassi\-e keep that seems built for 
eternity recalls how tiny Portugal once held 
the East in fee until the effort drained her of 



her manhood. Behind the Masendam Penin- 
sula winds the wonderful tropical fiord called 
the Elphinstone Inlet, cleaving the barren 
mountains for nineteen miles, a sheet of water 
of unknown depth, where a whole fleet might 
lie concealed were it not the hottest place in 
the world. Across a narrow neck of land lies 
the huge landlocked expanse of Malcolm 
Inlet, less often furrowed by tlie keels of ships 
than the Antarctic Seas. 

The eastern shores of the Gulf begin with 
the flat and sweltering sands of Bunder Abbas, 
which has sometimes been called the Gulf's 
southern key. It is not so in fact, for it is 
merely an open roadstead. The real key is 
formed by the islands of Ivishm, Henjam, and 
Larak, and still more by the Clarence Straits 
which divide Kishm from the mainland. Great 
Britain holds on lease a patch of Ivishm, 
known as Basidu, and also holds a square mile 
of Henjam, on which stands a telegraph station. 
From Basidu to the head of the Gulf the Persian 
coast is one sheer wall, fronted by a narrow 
strip of low -lying land. The great plateau of 
Persia ends abruptly and precipitously near the 
sea, and only the shallow open roadstead of 
Bushire partially redeems the Shah's dominions 
from the reproach of being without a harboiu-. 
Yet the low and scanty foreshores once bred a 
race of mariners, and long ago men of Arab 
blood sailed from these beaches and sacked 
Canton. One can still trace the ruins of the 
cities of Keis and Siraf, where swarms of 
Chinese junks once lay at anchor, as they used 
to lie in Bombay in the days before China 
partly lost the secret of the sea. 




THE LAGOON AT SHARGAH, PIRATE COAST. 
In the days of piracy the town was well sheltered. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



83 




THE ASSHAR CREEK AT BASRA. 



The western side of the Gulf begins with the 
Pirate Coast, and though the pirates have been 
turned from their e\'il ways by the maritime 
truce imposed by the British Government, their 
strongholds reinain unclianged in appearance. 
At Shargah, whicli is a typical example, there 
is a blue lagoon amid the sandhills, behind 
which lies the tov\n, dominated by an old 
battlemented castle. A century ago British 
troops subdued these nests "of wild corsairs, 
who were on one occasion strong enough to 
capture and destroy one of the King's warships. 
Even in these lonely seas, where travellers are 
rarely seen, German influence had been subtly 
at work in the ten yeai's before the war. Off 
the Pii'ate Coast lies the islet of Abu Musa, of 
which a German firm secured a lease through 
bribed intermediaries, on the pretence of 
working deposits of red oxide. Next to the 
haunts of the pirates comes the peninsula of El 
Katar, where the Turks vainly tried to establish 
themselves. In the bight behind lie the Pearl 
Islands, the domain of the Sheikh of Balu-ein, 
and the mart for all the treasures of the Great 
Pearl Bank, which stretches nearly the whole 
length of the Gulf. In the middle of Bahrein 
are liundreds of thousands of still inexplicable 
mound tombs, and on the mainland opposite 
lie? the dead city of Gerrha, never yet visited 
by European archaeologists, although it was the 
earliest home of the Phoenicians. Northward 



runs the long coast-line of El Hasa, hitherto 
claimed by the Turks, and at length there 
comes into view the splendid bay of Koweit, the 
finest harbour in the Gulf, long and actively 
coveted by both Turks and Germans. Finally, 
at the head of the Gulf sand and movmtains 
are replaced by the green and smiling fields and 
palm groves which, with the desert and swampy 
lands beyond, form the delta of the Tigris 
and Euphrates. From the point where the 
two rivers unite the stream is known as the 
Shatt-al-Arab, and it flows through an alluvial 
land as flat as Holland. About 67 iniles from 
its mouth stands the ancient city and seaport 
of Basra, the centre of Turkish influence in the 
Gulf. 

The country round Basra was the scene of the 
first operations of the Mesopotamian and Gulf 
campaign, but the local issues which lay at its 
back affected the whole Persian Gulf. The 
Turks had long tried to dispute in various 
stealthy ways the predominant and pacific 
influence which the British had exercised in 
Gulf waters for three hundred years. After 
they entered into a thinly veiled partnership 
\\ith the Germans the pressure against British 
interests steadily increased. When Turks and 
Britons fovight before Basra, they were con- 
tending for domination in the (!uh', and the hu-e 
which lay behind was that of the short road 
to India. That is why a study of conditions 



84 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




THE RIVER BANK AT FAO. 
Much of the earlier fighting was in date gnves oi this character. 



and events in the Gulf is an imperative prelude 
to a full comprehension of tliis particular 
campaign. 

Let us first see how it was that the Turks 
came to emerge upon the Gulf at all; The 
Turkish course of empire long lay westward. 
From the time when Ertoglu-ul and his band of 
four hundred horsemen charged the Mongol 
army near Angora in the thirteenth century, 
and thus took the first step which led to the 
foundation of the Ottoman Empire, the Otto- 
man T\irks always looked towards the setting 
rather than the rising sun. Their roots 
were planted deep in Asia, bvit it was the lure 
of European conquest which constantly led 
theuT onward until the tide was stayed at the 
very gates of Vienna. Nevertheless, they did 
not neglect to extend their dominions in Asia 
and Africa. They conquered Egypt early in 
the sixteenth century, and in the same century 
Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent effected the 
first Turldsh captvire of Baghdad. He was 
ousted from the city by the Persians, and it 
was not mitil 1638 that Sultan Murad IV. 
appeared before Baghdad with an immense 
army, recovered it, and hoisted the Tirrkish 
flag. Thirty years later, in 1668, the Turks 
marched down to Basra, captured it, and came 
for the first time to the shores of the Persian 
Gulf. 



It is not at all generally realised that the 
British were in the Gulf before the Turks. The 
first time British arms were carried to victory 
in the Persian Gulf was on January 19, 1622, 
when a British force laid siege to a Portuguese 
fort on the island of Kishm, opposite Hormuz, 
and captured it a fortnight later. Two nionths 
afterwards the British, fighting in alliance with 
a Persian army, seized and sacked the Portu- 
guese city and island of Hormuz, and laid its 
almost fabulous glories low. It wan at this 
time that the British made a treaty with 
Persia by which they imdertook " to keep two 
men-of-war constantly to defend the Gulf." 
The number of warships was afterwards in- 
creased to five and, from that time onward, 
British seamen policed and protected the Gulf, 
and their power and influence were ne\'er 
seriously disputed. 

The Turks made little use of Mesopotamia 
and the deltaic lands. As in other parts of 
their Empire, their influence always lay like a 
bligiat upon the country and stifled progress. 
Nor did they do anything effective to extend 
their rvile beyond the valleys of the Tigris and 
Euphrates in the direction of Arabia. The 
Turk has never been in any true sense the over- 
lord of Arabia, and he never will be. Early in 
t!ie eighteenth centm-y the then Turkish Vali of 
Baghdad actually rei:)udiated the control of 



THE. TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



85' 



Staniboul. and made the city and all the lands 
southward to the Gulf a practically inde- 
pendent State. His successor appealed to the 
British in India to take him under their pro- 
tection, and asked for British officers to train 
his armies. Some officers were sent, but when 
the British Govemnaent heard of the arrange- 
ment months afterwards it was severely con- 
demned. London preferred to remain on good 
terms with the Porte, and cared nothing about 
the future of Mesopotamia. The officers were 
recalled, and by the beginning of the nineteenth 
centvu"y the Sultan had gradually recovered his 
old authority. Had it not been for the action 
of the Home Government, Mesopotamia would 
have been a British protectorate for the last 
hundred years. 

The rise of the Wahabis in .Arabia had a 
lasting effect upon the fortvmes of the people 
on the Arabian shores of the Gulf and upon the 
Turkish position in these regions. The Wahabi 
movement was essentially an attempt to revert 
to the early sunplicity of the Islamic faith, and 
in course of time it shook the world of Islam to 
its foundations. The Wahabis began to grow 
strong in the latter half of the eighteenth 
century. They propagated their doctrines by 
the sword, and when the nineteenth centvury 
dawned they had very nearly conquered all 
Arabia. They reached the Persian Gulf very 
early in their progress, and only dread of the 
growing power of the British kept them out of 
Muscat, the capital of Oman. They entered 
Mesopotamia in 1801, and sacked the sacred 
shrines of the Shiahs at Kerbela. They took 




LANDING AT BAHREIN. 

The officer is Captain W. H. Shakespear, C.I.E., 

who was killed in Central Arabia. 

ilecca and Medina, and desecrated the tomb of 
Mahomet, and at length they became so for- 
midable that the Sultan of Tiu-key saw that his 
claims to the Caliphate were in danger. 

He persuaded Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of 
Eg;ypt, to send Egyptian armies against the 
Wahabis. The Egyptian forces slowly overran 
Arabia, but it took them seven years to over- 
thro\\^ the Wahabi movement. They won their 




104ih WELLESLEY'S RULES MAUCHING AGKOSS IHE DESERT. 



29- 2 



8G 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 








'•^■.<5S^*>- 














-?^^^«i"^ *•> 






-7X. -*-^*-fe.--.,, ^,^ 



^^=^Alr» ''■-'*'*^Cw«-- ' ^'" >^- -'•.^*=^ ^t£^ •■'^" ■ a:-^- • ^ -^ • 



AN ARAB COUNCIL ON THE BEACH AT HENJAM ISLAND. 

The post is the British cable mark. 



final victory in 1818, but neither Turks nor 
Egyptians were able to garrison Central Arabia 
permanently. In five years the Wahabi power 
was partially re-established, and for the 
remainder of the century the history of Central 
Arabia turned upon the rivalry between the 
great ruling Wahabi houses of Ibn Rashid and 
Ibn Saud. Their quarrels have continued to 
the present day, though at present the family 
of Ibn Saud is almost completely in the 
ascendant. Yet little more than a decade 
before the war three British cruisers had to 
land a force with guns at Koweit, and trenches 
had to be dug round the town, to save it 
from an attack by an army under the then 
head of the Ibn Rashids. 

These memories may seem remote and unim- 
portant, but they are of very present urgency. 
The Wahabi movement did not die, but 
smouldered with modem modifications. The 
disputes between the houses of Ibn Rashid and 
Ibn Saud remained a dominating factor in 
Arabian politics. One of the many issues 
which must be settled as a resxilt of the war 
was that of the future of Arabia. It was not 
a local issue, as it seemed. It affected the 
whole of Islam, for it involved the future 
guardianship of the Sacred Cities and the 
control of the pilgrimage to Mecca. In any 
settlement that was reached, the great chief- 
tains of Arabia would have to be reckoned 
with. One of the desires of Ibn Saud 
was an outlet to the Persian Gulf, and he 
more than once sought British protection. 



though it was never accorded to him. He 
would long ago have taken the Turkish ports 
of Bida and Ojeir, in the peninsula of El 
Katar, but he feared Turkish reprisals from the 
sea. Until 1913 the venerable and mildewed 
corvette which the Turks stationed at Basra 
was enough to keep liim in his inland cities 
and oases. There was never a case where 
sea power of the most insignificant kind was 
so cheaply and successfully exercised. 

The Turks, then, were never masters of any 
portion of the western shores of the Gulf until 
the 'seventies of last century. They held Basra. 
They held the little town of Fao, at the entrance 
to the Shatt-al-Arab, where they maintained 
a mud structure which by courtesy was called a 
fort. Beyond lay the sands of Arabia, where 
the irades of the Sultan had no validity. The 
Sheikhs of Koweit preserved their independence, 
though prudence prompted them to keep on 
friendly terms with their neighbours. South 
of their town lay the region of El Hasa, with one 
or two fertile oases in which towns existed. 
South again of El Hasa came the peninsula of 
El Katar. In both El Hasa and El Katar the 
Arab tribes lived munolested. Beyond El 
Katar came the territories of the cliiefs of the 
Pirate Coast, with whom Great Britain held 
treaties under which they agreed to keep the 
peace at sea and to abstain from piracy. The 
Turks maintained intermittent relations with 
the Wahabi chiefs of Central Arabia, who took 
the advice tendered them by the distant Sultan, 
or disregarded it, precisely as it suited them. 



4 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



87 




88 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



Into this scene of comparative passivity came 
the late Midhat Pasha, and it was with his 
advent that modern Turkish aggression in the 
Persian Gulf really began. Midhat Pasha was 
an extremely able and energetic man, and in 
after years he incurred the inexorable hatred of 
the Sultan Abdul Hamid because he was the 
author of the first Turkish Constitution. He 
paid for his liberal ideas with his life, being 
imprisoned and eventually assassinated at Taifj 
in Arabia, in 1883. He was made Vali of 
Baghdad in 1869, and in the early 'seventies he 
set about extending Tiirkish rule in the Persian 
Gulf. He began by establishing closer relations 
with Koweit. Next he sailed down the Gulf, 
landed a force on the coast of El Hasa, con- 
quered the Arabian tribes, and converted the 
region into a Tiirkish sandjak. Then he 
appeared with Ms flotilla off tlie island of 
Bahrein, which he " annexed," a proceeding 
wliich was very soon upset by the British 
Government. He laid claim to the peninsula 
of El Katar, but Great Britain declined to 
recognize his pretensions. The Government 
of the day did, however, most foolishly and 
unwisely accept his conquest of El Hasa, a 
decision wliich in later years there was every 
reason to deplore. We had never retained any 
territory in the Gulf ourselves. We had every 
right to object to any other Power filching 
great tracts of country in this region. But 
1873 was a period when Britain was unmindful 



of her larger responsibilities and duties, and 
temporarily forgetful of her own glorious past. 

Midhat Pasha was summoned back to Con- 
stantinople in 1873, and was made Grand 
Vizier. The activity he generated in all the 
lands south of Baghdad quickly died away, and 
the Turks gave comparatively little trouble 
until the rise of German influence on the Golden 
Horn stimulated them to fresh aggression- They 
kept a battalion or two and some guns at El 
Hofuf, the town in the oasis of that name, 
■which is regarded as the capital of El Hasa. 
They had a small garrison at their port of El 
Katif, and another at Ojeir, at the head of the 
Bight of Bahrein. These troops maintained 
Turkish sovereignty as far as the range of their 
weapons, and no farther. They collected 
taxes spasmodically and without much oppres- 
sion, owing to the fewness of their numbers. 
In El Katar the sole evidence of Turkish claims 
consisted of a very small force in the town and 
port of Bida. It never went beyond the walls 
of the town. Had it done so, it would have been 
destroyed by the tribesmen, who fiercely re- 
sented the Turkish intrusion. To the Gulf 
peoples the Turks were a nuisance, but on the 
whole not a very troublesome nmsance. 

The whole situation was gradually changed 
when, after the accession of the Emperor 
William II., Germany formulated her new 
world policies, and induced Turkey to enter into 
a veiled and subordinate alliance with her. 




By Permission oj" Times of Indiu lllusti.,LJ Weekly."] 

THE BAZAAR AT KOWEIT. 



iCtcil Burns, R.B.A. 



THE TIMES mSTOBY OF THE WAR. 



89 




THE FORESHORE AT BAHREIN ISLAND. 
From roof of British Consulate. 



The Emperor's first visit to Constantinople in 
1889 saw the dawn of the mighty Pan-Germanic 
scheme which was compendiously known in 
Berlin as the B.B.B. (Berlin-Byzantiimi- 
Baghdad). After the war began a professor 
lecturing at BerUn said that Germany's aims 
might be siminied up in four geographical 
catch- words : " North Sea, Constantinople, 
Baghdad. Indian Ocean." Another favourite 
definition, attributed to the Emperor himself, 
was " a Germanic wedge reacliing from Ham- 
burg to the Persian Gulf." The Deutsche Bank 
group had already acquired control of the rail- 
ways of European Turkey, and the locomotive 
was to be the principal means of extending 
Germanic influence in the Middle East. 

The scheme was grandiose. It was also in 
some respects exceedingly vague. Perhaps it 
owed its origin in part to chance seed dropped 
by von Moltke, who in his early days, when 
attached to the Turldsh Army, had ridden 
through Anatolia, traversed the Gates of Cilicia, 
looked forth upon the Upper Euphrates Valley, 
and dreamed dreams of a day when these fertile 
but fallow lands might be won back to a pro- 
gressive civilization. Marshal von der Goltz 
Pasha, who in 1883 had already begun Iiis re- 
organization of the Turkish military forces, 
may have contributed to the growth of the 
conception. The idea that the Turkish soldiery 
might be utilised as a weapon in the hands of 
Germany was certainly destined to bear 
remarkable fruit. On the financial side there 



were big profits to be made, for Germany sup- 
plied nothing to Turkey without exacting big 
and even excessive prices. The talk of founding 
German agricultural colonies in Asia Minor 
from the overspill of Germany's population was 
not very practical, and was always doomed to 
come to naught. A highly civilised European 
race, seeking to win subsistence from the soil 
of Asia, would be " iinderlived " by the in- 
digenous popvilation. Far more attractive 
were the dreams of controlling as administrators 
the fertile plains of the Lower Euplu^ates and 
Tigris, and making them once more-the granary 
of the world. In the beginnings of recorded 
history man fovmd wheat growing wild in this 
rich countrj^ evolved the arts of cultivation, 
and made the wilderness a smiling garden. 
Herr Paul Rohrbach, whose eyes were always 
fixed upon Mesopotamia, was fond of telling 
the people of BerUn that so recently as the 
eighth century the land between the two rivers 
produced annually ten million tons of wheat, 
and supported a popiilation of six millions. 
Now, he would add, it maintains only a million 
people. 

The objects of the Germans were, therefore, 
to a certain extent economic, but they were 
above all political. They wanted to build a 
great trunk railway from the Bosphorvxs to th.' 
Persian Gulf, with a port in Gulf waters as its 
terminus. Whatever flag the port might fly, it 
was meant to be an essentially German strong- 
hold. It would have at its back an army under 



90 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




MALCOLM INLET, OMAN. 
A huge unfrequented harbour. The distant shores are some miles away. 



German influence, and in future years it would 
serve as a stepping-off place for India. The 
outward movement across the Indian Ocean 
was very rarely talked about. It was a develop- 
ment which lay beyond, and was perhaps never 
more than dimly conceived. The vital thing 
was to reach the Persian Gulf. 

Yet the Baghdad Railway at first took shape 
very slowly. The year before the Emperor's 
first visit to the Sultan Abdul Hamid, a German 
company, backed by the Deutsche Bank, had 
obtained a concession for making a short rail- 
way along the Asiatic shores of the Sea of 
Marmora. As a result of the Emperor's activi- 
ties, this concession was developed into the 
scheme for the construction of a line to Angora 
and Konia, which was known as the Anatolian 
Railway. The Emperor paid his second visit 
to Constantinople in 1898, and afterwards 
proceeded on his famous pilgrimage through 
Syria and the Holy Land, in the course of which 
lie won Turkish support for ever by proclaiming 
himself to be the protector of Islam. In 1899 
came the sequel. The Sultan granted a con- 
cession for the continuation of the Anatolian 
Railway to Baghdad and the Persian Gulf, to a 
German corporation which styled itself " The 
Imperial Ottoman Baghdad Railway Company." 
The concession was signed on behalf of Germany 
by Herr von Siemens, of the Deutsche Bank. 
By a further and more definite concession 



gi-anted on March 5, 1903, to Herr von 
Gwinner, of the Deutsche Bank, Turkey 
guaranteed interest on the cost of construction 
of the line at the rate of £700 per j^ear per 
kilometre. The principle of kilometric guaran- 
tees, which Germany invariably exacted from 
Tiu"key, was iniqmtous, and has always been 
strongly denounced. It should in justice be 
said, however, that the promoters of the railway 
were able to forego the guarantee on some of 
the earlier sections of the line within a few 
years of their being open to traffic. Whether 
the later sections would ever have made enough 
profit to free themselves from the guarantee is 
very much open to doubt. 

It should also be acknowledged that in 
Anatolia tlie line had beneficent resiilts. No 
reasonable man ever doubted that, whether 
it paid or not, the Baghdad Railway was on its 
economic side a most praiseworthy enterprise. 
Asia needs railways, and no part of the Asiatic 
continent is more in need of good railways 
than Asiatic Turkey. The British opposition 
to the Baghdad Railway scheme was based 
partly on its improper methods of finance, but 
far more on the imdoubted fact that Germany's 
motive in promoting it was primarily political, 
and that it was meant to tmdermine British 
influence in the Middle East, and British para- 
moimtcy in the Persian Gulf. 

The effects of the new German policy quietly 



THE TIMEIS HllSTORY OF THE WAR. 



91 



began to make themselves manifest in Gulf 
waters. The method adopted was to protest 
on every occasion that German aims in the 
Gulf were exclusively commercial, but British 
vigilance soon discovered another side to the 
occupations of German agents. They talked 
of coromerce, but they surreptitiously sought 
at various points to obtain a territorial 
footing. 

It is most interesting and instructive to trace 
the germination and the growth of German 
influence around the shores of this inland sea. 
The details may seem trifling, but they reveal 
German methods in a compact and illuminating 
manner. 

The very first Germans who seem to have 
traded in the Gulf opened business under the 
name of Messrs. Wonckhaus & Co., and were 
understood to represent a Hamburg firm. 
Their proceedings were characteristic. They 
went in 1896 to Lingah, a little town on the 
Persian coast where no other European resided. 
Even the British Vice-Consul was, according to 
Lord Curzon's book on Persia, a " jolly old 
Arab." The Wonckhaus firm modestly began 
by dealing in shells and mother-of-pearl, said 
very little about itself, avoided all Eiu-opeans, 
but cultivated a large acquaintance among the 
roving Gulf population. 

The next year the German Govermnent 
quietly established a Vice-Consulate at Bushire. 
At that time there were exactly six German 
subjects in the whole of the Gulf. 



In 1899, after the Baghdad Railway con- 
cession was first signed, things grew busier. 
The old German cruiser Arcona, not the 
warship of that name, came to the Gulf on her 
way home from China. It was understood 
that she was looking for a suitable terminus 
for the railway. She spent some time in 
various secluded bays, but was imable to get 
up the Shatt-al-Arab to Basra, as she could not 
cross the bar at the mouth of the river. A 
little later in the same year a party of Germans 
appeared at Bunder Abbas. They said they 
were " scientists," but they were certainly not 
astronomers. They disappeared as mysteriously 
as they came. 

In 1900 Herr Stemrich, who was then German 
Consul-General at Constantinople, came over- 
land through Asiatic Turkey at the head of a 
mission which was making the first rough in- 
spection of the route of the proposed railway. 
The members of the mission included the 
German Military Attache at Constantinople. 
Herr Stemrich went to Koweit, where he was 
courteously received by Sheikli Mubarak. He 
explained that the Baghdad Railway Company 
desired to establish its terminus on the shores 
of the Bay of Koweit. He wanted to buy a site 
at Ras Kathama, at the head of the bay, and 
to lease twenty square miles of territory around 
it. Sheikh INIubarak refused, for he mistrusted 
his plausible visitors. He knew, as all Maho- 
medans knew, that Germany had contracted 
some sort of mysterious alliance with the 




MATRA. THE CENTRE OF THE MUSCAT DATE TRADE. 



92 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIi. 




THE SHEIKH'S CASTLE AT SHARGAH, ON THE PIRATE COAST. 
The ancient cannon is the Sheikh's sole piece of artillery. 



Turks. He wished to have nothing to do with 
any friends of Turkey, because the Tui"ks were 
constantly trying to undermine his position. 
Herr Steinrich was politely bowed out of the 
high council chamber, where the Sheikli was 
constantly wont to sit, with his gaze wandering 
over the wide expanse of his precious bay. 

There was another and far more definite 
reason for Sheikh Mubarak's refusal. On 
January 23, 1899, he had signed a secret agree- 
ment with Great Britain, in which, in return 
for certain undertakings, he agreed, among 
other things, not to lease or dispose of any 
portion of lais territory to the Government or 
subjects of any foreign Power without the 
previous consent of Great Britain. The agree- 
ment was part of the British response to the 
Kaiser's visit to the Sultan in the previous 
year, the results of which were not unknown in 
London and Simla. It was made within a 
month of Lord Curzon's arrival in India as 
Viceroy, and was ahuost the first matter he took 
in hand after assuming office. 

The Germans were undefeated. If they could 
not get their terminus by purchase, they pro- 
posed to obtain it by force tlu-ough the agency 
of their puppets the Turks. Towards the end 
of the year 1900 Sheikh Mubarak decided to 
take a hand in the warfare in Central Arabia 
between the houses of Ibn Rashid and Ibn 
Saud. He led a small army into the interior 



in support of Ibn Saud, was ambushed in a 
deep defile whUe returning from the city of 
Hail, and suffered a severe reverse. 

His temporary weakness made a German 
opportunity. Early in 1901 a Turkish corvette 
packed with troops sailed into Koweit Harboiu", 
and its commander announced that he proposed 
to take possession of the town. Great Britairi 
had been warned of the plot, and had madt; 
preparations. A British cruiser was Ijdng in 
the harbour, and the Turks were told that their 
corvette would be sunk if a single soldier was 
landed. They sailed away. Later in the year 
the corvette returned, bearing a high Turkish 
dignitary who was carrying a menacing letter 
addressed by the Sultan to Mubarak. Again a 
British cruiser intervened, and as a result of its 
support Mubarak ordered the envoy to depart. 
Then the Turks mcited Ibn Rashid to attack 
Koweit, and only the assistance of thre« 
British cruisers, as already related, saved the 
town from being sacked. The next move \\ as 
to make use of Mubarak's nephews, who were in 
exile in Turkish territory. They sailed from 
the Shatt-al-Arab with a fleet of native craft to 
take Koweit, but the whole flotUla was dis- 
persed by a single British gunboat. Thereafter, 
the German plots for seizing Koweit by force 
were abandoned. 

A new method of obtaining access to Koweit 
territory was then instigated by the Germans. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



93 



They had, meanwhile, discovered a possible 
alternative terminus. The north side of the 
Bay of Koweit is bounded by the large and 
m,arshy island of Bubian. Behind Bubian are 
the long and deep inlets known as the Khor 
Abdullah and the Kiior Zobeir, which penetrate 
a good deal of the way to Basra. The Germans 
seem to have thought that if they made their 
terminus somewhere on the Khor Abdullah 
they would have it in a place fairly safe against 
attack. Unfortunately for them, there were 
difficulties. Mubarak claimed jurisdiction to a 
point tw^enty miles north-west of the Klior 
Abdullah. He was also the indisputable 
owner of Bubian, which completely commanded 
the passage to the sea. His rights were vio- 
lated, and Turkish posts were estabhshed at 
various points within his territory, including 
the island of Bubian. 

The British Embassy at Constantinople was 
at that period exceedingly inactive, and the 
Home Government had passed from the " hot " 
fit to the " cold " fit. An incident which 
happened at a meeting between King Edward 
and the German Emperor is understood to have 
contributed to this change. The Emperor was 
eager to talk about Koweit, in wliich he took a 
deep and direct interest. King Edward was 
armed with certain notes on a sheet of paper. 
The Emperor asked if he niight have the notes, 
and then promptly, but most improperly, 
recorded them as an official communication. 
The notes contained a questionable admission. 
It was thought best to condone the Emperor's 
sharp practice, but British policy at Koweit 
suffered in consequence. The posts on Bubian 



were allowed to remain after a formal protest, 
much to the chagrin of Mubarak, who had 
faithfully stuck to us, but had been imper- 
fectly supported. They were there almost 
\intil the war began, although, meanwhile, 
Germany had announced her intention of 
rnaldng her terminus at Basra. She never really 
abandoned her desire to reach Koweit. One 
of the provisions of the Anglo-Turkish Agree- 
ment about the Baghdad Railway, which was 
never signed owing to the outbreak of the war, 
provided for the residence of a Turkish official 
at Koweit. He would have been as constant 
a centre of intrigue as was the Ottoman High 
Commissioner in Cairo. 

Elsewhere in the Gulf the Germans grew 
more active. The firm of Wonckhaus, which 
had begun so humbly by buying shells on the 
beach at Lingah, rapidly blossomed into a large 
and widespread enterprise. In 1901 the head- 
quarters were removed to the island of Bahrein. 
A new " branch " was opened at Basra, and a 
big house was taken for it. The whole Gulf 
wondered where the money came from. It 
certainly was never obtained from profits. 
Another branch was opened at Bunder Abbas. 
The Bahrein branch very nearly became the 
scene of an " international incident." Sheikh 
Isa, of Bahrein, was having much trouble with 
a turbulent nephew, who had a following of 
truculent retainers. One of these followers 
violently assaulted one of the Wonckhaus 
coolies, and directly afterwards one Bahnsen, 
an assistant to Wonckhaus, was badly ham- 
mered. The incident sounds paltry, but it was 
just one of the pretexts for interference for 




A DESERTED BRITISH NAVAL STATION AT BASIDU, ON KISHM ISLAND. 
The RI.M.S. "Lawrence" is lying beyond, in the Clarence Straits. 

29—3 



94 



THE TIMES HISTOIiY OF THE WAI!. 



which Germany was eagerly watching. She 
was given no chance. Within three days a 
British gunboat arrived, bearing the British 
Resident in the Persian Gulf. A sum of £60 
was instantly paid as compensation to the 
bruised Bahnsen, and the ringleaders in the 
disturbance were publicly flogged and then 
banished. In 1905 Germany showed signs of 
desiring to open direct relations with the 
Sheikh of Bahrein, but it was at once pointed 
out that the Sheikh's external relations were, 
with his consent, imder British control. 

The Persian Gulf was almost certainly the 
earliest home of the primitive civilization of the 
world. Sonae among the very few peoj^le who 
have really tried to study Bahrein believe that 
it was probably the real cradle of the higher 
development of the hiunan race. Its extra- 
ordinary collection of mound tombs, stretching 
as far as the eye can see across its desert 
interior, puzzle the chance travellers who have 
examined them. All through the ages its 
rough tracks have drawn adventurers from 
many lands — British and Arabs and Persians, 
Portuguese and Greeks and Phoenicians, Baby- 
lonians and Chaldeans and Sumeriahs, and 
those " black-heads " who were perhaps the 
first progenitors of civilized humanity. Their 
footsteps ring down the ages, and yet they 
have left very few records. From the time 
when Alexander's famous admiral Nearchus, 



who commanded the Greek fleet in its navi- 
gation of the Persian Gulf, visited Bahrein, the 
island figures hardly at all in history. 

What brought the later comers to Bahrein ? 
The answer is — pearls. Even to-day Balirein 
has a world-wide interest as the centre of the 
Gulf pearl trade. In good years it sends to 
Paris and New York and London, by way of 
Bombay and Siu-at, a million pounds' worth of 
pearls. The Great Pearl Bank practically 
extends for more than half the length of the 
western side of the Gulf, commencing near Abu 
Musa, opposite Shargah, curving round to the 
island of Halul, then pasing near El Katar, and 
finally terminating at a point near Musa- 
lamiya, where the territories of the Sheikh of 
Koweit begin. Very little of the Bank lies in 
territorial waters, and therefore the right to 
fish upon it raises a rather nice question of 
international law. The pearl fisheries had 
been worked for many centuries by the various 
Arab communities on the western shores of the 
Gulf, who may be said to have acquired a pre- 
scriptive right in them. A British gunboat 
poUced tlie Bank during the fishery season, 
and preserNJ-ed order among the pearling 
dhows. Various enterprising persons of British, 
Indian, and other nationalities, who sought to 
particiiiate, were all warned off by the British 
Government. One writer observes : " The 
question really settles itself. I should be 



^ , 


















-^^jT.^.-^-^,^^^^ 



^^. 






MESSRS. WONCKHAUS AND GO.'S HEAP OF PEARL OYSTER SHELLS AT BAHREIN. 



THE TIMES HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 




H.M. SHIPS "ESPIEGLE" AND "ODIN" LYING OFF BASRA. 



sorry to go pearling amid a horde of retired 
pirates unless I had an escort of a squadron of 
cruisers." 

Germany thought differently. When the 
Wonckhaus firm transferred itself to Bahrein, 
its heaps of mother-of-pearl shells, bought from 
the fishermen and piled high outside the 
dilapidated building which served as an oftice, 
seemed innocent enough. But German minds 
a long way ofi had been thinking very ardently 
about the Pearl Bank. Searching amid the 
records of Constantinople, Germans had come 
upon the story of Midhat Pasha's great cruise 
in the Gulf in the early 'seventies, when he pro- 
fessed to annex Balirein to the Sultan's 
dominions. The hint was enough. A shadowy 
structure of Turkish claims was speedily reared. 
The enterprising Wonckhaus had not been 
settled for a year in Balirein before the Sultan 
was formally asked to grant to a German 
syndicate a monopoly of the pearl fisheries of 
the Persian Gulf. The Germans explained that 
they proposed to work the Pearl Bank by 
" scientific " methods, and the Sultan was to 
have his share of the proceeds. The Sultan 
had not the slightest territorial or financial 
interest in the pearl fisheries. He had no more 
right to grant a monopoly of pearl fishing in the 
Gulf than he had to confer whaling privileges 
in South Georgia. Yet he was solemnly pro- 
ceeding to accede to the German request when 
one sharp word from Great Britain quashed the 
whole scheme. 

But the Teuton is not easily rebuffed. The 



next that was heard of the German agents at 
Constantinople was that they were trying to 
persuade the Siiltan to give them a lease of 
the island of Halul, in the centre of the Gulf, 
sixty miles east of Bida, the port of the El 
Katar peninsula. Halul is an island two or 
three miles in circuniference, with plenty of 
flat grovmd. It has a useful boat -landing place, 
and a good anchorage well sheltered from the 
" shamal " winds, the terror of Gulf mariners. 
It has no water, but, as at Bunder Abbas and 
elsewhere in the Gulf, condensers could be 
used. Halul is right on the Pearl Banlc, a.nd 
within the 20-fathom line. It is really a ren- 
dezvous for the pearling fleet, and by long 
prescription is regarded as the joint property 
of all the Sheikhs sending dhows to the fisheries. 
It was no more Turkish than the island of 
Bombay, but the Power that held it would 
certainly control the pearl fisheries. It was, 
moreover, qmte good enough for a coaling 
station, and might have been made into an 
Oriental Heligoland. 

Again a British word in season stopped this 
little enterprise, but still the Germans per- 
sisted. Their next attempt was more definite, 
and for a time almost succeeded. They sought 
to establish rights on the island of Abu .Musa, 
fifty miles north-west of the town of Shargali. 
on the Pirate Coast. Abu Musa is rather bigger 
than Halul, and there is ample evidence that it 
has been continuously in the possession of the 
Sheikhs of Shargah. It is at Abu Musa that 
the Great Pearl Bank begins. It was over Abu 



96 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




[Lovat Fras;r: 

THE HOTTEST PLACE IN THE WORLD : ELPHINSTONE INLET, OMAN. 
A wonderful tropical fiord nineteen miles long, but human beings can only live there for four months in 

the year. The R.I.M.S "Lawrence " in distance. 



Musa that Germany fii-st showed signs of 
openly questioning the predoniinance of British 
influence in the Persian Gulf. In ten years 
she had travelled very feu* from the " inno- 
cent " German traders buying shells on Lingah 
Beach. 

There are red oxide deposits on Abu Musa, 
and the Sheikh of Shargah granted a concession 
for working them to three Arabs, who formed a 
partnership. Two of the men, father and son, 
resided at Lingah, and it is supposed that they 
apphed for the concession on German instiga- 
tion. The third partner was a Shargah man. 
In 190G the inevitable firm of Wonckhaus 
appeared on the scene and openly acquired the 
concession. The Wonckliaus firm was believed 
to be acting for the Hamburg-Amerika Com- 
pany, which had all the time been at the back 
of these pertinacious German activities in the 
troubled waters of the Gulf. 

The Sheikh of Shargah protested against the 
transfer, and requested the British Govermnent, 
as his protector, to intervene. He was one of 
the Trucial Chiefs, and by a treaty concluded in 
1892 all the chiefs had bound themselves '" not 



to enter into any agreement or correspondence 
with any other Power, nor admit the agent of 
any other Government, nor to part with any 
portion of their territories save to Great 
Britain." Xo notice was taken by ]\Iessrs. 
Wonckliaus & Co. of the Sheikh's stoppage of 
the concession. In October, 1907, therefore, 
H.^l.S. Lapwing towed to Abu ]Musa a number 
of sailing boats containing 300 of the Sheikh's 
armed followers. The men working the oxide 
deposits were removed and conveyed to Lingah- 
According to the German account, a repre- 
sentative of Wonckhaus arrived at the island a 
few hours later in a boat flying the German flag, 
which was fired on by the men from Shargah. 

Here, at last, was the "international inci- 
dent " for which Germany had been working. 
The German Government called for explana- 
tions. The German Foreign Office quickly 
mobilised its Press, and a small rock in the 
I'ersian Gulf, of which hardly anyone in or out 
of Germany had ever heard, was -made the 
subject of many cohmins of portentous articles. 
The Cologne Gazette was mild, and said that the 
German purpose was coimnercied. The Neueste 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



97 



Nachrichten, rather more severe, spoke of " the 
incomprehensible violation of German rights." 
The Berliner Tagcblatt grew a little violent, and 
announced that Great Britain was trying to 
undermine German prestige and to demonstrate 
her own supremacy. It said that the English 
" seem to have had the intention of showing 
Germany that she can do nothing in the Middle 
East without Great Britain's consent." It 
cryptically declared that " commerce and 
politics can no longer be divided," and that 
Germany could only attain comniercial success 
by " energetic political action." 

The hubbub was reflected in the London 
Press, but it soon ceased. The German ca,se had 
not a leg to stand on. The island had clearly 
been in the possession and the continuous 
occupation of the Sheikhs of Shargah for many 
generations. The Sheikh had an equal right to 
make the concession and to object to its 
transfer without his consent. In one respect 



the incident still served the German purpose. 
It had enabled Germany publicly to question 
for the first time the British claims to para- 
mountcy in the Gulf. She made a formal 
protest, but did not then pursue the matter. 

About the time that Germany became 
interested in the Pearl Bank her hand also 
became visible on the Karun River, in Persian 
territory, at the head of the Giilf, in the region 
where the British Admiralty afterwards acquired 
extensive oil interests. The Karun River is in 
the territory of the Sheikh of Mohammerah, a 
semi-independent chieftain who has special 
relations with Great Britain, though he nomi- 
nally acknowledges the overlordship of Persia. 
The German Legation in Teheran was biisily 
engaged in endeavouring to extend German 
influence in Persia, more particularly in the 
south. A Dutchman named Van Roggen, who 
was understood to be a German agent, iirrived 
on the Karim River, and worked out a scheme 




TRIBESMEN IN ELPHINSTONE INLET, OMAN. 
They are Shihiyins, the most primitive people in Arabia. 



iLovai l-rjicr. 



Da 



THE TIMES HISTORY OE THE WAR. 



for irrigating the river valley at a cost ot" two 
millions sterling. 

The episode was again typieal of German 
arbitrary methods. Germany applied to tlie 
Persian Government for a concession for the 
irrigation scheme. It was not in the gift of 
Persia at all. The Sheikh ot Mohammerah said 
that if he wanted his territory irrigated he would 
do it himself, with the aid of British financiers. 
At his request one of the Punjab irrigation 
engineers spent eighteen months on the Karun 
working out a separate scheme. Germany still 
pressed Persia for the concession. The Sheikh 
made it quite clear to the Teheran authorities 
that if they tried to alienate his rights in favoiu" 
of Germany he would offer active resistance, 
which he was well able to do. The German 
position was seen to be quite untenable, and 
after a time the Van Roggen scheme was 
withdrawn. 

The time came, after ten years of spade- 
work, when the Hamburg -Ainerika Coinpany 
publicly entered into the Gulf trade. In Sep- 
tember, 1906, a line of steamers was started, 
plying between Hamburg, Aden, Muscat, and 
all the principal Gulf ports. The ubiquitous 
Wonckhaus, his hiunble beginnings in a native 



V 



house at Lingah entirely obscured, blossomed 
forth as the accredited agent of the famous 
Hambiu-g-Amerika Company, with the benedic- 
tions of the mighty Herr Ballin himself. The 
arrival of the first German steamer was long 
remembered in the Gulf. It entered eacfi port 
with a band playing " Deutschland iiber 
Alles," and an air which the listening Britons 
fondly supposed to be " God Save the King." 
Its cargo appeared to consist chiefly of unlimited 
quantities of ropy German champagne, which 
was lavishly dispensed to all and sundry. A 
dinner of innumerable courses was served at 
every stopping-place. All were welcome. It 
was a wonderful time for the satellites of the 
patient Wonckliaus. 

The Hamburg-Amerika cargoes were not 
long confined to chainpagne. The service was 
soon reduced to a monthly one, but the German 
trade grew, although the disturbed internal 
condition of Southern Persia greatly affected 
business at all Persian ports. In the year 
1911-12 German imports at Bushire were 
valued at £39,000 ; those of the United King- 
dom and India at £707,000. Exports from 
Bushire to Germany were valued at £67,000 ; 
those to the United Ivingdom and India at 
£394,000. At Bunder Abbas in the same year 
German imports amounted to £20,000, and 
British and Indian £322,000 ; exports to Ger- 
many £14, to Great Britain and India, £147,000. 
On the other hand, German trade with Basra 
and Mesopotamia- increased very rapidly, 
showing in 1912 a growth of 33 per cent, in 
imports and of 28 per cent, in exports. The 
figures were : imports, £528,415 ; exports, 
£375,760. The British figures were vastly 
larger, but German trade made steady pro- 
gress at Basra until the war stopped it. 




BRITISH TELEGRAPH STATION ON HENJAM ISLAND. 
The island of Kishm lies across the chanael. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



99 




CROWD AT BASRA WATCHING THE BRITISH ENTRY. 



The Hambxirg-Amerika steamer?, are believed 
to have been heavily subsidized. 

When the negotiations between Great Britain, 
Germany, Turkey and other countries, with 
regard to the Baghdad Railway, gradually 
took shape in London, Germany for the time 
being abandoned her clumsy attempts to obtain 
a foothold in the Gulf by surreptitious means. 
It will be seen that by the vigilance of the 
British representatives on the spot she was 
invariably foiled at every ]>oint. She saw, 
however, that the advantages she had failed 
to gain by direct action might probably be 
stealthily obtained in course of time by diplo- 
matic action. British interests in the Persian 
Gulf Were less understood and less rigidly 
guarded in London. 

During the three years before the war an 
agreement between Great Britain and Turkey 
was drafted after very long discussion. It 
provided that the terminus of the Baghdad 
Railway was to be at Basra, its natural outlet, 
and that no extension to Koweit was to be 
built tmless the consent of Great Britain was 
first obtained. Turlcey further agreed to 
abandon her entirely mythical pretensions to 
suzerainty over the Bahrein Islands, Muscat, 
and the territory of the Trucial Chiefs, a 
valueless concession, because her suzerainty 
had never existed, the claim was quite modern, 
and it had never been acknowledged by the 
rulers directly concerned. She also undertook 



to evacuate the peninsula of El Katar, an almost 
equally empty offer, because she had never 
held more than a couple of tiny ports. On 
the other hand. Great Britain agreed to recog- 
nize the suz.erainty of Turkey over Koweit, 
while Turkey promised not to interfere with 
the internal affairs of Koweit, and said she 
would recognize' the conventions Cthere is 
believed to be one later than that of 1899) 
between Great Britain and Koweit. The 
expediency of the British admission was 
strongly questioned by those who hold that 
Turkish pretensions to suzerainty over Koweit 
are vague and indefensible. The agreement 
further provided that a representative of the 
Turkish Government should in future reside 
at Koweit. It has been objected to this pro- 
vision that it would have opened the door to 
intrigue, and that it was at variance with the 
spirit of the convention of 1899. A British 
naval officer in 1901 ordered off the Sultan's 
representative. Ten years later the British 
Government were ]3roposing to admit him, 
although in the Gulf every Turkish official 
had become a German agent. 

The agreement with Turkey, which had 
been drafted with the full cognizance and practi- 
cally in consultation with the German Govern- 
ment, was never signed, although the negoti- 
ations were intermittently continued almost 
until the outbreak of war. At the same time 
an agreement between Great Britain and 



100 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 







< 
U 



< 

o 
z 

z 

O 



si 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



101 



Germany with regard to the Baghdad Railway, 
^Mesopotamia, and other matters, was also 
drafted. A telegram from Berlin stated that 
it was initialled in London by Sir Edward Grey 
and Prince Lichnowsky in the middle of June, 
six weeks before the war. It was not signed, 
and the precise character of its contents was 
not disclosed. During the two or three years 
before the war the construction of the Baghdad 
Railway was steadily continued, and work 
was begim. on the section between Baghdad 
and Basra. The full story of the Baghdad 
Railway, which has far wider ramifications 
than have here been touched upon, does not 
require recital in connexion with the campaign 
in the delta. 

It is interesting to note that while Turkey was 
demonstrating in London her inalienable claims 
to the Arabian region of El Hasa and to the 
western shores of the Gulf south of Koweit 
territory, she was rudely evicted from these 
areas. In the summer of 1913 the redoubtable 
Ibn Saud crowned his victorious career by 
sweeping the Turks, lock, stock and barrel, out 
of El Hasa and all Eastern Arabia, probably 
never to return. The remnants of their troops 
arrived on the Gulf coast in a sorry plight, and 
were rescued by a British steamer. Their 
disappearance did not prevent the British 
Goverrmaent from solemnly assenting to tiie 
demarcation of the Turkish " possessions " in 
Eastern Arabia, and from continuing to discuss 
at inordinate length the Turkish " right " to a 
long section of the Gulf coast which the Turks 
had filched less than forty years before, and 
from which they had been ingloriously expelled. 

The story of the advent of Germany into the 
Persian Gulf, and of the results which followed 
therefrom, has been told at some length and in 
considerable detail for a special reason. It is 
probably the only instance on record — except 
perhaps Morocco — in which German methods 
of "world-expansion" can be traced from the 
very earliest beginnings down to the latest phase. 
We see the v^iole process at work, from the 
modest arrival of an obscure gentleman from 
Hamburg upon the sun-steeped shoi'es of the 
Clarence Straits, down to the noisy appearance 
of the big steamer with its stewards' band, and 
the cargoes of railway material which were 
meant to make Basra and its river the Hamburg 
of the East. We see the first crude attempts 
to seize unconsidered islets ; the schemes 
for obtaining concessions by illicit means ; 
the quiet manufactiu-e of " international 



incidents " ; the initial half-hearted attempts 
to question the validity of the British position ; 
the tentative unleashing of the German Press ; 
the entry of the great financiers, with their 
web of intrigue ; the transference of issues 
which seem unimportant, but are really vital, 
to the European Chancelleries ; and, finally, 
the dangerous stage of agreements, by which 
Great Britain is to be tempted by smooth 
words to open the door for the destruction 
of interests patiently won by centuries of 
effort. It is all there — a picture of German 
world-politics in miniature. Each isolated 
incident is trivial in itself ; collectively they 
mean much. 

It may be argued that Germany had an entire 
right to establish and extend her trade around 
the shores of this inland sea. Of course she had. 
No one has ever dreamed of questioning her 
right to trade or to build railways. What was 
questioned was her motives and some of her 
acts. It was the combination of commercial 
effort with political action, so lucidly explained 
by the Berliner Tagehlatt, which roused British 
hostility to the doings of Germany in the 
Persian Gulf. On innumerable Gorman plat- 
forms the ultimate aims of Germany in the 
]\Iiddle East were expounded with arrogance 
and without reserve. Countless German books 
dealt with the same theme. The intention \\'as 
to supplant and replace British influence in 
these regions, and not to supplement it. To 
that great end all the German efforts were 
in reality directed. 

By what right, it may further be aslced, did 
Great Britain endeavour to resist German 
expansion in these waters ? Had she any real 
authority for her claims to paramountcy beyond 
self-interest and the need for guarding India ? 
It remains to answer these natural questions 
and to define the solid grounds upon which the 
British position in the Persian Gulf is based. 

Great Britain had taken nothing for herself 
in the Gulf; had pi'eserved peace aroimd its 
shores, and had given equal opportunities to all. 
That is the sum of her case. She kept tlie 
peace of the Gulf vmaided and unsupported. 
She sought no peculiar privileges. Sho ae- 
(iuircd no territory. She held point aftrr 
point in the Gulf, and gave them all back, save 
only a patch of land at Basidu, on tlie island of 
Kishm, and her telegraph station on the island 
of Hen jam. Every nation was able to benefit 
by her efforts, and trade was unrestricted. 
But if she imposed a self-denying ordinance 



102 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 






<^^mJ^\ 




[By Permission of " lUuslrated Loidon Xews." 

JUNCTION OF TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES AT KURNA. 
Union Jack floating on Governor's House, afterwards occupied by British General and Staff. All the 
houses were loopholed, and much damaged by British fire. Two Krupp guns among the palm trees; 

mountain gun near Governor's House. 



upon herself, slie imposed it equallj' on otJiers. 
She could brook no rivalry in the Gulf, and, 
above all, she could not contemplate the creation 
of territorial interests by any other Power. 

The first Englishman who ever visited the 
Gulf was Ralph Fitch, who traversed it from 
end to end in 1583, in the reign of Queen 
Elizabeth, in the company of three other 
Englishmen. They were captured by the 
Portuguese and sent to Goa, being the first of 
the English to set foot in India. Thus they 
made the acquaintance of the country from the 
inside of a Portuguese gaol. The object of Fitch 
was the development of trade, and his journey 
was one of the occurrences which led to the 
formation of the organization which ultiinately 
became the East India Company. It was not, 
however, until 1618 that the British flag was 



first flown in the vicinity of the Gulf. In that 
year one of the Company's trading vessels was 
sent from Surat to Jask, near the entrance to 
the Gulf, where nowadays Great Britain 
maintains a telegraph station. Trade with Jask 
continued for tliree or four years, but the 
obstruction of the Portuguese, who held the city 
and island of Hormuz, became so pronounced 
that it was resolved to attack them. An 
arrangejnent was made with the Shah of Persia, 
who had already sent an army to besiege 
Hormuz. Part of this arrangement, duly 
embodied in a treaty, was that the Company 
were " constantly to defend the Gulf " with 
warships, as already noted. 

After the sack of Hormuz, a British factory 
was established at Bimder Abbas. Subse- 
quently there were frequent encounters between 



I?0O|>t Cxn.tLMJ 







J-^^iB^ 



IBv Permissjon of " lUiistraieJ LonJon News,' 

SCENE OF ACTIONS ON THE SHATT-AL-ARAB ON NOV. 15 AND 17 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



103 



thp British squadron and the Dutch and 
I'ortuguese, as well as the Arabs, although it 
was with British aid that the Arabs expelled 
the Portuguese from Muscat. British prestige 
steadily increased in the Gulf during the next 
century and a half, and the British flag \vas 
both respected and feared. Frequent help 
was given to the Persians, who owed it to the 
British that they did not become a nation 
without a seaboard. The survey of the Gulf 
was begun by the Indian Navy in 1785 and 
thus was set on foot an undertaking which 
continued to the time of the great war. Both 
the charts and the lights of the Gulf were 
solely the outcome of British enterprise. 

The greatest work Great Britain tmdertook 
in the Gulf was the suppression of piracy. 
The Arab tribes seem to have always fought 
one another on sea and land, and to have 
occasionally united to attack the passing 
stranger ; but they never really entered upon 
organized and persistent piracy till they were, 
at the beginning of last century, welded together 
by the great Wahabi movement in Arabia. All 
along the Pirate Coast there are lagoons and 
, backwaters, in which the pirates sheltered their 
vessels, and behind which their towns were 
built. The boldest of the pirates were the 
Joasmi tribe, whose headquarters were at 
Ras-ul-Ivheima. 

By 1806 the pirates had become so aggressive 
that the British cornered a Joasmi fleet off 
the island of Kishm, and a treaty was signed 
at Bunder Abbas. The pirates, however, cared 
little for treaties, and soon recommenced their 
work of depredation. At times they even 
attacked the Company's cruisers, and when 
they boarded and captured the small British 
warship Sylph, part of a squadron carrying 
Sir Harford Jones's Mission to Persia, it was 
felt that strong reprisals were necessary. A 
military expedition, which included the York 
and Lancaster Regiment and the Loyal North 
Lancashires, was dispatched to Ras-ul-Kheima, 
and bm-ned the town and the pirate fleet. 

The expedition then crossed the Gulf, and 
the town of Lingah was destroyed. The fortress 
of Laft, on the island of Kishm, was captiu-ed 
in an extraordinary manner. The force attack- 
ing the fortress was beaten off, but next morn- 
ing the British were astonished to see the Union 
Jack waving from its walls. An ofiicer had 
gone ashore in the night, found that most of 
the defenders had fled, obtained admission, 
and hoisted the flag. 




THE PALM GROVE AT SAHIL GAMP. 

Afterwards the piratical craft at Shargah 
and other towns on the Pirate Coast were 
destroyed, and finally at Shinas, on the coast 
of Oman, a thousand Wahabis were killed. It 
was on this occasion that the Wahabi leader, 
the then Ibn Saud, wrote to the British authori- 
ties : "In truth, then, war is bitter ; and only 
a fool engages in it, as the poet has said." 

Even this lesson did not suffice for the 
Joasmis. By 1812 they were sweeping the 
seas once more, and in 1815 they had even 
captured a vessel so far away as the coast of 
Kathiawar, Western India. In 1816 a British 
squadron menaced Ras-ul-Kheima again, but 
made no impression. In 1817 the .Toasmis 
built a fort at Basidu, on the island of Ivisluu. 
In 1818 they were ravaging the west coast 
of India, and in 181!) a fleet of sixty-four 
pirate vessels, manned by seven thousand men, 
was off the coasts of Cutch and Kathiawar 

But the cup of the iniquities of the Joasmis 
was full to overflowing. A powerful force was 
assembled at Bombay under Sir William (U-ant 
Keir, including the two British regiments which 
had fought in the Gulf seven years before. 
Ras-ul-Kheima was cannonaded and finally 
carried by assault, 300 of the ^Vrabs being killed 
and 700 wounded. The other Joasmi ports 
were visited in turn and their fortifications 
blown up. At Sohar, on the Oman coast, there 
w£is considerable fighting. Finally, in 1820. a 



104 



THE TIMES HISTOliY OF THE WAR. 




[Elliott and Fry 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR ARTHUR 
BARRETT, K.C.B. 

general treaty of peace was concluded with the 
pirate chiefs. The York and Lancaster Regi- 
ment still bears the word " Arabia " on its 
colours in commemoration of these forgotten 
campaigns. 

Sir William Grant Keir's expedition dealt 
piracy in the Guh its death-blow. The Beni 
Yas at Abu Dhabi made a desperate attempt 
to hoist the blood-red flag again in 1834. 
Anticipating a suggestion afterwards heard in 



comic opera, they even prepared boiling oil 
in which to place the Christians they captured. 
They were promptly suppressed, however, 
and an episode which began with cauldrons 
of boiling oil ended in a trial in the Bombay 
High Court. The various treaties entered 
into with the leaders of the tribes on the Pirate 
Coast, known as the Trucial Chiefs, were con- 
solidated in the general treaty of 1853. To this 
was added the treaty of 1892, by which the 
chiefs agreed to place their external relations 
in British hands, and not to alienate any portion 
of their territories to foreign Powers. 

It would be too much to say that piracy 
entirely disappeared from the Gulf. Isolated 
acts of piracy occurred almost every year, and 
they generally emanated from the territory 
which was alleged to be imder Turkish control. 
They were usually swiftly pimished, but there 
could be little doubt that if the strong hand of 
the British was withdra^-n, Arab fleets would 
again commence their depredations. 

In suppressing piracy in the Gulf, Great 
Britain was not only seeking the protection of 
her own trade, but was " soUcitous for the 
common good, and was serving other nations 
as well as herself." An almost equally long 
story might be told concerning the strenuous 
British efforts for the suppression of the slave 
trade, extending over many years and still 
imfinished. The British control of the arms 
traffic involved heavy expenditure and most 
laborious patrols. Sometin"ies the whole East 
Indies Squadron was occupied in tliis work, 
and in 1911 Admiral Sir Edmond Slade led a 




FAO, THE FIRST POINT CAPTURED BY THE BRITISH. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



105 




THE DELTA OF THE TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES. 



combined naval and military expedition into 
Persian Mekran to punish gun-runners. 

The British sanitary organization did much 
for the health of the Gulf, and for ten years 
kept at bay the repeated appearances of plague. 
The duties of the British Resident in the Gulf, 
whose headquarters were at Bushire, were 
niany and varied. He was by general consent 
the arbiter in the quarrels between the different 
local rulers, and was alike their counsellor and 
their friend. His influence was always directed 
towards the preservation of peace and order. 
He composed the occasional di^erences between 
the Trucial Chiefs, protected the coasts of Arabia 
and Persia from external aggression, saved the 
native dhows from being plundered in the date 
season, and, as has already been said, maintained 
order at the annual pearl fisheries. 

The British claim to paramountcy in the Gulf 
thus rests on a long sequence of events by 
which, at a heavy expenditiu-e of blood and 
treasure, we made it a haven of peace. Our 
flag was flying in the Straits of Oman when the 



Germans plunged into the Thirty Years' War. 
We had shouldered our burden there before 
the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth. If we 
were to lose our grip, piracy, slave-dealing, 
raids and counter-raids, all the characteristics of 
the days of barbarism, would at once reappear. 
The flare of burning coast -towns, scenes of 
rapine and bloodshed, would instantly remind 
us of oiu" abandoned obligation. Having taken 
up the burden, we ow^d it to the peoples of the 
Gulf, living in security imder our guardianshiji, 
not to abandon it. There is no part of our 
work in the world that can be contemplated 
with greater satisfaction. After we had per- 
formed it for tlu-ee hundred years, Gerniany 
deliberately prepared to challenge our presence 
and our piu-pose there. The Gulf was her goal, 
and she was not satisfied with the opportunities 
for trade which were open to all nations alike. 
The resistance we offered to her plans \\as no 
more than oiu" bounden duty. 

There is no need to contend that Groat 
Britain exercised peculiar unselfishness irk 



lor, 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




THE DAMAGED CUSTOMS HOUSE AT KURNA. 
How the Royal Navy left it. 



this self-imposed task. We were unselfish in 
our manner of performing it, but the fact need 
not be disgviised that we were driven to assume 
responsibilities in the Gulf mainly by considera- 
tions of self-interest. The maintenance of 
British predominance in the Gulf is an essential 
part of the defence of India. The mere presence 
of another Power in the Persian Gulf, whether its 
post be fortified or unfortified, would have a 
gravely unsettling effect upon India. The 
people of India would not stop to think whether, 
from such a post, their country could be really 
threatened. The fact that another flag was 
flying in a region where the British had been 
dominant for three hundred years, and supreme 
for more than a century, would suffice to per- 
suade them that our strength was declining, 
and such confidence as we now inspire would 
instantly be diminished. It is not from 
strategic reasons alone that we are compelled 
to maintain our special position in tlie Gulf. 
We have to think also of the moral effect which 
the intrusion of another Power would produce 
upon India. 

The truth of these contentions has been 
demonstrated by a dispassionate and entirely 
impartial observer. So long ago as 1902 the 
late Admiral INIahan declared that he saw " the 
question of the Persian Gulf, and of South 
Pei"sia in connexion with it, clearly visible upon 



the horizon." He warned us that " concession 
in the Persian Gulf, whether by formal arrange- 
ment [with other Powers], or by neglect of the 
local commercial interests which now underlie 
poUtical and military control, will imperil 
Great Britain's naval situation in the Farther 
East, her political position in India, her com- 
mercial interests in both, and the Imperial tie 
between herself and Australasia." Unfor- 
tunately his warning, and all warnings, were 
disregarded when the British Government began 
to dabble in Anglo-Turkish and Anglo-German 
agreements. 

In a striking passage he defined the question 

thus : 

Great Britain, in the clear failure of Turkey and Persia, 
is the nation first — that is, most — concerned. She is not 
so only in her own right, and that of her own people, 
but in the yet more binding one of Imperial obligation 
to a great and politically helpless ward of the Empire — 
to India and her teeming population. In her own right 
and duty she Ls, as regards the maintenance of order, in 
nctual possession, having discharged this office to the 
Gulf for several generations. Doiibtless, here as in 
Egypt, now that the constructive work has been done, 
she might find others who would willinglj' relieve her of 
the burden of maintenance ; but as regards such transfer, 
the decision of acceptance would rest by general custom 
with the present possessor, and to her the question is not 
one merely of convenience, but of duty, arising from, 
and closely involved with existing conditions, which 
are the more imperative because they are plants of mature 
growth, with roots deep struck and closely intertwined 
in the soil of a past history. These conditions are 
doubtless manifold, but m last analysis they are sub- 
stantiallv three. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAU. 



107 



First, her security in India, which would be materially 
nfiected by an adverse change in the political control of 
the Gulf. 

Secondly, the safety of tl:e great sea route, com- 
uiercial and military, to India and the Farther East, on 
which British shippnig is still actually the chief traveller, 
though with a notable dinnnnlion that demands national 
attention. 

Thirdly, the economic and commercial welfare of 
India, which can act politically only through the Empire, 
a dependence which greatly enhances obligation. 

The control of the Persian Gulf by a foreign State of 
considerable naval potentiality, a fleet in being there 
based upon a strong military port, would reproduce the 
relations of Cadiz, Gibraltar, and Malta to the Mediter- 
ranean. It would flank all the routes to the Farther 
East, to India, and to .Australia, the last two actually 
internal to the Empire regarded as a political system ; 
and although Great Britain iniquestionably would check 
such a fleet, so placed, by a division of her own, it might 
well require a detachment large enough to affect seriously 
the general strength of her naval position. 

Such a weighty pronouncement needs no 
further emphasis. It only remains to add that 
among the numerous declarations made by 
Great Britain on this subject, the chief is that 
spoken by Lord Lansdowne, then Foreign 
Secretary, in the House of I^ords on May 5, 1903. 
He said : "I say it without hesitation, we 
should regard the establishment of a naval 
base or of a fortified port in the Persian Gulf by 
any other Power as a very grave menace to 
British interests, and we should certainly resist 
it by all the means at our disposal." That is 
our Monroe Doctrine in the Middle East, and 
from it we cannot depart. It may fitly close 
this preliminary examination of the problems 
of the Persian Gulf and the countries around it. 

On October 29, 1914, the German warships 
had bombarded Russian towns on the Black 
Sea coast, and on October 30 Sir Louis Mallet 
asked at Constantinople for his passports. The 
rupture of relations between Great Britain and 
Turkey had been fully expected by the small 
British community at Basra, and many of the 
British subjects there left for Mohammerah, in 
Persian territory, on October 27. H.M.S. 
Espiegle had been lying in the Karun River 
off IMohammerah for some weeks. She is a 
gunboat of 1,070 tons, with a speed of 13 J knots, 
and is armed with six 4-inch guns. When the 
people at Mohammerah noticed the little 
Espiegle clearing for action on October 31, 
they knew that a conflict was near. Late that 
afternoon several more Englishmen arrived at 
Mohammerah from Basra, but when others 
tried to leave Basra still later in the day they 
were detained.* On Monday, November 2, the 
British Consul, Mr. BuUard, and the remaining 
juembers of the British colony, embarked on a 
Turkish steamer. All save the Consul were 



compelled to disembark again, as the Governor 
of Basra announced that he had received 
telegraphic instructions from Constantinople 
to detain everybody except Mr. Bullard. It 
is satisfactory to be able to add that all the 
persons detained were found safe when Basra 
was afterwards captured. 

The same thing was reported to have hap- 
pened at Baghdad. Only the British Consul 
and his family, and the French Consul, were 
allowed to leave. They made the voyage down 
the Tigris in one of the laimches of Messrs. 
Lynch, the Ishtar. The laimcn was com- 
mandeered on arrival at Basra, and the party 
continued their journey in a Turldsh steamer. 
The ' detained Etu-opeans were afterwards 
reported safe, but it was subsequently said that 
they had been removed to a city in Asia Minor. 

The Government of India, which had charge 
of the Gulf operations, had been equally fore;- 
warned. Some time before the outbreak of 
hostilities they had deemed it prudent to 
strengthen their forces in the Gulf. The Poena 
Brigade, under Brigadier - General W. S. 
Delamain, had been sent to the island of 
Bahrein. It included the 2nd Dorsets, the 
20th Infantry (Brownlow's Punjabis), the 
117th Mahrattas, and the 104th Welle.sley's 
Rifles. It was accompanied by the 23rd 
(Peshawar) Mountain Battery, and the .30th 
Mountain Battery. 




[I-Hiof :nui I-'rv. 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL W. S. DELAMAIN. 



108 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




[Elliott and Fry. 
COLONEL SIR PERCY COX, 
Britiih Resident and Consul-General In the 
Persian Gulf. 



In due course the Brigade re-embarked, and 
reached the bar at the niouth of the Shatt-al- 
Arab on November 7. The bar is an immense 
and increasing obstruction of extremely soft 
mud, through which there is only one good 
navigable channel. The Turks have often bi.-n 
rightly blamed for not dredging it, but on the 
other hand it must be admitted that the mud 
is so liquid that dredging operations will not 
be easy. At the outer edge of the bar no 
land was visible, nothing but an expaiLse of 
brown silt-laden waters. The aspect was very 
like that of the Taku bar, outside the Peiho 
river which leads to Tientsin. 

As the sliips drew nearer the shore low green 
banks were revealed, and a fiat country which 
might have been mistaken for the shores of the 
Scheldt were it not for the green date groves. 
About three miles along the bank the village 
of Fao came into view. It is a small place with 
about 400 inhabitants, chiefly herdsmen and 
cultivators. The Turkish mud fort was almost 
hidden. The cable station consisted of a couple 
of two-storied buildings, occupied respectively 
by the Turkish operators and the officials of the 
Indo-Eiu-opean Telegraph Companj^ Persia 
lay on the. other side of the broad and muddy 
stream. Its defences were represented by a 
square fort with bastioned corners, nearly 
opposite the cable station. 

The taking of Fao was a verj' brief epi- 



sode. H.M.S. Odin (Commander Cathca'-t R. 
\\'ason), a sister gunboat to the Eipiegle, 
together with the armed launch Sirdar, 
bombarded the Turkish fort and reduced it to 
silence in about an hour. A portion of the 
brigade together with a force of marines from 
the battleship Ocean, which lay outside, was 
landed, and the town was occupied. The 
invasion of Chaldea had begun. It was not the 
flrst time that a British force had sailed into the 
Shatt-al-Arab. During the war with Persia 
early in 1857 Sir Henry Havelock entered the 
river with 4,000 men and took ^Mohammerah. 
On that occasion the Seaforth Highlanders and 
the Staffordshire Regiment participated. The 
Seaforths afterwards actually ascended the 
Karrni River and captiu-ed the city of Ahwaz, 
an exploit which was almost mamediately 
forgotten owing to the outbreak of the Indian 
Mutiny. 

Having made good his position at Fao, where 
he left a detachment of native infantry, General 
Delamain proceeded more than thirty miles 
up the river with the bulk of his brigade. The 
voyage cannot at any time be called picturesque. 
The Turkish bank is clothed with trees, largely 
date groves, behind which stretch swamps and 
desert. The Persian bank is less wooded, but 
rather dreary, though the iand is green enough. 
These lower areas of the delta pro%ide excellent 
snipe shooting, as many an exiled naval officer 
has f oimd. The edges of the banks are soft and 
muddy, and rather steep. Landing is ex- 
ceedingly difficult, as General Delamain 
discovered when the time came for hun to 
disembark his force. 

The reason he had hurried on became plain 
to all after the expedition had steamed onward 
for tliree or four hours. There on the bank of 
the island of Abadan, on the Persian side, stood 
the new and spacious refinerj- of tlie Anglo- 
Persian Oil Comjjanj', which is destined to 
supply oil for the ships of the Royal Xa\'y. 
Its large electric power station, and thf 
installation for making tins and cans for 
kerosene and benzine, offered the enemy 
tempting opportiuiities for destruction. H.^l.S. 
Espiegle was guarding the works when the 
expedition arrived. The night before, two 
small Turkish motor gunboats, built by 
Thornycroft, had come down the river after 
siuiset. The Espiegle was waiting for them, 
and after an exchange of shots drove them off. 
Tliat morning the Espiegle had gone up stream 
and round the bend and shelled a small Turkish 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



109 



post, and also a custom -hovise. The Turks 
had some guns concealed, and replied with 
vigour. 

The oU refinery at Abadan is the outcome of a 
concession granted in 1901 to Mr. W. K. 
D'Arcy, a British subject, to exploit petroli- 
fisroios areas throughout the Persian Empire. 
Mr. D'Arcy commenced the work himself, but 
the concession was acquired in 1909 by the 
Anglo-Persian Oil Company, a purely British 
organization. The late Lord Strathcona was 
largely instrumental in forming the company, 
and remained its chairman untU liis death. 
When the project was placed before him his 
characteristic question was, " Will it help the 
Empire ? " On being assured that the project 
had Imperial importance, he supported it with 
enthusiasm. When the Board of Admiralty 
sought to adopt oil fuel on a large scale for 
British warships, it became desirable for the 
Government to acquire direct access to some 
source of oil supply which would save them from 
the danger of being at the mercy of oil mono- 
polists. At the instanec of Lord Fisher, an 
Admiralty Commission, of wliich Vice-Admiral 
Sir Edmond Slade was the head, was sent out 
very quietly in October, 1913, to report upon 
the Anglo -Persian oilfields. Their report was 
so favourable that in June, 1911, the House of 
■Commons, at the request of Mr. Winston 
Churchill, decided that the Government should 



acqviire share or loan capital in the Anglo - 
Persian Oil Company to the extent of 
£2,200,000. 

Though the company " proved " oil at 
various points in Southern and Western 
Persia, its first large soiu-ce of supply was at 
Maidan-i-Naphtun (the Plain of Naphtha), 
about 150 miles north-east of the refinery at 
Abadan. A pipe-line was constructed between 
Abadan and Maidan-i-Naphtun, but tJie 
sujjply was so enormous that only a very 
few wells had been tapped. The oil flows from 
the wells to large storage tanks on the field, 
whence it is pumped into the pipe -line from a 
pumping station at Tembi, four miles away. 
The capacity of the line is about 350,000 tons 
per annum, and the oil available seems illimit- 
able. The Abadan refinery is able to deal with 
about 1,000 tons of crude oil daily. The chief 
offices of the company are at Mohammerah, 
and there is a large British staff at Abadan. 
After the Government acquired an interest in 
the company, preparations were begun for 
the construction of a second pipe-line which 
would increase production by about a million 
tons a year. 

It was always recognized that the pipe-line 
and the Abadan works would be to a certain 
extent vulnerable in the event of a sudden 
outbreak of war with Tvu-key. The subsequent 
invasion of Persia and the temporary capture 




ANGLO-PERSIAN OIL COMPANY'S REFINERIES ON ABAUAN INLAND. 



110 



THK TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



of Tabriz, showed that, as was anticipated, 
Turkey had no more intention of respecting 
the netitrality of Persia than Germany was 
willing to refrain from molesting Belgium. The 
Government, however, felt reasonably confident 
that they could protect their own property, 
and they were instantly successful on this 
occasion at Abadan. As a matter of fact, 
the Royal Navy was not in the least degree 
dependent upon Persian oil when the war 
broke out. Great Britain entered the war with 
immense reserves of fuel oil stored in the 
United Ivingdom, which was an essential 
feature of Admiralty policy. 

General Delamain proceeded past the Abadan 
oil .works and round the bend of the river, 
anchoring half an hour later at Saniyeh, about 
35 miles from the sea. Here he disembarked 
his brigade on the Turkish banlc without 
opposition, but with some difficulty, the bank 
being about ten feet high, and very mnddy and 
slippery. The brigade at once proceeded to 
make a strong entrenched camp close to the 
river, while awaiting the arrival of reinforce- 
ments. It was not left long in peace. At 
dawn on November 11 the outposts were 
attacked by a considerable Turkish force, 
which had evidently hurried down from 
i>asra. The Turks were quickly checked 
by the 117th Malu-attas, but they had estab- 



lished themselves in a village from which they 
could only be dislodged by a considerable effort. 
The 20th Punjabis made a counter-attack, 
supported by fire from a mountain battery. 
Major Ducat was mortally wounded at close 
quarters while gallantly leading a company 
of the Punjabis against the village. The 
enemy were finally routed, and as they with- 
drew the maxims got in on their flank. The 
Turkish casualties were believed to amount to 
about 80. The British casualties were very 
few, but Captain Franlcs, of the Mahrattas, was 
seriously wovuided. 

On November 13, soon after daybreak, 
Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Barrett, who 
had been placed in command of the operations 
against Basra, arrived with several transports 
off the bar at the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab. 
The reinforcements included the Ahmednagar 
Brigade, vmder Brigadier -General W. H. Dobbie, 
C.B., consisting of the 1st Battalion Oxford and 
Bucks Light Infantry, the 119th Infantry (the 
Mooltan Regiment), and the 103rd Mahrattas ; 
and the Belgaum Brigade, under Brigadier- 
General C. I. Fry, consisting of the 2nd Nor- 
folks, the 110th Mahrattas, the 120th Raj- 
putana Infantry, and the 7th Rajputs. There 
were also tliree batteries of the Royal Field 
Artillerj^ the 48th Pioneers, the 3rd Sappers 
and Miners, and the 33rd Light Cavalry, the 




PREPARING RIVER STEAMERS FOR THE KURNA ADVANCE. 

Two field guns on S.S. "Medjidieh" in foreground. Two other guns on S.S. " Blosse Lynch" beyond. 

Vessels protected with grain bags and bales. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR: 



111 









1 


" \ 




g J . 1 "^ E ^ 


1 ^^ Hi !■ ■ y.^^f -I« '" ^ 




Mpi^^ 


'^^^^^Sl^M 




1 •■ . . 




1 


■ 



THE HAMBURG-AMERIKA S.S. ' ECKBATANA,' SUNK BY THE TURKS IN THE 

SHATT-AL-ARAB. 

Three vessels were sunk here, but the obstruction proved inadequate. 



last-named regiment being xinder the command 
of Lieut. -Col. Wogan Browne. The 33rd Cavalry 
won distinction in the Gulf in 1857, and their 
charges at the battle of Khooshaub have a very 
special place in Indian cavalry annals. The 
troops named by no means represent the total 
force employed in Mesopotamia, but they were 
ihe first reinforcements to arrive. 

On the 14th the transports crossed the bar 
at 6 a.m., and accompanied by various warships 
steamed up the river. A cold breeze was blow- 
ing, and the troops began to notice the change 
from the climate of India, and to put on thicker 
clothing. It can be very cold in the Shatt-al- 
Arab in the winter months, and from the tropics 
the expedition had passed to a region where 
fires are almost a necessity at such a season. 
Saniyeh was reached at 10.30 a.m., and Colonel 
Sir Percy Cox at once camie off to see Sir 
Arthur Barrett. 

Sir Percy Cox had long been British Resident 
and Consxil- General in the Persian Gulf, and 
had a knowledge of Persian, Arabian, Meso- 
potamian, and Gulf problems to which no other 
living Englishman could lay claim. Though 
perhaps little known outside India, he had filled 
a distinguished and honourable place in the 
more recent chapters of the story of Great 
Britain in the Middle East. He was at once 
soldier and diplomatist, but peacemaker most 
of all. For years he had held the Persian 
Gulf in the hollow of his hand. There was 



not a sheikh upon its shores who did not 
both fear and respect him, and, above all, 
repose entire confidence in his justice and 
impartiality. He had been a court of appeal 
in all their quarrels, and composed their 
differences with firmness and fairness. His 
responsibilities ever since 1899, when he first 
went to Muscat to establish a better under- 
standing with the ruler of Oman, were heavy 
and varied. Often he was in most critical 
situations, for Germany was not the only 
Power which during that period sought to 
practise an aggressive policy in the Gulf. He 
emerged from every trial successfully, and 
overcame difficulties which in the hands of a 
weaker or less prudent man might have caused 
an international explosion. Patience, tact, 
vigilance, and an infinite capacity for laborious 
work were the secrets of his years of toil. 
Silent and modest, fearless in emergency, never 
afraid of responsibility but endowed with 
unfailing restraint and caution, he was a 
striking figure in the long line of India's soldier- 
politicals, and served Great Britain in the Gulf 
and Southern Persia better than she knew. 

After a consultation with Sir Percy Cox, on 
November 14, General Barrett decided to 
postpone the disembarcation of his forces until 
next day. The camp of the Poona Brigade was 
wet and muddy, having suffered two days' 
heavy rain. On th(> 15th the troops began to go 
ashore, but were not all landed mitil 2 p.m. 



112 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




TURKISH OFFICERS AT KURNA. 

In the meantime, General Barrett, on hearing 
that the enemy were occupying a post about 
four miles northward at the village of Sahain, 
ordered General Delamain to move out against 
them with the Poona Brigade. General Dela- 
main marched after breakfast, taldng with liim 
his two mountain batteries, the Dorsets, 
117th Mahrattas, and the 104th Wellesley's 
Rifles. The 20th Pimjabis followed later in 
reserve. The Tiu"ks were found to be about 
2,000 strong, about one-third of their force 
being Arab auxiliaries. They were holding a 
position on the outer edge of the date planta- 
tions, which extend back from the river at this 
point for about two miles, beyond which' the 
country is open desert. 

The Dorsets advanced against the Turkish 
right, half the 104th attacked their centre, and 
the rest of the 104th, with the 117th, moved 
against the enemy's left through the date 
groves, which were full of riflemen. The Espiegle 
and the Odin joined in the action from the river. 
The Turks did not hold their fire, but opened 
with rifles on the Dorsets at 1,000 yards, while 
the latter were skirmishing across the plain in 
open order. The enemy's gims fired shrapnel, 
though not with any marked success, although 
their general resistance was quite stubborn 
enough. The 117th, who were eventually 
reinforced by the 20th, reached the village of 
Sahain, but did not succeed in entirely clearing 



it, though it was set on fire. Along the rest of 
the front the Turks fell back, but as the action 
was only meant to be a reconnaissance in force 
the brigade then marched back to camp. The 
British casualties were two officers wounded ; 
rank and file, eight killed and 51 wounded. Of 
these the Dorsets lost five killed and 35 wounded. 

November 16 was a day of rest, but news 
came down the river which appeared to make 
an early movement imperative. The bulk of 
the Basra garrison was advancing, and tiiere 
were fears about the fate of the Eui'opeans 
detained in the city. On November 17 the 
whole force started northward at 5.30 a.m., 
and the action was fought which decided the 
fate of Basra and the delta. The position at 
Sahain, which had been attacked on the loth, 
was found to be completely evacuated. After 
a march of about nine miles contact was 
established with the Turks at SaJiil, near the 
river. They were in a strongly entrenched 
position, and had with them twelve guns, 
chiefly Krupps. Two of their guns were near 
the trenches, but the rest were in a date-groxe 
about 2,000 yards in the rear. 

General Fry and a portion of the Belgaum 
Brigade led the advance, much of wliich had 
to be made over the open plain. The ground 
was heavy, and just as the action began a 
heavy rain and hail storm, lasting half an hoiu-, 
turned it into a quagmire. The Turks opened 
fire between 9 and 10 a.m. with shrapnel. It 
was noticed that the shrapnel burst far too 
high, and when common shell was used much 
of it failed to burst at all. The British batteries 
covered the advance, the mountain guns 
paying attention to the Turkish trenches, whfle 
the field guns were turned on the Turkish bat- 
tery in the date grove. The two gunboats 
had moved up the river and enfiladed the 
Turkish left flank. The Turkish rifle fire, which 
presently began, was on the whole also bad. 

An onlooker afterwards wrote : " The coim- 
try over which our infantry advanced was 
flat as a table, and would not have given cover 
to a mouse, much less a man. It was just grand 
to watch them move forward. It might have 
been a field day." It was during this advance 
in open order, without a chance of cover, that 
most of the British casualties occurred. It 
was like moving through a snipe marsh, and 
it took hours to get near the almost invisible 
Turldsh trenches. The guns stuck, and men 
tugged at their wheels. 

The Turks at length were pouring in a heavier 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



113 



and more accurate fire. They had some sharp- 
shooters in their trenches, who began to do a 
good deal of execution. The attacking infantry, 
both British and Indian, advanced steadily and 
indomitably, and were quite unperturbed. 
General Barrett afterwards telegraphed to 
the Secretary of State for India that " the 
troops behaved splendidly." The gallant Dor- 
sets, who learned at Dargai, on the Indian 
frontier, what it means to face heavy fire with- 
out cover, were the principal sufferers. An 
officer in an Indian regiment, who took part in 
the action, wrote : " The Dorse ts were simply 
wonderful." Nearer and nearer drew the 
British skirmishers. The Turkish trenches 
were being heavily bombarded. All the guns 
from the batteries and the ships were now 
concentrated on them, as well as a heavy rifle 
fire. A British battery got round on their 
right. The British infantry were within four 
hundred yards. They were ready with their 
bayonets, but the Turks would not face the cold 
steel. Just as our troops expected to charge, 
the enemy broke from their trenches and fled. 
The fight was won, and though none present 
then realiiied it, at that moment Basra was won 
too. From the time the Turks broke at Sahil 
they never really stood fast again. 

When the enemy fled they ran at first, but 
Boon slackened into a walk, for it was impossible 



to run far over such heavy ground. The British 
troops rose and poured a withering fire into them, 
while the batteries sprayed them with shrapnel. 
Effective pursuit was out of the question, 
though the enemy were followed for about a 
mile. The 33rd Cavalry were eager, but horse- 
men cannot charge through a sticky swamp. 
Presently even the British batteries ceased 
firing, for the oddest but most imperative of 
reasons. The fugitive Turks had passed from 
their view, and were lost in a mirage. To the 
gumiers it seemed as though there were trees 
and shining water where shortly before there 
had been nothing but the bare plain and the 
scattered and retreating enemy. Every traveller 
in these regions knows how curiously deceptive 
the mirages are, and how they often obliterate 
the real view. The curious thing was that 
the watchers perched high on the distant 
transports saw no mirage at all, and wondered 
why the guns had stopped firing on the routed 
enemy, who were quite visible from the ships. 
This also is a common and quite understand- 
able experience. 

The action at Sahil was over by 4 p.m. 
The British losses were : killed, officers, three ; 
rank and file, about 35 ; wounded, officers, 
about 15 ; rank and file, about 300. General 
Barrett had a narrow escape, a shrapnel shell 
burying itself in the ground at liis feet, at a 




MATERIAL FOR HACJHUAD RAILWAY AT MAGIL. NRAR HASKA. 
The Germans brought these rails, etc., for the Baghdad-Basra scciiou. 



114 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



range of about 3,500 yards. The casualties 
among the Dorsets were about 130. Three 
Dorset officers were killed, including Major 
Mercer, who was present at the storming of 
Dargai, on the Indian frontier, and Captain 
Frank Middleton, who saw much service in 
South Africa. Most of the losses were in 
General Delamain's Brigade, but General 
Fry's Brigade also suffered considerably. The 
104th Wellesley's Rifles reached the Turkish 
camp and got about 80 tents and large quanti- 
ties of stores, some rifles, 20 camels and 40 
mules. Two mountain guns were captured. 
The Turkish losses can only be guessed, but 
their dead numbered hundreds, and the Euro- 
peans at Basra afterwards said they brought 
back large numbers of woimded, estimated at 
2,000, though the figure seems excessive. 
About 150 prisoners were taken, including three 
officers. 

A portion of the expedition camped near the 
battlefield, and the rest marched back to 
Saniyeh. A heavy storm that evening sank a 
nmnber of boats in the river. Ten men were 
drowned, and a considerable quantity of stores 
and kit was lost. The next three days passed 
quietly, for the men needed rest. Some amount 
of reconnaissance was done, and the force was 
troubled a little by stray Turkish snipers. 

On the morning of November 21 came the 



unexpected news that the Turks had evacuated 
Basra in a panic, and that Arabs were looting 
the city. General Barrett decided to push on at 
once. He had at his disposal two river paddle 
steamers belonging to Messrs. Lynch, the 
Medjidieh and the Blosse Lynch. He embarked 
the Norfolks, with General Fry and the staf? of 
the Belgaum Brigade, and a couple of mountain 
guns, on the Medjidieh, and the 1 10th Mahrattas 
on the other vessel. The rest of the expedition 
was ordered to cross the desert to Basra, 
marching all night. 

The Turlcs had made an awkward obstruction 
in the river at Baliyahiyeh, about eight miles 
beyond Sahil. They had sunk the Hamburg- 
Amerika s.s. Eckbatana, 5,000 tons ; the John 
O'Scott, Turkish-owned ; and an old lightship 
from Fao. On the bank at this point they had a 
battery of Ivrupp guns in position. Like all 
things Turkish, the obstruction was imperfectly 
made. The Espiegle and the Odin managed to 
get past it and disposed of the battery. The 
river steamers left Saniyeh at 9.30 p.m., and 
reached the obstruction at 1 a.m., where they 
were met by the Royal Indian Marine paddle 
giuiboat Lawrence. They waited for daylight, 
and at 7 a.m. passed the obstruction. At 8.15 
they were met by a boat bearing an urgent 
message from the American Consul, who said 
that the Arabs were still looting and that lives 




TURKISH PRISONERS AT KURNA. 
'Some are probably Arab irregulars. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



115 




RIFLES TAKEN AT KURNA. 
On the left is one of Messrs. Lynch's river st3arrers. 



were imperiUed. At 9 a.m. they came in sight 
of Basra, and saw black clouds of smoke rising 
from the Tiorkish Custom House, which had 
been fired ; but the Odin, Espiegle, and 
LawTence had already arrived, and the city was 
saved. A quarter of an hour afterwards the 
"German flag flying over the imposing German 
Consulate was lowered, and the British naval 
ensign hoisted in its stead. 

The desert column reached Basra at noon, 
and camped outside the city that day, being 
somewhat exhausted after a forced march of 
30 miles. The Europeans in the city were 
all safe, having been detained in their houses 
under a guard. 

The city and port of Basra have been famous 
in the East for centuries. The port was originally 
created by the Caliph Omar in 638, on a site 
some miles from its present position. In the 
days of the Baghdad Caliphate it was a great 
emporiiun of trade and commerce, and from 
Basra Sindbad the Sailor, who was no mythical 
personage, sailed on his memorable and highly 
coloiu-ed voyages. The Turks soon brought 
about the decay of the port after they captured 
it in 1668. In modern times its prosperity has 
greatly revived, largely through the date trade, 
of which it is the central mart. Visitors have 
often said that the European community of 
Basra talk dates and notliing else. The export 



trade of Basra reached a total volume of 
£3,246,000 in 1912, of which barley represented 
£1,118,000. The imports in the same year 
amounted to a total of £2,653,000. The conquest 
of a city with a total annual trade of six million 
sterling was therefore a substantial achieve- 
ment. 

Basra has been called the Venice of the East, 
but the title is far too flattering. It has no fine 
bmldings, and the flat -roofed houses are 
unimpressive. It derives such beauty as it 
possesses from its setting of palm-trees, its 
gardens, and its numerous intersecting canals ; 
though these same canals are a constant source 
of fever. The main portion of the city, a 
quarter with narrow, unpaved streets, lies up 
the contracted Asshar creek, two miles from 
the river. The suburbs, bowered in palms, are 
more attractive. The population is probably 
about 60,000, but there are many more people 
in the suburbs. It is a curiously mixed com- 
munitj% including many Jews and Armeniarus. 
The Turks were always few and exclusive, and 
consisted mainly of Government oflicials and 
the garrison. The Turk had long been overlord 
of the Euphrates delta, but his race never sought 
to settle there. 

The Germans were perfectly right in tlieir 
dreams of the futiu'c of Basra, and had tlieir 
purpose not been primarily political, thoy need 



116 



THE TIMES HISTOnY OF THE WAR. 




PROCLAIMING THE BRITISH OCCUPATION AT BASRA. 
Troops lined up on Asshar Creek. The Union Jack was hoisted on building on left. 



never have sought to emerge upon the shores of 
the Giilf at all. They could have made Basra 
an Oriental Hamburg, as they often declared. 
In situation it closely resembles the city on the 
Elbe. The bar needs dredging, as does also the 
channel of the Shatt-al-Arab, but miles of 
n:iagnificent quays might be constructed on both 
sides of the river frontage of Basra, where the 
river is half a mile wide. When the fertile 
valleys of the Tigris and Euplu-ates are won 
back to cultivation by irrigation, Basra will 
have a great and prosperous future. The work 
will still be done, though not by German hands. 
The British expedition made a formal entry 
into the city on November 23, after which the 
troops were billeted, some occupying the 
deserted Tiukish barracks and other public 
buildings. At the close of the entry half the 
force was lined up on the Asshar Canal bank, 
facing north, and the notables of the city were 
assembled, being greeted by General Barrett 
and Sir Percy Cox. A proclamation stating 
the reasons for occupation and the friendly 
intentions of the British Government was read 
aloud in Arabic. The Union Jack was hoisted 
in the presence of guards of honour furnished 
by the Royal Navy and the Norfolk Regiment. 
The troops presented arms, three cheers were 
given for the King-Emperor, and the warships 



fired a salute of 31 guns. The inliabitants 
took the change very calmly, and as there were 
no Turks left among them, they gave a cordial 
welcome to the British. Major Brownlow was 
appointed ^Military Governor, and took up his 
residence at the German Consulate. The Gerinan 
Consul and five German prisoners were removed 
to Bombay. The expedition started a little 
newspaper, the Basra Times, printed in English 
and Arabic, for the use of the troops and the 
populace. 

At the beginning of December a camp was 
formed for a portion of the force, and two 
mountain batteries, at Magil, about four miles 
farther up the river. Magil was a depot for 
material for the Baghdad-Basra Railway. The 
troops found there large quantities of railway 
stores, including thousands of rails and sleepers. 
The (Germans had made a wharf, and they had 
landing-cranes and other structiu-es. The staff 
had fled, and the two spacious and comfortable 
houses they had built were empty. Near Magil 
the new channel of the Euphrates enters the 
Tigris, and thenceforward to the sea the imited 
rivers are known as the Shatt-al-Arab. 

Intelligence was received at this time that 
the retreating Turks had reassembled at Kurna, 
a point 49 miles above Basra, where the old 
and now partially blocked channel of the 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



117 



"Euphrates joins the Tigris. The Arabs profess 
to beUeve that Kurna is the site of the Garden 
of Eden, though Sir WilUam Willcocks places 
it far above Hitt on tlie Euphrates, and con- 
siderably to the north-west of Baghdad. Just 
at Kurna the Tigris is about 300 yards wide. 
Above Kurna it narrows, but the difficult part . 
of the navigation only begins 30 miles farther 
on, and contmues for about 80 miles. The 
Tigi'is winds greatly between Kiu-na and Bagh- 
dad, and is said to cover 490 miles between the 
two places. The land route across the desert 
irom Kiuna to Baghdad is only 300 miles in 
length. The Tigris is at its lowest from Septem- 
ber to Xoveniber, and then gradually begiiis to 
rise. It is at its height in ]May and June. Sea- 
going steamers can ascend to Kurna, but higher 
up shallow-draught vessels are required. 

On December 2 it was decided to send up a 
■column on the two river steamers to deal with 
the situation at Kurna. It embarked next day, 
and sailed at 8 p.m. The force consisted of a 
■section of the Royal Field Artillery, a half- 
company of the 3rd Sappers and Miners, the 
104th Wellesley's Rifles, the IlOth Maln-attas, 
and a detachment of the Norfolks, with an 
ambulance party. It was commanded by 
Lieutenant-Colonel Frazer, of the 110th Mah- 
rattas. The river steamers each had a couple of 
18-pounder field guns on their upper dfecks, and 
were protected by parapets of gram and fodder 
bags and bales. The naval flotilla accompanying 
the column consisted of the Espiegle, Odin and 
Lawrence, the armed launches ]\Iiner (54 tons) 
and Shaitan, and the yacht Lewis Pelly (100 
tons). The Lewis Pelly is the dispatch boat of 
the British Resident at Koweit, and on this 
occasion she carried two 3-pounders and a 
Maxitn, Xot much opposition was expected, 
but the expectations were wrong. 

The expedition reached a point about four 
miles below Kurna early next morning, and the 
troops were landed on the left (eastern) bank. 
While the military advanced, the Espiegle and 
the Lawrence steamed ahead, with the armed 
launches. The Odin was left behind to guard 
the landing-place. She had damaged her rudder, 
and it was not safe to take her roimd the sharp 
bend of the river. The navigable channel was 
at tliis point very narrow, and the ships were 
constantly touching the mud. They anchored 
at a suitable spot, and engaged the Turkish 
guns on the left bank, which were con- 
cealed in date-groves and extremely difficult 
to locate. They also shelled Kurna. The 



paddle-steamers could move more freely owing 
to their shallow draught, so they went closer 
inshore and used their guns in support. The 
launches were even more daruig, but the Miner 
was holed below the water-line and had to 
withdraw. The Lawrence was also hit by a ; 
shell. 

There was a village called Me/era some 
distance from the bank, on the left of the .; 
Turkish position. Colonel Frazer signalled to , 
the warshi2:)s to shell it, and it was saluted with 
lyddite and destroyed in half an hoiu-. " 1 
have never seen such a bonfire," wrote one of 
the naval officers who was aloft "spotting." 
The troops meanwhile advanced across the 
plahi, and cleared the village and the Tiu-lcish 
trenches. The survivors of the enemy crossed 
the river to Kurna in boats. The colurrui was 
then opposite the town of Kurna, which lies 
amid thick trees at the point where the old 
channel of the Euphrates meets the Tigris. It 
was evident that Kiu-na was far more strongly 
held than was supposed. It was entrenched, and 
the houses, few of which could be seen, were 
loopholed. A t'^emendous fusillade came 
whistling across the stream. There was no 
means of crossing, and there was nothing for it 
but a withdrawal to the original landing-place. 
The camp was then entrenched, because the 
Tiu'ks were in superior numbers, and an attack 
wEis feared. They did not attack, but it was 
afterwards found that during that night they 
wert; strongly reinforced. Colonel Frazer's 
colmnn was not strong enough for the task. 
Nevertheless, it captured two of the Tiu-kish 
guns, which had been silenced by the ships. 
One was brought in, but the other had to be left. 



if~ii «|C iTurUiGh 
Our present Jri S %-\Position 



,.,,./" on S'>< by means of 3 dhon 




Open desert plain: 
^ith palm treu 
on either bank 



<0^^^ pl-.BankUie^grjj 

'i '•aa?T\ * 1 - ^ ^ Village burnt 0/ US 

a^ a. "'_^". ^^ rcoccupied^by Turks 

■i*-- i^^^^^^^^^"^ rat ^Ij on At* .'/C 



''eoccupiea^by 
•etahen by js 



,<#> 



British Attack 
^^ct? on?''' 

onlyoccucieKpos" X-Y 

sn /Knijg/e ii"-iyer aasntino 
'd Ifjardn^ent ^ 



Launcti Shaitan 
struck by ihells 
ana Oeached here 



Approximate Scale 




1 MIUE 



'3 " 

-S^KPrrtisnCafTipi 



FLAN OF ACTIONS AT KURNA. 
From a Sketch Map by a British Officer. 



118 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




WOUiNDED INDIAN SOLDIERS. 

and an attempt to obtain it next day failed 
owing to the heavy fire. 

A hasty message was sent down to Basra for 
reinforcements, and meanwhile casualties were 
examined. The Miner had a shell in her engine- 
room, and had settled on the mud, biit was 
patched up and floated the same night. The 
Lawrence had received a shell below, and her 
dynamo was wrecked. The launches were struck 
several times. The casualties among the troops 
were one British officer and three British rank 
and file wovmded, one Indian officer and 19 rank 
and file killed and about sixty woiuided. 

On December 5 (a Satiu-day) little happened, 
and on the 6th Brigadier- General Fry arrived 
from Basra with considerable reinforcements, 
including the 7th Rajputs, the remainder of the 
Norfolks, a field battery, and a mountain 
battery. By this time the Turks had crossed 
the river again and reoccupied Mezera. They 
made a half-hearted attempt to advance against 
the camp, but were dispersed by a few roimds 
of shrapnel. 

Kuma was not yet taken, and it took some 
stiff fighting to capture it. On the morning of 
the 7th the action of the 5th was fought all 
over again, exactly in the same way, though 
this time the British were in greater strength, 
while the Turlcs were somewhat handicapped 
by tlie loss of the two guns silenced in the 
previous engagements. Exactly the same result 



followed. Mezera was taken once more, the- 
Turkish trenches were cleared, and the survivors 
fled across the river ; but a terrific fire across 
the stream from the loopholed hou.ses of Kurna 
stopped any further operations for the day. 
On this occasion a portion of the Briti.sh forces 
bivouacked near Mezera and held the left bank 
opposite Kurna. Three guns were taken on 
this day, as well as 100 prisoners, including 
three officers. During the night the Turks 
fired a few shells, but otherwise remained 
i.iactive. 

The flotilla, which was again busily engaged 
during the action of the 7th, had plenty of 
excitement. ' The Espiegle was hit several 
time.=:. The Miner went aground, but got of? 
again. The Lewis Pelly had her share of damage. 
The launch Shaitan was struck on the bridge by 
a shell, which killed her commander Lieutenant- 
Commander J. G. M. Elkes, R.N.R. The man 
at the wheel was wounded, and part of the 
wheel was carried away. A later shot smashed 
the Shaitan's rudder, and she had to retire. 
The Odin joined in this day's action. 

It was clear that the only way to take Kiu-na 
was to cross the River Tigris higher up. Early 
on the morning of the 8th, two battalions, the 
104th and 110th, were marched a long way up 
the river with two mountain guns. Some 
sappers then swam the swift stream, a feat in 
itself. They carried a line across, to which a 
steel hawser was attached. With the aid of a 
commandeered dhow a flying bridge was con- 
structed, and the two battalions, with the guns, 
were ferried across without opposition. They 
then inarched baf;k down the right (western) 
bank, tlireatened the Turkish position in flank 
and rear, and seized the approaches to Kurna. 
No attempt was made to carry the town that 
night, but the little force entrenched itself in 
the palm groves near the town. 

About midnight on the 8th the watchers on 
the warships below Kurna saw a small steamer 
coming do\vn ablaze with lights. She carried 
three Turkish officers bearing a message from 
Subhi Bey, the late Governor of Basra, then 
commanding the forces at Kurna. He offered to 
surrender the town, but wanted his troops to 
march out with their arms. General Fry insisted 
on an unconditional surrender, and after an 
hour's parley in the small hours on board the 
Espiegle this was agreed to. 

At 1 p.m. on the 9th the remnants of the 
Tiu-kish garrison appeared in front of their 
trenches on the river bank and laid down their- 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



119 



arms. A large proportion must have fled during 
the night into the surrounding country, and it 
was known that many barge-loads went 
upstream to Baghdad. The two Indian bat- 
talions on the Kurna side formed up round the 
garrison. General Fry, Sir Percy Cox, and the 
senior naval officer, then went on shore with 
their staffs. The Turkish officers came up and 
handed over their swords. General Fry returned 
Subhi Bey's sword in recogm'tion of his gallant 
defence. The compliment was deserved, for, as 
subalterns would say, the Turks " put up a good 
show " in their last resistance. The captives 
numbered 42 officers and 1,021 men. Several 
more guns wer>? taken. The Tiu-kish casualties 
in and around Kurna and Mezera are believed 
to have been at least a thousand, and were 
perhaps more. An officer wrote that he had 
charge of a party which litiried 200 dead found 
in one trench alone. Kurna was wrecked by the 
British fire. The prisoners were taken to India. 
The British casualties on the 7th and 8th 
nimibered one British officer killed and three 
wounded, and 40 Indian rank and file killed 
and 120 wounded. The operations at Kurna 
gave the British complete control of the deltaic 
region, but it was considered necessary to leave 
a strong column at Kurna, and another across 
the river at Ivlezera. They made big entrenched 
camps and prepared to settle down. The neigh- 



bourhood was on the whole not inviting. The 
camps were pitched beyond the date groves, 
and one officer wrote : " This is a most desolate 
spot. Sitting here, all I can see is miles and miles 
of perfectly level desert, absolutely unbroken." 
Many Canadian prairie farmers might have said 
the same thing in the early days. The country is 
not desert, but one of the most fertile regions 
in the world. The British troops liked the life 
as a welcome change from India, but the 
mosquitoes troubled them greatly. One verj'- 
still night, when the camp was asleep, a man 
was heard to say to his neighbour : " 'Ere, Bill, 
if this is the Garden of Eden, I wonder what 
Adam and Eve did with these 'ere mosquitoes 
a-buzzin' around them." 

In January a force of about 5,000 Turks, with 
six guns, estabhshed itself on the Ratta Canal, 
about seven miles north of the Mezera Cam[j. 
The British troops, aided by the three gunboats, 
made a reconnaissance in force from Mezera on 
January 20. The enemy's outposts were driven 
across the canal, and his camps and dhows were 
shelled. The British had about 50 casualties. 

His Excellency Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, 
Viceroy and Governor -General of India, imder 
whose direction and supervision the invasion of 
Chaldea was begun, made a toiu? of the Persian 
Gulf and the conquered territory at the end 
of January. Lord Hardinge visited Muscat, 




GUN CAPTURED AT KURNA. 
The Officer seated on the Gun is Brigadier-General C. I. I'ly. 



120 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



Balirein. Koweit, Mohammerah, and other 

plac(!.s, and eventually arrived at Basra on 

February 4. He was received by the native 

community with an address of welcome, in 

which the hope was expressed that the British 

occupation would be permanent. He said, in 

reply : 

The British occupation has raised problems which 
require prompt consideration and settlement. I have 
coiue heie to see local conditions for myself in order tb.e 
better to judge what measures are necessary. Yon are 
aware that we are not engaged single-handed in this 
groat struggle, and we cannot lay down plans for the 
future without a full exchange of views with the other 
Groat Towers. b\it I can liold out the assurance that tlie 
future will bring you a more benign rule. 

Lord Hardinge afterwards went up the river 
to Kurna and Mezera, so that he visited the 
most advanced outposts of the expedition. He 
also, while at Basra, rode across the desert to 
Shaiba and elsewhere. 

Attacks on Muscat on January 10 and 11, 
which were repulsed by detachments of the 
95th Russell's Infantry and the 102nd Bombay 
Grenadiers, had only a remote connexion \\ ith 
the great war. They were the outcome of a 



local revolt against the Sultan of Oman which 
had begun nearly two years before, and was 
perhaps stimulated into renewed activity by 
the news that half the world was in arms. The 
town and district were perfectly quiet when 
Lord Hardinge arrived some time later. Cajjtain 
William Henry Shakespear, CLE., British 
Resident at Koweit, was killed in Central 
Arabia during February while on a special 
mission to Ibn Saud, who was at strife with 
soinc of liis neighbours. Captain Shakespear 
was a fine type of the young soldier-political, 
and his death was a great loss. 

There was much relief at the end of February 
when the Europeans who had been at Baghdad, 
about fifty in number, reached the shores of 
the Mediterranean. They were unexpectedly 
released from detention by order of Djemal 
Pasha, who was formerly Vali of Baghdad, and 
perhaps did not forget old friendships. Nine 
Englishwomen and some children were left in 
Baghdad in charge of Dr. Johnson, an elderly 
missionary. They were not allowed to depart,. 
but it w as believed that they were quite safe. 



THE 
BUSRA TIMES 






ao ;:a. ly^h January, lylb. 
REUTERS 

J&noiry 12Ul O«nnao offensive ia Poland la eon* 
ceotrated oo narrow xone 10 tnilM wide, 30 uulea west 
of WAfiSAW. 2 Anny Corps zn operstinf wtth heavy 
gons. aad the Oenoaa Uce practically foUows the Hue 
al tae S^AV/Kh. The Ocrinana arc s'ralnine every nerve 
to possess the BOUNOFF WOODS. Pnsocers state that 
the enemy are conlldent of thus piercing the Russian 
hoe. One mght 13 coniecntiTe a-tacis were repulsed, the 
Bnssiana inUiotiair siiormoncIoiBes ou tb: dense lormauoo* 
0. the eceiny. 

Th» Ainentan papers say that- the Bntlih reply to 
their Rote was co^t cor.cilatorj aad fncodly 

The Gcnpaas are fonoUsly bomhardmg S0ISSOH& 
Snd UlA QahtiAa ^ KAvaze 



'y'H, i_- j^;> *-*■ ,-^f J^ 






i -It *.* jj oAt» ^'Jy-'^ '^y^^ 



Portion of Title-Page of Newspaper Started by Expecition after the I all of Basra. 




CHAPTER LIII. 



THE SECOND THREE MONTHS OF 

NAVAL WAR. 



Lord Fisher at the Admiralty — Tsing-Tau and the Japanese Navy — The German Losses — 
Career and End of the Emden — The Cocos-Keeling Action — Action Off the Coast of Chile 
— Loss of Good Hope and Monmouth— Victory Off the F.\lkland Islands — End of von 
Spee's Squadron — Admiral Sturdee's Dispatch — Minor Operations — East Africa — Konigs- 
berg in Rufigi River — West Africa — Red Sea — Persian Gulf — The Goeben in the Black 
Sea — Torpedoing of Messudiyeh by B 11 in the Dardanelles — British Losses in Home 
Waters — Bulwark and Formidable — Raids and Countkr-raids — Yarmouth, Scarborough 
and Cuxhaven — Admiral Beatty's Action in the North Sea — Sinking of the Blucher. 



ON October 29, 1914, Prince Louis of 
Battenberg was succeeded in the 
otHce of First Sea Lord by Admiral of 
the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone. 
Of the reasons which caused the resignation of 
Prince Louis there is no occasion to write ; but 
that fine seaman and most able tactician 
carried with him in his retirement the good 
wishes and the admiration of the whole service, 
of which he had so long been an ornament. 
Lord Fisher was now called upon by his coiuitry 
to wield the weapons that he had had so large 
a share in bringing into being. 

During the second three months of the war 
events of great importance happened in the 
North Sea, but the main feature of this period 
was the practical completion of the task of 
destroying Germany's naval forces in the outer 
seas. To the taking of Tsing-Tau had to be 
added the destruction of the naval force which 
had been based upon that Eastern stronghold. 
Its ultimate fate was sure, but its existence 
constituted a menace to commerce and in- 
volved risks and responsibiUties which directly 
and indirectly affected the whole work of the 
British Navy. Tsing-Tau was from the begin- 
ning of German occupation administered by 
the Gei-man Admiralty, not by the Colonial 
Office, and the cost was a charge upon the 
Navy, not the Colonial, Estimates. It was, in 
fact, above all a naval base, and the home of 
the German " East Asiatic " squadron. This 
Vol. III.— Part 30. 



force consisted of the armoured cruisers Scham- 
horst and Gneisenau, the light cruisers Emden, 
Niimberg and Leipzig, four gim.boats and two 
destroyers. As will be seen, the cruisers did 
not remain. to be destroyed at Tsing-Tau, and 
their careers and fates are the central featiu-es 
of the ensuing narrative. 

The full story of the fate of Tsing-Tau has 
been told in Chapter XLIV. We must now 
describe briefly the work of the J apanese Navj-, 
which assisted the fleets of the Allies so materially 
by clearing the waters in the vicinity of its 
own shores, and which afterwards cooperated 
in the convoy of troops from the Dominions and 
in hauling dowTi the German flag in the islands 
of the Pacific. 

It was not until August 23, 1914, that Japan 
broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and 
declared war ; but as soon as this happened 
our Far-Eastern Allies acted with the prompti- 
tude and startling efficiency tliat we have 
learned to expect from them when warlike 
operations have to be undertaken. The First 
Fleet, under the command of Admiral Baron 
Dewa, strung itself out on a line from the 
Shantung Promontorj' in the Yellow Sea to the 
Chusan Archipelago in the Eastern Sea ; while 
the Second Fleet, under the command of 
Admiral Kato, had bj' August 27 spread itself 
in front of the Bay of Kiao-Chau — in which 
Tsing-Tau is situated — and had establLshed tis 
close a blockade of that port as modern con- 



121 



122 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



ditions of sea warfare permit. The objective 
of the Japanese was, naturally, the German 
Far-Eastern Squadron, but von Spee, the 
Admiral in command of this force, succeeded in 
hiding himself and his cruisers somewhere in 
the south of the Cliina Sea. 

The Japanese Fleets remained on their 
stations as described imtil the end of August, 
when the transportation of the army destined 
for the captiu-e of Tsing-Tau began. The 
First Fleet took up a position in Southern 
Korean waters, while a squadron of the Second 
Fleet, cruising in the Yellow Sea, rendered 
assistance to the men-of-war convoying the 
transports. Rear-Adnural Kamimura's Squad- 
ron, cooperating with the detachment from 
the Port Arthur naval station, assisted in the 
landing of troops at Lunldang. While these 
movements were in progress — they lasted till 
September 1 3 — a detachment under the direct 
command of Admiral Kato, Commander-in- 
Chief of the Second Squadron, with the Tochinai 
and Okada detachments and a ftu-ther con- 
tingent specially commissioned for this service, 
concentrated on Kiao-Chau Bay and the 
immediate vicinity. In spite of extremely bad 



i:rSuez. 



weather, gale succeeding to gale, the mine 
sweepers worked almost imintermittently to 
clear the sea in front of the point where the 
second detachment of the army was to be 
landed. Scouting was also kept up by means 
of aircraft, and eventually the enemy was cut 
off from all communication by way of the sea. 
When, in September, the transportation of 
the second portion of the army was begun, the 
First Fleet was employed again in convoying 
the transports ; the Kamimm-a and Port 
Arthur detachments assisted in the landing of 
troops at Laoshan Bay, wliile the main force of 
the Second Fleet, which was now able to operate 
inshore owing to the success of the mine sweep- 
ing, cooperated with the land forces in bom- 
barding the fortresses on the right wing of the 
line of the enemy. In this operation the 
Kamimura and Port Arthur detachments 
assisted. The Marine Batteries which were 
working with the besieging army opened fire on 
October 14 upon the eneray warships in the 
harbour, and having rendered them useless, 
turned their attention to the bombardment of 
Tsing-Tau fort. On October 31 a general 
cannonade was begun, and on November 7 the 




THE INDIAN OCEAN. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



123 




LANDING PARTY ABOUT TO RETURN TO THE "EMDEN" AFTER DESTROYING 
THE WIRELESS STATION AT COGOS-KEELING ISLANDS. 



fortress surrendered. The British battleship 
Triumph and the destroyer Osk cooperated 
with the Second Fleet and took part in the 
blockade as well as in the bombardment. 

During these operations there were lost the 
old light cruiser Takachico, 3,700 tons, date 
1885, the destroyer Shiratai, torpedo boat 
No. 33, and three specially commissioned 
steamers. On the enemy's side there were 
either svink or destroyed, the Austrian cruiser 
Kaiserin Elizabeth, five gunboats (the Cormo- 
ran, litis, Jaguar, Tiger and Luchs), and two 
destroyers. 

This satisfactory action was only a part of 
the activaty displayed by the Japanese. On 
the outbreak of hostilities Japan's Third Fleet 
was sent to protect the trade route from the 
Southern Seas, through Chinese waters, until 
one of its units came into touch with the 
guardship at the Makoh Naval Station in 
Korea. Although by the beginning of Novem- 
ber all enemy ships had been cleared out of Far- 
Eastern waters, as far as was known, still this 
surveillance was kept up. A detachment of 
this squadron detailed for operations in the 
Southern Seas proceeded to Singapore on 
August 26 and carried on operations in concert 
with the British Eastern Squadron. At first 
nothing was known of the movements of the 
enemy in these regions, and the work consisted 
of general sxu-veillance and supervision of 
important ports. When the Emden became 



active in the eastern portion of the Indian 
Ocean the detachment assisted in the hunt for 
that elusive cruiser, and on October 25 a 
reinforcement under Vice-Admiral Tochinai 
was dispatched to the scene, and on Novem- 
ber 9 the Emden was destroyed at the Cocos- 
Keeling Islands by H.M. Australian cruiser 
Sydney. 

When hostilities began certain ships of the 
enemy were at large in the Pacific in the 
neighbourhood of Hawaii ; but it was not known 
where they were, nor what was the position of 
the squadron that had escaped from Far- 
Eastern waters. A squadron of the First Fleet 
of the Imperial Japanese Navy was accordingly 
told off to hunt the enemy on the trade route 
between Japan and North America. No trace 
of German ships could be found, so the squadron 
occupied itself usefully by taking possession of 
those places in the sun which Germ an j'^ had 
seized in the Pacific in her efforts to foi-m a 
greater Germany beyond the sea. 

One of the ships of the German Far-Eastern 
Squadron that escaped the attentions of the 
Japanese in these waters was the light cruiser 
Emden. Allusion has already been made to 
her in a previous chapter, but it remains to 
tell the story of her destruction. The resoiu"ce- 
fulness of the captain of this ship has often 
been dwelt upon, but it was probably never 
displayed to greater advantage than when she 
left Kiao-Chau. There was every chance of 



124 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




[Lalayclle. 

CAPTAIN JOHN C. T. GLOSSOP, 
of H.M.S. "Sydney." 

her being met by a Japanese vessel, with whom 
she could not hope to come to action with 
su(;cess. The expected happened, and shortly 
after leaving the anchorage she fell in .with a 
Japanese armoured cruiser. But it was not 
the three -funnelled Emden under the black, 
white and red German man-of-war ensign that 
passed the enemy warship ; but a vessel with 
four funnels, flying the British white ensign, 
whose crew, as she steamed by the Japanese, 
lined the rails and gave her three hearty 
British cheers. Much may be forgiven to 
seamen as clever as this. 

In the Bay of Bengal the Emden took and 
sank between September 10 and September 14 
the Indus (3,413 tons), the Lovat (6,102 tons), 
the Killin (3,544 tons), the Diplomat (7,615 
tons), and the Trabbooh (4,028 tons). On 
September 12 the Kabinga, of 4,657 tons, was 
taken and released. On September 14 the 
Clan Matheson, of 4,775 tons, was sunk. On 
September 30 there were taken and sunk the 
King Lud (3,650 tons), the Foyle (4,147 tons), 
the Ribera (3,500 tons), and the Tymeric 
(3,314 tons). On the same date the Buresk 
[4,350 tons) was captured, and the Gryfevale 
[4,437 tons) was taken and released. The 
Pontoporos, taken by the Emden, was released 
by H.M.S. Yarmouth on October 16. On 
October 20 were taken and sunk the Troilus 



(7,562 tons), the Clan Grant (3,948 tons), the 
Benmohr (4,806 tons), the Chilkana (5,220 tons), 
and the Ponrabbel (473 tons). On the same 
date the Exford (4,542 tons) and the Saint 
Egbert (5,r)96 tons) were captured but not 
sunk. Thas some 70,000 tons of British ship- 
ping were destroyed in seven weeks ; it is for- 
tunate indeed for the Empire that other com- 
merce raiders were not so successful. 

Some further exploits of the Emden are 
described in the following extracts from a log 
kt'pt by one of her petty ofificers : 

September 22. — This night off Madras. One of the 
crew had worked there, and he informed the captain of 
the oil tanks situated at entrance to harbour. At 9.30 
p.m. Emden crept in, turned searchlights on to tanks, and 
fired two broadsides to find the range. Searchlights then 
shut off, and 125 shells fired in salvos, some hitting a 
ship. Tanks set on fire, and tremendous blaze arose. 
Emden retired at full .speed to north-east. Shore bat- 
teries opened fire, but shells fell short, and none hit the 
Emden. 

September 23. — This morning the glare of the fire at 
Madras could still be seen on the horizon, though about 
100 miles away. Emden sailed north-east to give 
impression that she was going toward-s Calcutta, but 
when out of sight turned southwards round the east 
coast of Ceylon. 

October 10. — Visited island of Diego Garcia, in the 
middle of the Indian Ocean, about half-way between 
Africa and Sumatra. The few European families here 
had not yet heard of the war, as they only get a steamer 
in three months. Emden coaling all day. Some of the 
engineers repaired the local motor-boat, and were given 
baskets of coconuts and fish. 

October 28. — At 4 a.m., 10 miles outside Penang, 
extra funnel hoisted to make the Emden appear like 
British cruisers. From the entrance of the harbour at 
5 a.m. could be seen in the distance several ships, and 
well in front of them an unknown cruiser. On steaming 
in to a I'ange of about 600 yards, this was found to be the 
Russian cruiser Jemtchug. The Emden fired two tor- 
pedoes, the first hitting the cruiser just under the after 
funnel, whereupon she was seen to sink about 4 feet. 
The second, fired at closer range, struck just vuider the 
bridge, when a terrible explosion occurred. During this 
time the Emden fired salvo after salvo — in all 100 shots. 
The Jemtchug fired a fev/ shots, some of which hit ships 
in the harbour behind the Emden, but none hit the 
Emden. The Emden had no idea that the Russian 
cruiser would be in Penang, but expected to find the 
French cruiser Dupleix and the French destroyer Mous- 
quet. Tlie Mousquet was on patrol duty outside the 
harbour, and was afterwards reported to have seen the 
Emden, but thought she was a British cruiser. The 
Emden had now tvirned, and was lea\-ing the harbour at 
full speed. Thirty miles out she met a steamer. On 
approaching it she hoisted the red flag, meaning that 
she was a powder steamer. The stranger, which was the 
British steamer Glenturret, had signalled the shore for a 
pilot, and the launch had just reached her. The Emden 
had got out her boats when a warship appeared on the 
horizon. The Emden immediately ordered her boats 
to return, and made off, as the warship appeared to be a 
large one. This was, however, only the effect of the 
early morning mirage. As the ships closed at about 
3,800 yards the stranger was found to be the French 
destroyer Mousquet. The Emden opened fire. The 
first few shots hit the Mousquet's engine-room, and after 
several salvos the Emden ceased fire, expecting the 
Frenchman to be wrecked and to surrender. Instead, 
the Mousquet went on firing about 10 shots. None, 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



125 




THE LAST OF THE "EMDHN" 

Left top corner: Deck of the " Emden " after the battle: right top and centre: " Fmden's' 
removing stores at Cocos-Keeling Islands; bottom: the "Emden" aground. 



crew 



30—^ 



126 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



Re Fere n ee 

Course of HMS. SYDNEY 

'> » EMDEN 




Position oF 
HMS. SYDNEY. 

at 9.15 am. / 




0J4I 



Scale oF Miles 

2 3 



4-5 6 



DIRECTION I. 

(Cable Station) 



lOOq 



SKETCH ILLUSTRATING THE FIGHT BETWEEN H.M.S. "SYDNEY" AND THE 

"EMDEN." 

The numbers denote corresponding relative positions. 



however, hit the Emden, although some fell 150 yards in 
front of her. The Mousquet's crew afterwards said that 
they had fired two torpedoes, but the Emden did not 
see these. The Emden began firing again, and the 
Mousquet sank, bows first. The Emden ceased fire, 
and rescued 36 Frenchmen, three of whom died after- 
wards. This involved delay, and another destroyer was 
seen approaching from Penang. The Emden at once 
steamed for the Indian Ocean at full speed. After being 
chased for four hours by the destroyer the Emden entered 
a heavy rainstorm, and the destroyer was lost to sight. 

The Inst act in the drama of the Emden took 

place off the Cocos-Keeling Islands in the Indian 

Ocean. They are situated in latitude 12 South, 

some 500 miles south-west of Java Head and 

Sunda Straits. They were discovered bj^ the 

English, and consist of a group of coral islets 

where the coconut palm grows in abundance. 

They are in possession of Mr. Ross, a descendant 

of Captain J. C. Ross, who, in the good ship 



Borneo, belonging to Hare & Son of London, 
took possession of the islands and settled here 
in 1825. When the island of Krakatoa exploded 
like a bomb in the year 1883, and altered all the 
topography of Sunda Straits, ashes and pumice 
floated feet thick on the surface of the Indian 
Ocean. In spito of the remoteness of Cocos- 
Keeling from the scene of the explosion, 500 
miles at least, the lagoons in Cocos were so 
choked with the floating pumice as actually to 
reclaim a portion of them. 

It was to this desolate spot in the Indian 
Ocean that Captain von Miiller brought his ship 
in the early days of November ; with liim was 
one of his captures, the Biu-esk^ which was full 
of coal. The object of this visit of the Emden 
was the destruction of the important wireless 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



127 



station that is established on the islands, and 
on the morning of November 9 the officials in 
charge were unpleasantly surprised by the 
landing of an armed boat's crew from a cruiser 
which had come to an anchor, and which they 
first imagined to be H.M.S. Minotaiu-. They 
were quickly undeceived by the German officer 
in charge of the party, who informed them that 
their operations from the wireless station had 
greatly hampered the movements of the cruiser. 
One detachment of the Germans then rounded 
up all the officials and their servants, placing 
them under a strict guard, wliile a second party 
prepared to blow up the wireless installation and 
to .smash the instrument rooms of the cable 
office. This they did most thoroughly, but the 
officials seem to have kept their heads in the 
most praiseworthy manner, as, just a.s soon as 
they discovered that the eneiny was upon them, 
they sent out distress signals by wireless, and 
warned adjacent stations by cable that they 
were about to be smashed up. The landing 
party now blew vip tlie wireless mast and the 
store in which spare cable and cable gear was 
kept ; a third explosion wrecked the wireless 
hut and completed the destruction of the 
installation. The dynamo rooms and workshops 
were destroyed with flogging hammers and axes, 
everything breakable, including clocks, being 
smashed to atoms. Their next proceeding was 
to cut the shore ends of the submarine cables, 



and this was done in full view of the prisoners. 
There are three cables from the Cocos — to 
Perth, to Batavia, and to Rodriguez — and the 
pleasure of the prisoners can bo imagined when 
they saw the Germans spend much hard labour 
in destroying a dummy cable. Eventually the 
Perth cable and the dummy were cut, the others 
being left, presumably becau.se the Germans did 
not know that they existed. 

The party from the Emden had landed at 
7.30 a.m., and by 9.20 their mission of destruc- 
tion was accompHshed. At this time a signal 
was blo^\•n on the siren from the ship ; the 
officer in comixiand collected his men, marched 
them down to the beach, and re-embarked. 
The telegraphists report that they were fairly 
and courteously treated. On arrival the Emden 
was still using her now famous fourth fiumel, 
a dummy, and this it was that caused the 
telegraphists to mistake her in the first instance 
for the IMinotaur, which is a four funnelled 
armoured cruiser. As she steamed away in the 
bright light of the tropic morning for what was 
so shortly to prove her last cruise, the Emden 
hauled down and stowed away her dummy. 

The action that ensued between the Sydney 
and the Emden is here given in the official 
dispatch of Captain Glossop, dated from 
Colombo on November 15 : 

I have the honour to report that whilst on escort duty 
witli the convoy under the charge of Captain Silver, 




i 






" . 




THi 


• 






R 


n^ 


AC 



mm 



^ 



OIL TANKS AT MADRAS. 



128 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




EasterJ. 



Coqulmbo^ 

Talcahuanafj i^ 
Cqrone/fy 






t'^ P^ C I F I C 

<r-J^o_ Melbourne _ 6000 

(Mercator) 






S 



V 



^ 



Fall^land I? 



Cape Horn 



760 



THE GORONEL AND FALKLAND AGTIOiNS. 



H.M.A.S. jNIelbourne, at 6.30 a.m. on Monday, Novem- 
ber 9, a wireless message from Cocos was heard reporting 
that a foreign warship was off the entrance. I was 
ordered to raise steam for full speed at 7.0 a.m. and 
proceeded thither. I worked up to 20 knots, and at 
9.15 a.m. sighted land ahead and almost immediately 
the smoke of a ship, which proved to be H.l.G.M.S. 
Emden, coming out towards me at a great rate. At 
9.40 a.m. fire was opened, she firing the first shot. I 
kept my distance as much as possible to obtain the 
advantage of my guns. Her fire was very accurate and 
rapid to begin with, but seemed to slacken very quickly, 
all casualties occurring in this ship almost immediately. 
First the foremost funnel of her went, secondly the fore- 
mast, and she was badly on fire aft, then the second 
funnel went, and lastly the third funnel, and I saw she 



was making for the beach on North Keeling Island, 
where she grounded at 11.20 a.m. I gave her two more 
broadsides and left her to pursue a merchant ship which 
had come up during the action. 

2. Although I had guns on this merchant ship at odd 
times during the action I had not fired, and as she was 
making off fast I pursued and overtook her at 12.10, 
firing a gun across her bows, and hoisting International 
Code Signal to stop, which she did. I sent an armed 
boat, and foimd her to be the s.s. Buresk, a captured 
British collier, with 18 Chinese crew, 1 English steward, 
1 Norwegian cook, and a German prize crew of 3 officers, 
1 warrant officer and 12 men. The ship unfortunately 
was sinking, the Kingston knocked out and damaged 
to prevent repairing, so I took all on board, fired four 
shells into her, and returned to Emden, passing men 




VALPARAISO HARBOUR. 
The " Scharnhorst " and "Gneisenau" in the distance on the left. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



129 



ewimming in the water, for whom I left two boats I was 
towing from Buresk. 

3. On arriving again off Emden, she still had her 
colours up at mainmast head. I inquired by signal. 
International Code, " Will you surrender ? " and received 
a reply in Morse, " What signal ? No signal books." 
I then made in Morse, " Do you surrender ? " and sub- 
sequently, " Have you received my signal ? " to neither 
of which did I get an answer. The German officers on 
board gave me to understand that the captain would 
never surrender, and therefore, though very reluctantly, 
I again fired at her at 4.30 p.m., ceasing at 4.35, as she 
showed white flags and hauled down her ensign by 
sending a man aloft. 

4. I then left Emden and returned and picked up the 
Burcsk's two boats, rescuing two sailors (5.0 p.m.), who 
had been in the water all day. I returned and sent in 
one boat to Emden, manned by her own prize crew 
from Buresk and one officer, and stating I would return 
to their assistance next morning. 

5. I lay on and off all night, and communicated with 
Direction Island at 8.0 a.m., November 10, to find that 
the Emden's party, consisting of three officers and 40 men, 
one launch and two cutters, had seized and provisioned 
a 70-tons schooner (the Ayesha), having four Maxinas 
with two belts to each. They left the previous night 
at six o'clock. The wireless station was entirely de- 
stroyed, one cable cut, one damaged and one intact. I 
borrowed a doctor and two assistants, and proceeded as 
fast as possible to Emden's assistance. 

6. I sent an officer on board to see the captain, and 
in view of the large number of prisoners and wounded 
and lack of accommodation, etc., in this ship, and the 
absolute impossibility of leaving them where they were, 
he agreed that if I received his officers and men and all 
wounded, " then as for such time as they remained in 
Sydney they would cause no interference with ship or 
fittings, and would be amenable to the ship's discipline." 
I therefore set to work at once to tranship them— a most 
difiicult operation, the ship being on weather side of 
island and the send alongside very heavy. The con- 
ditions in the Emden were indescribable. I received tb.e 
last from her at 6.0 p.m., then had to go roiuid to the 
loe side to pick up 20 more men who had managed to 
get ashore from the ship. 

7. Darkness came on before this could be accom- 
plished, and the ship again stood off and on ail night, 
resuming operations at 5.0 a.m. on November 11, a 
cutter's crew having to land with stretchers to bring 
wounded round to embarking point. A German officer, 
a doctor, died ashore the previous day. The ship in the 
meantime ran over to Direction Island to return their 
doctor and assistants, send cables, and was back again 
at lO.O a.m., embarked the remainder of woimded, and 
proceeded for Colombo by 10.35 a.m. Wednesday, 
November 11. 

8. Total casualties in Sydney : Killed, 3 ; severely 
wounded (since dead), 1 ; severely wounded, 4 ; wounded, 
4 ; slightly wounded, 4. In the Emden I can only 
approximately state the killed at 7 officers and 108 men 
from captain's statement. I had on board 11 officers, 
9 warrant officers and 191 men, of whom 3 officers and 
53 men were wounded, and of this number 1 officer and 
3 men have since died of wounds. 

9. The damage to Sydney's hull and fittings was 
surprisingly small ; in all about 10 hits seem to have 
been made. The engine and boiler rooms and funnels 
escaped entirely. 

10. I have great pleasure in stating that the behaviour 
of the ship's company was excellent in every way, and 
with such a large proportion of young hands and people 
under training it is all the more gratifying. 

It will bo seen from Captain Glossop's 
dispatch that he was on escort duty with the 
convoy under the charge of Captain Silver, of 




[Elliott & fry. 

THE LATE REAR-ADMIRAL SIR 
CHRISTOPHER CRADOCK, 

H.M A.S. Melbourne. This convoy was carrying 
Australian and New Zealand troops to the scene 
of the great conflict in Europe. The act of self- 
denial on the part of Captain Silver in sending 
the Sydney to engage the Emden instead of 
taking that duty upon himself certainly deserves 
to bo noted. This officer denied to liimself and 
to the officers and men under his command the 
privilege of dealing with the notorious raider, 
and in so doing ho was actuated solely by his 
high sense of duty and the responsibility that 
he owed to his country. In his judgment the 
Sydney was the more suitable ship, so she was 
sent, and the Melbourne renaained with her 
convoy tuitil the affair was concluded. 

Action off the Coast of Chile. 

On Friday, November 6, the Admiralty 

received " trustworthy information " that an 

action had been fought on the Chilean coast 

on Sunday, November I, between H.M.S. Good 

Hope, Momnouth, and Glasgow, in company 

with the armed liner Otranto, under the 

command of Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher 

Cradock, and the German vessels Scharnliorst, 

Gneisenau, Leipzig, and Dresden. The following 

is a description of the vessels that took part 

in the affair : 

Good Hoi'E. — Armoured cruiser of 14,100 tons. 
Built at Govan and launched in 1901. Length, 515 ft.; 



130 



THE TIMES HISTORY. 0^ THE, WAR. 



beairi, 71 ft. ; draught of water, 28 ft. Her armament 
consisted of two 9-2-inch guns, sixteen C-inch, twelve 
12-pounders, three 3-pounders, two machine guns, and 
she was also fitted with two torpedo tubes. The 9-2 
gun throws a shell of 380 pounds weight, the 6-inch one 
of 100 pounds weight. 

Monmouth. — Armoured cruiser of 9,800 tons. Built 
in Glasgow and completed in 1903. Length, 440 ft. ; 
beam, 66 ft. ; draught of water, 24 J ft. Her armament 
consisted of fourteen 6-inch guns, eight 12-pounders, 
three 3-pounders, eight machine guns, and two torpedo 
tubes. Her best speed was 23' 9 knots. 

Glasgow. — Liglit cruiser of 4,800 tons. Built by 
Fairfield and completed January, 1911. Length, 430 ft.; 
beam, 47 ft. ; draught of water, 15J ft. Her armament 
consists of two 6-inch guns, ten 4-inch, four 3-pounders, 
and two torpedo tubes. Her speed is 25 knots. 

Otbanto. — Of the Orient Lino. Twin-screw steamer 
of 12,100 tons, launched from Workman & Clark's yard 
at Belfast in 1909. Commissioned August, 1914, as an 
auxiliary cruiser. 

The German armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and 
Gneisenau, of 11,600 tons, were sister ships, and were 
completed in 1907. Their length was 449J ft. ; beam, 
71 ft. ; draught of water, 25 ft. Their .irraament con- 
sisted of eight 8-2-inch guns (weight of projectile 275 
pounds), six C-inch, twenty 24-pouiiders, four machine 
guns, and four torpedo tubes. 

Dresden. — Third-class cruiser, 3,600 tons. Sister 
ship to the Emden. Completed 1909. Length, 387 ft. ; 
beam, 43i ft. ; draught of water, 17| ft. She was 
armed with ten 4-1-inch guns, eight 5-pounders, four 
machine guns, and two torpedo tubes. 

NuRXBEBG. — Same type and armament as Dresden, 
but 3,450 tons displacement. 

Leipzig. — Third-class cruiser, 3,250 tons. Completed 
1906. Length, 341 ft. ; beam, 43^ ft. ; maximum 
draught, 17^ ft. She was armed with ten 4-1 -inch 
guns, ten 1 -pounders, four machine guns, and two 
torpedo tubes. 

The first news that reached tliis country of 
tliis disastrous action was hardly credited in 



official circles, and in an official statement the 
Secretary of the Admiralty stated : 

The Admiralty cannot accept these facts as accurate 
at the present time, for the battleship Canopus, which 
had been specially sent to strengthen Admiral Cradock'a 
squadron, and would give him a decided superiority, is 
not mentioned in them, and further, although five 
German ships are concentrated in Chilean waters, only 
three have come into Valparaiso harbour. It is possible, 
therefore, that when full accounts of the action are 
received they may considerably modify the German 
version. 

Unfortunately for official optimism the obso- 
lescent Canopus* was not with the cruisers in 
the action. The moral of this battle was the 
same as that of those by which it was suc- 
ceeded — that, given reasonably good shooting 
and skill in the handling, the ship with the 
better artillery will win any action. The Good 
Hope represented one of the worst and most 
expensive types of ship ever built for the Navy 
in modern times. She was an immense target 
and much under-gunned for her displacement. 
The Monmouth, also of nearly 10,000 tons, 
carried no gun larger than a 6 -inch. 



* Canopus, battleship of 12,950 tons, built at Ports- 
mouth, and completed in 1900. Length, 400 ft. ; 
beam, 74 ft. ; draught of water, 26| ft. Her armament 
consists of four 12-inch guns (mark 8, 35 calibre, weight 
of projectile 850 pounds), twelve 6-inch, ton 12-poundera 
(12 cwt.), two 12-pounders (8 cwt.), six 3-pounders, two 
Maxims, four torpedo tubes. Speed (when new) 18-5 
knots. 




1. H.M.S. "MONMOUTH." 



II. H.M.S. "GOOD HOPE." 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



131 






\ 
\ 



n/l 



\ 



V 



4 Q OTRANTO 




\ 3 Q GLASGOW 
\ ZnMONMOUW 
I Q GOOD HOPE 



^ c^ to' <5r.'' 



\ > ; I 

' '' / 

I I 
I / 



I 

i 



'fS Mil, 



es- 






Tumbes 



OTRANTO 



X 



1 



A 



= /I 

^1 









y <i 



/ 






[/ MONMOUTH I \ / 

/I Outof Actioa |/>^ A 

i 






^4 



3D HOP£ ' 



GOOD 

Out of Action 



[7»50/;ArJ 



^^1, 






'Talcaliuano 

San Vicente 



COISCEPCION 



Coronel 



Loto 



^ 



i> 



S*^ Arauco 
Bay 



Arauco 



:f0i7\ 



PLAN OF THE ACTION OFF CORONEL. 



The comparison of guns in the two squadrons 
runs thus : 



Germaa. 
16 8-2-mch 
12 6-inch 
30 4-1-inch 
40 24-pounder3 
16 o-pounders 



British. 
2 9-2-inch 
32 6-inch 
10 4-inch 
20 12-poundors 
10 3-Dounder3 



The British ships were outclassed, as their 
6-inch guns of an old mark were unlikely to 
inflict damage on the enemy at long ranges, no 



matter how well served ; while at the same 
time the comparatively modern 8*2's of the 
Germans would be finding their target, the 
gmuiers being unhampered by the disturbing 
factor of hits on their own ships. The Scharn- 
horst had won the gold medal for big-ship 
shooting presented by the Kaiser, and the 
Gneisenau was also extremely efficient in 
gunnery. 

On yunday, November 1, l'J14, tlu* Good 



132 



THE TIMES HlSTOIiY OF THE WAR. 



Hope, Monmouth and Glasgow came up with 
the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig, and 
Dresden. There was a strong wind and a very 
considerable sea ; both squadrons were steaming 
to the southward, and the Germans kept out of 
range and declined action until sxinset, when 
the light gave them an important advantage. 
Early in the battle, which lasted about two 
hours, "both the Good Hope and Monmouth 
caught fire, but they continued fighting until 
nearly dark, when a serious explosion took place 
in the Good Hope and she foundered. It was 
stated that the Monmouth hauled off at dark, 
making water badly, and appeared vmable to 
steam . away. We now know, however, that 
she closed with the enemy with the greatest 
gallantry with the intention of ramming ; that 
she was sunk in the attempt quite close to the 
enemy ships ; and that although the sea was 
by no means too bad, no attempt was made to 
save the English sailors struggling in the water. 
On November 17 the Secretary of the 
Admiralty announced that the following report 
had been received from Captain John Luce, of 
H.M.S. Glasgow : 

Glasgow left Coronel 9 a.m. on November 1 to rejoin 
Good Hope (flagship). Monmouth and Otranto at ren- 
dezvous. At 2 p.m. flagship signalled that apparently 
from wireless calls there was an enemy ship to north- 
ward. Orders were given for squadron to spread 
N.E. by E. in the following order : Good Hope, Mon- 
mouth, Otranto, and Glasgow, speed to be worked up to 



15 knots. 4.20 p.m.. saw smoke ; proved to be enemy 
ships, one small cruiser and two armoured cruisers. 
Gla.sgow reported to Admiral, ships in sight were warned, 
and all concentrated on Good Hope. At 5.0 p.m. Good 
Hope was sighted. 

5.47 p.m., squadron formed in line-ahead in following 
order : Good Hope, Monmouth, Glasgow, Otranto. 
Enemy, who had turned south, were now in .single hne- 
ahead 12 miles off, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau leading. 
6. 18- p.m., speed ordered to 17 knots, and flagship sig- 
nalled Canopus, " I am going to attack enemy now." 
Enemy were now 15,000 yards away, and maintained 
this range, at the same time jambing wireless signals. 

By this tune sun was setting ijninediately hehind us 
from enemy position, and while it remained above 
horizon we had advantage in light, but range too great. 
C.55 p.m., sun set, and visibility conditions alt^ered. our 
ships being silhouetted against afterglow, and failing 
light made enemy difficult to see. 

7.3 p.m., enemy opened tire 12,000 yards, followed in 
quick succession by Good Hope, Monmouth, Glasgow. 
Two squadrons were now converging, and each ship 
engaged opposite number in the line. Growing darkness 
and heavy spray of head sea made firing diflficult, par- 
ticularly for main deck guns of Good Hope and ilon- 
mouth. Enemy firing salvos got range quickly, and 
their third salvo caused fire to break out on fore part of 
both ships, which were constantly on fire till 7.45 p.m. 
7.50 p.m., immense explosion occurred on Good Hope 
amidships, flames reaching 200 ft. hi ah. Total destrua- 
tion must have followed. It was now q lite dar'c. 

Both sides continued firing at flashes of opposin * guns 
Monmouth was badly down by the bow, and turned 
away to get stern to sea, signalling to Glasgow to that 
effect. 8.30 p.m.. Glasgow signalled to Monmouth : 
" Enemy following us," but received no reply. Under 
rising moon enemy's ships were now seen approaching, 
and as Glasgow could render Monmouth no assistance, 
she proceeded at full speed to avoid destruction. 8.50 
p.m., lost sight of enemy. 9.20 p.m., observed 75 flashes 
of fire, which was no doubt final attack on Monmouth. 

Nothing could have been more admirable than con» 
duct of officers and men throughout. Though it was 




A DESTROYER'S TORPEDO TUBES. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



183 



.S^anta Cru7 



r I c 




c f ^^ 









'"Sffe. "^'^- 



Queen Cfyary ^^^^tr^Wh 



Bcave 
W 






?»' 



^^^ 






^-'^^^'^^-..^., 



'^. 



■^■^o. / 



Beauchenel. / 

FALKLAND ISLANDS. 

( British ) ^ 



A. 



/ 









r 



1 



^jAWolIaston I? 
Cape Horn^-^'- 



o|^. 



,r£>C?^ Sbaben I. 

^<Ql>'" SCALE or MILES. 

^^ ^ 50 100 

I 1—1 i—i I— I I— I I— I 



7SO 



200 



MAP SHOWING POSITION OF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS. 



most trying to receive great volume of fire without 
chance of returning it adequately, all kept perfectly 
cool, there was no wild firing, and discipline was the 
same as at battle practice. When target ceased to be 
visible, gunlayers spontaneously ceased fire. The 
sorious reverse sustained has entirely failed to impair 
the spirit of officers and ship's company, and it is our 
unanimous wish to meet the eneniy again as soon as 
possible. 

The Admiral, the gallant and well-beloved 
Cradock, had gone to his long home with a 
guard accompanying him of himdreds of those 
seamen he had led in action. No end could 
have been more consonant with his own wishes 
than that he should die for the country he had 
served so well. 

The Glasgow, sorely battered, stood away 
out of action to the southward. It was a 
miracle that she lived to tell the tale ; but not 
only did she do so, but we see from the con- 
cluding paragraph of the report of Captain 
Luce in what manner the action had been 
viewed by those on board. We are told th.at 
owing to internal damage from the fire of the 
enemy a good deal of strutting with timber 
had to be resorted to. in order to shore up her 
decks and stiffen damaged bulkheads. An 
officer finding his way along the next morning 



discovered the following inscription chalked up 
on one of these struts : " Epping Forest, no 
Germans admitted on any pretence." 

It will be remembered that the cruisers 
Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue were sunlc in the 
North Sea by submarines on September 22 : 
and that this feat was received with delirious 
joy in Germany. The satisfaction on that 
occasion was nothing to the outburst when the 
news was received in Berlin of the destruction 
of Admiral Cradock's two ships. The hated 
English had once more been defeated on their 
own element, the sea, and loud were the boast- 
ings and the predictions of further disasters in 
store for the British Navy in the future. 

There was no minimising the fact that our 
arms had received a serious reverse, or that the 
enemy had legitimate cause for jubilation. 
Admiral von Spec had not been heard of for 
nearly six weeks before the battle ofT the 
Chilean coast, and his reappearance and success 
were a mortifying blow to British prestige. 
The German squadron, as we Icnow, had 
eluded the Japanese squadrons in the Far 
East, the Scharnliorst and the Gneisenau having 
left Kiao-Chau just before war broke out. 
' 30— :j 



134 



THE TIMES UlSTOHY OF THE WAR. 



They were not heard of again until September 22, 
when they arrived off Papeete in the island of 
Tahiti, where they sank a small and unarmed 
French gunboat and bombarded the defenceless 
town. Later on it was discovered that the two 
vessels had visited Apia harbour on Septem- 
ber 14, but had remained only a short time. 
In October the Leipzig sank a steamer called 
the Bankfields off Peru, homeward bound from 
Eten with a cargo of six thousand tons of sugar. 
In September she sank the oil-tank steamer 
Elsinore, and in November the Vine Branch, 
off the Chilean coast, while that vessel was 
outward bound from England to Guayaquil. 
The Dresden sank the Hj^ades off Pernambuco 
on August 16, V. hile the vessel was bound from 
the River Plate for Holland with grain, and the 
Holmwood on August 2G near Santa Maria, on 
the voyage from Soutli Wales to Bahia Blanca 
with coals. The Niirnberg cut the cable 
between Bamfield, British Columbia, and 
Fanning Island early in September, but there 
is no record of her having captured anj^thing. 
The large cruisers do not seem to have gone in 
for commerce destruction. 



Thk Falkland Islands Victory. 

High speed in scouting vessels, wireless 
telegraphy, the aeroplane, the captive balloon, 
and the dirigible have rendered it increasingly 
difficult in the twentieth century to conduct 
warlike operations with anv-thing approaching 
to secrecy. Not only is the general on land 
no longer unaware of what is happening on the 
other side of the hill, but the admiral at sea 
is overlooked by aircraft when the weather is 
at all suitable for the purpose. Aircraft, how- 
ever, have distinct limitations. In ideal 
weather for the purpose a Zeppelin airship 
might scout with most satisfactory results in 
the North Sea, and might even pursue her 
researches until they included a peep at the 
harbours on the western shores of Scotland, 
But the open ocean remaiiis, and, at all events 
for the present, seems likely to remain, the 
province of the ship wh.ch sails upon its waters. 
Therefore the problem of coining up with and 
destroying the squadron of von Spee was a 
matter that had to be settled without adven- 
titious aid from the firmament of heaven. 

Very seldom had retribution followed so 



-i»^ 




THE KAISHR AMONGST HIS SAILORS. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



135 




PORT STANLEY, FALKLAND ISLANDS. 



[Mrs. Walter. 



•swiftly on the heels of action as it did on this 
occasion. The destruction of this German 
squadron, an imperative necessity from the 
first, had now to be accomplished in the 
shortest possible time. Von Spee had signed 
his own death warrant. First we will set down 
■the bald Adiniralty announcement, which runs 
as follows : 

At 7.30 a.m. on December 8 the Scharnhorst, GneisennuJ 
Niirnberg, Leipzig and Dresden wore sighted near the 
Falkland Islands by a British squadron under Vice- 
Admiral Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee. An action 
•followed, in the course of which the Scharnhorst, flying 
the flag of Admiral Graf von Spee, the Gneisenau, and 
the Leipzig were sunk. The Dresden and the Numberg 
•made off during the action, and are being pursued. 
Two colliers were also captured. The Vice-Admiral 
•reports that the British casualties are very few in number. 
Some survivors have been rescued from the Gneisenau 
.and the Leipzig. 

Thirty-eight days only had elapsed between 
the action in the Pacific and that which took 
place in the South Atlantic. On November 1 
the Monmouth and the Good Hope were sunk 
■by the German squadron ; on December 8 they 
were followed by their destroyers. The Falkland 
Islands, where the battle between Sturdee and 
von Spee took place, are well over 7,000 miles 
from England ; yet in a little over five v/eeks 
from the time of the disaster to Cradock a 
sufficient force had been dispatched, had found 
the enemy, and had dealt with him to his entire 
discomfiture. 

During the war a policy of silence was 
'maintained that sometimes proved irksome 
to the public. A more striking justification of 
this attitude on the part of the authorities 
•could hardly be found than in the success of the 
Falkland Islands action. Until it was over no 
•unauthorised person so much as knew that 



Vice-Admiral Stvirdee was on his way, or indeed 
that any squadron had been dispatched to deal 
with the situation. In the upshot the right force 
arrived at the right place at the right time, thus 
solving the strategical side of the problem, 
while its tactical outcome was all that could be 
desired. 

The Governor of the Falkland Islands had 
heard from the Admiralty that he might expect 
a raid on the Islands, and had done what he 
could to prepare for such an eventuality. 
Women and children by an order dated Octo- 
ber 19 were ordered to leave Port Stanley, and 
in the meantime the men in the island prepared 




Sea Miles. 

2 3 

I I 



L^ 



ADMIRAL STURDEE'S SQUADRON IN 
PORT STANLEY HARBOUR. 

L "Invincible." 2. " Inflexible." 3. "Carnarvon." 

4. "Glasgow." 5. "Kent." 6. "Cornwall." 
7. "Bristol." 8. "Macedonia." 9. " Canopus." 



136 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




SAFEGUARDS AGAINST TORPEDOES. 
Putting out nets. 



to make the best fight that they could, supposing 
the enemy were to 'appear. A wireless message 
was received on November 3 acquainting the 
people on the island of the loss of the Good 
Ho2:)e and ^Monmouth, and this was followed by 
another from the Glasgow saying that that ship 
and the Canopus were on their way to the 
Falklands. The presumption was that these 
ships were being followed by the victorious 
Germans. A letter from a lady in the Falkland 
Islands gave the following description of the 
state of the Glasgow on arrival : 

The Glasgow was very badly damaged, one enormous 
hole in her side being 3 ft. by 9 ft. Another shell had 
gone through the side of the ship and through the 
captain's cabin, demolishing his roll-top desk, and 
giving off such fumes that several nien who rushed in 
to put out the fire were rendered unconscious. There 
were only four slight casualties, fortunately, and both 
men and officers said of each other that thoy were 
heroes. The Glasgow men said that after the Good 
Hope sank with Admiral Cradock on board their captain 
became senior officer. When he foiuid himself damaged, 
and noticed that the Monmouth was in a similar condition, 
he signalled to the latter ship to steer a certain course 
away from the enemy, but received a reply that as the 
jhip was not under control it was impossible to obey the 
order. He therefore steamed close to the Monmouth, 
which was in a sinking condition, her bows being under 
water, with the men assembled in the stem. There was 
a heavy sea running ; the enemy was still firing, and 
they had to leave the Monmouth to her fate. As the 



Glasgow left to seek safety in flight three cheers were 
raised by the Monmouth, and that was the last they 
knew of the ship. 

Impartial evidence that the British sailors 
were left to drown by the enemy is that of the 
German seamen themselves. On arrival at 
Valparaiso they were asked by a German pastor 
why none of the English had been saved, and 
whether it had not been possible to rescue any 
of them. To this they replied that it would have 
been qviite possible to do so, but that they were 
not permitted by their oflficers to hold out a 
helping hand. 

The force at the disposal of Admiral Sturdee 
comprised the battle cruisers Invincible and 
Inflexible, the battleship Canopus, the armoured 
cruisers Kent and Cornwall, sister ships to the ill- 
fated Monmouth, the armoured cruiser Carnar- 
von (10,850 tons, armed with four 7"5-inch. six 
G-inch, two 12-poiuiders, twenty 3-pounders, 
and two torpedo tubes), the sister light cruisers 
Glasgow and Bristol, and the armed liner 
Macedonia. The Invincible and Inflexible are 
two of the three battle-craisers (the Indomitable 
being the third) which were completed in 1908, 
and have a displacement of 17,250 tons. Their 
speed is over 28 knots, and the price of this 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



137 



increase over the 21 knots of the battleship 
Dreadnought was the loss of two 12-inch guns 
and lighter armour— a 7 -inch belt amidships 
instead of an 11-inch, and a 4-in belt forward 
instead of a G-inch. Owing to the arrangement 
of their turrets all their eight 1 2-inch guns can 
be fired either to port or starboard. 

The details of the German squadron have 
already been given. It is interesting to note 
that the Scharnliorst and Gneisenau were 
almost contemporary with the Invincible class, 
having been completed in 1907, but at that 
time Germany had not been able to copy and 
adopt the all-big-gun ship, either as battleship 
or as battle cruiser. 

What information Admiral von Spee had been 
able to gather concerning enemy movements 
since the day on which he sank the Good Hope 
and the Monmouth has never become known, 
but what is quite certain is that he was unaware 
of the arrival of the squadron commanded by 
Admiral Sturdee. It is evident that the Ger- 
man commander was on his way to annex the 
Falkland Islands, and to use them as his much- 
needed base. Secrecy and silence were weapons 
as potent as the guns of Sturdee' s squadron, and 
the nation owes a debt of gratitude to those 
V ho succeeded, totally unknown to the enemy, 



in getting a powerful squadron away from home 
waters to the far-distant Falklands — a squadron 
which arrived exactly in time, and which was 
thus enabled to clear the southern seas of a 
menace to British trade and British supremacy. 

At the time of the battle between von Spee 
and Cradock, the Canopus was 200 miles to the 
southward, and after the action she was picked 
up by the Glasgow, both ships then proceeding 
in company to the Falklands, wliere they 
arrived on November 8. On the evening of that 
day a wireless message was received directing 
them to proceed to Monte Video, and tlie 
inhabitants of the colony were left with the 
pleasing prospect of awaiting the arrival of the 
victorious German squadron, to which they 
could offer only such resistance as might be 
raised locally. Before, however, the two ships 
arrived at Monte Video, they received a wireless 
message ordering them to return to the Falk- 
lands and help to defend the colony, which they 
accordingly did ; and then, on December 7, to 
the immense reUef of everyone, the Invincible 
and Inflexible arrived from England, and the 
other ships from Brazil. 

At 8 o'clock on Tuesday morning, Decem- 
ber 8, it was reported from the signal station on 
shore that the look-out on Sapper Hill had 






•%^' 




-*i--| ^f 








i ,Kj»i u i'notograph l)V <i .\itial Offuci frvsint. 

BOATS FROM THE "INFLEXIBLE" AND "INVINCIBLE" PICKING UP SURVIVORS 

FROM THE "GNEISENAU." 
The "Inflexible" standing by. 



138 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




VICE-ADMIRAL SIR F. C. 
STURDEE. 



DOVETON 



observed a fovir-fiinnel and a two-funnel man- 
of-war steering northwards, and the Kent, 
which was acting as guard ship in Port William, 
was at once ordered to weigh anchor, and a few 
minutes later passed down the harbour to a 
station at the entrance, while a general signal 
was made to raise steam for full speed. It was 
most important to conceal, if possible, from the 
enemy the fact that two battle cruisers were 
present, and accordingly those two vessels 
raised steam with oil fuel. Those who have 
seen the volumes of black sn:ioke that pour out 
from the funnels of a ship raising steam with oil 
fuel wiU reahse how black was the cloud that 
soon enveloped the harbour. 

At 8.20 the signal station reported another 
colimin of smoke in sight to the southward, 
and still another column half an hoiu" later. 
The Canopus, which was lying in Port Stanley, 
with the Glasgow and Bristol, the other vessels 
being in Port William, with the Macedonia at 
anchor as look-out ship at the mouth of the 
bay, reported at 8.47 that the first two ships 
were about 8 miles off, and that the smoke 



reported at 8.20 appeared to be that of two 
ships about 20 miles off. 

The subsequent course of events may be 
given in the words of Admiral Sturdee'e 
dispatch : 

At 9.20 a.m. the two leading ships of the enemy 
(Gncisenau and Niirnberg), with guns trained on the 
\vireless station, camo within range of the Canopus, who 
opened fii-e at them across the low land at a range of 
11,000 yards. The enemy at once hoisted their colours 
and turned away. At this time the masts and smoke of 
the enemy were visible from the upper bridge of the 
Invincible at a range of approximately 17 000 yards 
across the low land to the south of Port William. 

A few minutes later the two cruisers altered course to 
port, as though to close the Kent at the entrance to the 
harbour but about this time it seems that the Invincible 
and Inflexible were seen over the land, as the enemy at 
once altered course and increased speed to join their 
consorts. 

The Glasgow weighed and proceeded at 0.40 a.m. with 
orders to join the Kent and observe the enemy's move- 
ments. 

At 9.45 a.m. the squadron — less the Bristol — weighed, 
and proceeded out of harbour in the following order : — 
Carnarvon, Inflexible, Invincible, and Cornwall. On 
passing Cape Pembroke Light, the five ships of the 
enemy appeared clearly in sight to the south-east, hull 
down. The visibility was at its maximum, the sea was 
calm, with a briglit sun, a clear sky, and a light breeze 
from the north-west. 

At 10.20 a.m. the signal for a general chase was made. 
The battle cruisers quickly passed ahead of the Car- 
narvon and overtook the Kent. The Glasgow was 
ordered to keep two miles from the Invincible, and the 
Inflexible was stationed on the starboard quarter of 
the flagship. Speed was eased to 20 knots at 11.15 a.m. 
to enable the other cruisers to get into station. 

At this time the enemy's fimnels and bridges showed 
just above the horizon. 

Information was received from the Bristol at 11.27 
a.m. that three enemy ships had appeared off Port 
Pleasant, probably colliers or transports. The Bristol 
was therefore directed to take the Macedonia xinder his 
orders and destroy transports. 

The enemy were still maintaining their distance, and I 
decided, at 12.20 p.m., to attack with the two battle 
cruisers and the Glasgow. 

At 12.47 p.m. the signal to " Open fire and engage the 
enemy " was made. 

The Inflexible opened fire at 12.55 p.m. from her fore 
turret at the right-hand ship of the enemy, a light 
cruiser ; a few minutes later the Invincible opened fire 
at the same ship. 

The deliberate fire from a range of 16,500 to 15,000 
yards at the right-hand light cruiser, who was dropping 
astern, became too threatening, and when a shell fell 
close alongside her at 1.20 p.m. she (the Leipzig) turned 
away, with the Niimberg and Dresden to the south-west. 
These light cruisers were at once followed by the Kent, 
Glasgow, and Cornwall, in accordance with my instruc- 
tions. 

The action finally developed into three separate 
encoimters, besides the subsidiary one dealing with the 
threatened landing. 

Action with the armoured cruisers. — The fire of the 
battle cruisers was directed on the Schamhorst and 
Gneisenau. ITie effect of this was quickly seen, when at 
1.25 p.m., with the Schamhorst leading, they turned 
about 7 points to port in succession into line-ahead and 
opened fire at 1.30 p.m. Shortly afterwards speed was 
eased to 24 knots, and the battle cruisers were ordered 
to turn together, bringing them into line-ahead, with the 
Invincible leading. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR, 



139 




PART OF ADMIRAL STURDEE'S FLEET. 
Top: H.M.S. "Invincible"; centre left: H.M.S. "Canopus"; centre right: H.M.S. "Glasgow" 

bottom: H.M.S. "Inflexible." 



140 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIL 




[Russell Soutlisea 



REAR-ADMIRAL ARCHIBALD P. 

STODDART, 

(in the uniform of a Captain) 

who flew his flag on H.M.S. " Carnarvon." 

The range was about 13,500 yards at the final tiim^ and 
increased until, at 2 p.m.. it had reached 16,450 
yards. 

The enemy then (2.10 p.m.) turned away about 10 
points to starboard and a second chase ensued, until 
at 2.45 p.m.. the battle cruisers again opened fire ; thi* 
caused the enemy, at 2.53 p.m., to turn into line-ahead 
to port and open fire at 2.55 p.m. 

The Scharnhorst caught fire forward, but not seriously, 
a!id her fire slackened perceptibly ; the Gneisenau was 
badly hit by the Inflexible. 

At 3.30 p.m. the Scharnhorst led round about 10 
points to starboard ; just previously her fire had slackened 
perceptibly, and one shell had shot away her third funnel ; 
some guns were not firing, and it would appear that the 
turn was dictated by a desire to bring her starboard guns 
into action. The effect of the fire on the Scharnhorst 
became more and more apparent in consequence of 
smoke from fires; and also escaping steam ; at times a 
shell would cause a large hole to appear in her side, 
through which could be seen a dull red glow of flame. 
At 4.4. p.m. the Scharnhorst, whose flag reinained flying 
to the last, suddenly listed heavily to port, and within a 
minute it became clear that she was a doomed ship ; 
for the list increased very rapidly until she lay on her 
beam ends, and at 1.17 p.m. she disappeared. 

The Gneisenau passed on the far side of her late 
flagship, and continued a determined but ineffectual 
effo»i; to fight the two battle cruisers. 

At 5.8 p.m. the forward funnel was knocked over and 
remained resting against the second funnel. She was 
evidently in .serious straits, and her fire slackened very 
much. 

At 5.15 p.m. one of the Gnei.senau's shells struck the 
Invincible ; this was her last effective effort. 

At 5.30 p.m. she turned towards the flagship with n 



heavy list to starboard, and appeared stopped, with 
steam pouring from her escape pipes and smoke from 
shell and fires rising everywlierc. About this time I 
ordered the signal " Cease tire," hut before it was hoisted 
ilie Gneisenau opened fire again, and continued to fire 
Crom time to time with a single gun. 

At 5.40 p.m. the three ships closed in on the Gneisenau, 
and, at this time, the flag flying at her fore truck was 
apparently hauled down, but the flag at the peak con- 
tinued flying. 

At 5.50 p.m. " CeEise fire " was niaile. 

At 6 p.m. the Gneisenau heeled over very suddenly, 
showing the men gathered on her decks and then walking 
on her .side as she lay for a minute on her beam ends 
before sinking. 

The prisoners of war from the Gneisenau report that, 
by the time the ammunition was expended, some 600 
men had been killed and wounded. The surviving 
officers and men were all ordered on deck and told to 
provide themselves witli hammocks and any articles that 
could support them in the water. 

^^'hen the ship capsized and sank there were probably 
some 200 unwounded survivors in the water, but, owing 
to the shock of the cold water, many were drowned 
within sight of the boats and ship. 

I'lvery effort was made to save life as quickly as 
possible, both by boats and from the ships : life-buoys 
were thrown and ropes lowered, but only a proportion 
could be rescued. The Invincible alone rescued 108 
men, 14 of whom were found to be dead after being 
brought on board ; these men were buried at sea the 
following day with full military lionours. 

Actii>n irith the Lir/ht CrtasiTn. — At about 1 p.ni.. when 
the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau turned to port to engage 
the Invincible and Inflexible, the enemy's light cruisers 
turned to starboard to escape ; the Dresden was leading 
and the Niirnberg and Leipzig followed on each 
quarter. 

In accordance witli my instructions, the Glasgow, 
Kent, and Cornwall at once went in chase of these ships ; 
the Carnarvon, wiiose speed was insullicient to overtake 
them, closed the battle cruisers. 

The Glasgow drew well ahead of the Cornwall and 
Kent, and at 3 p.m. .shots were exchanged with the 
Leipzig at 12,000 yards. The Glasgow's object was to 
endeavour to outrange the Leipzig with her 6-inch guns 
and thus cause her to alter course and give the Cornwall 
and Kent a chance of coming into action. 

At 4.17 p.m. the Cornwall opened lire, also on the 
Leipzig. 

.At 7.17 p.m. the Leipzig was on fire fore and aft, and 
the Cornwall and Glasgow ceased fire. 

The Leipzig turned over on her port side and disap- 
])eared at 9 p.m. Seven ollicors and eleven men were 
saved. 

At 3.36 p.m. the Cornwall ordered the Kent to engage 
til? Xiirnberg, the nearest cruiser to her. 

Owing to the excellent and strenuous efforts of the 
engine-room department, the Kent was able to get 
within range of the Niirnberg at 5 p.m. At 6.35 p.m. 
the Niirnberg was on fire forward and ceased firing. 
The Kent also ceased firing and closed to 3,300 yards ; 
as the colours were still observed to be flying in the 
Niirnberg, the Kent opened fire again. Fire was finally 
stopped five minutes later on the colours being haviled 
down, and every preparation was made to save life. The 
Niirnberg sank at 7.27 p.m., and, as she sank, a group 
of men were waving a German ensign attached to a staff. 
Twelve men were rescued, but only seven survived. 

The Kent had four killed and twelve wounded, mostly 
caused by one shell. 

During the time the three cruisers were engaged with 
the NiirnberK and Leipzii.' the Dresden, who was beyond 
her consorts, effected lier escape owing to her superior 
speed. The Glasgow was the only cruiser with sufficient 
speed to have had any chance of success. However, she 
was fully employed in engaging the Leipzig for over an 



THE TIMES EISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



141 




ADMIRAL GRAF VON SPEK AND HIS FLlilM. 

Top, "Scbarnhorst" : centre left, "Leipzig"; centre right, " Nurnbeni " ; bottom, " C^neisenau." 



142 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



lionr hoforo either the Cornwall or Kent nould come up 
and got within range. During this time the Dresden 
was able to increase her distance and get out of sight. 

The weather changed after 4 p.m., and the visibility 
was much reduced ; further, the sky was overcast and 
cloudy, thus assisting the Dresden to get away unob- 
served. 

Action u-ith the Eneniy^s Transports. — A report was 
received at 11.27 a.m. from H.M.S. Bristol that three 
ships of the enemy, probably transports or colliers, had 
appeared off Port Pleasant. The Bristol was ordered to 
take the Macedonia under his orders and destroy the 
transports. 

H.M.S. Macedonia reports that only two ships, steam- 
ships Baden and Santa Isabel, were present ; both ships 
were sunk after the removal of the crew. 

I have pleasure in reporting that the officers and men 
under my orders carried out their duties with admirable 
efficiency and coolness, and great credit is due to the 
Engineer Officers of all the ships, several of which 
exceeded their normal full speed. 

In connexion with Admiral Sturdee's tribute 
to the work of the engineering staffs of the 
ships, reference may be made to the expedients 
to which the Kent was put in her chase of the 
Niirnberg. She was wofully short of fuel, 
and when it was reported to her captain that 
the supply of coal was beconung exhausted, he 
replied, " Very well, then, have a go at the 
boats." Tlie order was obeyed ; the boats 
were broken up, smeared with oil, and passed 
into the fvu-naces. After them went the 
wooden ladders, the doors, and the chests of 
drawers from the officers' cabins, and the Kent 
steamed at 24 knots. 

It was on the Kent, also, that Sergeant 
Charles Mayes performed an act that won him 
the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal. A shell 



burst and ignited some cordite charges in the 
casemate, and a flash of flame went down the 
hoist into the ammunition passage. Sergeant 
Mayes picked up a charge of cordite and threw 
it away. He then got hold of a firehose and 
flooded the compartment, extinguishing the 
fire in some empty shell bags which were 
burning. The extinction of this fire saved a 
disaster which might have led to the loss of 
the ship. 

The sinking of the Leipzig is described in the 
following extracts from a letter from H.M.S. 
Cornwall : 

At about 9 p.m. she loosed oil a rocket as a sign of 
surrender, and so we lowered what boats we could and 
sent them to her aid. I sliall never in all my life forget 
the sight of that ship going down. All the ship's 
company had gathered on the foc's'le, and one or two 
boats were still being lowered when the captain leant over 
the side of the bridge and said: ''It's no good, she's 
going." The men in the boat which was half lowered 
stood up and every face was turned towards the blazing 
ship. You can't imagine what she was like. It was 
nearly dark, about 9.25 p.m., and the red glare from the 
flames lit up the remains of what had been the home of 
.some 300 human beings a few hours before. As we saw 
her then she lay like an inferno on the sea. She had only 
the veriest stump of her second funnel left. The other 
two had been knocked completely away. Her main- 
mast was gone, and the upper half of her foremast. 
Aft she w.^s blazing like an oil factory, and forward she 
was also burning furiously. Her ports showed up like 
faint red circles, and occasional spurts of steam and 
sparks ascended from her waist. How any ship could 
have floated like it Heaven alone knows, and how 
anyone can have lived through it simply astounds me. 
Suddenly she heeled to port and her stump of a foremast 
slowly dipped into the water as she sank with scarcely 
a ripple by the head. There was no cheering or anything 




A BATTLESHIP'S GUNS IN ACTION. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



143 




GERMAN WARSHIP IN KIEL CANAL. 



of that sort. We just stood there in absolute silenne, 
and, personally, I thought of the poor de\'ils who had 
been chased for five months only to end like that. 
There is no doubt whatsoever that they fought like 
heroes. As for ourselves they hit us fair and square 
eighteen times, and yet we had not one single casualty. 

The same writer makes the following general 

reflections on the engage aient : 

When one remembers that the action in the Pacific 
was fought on November 1, and that the German fleet 
did not appear off the Falklands until December 8, when 
they were free to have come any day previous to that, 
and that the British fleet had only arrived twenty-four 
hours earlier it does seem obvious that our luck was in. 
If we had arrived forty-eight hours later and they had 
arrived twenty-four hours sooner, the Falkland Isles 
would have been in German hands, and hundreds of lives 
would have been lost regaining them. 

Of course, we had every adva itage on our side both in 
weight of guns and speed and armour, but even so it 
argues good management on somebody's part to sink 
four German ships with a loss of over 2,000 Germans 
as against a British loss of seven or eight killed and four 
wounded. 

It cannot be denied that a satisfactory 

roundness would have been added to the 

victory had all the five German ships been 

sunk, and on this point the comments of the 

Naval Correspondent of The Times may aptly 

be quoted : 

It is not unfair, nor does it detract from the gallantry 
of Admiral Sturdee, or the skilful manner in which he 
fought the action, to describe the escape of the Dresden 
as a regrettable incident. It is explained as being 
partly due to the fact that the Glasgow, the only light 
cruiser with sufficient speed to have caught her, engaged 
the Leipzig before the Cornwall or Kent came up, and 
during this time the Dresden was able to increase her 
distance and get out of sight. Jloreover, the weather 
changed about 4 p.m., the visibility was much reduced, 
and the sky became overcast and cloudy. Her escape 



had two unfortunate results. It locked up several ships 
for her search which could have been otherwise employed, 
and indirectly led to the loss of a fine Japanese cruiser. 
We treasure two sayings in the Navy, one of Drake's, 
who said there was time to finish his game and beat the 
Spaniards too ; and the other of Nelson's — " Now, had 
we taken ten sail, and had allowed the eleventh to escape 
when it had been possible to have got at her, I couki 
never have called it well done." It seems quite likely 
that Admiral Sturdee has since regretted those brilliant 
hours in the forenoon when he slowed down to enable 
the other cruisers to get into station. But this matter 
apart, it was a well-fought action, giving every oppor- 
tunity for the display of the admirable qualities of all 
engaged in it. 

Some JNIinob Operations. 
One of the most interesting of the minor 
events of the war at sea was the bottling up and 
subsequent destruction of the German light 
cruiser Konigsberg in the Rufigi River on the 
East Coast of Africa in November. This vessel 
escaped from Dar-es-Salaam at the beginning 
of the war and did a good deal of mischief among 
shipping, including the shelling of H.M.S. 
Pegasus in Zanzibar, when that vessel was laid 
up repairing boilers and was unable to replj'^ to 
her fire. Chased by British cruisers she took 
refuge in the Rufigi River and managed to force 
her way up stream until she was out of range. 
As the depth of water was insufficient to permit 
of hor being followed, it was decided to prevent 
her escape by blocking the channel. A vessel 
named the Newbridge, with 1,500 tons of coal 
in her, was requisitioned for this service, and for 
the trip down from Zanzibar to the river Iut 
crew was replaced by naval officers and blue- 



]44 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




SERGEANT CHARLES MAYES, 
H.M.S. "Kent." 

jackets, though her captain, Captain Willett, 
remained. Tlie operations were in charge of 
Lieutenant Lavington of the Pegasus. 

The preparations were made with secrecy, 
but the Germans received notice of what was 



intended and got ready accordingly. Tn order 
to reach the position where it w as proposed to 
sink her the Newbridge had to pass close to a 
small island in the mouth of the river, and on 
this a number of the crew of the Konigsberg 
entrenched themselves with Maxims and quick- 
firers landed from their ship. The Newbridge 
went in under her owti steam, and the Germans 
opened fire as soon as she got within range ; a 
seaman was badly peppered with coal dust 
owing to a shell exploding in a coal bag, but 
that was the only casualty. Coolly and dex- 
terously the ship was manoeuvred into position 
to block the charmel. Bow and stern anchors 
were let go, and water was admitted to her 
tanks so that she took a hst to port, the object 
being to sink her with her deck up stream, in 
such a way that sand might be carried against 
it by the four-knot tide and promote the rapid 
silting up of the channel. Then, when all was 
ready, her crew took to the boats and exploded 
three charges of guncotton that had been 
placed in her hold against the outer skin. She 
sank rapidly. Several casualties occurred in the 
boats as they passed out under a hot fire from 
the island, two bluejackets being killed and 
several wounded. The Duplex, a cable ship 
which accompanied the Newbridge, had five 
Lascars killed and a lieutenant R.N.R. severely 




HOISTING NAVAL AEROPLANE ON BOARD H.M.S. "HIBERNIA." 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



145 




GERMAN BATTLESHIf SQUADRON. 

wounded. Almost immediately afterwards the 
Duplex ran on a reef ; she was got off, but as 
she was found to be badly damaged, she also 
was sunk in the fairway to complete the bottling 
up process. In the meanwhile the Konigsberg 
concealed herself by fastening palm branches to 
her masts and funnels. The difficulty that she 
thus became indistinguishable from the sea was 
overcome by an aeroplane brought down the 
coast in the Kinfaims Castle. Flying inland 
this machine marked the position of the German 
cruiser by smoke bombs, enabling her to be 
destroyed by bombardment overland from the 
coast by the British cruisers. 

On the other side of Africa, on October 26, 
a French force under Colonel Mayer, with the 
cooperation of a British naval and military 
force, occupied Edea, a town on the Sanaga 
River, West Africa, and an important station 
on the railway to Duala. On November 13 
preparations were completed for extensive 
operations to the north and north-west of 
Duala. After a bombardment by the French 
cruiser Bruix and the Nigeria Government 
yacht Ivy, a force of Royal Marines seized 
and occupied Victoria, the seaport of Buea, 
the seat of the German Colonial Government. 
On the same day a colunm advancing along 
the Bonaberi railway from Susa drove the 
enemy north and occupied Mujuka, a station 
about 50 miles from Bonaberi. Meanwhile 
large allied naval and military forces, advancing 
from different points, proceeded to occupy 
Buea. The occupation was effected on Novem- 
ber 15, the enemy being scattered in all direc- 
tions. A German missionary attempted to 
blow up H.M.S. Dwarf with an infernal machine, 
and when asked how he found such an action 
compatible with his profession replied that lie 
was a soldier first and a missionary afterwards. 

About the same time two successful opera- 
tions were carried out in the Red Sea. In the 
first of these, against the Turkish garrison at 




Sheik Seyd, Indian troops were engaged, 
assisted by H.M.S. Duke of Edinburgh- 
According to the official accovmt issued by the 
Secretary of the Admiralty on November 16, 
the Turkish fort (Turba) is situated on the 
rocky heights to the eastward of Cape Bab-el- 
Mandeb, at the southern entrance to the Red 
Sea, and is close to the boundary line between 
Turkish territory and the Aden protectorate. 
The Sheik Seyd Peninsula consists of a group 




IF. N. BtrUeU. 
FLIGHT COMMANDER 
FRANCIS E. T. HEWLETT, R.N. 



146 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




BRITISH AEROPLANE RAID ON GUXHAVEN. 



of rocky heights joined to the mainland by a 
low sandy plain, the greater portion of which is 
covered at high water by a shallow lagoon. 
The guns of the fort command the isthmus 
connecting the peninsula A\ith the mainland. 
Three battalions of troops were landed in face 
of opposition, but under cover of fire from 
H.M.S. Duke of Edinburgh, which had pre- 
viously disabled Turba Fort, and which assisted 
during the operations. After landing, one 
and a half battalions of infantry attacked the 
enemy positions, and were opposed by well- 
concealed artillery and infantry fire. Wlien 
the hills commanding INIanlieli were occupied, 
opposition weakened, and about 200 of the 
enemy escaped on camels by the isthmus or 
in boats by sea. Six of the enemy were reported 
killed, and the majority of the remainder 
wounded and prisoners. The forts were occu- 
pied by the British forces, and large amounts 
of munitions of war and six field guns captured. 
The heavy guns were probably put out of 
action by the Duke of Edinburgh. The British 
casualties among the troops were one officer 
and fifteen men wounded, and four men killed. 
There were no naval casualties. 

In consequence of a report that mines had 
been sent to Akaba to be laid in the Gulf of 
Akaba, and possibly in the Red Sea, the 
cruiser Minerva was ordered to proceed to 



Akaba to investigate and stop any such action. 
According to an account published at Cairo 
on November 17, on arriving at Akaba the 
captain found it occupied by a small detach- 
ment of troops. Negotiations for a surrender 
were attempted, but were frustrated by German 
officers present. The Minerva was compelled 
to open fire, but confined her attack to the fort, 
the post office, and the Government buildings. 
Later a landing party reconnoitred in the 
direction of Wadi-el-Ithm, but encountered only 
a few armed men, who rapidly disappeared. The 
patrol returned to the tov\-n and re-embarked, 
after posting a proclamation inviting the 
inhabitants to return and assuring their safety. 
The town and wells were not damaged, and there 
were no British casualties. 

In the Persian Gulf, as already recorded, 
successful operations were carried out on 
November 8 against Fao, at the mouth of 
the Shatt-el-Arab, by a mihtary force from 
India covered by H.M.S. Odin (Commander 
Cathcart P. Wason), the armed launch Sirdar, 
a force of marines with a ISIaxim gun party, 
and a boat from the Ocean. The gims of the 
enemy were silenced after an hour's resistance, 
and the town was occupied by the troops and 
the naval brigade. There were no naval 
casualties. 

At the end of October the Tiu-kish Fleet, at 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



147 



the instigation of its German masters, started 
bombarding undefended coast towns in the 
Black Sea. The Goeben bombarded Sebas- 
topol and threw 116 shells into the town on 
November 1, and in answer a combined 
British and French squadron bombarded 
the Dardanelles forts at long range at 
daybreak on November 3. The forts rejjlied, 
but the Allies suffered no loss, only one pro- 
jectile falling alongside. A large explosion, 
accompanied by volvunes of black smoke, 
occurred at Helles fort, but the amount of 
material damage done could not be estimated. 
Probably the intention of the attack was not 
so much to cause damage as to ascertain the 
range of the guns in the forts. 

Nearly three weeks later the Goeben and 
the Breslau were engaged by the Russian Fleet 
in the Black Sea. According to the statement 
of the Naval General Staff at Petrograd, about 
noon on November 18, when the Russian 
battleship division was retiu"ning from a cruise 
along the Anatolian coast and was abrea.st 
of Sebastopol, it sighted, 25 miles off the 
Chersonese lightship, the Goeben and the 
Breslau. The ships immediately took battle 
formation, and holding a course which placed 
th« enemy to starboard, opened fire at a range 
of forty cables (i.e., 8,000 yards). The first 
salvo of the 12-inch guns of the flagship Evstaffi 
hit the Goeben, bursting on the centre of her 
freeboard and causing a fire on board. The other 
Russian ships then opened fu-e, and inade 
excellent practice, a whole series of explosions 
being noticeable on the Goeben's hull. After 
some delay the Goeben opened fire with salvos 
from her big gims, which she concentrated on 
the Russian flagship. The battle lasted 14 
minutes and then the Goeben swiftly changed 
course, and, thanks to her superior speed. 




IRusseil, Southsea. 

LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER 

NORMAN D. HOLBRCOK, V.C., 

of Submarine B 11, 

disappeared in the fog. The Breslau, which 
had taken no part in the action, remained in 
the offing. Only slight damage was suffered 
by the Evstaffi. The Russian casualties were 
four officers and 24 men killed and wounded. 

The strength of the Russian squadron on this 
occasion is not stated, but in anj' case the 
Goeben was nearly twice the displacement of 




SUBMARINE B 11, 
Which torpedoed the Turkish Battleship " Messudiyeh " in fhe Dardanelles. 



148 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




CLEARING FOR ACTION. 

All spare wood and furniture is thrown overboard 
or sent ashore. 



the Russian flagship. Also, she was apparently 
caught napping, as the Russian, who kept the 
better look-out, got in the first blow. At the 
range indicated the Goeben's guns should have 
made a smashing reply, but they evidently 
failed to do so, while the shells of her antagonists 
seem to have done her considerable damage. 
Subsequently she appeared off Batiun, but from 
the fact that she was quickly driven off by the 
shore batteries it may be inferred that her big 
guns had not all been repaired, or replaced, 
since the engagement near Sebastopol. 

On December 13 the British svibmarine Bll, 
Lieutenant-Commander Norman D. Holbrook, 
entered the Dardanelles, and, diving under five 
rows of mines, torpedoed the Turkish battleship 
Messudiyeh, which was guarding the minefield. 
Although pursued by gunfire and torpedo 
boats, Bll retvuTied safely, after being sub- 
merged on one occasion for nine hours. When 



last seen the Messudiyeh was sinking by the 
stem. What was not known at the time, and 
what is nevertheless the fact, is that during the 
operations the compass of Bll went wrong, 
and Lieutenant Holbrook had to find his way 
out of the Dardanelles without it ; at one time 
his frail vessel was actually bumping on the 
bottom. All his brother officers concur in 
regarding this as one of the finest individual feats 
performed during the war. The underwater 
navigation of the Dardanelles is most perilous 
and difficult at all times, owing to the swift 
currents which never cease racing through the 
Straits, and when, in addition to the whirl- 
pools and eddies caused by these currents 
striking projections and points, the presence 
of five rows of mines is considered, such a feat 
would seem quite impossible of accomplishment 
were it not for the hard and undeniable fact 
that it was accomplished. That the tor- 
pedoed battleship was " guarding the mine- 
field " adds a touch of comedy to the proceed- 
ings that must have been singularlj^ gratifying 
to Lieutenant Holbrook and his gallant com- 
panions who crept along the sea floor with him 
on that eventful day. The London Gazette of 
December 21 annoiuiced that the King had 
approved of the grant of the Victoria Cross to 
Lieutenant Norman Douglas Holbrook ; his 
second in command, liieutenant Sydney Thorn- 
hill Winn, being made a Companion of the 
Distinguished Service Order for his shai'e in 
the achievement. 

British Losses in^ Home Waters. 

About this period several na\al losses in 
home waters have to be chronicled. On the 
last day of October the old cruiser Hermes, 
Captain C. R. Lambe, was sunk in the Straits 
of Dover by a German submarine as she was 
retvurning from Dunkirk. She was struck by 
two torpedoes and hmnediately began to settle 
down. The S.O.S. signal was made^ and two 
destroyers and the cross-Channel steamer 
Invicta came to the rescue. She remained 
afloat for about two hours after being struck 
and then foimdered, her captain being the last 
man to leave her. About 44 of her crew were 
lost, 400 being saved and landed at Dover 
On November 11 the torpedo -gunboat Niger,. 
Lieutenant -Commander A. P. Moore, was tor- 
pedoed by a submarine m the Downs and 
foimdered. There was no loss of life, and. 
curiously enough, the occivrrence was witnessed 
by thousands of people at Deal, who had assem- 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



149 



bled on the beach on hearing the sound of heavy 
firing out to sea. About noon the soiuid of an 
explosion was heard and volumes of black smoke 
wero seen rising from the Niger, which was 
lying two miles from the shore opposite to the 
pier iiead. A stiff breeze was blowing with a 
considerable sea. Instantly the Deal and 
Kingsdown lifeboats piit out. together with a 
swarm of boats from the shore, and by these 
the crew were rescued. The Niger sank about 
twenty minutes after the explosion. 

On November 24 the Secretary of the 
Admiralty reported the sinking of the German 
submarine U18 on the northern coast of Scot- 
land. At 12.20 on the morning of the pre- 
ceding day a British patrolling vessel reported 
having rammed her, but she was not sighted 
again \intil 1.20, when she was seen on the 
surface, crew on deck, and flying a white 
flag. Shortly afterwards she foundered just 
as the destroyer Garry came alongside and 
rescued tlu'ee officers and 23 of her crew, only 
one being drowned. The survivors were landed 
and interned in Edinburgh Castle. 

A terrible disaster occurred at Sheerness on 
November 26, the Bulwark, a battleship of 
15,000 tons, being blown up and destroyed, 
with the loss of all her company of some 
750 officers and men, save fourteen. 
Many theories were advanced to explain the 
blowing up of the magazines of the ship, but 
it remained after all an impenetrable mystery. 
Lieutenant Benjamin George Carroll, assistant 




GERMAN WARSHIP COALING AT SEA. 

coaling officer at Sheerness, in his evidence at 
the coroner's inquest, said that he was passing 
down the Med way at 7. 50 a.m. on the morning ol 




GUNS OF H.M.S. "NEW ZEALAND." 



150 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



■2? 

f 







-■•«'- ^ ^ 
^ 



M 



I 



i I iSE^ 




Pi 

a 
u 

a 

H 
O 

o 
z 

z 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



151 



the 26th . The Bulwark was then lying in Rithole 
Reach, and there was nothing alongside her. 
Just as he was noticing a signal indicating the 
number of tons of coal on board her he saw a 
spurt of flame abaft the after barbette. Then 
the whole volume of flame seemed to rush 
towards the after funnel. The whole interior 
of the ship seemed to be blown into the air, and 
everything seemed alight. He observed no 
disturbance of the water. It was quite calm, 
and there was no tide. He at once turned his 
boat back to render assistance, and was able 
to pick up two men, including an officer. He 
* was convinced that there was an internal 
explosion. The 12-inch charges were in brass 
cases, and he did not see how possibly the 
throwing away of cigarette ends could have 
anything to do with the explosions. The 
Admiralty Court of Inquiry which made an 
exhaustive and scientific research into the 
causes of the disaster, could not account for 
it by any known theory ; one of their witnesses. 
Commander Wilton, said that they had been 
able to trace every cartridge on board, and there 
was no evidence of loose cordite. The only 
definite conclusion arrived at was that the 
ignition which had taken place was internal 
and not external. 

The first day of the New Year was marked 
by the loss of the Formidable, a battleship of 
15,000 tons, which was torpedoed and sunk 
in the Channel. Completed in 1901, she was 
virtually a sister-ship to the Bulwark, and 
although pre -Dreadnought battleships are now 
obsolescent they have still a considerable 
fighting value, and it would be folly to under- 
estimate the loss that her destruction meant to 
the Fleet. She went down between 3 and 3.30 
a.m., and of her complement of nearly 800 
only 201 were saved. After she was struck 
everything was done that was possible in the 
circumstances, and that high standard of 
discipline which never fails in the Navy in the 
face of serious emergency was fully maintained. 
Captain Loxley was on the bridge directing 
operations to the last and went down with the 
ship. Of the four boats launched, one, a barge, 
capsized, and several men were thrown into 
the sea ; the second, also a barge, got away 
with about seventy men, who were picked up 
by a light cruiser ; the third, a pinnace with 
some sixty men, reached the shore at I^iymo 
Regis, and the fourth, a cutter with seventy 
men, after being in a rough sea for about eleven 
hours, was rescued off Berry Head by the 




[RusseU. 

REAR-ADMIRAL THE HON. H. L. HOOD. 

trawler Providence and brought into Brixham. 
The splendid behaviour of the master of this 
trawler, William Pillar, and his crew, was the 
one bright spot in the tragedy. They were 
some fifteen miles from Berry Head, and 
rvmning before a gale to shelter in Brixham 
when they were amazed to see an open boat 
adrift. This tvirned out to be the cutter of the 
Formidable. Only a seaman can apprcciato 
the difficulties with which Pillar was now 
confronted. He had, in heavy weather, to 
take in another reef in his mainsail and to hoist 
a storm jib ; otherwise he could not have 
brought his vessel to the wind and so manoeu- 
vred as to get into touch with the cutter. By 
superb handling and entire disregard of danger, 
he actually managed to gybe his vessel in his 
endeavour to establish communication with the 
cutter (this means passing stern to the wind 
from one tack to the other, and is most dan- 
gerous in heavy weather), and at last a rope 
was passed and made fast. One by one the 
mariners of the Formidable leapt from the 
open boat to the smack, and when the transfer 
was at last accomplished the boat was cast 
off and the Providence made for Brixham. 
The officer of the cutter commended the gallant 
seamanship of the Brixham fishermen, wliich ho 
describctl as being beyond all praise, and tlie 
King, when he pinned the silver medal for 
gallantry on the breast of the skippi-r, I'iiliu-, 
at Buckingham I'alace, addressed liini and his 
crew in the following words : " I congratulate 



152 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




THE "BLUGHER." 



you most heartily upon youi" gallant and heroic 
conduct. It is indeed a gi'eat feat to have 
saved seventy-one lives. I realize how diffi- 
cult your task must have been because I know 
myself how arduous it is to gybe a vessel in a 
heavy gale." This was not only the King of 
England speaking to a Brixham fisherman, 
but also one seaman speaking to another ; 
and to have been thus addressed must have 
enhanced the value of their well-earned medals 
to the crew of the Providence. An Admiralty 
award of £250 was made to Pillar, £100 each to 
the mate and seaman, and £50 to the boy. 

There was at first some doubt whether the 
loss of the Formidable was due to a submarine 
or to a mine, but subsequently the Admiralty 



came to the definite opinion that she was sunk 
by two torpedoes fired from a submarine. In 
this connexion Lord Charles Beresf ord remarked 
in the House of Commons on February 15 that : 

the submarine was considerably overrated if proper 
precaution was taken against it, but if such precaution 
was not taken, it was a most fatal weapon in naval 
warfare. It was problematical whether a submarine 
would ever hit a ship going at speed ; certainly, it would 
never hit ships accompanied by their proper quota of 
destroyers and small craft. These were the two safe- 
guards. He wanted to know why the squadron, of which 
the Formidable formed part, disposed of them. It was 
common knowledge where she was going, and what she 
was going to do. She went out and then sent back the 
destroyers, which were her first defence. Afterwards, 
when she was farther out in the Channel, in an area 
known to be infested with submarines, she slackened 
speed. The Admiral would not have done that if the 
Admiralty had given definite orders after the loss of 




THE "BLUGHER" SINKING. 



[From an aaual photograph. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



153 



the three cruisers (Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue) that no 
ship should proceed except at speed and with her 
screens. 

Raids and Cotjnter-Raids. 

We now come to the series of raids made on 
our East Coast by the German Navy. The 
first, on November 3, was directed against Yar- 
mouth. This place has been persistently 
described in the German Press as " the fortified 
port of Yarmouth " — in order, it is to be 
imagined, that the subjects of the Kaiser may 
think that special daring was necessary to 
attack so redoubtable a fortress. The story 
of this raid has already been dealt with 
(Vol. II., pp. 358-362) ; there is, therefore, 
no occasion to make more than passing reference 
to it here. In it eight ships were employed, 
including the three battle cruisers, Seydlitz, 
Moltke, and Von der Tann, the armoured 
cruisers Bliicher and Yorck, and the cruisers 
Kolberg, Graudenz, and Strassburg. They 
bombarded Yarmouth at such long range 
that they did no damage ; they even failed 
to do any serious harm to the ancient torpedo 
gunboat Halcyon, though she should un- 
doubtedly have been sunk. They then turned 
and fled, dropping mines as they went. The 
submarine Dll which started in pursuit, 
struck on one of these and was lost with all 
her crew save two. Two fishing boats also 
struck on mines and were lost with fifteen 
hands. As the cruisers returned to their own 
waters the Yorck struck on a mine and was lost, 
carrying with her some 300 men. 

The second raid, on December 16, was made 
on Scarborough, Whitby, and the Hartlepools. 
As thiS; too, has been exhaustively treated in 
the chapter above referred to, there is no 
need to do more than record it here, 
and to note the horror which this cowardly 
attack caused not only in England, but through- 
out the whole civilized world. Fog unfor- 
tunately prevented a British squadron from 
coming in contact with the marauders, but a 
reply was delivered on Christmas morning, when 
a combined attack was made on the German 
warships lying in Cuxhaven harbour by seven 
seaplanes piloted by Flight -Commanders 
Douglas A. Oliver, Francis E. T. Hewlett, 
Robert P. Ross, and Cecil F. Milner, Flight- 
lieutenants Arnold J. Miley, and Charles H. K. 
Edmonds, and Flight Sub -lieutenant Vivian 
Gaskell Blackbvu-n. The attack was delivered 
at daylight, starting from a point in the vicinity 
of Heligoland. The seaplanes were escorted 
by a light cruiser and destroyer force, together 




[Symonds, Portsmouth. 

CAPTAIN A. S. M. CHATFIELD, 
of H.M.S. "Lion." 

with submarines. As soon as these ships were 
seen by the Germans from Heligoland, two 
Zeppelins, three or four seaplanes and several 
submarines attacked them. It was necessary 
for the British ships to remain in the neigh- 
bourhood in order to pick up the returning 
airmen, and a novel combat ensued between 
the most modern cruisers on the one hand and 
the enemy aircraft and submarines on the other. 
By swift manoeuvring the enemy submarines 
were avoided, and the two Zeppelins were 
easily put to flight by the guns of the Un- 
daimted and Arethusa. The enemy seaplanes 
succeeded in dropping their bombs near our 
ships, though without hitting any. The Bi'ititjh 
ships remained for tliree hours off the enemy 
coast without being molested by any siu-face 
vessels, and safely re-embarked three out of 
the seven airmen. Three more pilots were 
picked up later, according to arrangement, by 
the British submarines which were standing by, 
their machines being sunl<. Flight-Commander 
Hewlett was missing at the end of the day's 
operations, but he eventually returned in 
safety, having been picked up by a Dutch 
fishing vessel. What damage was done is not 
known ; but the moral effect was great. Cux- 
haven, unlike Yarmouth and Scarborough, is 
very strongly fortified ; and shoals make it 
impossible for a ship to pass up the Elbe 
without coming within the range of the giuis 



154 



THE TIMES HISTOllY OF THE WAli. 




[Ritisell, Southsea. 

CAPTAIN LIONEL HALSEY, 
of H.M.S. " New Zealand." 

mounted there. It will be noticed that the 
much-vaunted Zeppelins were put to flight 
almost at once. 

In connexion with this counter-raid on 
Cuxhaven reference may be made to the sup- 
port that was lent by British warships at sea 
to the land forces of the Allies on the coast of 
Belgium. When, established on the coast, the 
Germans proceeded to make their plans for the 
capture of Calais, as a preliminary for the 
destruction of ova Fleet and the invasion of 
our country, thej^ did not reckon on the Britisli 
Navy taking a hand in the game. As was 
briefly recorded in a previous chapter, a naval 
flotilla, including the three monitors which 
at the outbreak of war were being built in 
British yards for Brazil, and mounting a large 
number of powerful long-range guns, was 
brought into action off the Belgian coast in 
October in support of the left flank of the 
Belgian Army. Observation was arranged 
from the shore by means of naval balloons, 
and the squadron under Rear-Admiral Hood 
was able to render the neighbourhood of Nieu- 
port and Westende a " perfect hell of fire and 
smoke," bombarding the German right and 
enfilading their lines. Although the enemy 
replied with heavy guns and sought to damage 
the attacking ships with submarines, destroyers, 
and mines, our vessels received only trifling 



structural injury, and our casualties throughout 
were sligiit. This bombardment was continued 
intermittently for weeks. On November 23 
all points of military significance at Zeebrugge 
were bombarded, and though the official report 
stated that the amount of damage done was 
imknown, there was reason to believe that, at 
least for the time being, the port was rendered 
useless as a naval base. 

There is a curious resemblance between 
tlie work thus done by Admiral Hood in the 
twentieth century and that accomplished by 
Admiral Rodney in the (;ighteenth. On July 3, 
1759, Rodney arrived off Havre which was full 
of stores, fodder, provisions, field guns, ammu- 
nition trains, horses, harness, and small arms, 
ready for embarcation in himdreds of trans- 
ports and flat-bottomed boats for the invasion 
of England by the army under the Due d'Aguil- 
lon. Rodney was provided with a niunber of 
" bomb vessels," which threw bombs guaranteed 
to set fire to anything inflammable with which 
they came into contact. Like om* modern 
Admiral, he was yoimg and full of energy ; 
under him the men worked so splendidly that 
in one night they had all their bomb vessels in 
position, and the next day the rain of bombs 
set fire to and consumed everything which 
would burn, including the transports and flat 




fRiissi!. Soiiilisra. 

REAR-ADMIRAL OSMOND DE B. BROCK 

(in the uniform of a Captain), 

of H.M.S. "Princess Royal." 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



155 



^ 




H.M.S. "LION," 
Flagship of Sir David Beatty. 



boats. It was said that it took Havre over a 
century to recover from Rodney's attack. 

The North Sea Action. 

The third German raid took place on 
January 24, or rather it should be said 
was attempted, for the attack was foiled 
by a British patrolling squadron under Vice- 
Admiral Sir David Beatty. Presumably the 
intention was to repeat the achievement of 
December 16, wliich caused so much delight in 
Germany, and it has been suggested that the 
objective was the Tyne, or even the Firth of 
Forth. In Germany it was spoken of as " an 
advance in the North Sea," as if it were nothing 
but a reconnoitring excursion. 

A British squadron of battle cruisers and 
light cruisers with destroyer flotillas was 
patrolling the North Sea on Sunday morning, 
January 24, 1915, when at 7.25 a.m. the flash 
of guns was observed to the south-south-east, 
and shortly afterwards the light cruiser Aurora 
reported to Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty 
that she was engaged with enemy ships. Ho 
at once altered the course of his ships to south- 
south-east, increased his speed to twenty-two 
knots, and ordered the light cruisers and 
destroyer flotillas to chase south-south-east in 
order to get into touch with the enemy and 
report theiij movements. Almost immediately 
reports followed from the Southampton, 
-Arethusa and Aurora, wliich had anticipated 
these instructions, that the enemy ships con- 
sisted of three battle cruisers, the Bliicher, six 
light cruisers, and a number of destroj'ers. The 
British fleet included the battleships Lion, 



Tiger, Princess Royal, New Zealand and 

Indomitable ; the light cruisers Southampton, 

Nottingham, Birmingham, Lowestoft, Arethusa, 

Aurora and Undaunted, and destroyer flotillas, 

the last being under Commodore Reginald Y. 

Tyrwhitt. The following are particulars of the 

large ships engaged on both sides : 

British. 
Lion. — Battle cruiser, launched at Devonport 1910, 
completed 1912. Displacement, 26,350 tons ; length, 
660 ft. ; beam, 88J ft. ; draught, 28 ft. ; i.h.p., 75,685 ; 




CAPTAIN HENRY B. 
of H.M.S. "Tiger. 



PELLY, 



15G 



THt: TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




'J 



LlJ 

Q 
Z 

o 



C/D 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



157 



speed, 28-5 knots. Artnament : Eight 13-5-inch 
sixteen 4-inch, four 3-pounders, and five raaclnne guns, 
and two torpedo tubes. Con\plement, 980. 

Tiger. — Battle cruiser, launched at Clydebank 1913. 
Displacement. 28,000 tons ; length, 660 ft. ; beam, 
POJ ft.; draught, 28^ ft.; i.h.p., 100 000; speed, 28 
knots. Armament : Eight 13-.5-inch and twelve 6-inch 
gims. These particulars are unoflficial. 

Princess Royal. — Battle cruiser, sister ship of the 
Lion, launched at Barrow 1911 completed 1912. Dis- 
placement, 26,3.')0 tons ; length. 660 ft. ; beam, 88| ft. ; 
draught, 28 ft.: i.h.p., 76,510; speed, 28-5 knots. 
Armament : eight 13-5-inch, sixteen 4-inch, four 
3-pounder, and five machine guns. Complement, 980. 

New Zeaxand. — Battle cruiser, bviilt at Govan at the 
charge of the New Zealand Government, launched 1911, 
completed 1912. Displacement, 18,800 tons ; length, 
555 ft. ; beam, 80 ft. ; draught, 26| ft. ; i.h.p., 46,894 ; 
speed, 25 knots. Armament : Eight 12-inch, sixteen 
4-inch, four 3-pounder. and five machine guns and two 
torpedo tubes. Complement, 780. 

Indomitable. — Battle cruiser, sister ship of the In- 
vincible and Inflexible, which took part in the action 
offi the Falkland Islands. Launched at Govan 1907, 
completed 1908. Displacement, 17,250 ; length, 530 ft. ; 
beam, 78| ft.; draught, 26 ft.; i.h.p., 41,000; speed, 

26 knots. Armament : Plight 12-inch, sixteen 4-inch, 
and five machine gions and five torpedo tubes. Com 
plement, 780. 

German. 

Blucher. — Armouied cruiser, launched at Kiel 1908, 
completed 1910. Displacement, 15,550 tons; length, 
4J9ft. ; beam, 80Jft. ; draught, 26-2 ft. ; i.h.p., 40,000 ; 
speed, 25-3 knots. Armament : Twelve 8-2-inch, eight 
5-9-inch, and sixteen 3-4-inch guns, and four torpedo 
tubes. 

MoLTKE. — Battle cruiser, sister ship of the Goeben, 
launched at Hamburg 1910, completed 1911. Displace- 
ment, 22,640 tons ; length, 610J ft. ; beam, 96 ft. ; 
draught, 27 ft. ; i.h.p., 86,900 ; speed, 28-4 knots. 
Armament: Ten 11-inch, twelve 5-9-inch, and twelve 
3-4-inch guns, and four torpedo tubes. Complement, 
1,013. 

Seydlitz. — Battle cruiser, laimched at Hamburg 1912, 
completed 1913. Displacement, 24,640 tons ; length. 
656 ft. ; beam. 93i ft. ; draught, 27 ft. ; i.h.p., 65,000 ; 
speed, 26-2 knots (best recent speed, 29 knots). Arma- 
ment : ten 11-inch, twelve 5-9-inch, and-twelve 3-4-inch 
guns, and four torpedo tubes. Complement, 1,108. 

DERFFLrN^GER. — Battle cruiser, launched at Hamburg 
1913. Displacement, 28,000 tons; length, 700 ft.; 
beam. 96 ft. ; draught, 27 ft. ; i.h.p., 100,000 ; speed, 

27 knots. Armament : Eight 12-inch, twelve 5-9-inch, 
and twelve 3-4-Lnch guns, and four torpedo tubes. All 
the turrets of the Derflfiinger are stated to be in the centre 
line, and not superimposed ; otherwise the vessel has 
much the same outline as the Seydlitz. 

When the enemy ships were first seen they 
were steering north-west, but they quickly 
changed their course to south-east. Tlie 
British battle cruisers, working up to their full 
speed, steered to the southward. At 7.30 they 
sighted the enemy on the port bow about 14 
miles distant and steaming fast, and as the 
prompt reports thej' had received had enabled 
them to attain a position on the enemy's 
quarter, they altered their course to south-east 
parallel with that of their quarry, and settled 
down to a long stem chase. The speed was 
gradually increa.sed to 28'5 knots, and thanks 
to the efforts of the engineer staffs of the New 




INTERIOR OF A GERMAN SUBMARINE. 
The Commander looking through a periscope. 



Zealand and Indomitable, those two ships were 
able to attain a speed greatly in excess of their 
normal. The result was that the squadron 
gradually closed to within 20,000 yards of the 
rear ship (the Bliicher) of the enemy, who were 
in single line-ahead, with their light cruisers 
ahead and a large nimiber of destroyers on their 
starboard beam. The first shot was fired by the 
Lion at 8.52, but fell short, and from that time 
single shots were fixed at intervals to test the 
range, imtil at 9.9 the Lion hit the Bliicher for 
the first time. At 8.20 the Tiger, which was 
following the Lion, had drawn up sufficiently to 
be able to open fire on the Bliicher, and the Lion 
now turned her attention to the third ship in 
the German line, which was hit by several salvos 
at 18,000 yards. The Princess Royal, in turn 
getting within range, opened fire on the Bliicher, 
and as this latter ship now began to drop astern 
somewhat, she became exposed to the gims of 
the New Zealand, the Princess Royal then 
shifting her fire to the third ship in tlie Gennan 
line and inflicting considerable damage on her. 
Diu-ing these operations the British flotilla 
cruisers and destroyers gradually dropped back 
from a position broad on the beam of the battle 
cruisers to the port quarter, so that their smoko 
might not foul the range, but as the enemy 
destroyers threatened attack, the Meteor and 
M destroyer division passed ahead, skilfully 
handled by Captain the Hon. H. Meade. 



158 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




GROUP OF GERMAN SAILORS RESCUED FROM THE " BlUgHER. 



About 9.45 the Lion was engaging the leading 
German ship, which was on fire ; the Tiger had 
first fired at the same ship, but, when smoke 
interfered, at the Blvicher ; the Princess Royal 
was engaged with the third German ship, which 
also was on fire, while the Blvicher, alreadj^ 
showing signs of having suffered severelj% was 
also the mark of the Ne^\' Zealand. The enemy's 
destroyers were now emitting vast quantities 
of smoke to screen their battle cruisers, which 
appeared to alter their coiu'se to the northward, 
with the object of increasing their distance ; 
the rear ships, according to Sir David Beatty's 
dispatch, certainly hauled out on the port 
quarter of their leader, and thus increased their 
distance from the British line. To meet this 
manoeuvre our battle cruisers were ordered to 
form a line bearing north-north-west and to 
proceed at their utmost speed. The German 
destroyers then giving evidence of an attempted 
attack, the Lion and Tiger opened fire on them, 
causing them to retire and resimae their original 
course. The light cruisers, maintaining their 
position on the port quarter of the enemy line, 
were able to observe and keep touch, or to attack 
any vessel that fell out of line. 

The Bliicher, which by this time had dropped 
considerably astern of her companions, was seen 
to be on fire, to have a heavy list, and to be 



apparently in a defeated condition. As she 
hauled ovit to port and steered north the 
Indomitable was ordered to break to the north 
and attack. A few minutes later submarines 
were reported near the line, and Admiral 
Beattj', who liimself saw the wash of a periscope 
two points on the starboard bow, at once turned 
to port. Then the Lion suffered an injury 
\% hich at three minutes past 1 1 was reported as 
being incapable of immediate repair, and, in 
consequence, her course was shaped north-west. 
Admiral Beatty also found it necessary to 
transfer his flag to another vessel ; accordin;:;ly, 
at 1L20, he called the torpedo boat destroyer 
Attack alongside, and shifting his flag to her at 
about 11.35, proceeded at fvill speed to rejoin 
the squadron. He met them at noon retiring 
north-north-west. 

Boarding the Princess Roj^al at about 
12.20 p.m., he learnt from her captain what had 
happened in his absence since the Lion fell out 
of the line. The Bliicher had been sunk, and on 
the vessels that went to rescue her sur^avors (of 
whom about 250 were saved) a Zeppelin and 
a sea-plane endeavoured to drop bombs. The 
three German battle cruisers had continued 
their course eastward, in a considerably 
damaged condition, the Derfflinger and the 
Sejdlitz, it is believed, suffering in particular. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



159 



Undoubted Ij-, as Sir David Beatty remarked 
in his preliminary report, the Lion's mishap 
deprived our ships of a greater victory than that 
which they actually put to their credit. 

It cannot be said that our success was dearly 
bought. None of our ships was lost. The 
Lion and the Tiger were both hit, but although 
the former had to be towed to port by the 
Indomitable, the material injury to both ships 
was only such as could be repaired in a com- 
paratively short time. No member of the 
Lion's crew was killed, but 21 were wounded ; 
on the Tiger one officer, Engineer-Commander 
Charles G. Taylor, and nine men were killed, and 
three officers and eight men were injured. On 
the destroyer Meteor, which also was disabled, 
three men were killed and two wounded, one 
of whom died. 

Referring to the action in the House of Com- 
mons in February, ]\Ir. Churcliill said : ^ 

The action was not forced, because the enemj^, after 
abandoning their wounded consort, the Bliicher, made 
good their escape into waters infested by their submarines 
and mines. But this combat between the finest ships 
in both navies is of immense significance and value in 
the light which it throws upon rival systems of design 
and armament and upon relative gunnery efficiency. It 
is the first test we have ever had, and without depending 
too much upon it I think it is at once important and 
encouraging. First of all it vindicates, so far as it 
goes, the theories of design, and particularly of big- 
gun armament, always identified with Lord Fislier. 
The range of the British guns was found to exceed that 
of the German. Although the German shell is a most 
formidable instrument of destruction, the bursting- 
smashing power of the heavier British projectile is 



decidedly greater, and — this is the great thing — our 
shooting is at least as good as theirs. The Xavy, while 
always working very hard — no one except themselves 
knows how hard they have worked in these years — have 
credited the Germans with a sort of super-efficiency in 
gunnery, and we have always been prepared for some 
surprises in their system of control and accuracy 
of fire. But there is a feeling after the combat of 
January 24 that perhaps our na\"al officers were 
too diffident in regard to their own professional skill 
in gunnery. 

Then the guns. While the Germans were building 
11-inch guns we built 12-inch and 13J-inch guns. Before 
they advanced to the 12 -inch gun we had large numbers 
of ships armed wdth the 13'5. It was said by the oppo- 
site school of naval force that a smaller gun fires faster 
and has a higher velocity, and therefore the greater 
destructive power. Krupp is the master gunmaker in 
the world, and it was very right and proper to take such 
a possibility into consideration. Everything that we 
have learnt, however, so far shows that we need not at 
all doubt the wisdom of our policy or the excellence of 
our material. 

In Germany the action caused a disappoint- 
ment even disproportionate to its real naval 
importance. For some weeks the Press Bureau 
of the German Admiralty noisily claimed that, 
at any rate, one British battle cruiser — to say 
nothing of two or more destroyers — had been 
sunk. In reality it was seen that, for the time 
at any rate, even brief and occasional excur- 
sions to British waters must be abandoned. It 
was no longer possible to pretend that the raids 
on Yarmouth and on Scarborough and the 
Hartlepools had been the prelude to greater 
things. Such enterprises, even while the 
German cruiser squadron was intact, involved 
great risk and little profit. Faced by a strength 




FUNERAL OF CAPTAIN ERDMANN OF THE " BLUCHER." 



160 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




PAY DAY ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR. 



of even five to four in representative ships a 
German raiding force could not but retire, and 
in all the circumstances of January 24 — they 
would have been even less favourable if the 
squadron had advanced further — the Germans 
might think themselves fortunate to have 
escaped with no greater losses. 



The German naval authorities now recon- 
sidered the whole situation. They decided, as 
we shall see in another chapter, to abandon a 
few more of the rules of civilized warfare, and 
to threaten British and neutral commerce with 
indiscriminate extermination by submarines 
and mines. 




CHAPTER LIV. 

THE GERMAN COUNTER-OFFEN- 
SIVE AND THE BELGIAN BATTLE 

OF THE YSER. 



General von Moltke Superseded by General von Falkenhayn— The New Plan of the 
Kaiser — Advance on Calais — Position of the Allied Troops on October 16 — Retreat of 
French Marines from Ghent to the Yser — The Battle of the Yser Begins — Intervention 
OF British Flotilla — Ronarc'h's Defence op Dixmude — The Germans Force the Yser at 
Ti£Rvaete — Arrival of French Reinforcements — Considerations on the Fighting. 



DURING 1914 the greatest and most 
decisive battles in the Western 
Theatre of War were those of the 
Marne and Ypres, of which the 
former lias been described in Vol. II., Chapter 
XXXII. 

Under the titla of Battle of Ypres are included 
the fighting from October 16 onwards between 
the sea at Nieuport-Bains and Dixmude, popu- 
larly known as the Battle of the Yser, and the 
struggle which commenced on October 19 
from Dixmude through Ypres to Armentieres 
on the l^ys, and thence to La Bassee. 

The Battle of the Yser may bo considered in 
two parts. In the first the Belgians, with the 
aid of a brigade of French Marines under Rear- 
Adniiral Ronarc'h, defended the lower course of 
the Yser and its canal from October 16 to 2.3. 
In the second, the bulk of the wearied but 
dauntless soldiers of King Albert were with- 
drawn and their places taken by a portion of 
the Army of General d'Urbal. 

It was not till November 17 that the Battle' 
of Ypres came to an end. 
Vol. 111.— Part 31. 1 



The Battle of the Marne lasted a week ; the 
Battle of Ypres a month. The credit for the 
former victory rests with the French, though 
the British Army rendered them most valuable 
assistance. The Battle of Ypres, on the other 
hand, was won bj?^ the united efforts of the 
British, French, and Belgians, and each of the 
Allied nations may look back on it with tlie 
proudest feelings. It was — so Joffre is reported 
to have said — " the greatest battle of the 
world." 

During the month of October the Emperor 
William himself appeared on the western front 
to supervise the operations, and on the 25th it 
was aimounced that the Chief of the General 
Staff, (General von Moltke, had fallen ill, and 
that the Prussian Minister of War, General von 
Falkenhayn. had tak(>n over his duties. It soon 
appeared that Moltke had in reality been super- 
seded, and it was clear that sharp differences 
of opinion had arisen about tho [Ian of cani- 
])aign. INloltke, it seemed, had insisted that 
the first and main strategic object should he 
to break the Allies' lines at Verdun, while the 



01 



162 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




THE CROWN PRINCE OF BAVARIA, 
Reviewing Troops. 



Kaiser, unable to reach Paris, was obsessed 
with the desire to gain possession of the Channel 
coast for the better prosecution of the war 
against England. Moltke disappeared, and 
until December, when he was definitely 
appointed Chief of the Staff, Falkenhayn 




.From a Skach by John S. Sargent, R.A 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL FOWKE, C.B., 
Chief Engineer British Expeditionary Force. 



nominally united the posts of Minister of War 
and Chief of the General Staff. Falkenliayn 
was fifty-three years old, and had only been in 
office about a year. He had at one time been 
Chief of the General Staff of the 16th Army 
Corps at INIetz, but he was best known for his 
work in China on the staff of Count Waldersee, 
in the expedition of 1900, when the German 
troops had been bidden b}^ the Kaiser to 
emulate the Huns of Attila. 

The strategy now adopted by the Kaiser 
and Falkenhayn has been severelj' and justly 
criticized. They struck simultaneously at 
Warsaw and Calais, and found that in neitlier 
theatre were they strong enough to achieve the 
desired success. Pitilessly, but in vain, they 
sacrificed troops of all sorts, including large 
numbers of old men and young boys who had 
volunteered for service at the outbreak of war. 
Although the success of the enterprise would 
undoubtedly have produced enormous results, 
its initiation must be ascribed largely to poUtical 
rather than military considerations. It was 
necessary to appease the Emperor's own im- 
patience, but it was no less necessary to provide 
the German people %vith some fresh promise of 
dazzling success. 

The preparations for ensuring success at the 
outset of the war, to impress the world with 
Germany's might, had been enormous and 
made regardless of expense. Though the Ger- 
man infantry tactics were obsolete, the German 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAH. 



163 



military machine was, on the whole, the most 
perfect that had ever been constructed. Men 
with the brains of captains of industry had 
toiled vmremittingly to provide the German 
Army with every advantage that foresight and 
experience could suggest — from the gigantic 
howitzers which were to batter down the per- 
manent fortifications of Belgium and France to 
the stick of liquorice which the sentry was to 
suck lest by a cough he should betray his pre- 
sence to the enemy. The coiuitries to be in- 
vaded had been examined with meticulous 
accuracy. They were honeycombed with -spies 
and traitors of both sexes, in all ranks of Society. 
Innumerable wireless installations and tele- 
phones had in peace-time been hidden on foreign 
soil to signal to the Germans the movements 
of their potential enemies. Soldiers had been 
even trained to utilize the arnis of windmills for 
the purpose of conveying information. The 
innumerable disguises — British, Belgian, French, 
Russian uniforms, women's dresses, priests' 
robes — in which the German soldiers often 
presented themselves during the War, show 
how thoroughly detail had been worked ovit. 
And now — in October, 1914 — what must have 
been the thoughts and sensations of those 
who had brought on this war ? They had 
intoxicated the German people, and its enthu- 
siasm, if not " irresistible," had been tremend- 




MAJOR-GEN. SIR THOMPSON CAPPER. 

ous. Treaties to which the Prussian Govern- 
ment had been a party had been torn up ; the 
rules of International Law treated as school- 
masters might treat the resolutions of a group 
of children. The horrors of the French Revolu- 
tion had been renewed by the Armies of the 
Sovereign who had up to August, 1914, posed as 




GERMAN PRISONERS AT FURNES. 



164 



TH1-: TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




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THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



165 



tho gnardian of European Law and Order. 
" When we left Belgium," wrote a Saxon 
oflficer in his diary, under August 26, " we left 
all the villages in flames. It is," he added, 
" like the Thirty Years' War — murder and fire 
everywhere." 

An airman who flew over the German lines 
at Charleroi during August said that the 
Germans " covered the plains like a moving 
sea." This sea of human beings — murdering, 
burning, burgling, raping — had flowed on 
towards Paris. " The measures," so the Ger- 
man General Staff had instructed the German 
soldiers, " which can be taken by one State 
against another in order to obtain the object 
of the War, to compel one's opponent to submit 
to one's will, may be summarised in the two ideas 
of Violence and Cunning." * 

And now it was that the eyes of the Kaiser 
began to be opened to the real proportion of the 
task he had undertaken. Despite the barbarous 
example made of Louvain, the easy-going Bel- 
gians (as they had been siu-Tiused to be before 
the War), had continued their heroic resistance. 
The British "rifle club " — to use a Prussian 
expression for the British Army — had taken a 
terrible toll of Kluck's masses. They had pur- 
sued it with slackening zeal as they began to 
discover the prowess of the British soldier. 
Inspired by the cool and resolute Joffre. the 
Armies of France had refused to know when 
they were beaten, Verdiin had remained un- 
taken, and the Germans under the Kaiser's 
eyes had failed to penetrate through the gap of 
Nancy. The desperate effort to pierce the 
French centre beyond the Mame had been 
foiled by Foch ; Manoury's stroke at Kluck's 
communications had forced the invaders to retire 
behind the Aisne. There they had held their 
own and battered Reims Cathedral. 

Meanwhile East Prussia had been invaded by 
the Russians and, though Hindenburg in the 
district of the Masurian Lakes had inflicted on 
them a serious defeat, no further successes had 
been gained by him or his Austrian colleagues 
in the Eastern Theatre of War. 

Far from it. The Russians in engagement 
after engagement had crushed the Austrians, 
overrvin Galicia, captiu-ed Lemberg, invested 
Przemysl, and approached Cracow. Their 
advance guards were on the Carpathians. If 
they crossed them they would harry Hungary ; 
if, masking Cracow., they entered Silesia they 

* " The German War Book," p. 64. 





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CONVENT OF THE LITTLE SISTERS 

OF THE POOR AT NIEUPORT, 

Damaged by a German Shell. 

would be in the midst of one of the two most 
important industrial districts of Germany. 

Not even fron^ the Serbian frontier had come 
good news. The mountaineers had repulsed 
the Austrian so-called punitive expedition with 
heavy loss. Turkey had not yet decided to 
throw in her lot with the Dual Alliance, and 
each day the anti-German feeling in Italy and 
Roumania was rising. 

If the War I^ord turned his eyes to the sea 
the outlook was still more unfavourable. Tho 
" Admiral of the Atlantic " saw the magnificent 
commercial fleet of Germany hiding, interned, 
sunk, or captured. The Emden and a few 
cruisers were still at large, but most of the 
German War Fleet wa-s lurking in the Iviel 
Canal or luider cover of the coa.st fortresses. It 
had not even obtained complete comimand of the 
Baltic ! To all intents and purposes, the 
British and French Navies were ruling the 
German Ocean, the Chaimel, and the Mediter- 
ranean. As a consequence the businesses of 
CJermany and Austria-Hungary began to suffer 
from a creeping paralysis. Cotton, tho basis of 



166 



■THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




BELGIAN TROOPS LANDING AT OSTEND. 



all modern explosives, without which the only 
useful propellant could not be manufactured, 
and copper, which was necessary for the driving 
bands of shells — to make them take the rifling — 
were daily becoming scarcer. 

Beyond the sea the German Colonies one by 
one were falling into the hands of the Allies. 
The Japanese had closed in on Tsing-Tau, and 
its capture could not long be delayed. The 
LTnited States had been shocked by the Belgian 
atrocities, and the Kaiser's old friend, the ex- 
Presidcnt Roosevelt, had denounced the authors 
of them in no measured language. India, 
loyal from Cape Comorin to Peshawur, was 
sending a contingent of warlike troops to the 
theatre of war ; her Princes were vieing with 
one another in placing their persons and their 
wealth at the disposal of the Empire. Egypt, 
far from throwing off the British yoke, was 
preparing to resist in^■asion, and in a brief two 
months Abbas was a refugee in Constantinople, 
and his uncle ruled in his place independently, 
and no longer the feudatory of the Caliph. 
Canada, Australia and New Zealand were send • 
ing their stalwart youths to the front. In a few 
months army after army would be poiu-ing 
across the Channel to join Sir John French's, 
General Joffre"s and King Albert's forces. 
Luxemburg, nine-tenths of Belgium, with 
Liege, Brussels, Antwerp, Ostend and a con- 
Jsiderable tract of France were, it is true, in the 



■ possession of the Germans, but how long wxnild 
it be before the Germans and Austrians would 
be overwhelmed by nmnbers in both theatres of 
-war ? But there was no going back. 

At this critical monient the Kaiser may have 
remembered the words of M. de Faramond, the 
French Naval Attache at Berlin in 1913, "the 
German soldier is no longer natiu-ally what he 
had been 40 j'ears ago — a simple, religious 

■ man, ready to die at the order of his King." 
Death he was still ready to meet, but chiefly 
for hope of the gain to be expected from 
victory. 

The modern Moltke, animated by the spirit 
of his illustrious rnicle, might point out that 
military considerations required that the main 
effort of the Germans should be directed by 
Verdiui; political exigencies demanded some- 
thing more spectacular. While Hindenburg 
was to capture \\'arsaw, the Kaiser himself 
would clear Belgium of the Allies and annex it, 
captiu-e Calais, and thence strike both at 
England and at Paris. 

Accordingly, from the beginning of October 
corps after corps was brought into the space 
between the Lys and the sea until fifteen were 
assembled, grouped in two armies, and with 
them four corps of cavalry. The army nearer 
the coast was under the Duke of Wiu-temberg, 
the other being commanded by the Crown Prince 
of Bavaria. The whole formed a force equal 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



IGl 



to, if not greater than, tlie liost which Napoleon 
led across the Nienien into Russia in 1812. 

Such were the conditions when the Battles 
of the Yser and Ypres commenced. 

As an example of the sort of hopes \\hich 
wt;re filling the German mind we will quote an 
article written towards the end of October in 
the ^dchsischer Staats-Anzeiyer by General 
Baron von Ardenne : 

If the English watch oia our naval position Boikuni- 
Wilhelmshaven-Heligoland-Brunsbiittel is almost im- 
possible in the present circumstances — np to now it has 
not been at all successful — it will become quite im- 
possible when Belgium and the north coast of France to 
the mouth of the Seine are in German hands. 

The somewhat improbable report that the French have 
retreated from Boulogne opens up a wide view over 
Germany's future position in the fight. In the course of 
time we shall be in possession of Calais, probably also of 
Dieppe and Havre. At Calais the Channel narrows 
down to a width of 35-40 kilometres (22-25 miles). Our 
305 (12 in.) howitzers have a rangs of 14 miles (height of 
such a shot 4,370 yards). The range of our 42 cm. 
(17 in.) howitzers is still greater. England can expect 
■utill further artillery surprises. 

Even if we cannot shoot from the French coast to the 
English, a safety zone can be made for German ships 
which will cover more than half the navigable water, 
[n the French harbours bases can be had for torpedo- 
boats and submarines, cruisers, scouts, etc., and — last 
but not least — bases for our Zeppelins. These bases on 
the French coast can be made absolutely impregnable 
from the sea by double or triple rows of mines, especially 
anchored mines. To anchor mines in these waters is 
comparatively easy. 

That this will be no joke for the British Isles can 
easily be seen from the fact that England is, so far as 
its food is concerned, dependent chiefly on foreign 



countries. Any disturbance in its supplies would be 
badly felt. Even now our comm?rce-;les.royers and the 
sinking of ships carrying contraijuiid, including food, are 
proving a thorn in Great Britain's side. When private 
property is no longer safe at sea there will be a severe 
collapse in the import of foodstuffs. 

In spite of all England's mine-laying, in spite of her 
great Fleet, she is always afraid of a German force 
landing in the United Kingdom. When the French 
north coast is in our hands, such an invasion — which 
is now considered a foolish romance — will be ea.sily 
possible, especialli/ when England continues to send 
troops au-ay from the island.* 

To stimtilate the enthusiasm and patriotism 
of the German ma.sses the most extrava- 
gant rumotirs were circtilated by the Imperial 
Government. For instance, some days before 
the appearance of Ardenne's article there was 
published in a Hamburg paper what purported 
to be a " Stockholm telegram." It was headed 
" The G3rman Sword of Damocles over Eng- 
land " : 

For nearly a week past enormous fleets of transports 
have formed almost a connected bridge over the Channel 
between Kamsgate, Dover and Folkestone on the 
l^nglish coast, and Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne on tlie 
French coast. The English Press declares that tl.Ls is 
for Great Britain a fight for life or death. 



* The Hamburger Nachrichten, on January 31. 1915, 
published a communication from Berlin which, among 
other things, stated that " an expression of expert 
opinion had been recently made regarding the range of 
German naval and coast guns, the chief point of which 
lies in the assertion that from Calais the harbour defences 
of Dover and the countrv 1o the North of Dover could 
be bcmbarded over n front of live and a half miles." 




BELGIAN CAVALRY ON THE MARCH. 



1GB 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIL 




THE WAR-WORN KAISER. 

But, extravagant as may have been the ideas 
of the Germans on the value to Germany of the 
coast line from Ostend to the Seine, it must 
be admitted that if their troops could have 
seized Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, Staples, the 
mouth of the Somme, Dieppe and Havre, the 
chances of Germany succeeding in her scheme 
for the domination of the world would have been 
enormously increased. The chief naval bases 
of the British fleet were within reach of Calais 
and Boulogne, and once these won and used as 
German submarine and airship bases, the n^ain 
communications of the fleets guarding the east 
coast of England and Scotland would have 
been endangered. Harwich, Chatham, Dover 
and Portsmouth would certainly have been 
bombarded by aircraft, and the nerves of the 
vast population of London would have been 
constantly shaken by the visits of Taubes and 
Zeppelins, for the distance between Calais 
and the capital of the British Empire is under 
a hundred miles, little more than two hours' 
journey. There would have been more than 
a possibility that German aviators from Calais 
or Boulogne might have caused sensational, if 



not important, damage to London. Raids by sea 
on the coasts of Essex, Kent, and Sussex would, 
too, have been hazarded by men, careless of the 
lives of their troops, to strike terror into the 
British nation. 

If, in addition, the Germans had rejjeated 
their success of August and had forced their 
way down to Amiens, the communications of 
the British troops in France would once more 
have had to be shifted to St. Xazaire, at the 
mouth of the Loire. Maud'huy's Army would, 
it is likely, have had to evacuate Arras and join 
Castelnau's in the plain between the Somme and 
the Oise. The prestige of the German arms,, 
impaired at the Battle of the Marne and not 
improved by the Battles of the Aisne, Roye- 
Peronne and Arras, would have been rehabili- 
tated. 

The Battles of the Yser and Ypres brought 
all these by no means visionary plans to an 
untimely ending. 

The forces dispatched by the Kaiser to 
follow the Belgian Army, Rawlinson's Corps, 
and Rear-Admiral Ronarc'h's Marines, retiring 
from Antwerp or Ghent towards the Franco- 
Belgian frontier, necessarily collided with them 
and the other Allied troops moving forward to- 
the north of the Lys. These comprised General 
Bidon's two Territorial Infantry Divisions (the 
87th and 89th), De ]\Iitry's four Cavahy 
Divisions, the British Cavalry Corps, and the 
III. Corps. 

Thus two long lines of men in mutual 
hostility were advancing towards one another, 
each endeavouring to act on and against his 
adversary's outer wing. 

A brief accomit of the events irmnediately 
preceding October 16 is needed to make the 
situation clear to the reader. 

On September 20 Joffre had commenced his 
turning movement between the English Channel 
and the Scheldt against the German communica 
tions. The enemy, after investing Antwerp, 
had replied by a counter-movement on Lille 
and Ypres, thus threatening Dunlcirk, Calais, 
and Boulogne. To ward off the German offen- 
sive Lord I^tehener had dispatched British 
INIarines imder General Paris and the 3rd 
Cavalry and the 7th Infantry Divisions under 
Sir Henry Rawlinson to Ostend and Zeebrugge. * 



* The 7th Infantry Division, under Major-General 
Sir T. Capper, C B., D.S.O., was constituted as follows : 

20/A Infantry liric/ade (Brigadier-General H. J» 
Ruggles-Brise. M.V.O.) : 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



169 



The 7th Division was outside the six regulax 
Divisions which formed the Expeditionary 
Force. It had been stated some years pre- 
viously in the House of Commons that it was 
intended to complete that Force by bringing 
home various luiits from foreign stations, and 
this was actually done. The 20th Brigade was, 
however, made up of battalions on home ser- 
vice, except the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, 
who came from Cairo. In the 21st Brigade two 



lat Grenadier Guards. 

2rKl Scots Guards. 

2nd Border Regiment. ^ 

2nd Gordon Highlanders. 
2lst Infantry Brigade (Brigadier-General H. E. 
Watts, C.B.) : 

2nd Bedfordshire Regiment. 

2nd Yorks Regiment. 

2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers. 

2nd Wiltshire Regiment. 
22nd Infantry Brigade (Brigadier-General S. T. B. 
Lawford) : 

2nd Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment. 

2nd Royal Warwick Regiment. 

1st Royal Welsh Fusiliei-s. 

1st South Staffordshire Regiment. 

Northumberland Hussars Yeomanry. 
This appears to have been the first of the non-regular 
regiments to take the field. 

The Cyclist Corps. 

14th Brigade Royal Horse Artillery. 

22nd Brigade Royal Field Artillery. 

35th Brigade Royal Field Artillery. 

.3rd Brigade (Heavy) Royal Garrison Artillery. 

111th Brigade Royal Garrison Artillery 

112th Brigade Royal Garri.son Artillery. 

A pom-pom detachment. 

7th Divisional Ammunition Column. 



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GURKHAS SHARPENING THEIR KNIVES. 

battalions were drawn from Gibraltar, one from 
the Transvaal, the fourth from Guernsey. The 
22nd Brigade had two battalions from the Trans- 
vaal and two from Malta. The Artillery was 
made up from various sources, home and f oreigji. 


















BRITISH INFANTRY ENTRENCHING, 



170 



Till': TIMES HI STORY OF THE WAR. 




A FRENCH MACHINE GUN SECTION IN ACTION. 



The Marines had assisted in the defence of 
Antwerp, l)ut, owing to the delay in sweeping 
the mines \\ hich the Germans had managed to 
lay in front of Ostend, Sir Henry Rawlinson 
could not operate lioldly against the enemy, 
but was obliged to confine himself to the minor 
alternati\e of protecting, with the French 
Marines of Rear-Admiral Ronarc'h, the retreat 
of the Belgian Army and British ^Marines. 

,\ntwerp had succumbed on October 9, but, 
shortly before, the bulk of the Belgian Army 
had retired, and from this date Rawlinson and 
Ronarc'h were able to cover the further with- 
drawal of these troops to a jiosition on and 
behind the banks of the canalised Yser between 
Dixmude and the sea at Nieuport -Bains. 

(ihent, Bruges, Ostend were lost in succes- 
sion, and the Belgian coast from Ostend to the 
Dutch frontier fell into the hands of the foe. 
Already, on October 15, the advance guard of 
the German III. Corps was moving through 
Ostend on Xieuport and Dixmude. 

In the meantime, on the night of the 11th- 
12th, Ghent was being evacuated by part of 
the 7th Division (Capper's) and Ronarc'h's 
Marines. The jNIarines led the way. To 
encourage their men the officers left their 
motor-cars and marched on foot. The moon 
was shining and the air chilly.' At daybreak 
tJiey reached Aeltre, where they halted for 
refreshment. At 4 p.m. the column touched 
Thielt, which was entered by Capper's troops 



two hours later. Hot-foot beliind them pressed 
some 50,000 Germans, but the night was passed 
without the enemy disturbing the French or 
British. A village 3Iayor had at the cost of 
his life put the enemy on a false scent. The 
next morning (the 13th) a Taube, whose 
observer was doubtless trying to locate the 
column of which the pvirsuers had lost contact, 
was shot down by the British. At 3 p.m. the 
^Marines reached Thourout. 

The 7th Division, wliich had been preceded 
the day before by Byng's Cavalry Division, 
marched on Roulers. 

An extract from the official diary kept 
by Byng's Cavalry Division and another 
from IVIr. C. Underwood's narrative published 
in Blackwood's Magazine for March. 1915, bring 
clearly before us the movements of the Cavalry 
and Capper's Divisions. Mr. Underwood was 
an Interpreter appointed to the Headquarters 
Staff of the 2 1st Brigade. The diary below 
should be read in connexion with the map on 
pp. 180-1 :— 

Octoher 6. — After mobilizing at Ludgershall Camp the 
Dlvi-ioii was railed to Southampton, and >iailed on 
October 6 for Ostend and Zeebrugge. where it disem- 
barked early on the 8th, and came under the orders of 
the IV. Corps. 

October 9.- — On the 0th the Division concentrated at 
Bniges, marclung from there to Thonrout (6th Cavalry 
Brigade) and Ruddervoorde (7th Cavalry Brigade) on 
the following daj'. 

Ortober 11. — On the 11th Divisional Headquarters, 
which had stayed in Oostcamp on the previous night, 
mo\ed to Thourout. The armoured motors, which had 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



171 



joined the Divii^ion on tlie previous day, succeeded in 
drawing first blood, capturing two oHieers and five men 
in tlie direction of Ypres. 

Ortobrr 12. — ()n tlie 12tli lieadf|narfers moved to 
Itoulors, the Cth Cavalry Brigade to tlie line Oost- 
nieuwkerke-Roulers, anil the 7th Cavalry Brigade to 
Kum beke-Iseghem , 

O'-tober 13. — 'i'he enemy were reported to have fought 
an action near Hazebroiick and to be retiring towards 
Bailleul, and our 2nd Cavalry Division to have capture<l 
a place some 10 miles south-west of Ypres. Accordingly 
on the 13th the Division reconnoitred towards Ypres 
and Monin with patrols towards Comines and Wervicq, 
but no signs of the enemy were found, and after a long 
day, during which many of the troops must have done 
at least 50 miles, the Division withdrew to the line 
Dadizeele-Iseghem, the 7th Infantry Division having in 
the meantime moved to Roulers. 

October 14. — Considerable hostile forces, believed to 
be in the XII. Corps, were reported to bo moving from 
tho vicinity of Bailleul towards Wervicq and Menin. 
In consequence of this the Division, followed by the 
7th Infantry Di\ision, was ordered to move on Ypi'es 
and to reconnoitre to the south-west. This necessitated 
a very early start. The Division reached Ypres at 
•J a.m., and the 6th Cavalry Brigade, which formed the 
advanced guard, moved on toward the line La Clytte- 
Lindenhook. Shortly after leaving Ypres Ihi'^ brigade, 
assisted by lifle and revolver fire from everybody in 
Ypres, succeeded in bringing down a Taube aeroplane. 
Its pilot and observer escape:! into some woods, but were 
captured later on in the day. The advance guard, 
assisted by the armed motors, pushed on towards Neuve 
Kglise and succeeded in killing or capturini; a consider-, 
able number of the enemy dining the day, but no formed 
bodies were met with, though heavy tiring was heard 
from the direction of Bailleul. At dusk the Division 
moved into billets at Kemmel (7th Cavalry Brigade) and 
Wytschaete (remainder of the Division) in touch v.ith the 
2nd Cavalry Division, with whom communication had 
been established during the 'lay. 

()ciober 16. — No movement took place on the 15th, 
but on the following day the Division, with the 7th 
Cavalry Brigade as advance guard, moved via Ypres 
and Wieltje to the line Bixschoote-Poelcapelle. Tlie 
enemy were reported in considerable numbers in the 
Foret d'lTouthulst and Oostnieuwkerke, and a patrol of 
1h3 2nd Life Guards was obliged to withdraw from 
Staden. Intermittent fighting took place during the 
afternoon, and at dusk French troops, having relieved 
the 7th Cavalry Brigade, the Division moveil into billets 
at Passchendaele (7th Cavalry Brigade), Nieuwemolen 
(6th Cavalry Brigade), and Zonnebeke (Divisional 




ROYAL ENGINEER LAYING 
TELEPHONE CABLE. 



Troops). The 7th Cavalry Brigade arc known to have 
accounted for some 10 or 12 killed during the day, and 
it is probable that considerably more were wounded. 

By the evening of the 16th Byng's Cavalry 
was disposed from Passchendaele through 
Nieuwemolen to Zonnebeke. From Zonne- 
beke to Gheluvelt and from (Iheluvelt to 




L t.-.Af 




FRENCH INFANTRY RUSHING FORWARD TO SUPPORT THE FIRING LINE. 



172 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR 




ON THE DUNES. 
Belgian Cavalry. 



Zandvoordo extended Capper's Infantry 
Division, behind wliich were the woods to 
the east of Ypres. INIr. Underwood, who 
incidentally bears witness to the disgraceful 
conduct of the Germans in Ypres when it was 
temporarily in their possession, provides us 
with a glimpse of part of the complicated 
operation which was involved in the with- 
drawal of Capper's Division to the neighboui- 
hood of that city : 

Next morning, the 13th, it was reported that a Taube 
had been shot down at Divisional Headquarters at 
Thielt. » I saw the French Marines arrive on their retreat 
from Ghent, after which we left for Roulers, where the 
Divisional Headquarters were moving. It rained liard 
all the way, and we arrived and were billeted at 17 Rue 
du Xord. making this our headquarters for the night, 
Mr. Louis Maselis, a large corn merchant, being our host, 
who received us most cordially. 

We left for Ypres at 9.30 a.m., and four Taubes flew 
over us on the road, but too high to be shot at. We 
arrived at Ypres at 0.30^ and Headquarters were on the 
Railway Square. That evening I met Capitainc Bernaud, 
of the 79th Reserve Regiment, and saw our first lot of 
Allies, reserve draaoons, dismounted on the Square to 
receive us. The Germans had been through and stayed 
one night, the 7th, the day we landed at Zeebrvigge. They 
had taken up their quarters in the famous riding school, 
and the first thing they had done was to break open the 
mess-room and cellars and take out all the wine, after 
which they broke up everything and stole the mess-plate. 
When I saw it a week later, tha school maneges were 
strewn with broken bottles, champagne, claret, port, etc., 
and every drawer and cupboard door burst open and 
ransacked. They had cut all communications at the 
station, demanded an indemnity of 65,000 francs 
(£2,600), and stolen all the money they could lay hands 
on from the Banque Nationale. 6,000 loaves were 
requisitioned in the evening to be ready next morning, 
failing which there was a penalty of £800 (20,000 francs). 



At 10.30 a.m. a Taube, with pilot and observer, had been 
brought down, but they were not captured until 4.30, 
as they concealed theniselves in a wood. They were both 
brought in, furious with rage, as each weis seized by the 
collar and a revolver pointed at their heads by Belgian 
officers in the car, which was driven at the rate of 60 miles 
an hour at least ! 

Next day the whole brigade marched out to Halte, 
on the Menin-Ypres road, dug trenches, and remained 
in them all night. The Headquarters of the brigade I 
billeted in the Secretary of Ypres' Chateau, not 500 
yards away. 

In the morning I had a good deal of trouble to re- 

. quisition oats, as it was pitch dark when we were ordered 

to advance to attack patrol of Germans towards Menin. 

About a quarter mile beyond Gheluveit we engaged 

advance party of Uhlans at 8.30 a.m. in a thick fog. 

jNIr. Underwood on the 13th had seen 
Ronarc'h's Marines passing through Thielt on 
Thourout. 

King Albert's idea was to fight a delaying 
action on a front roughly coinciding with the 
line Menin-Roulers-Thourout-Ghistelles, while 
the Belgian munitions and baggage were being 
withdrawn from Ostend and Bruges.* The 
village of Ghistelles lies on the main road from 
Bruges to Nieuport and on the railroad from 
Thoiu-out to Ostend. In this scheme Ronarc'h's 
Marines were to occupy a position behind 
Thom'out. resting on the Bois de \Vijnendaale 
to the north and Cortemarck station to the 



* See the first of the articles on Ronarc'h's movements, 
by M. Charles Le Goffic in the Revue des Deux Mondes 
for March 1st, 1915. M. Le Goffie's articles should 
be carefully studied by all who are interested in the 
minute details of the Battle of tlie Yser. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



173 



south. At Cortemarck converge railwayo from 
Dunkirk and Ypres. 

Soaked to the skin by the pouring rain and 
pursued by overwhelming masses of Germans, 
the French Marines left Thourout on the 14tli 
to fill their place in the Une of battle., but at 
midnight the Admiral received an order to 
continue his retreat to the region of Dixmude. 
From Menin to Ghistelles is a distance of nearly 
thirty miles, and on the night of the 14th, when 
the Germans were in Bruges and approaching 
Ostend, the forces at the disposal of King 
Albert were too feeble to hold so extended a 
front. The marshes round Ghistelles could be 
turned from Ostend, and, as the Germans held 
some of the bridges across the Lys west of 
Menin, the right wing of Kng Albert, even 
allowing for the assistance which might be 
rendered it by the British Cavalry Corps and 
the III. Corps, would also be in imminent danger. 
It was resolved to bring the whole of the Belgian 
Army to the Yser and to leave General d'Urbal 
with such portions of the 8th French Army as 
were on the spot and the British Commander- 
in-Chief with Rawlinson's Corps, the Cavalry 
Corps, and the III. Corps to fill the sjDace 
between the Yser at Dixmude and the Lys. 
At 4 a.m., under heavy rain, the French Marines, 
with their rear protected by some Belgian 
Artillery, set out for Zarren and Wercken on the 
road to Dixmude. 

The route was encumbered by refugees. 
They fell aside to permit the passage of the 
column. As day dawned, groups of these poor 




SHELTER FROM THE RAIN AND FIHE. 

wretches could be seen gazing with lar'k-lustre 
eyes at the retreating defenders of their unhappy 
country. 

Leaving Ronarc'h on the 15th approaching 




THE OBSERVATION BALLOON. 
Used for watching the effect of the British naval guns against the German trenches. 

31—3 



171 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THK WAR. 




BRITISH MONITOR LEAVING A FRbNCH PORT. 



Dixmude, let us see what had been happening 
in the meanwhile in the district between Dix- 
mude and La Bassee. 

South-west of Dixmude the Yser is joined 
by a canal from Yj:)re8, and from Ypres another 
canal runs into the Lj^s at Comines. On the 
1 2th, when the \anguard of the Belgian Army 
reached Furnes — nine miles west of Nieuport 
by the road to Dunkirk — and when Sir Hem\ 
Rawlinson's troops had proceeded from Bruges 
and Ghent to the neighbourhood of Roulers — 
thirteen miles north-east of Ypres — a con- 
siderable body of German troops was located 
west of the line Comines-Ypres. Its right 
rested on the high ridge, eleven miles long, to 
the south-west of Ypres ; its left \\as on the 
Lys at Estaires. 

From the Lys southward to the Aire-Bethune- 
La Bassee-Lille Canal another force of Germans 
was entrenched. The left of this force joined 
the host opposing General de Maud'huy, whose 
army was disposed from Bethune through Arras 
to Albert on the Ancre, where it made contact 
M'ith General de Castelnau's army operating 
between the Somme and the Oise. 

If the Gernians could have maintained them- 
selves on the ridge south-west of Ypres and 
between that ridge and the Lys, they would 
soon have been reinforced by portions of the 
army which had captured Antwerp and by the 
<*orps which were about to enter Lille. From 
the line Mont-des-Cats-Meteren-Estaires thev 



might have pushed their way between the Yser 
and the Ly.s on Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, 
isolated the Belgians on the Yser, and menaced 
the left wing of Maud'huy's armj-. 

Fortunately, as was narrated in Chapter 
XLVIIL, the right of the German position 
north of the Lys was on October 13 turned 
by Byng's Division from Roulers and by 
General d'L^rbal from Dimkirk, and was at the 
same time attacked by the British Cavalry 
Corps ; while the III. Corps from Hazebrouck 
moved against its centre and left. More- 
over, between the Lys and the Aire-Betluuie- 
La Bassee-Lille Canal, the Germans were thrust 
back by General Conneau's Cavalry Corps and 
the II. Corps. As Lille was surrendering, the 
French from Dimkirk entered Ypres, the 
British Cavalry Corps captured Mont-des-Cats. 
the western end of the ridge, and the III. Corps 
took Meteren, south of the ridge. Sir Henry 
Kawlinson's Cavalry (Byng's Division) pushed 
patrols towards Comines, and on the next day 
(October 14) passed through Ypres and occupied 
Kemmel and W'ytschaete at the eastern end 
of the ridge, from the remainder of which the 
Germans were dislodged by the Cavalry Corps. 
^rhe same day Messines, south of Wytschaete, 
was taken and the III. Corps entered Bailleul. 
On the 15th, the day when the Germans seized 
Ostend, Sir John French directed thd Cavalry 
Corps and the III. Corps to the Lys, and the 
line of that river from Aire to Arrnentieres and 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



176 



the north bank to a point five miles below 
Armentieres were by sunset in tlie possession 
of the Allies. 

On the 16th the Germans evacuated Armen- 
tieres, and on the same date, while the British 
and French north and south of the Lys were 
still continuing their offensive, the Germans 
attacked Dixmude and the Battle of the Yser 
began. 

The left wing of the Allies now stretched from 
Compiegne through Albert, Arras, Bethune, 
Armentieres, Ypres, Dixmude to the coast at 
Nieuport-Bains. As the Allies possessed the 
command of the sea the Germans could no 
longer indulge in their favourite manoeuvre of 

4* 

outflanliing their enemy, and during the next 
month they were obliged to confine their efforts 
against the Allied line between the points 
Nieuport and Bethune, or between Bethune 
and Compiegne. 

The district in whic?i the Battles of the Yser 
and Ypres took place has been already described 
in broad outline. Between the Lys and the 
Scheldt the country is mostly industrial and 
agricultural, between the Lys and the sea 
agricultural and pastoral. Looking eastward 
from the Montague de Kemmel (512 ft. high) 
on the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats, to the riglit 



are seen in the distance the tall chimneys and 
factory buildings of Lille, south of the Lys. On 
the Lille side of the Lys the land is a flat, and 
in rainy weather, water-logged plain sloping 
gradually upwards to the low ridge on which 
are the villages of Givenchy, Aubers, Fromelles, 
and Radinghein. Close to Givenchy, which is 
two miles west of La Bassee, huge slag heaps 
rise black against the sky. Radinghem is five 
miles or so due west of Lille and the san\e 
dista^nce due south of Armentieres. The La 
Bassee-Lille Canal is beyond the ridge. 

Twenty miles away, in front of Kemmel, is 
Courtrai on the Lys, and, to its north, Roulers. 
South of the railway from Roulers to Ypres a 
wide belt of woods extends from Wytschaete 
to Zonnebeke. In the plain below to the left 
are seen, a little to the east, the towers and 
roofs of Ypres, once the capital of Western 
Flanders. Six miles to the north of Ypres and 
four miles east of the canal from Ypres to the 
Yser begins the forest of Houthulst. 

Far off the Yser winds through Dixmude to 
the sea, and twenty miles due west of Dix- 
mude, sixteen south-west of Nieuport-Bains, 
is Dunkirk. 

Apart from the innumerable windmills and 
the poplar-lined roads, the landscape north of 




WHEAT SEIZED BY THE GERMANS. 



176 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




A BRITISH LOOK-OUT POST. 

the Lys as far as the region of Dixmude has the 
aspect of the flat part of Essex. The ground 
is. however, broken and rolling and there are 
several slight elevations, for example the hill 
at Hooglede, north-west of Roulers. 

Round Dixmude commence the fen lands of 
Western Flanders, a network of dykes and 
ditches, few of which could be passed without 
bridging material. 

From the sea to Dixmude as the crow flies 
is some ten miles ; from Dixmude to Ypres 
thirteen ; from Ypres to Armentieres twelve ; 
and from the Lys at Armentieres to Bethune 
fifteen miles — making a total of about fifty 
miles. But the actual length held by the 
Allied troops on October 16 measm-ed nearly 
sixty miles, as it followed the northern bank of 
the winding Yser from Xieuport to Dixmude, 
and frojn this town round the eastern edge of 
rhe forest of Houthulst. From Nieuport to 
Dixmude the line was held by the Belgians, 
aided by the 6,000 French Marines of Ronarc'h, 
who occupied Dixmude and the neighbourhood 
with outposts thrown well out to the front. 
From this town it ran past Zonnebeke and 



dheluvelt, where were Rawlinson's troops, to 
VVarneton on the Lys. In between tlie French 
Marines and British were the French Territorial 
Divisions and a part of the available French 
Cavalry. From Warneton the British Cavalry 
Corps, tiie III. Corps, Conneau's Cavalry Corps 
and the JI. Corps held a curving line through 
the western outskirts of Aubers to Bethnne. 

On October 16 the actual po.sition of the 
Belgians was as follows : 

The 2nd Belgian Division was stationed 
round Nieuport ; to its riglit was the 1st 
Division ; beyond the 1st Division up to Dix- 
mude was placed the 4th. Then came the 
French Marines commanded by Rear-Admiral 
Ronarc'h, with the oth Belgian Division in 
support. The whole force could not have been 
much over 40,000 men. 

A patrol of tlie 2nd Lite Guards had been 
driven from Staden on the road from Roulers 
to Dixmude, and considerable numbers of the 
enemy were reported west of Staden in the 
forest of Houthulst and south-east of Staden 
at Oostnieuwkerke. The 7th British Cavalry 
Brigade on the 16th was, therefore, directed 
tlirough Ypres to the south of the forest of 
Houthulst, and till nightfall occupied the line 
Bixschoote-Poelcapelle. 

The movements of the French Tt>rritorials 
and Cavalry were to have an important bearing 
on the defence of Dixmude. As the sun was 
setting they relieved the 7th Cavalry Brigade, 
which was shifted in a south easterly direction 
to Passchendacle. At nightfall the front of the 
Yser from Nieuport to Dixmude was held by 
Belgian detachments, who occupied the villages 
of Lombartzyde, ^lannekensvere, Schoore, 
Leke, Keyem, and Beerst. 

From Thourout, connected by a single line 
railroad with Bruges and Roulers and by a 
double-line railway with Ostend, a main road 
runs to Ostend. Other main roads branch off 
this highway and proceed to the Yser. The 
villages of Beerst and Keyem are on the roads 
to the Yser at Dixmude. Between Schoore and 
Pervyse one of the main roads crosses the Yser. 
\^'est of Schoore still another passes through 
Mannekensvere to Nieuport, while Lombartzyde 
is a mile east oF Nieuport on the coast road 
to Ostend. 

So long as the Belgians retained Lombart- 
zyde (and the ground east of Nieuport), Manne- 
kensvere, Schoore, Leke, Keyem and Beerst, 
the Germans could not use the roads to the 
Yser which branch off from the Thoiu-out-Ostend 
highway, which rims south through Roulers to 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR, 



177 




RUINED CHURCHES IN BELGIUM. 
1. Interior of a Church at Dixmude. 2. The Mins er at Nieuport. 3. Tomb in the Church 

of Ramscappelle, wonderfully preserved amongst the surrounding wreckage. 4. The Church at Pervysc. 



178 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



^lonin, being accompanied al! the \va,\- by a 
single-line raUroad. The Thoiirout-Ostend road 
is not, however, the only line from which the 
Yser may be approached from the east. 

At Rouler-s a main road goes north-west to 
Dixmude, and this w^ould naturally form the 
line of advance for the Germans coming from 
Ghent to attack Ronarc'h. 

Generally the German plan involved the 
capture of Dixmude, the crushing of the 
Belgians, and a further advance to turn the 
Allied left. 

To the south of the Roulers-Dixmude road 
lies the forest of Houthulst, which could not be 
left by the Germans on their flank, and whicli 
therefore became the scene of man}- a fierce 
encoimter between the opposing forces. 

The significance of the villages north of the 
Yser has been pointed out. Behind these from 
Dixmude to Nieuport -Bains was the canalised 
river Yser, which is from fifteen to twenty feet 
above the level of the land to the west of it. It 
has a broad towpath rimning all along it, which 
forms a fine rampart. Between the towpath 
and the rampart there is a bank about two feet 
high, which is enough to protect a man when 
he is firing. The canal moves in a slightly 
concave cur\'e from Dixmude to Nieuport. 



About half way between the two towns it i^ 
pressed out to the eastward. At each side of 
the ba.se of the loop thus formed there is a 
small village (Tervaete, Schoorbakke), clustered 
round a bridge. Westward of the canal lie fiat 
fields, broken up into farms and intersected by- 
minor water channels ; and then the embank- 
ment of the railway which connects Dixmude 
with Nieuport and is on the average about two 
miles distant froni the canal. The embank- 
ment is, as it were, the string of a drawn Vjow 
of which the stave is the canal and the tips 
Nieuport and Dixmude. The chief bridges 
over the Yser, so far as the fighting now to be 
described is concerned, are at Nieuport, 
ilannekensvere, Schoorbakke and Tervaete 
(near Keyem), and Dixmude. Off the roads 
the country leading to these crossings was 
liable to flood. The possession of the bridges 
was, therefore, of importance to the assailants 
for attack or to the defenders for an active 
defence. The situation was like that at the 
bridge of Areola in 1796. 

The railwaj^ formed a second line on which 
the Belgians could oppose the Germans if they 
crossed the canal. Behind the railway was the 
high-road, a tree-lined cliaussee, from Dixmude 
through Per\'yse and Ramscappelle to Nieuport. 




A GBRMAN MOTOR ALTAR. 
The Archbishop of Cologne on the left. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAE. 



IT'J 




LADLING MUD OUT OF THE TRENCHES. 



Nienport and Dixmude were places of con- 
siderable interest. Round the former had been 
fought the " Battle of the Dunes " in 1600 in 
which the Dutch under ]\Iaiu'ice of Orange had 
defeated the Spaniards. A Gothic Cloth Hall, 
a fine church with a massive tower, an Hotel de 
Ville, and the remains of a Templars' Castle 
were the architectural featiu-es of this quiet 
little town of some 3,500 inhabitants. Dixmude 
possessed a church with a magnificent rood-loft, 
and formed a centre for the dairy-farnis which 
carried on a brisk trade in butter with England. 

A mile or so beyond Nieuport was Nieuport- 
Bains, where the Yser entered the sea. It was 
a small watering-place with a broad Digue, a 
golf course, several hotels, and tastefully built 
villas. 

From Ostend to Dunkirk along the shore 
stretched the Dunes — great heaps of sand, 
some planted with trees. Skirting the Dunes 
on the south side ran the canal from Dunkirk 
through Fumes to Nieuport. 

Fumes, where the Belgian reserves were 
ultimately stationed, was a town of some 0,000 
inhabitants, with a quaint old Place. This, a 
belfry, the choir of the church of St. Walbiu-ga, 
and the huge tower of the church of St. Nicholas 
formed its chief attractions. It was connected 
with the Yser by the Canal de Loo, which 
formed a third barrier to an encmv after he had 



crossed the Yser and the railway enibankineut 
between Dixmude and Nieuport. 

A steam tramway, a canal, and high-road 
joined Furnes to Nieuport, a high road Furnes 
to Pervyse, a railway and a high-road (through 
Pervyse) Furnes to Dixmude ; a high-road and 
light railway Furnes to Ypres. 

Most of the roads in this district were usually 
not wide enough to admit two vehicles to pass. 

If they left the roads, the Germans would 
liave to fight their waj- across hedges, dykes, 
lines of polder.s, willow thickets, orchards and 
gardens, and the marsh 3^ character of the soil 
would prevent them making {irtificial cover. 
Trenches speedily filled with water, and, a.s the 
land at high tide was below sea level, the 
Belgians by opening the s'.uices could let the 
sea in, while the space between the Yser and 
the railway embankment might hv- flooded b\- 
closing up the culverts under the railroad and 
bursting the channel of tlu^ raised canal. 
Further, the flank of cohunns moving between 
the sea and Schoore would be exposed to fire 
from the guns of the Allied men-of-war. 

The attacks on Dixnuide or its inunediate 
neighbourhood are comprehensible, but, remem- 
bering that Dunkirk was fortified, it is difficult 
to understand the reasons for the persistent 
German assaults on the Belgian position north 
of Dixnuide. One explanation that can be 



THE TIMES HIS'lORY OF THE WAR. 




THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



181 



n2 




18-2 



THI-: Tl.MHS HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




MAJOR-GENERAL F. 



[Swainc. 

C. SHAW. 



offered is that the Duke of ^^'llrtembel'g and his 
advisers imagined that the Belgians were 
demoralised. If that were the case, the German 
leaders were speedily to be undeceived. 

There was one point in the Allied position 
on the Yser which was of cardinal importance — 
viz., Dixmude, the possession of which was 
needed for any reallj"- decisive advance of the 
German right -flank forces. But mere posses- 
sion would not suffice, the power of debouching 
from it was necessary, and to acquire this the 
ground round it to the north, west and south 
had to be swept clear of the Allies so as to 
permit a German deployment in force. This 
wovild have given the Kaiser's leaders the 
initiative, and they woiild have been able to 
attack right, left, and centre, and the Allies, if 
they could not stem the current, must have 
retreated before them and thus have exposed 
the left wing of d'Urbal's force to flank attack. 

On the 15th it will be remembered that Rear- 
Admiral Ronarc'h and his 6,000 IMarmes were 
retreating from Thourout to Dixmude. 

Near Eessen a battalion imder Commandant 
de Karros was left to guard the roads which at 
that point debovich from Vladsloo to the north, 
from Roulers to the south-east, and from Poel- 
cappelle and the forest of Houthulst to the 
south. Commandant Mam-os with another 
battalion crossed to the Ypres -Dixmude road 
and occupied Woumen. The remaining four 



l);ii tdlions with 111'- machine gim company 
entered Dixmude about midday, and were 
posted behind the Yser. A detachment was 
placed near the village of Beer«t to the north 
of the town and east of the canal. South of 
the chapel of Notre-Daine-de-Bon-Secours 
natural cover for the artillery wa.s found. 

Scarcely had the men been billeted than they 
were called up to help a company of Belgian 
Engineers to put the outskirts of Dixmude in a 
state of defence. There was not a moment to 
be lost. xUready the (Germans were tlirowing 
a few shrapnel shells into tlic town, and in the 
evening a German armoured car, coming from 
Zarren, fired at the outposts in front of Ee.ssen. 

On reconsideration Ronarc'h thought the 
position which he had taken up too dangerous. 

Only forty-nine years old and the youngest 
of the French admirals, he had had experience 
of land warfare, having, U ce Falkenhayn, fought 
in China. He had accompanied the Seymour 
coliunn which had been sent to succour the 
European Legations besieged by the Boxers in 
Pekin. A taciturn, meditative man of the 
stamp of Joffre, he recognized to the full that 
his men were in insufficient numbers and that 
the majority of them were ill -trained. It wa.s 
not till the end of September that he had been 
ordered to form a Brigade of two regiments 
(six battalions and a company of mitrailleuses). 




OFFICERS OF THE FRENCH MARINES. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAll. 



1S3 




FRENCH iMARlNES WITH THEIR TROPHIES OF WAR. 



and Jie had had to recruit them chiefly among 
ladf! under age.* 

His Marines had fought bravely at the Battle 
of Melle, but he could scarcely have anticipate d 
they would display the amazing covu-age. skill 
and energy which they were about to exhibit. 
The Belgians supporting him were wearied with 
constant fighting. To hold a line so long with 
the forces at his disposal seemed bold almost 
to temerity. 

Ronarc'h represented his views to General 
Michel, who was conimanding the Allies on the 
Yser, and recei\'ed permission to shorten the 
line of defence round Dixmude. The last 
trains with the munitions of the Belgian Army 
had passed through to Fumes and there was 
no longer the need to keep any considerable 
body east of Dixmude along the railroad. 

Accordingly the Admiral withdrew his out- 
posts and divided the defence of Dixmude into 
two sectors. In the northern he placed Com- 
mandant Delage with the 1st Regiment, in 
the southern Commandant Varney with the 
2nd. A battalion of the 2nd was retained by 
him at the station of Caeskerke, where the 
railways from Fumes and Nieuport meet. Of 
the two Belgian batteries one was placed south 

* One of the Marines, Yves Lebouc, was IG years old. 
The youth of France in this terrible war have behaved 
with extraordinary heroism. 



of tlie railroad to Furnes, the other north of 
Caeskerke. A telephone connected them with 
the great flour mill of Dixmude, the concrete 
platform of which had been constructed by a 
German firni before the war. It was an excel- 
lent point from which the whole valley of the 
Yser might be cannonaded by heav\' artillery, 
and the cost of building the floiu- mill was 
doubtless debited to the German \A"ar Office. 
For the moment, however, it afforded a capital 
post from which the fire of the Belgian gmis 
could be accurately directed. 

At the crossing of the roads from Dixmude 
to Pervyse and Oudecappelle was stationed the 
machine gun company. The canal of the Yser 
in the vicinity of Dixmude was guarded by the 
Belgian infantry of the 5th Division. To the 
south of Neucappelle French Cavalry held the 
road which at Loo crosses the canal from the 
Yser to Fumes and joins beyond Loo tlie 
Fumes-Ypres highway. Some of the Cavalry 
which (Jeneral d'Urbal had boldly thrown into 
the forest of Houthulst had pushed as far a.>< 
Clercken to the east of W'oumen. 

The efforts of the Gerinans against the 
Belgians and Ronarc'h's Marines on the Kith 
were at first confined to a reconnaissance and 
to entrenching themselves at Middlekerke on 
the Ostend Digue and at Westende, which faces 
Lombartzvde. A Taube had also flown o\cr 



184 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 




— " ~r ; ; ; : eEag^_ : 



DEVASTATION BY ARTILLERY FIRE IN BELGIUM AND FRANCE. 

1. The Church of St. Jean, Dixmude. 2. Cottages in a street at Nieuport. 3. A street at Albert. 
4. Wrecked house in the flooded area near Ramscappelle. 5. A street in Pervyse. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



185 



Dunkirk the supply source of the Franco- 
Belgian Army. One bomb had been dropped 
by its navigator on the sand, another into the 
•^ea. 

Towards sunset from a fold in the groxind near 
Eessen the heavy German artillery (10 and 
15 cm. guns) shelled the French and Belgians 
defending Dixnuide for some time. Sud- 
denly the guns ceased fire and masses of 
infantry could be perceived advancing to the 
attack. They were repulsed, but the fighting 
went on through the night of the 16th. About 
midnight a desperate charge of the Germans was 
successful. The approaches to the French 
trenches w^ere not protected by barbed wire, 
and sheer weight of numbers told. The 
defenders withdrew to the sviburbs of the town 
and awaited reinforcements. At dawn a 
counter-attack was delivered and the lost 
trenches re -won. 

No further assaults were that day made on 
Dixmude, and at 11 a.m. the German artillery 
ceased firing. " Afterwards," notes a Marine 
present at the action, " al! noise ceases ; Dix- 
mude has suffered little." 

In the com-se of the 17th five batteries of 
Belgian artillery under Colonel Wleschoumes 
were added to the few guns in position behind 
Dixmude. The Admiral had now at his disposal 
seventy-two pieces. But it must not be for- 
gotten that the Belgians had no heavy artUlery 
equivalent to the German, and so worn were 
their field-guns by constant use that the fire 
from them was inaccurate. Ronarc'h con- 
nected bj' telephone the new batteries with his 
headquartei's at Caeskerke. He proposed to 
keep them under his own immediate direction, 
but he generally authorized the gunners to fire 
whenever the fusillade, and particularly the 
mitrailleuse - discharges, indicated that an 
infantry attack was proceeding. ThLs day (the 
17th) the advance posts of the Belgians in the 
villages to the east of the Yser were also shelled 
by the Germans. 

The afternoon of the 17th and the whole of 
the 18th were spent in quiet by the defenders 
of Dixmude, w-ho on the 18th were visited by 
King Albert. " He is a model King," writes a 
Marine, " I have seen him in the trenches. He's 
a real man." 

The respite given to Ronarc'h, which per- 
mitted him and his Belgian colleagues to put 
Dixmude in a comparatively complete state of 
defence, ^^■as due to the offensive taken on the 
17th, 18th and 19th by General d'Urbal and. 




DR. HECTOR MUNRO. 

to his right, Sir Henry Bawlinson, and, west of 
Sir Henry, the British Cavalry Corps and III. 
Corps. 

The German troops ^^•ho were marching 
through Roulers on Dixmude, and some of 
whom had driven the patrol of Life Guards 
from Staden and entered the forest of Houthulst 
on the 16th, were the next day attacked by 
foiu* French Cavalry Divisions under General 
de Mitry. The French cleared the forest of the 
Germans and demonstrated towards Roulers 
and the road from Roulers to Dixmude. 

Do Mitry's left stretched to Clercken, north 
of the forest on the road from Poelcappelle to 
Dixmude, and on the 18th Ronarc'h v\as 
requested to assist in the advance on Thourout, 
at which town, as w-ell as at Roulers, Genertl 
d'Urbal was striking, while Rawlinson wns 
moving on Menin. Accordingly Ronarc'h .sent 
Commandant Mauros towards Eessen with a 
battalion of the 2nd Regiment of Marines and 
two Belgian cars equipped with luaohine guns. 



186 



THE Turn's HISTOliY UF THE WAR. 



A few corpses and dead horses on the road 
showed where the Germans had been. V\ Ix'n 
the-French entered Eessen they found that the 
enemy had decamped. 

Maiiros halted at Ev^ssen, but two regiments 
of mounted African ti-oops, temporarily placed 
under Ronarc'h's command, set out in extended 
order towards Bovekerke and the woods of 
Couckelaere. The Allies had almost recovered 
the position from Ghistelles to Menin which 
King Albert and his staff had at first chosen 
for defence and then abandoned, after the fall 
of Ghent. 

Dixmude had not been attacked on Sunday 
(the 18th), but while the French were marching 
against Thourout the Germans from the line 
Thoiu"out-Ostend attacked the Belgian advance 
posts from Lombartzyde to Keyem. The 
battle began in the morning. The Belgians 
fought with superb coui-age, but numbers told, 
and before sunset the Germans had secured 
Mannekensvere and Keyem. If they covikl 
cross the Yser west of the former place they 
would turn the centre of the Belgian position 
of Nieuport, while from Keyem they could 
either march on Dixmude or, crossing the 
southern side of the loop of the Yser, strike at 
Pervyse and break the Belgian line. 

If the east bank of the Yser was to be held, 
Keyem had to be retaken at all costs, and the 



Belgian 4th Division by a brilliant night attack 
drove the enemy from the village. 

This success and the repulse of the Germans 
before Keyem on the next day were psycho- 
logically of the highest value to the cau.se of 
the Allies. ISIany of the Belgians had come to 
believe that the Germans must win in the end 
and they could hardly believe their eyes when 
the enemy turned and ran. They stopped firing, 
and shouted out in amazement : " See, see, 
they're running ! " 

On IMonday the 19th, the Germans received 
the order to cross the Yser " at any cost," and, 
to facilitate the attack on Dixmude, columns 
from Bruges and Ghent were directed on 
Roulers. The town was attacked from three 
bides— from Hooglede on the north-west, from 
Ardoye on the north-east, and from Iseghem 
on the east. The artillery at these places 
commenced bombarding Roulers at noon, and 
towards evening the enemy entered the town. 
The French retired to Oostnieuwkerke, and the 
road from Roulers to Dixmude was again in the 
possession of the Germans, who had not been 
dislodged from Menin by Rawlinson. On the 
north and south banks of the Lys the Allies had 
made no further progress of a substantial nature. 

The enemy from the Thourout-Ostend front 
also achieved a considerable success against the 
Belgians. Beerst. between Keyem and Dix- 




BELGIAN INFAIViTRV ON THE MARCH. 



THE TIMES HISTOI-IY OE THE WAR. 



]S7 




FRENCH ENGINEERS REPAIRING A BRIDGE. 



iiiude, was captvired, and desperate efforts made 
to take Keyem and drive the Belgian 4th 
Division over the loop of the Yser. To save 
that division from destruction the French 
Marines and the Belgian 5tli Division were 
ordered to advance from Dixmude and recover 
Beerst, cross the road from that village to 
Thourout, and occupj' the Praet-Bosch woods 
to the north of the road. 

Supported by the Belgian 5th Division, the 
battalion of Commandant Mauros moved at 
10 a.m. from Eessen on Vladsloo and Hoograde, 
and two battalions of Ronarc'h's reserve 
traversed Dixmude and marched on Beerst, 
where the Germans had barricaded themselves 
in the houses and chiirch. The ground in front 
of the village was quite fiat and intersected by 
dykes overflouing with water, and the only 
cover was here and there a leafless hedge ; so 
the Marines had to advance slowlj^ crouching, 
r.ieu tenant Maussion dc Cande, who incautiously 
.stood up, was struck down, and at every moment 
a Marine fell forward among the beetroots. 
Lieutenant Pertus had his leg blown to pieces 
as he was leading on his company ; and 
Lieutenant de Blois was liit a few minutes later. 
The losses of Jearmiot's battalion were so 
heavy that Pugliesi-Conti's was brought up 
into the fight. 

Tliirsting for vengeance and animated by the 



example of their officers, they were determined 
to perish rather than give ground. Following 
Commandant Varney, who A\as superintending 
the attack, the whole battalion pressed for- 
ward. House after house was taken, each after 
a terrible struggle. 

Still the fight proceeded. The Admiral sent 
up a fresh battalion from his reserves to 
replace Jeanniot's sorely tried battalion, which 
was brought back to Dixmude. On the right 
Mauros debouched from Vladsloo, whence, 
with the aid of Belgian mitrailleuses, he had dis- 
lodged the enemy. The Belgian 5th Division 
prolonged the fighting front to the right and 
kept part of its strength echeloned in rear. 

These happy dis portions soon produced good 
results, and by 5 p.m. Beerst was carried. 
Night was now falling, and the Admiral directed 
Commandant Varney to put the outskirts of 
Beerst in a state of defence to resist a possible 
counter-attack. But no sooner was work begun 
than the Belgian Conunander ordered Ronarc'h 
to recall his Marines to their original position 
roiuid Dixmude. The effect of the German 
victory at Roulers had become apparent. 
News had reached General Michel that a 
coliunn was moving from the east on Dixmude. 
At 1 1 p.m. the Brigade of Marines reached its 
cantonments at Caeskerke and St. .lacquos- 
CappelU'. Looking back, it was aeon that 



188 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




/sender^/? \ 



11 Hoogstaede ^boo 



les 



Kilometres 










12 3 4b 

BATTLE OF THE YSER, 

Showing approximate position of the Allies October 16th (evening). 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR 



189 



Vladsloo, which had fallen into the hands of the 
Germans, was burning fiercely.* 

The retirement of the Marines and the 
Belgian 5th Division rendered Keyem untenable. 
Diu"ing the night it was occupied by the enemy, 
and the 4th Belgian Division fell back behind 
the Yser. 

At the other end of the battlefield the Ger 
mans between Keyem and Nieuport had been 
heavily cannonading the Belgian 1st Division, 
while their columns from Ostend were assaulting 
Lombartzyde, defended by the 2nd Division. 
These attacks were repulsed. There can, 
however, be small doubt that both Lom- 
bartzyde and Nieuport would have fallen into 
German hands but for a new and, to the 
Germans, unexpected demonstration of the 
naval supremacy possessed by the Allies. 

On Sunday a naval flotilla, which included 
three Monitors, built for the Brazilian Govern- 
ment for river work, and taken over by the 
British Admiralty, had been dispatched under 
Rear -Admiral Hood to the Belgian coast. 
Consequently the Allied line on Monday had 
rested not only on the sea, but on a mmaber of 
movable forts armed with 6-inch guns equal to 
the heaviest which the Germans then possessed 
at this point. The Monitors being of light 
draught could approach close to the shore. 
Aeroplanes, seaplanes, and captive or dirigible 
balloons signalled to the naval gunners the 
positions of the German troops and artillery, f 

* For much of the account of the fighting round 
Dixmude we express our acknovvledgmenta to M. Le 
GofFic, whose lucid and interesting article in the Revue 
des Deux Mondes is based, not only on official reports, 
but on the written or oral evidence of Marines and others 
who took part in the Battle of the Yser. 

t The stationary observation balloon was very useful 
both on sea and land. A correspondent of The Times 
was SLibsequently allowed to ascend in one of the latter 
and gives a graphic description of the observations made 
on the occasion. 

" The officer whom I accompanied was engaged in 
making observations with a view to discovering the 
position of the German batteries. 

" At a height of about 200 feet we could follow all the 
phases of the battle which was in progress along the other 
bank of the Yser, between Nieuport and Dixmude. In 
particular we were able to note the effect of the fire of the 
British warships off the coast. , 

" With my glasses I could see Ostend and the ruins 
of several coast villages, including Westonde, JMiddel- 
kerke, and Lombartzyde. As far as I could see, not a 
single wall remained standing in the villages of West- 
kerke. Slype, and Novie. All this damage had been 
caused by the effective fire of the British ships, which 
ultimately succeeded in dislodging the German forces. 

" At 8 a.m. the engagement was in full swing, and as 
the air was clear I had a splendid view of what was 
going on. At 8.45 the observation-officer discosered 
the position of the German guns, and so we at once came 
down." 



The dead-flat country permitted those positions 
often to be seen from the masthead. To bafile 
the aim of the German coast batteries the ships 
moved on diagonal courses and, to escape- 
torpedoes launched by submarines, at a high 
rate of speed. So close in land did the M©nitors> 
and torpedo craft come, that their crews even 
fired with rifles at the enemy. How the 
British flotilla engaged the German forces ia 
graphically described by Petty-Officer Cooper, 
of H.M.S. Falcon. 

'* After patrolling the shores," he says, with 
reference to the flghting on October 27, but 
which applies equally to the earlier date, " the 
Falcon took up a position two miles off Nieu- 
port. A mile nearer the shore were the 
Monitors. They opened their attack, and we 
fired over them. We could see nothing of the 
batteries or the trenches, but we soon found the 
range, and were told by our officers that we 
were dropping our shells right into the trenches. 
On the first day we fired over 1 ,000 shells, and 
other guns were fired while their ships were 
proceeding at a^ high speed to and fro along the 
coasthne. The Germans brought to bear on us 
some of theii" heavier giins which they used at 
Antwerj), and they dropped their shells roimd 
us. Several struck us, but did little damage." 

Though the British flotilla opened fire at 
daybreak on the 19th, the Germans did not 
desist from their assaults on Lombartzyde and 
Nieuport. In the morning <>t' the 20th they 
rushed the farm of Bambuig. It was retfiken, 
but at night was abandoned by the Belgians. In 
the centre and on the right, the enemy, who now 
had gained Schoore as well as Mannekensvere, 
Keyem, and Beerst, .-helled the Belgians de- 
fending the raised (tanal of the Yser, and 
launched cohunns down the Keyem-Dixmude 
and Eoitlers-Dixmucle roads on Dixmude. 
Hitherto only field guns had been used by the 
Germans against Dixmude ; but at this junctm-e 
heavy howitzeis came up and rained shells on 
the town. General Meyser's Belgian Brigade 
had been attached to Ronarc'h's Marines, the 
trenches protected by barbed wire and pro- 
vided with head cover. Repeated attacks of 
the Germans were easily beaten off. 

In Furnes were posted the Belgian reserves. 
Before dusk Dr. Hector Munro's Field Hospital, 
which had already done such noble services 
for the Allies, had arrived. Dr. Munro, Dr. 
Bevis, and the rest of the party of twenty-fivo 
doctors and nurses, among them Lady Dorothie 
Feilding (a daughter of Lord Denbigh; were 



I'JO' 



THE TUIE^ HISTORY OF THE ]yAlL 



busy converting a large convent into a ba.««^ 
hospital. The gas in the town had been cut off, 
and the little shops were lit up by candles and 
oil lamps. Below, in the vaulted caves, 
scjldiers were drinking soup, coffee, or wine. 
The place was jjacked with armoured and other 
motor-cars, military cycles, artillery, and pro- 
vision wagons. The sound of the guns in tlic 
distance was terrific. 

Wednesday, the 21st, was one of the most 
critical days in the gigantic struggle between 
the Lys and the sea. 

General Joffre himself was on the spot to 
direct the operations of the Allies. French 
troops were hurrjang up to the assistance of t he 
Belgians, and King Albert and Joffre reviewed 
the -IGtli Chasseurs in tlie Place of Furnes. 
The same day he told Sir John French that he 
was bringing up the 9th French Army Corps 
to Ypres, and that other reinforcements would 
follow later. It was his intention with these 
and the Belgian and British troops to renew 
the offensive ar^d di'ive the Germans eastward, 
but he stated that he would be unable to com- 
hience the forward movement until the 24th. 

But the Germans had already thrust back the 
Allied line south of the Forest of Houthulst, 
and occupied Poelcappelle and Passchendaele. 
Partly to relieve the pressure on Dixmude, the 
four French Cavalry Divisions under General 
de Mitrv and the two Territorial Divisions 



under General Bidon. moved from the canal- 
between ^ixuiudu and Vpres on the Forest 
and to the north and south of it. Sir Uouglaa 
Haig from Ypres was on their right. He was 
to capture Poelcappelle and Passcheiidaele. 
Beyond Sir Douglas was Kawlinson, with the 
7th Infantrj- and the 3rd Cavalrs^ Divisions. 

Up to 2 p.m. the ad\ance wa.s succe.ssful, bun 
then the French Cavalry were ordered to retire 
west of the canal from Ypres to tlie Yser, and, 
OM'ing to this and to the German attacks on 
Pvawlinson, Sir JJougias was brought to a stoj) 
on the line Bixschoote-Langemarck-St. Julien- 
Zonnebeke. Thenceforth the battle from 
Bethime to Xienport became an almost purely 
defensive one on the part of the Allies. 

To return to the operations on the Yser 
during the 21st. j'he German occupation of 
Roiilers and of the forest of Houthulst, coupled 
with the failure of Rawlinson to take Menin, 
had enabled Falkenhayn from the line Menin- 
Roulers-Thourout-Ostend to concentrate his 
enormous forces on any point between the Lys 
and Nieuport. The heavy howitzers which 
vomited high-explosive shells had arrived from 
Antwerp, but the presence of the British flotilla, 
which ^^•as provided with guns as powerful, 
rendered it advisable for the Germans to avoid 
the left and attack the centre and right of the 
Belgian Army. 

At daybreak (the 21st) the enemy hurled 




A FRENCH BICYCLE COMPANY, 

The bicycle folded for marching. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIL 



191 




THE SURPRISED GERMAN PATROL. 



themselves on the Frencli Marines and Belgians 
round Dixmude. Orders had been given to the 
gunners to level every house in the town.* An 
American with the Germans remarks that 
'■'from a church steeple in a village just back 
of the artillery trenches you could see a con- 
tinual flash of bursting shells in Dixmude — 
about fifty shells a minute." 

Dixmude was not the only spot bombarded. 
From the tower of the chiu'ch of Furnes that 
morning as far as the eye coiild i-each over the 
flat horizon nothing was to be seen except 
bursting shells and bui'ning villages^ and 
hamlets. 

Eight separate attacks were made on the 
trenches protecting Dixmude. The (Germans, 
most of whom had arrived from the Fatherland 
a few days before, and some of whom were mere 
lads of only seventeen or eighteen years, fought 
with magnificent courage, but the French 
Marines massed their machine guns in groups of 
four, and each column was in a few seconds 
reduced to a mass of corpses, writhing wovuided, 
and panic-stricken fugitives. Had it not been 
for the deluge of shells on the trenches and on 



Dixmude the struggle would have degenerated 
into a one-sided massacre. 

As it was the heroism displayed by Ronarc'h's 
Marines and the Belgian infantry who beat off 
the furious assaults of the Kaiser's troops cannot 
be overestimated. Under a sky which litei-ally 
rained shrapnel and fragments of common shell 
they continued to fight with unsurpassable 
gallantry. What they endured may be faintly 
understood from the narratives of two war- 
correspondents, ]\Ir. Ashmead-Bartlett and Mr. 
Philip Gibbs, who accompanied Dr. Hector 
3Iimro on that day into Dixmude.* 

Quite early Belgian ambulances had come 
uj) to the improvised hospital in Furnes laden 
with wounded. In the courtyard of the con- 
vent two motor ambulances and fom* car.s wei'« 
getting ready to move towards the firing line. 
A start was made at noon. One of the cars was 
driven by Lieutenant de Broqueville, the son of 
the Belgian Minister of War. Lady Dorothie 
Feilding, Miss Chisholm, Dr. Hector Munro, and 
an American (Mr. Gleeson) were of the party. 

* These nnrrativcs appeared in tlie Daily Telegraph 
and the Daily Chronicle. 



192 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




FRENCH SENEGALESE SOLDIERS. 



Two British chauffeiu's drove the motor ambu- 
lances. 

Winding their way through the streets of 
Furnes crowded with soldiers and wagons, the 
cars and ambulances passed into the open 
country. The sun was shining, and the long, 
straight lines of poplars between the low-lying 
fields indicated the roads that traversed the 
marshes and meadows. As they proceeded they 
met a squadron of Belgian cavalry. The men 
were haggard and dirty, but looked hard and 
resolute. Next they encountered groups of the 
cheerful Belgian infantry, columns of French 
troops, and ever-roiling, seemingly endless 
streams of motors of every make and design. 
Here and there the military gave way to tlie 
civilian element. Old women, young women 
with babies and children, and peasants trudged 
slowly away from the scenes of carnage. A 
column of German • prisoners escorted by 
mounted men marched past to the rear. " All 
of them had a wild, famished, terror-stricken 
look " in their faces. Four months before these 
unfortunate men had been peaceable citizens, 
members of a civilized community. 

Emerging from Oudecappelle, Dr. Munro's 
party came upon the battlefield. 

" Away across the fields," saj'^s Mr. Gibbs, 
" was a line of villages, with the town of Dix- 
mude a little to the right of us. . . . From 



each little town smoke was rising in separate 
columns, which met at the top in a great pall 
of smoke, as a heavy black cloud cresting above 
the light on the horizon line. At every moment 
this blaclcness was brightened by puffs of electric 
blue, extraordinarily vivid, as shells burst in 
the air. . . . From the mass of houses in each 
town came gusts of flame, following the ex 
plosions, which sounded with terrific thudding 
shocks. Upon a line of 15 kilometres there was 
an incessant cannonade, and in every town 
there was a hell. The farthest villages were 
already alight. I watched how the flames rose 
and Vjecame great glowing furnaces, terribly 
beautiful." 

Compared with such spectacles what were 
the greatest battles of the past ? From Dix- 
mude round the forest of Houthulst to the 
Lys, from the Lys to the slag heaps near La 
Bassee, from La Bassee through the battered 
Arras to the woods of Compiegne, from 
Compiegne to ihe Meuse, and from the Meuse 
to the Jura hundreds of thousands of men were 
killing and maiming each other under such 
earthquake conditions. The horrors on the 
plain of the Scheldt were being facsimiled on 
the Niemen, in the plains of Poland and Galicia, 
among the Carpathians, and on the Danube. 
At the eastern extremity oi Asia cannon as 
powerful as almost any in Europe were 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



193 



belcliing explosives at Japanese, British or 
Germans. 

The Belgian artillery had been apparently 
silenced, and, on the Yser, the agents of lirupp 
had nothing to impede them in their diabolic 
work. Tlie road from Oudecappello to Dixmude 
was under the fire of the German howitzers. 
Every minute on or near the thoroughfare a 
great pall of black smoke rose up, leaving a 
dark cavity in which a couple of horses might 
have been buried side by side. One of the huge 
shells had burst on a Belgian battery. " All 
six horses of one of the guns," says Mr. Ashmead- 
Bartlett, " had been blown into mangled heaps. 
Their remains lay scattered about the road like 
badly cut joints suddenly thrown about by the 
overturn of a gigantic butcher's cart." A 
Belgian gunner had been cut in two, and amidst 
fragments of dead horses were biscuits, tinned 
meats, coffee, sugar. Until the debris had been 
cleared from the road it was impossible to 
proceed further. 

At last the way v/as open to the brave little 
partj^ and the ambulances and cars made a 
dash for Dixmude. They seemed to be rushing 
into a burning furnace. In the outskirts of the 
town were the French reserves. 

Then they entered Dixmude itself. JMr. 
Aslunead-Bartlett, who had been through the 



Russo-Japanese and Balkan Wars, has left his 
impressions of Dixmude as it appeared on the 
afternoon of October 21, 1914 : 

Well, I was all through the siege of Port Arthur, and 
I happened to be in Reiins when the Germans destroyed 
the Cathedral. At Port Arthur the bombard ments were 
terrible, but then the Japanese gradually worked their 
way towards the forts, and you had deep trenches which 
gave you some cover. At Reims you were fairly safo 
if you kept away from the immediate neighbourhood of 
the Cathedral, but at Dixmude it was Hell. 

The town is not very big, and what it looked like 
before the bombardment I cannot say. But the point 
is this : An infuriated German army corps were con- 
centrating the fire of all the held guns and heavy 
howitzers on it at the same time. There was not an 
inch which was not being swept by shells. There was 
not a house, as far as I could see, which had escaped 
destruction. The whole scene was so terrible, so ex- 
citing, and passed in such a dream, that it has left only a 
series of pictures on my mind. 

The ghastly, inhunaan character of modem 
warfare and the superhuman qualities displayed 
by the m^Tiads of soldiers and civilians who 
have been subjected by the Kaiser and the 
conspiring castes in Germany and Austria - 
Hungary to the ordeal by fire and explosion, 
should be brought home to the conscience of the 
civilized world. 

Says Mr. Gibbs : 

We came into Dixmude. It was a fair-sized town, 
with many beautiful buildings and fine old houses in the 
Flemish style — so I am told. When I saw it for the 
first and last time it was a place of death and horror. 
The streets through which we passed were utterly 




GERMANS IN A TRENCH ON THE YSER. 



194 



THK TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



dosorted and wrecked from end to end n« tlioiigli by an 
eartliquako. Incessant explos-ions of sliel! fire crashed 
down upon the walLs wliicli still stood. Great ga.shes 
opened in the walls, which then toppled and fcli. 

A roof came tumbling down with an appalling clatter. 
Like a house of cards blown by a puH ol wind a little 
shop suddenly collapsed into a mass of ruins. 

Here and there, farther into the town, we :^aw living 
figures. They ran swiftly for a moment and then dis- 
appeared into dark caverns under toppling porticoes. 
They were Belgian soldiers. 

We were now in a side street leadiii;^ into the town 
hall .-quare. It seemed impossible to pass, owinj; to the 
wreckage strewn across the road. 

"Try to take it." said Dr. ^Iimro, who was sitting 
beside the chauffeur. 

We took if, bumping over the high debris, and then 
swept round into the square. It was a spacious place 
with the town'hall at one side of it, or what was left of the 
town hall. There was only the splendid .shell of it left, 
Butlieient for us to see the skeleton of a noble building 
which -had once been the pride of Flemish craftsmen. 
Kven as we turned towards it parts of it were falling upon 
the ruins already on the ground. [ .saw a great pillar 
tean forward and then topple down. A mass of masonry 
crashed down from the portico. 

Some stiff, dark forms lay among the fallen stone.s. 
They were dead soldiers. I liardlj' glanced at them, for 
we were in search of living now. 

The cars were brought to a halt outside the building 
anil we all climbed down. I lighted a cigarette and I 



noticed two of tlie otlier men fumble for matches for tho 
same purpose. We wanted something to steady us. 

'J'here wa.s never a moment when shell fire was not 
bursting in that square about us. The .shrapnel bullets 
wiiijiped the stone>. 

The enemy was making a target of the Hotel de \ille, 
and dropping their sliells with dreaulful exactitude on 
either side of it. 

1 glanced towards a flaring furpace to the right of the 
building. There was a wonderful glow at the heart of it. 

y\r. Ashinead-Bartlett shows us the interior 
of the Hotel de Viile of Dixniiide: 

In>ide the hall was a scene of horror and chaos. It was 
lulled with loaves of bread, bicv'clcs, and dead soldiers. 
1 have never seen so many bicycles. I suppose .some 
cyclist troop had left them here on their way to the 
trenches. We rushed down to the cellars and dragged 
up the wounded, who were all lying down cases, and had 
to be placed on stretchers, which seemed, under the 
circumstances, to take an endless lime. All the while 
the shells were crashing overhead, and the bullets 
whistling through the square. Another officer ran up, 
and told De Broqueville tha: there were some more 
wounded in another building. De Broqueville ran off 
and disappeared down a side street. 

Loading the ambulances was slow work, but at length 
it was completed. We were all ready, and only loo 
anxious to depart, when we disco\ ered that De Broque- 
\ ille liad not returned. We waited several minutes. 
He did not come. Then there was a terrific crash, and a 
shell hit the Hotel de Villc just aboN c our heads, bringing 
down more bricks and mortar. 

^I. Maeterlinck, the illu.strious Belgian author, 
who h;^s l\andled the French language %\ith the 
skill of an Anatole France, has drawn a. hopeful 
deduction fro)n scenes like these. " One of the 
consoling surprises of this \sar," he say?, " is 
the unlooked for, .and, so to speak, universal 
lieroisjn which it has revealed among all tiie 




ST. PIERRE RAILWAY STATION, GHENT. 
Arrival of the British. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



195 



nations taking part in it." The Germans who 
had studied luunanit}- witii meticulous care, 
liad imagined that the Krupp inventions would 
paralyse the spirits of their adversaries. For 
forty years they had been accmnalating un- 
exampled stores of materials for the destruction 
of human bodies. They were prepared to use 
them in tlie same spirit that Nero had used his 
lions and his pitch against the Early Christians. 
They imagined that religion had lost its hold 
over Belgians, French, and British, and they 
confidently expected to terrorize the comfort- 
loving populations of Western Em-ope into 
submission. They were mistaken. 

As the sun was setting the Germans delivered 
a final attack. They atteinpted to carry 
Dixmude, and they crossed the Yser south of 
the town. The village of tSt. Jacques Cappelle 
became the centre of a violent combat. 

Such of the Belgian batteries as liad not been 
put out of action opened fire on the German 
inJantry. The German artillery redoubled its 
fire, and then (leased. Shouts which sounded 
like " Ja, Ja," and loud cheers were hePord. 
The Germans wei'e charging with the baj'onet. 
Over the advancing infantry the Belgian shells 
burst in groups of red flame. The " pat-pat - 
pat-pat-par " of the machine guns showed that 
streams of lead were being poiu"ed into the 
yelling masses, thiruied e\ery moment by the 
repeating rifles of the French and Belgian 
soldiers. The cheers were rej)laced by shrieks ; 
the attack came to a standstill, those Germans 
who had escaped death or wounds sullenly 
retired, and the shelling from the east of the 
canal recommenced. 

It was now seven p.ni and quite dark. The scene was 
majestic in tlie extreme. Di.xmude was a red furnace. 
The flames shot upwards, showing clouds of white stnoke 
above. St. Jacques, farther south, was a Waller 
furnace. All along the lino the shells were no longer 
bursting in clouds of white and black smoke. All had 
put on their blood-red mantles. Close at hand every- 
thing wa.s bathed in inky darkness; farther off the 
burning towns and buildings showed up clearer than they 
had done during the day. 

liehind Dixuuide infantry wore busily engaged con- 
structing fresh trenches. I looked back on this awful 
scene for the last time. As far as the eye could stretch 
the horizon was a purple red from the burning homes 
of thousands of haiinless and peaceful dwellers who 
are now poverty-stricken refugees in England and France. 
In thi-; district not a villaga or a hamlet has escaped.* 

Thus the frantic (>fiorts of the Germans to 
seize Dixmude had failed. Away to the left, 
at 5 p.m., a violent assault, preceded by hours 
of shelling, had been made from Schoor on 
Schoorbakke, a village a little to the north of 

* Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett. 




LADY DOROTHIE FEILDING. 

the loof) in the Yser Canal, l^his attack had 
been repiil.sed with frightful lo.sses to the enemy. 
By Wednesday night the Gennans were still 
on the east bank of the Yser between Dixmude 
and Nieuport- Bains: the canal, in places, and 
the dykes and ditches were choked with their 
dead or expiring wounded. 

So far, the sole assistance reccuved by the 
Belgian Army had been from Ronarc'h's 
Breton IMarines and the guns of the Allied 
flotilla. Joffre had kept the lUtli Chasseurs 
in reserve. For one more day the wearied 
Belgians and the French Marines wen; un- 
assisted to hold the line of the Yser. 

On Thursday, tlie 22nd, the Germans gave 
particular attention to the section of the battle- 
field north of Dixmude. The area in the looj) 
of the Yser between Tervaete and Schoorbaldie 
was swept by a hurricane of shells, and the canal 
crossed at Tervaeto. A coimter-attack bj' the 
Belgian 1st Division was tuisuccessful. The 



196 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE W.iR. 




GROSSING A STREET UNDER FIRE, 



troops were rallied and ordered again to charge. 
This time the Germans were literallj' driven into 
the canal. At Sehoorbakke the Belgians re- 
pulsed the enemv and pursued them towards 
Schoor, while the -Allied flotilla continued steam- 
ing up and dowTi firing at the Gerntan trenches 
and batteries on the coast and some distance 
inland. British aviators circled over the flat 
country, which was partly flooded, to give the 
range. The windows of Sluis, on the Dutch 
frontier, were shaken, and the people there 
listened to what seemed a distant thunder- 
storm. Fresh troops were passing hour by 
hour through Bruger to reinforce the German 
front, and the hea^^iest ordnance was being 
transported to assist the German batteries at 
Middelkerke, where a German General and his 
staff had been killed b\' a British shell in the 
duel with the Allied flotilla. From Ostend all 
available soldiers had been jjushed westwards, 
and the hotels were being filled with wounded. 

On the evening of the 22nd the people of 
Furnes witnessed a sight which must have filled 
them with pride. 

Two battalions of the 1st Belgian Division — 
the 9th of the line and the 2nd Chasseurs— had, 
in view of the French reinforcements which were 
to arrive on the morrow, been relieved from the 
trenches. They were Brussels and Liege men 
who had held the gajjs between the forts at 
I-iege at the beginning of the war, and had won 



for themselves a fine reputation. At about 
7 p.m. they mai'ched into Furnes, dead tired 
and covered with mud, but singing the Mar- 
seillaise at the top of their voices. The band 
of the Chasseurs played " Sambre et Me use." 
Everybody turned out to watch them, and they 
were given an ovation. 

A few hours later the absence of these brave 
men from the Yser must have been regretted. 
Reinforcements had reached the enemy, They 
were flung across the canal and, during the 
night, took Tervaete. They brought with 
them numerous machine guns to enfilade the 
Belgians in the loop of the Yser. Simul- 
tanopusly under cover of the night which, to 
some extent, protected them from the fire of 
the Allied warships, the Belgian 2nd Division 
before Nieuport and round Lombartzyde was 
subjected to a succession of desperate on- 
slaughts. The Belgians \\>^re, however, well 
provided with mitrailleuses, and the attackers 
were mowed down. Among these were poor 
youths from the German schools and univer- 
sities. One of them, a bright lad who was 
tended by the British nurses at Fumes, 
spoke bad French very politely. He had been 
wounded in the foot, and would be lame for life. 

Help for the sore-tried Belgians was at hand. 
Joffre had railed up from Reims one of the 
finest of the French Divisions, the 42n(i. 
Se\cral batteries of heavy howitzers were also 



THE TIMES HISTOFY OF THE WAR. 



197 



coming up. On Frid?.y the 23rd, General 
Grossetti with this Division was sent to reHe\<' 
the Belgian 2nd Division round Xieuport, which 
had lost Lombartzj-de and was to be brought 
back into reserve. Nieuport and the Belgian 
trenches behind St. Georges were being bom- 
barded, and Grossetti coald only pass his men 
in small groups across the Nieuport bridges. 
Not till evening did the P'rench occupy the 
trenches of the Belgian 2nd Division. Mean- 
while, south of Nieuport, the Germans were 
pressing the advantage gained by them during 
the night of the 22nd. They swarmed into the 
loop of the Yser, and the Belgian 1st and 4th 
Divisions were pushed back towards the railway 
embankment between Pervyse and Ramscap- 
pelle. 

During the day the heavy French howitzers, 
which were now in position, had been dropping 
their high explosive shells on the furthest gun 
emplacements of the Germans, and the enemy's 
commander perceived that there w-as no time 
to be lost if victory was to be achieved. A 
huge cigar-shaped captive balloon had been 
sent up to a great height, and its occupants 
vainly endeavoured to locate the French 
howitzers. Between the howitzers and the guns 
of the Flotilla the situation of the Germans 
was becoming every moment more dangerous. 
That day German officers in Ostend had been 
unpleasantly reminded of the precarious teniu-e 
on which they possessed the towTi. Fifty of 
them were lunching at the Hotel Majestic, one 



of those imposing structures which during the 
last quarter of a century had been erected 
wherever pleasure-seekers congregate. The 
restaurant was one of the most elegant in 
Europe. To the white and gold walls were 
attached delicately framed mirrors. Chandeliers 
with their glittering facets of cut glass hung 
from the ceiling. The floor was covered with 
rich red Brussels carpets, and over them 
waiters glided, serving their unwelcome visitors 
with commandeered delicacies and the most 
expensive wines. Here and there groups were 
standing about chatting. At a window in the 
eastern half of the room sat a naval doctor with 
the adjutant of the brigade to wliich both 
belonged. 

Meanwhile from the British squadron, four 
or five miles in the offing, a torpedo-boat 
destroyer was swiftly approaching the shore. 
Another followed in its wake. The pace at 
which they were going was shown by the 
masses of foam at their bows. At the end oT 
the Rue du Cerf, which slopes up to the great 
Digue, Admiral von Schroder, who had observed 
their approach, was directing men of the naval 
brigade to place two light guns, the only artillery 
available. With feverish haste the gims were 
pointed and fired at the first boat. Two shells 
fell close to it, and the vessels were promptly 
swung round. Their guns flamed out. The 
first British shells hit the water and struck the 
sea wall ; then two of them crashed throng) i 
the windows of the restaurant of the Hotel 




GERMANS AT TARGET PRACTICE. 



198 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



\ / N K V.' 




GERMANS FILLING A BALLOON WITH GAS CONCEALED BENEATH A 

HAYSTACK. 



Majestic, and fell in the midst of the festive 
party. 

The second of these struck the doctor, who 
with his companion had risen from table to seek 
a safer spot, right in the middle of the back and 
blew him to pieces. 

Dr. Sven Hedin, the celebrated Swedish 
traveller, who later inspected the scene, .paints 




BRITISH SOLDIER PUMPING OUT 
WATER FROM A TRENCH. 



in " A People in Arms " a realistic picture of 
the havoc wrought by the two shells. 
" Splinters of them," ho says, " had rent 
gaping holes in walls and ceilings. The plaster 
ornaments had fallen and lay in ruins, and the 
carpet almost disappeared beneath their heaA'v 
white dust. The windows had been shivered 
to powder and the mirrors had been burst into 
all kind of curious star shapes whose fragments 
threatened to fall at the least touch. Tables 
and chairs were smashed to atoms, the table- 
cloths rent to ribbons." 

One of the killed doctor's legs had been blown 
under a table ; his head was in a pool of blood, 
and " the rest of him was spattered about the 
wnlls, ceiling, and tablecloths." 

With his base at Ostend liable to be reduced 
to the condition of Dixmude, with Grossetti's 
Division in Xieuport, with liis rear and flank 
imder the fire of the guns of the British and 
French warships and from the west by the 
heavy howitzers, the Duke of Wurtemberg 
during the night of the 23rd-24th directed no 
less tha.n fourteen assaults on Dixmude. If 
Dixmiide could be taken he mieht hope to turn 
the Belgians between PervyseandRaiuscappelle, 
to capture Fiumes and drive the Belgians and 
Grossetti's Division into the sea, and, crossing 
the Yser where it is an uneanalised stream of 
little breadth or depth, fall upon the left wing 
and rear of the Allied Ai'my deployed between 
Dixmude and La Bassoe. 

Fortunatelv Ronarc'h's Marines and the 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



199 



Belgian 5th Division held firm. Every assault 
was beaten off, and when day broke on the 24tli 
the trenches and ruins of Dixmude were still in 
the hands of the Allies. The Belgian Battle 
of the Yser had closed ; the French Battle 
of the Yser was opening. 

No account of this battle would be complete 
without an attempted appreciation of the debt 
which the Allies owe to the Belgian Army and 
Ronarc'h's Marines. They had held at bay a 
vastly superior body of German troops flushed 
with victory, animated by the highest patriotism 
and supported by artillery which produced the 
greatest physical and moral effects. Fen country 
in October is always unpleasant, cold mists had 
covered the land, and heavy rain had fallen at 
intervals. At places the men had fought in 
trenches half filled with water, and the straw 
on which those in the open slept was never dry. 
For days many of them had ta-sted no hot food 
or drink. At night they were forbidden under 
penalty of death to smoke, because a glimmer 
would have betrayed the position to the pointers 
of the German guns. The stench from the 
canal, into which the German dead were thrown, 
was almost unbearable. Often the Belgians were 
.separated from the enemy's sharpshooters by 
not more than fifty feet, and it was death to 
rise for a moment to stretch oneself. 

The men in the houses of Dixmude and 
Nieuport or in the villages were, if possible, 
worse off. With modern range-finders towns 
and villages are shell-traps, and the bursting 
of high-explosive shells among buildings is far 
more terrible than the explosion of a shell in 
the open, for if pieces of the shell miss the 




THE ARMOURED LOOK-OUT MAN. 

occupants of a room, the chances are that they 
Mill be killed by falling beams, girders, bricks 
and mortar. If they have taken refuge in 
cellars, they may find themselves buried alive. 

That in such surroundings the Belgians and 
the French Marines should have kept the line 
of the Yser for over a week was a feat which 
will always be remembered. 




BELGIAN SOLDIERS ON THE MARCH. 



200 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




GERMAN MACHINE GUN SECTION. 
On the Coast. 



The Belgians had most nobly answered to 
Joffre's call upon them to secure the line of the 
Yser and its bridge-heads for 48 hours. Since 
the night of the 16th they and Ronarc'h's 
Marines had struggled witli a force at least 
double, and probably treble, their numbers — 
a force provided with field and siege artillery 
'vastly superior to anything which from the 



16th to the morning of the 23rd could be 
opposed to them on the Yser — and they had 
held that force at bay not for 48, but for Ji^arly 
200 hours. The Belgians had shown that neither 
the severe trials of successive battles nor the still 
greater stress of retreat had damped their ardour. 
They were still able and willing to meet the foe 
and put a stop to hi.'^ most ardent efforts. 




CHAPTER LV. 



RUSSIA'S PROBLEM. 



Russia's Numbers and the Wild Stories they Produced — The Difficulties of Russia — 
The Wonderful Frontier Railways of Germany — The Vulnerability of Poland — The 
Forest of Augustowo, and the Desolate Borders of the Niemen — East Prussia, the 
Idolized Province of the Junkers — The Effect of the Battle of Tannenberg — Poland 
AND Its Cities — Why the Russian Poles Hated the Prussians — How the Prussians 
Oppressed the Poles of Posen — German Risks of Invasion in Silesia — Austria's Position 
IN Galicia — The Struggle for the Carpathians — Germany's Eastern Line of Fortresses — 
Przemysl and Cracow — The German Plan of Campaign, and Why It Failed — The Real 
Problems to be Faced by Russia — Cracow the True Russian Objective — Rapidity of the 
Russian Mobilization — Russian Unity at the Outbreak of War — The Tsar's Decree 
against Liquor — The First Six Months' Fighting. 



WHEN the war began, the Allies in 
the West were for a brief space 
hypnotized by the thought of 
Russia's numbers. Little considera- 
tion was given by the public of London and 
Paris to her difficulties. The vast weight of the 
mighty Russian Empire fired the imagination 
of statesmen, combatants, and populace alike. 
Russia's trials and misfortunes in previous 
campaigns were instantly forgotten. When it 
was realized that the whole resources of a State 
nimibering 173,000,000 of people were being 
thrown into the scale against the Germanic 
League, it seemed to many as though the war 
was already won. The Tsar, it was said, was 
mobilizing millions on millions of men. Count- 
less hordes of Cossacks, so the wild stories ran, 
were to sweep across the Prussian plains and 
thunder against the gates of Berlin. Few paused 
to thinlv, few indeed seemed to know, that, 
though there were mj^riads of Russians, the 
Cossack forces were by no means unlimited, 
and in any case were not Russia's mainstay. 
The vision of the conquering Cossack was so 
luiiversal that fables about trainloads of Cos- 
Vol. HI.— Part 32. 201 



sacks passing through England on their way 
to Northern France gained widespread currency, 
and had at last to be officially contradicted by 
the British Government. The conviction that 
Russia would instantly march from triumph to 
triumph was less easy to chasten. The Russian 
armies were likened to a steam-roller, and the 
phrase " the Russian steam-roller " obtained a 
great vogue in England and France. The 
popular impression was that the steam-roller 
would overcome all obstacles and ponderously 
pursue its course to the Prussian capital with- 
out a halt. It would be too much to say that 
these ideas ever produced any relaxation of 
effort in the West, but for some time they 
induced a rather mischievous belief that it was 
to Russia that the Allies must chiefly look for a 
final victory. Happily, as the war progressed 
and its relative asjiects were seen in a truer 
perspective, all the Allies came to realize that 
the war would only be won by the united 
sacrifices and labours of every nation alike. 

The difficulties of Rvissia soon proved to bo 
manifold. She had the men, and they canu> in 
masses from every part of her Empire. There 



202 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THBJ WAR. 




THE TSAR AND THE GRAND DUKE 
NICHOLAS. 

were, however,, embarrassing shortages of 
equipment of every kind, from clothing to 
great guns. 

It was not that the Russian Army had not 
made immense progi'ess during the previous 
decade. Since the Russo-Japanese War it 
had been transformed out of recognition. Tlie 
trouble was that the material required for 
mobilization upon such an immense scale had 
not been accumulated in sufficient quantities ; 
and no better proof could be cited that Russia 
not only did not enter upon a premeditated 
war, but drew the sword with the utmost pos- 
sible reluctance. Next to difficulties of equip- 
ment came difficulties of transport. The 
German eastern frontier had been covered 
with a network of strategic railways. The 
Austrian province of Galicia was fairly well 
served by viseful lines. The Russian railway 
system was wofully scanty by comparison, 
which was yet another proof that the Russian 
Ooverrjment had not sought war. A railway 
map of Eastern Europe served by itself as con- 
vincing evidence of the relative intentions of 
Germany and Russia. The eastern provinces of 
Prussia wer^ gridironed with lines whose pur- 
poses were military rather than economic. On 
the Russian side the map was comparatively 
blank, the very roads were few and poor, and 



from end to end of the Russian westt^m frontier 
there was no railway following the course of the 
Empire's boundary, as was the case on German 
territory. There were reasons for the sparse- 
ness of Ru.ssia's railways. Her territories were 
so spacious that they included one-sixth of the 
land regions of the globe, welded into one 
cohesive whole. All the energies of Russian 
railway builders had been thrown into the con 
striiction of great trunk lines throughout tliese 
wide dominions. Had some of the money 
spent upon the Siberian and Transcaspian 
Railways been expended upon railway-building 
in Poland, and especially on lateral railways 
parallel to the course of the frontier, Russia 
would have been better able to confront the 
first formidable German advance tlu-ough 
Central and Southern Poland to the Vistula. 
She did not build strategic railways in her 
western provinces because her^oUcy was essen-' 
tially pacific. Her ultimate aim was internal 
development, and not war. In the end it was 
proved again and again that her abstention had 
unconsciously assisted her operations in the 
war. The German mihtary machine was de- 
signed for dependence upon railwaj^. When 
the Germans invaded Belgium and France they 
found read}' to hand an elaborate system of 
railways almost as complex and as efficient as 
their own. When they entered Poland and had 
to march painfully over an almost roadless land, 
their efficiency was speedily impaired. ^^Tien- 
ever the Germans were cut off from the loco- 
motive, their offensive gradually lost momen- 
tum. The Russian soldiers marched to war on 
their own feet, and bore the hardsliips of slow 
progression more successfully. 

Another difficulty wliich greatly hampered 
Russia was her isolation. She was everywhere 
cut off from the open sea save at distant Vladi- 
vostock, on the Pacific, where a passage was cut 
through the ice during the winter with very 
great difficulty. The Baltic was at once closed 
to her. After Turkey declared war, the Black 
Sea was hermetically sealed for the whole 
%vinter. Archangel was, ordinarily, shut in by 
ice from October to May, and was in any case 
inadequately served by rail, though steps were 
quickly taken to improve the railway Une, and, 
by means of icebreakers, to keep the port open 
a longer time than usual. Russia needed 
vast quantities of supplies from her Allies, and 
for a long time very few of her requirements 
could be met, save to a small extent through 
Vladivostock and Archangel. Her difficulties 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



203 



did not end here. Tier crowning difficulty was 
t lie configuration and character of her frontier, 
to which attention must now be paid. 

The dominating feature of the western fron- 
tier of Russia was the position of the province 
of Poland, which was thrust like a great broad 
wedge far into the territory of the Germanic 
Powers. From the point where the River 
Warta crossed from Russian to Prussian ground, 
the distance to Berlin was only 180 miles. 
Small wonder that the uninstructed, knowing 
nothing -of Germany's means of defence, 
dreamed of Russian troops passing down 
Unter den Linden within a few weeks of the 
outbreak of war. The truth was that Russia 
was extremely vulnerable in Poland, as she 
realized with great poignancy very soon. On 
the north the provinces of West and East 
Prussia ciu-ved far over Poland. On the south 
the Austrian province of Galicia not only en- 
wrapped the M'hole Southern Polish border, 
but reached the Russian provinces of Volhynia 
and Podolia, and even touched Bessarabia. 
Poland was, in short, a dangerous salient for 
Russia. From three sides, well served by rail- 
ways, blows could be struck at the great city of 
Warsaw, which was the heart of Poland. Before 
Russia could think of a march to Berlin, she 



had to clear her flanks, and to make sure that 
she would not be assailed from either East 
Prussia or Galicia. As was to be expected, 
instead of marching on BerUn she fotind the 
greater part of the province of Poland overrun 
by the enemy. Her efforts to rid herself of the 
invaders not only constituted a great part of 
the first stages of the war ; they were, in fact, 
almost as effective as the process of invading 
Prussia which the ignorant expected, because 
in the long and fierce combats which ensued 
Russia was able slowly but persistently to wear 
down the strength of her foes. 

As a matter of convenience, it will be well 
to examine the frontiers of Russia, Germany, 
and Austria-Hungary conjointly. The military 
and political problems they presented were so 
interdependent that a correct conception of 
the position can only be gained by passing in 
imagination at will across boundaries which 
were largely artificial. The Russian Baltic 
provinces of Kovno and Courland were flat 
plains with scarcely a ridge, and for the most 
part thinly populated. From a quarter to a 
third of their whole area was covered with 
forests, and the impression conveyed in a 
joiu-ney through them to Petrograd was 
of an almost empty thickly-wooded land. 




AMMUNITION TRANSPORTS FORDING A RIVER. 



204 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



There was a considerable German population, 
especially in the towns, and a good deal of the 
territory was held by magnates of German 
descent. German influence had for centuries 
been very marked in West Russia, and the 
factor thus presented was not without its 
influence upon the war. The nattiral, though 
not the actual, frontier of Russia in this direction 
was formed by the River Niemen. The Niemen 
ran roughly parallel with the eastern frontier 
of East Prussia, for a distance of about 80 
miles, between the cities of Grodno and Kovno. 
Along that stretch its average distance from 
the Prussian frontier was about 50 miles. 
It then turned due westward and eventually 
traversed about 70 miles of Prussian 
territory before entering the Baltic. At the 
point where it entered Prussia it was about 
500 yards wide. In that long strip of territory 
80 miles by 50, between the Niemen and 
East Prussia, there was much desperate fight- 
ing during the first few months of the war. 
It was a wild and desolate country, full of 
forests and small lakes and marshes. Its 
southern half was nearly fiUed by the great 
forest of Augustowo, in the midst of which stood 
the town of Suwalki. The whole strip was 
classified as part of Poland. Napoleon knew 
it well, for the bulk of the Grand Army traversed 
it, and crossed the Niemen at Kovno and 
Grodno in June, 1812. It was through the 



forest of Augustowo that Hindenburg ra.shly 
advanced to the Niemen in September, 1914, 
after his victory at Tannenberg. HLs main 
advance was by way of a causeway which ran 
through the marshes and woods from Suwalki. 
The opposing armies were actually firing at 
one another across the Niemen on September 
25, but all the German attempts at a crossing 
failed, and in the end the enemy were pursued 
back through the forest to their own territory. 
The forest of Augustowo again came into promi- 
nence when von Hindenburg once more cleared 
East Prussia of Russian troops in the following 
February and March. On that occasion his 
operations included a march on Kovno along 
both sides of the Niemen from Prussian terri- 
tory, but he failed to reach Kovno because he 
was opposed on the line of two small tributary 
rivers, the Dubissa and the Niewissa, which 
feU into the main stream from a northerly 
direction. During this phase of the campaign 
important Russian units were cut off in the 
forest of Augustowo, though sections fought 
their way out from its recesses for days after- 
wards. Htndenburg's troops again reached 
the Niemen during February, and even crossed 
it, but failed to make good their position. It 
should be understood that the whole of th© 
fighting in this region turned upon the repeated 
German attempts to make good the passage 
of the Niemen. The statement that in this 




RUSSIANS DIGGING TRENCHES. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



•205 



area the Niemen \\ as the natural frontier of Rus- 
sia was not an idle one. The river was of the 
utmost value to Russia, for among other 
things, it protected in part the vital main 
line of railway from Petrograd to Warsaw. 

Across the border lay East Prussia, the 
idolized province of the Prussian Jiuikers. 
Just as in the north the object of Germany was 
to make the passage of the Niemen, so the 
very first object of the Russians was to drive 
the German garrisons out of East Prussia, 
where they were believed to be weak. East 
Prussia was the mos't bleak and dreary of the 
(ierman provinces. It \Aas part of the great 
]:)lain which sloped down to the sand dunes of 
the Baltic. On its open lands great quantities 
of rye and potatoes were gi-own, but its special 
characteristic, which played a great part in 
the war, was found in the tangle of lalces and 
w^oods and swamps in the south-eastern portion, 
all along the Russian frontier, which was 
collectively known as Masuria. This area was 
really a continuation of the Russian strip within 
the angle of the Niemen, but it constituted 
even more difficult country for military opera- 
tions, and was believed to form a more useful 
defence of German territory than many artillery 
positions. A scheme for draining and culti- 
vating it had been prudently rejected on mili- 
tary grounds. It was protected by a system of 
blockhouses, and there were garrisons in the 
various small towns in its recesses, while the 
Germans had not neglected to endow it with 
several of the railway lines upon which they so 
greatly leaned. When, however, the Russians 
swept into East Prussia in the fii'st month of 
tlie war, they carried all before them. They 
moved along the main railway line to Berlin. 
They menaced the fortress of Konigsberg. 
They drove in the frontier posts and overran 
th ' Masurian lake region. By the end of 
August they seemed masters of the gi'eater part 
of East Prussia, and were even thi'eatening 
^^"est Prussia and the line of the Lower Vis- 
tula. Then came the sudden appearance of 
Hindenburg, and tlie series of movements 
which ended in the crushing defeat of the main 
Russian forces at Tannenberg. The result 
of the battle was that Germany recovered 
j)ossession of her province, though the ra\'ages 
of war had hit it sorely, and Berlin was filled 
with refugees from the East Prussian towns. 

Whether the Germans were geographically 
justified in giving the name of Tannenberg 
to this memorable cncoimter was an open ques- 




THE KAISER IN EAST PRUSSIA. 
General von Mackensen in the centre. 

tion. Historical reasons influenced them. East 
Prussia was the real cradle and stronghold 
of the Prussian race. From its chill plains 
and dense forests sprang the nobles and rulers 
who, under the leadership of the House of 
Hohenzollern, eventually welded the German 
Empire into an organic whole. When in the 
fourteenth century the German tribes were 
pressed back from the Rhone and the Meuse, 
the tide of migration swept eastward again. 
German colonists crossed the Elbe and the 
lower Vistula, and settled in the eastern forests 
and marshes, which- were already occupied 
in part by their own near kinsmen, though still 
more by Slavonic tribes. The powerful Teu- 
tonic Order of Knighthood, which controlled 
the w'ork of colonization, eventually came into 
coiiflict with Poland. The Knights were over- 
thrown by the Poles : in the great battle of 
Tannenberg on July 15, 1410. The conflict 
remains a landmark in the eternal struggle 
between Teuton and Slav. It finds a promi- 
nent though moitrnful place in German history. 
When Prmco Biilow, in his retirement, wrote 
his famotis book on " Imperial Germany," ho 
could still refer with regret to "(he black 
day of Tarmenberg." The rejoicings over 
Hindenburg's victory were far more than the 

joyful reception of the news of a triumph. 

.12 2 



206 



THE TIMEfi HISTOBY OF THE WAP. 




I" Tiiiu'^ " photographs. 

THE GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS. 

1. Conversing with a Priest. 2. With his StaflF ofiRcers. 

3. Arriving at Headquarters. 4. Planning an attack. 

5. Reviewing Cossacks. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



207 



The battle of Tannenberg seemed to Germanj^ 
to efface a bitter niemorj-, and to compensate 
for the grief of five hundred years. East 
I'russia had, nevertheless, not been so easily 
defended as the Germans expected. They had 
thought that the small fortress of Boyen, 
standing near Lotzen in the middle of the lake 
region, would serve to check the passage of an 
army. The Russians took Boyen with the 
greatest ease. It needed great forces of troops, 
and some serious Russian mistakes, to reco\er 
the province and to hold it safely even for a 
limited time. But as the effect of the invasion 
of East Prussia upon the spirits of the Germans 
wa-s very marked for political reasons, so the 
expulsion of the invaders had a correspondingly 
marked result in the retiurn of German confi- 
dence. On the other hand, the battle of Tan- 
nenberg gravely affected the liiissian plan 
of campaign. It meant a certain amount of 
confusion and postponement. It did not in 
the least depress the indomitable cheerfulness 
(jf the Russians, but it coixipelled their Com- 
mander-in-Chief to niodify his strategy. 

The next section of the frontier with which it 
is necessary to deal is the great wedge of Poland, 
at once the blessing and the bane of Russian 
strategy. Poland was advantageous because it 
stretched so far in the direction of the heart of 
the homeland of the foe. It was a perplexing 
problem because, as already explained, it was 
surrounded on three sides by enemy territory. 
Through its centre ran the great river Vistula, 
entering the province from Galicia, flowing north 
and nortli-west to Warsaw, and then passing 
westward until it entered Germany near Thorn. 
As the Niemen dominated strategy farther 
north, so the Vistula was the chief factor of 
.strategy in the centre of Poland. The Germans 
were astride its lower reaches, and thus could 
enter Poland along both its banks ; but where 
the river curved southward at Warsaw it pra- 
.sented an obstacle athwart the line of German 
advance which was to stand Russia in gootl 
stead. The Vistula had important tributaries. 
On the north the River Narew, which entered 
the \'istula below Warsaw, formed, with its 
feeder the Bobr, an important line extending 
almost to the Niemen at Grodno. West of 
Warsaw tlie small River Bzura, witli its lesser 
tributary the Rawa, made a valuable line on 
which the Russians held the Germans in check 
during the latter part of the winter. The 
Pilitza was another river in Southern Poland 
whose course w as the scene of ri.'i)eated conflicts. 



as was also the River Nida, which entered the 
Vistula on the Galician frontier. 

Poland north of the Vistula was an open 
wooded plain, containing in the neighbourhood 
of the Narew marshes of great importance in 
relation to military movements. Marshes had 
a considerable effect upon the Polish campaign. 
There were extensive marshes to the west of 
Warsaw which greatly hampered the Germans 
in their attempts to strike at the capital of the 
province. There were others before Lowicz and 
near Lodz which served to contract the German 
iuo\-ements when they were endeavouring to 
cross the Bzura in their second dash towards 
^Varsaw■. youthern Poland was of greater 
altitude, with more forests, and occasional deep 
gorges — a very difficult country for military 
operations. The population of Poland w^as 
denser than in any other part of Russia, showing 
an av^erage of 200 to the square mile. Warsaw- 
had 800,000 inhabitants, and many flourishing 
manufactures. Its central position, its com- 
mand of road, rail and river, its bridge over the 
Vistula, and its great political importance, 
made it the goal of German ambitions in the 
eastern theatre of war. The capture of Warsaw 
w ould have implied a withdraw al of the Russian 
forces along the whole front in Poland, to a 
line resting on the River Bug and the huge 
Pripet marshes in its rear. When Htnden- 
burg made his first ad\'ance through Central 
Poland to the Vistula, iiis troops were confident 
that they would enter the city. They almost 
reached the outskirts. The roar of the gims 
could be heard by the alarmed inhabitants, and 
for a few hom-s it was thought that the capital 
was lost. Reinforcements arrived by rail in the 
nick of time, marched straight into the firing 
line, and drove the Germans back. The second 
city of Poland was Lodz, which had 400,000 
inhabitants. Lodz was a " mushroom " town 
of modern gi-owth. with a great cotton industry. 
It was a straggling place, chiefly consisting of 
one w ide main thoroughfare several miles long. 
There was heavy fighting before Lodz when the 
Germans made their second advance in Central 
Poland to the line of the Bziu-a. The (Jernian 
bulletins alleged that fierce conflicts occurred 
in the streets of the city, but the truth was that 
the Russians designedly evacuated it, and thi 
enemy entered unopposed. For a long tune 
they treated Lodz with ptH'uliar tenderness, the 
reason being that it was more German than 
Polish. tJerman immigrants had gone to Loilz 
in great mmibers, attracted by its industrial 



208 



THE TIMES HISTOnr OF THE WAB. 




[A/Ur a painting by a German ariiU. 

GERMAN REFUGEES FROM EAST PRUSSIA IN BERLIN. 



possibilities. They welcomed the invaders, and 
the help given to the foe by German aliens 
tliroughout Poland was not the least of the 
Russian difficulties. Some of the smaller 
Polish towns had flourishing industries. Lublin 
and Plock possessed sugar refineries. Kalisz 
had a valuable trade in lace and embroideries. 
Radora, the centre of a ti'act of potato culti\a- 
tion, had huge distilleries. Piotrkow lay in a 
great mining district. Bendzin, near the 
Silesian frontier, was in the centre of a prosper- 
ous coalfield. Both in the eastern and the 
western theatres the invading Germans seized 
and wrecked great manufacturing antl mining 
districts. Just as they paralyzed the industries 
of Belgium and Northern France, so they 
devastated Western Poland. The scenes of 
desolation in Flanders and the Departments of 
the Nord and the Pas de Calais were surpassed 
by the misery wrought in Poland, where the 
countryside was left as bare as though it had 
been devoured by locusts. 

Much was said, and rightlj^ said, about the 
courage and devotion with wliich the people of 



Belgium flung themselves in the pathway of the 
invading German armies. They sufTeretl the 
ravaging of their countiy rather than make even 
a forced and involuntary league with the 
invaders. It was not so generally recognized 
that the equally gallant Poles found themselves 
called upon to make a similar decision. Ger- 
many counted upon a rising of the Poles in her 
own favour as soon as she crossed the I'olish 
frontier. The Austrians had precisely siniilar 
expectations. Both Powers were so lacking 
in political perception that they believed they 
would be welcomed by the Polish people as 
deliverers from the Russian yoke. Their 
anticipation of an immediate Polish rebellion 
\\as one of the factors in their planning of 
the war. It must be admitted that they were 
not so comijletely without justification as 
was manifest m their error about Belgium. 
Even experienced Russians had manj' misgivings 
regarding the Poles, and feai'ed either open <>r 
veiled hostilitj^ What both sides overlooked 
was that, though the Poles believed themselves 
to have great and manifold grie\ances against 



THE TIMES HmVRY OF THE WAR. 



209 



Rus.^ia^ these were of comparatively modern 
growth, and tlie bitterness they engendered was 
steadily diminishing. Their hatred of the 
Prussians, on the other hand, \\as ingrained in 
every fibre of their being. It had been nurtured 
during a thousand years. It was a,s old as 
Polish hi.story. If the Prussians never forgot 
Tannenberg, neither did the descendants of 
their Polish victors. When Russia marched to 
war, the hearts of all the Polish people flamed 
forth in lier support. The nearest counterpart 
to the outburst of Polish loyalty to the Tsar was 
the equally ardent upheaval of enthusiasm in 
India for the cause of the King-Emperor, a 
demonstration which upset yet another of the 
calculations of Berlin. The Poles and the Rus- 
sians found themselves at one, and they arnied 
in a common cause. The promise of Polish 
autonomy was the sequel to the declaration of 
the Pol&s, and not, as was at first supposed, its 
inspiration. The promise was a reward, and 
not a bribe. Meanwhile, the unfortunate Poles 
had to endure the wholesale wrecking of their 
towns and villages by the Germans as the result 
of their fidelity. 

The Germans had their Polish question too. 
Its heart lay in the province of Posen, on the 
westernmost frontier of Poland. There were 
400,000 Protestant Poles in East Pru-ssia, but 
there were over a million Poles, chiefly Catholics, 
in Posen. For a centiuy attempts had been 
made, always without avail, to Prussianize tlie 
Poles of Posen. They were alternatch' cajoled 
and oppres.sed. On the one hand, measures 
were passed so recently as 1907 for exj)ro- 
priating their land in favour of German colon- 
ists, while they were also forbidden to use their 
own language at public meetings, and their 
children v\ere flogged at school for refusing to 
answer qviestions in Gennan. On the other 
hand, the En^peror William sought to conciliate 
them by building a flamboyant royal castle in 
the city of Po.sen at a cost of a quarter of a 
million sterling, and by other beguiling ex- 
pedients. On the whole, the Poles remained 
obdurate enough, and their resistance to Prus- 
sian methods was maintained with varying 
success right down to the outbreak of war. 
They were dragooned severely, but they re- 
fused obedience. Prince Biilow plainti\ ely de- 
clared that the Poles must be brought " to 
understand the German spirit," and he insisted 
that " German nationality " must prevail in 
the eastern provinces. If not, he said, they 
would have " a Polish danger," and he main- 



tained that the whole future of the German 
Em[)ire was bound up with the fate of the 
Eastern Marches. 

There was no great physical obstacle to a 
Russian invasion of Posen, when circumstances 
permitted. South of Thorn and the ^Vistula, 
the frontier was barred for some distance by the 
inevitable marshes. Then came the River 
Warta, south of which again the marsh lands 
recurred ; but the valley of the Warta (the 
river was 100 yards broad at the frontier) was 
practicable enough, and offered a natural means 
of ingress into Prussia. It may be added that 
Posen was a highly cultivated province, and 
from it Germany drew large supplies of rye. 

Russia, however, was perhaj^s even more 
interested, both for strategical and economic 
reasons, in the province of Silesia, which lay to 
the south of Posen, and was contiguous to the 
south-west corner of Poland. Silesia was half 
as large as Ireland, and was the biggest pro- 
vince in Prussia. It contained a million Poles, 
mostly settled near the frontier. It was also, 
and the fact was of infinite importance, the 
greatest mantifacturing and mining area of 
Eastern Germany. ]Mr. Hilaire Belloc acutely 
pointed out at an early stage of the war that 
the two main industrial districts of Germany 
were precisely those which the first shock of an 
invasion would strike. They were Westphalia 
in the west, and Silesia in the east. Of the two, 
Westphalia was the more important, because 
armaments were almost wholly manufactured 
in the western field. The ruin of Westphalia 
woiild mean a hundred times more than the 
occupation of Berlin. But the shutting down of 
the mills and manufactories and mines of Silesia 
w ould have an almost equally paralyzing effect 
upon Germany's capacity and desire for resist- 
ance. Silesia had tlie richest zinc deposits in 
the world, in the neighbourhood of Beuthen, 
quite close to the frontier. The greatest 
mining and smelting centres, at Zabrze, Konigs- 
hutte, and elsewhere, and the glass industries 
of Gleiwitz, were within a day's march of Rus- 
sian territory. The largest ironworks in Silesia, 
at Konig.shutte, could have been shelled from 
Russian soil, four miles away. There were 
flourishing textile industries of great magnitude 
in all tlu! \-alleys of Southern and (\'ntrr.l 
Silesia, worked chiefly by water power. The 
whole countryside was full of mills, and packed 
with a dense population. It was practically 
undefended, relied neither on fortresses nor on 
natural obstacles against invasion, and lay at 



210 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIL 




A GERMAN ENCAMPMENT NEAR THE RUSSIAN FRONTIER. 



the mercy of a succesfc'ful foe. The basin of 
the River Oder, which traversed the province 
in a north-westerly direction, led directly to 
Berlin, though it was guarded by certain forti- 
fied positions, of which more anon. Once firmly 
estabhshed in Silesia, the Russians could- strilce 
either north-westward at Berlin, or south- 
westward, through the Moravian Gate between 
the Carpathians and the Sudetic Mountains, at 
Vienna. Breslau, the capital, was the third city 
of Prussia, with half a million inhabitants and 
a huge trade. The province also contained 
many rich and powerful landowners with very 
great estates. 

It will have been gathered that the eastern 
frontier of Germany was not so vulnerable as it 
looked upon the map. Its curious shape even 
conferred some advantages, and in sections it 
had useful natural protection in the shape of 
marshes, dense woodlands, and rivers. The 
case of Austria-Hungary, which must next be 
dealt with, was far otherwise. The natural 
frontier of the Dual Monarchy on the north-east 
was the Carpathian Range, which bordered the 
territory of Hungary. Tliis barrier furnished 
by Nature \\as most unwisely passed at the time 
of the partition of Poland, towards the end of the 
eighteenth century, when the wide province of 
Galicia, on the northern side of the Carpathians, 
was acquired by Austria. By this change the 
Monarchy gave hostages to fortune. A portion 
of the northern frontier of Galicia was formed by 



the Upper \'istula, but much of the rest had no 
natural line of demarcation at all. The pro 
vince was traversed by several rivers rising in 
the Carpathians, and running from south to 
north mitil they fell into the Vistula. The chief 
of these were the San, the Wistoka, and the 
Dunajec. When the Russians poured into tl,e 
province from the east, these rivers formed a 
series of lines on which the defeated Austrian 
armies successively rallied, exactly as Sir 
Frederick Maurice had foretold many year.s 
before. As a whole the province necessarily 
had a downward slope from the Carpathians to 
the rivers Vistula and Dniester. The winter 
climate was very bitter, with heavy snowfalls, 
followed usually by excessive rain in tlie spring. 
It produced extensive crops, and was the most 
important potato-growing area in Austria, but 
its manufactures were backward. The (Jalician 
oil-field was very extensive, and of much im- 
portance to the Germanic Powers. The principal 
centres of oil production were near Drohobycz, 
Krosno, and Kolomea. All these tracts fell 
quite early into the possession of the Russians, 
and though in February, 1915, they were com- 
pelled to fall back from Kolomea for a time, 
very little Galician oil got into Austria or Ger- 
many after the first two months of the war. As 
Galicia was producing two million tons of oil 
annually in time of peace, the loss to the Ger- 
manic League was considerable. 

The means of communication in Galicia v\"ere 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



211 



very good when compared with those of Poland. 
The principal railway route traversed the centre 
of the province from end to end, from Cracow 
tlirough Tarnow, Jaroslau, Przemysl, Lemberg, 
and Kolomea to the Rumanian frontier, with 
a branch from Lemberg bifurcating into Central 
and Southern Russia. There was another rail- 
way route roughly parallel to the principal one, 
but running along the lower slopes of the Car- 
pathians through Sandec, Sanok, Stryj, and 
Stanislau, all of which places were important 
junctions. Besides these long lines, there were 
a number of transverse sections, and no portion 
of the province was very far from railway com- 
munication. There were 11 points at which 
rail-heads approached the Russian frontier, with 
no communication beyond it, and the fact 
throws an instructive light upon the industry 
the Austrians had expended upon the Galician 
railway system. 

The two principal towns in Galicia were 
Lemberg, the capital, in the eastern area, with 
about 160,000 inhabitants ; and Cracow, in the 
western area, with about 90,000 inhabitants. 
The Russians took Lemberg at the beginning 
of September, and at once pushed on to the 
investment of the fortress of Przemysl, which 
lay one-third of the way towards Cracow. 
Lemberg was the fourth city of the Austro- 
Hungarian Empire, and 80 per cent, of its 
poptilation were Poles. Cracow was the corona- 
tion and burial place of the Kings of Poland, and 
was still " the intellectual centre of the Polish 
nation." Poles formed more than two-thirds of 
its population. Taking the people of Galicia 
as a whole, however, it may be said that the 



Poles numbered about 45 per cent., and the 
Ruthenes about 42 per cent. Although the 
Poles predominated in both the chief cities they 
were mostly concentrated in the western half of 
the province, while the Ruthenes dwelt Ln the 
eastern half. The Ruthenes were racially aldn 
to the Little Russians across the border. The 
relations betwreu Poles and Ruthenes are 
explained in Chapter XXXVI., Volume II. 
It is enough to say here that the Poles had been 
encoiu-aged by Austria at the expense of the 
Ruthenes, until a period shortly preceding the 
war. The Ruthenes welcomed the invading 
Russians, whose religion was the same as their 
own. The attitude of the Austrian Poles, who 
were Roman Catholics, was not so readily dis- 
closed. They had fewer grievances than their 
bretliren in Germany and Russia, and were not 
so restive under the yoke. 

In a corner between Galicia and Rumania 
lay the Austrian crowTi duchy of the Bukowina, 
" the land of beeches," a region of the thickly- 
wooded foot-hills of the Carpathians. The 
Bukowina was unquestionably more Russian 
than Austrian in sympathy and spirit. Over 
40 per cent, of the population was Ruthene, 
about 35 per cent, was Rumanian, and the 
Jews numbered 13 per cent. The German 
element was very small indeed. Nearly 70 per 
cent, of the people belonged to the Greek 
Orthodox Church. Czernowitz, the capital of 
the duchy, was a bright and flourishing little 
city situated on a height above the Ri\er 
Pruth, and extensively girt by marshes. Its size 
had much developed iinder Austrian adminis- 
tration, and its industries imfiudcd the manu- 





RUSSIAN SERVICE O.N THE BATTLEFIELD. 



212 



THE IIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



factura of paper. During the fir.^t eight months 
of the war Czernowitz twice passed alternately 
into the hands of Russians and Austrians, and 
when they first recaptured it the Austrians took 
})itter vengeance on those of the inhabitants 
who had shown cordiality to the invaders. 

The whole of the struggle in Galicia and the 
Bukowina resolved itself, from the Russian 
point of view, into two main objects. The 
first was to reach Cracow, at the western ex- 
tremity of Galicia, for the possession of Cracow 
was an imperative prelude to the invasion 
of Silesia and Posen, or to a march southward 
through the Moravian Gate upon Vienna. 
The second was to secure the passes of the 
Carpathians, which gave access into Hungary. 
The Russians were very, anxious from the outset 
to bring pressvire to bear upon Hiuigary. 
Possibly they were influenced in part by a 
belief that the near approach of hostile arinies 
to Buda-Pesth would induce the Magyars 
to break away from Austria and conclude a 
separate peace on their own account. This 
belief was widely shared in England in quar- 
ters where the conceptions of the Magyar 
attitude were based upon romantic and quite 
misleading impressions deri\'ed from the records 
of the days of Kossuth. After the war had 
been in progress for some time it was more 
generally realized that the Magyars were 
largely responsible for the trend of Austro- 
Hungarian policy, and that their inclination 



probably was to stand or fall by the fate of 
Vienna. The steady growth^ of the influence 
of Count Tisza, the Hungarian Prime Minister, 
who was soon seen to be the most powerful 
man in the Monarchy, confirmed this conclusion. 
Moreover, the Magj'ar oppression of the Slav 
races of the Monarchy had been one of the fac- 
tors which precipitated the war. The Magyars 
fought in politics for their own hand, but their 
bitter anti-Slav policy compelled them to range 
themselves Ijeside the Austro-Germans. Yet 
it was not really necessary for Russia to seek 
a political inotive of any sort for striking at 
Himgary. Military considerations sufficed to 
justify her plans. Hungary was the principal 
granary of the Monarchy. It was also the only 
large source of supply of horses left .to the 
Germanic Powers. In times of peace Germany 
annually imported large numbers of horses 
from Russia. The Hungarian horses were of 
lighter build, but they were better than nothing. 
Once the Carpathians were crossed, the wide 
plains of Hungary offered an easy path for a 
vigorous foe. By invading Hungary, too, the 
pressure on the gallant little army of Serbia 
could be relieved. Finally, once the Russians 
held the crest of the Carpathians they would 
fully protect their left flank against menace 
diu-ing a forward movement through Poland 
against Prussia. It was not surprising, there- 
fore, that throughout the long winter, the 
struggle for the Carpathian pa.sses continued 




PANORAMA OF LEMBHRG. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAE. 



218 



with unabated violence, no matter what 
conflicts were raging elsewhere. 

The Carpathians were part of the bac^kbone 
of Europe, and yet they were very httle known 
to travellers and tourists. They bore small 
resemblance to the Alps, and their scenery, 
though impressive, was not on the grand scale 
of Switzerland. No Carpathian height was 
covered with perpetual snow, and the whole 
range did not contain a single glacier. The 
highest peak, Mount Franz Josef, was in the 
■J^atra group at the western end, and was 8,737 
feet high. The passes were easy and low. 
The slopes of the naountains were thickly 
wooded, especially on the south. The winter 
in the Carpathians was always bitter, and if 
the passes were practicable enough from tlie 
jjoint of view of the mountaineer, they were 
choked with snow. Fighting occurred at inter- 
vals along a section of the Carpatliians nearly 
300 miles in length, extending from a point 
-outh of the town of Tarnow in Galicia to the 
borders of Rumania. There were six principal 
passes the possession of which was at intervals 
contested, the Dukla, the Lupkow, the Uzsok, 
the Volocz or Vereczke, the Delatyn or Koroz- 
mezo, and the Borgo. To these may be added 
the n\inor Ivirlibaba Pass, at the south-western 
corner of the Bukowina. The Russians crossed 
every pass except the Borgo during the autumn 
and winter, some more than once, and though 
they were compelled to withdraw in every case, 
they rarely lost possession for any length of 
time of the northern approaches. Railways 
traversed the Lupkow, Uzsok, Volocz, and 
Delatyn Passes, and there was another raihvay 
crossing the range some distance to the west of 
the Dukla. By the Lupkow they reached 
Homonna and the verge of the Hungarian 
plain. By the Uzsok they came to Ung\ar and 
beyond. By the Volocz they raided down 
the valley of the Latorcza River to Munkacs 
and still farther. By the Delatyn, more popu- 
larly known as " the Magyar Way," because it 
was the historic route for invading Hungary, 
they marched in considerable force to the impor- 
tant town of Maramaros-Sziget, where they 
treated the alarmed inhabitants with a restraint 
which won their confidence. It was not until 
strong German forces were brigaded with the 
Austrian troops early in 1915 — it was believed 
on the direct representations of Count Tisza 
to the Kaiser — that the Russian pressure across 
the Carpathians was seriously checked. One 
reason for the movement of the Russians along 




NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENTS WITH 
THE RUSSIAN ARMY. 

Back, Mr. Stanley Washburn, The Times corres- 
pondent ; centre, Mr. Pares; left. Col. Asencheff; 
right, Mr. Soldatenkow. 

the Magyar Way and the Volocz Pass was that 
on the southern slopes of the range in these 
neighboiu-hoods there dwelt large numbers of 
Ruthenes, who received them with conspicuous 
pleasure. 

The whole of the terrain of the eastern 
theatre during the first months of the war 
has now been examined in detail. It is next 
necessary to explain concisely the fortified 
positions prepared in this area by each of the 
three Powers involved. The principal fortress 
in East Prussia was Konigsberg, the second 
capital of Prussia, situated on the River Pregel. 
It possessed an inner and outer line of works 
beyond which were 12 detached forts, 
six on each side of the Pregel. In addition, 
there were two other large and powerful forts, 
that of Friedrichsburg, on an island in the river, 
to the west of the city, and the Kaserne KJron- 
prinz, within the ramparts on the eastern side. 
Konigsberg ranked as a first-class fortress, and 
was the headquarters of the 1st Army Corjte. 
It lay far within the great Frische Lagoon, on a 
wooded peninsula, with a steep and forbidding 
coast. On the long spit of land forming the 
seaward side of the lagoon was the entrenched 
camp of Pillau, 29 miles from Konigsberg. 

32—3 



214 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 




RUSSIAN TRENCHES (SHOWING TRAVERSES). 



The whole Koriigsberg area required to be 

treated with great respect, and when the Rvis- 

sians first entered East Prussia they only 

sought to mask the fortress. There were no 

other important protective works in East 

Prussia, although the difficult lake region of 
Masuria, with its blockliouses and the small 

fort of Boyen, formed a natural means of 

defence. 

On the line of the Lower Vistula, in the 

province of West Prussia, there were further 

powerful fortresses. Danzig, at the mouth of 

the river, was a first-class fortress and entrenched 

camp, and its approaches could be inundated 

on the eastern side. There were powerful 

works opposite Dirschau, 20 miles to the south, 

forming a bridge-head guarding the main line 

- to Konigsberg and Petrograd. About 45 miles 

farther south was the strong fortress of Grau- 

denz, on the right banlc of the Vistula, forming 

another valuable bridge-head. At a point 

92 miles south of Danzig, and 12 miles from the 

Russian frontier at Alexandrowo, stood Thorn, 

a fortress which was one of the chief features 

of the defences of Eastern Germany. The 

town was on the right bank of the Vistula, but 

both banks were fortified. There was the usual 

circle of detached forts, eight on the right bank 

and five on the left. At Thorn the railway 

from Warsaw entered Prussian territory, and 

the place, which was really a formidable 

bridge-head, formed the pivot of Hinden- 

burg's railway strategy. Thorn and Danzig 



have been compared to Metz and Strasburg, 
and have been described as " bastions, as it 
were, commanding the curtain between them." 
The whole Lower Vistula was, in short, very 
strongly held. A subsidiary but very impor- 
tant strategic point was Bromberg, 32 miles 
west -north -west of Thorn, and the centre of a 
network of railways. It guarded the railway 
bridges across the River Netze. 

Below Thorn there was much marsh country 
on both sides of the frontier, but at the point 
where the valley of the Warta entered Prussian 
territory the need for artificial protection 
again began. Accordingly the great railway 
centre of Posen, which stood on an open sandy 
plain, was provided with an immense entrenched 
camp, which had to be reckoned with by any 
army marching due west from Warsaw on 
Berlin. South of Posen there were yet 
more marsh lands. An inner line of defence 
possessed by Eastern Germany was the line 
of the River Oder, which could, however, be 
very easily crossed b\' an invading iarmy in 
its upper reaches in Silesia. Strong garrisons 
were maintained at Oppeln and Breslau, but 
these places had few modern fortifications. 
There was a big entrenched camp at Xeisse, 
on the northern side of the Sudetic mountains. 
The principal obstacle to an advance down the 
Oder was the fortress of Glogau, to the north- 
west of Breslau. Glogau had been a fortress 
for centuries, and was built partly on an island 
and partly on the left bank of the Oder. Its 



I 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



215 



foi'tifications were extensive, for it was an 
important railway junction. The remaining 
fortified positions on the line of the Oder 
were Kiistrin, 52 miles east of Berlin, the 
List sl)ield of the capital ; and Stettin, near 
the mouth of the river. It may be said that 
the true defences of the eastern frontier of 
Oerniany were provided by its incomparable 
system of strategic railways, which again and 
again enabled von Hindenburg to concentrate 
large forces quickly and secretly at varioiis 
points from which liis blows were launched 
like thimderbolts. Even Silesia, despite the 
scarcity of fortified positions, was astonishingly 
well served by railways. Seven lines of railway 
ran out of Breslau, and between that city and 
rVacow there was no point to which troops 
could not have been quickly hurried. 

The defences of Austria in Galicia were to a 
great extent of comparatively modern date. 
Until the last half-century Austria had not 
attempted to provide substantial defensi\ e 
positions in Galicia at all, and much of her 
works had been built since the twentieth 
century began. There was one fortified point 
in the Bukowina, at Zaleszczyski, on the 
Dniester, at the frontier, but it offered no 
more effective opposition to the Russians 



than Maubeuge did to the Germans. Lemberg 
was stated to possess certain defences, but 
when the Austrians were routed before the 
city in September the capital instantly fell. 
The principal Austrian fortress in Galicia 
was Przemysl, sitviated in hilly country 60 
iniles east of Lemberg. The investment of 
Przemysl was begun directly after the fall of 
Lemberg, and though interrupted a'; times, and 
not made complete for a good many weeks, 
the fortress was never afterwards left alone 
for long. The real reason why Przemysl was 
able to offer such a prolonged resistance was 
that the Russians were at first short of heavy 
siege artillery, and still more of shells. The 
ultimate objective of the Russian struggles 
in Galicia was always Cracow. The city of 
Cracow was surrounded by a ring of six powerful 
forts on both sides of the Vistula, but the total 
length of the perimeter was comparatively 
small, and it was not believed that Cracow could 
withstand a prolonged siege. The Russians 
were drawing near to the city from the north 
early in December, and their cavalry were 
actually within five miles of it on the south, 
when von Hindenburgs second fierce rush on 
Warsaw compelled a hiu-ried shortening of 
the Russian line. When von Hkidenbnr? 




DANZIG. 
\ view of the Langenmarkt, showing the Town Hall. 



21G 



THE TIMES HISTOHY OF THE WAR. 



fought his way to the Bzura River and dug 
himself in, he was aiming, among other things, 
at the salvation of Cracow, and, therefore, 
of Silesia also ; for with Cracow in their 
possession the Russians would probably have 
had Silesia at their mercy. 

Russia had two great fortified positions in 
Poland, Novo Georgievsk and Iwangorod. 
Warsaw, though not entirely without defences, 
was j^ractically an open town. Warsaw was the 
railway centre of Poland, but the fortified zone 
on which it relied was created 18 miles away at 
Novo Georgievsk, at the point where the Bug, 
swollen a few miles higher up by the waters of 
the Narew, flowed into the Vistula. It was 
the. usual circle of detached forts, and was 
exactly 120 miles from Thorn. The forts of 
Novo Georgievsk were on a plateau which com- 
manded the channels of the rivers for many 
miles. As it lay on the right (or north) bank 
of the Vistula, the Germans never came into 
contact with it dioring their repeated attempts 
upon Warsaw. It effectually blocked any 
prospect of advance on the north bank, and 
compelled them to select a line of advance to 
the south of the river, through Lodz and 
Lowicz. They were checked at the Bzura and 
the Rawa on their second advance in December, 
but had they made good the passage of these 
rivers they would still have had terrific 
obstacles to overcome. Marshes and woods 



extending for a long way from the left bank of 
the Vistula gave some protection to the capital, 
but the Russians had enormously strengthened 
these areas by an elaborate entrenched line 
midway between the Bzura and Warsaw. This 
series of entrenched positions, which came to 
be known as the Blonie line, from the village 
through -which it passed, was about 18 
miles due west of Warsaw. It was believed that 
the Blonie line could be held for almost any 
length of time, owing to the support it would 
receive from Warsaw. Iwangorod was an 
entrenched camp 64 miles south-east of War- 
saw, at the jimction of the River Wieprz with 
the Vistula. It had nine forts on the right 
bank and tlu-ee on the left, and it was near 
Iwangorod that von Hindenburg's initial 
attempt to seize the line of the Vistula first 
broke down. About 150 irdles to the east of 
Warsaw, on the River Bug, was Brest-Litovsk, 
an immense supply depot ringed with forts, 
which was the real base of the Russian opera- 
tions in Poland. Warsaw, Novo Georgievsk, 
Iwangorod, and Brest-Litovsk were sometimes 
described as " the Polish Quadrilateral," but 
Warsaw had no pretensions to the strength of 
the other places. 

When in futiu-e years historians pronounce a 
final verdict upon the military and political 
strategy of the war, it will probably be declared 
that the greatest of the manv mistakes made 




WARSAW. 
A view of the Vistula. 



i 



THE TIMES HT STORY OF THE WAE 



217 







KONIGSBERG. 



by Germany was her decision to hack through 
Belgium. Frona that initial blunder most 
of her other mistakes followed in a natural 
sequence. Germany's plan of campaign, com- 
pendiously stated, was to overthrow France 
first, and to settle with Russia afterwards. She 
would probably have had better success if she 
had reversed her plan. It was the supposed 
need for crushing France first which led to the 
invasion of Belgium, with all the evil results 
(from the purely German point of view) which 
ensued. Germany did not crush France, she 
found herself committed in the west to an 
enormous front of dangerous length, and by 
her brutal treatment of Belgium she alienated 
the sympathy of neutral nations throughout the 
world. Had she delivered her first great attack 
in the east, she might conceivably have para- 
lyzed Russia and then turned westward with 
greater prospect of success ; but the whole 
.subject is only a matter of conjectiire. By the 
course Germany took she deprived herself of 
any chance of ever achieving her full purpose. 
Probably \n any case, she never had any 
chance of complete success from the time 
England entered the lists, a consideration which 
sufficiently accounts for the " Hymn of Hate." 



The German plans on the eastern frontier 
were largely based on the assumption that the 
Russian mobilization would be slow. The 
German Staff seem to have proposed to hold 
East Prussia and the frontier from Thorn to 
Galicia, but not to undertake at first any 
offensive operations on a large scale. The 
Austro -Hungarian armies in Galicia were 
instructed to push northward into Poland in 
the direction of Warsaw, and eastward into 
Volhynia, in the direction of Kieff. The main 
duty of the Austrians cleirly was to keep busy 
such Russian forces as were available. It was 
even hoped that the Austrian columns based on 
Lemberg might take Kieff, for the calculation 
was that the Russians would be to a great 
extent preoccupied by the Polish insurrection 
which Berlin and Vienna confidently expected. 
If the 1st Austrian Army, based on Przemysl, 
succeeded in marching tlirough Lublin and 
got near to Warsaw, then the Gernians would 
have made a supporting move from Thorn 
towards the Polish capital. But all these 
hopes were largely conditional, and the broad 
purpose of the Germanic Powt>rs was suuply 
to keep the Russian armies contained while 
the flower of the German Active Armv rushed 



218 



Till-: TIMES HlSTOliY of THE WAR. 




CRACOW. 



through Belgium and Xorthern France and took 
I'aris. 

Nothing happened on the hnes that the 
Gennan Staff presupposed. It is ti'ue that the 
Austrian advance from Przeniysl drew very near 
to Lubhn, but the Austrians were soon hurrying 
back to their own territory. The march on 
Ivieff remained nothing but a paper programme, 
for the invasion of Volhjniia ended as abruptly 
as it had begun, \^^lat completely upset the 
German calculations was the swiftness and 
steadiness of the Russian mobihzation, which 
astonished the whole ^\orld. Before the war 
had been in progress many days, powerful and 
impetuous Russian armies were pouring into 
East Prussia and Galicia, clearing the flanks 
of Poland. Until von Hindenburg won his 
signal victory at Tannenberg the Russians 
were carrying all before them. Tannenberg 
partly paralyzed Russian strategj" for a tune, 
but it never stopped the persistent Russian 
invasion of Galicia, nor did it prevent the Rvis- 
sSans from entering East Prussia again as soon 
as they were ready. The whole probleni which 
Russia had to solve was to clear both her flanks, 
and then to take Cracow. To that combined 
purpose she recurred again and again, and she 
never reallv nhnndoTied it for a moment, even 



when Central and Southern Poland were 
swarming with German troops and the people 
of Warsaw were preparing for flight. Through- 
out the whole of the first six months" cam- 
I^aigning, Cracow wa.s the lodestone that 
attracted the Russians. Cracow was the heart 
of the RiLSsian problem. ^Vhile Cracow le- 
mained untaken. no advance on the grand scale 
into either Prussia or Hungary was possible, 
while the chance of reaching Vienna was too 
remote to be even discu.ssed. With Cracow in 
Russian hands the whole situation would be 
changed. The roads through Silesia to Berlin^ 
or through the Moravian Gat« to Vienna, 
would become open. Hungary could be raided 
to the gates of Budapest. There could be an 
advance in force along the line of the Wart a to 
Posen and beyond, without fear of a flank 
attack. The difficulties of the invasion of 
East Prussia would largely be overcome, because 
it was reasonable to suppose that in such an 
event the German forces m East Prussia would 
soon be compelled to fall back, in order to avoid 
being cut off. The key to Russian strategy 
was Cracow, and to take that city was the prin- 
cipal problem for which a solution had to be 
foimd. This was the theoretical side of the 
Russian movements. In practice the Russian 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



219 



task eventually resolved itself into the problem 
ol' clearing Poland of an exceedingly stubborn 
invader. 

Russia soon found that it was easier to 
mobilize her millions than to arm and equip 
them and place them in the battle-line. All 
the perplexities and obscurities of the early 
months of the Russian campaign turned upon 
the difficulty of converting mobilized men into 
efficient combatants, clothed in imiforms, fur- 
nished with rifles and aitununition, and ready 
to fight. The actual mobilization was a magni- 
ficent piece of organization. From the farthest 
confines of the Russian Empire came inter- 
minable train -loads of men eager to give their 
lives for the Tsar. Mr. Stephen Graham 
related how he was in a village in the Altai 
Mountains, in the very heart of Asia, when the 
mobilization order arrived. The men knew 
nothing of the troubles of Europe, and had not 
even been told against whom the Tsar had gone 
to war. They saddled their ponies and rode 
off cheerfully, never questioning the call. The 
cities in the rear of the line of conflict became 
choked with men, but it was long before they 
were all able to march forth as fighting units. 
The supply of clothing, of arms, and above all 
of ammunition, was insufficient for the count- 
less hosts which had been gathered. The 
factories of Russia worked without ceasing. 
The Allies did their best to supply deficiencies, 
so long as there was any chance of getting 
supplies into the country. Japan sent great 
quantities of warlike stores. Huge purchases 
were made from neutrals. Yet it was a very 
long time before Rvissia was able to overcome 
her manifold needs ; and the lack of material, 
and not the fighting qualities of her troops, was 
the chief explanation of such reverses as she 



occasionally encoimtered in the earlier stages 
of the campaign. She had to fight on an 
incredibly long front. Her actual fighting line 
was at some points dangerously thin. She 
was particularly short of big gun ammunition, 
a difficulty which soon hampered all the com- 
batants alike. A shortage of the means of 
waging war lay at the back of all her move- 
ments, and the knowledge gnawed at the hearts 
of her commanders. In course of time these 
obstacles were to a great degree overcome, and 
it was calculated that by April, 1915, she would 
be very near her maximum strength. 

The war brought a solidarity to the Russian 
nation such as it had never known before. 
Never had Russia been so vmited. There were 
strikes in progress at Petrograd and in other 
cities when the hour of conflict came. Civil 
discontent was rife, and anxious observers 
believed that the coimtry was on the verge of 
another internal upheaval. It was indeed, but 
not in the form which the vigilant watchers in 
Berlin had predicted. They had taken due 
note of the surface symptoms wliich were 
plainly visible, and believed that the war 
would find Russia rent asunder by disorder. 
They failed to iinderstand the psychology of 
the Russian people, just as they failed to under- 
stand ever^ other nation around them. The 
strikes at Petrograd vanished in a night, and 
the Cossacks who had been brought into the 
city to preserve order in the Nevsky Prospekt 
and the other main thoroughfares found them- 
selves acclaimed by the populace. One of them 
was heard to say to a comrade : " Is it possible 
that these people are cheering ns, or am I 
dreaming ? " The Germans and Austrians had 
imagined that the Russian crowds would demon- 
strate against the war, and clamour for peace 




THURN. 



KONIGSBERG*^ 



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220 



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THEATRE OF WAR. 



221 



222 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



at any price. \^Tien the fateful day came 
immense throngs were kneeHng in front of tJie 
Winter Palace, and chanting the majestic and 
solemn strains of the Russian National Anthem. 
For the first time for a century a Tsar of Russia 
looked out upon a Russian Empire one and 
indivisible, animated by a common purpose, 
stung from indifference into an eager desire to 
face a common foe. In the Russo-Japanese 
War some of the Russian troops had to be 
driven into the troop trains at the point of the 
bayonet. In August, 1914, the Ru.ssian regi- 
ments marched forth gladly, fired by a burning 
desire to take up the biirden of a war which 
appealed more strongly to the people than 
any campaign in which Russia had ever 
engaged. 

One of the first fruits of the moral change 
which Russia underwent was the entire and 
ruthless prohibition of the liquor traffic. The 
Tsar's imperative order was accepted without a 
murmur, and was regarded as a sjmibol of the 
transformation which the country had under- 
gone. It cost the Russian Exchequer a 
revenue of £68,000,000, but Ministers were 
speedily heard declaring that it was worth the 
price because of the increased efficiency it pro- 
duced. Cheap vodka had been the bane of the 
populace. The ravages of drink in Russia 
cannot be compared with the consequences 
of Uquor consumption in the United Kingdom, 
because in Russia the effects went considerably 
deeper. Really good vodka, drunk in small 
quantities, was not a particularly pernicious 
beverage. A tiny glass or two, taken with a 
dish of fresh caviare of a delicacy unobtainable 
outside Russia, had been said to be "as accept- 
able as strawberries and cream." The cheap 
spirits more widely consumed in Russia were of 
very different quality, and the quantities drunk 
both unpoverished and debilitated masses of 
the people. At first the Tsar's decree only 
applied to the period of mobilization, but later 
it was extended for the duration of the war. 
The result was magical. From the Baltic to 
the Pacific not a public -house was open, and 
the order was rigidly enforced to the letter. 
It was accepted patiently and without complaint 
by the entire population. " The result was," 
wrote an observer, " that the army and the 
people were serious and sober when they faced 
the task imposed upon them. Rioting and 
dissipation were things of the past, both at the 



front and in the capital." Such wa.s the prave 
and earnest mood in which Russia braced her 
self for her tremendous task. 

The story of the first few months of fighting 
in the eastern theatre falls naturally into certain 
definite sections. There was first the Russian 
invasion of East Prussia, followed by von 
Hindenburg's retaliatory stroke, the battle of 
Tannenberg, and the unsuccessful attempt of 
the Germans to reach and to cross the River 
Xiemen. Then came, practically a.s a separate 
episode, the Riissian invasion of Galicia and 
the first defeats of the Austrian armies. This 
was preceded by the brief Austrian invasion 
of Poland, after which followed the swift 
Russian advance, the fall of Lemberg, the 
investment of Przemysl, and all the confused 
fighting which carried the Russians to the crest 
of the Carpathians, and even enabled them to 
make brief incxirsions into Hungary. These 
first operations of the Russians in Galicia were 
as remarkable and as complete as the swift Ger- 
man invasion of France in 1870. The next 
extremely definite movement was von Hinden- 
burg's first invasion of Central and Southern 
Poland, which very nearly reached Warsaw, 
and actually reached the Upper Vistula near 
Iwangorod. It was accompanied by fierce, 
simultaneous conflicts between Aiistrians and 
Russians on the line of the San. AH these 
movements collapsed, and the failure of the 
Austrian and German offensive had as its sequel 
a general withdrawal. The Russians in their 
turn then struck south-westward from Warsaw, 
and westward through Galicia, at Cracow. They 
had all but reached the city when von Hinden- 
burg, who had concentrated afresh, rushed once 
more at Warsaw, the movement constituting 
the second German invasion of Poland. It 
instantly compelled the Russians to fall back 
and straighten their line. They held the Ger- 
mans before Lodz and around Lowicz for many 
days, and at one moment ahnost succeeded in 
encircling two German army corps, a brilliant 
effort which raised unfounded expectations in 
the west. Eventually the Germans dug them- 
selves in on the line of the rivers Bziu-a and 
Rawa, south of the Vistula, and some distance 
west of Warsaw. The New Year found them 
still tenaciously entrenched in tliis position. 
All these operations will be related in detail, 
and in the order noted, in the chapters which 
follow. 



CHAPTER LVI. 

THE FIRST INVASION OF EAST 

PRUSSIA. 



Motives of Russian Strategy — The Russo- Prussian Frontier — Possible Routes and Ter- 
rain — First Russian Successes — Their Effect in Germany — Von Hindenburg to the Rescue 
— Hindenburg's Career — German Victory of Tannenberg — Its Importance and Conse- 
quences—The Subsequent German Advance — Russia's Revenge on the Niemen — Battle. 
OF AuGusTowo — Results of First Five Months of War. 



EARLY in 1914 the reoganization of the 
Russian military system had already 
gone so far that the General Staff 
was able to announce that it would 
adopt an offensive strategy in the next European 
war. The Russian tradition that an aggressor 
is best defeated by luring him into the vast 
distances of the interior, there to be dealt with 
by Generals January and February, asserted 
itself again and again during the vicissitudes of 
the eventful struggle on the Eastern Front, 
but it was not the dominant idea in the early 
days of August. An invasion of East Prussia 
presented itself as a tempting and inevitable 
task. The Russians knew that the Germans 
had underestimated the rapidity of their 
mobilization. They knew that two factors 
had combined to induce the Germans to post 
inadequate forces in East Prussia — the im- 
perious need of securing an early triumph 
in France, and the habitual German tendency 
to undervalue Russian efficiency. A march 
into East Prussia was all but imposed upon 
them. It was natural to argue that before 
any advance through Poland itself could be 



contemplated, the northern flanlc must be 
cleared. Every army has its historical memo- 
ries which are apt to govern the thinking of its 
chiefs. By this route Russian armies had 
advanced when they occupied Berlin in the 
Seven Years' War, and again when they 
pursued Napoleon after Moscow. Strategists 
have always a maximum and a minimum object 
before them. Civilians and journalists talked 
gaily of marching through East Prussia to 
Berlin, and in the ranks of the Russian Army 
that ambition gave a naeaning to their advance. 
Scientific soldiers were more cautious, for they 
knew very well that the defensive lines of the 
Vistula, with the great fortresses of Danzig, 
Graudenz, and Thorn would not be carried 
without efforts and sacrifices inadvisable at 
this stage of the campaign. The lesser objects 
seemed none the less sufficient to justify the 
invasion. It was mucli to clear the northern 
flank of Poland and well worth while to occupy 
this thriving province, with its prosperous 
agricultui'e and its population of two million 
inliabitants. If no further u\ditary use were 
made of the invasion, a province securely held 



223 



224 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



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THE RUSSO-PRUSSIAN FRONTIER. 



is always an article of barter when the moment 
of settlement arrives. East Prussia was, 
moreover, no ordinary German province. At 
Konigsberg was the seat of the Prussian 
dukes, and there the King of Prussia was 
-crowned. The gentry of the province, descended 
from the Knights of the Teutonic Order, were 
the flower and type of that stubborn, limited, 
but capable squirearchy which was the back- 
bone of the Prussian State and the Prussian 
Army. A blow at this outlying province 
^vas in point of sentiment a direct thrust at the 
heart of Prussian confidence and Prussian 
pride. 

The routes which an invasion of East Prvissia 
>iust follow were dictated by the few main 
lines of communication of which the Russians 
disposed. Three railways only crossed the 
frontier. The first was the great trunk road 
from Petrograd to Berhn, which crossed the 
River Niemen at the fortress of Kovno, passed 
the frontier at Wirballen-Eydtkuhnen, and 
traversed the province tlirough Insterburg, 
Allenstein and Eylau to Thorn. The second, 
and least important of the three, left the main 
Vilna-Warsaw line at Bialystok, passed the 
minor fortress of Osowiec, crossed the frontier 
beyond Grajevo, and at Lyck entered the 
intricate lake country, and continued to 
Konigsberg. The third line ran from Warsaw 



to Mlawa, and continued through Eylau to 
Danzig. The frontier nowhere presented an 
appreciable obstacle, nor had the Germans 
been at pains to fortify it. It was a purely 
conventional line, which marked the political 
division of the area between the Niemen and the 
Vistula. Nature knew nothing of it, and on 
either side stretched the same flat expanses 
of heath and forest, of lake and swamp, varied 
by fertile fields in which rye and potatoes 
were grown. The intricate chains of lakes 
were a formidable obstacle to an invasion- 
Artificial obstacles existed only in the shape of 
two small forts (Boyen and Lyck) commanding 
defiles among the Masurian Lakes. Konigsberg, 
indeed, was a first-class ring fortress, but while 
an invader would be compelled to contain ifc 
and isolate it, it was so situated that it did not 
interfere with the occupation of the greater 
part of the province. 

The Russian plan of campaign provided for 
the invasion of East Priossia by two armies 
along the two main routes. The first, or 
Vilna Army concentrated behind the Niemen, 
and had its bases at the fortresses of Kovno 
and Grodno. The Second or Warsaw Army 
concentrated behind the river Narew. It 
detached a portion of its forces to penetrate the 
Masurian Lakes by Bialla and Lyck, but its 
main line of advance was by Mlawa-Soldau. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



22& 



Both armies were commanded by generals who 
had made a certain reputation amid the faihires 
of their colleagues in the Manchurian campaign. 

General Rennenkampf had commanded a 
division which included some famous Siberian 
regiments, which did good service at Mukden. 
To him fell the leadership of the Niemen 
Army in the direct march from the east on 
Konigsberg. The Narew Army, which invaded 
from the south, was under General Samsonoff, 
an officer who had won no small popularity 
and a considei'able professional reputation. 
Born in 1859, he had passed from the cavalry 
to the general staff. His service had been chiefly 
in Turkestan, and he had commanded Siberian 
Cossacks with distinction in Manchuria. 

The Niemen Army was the first to encounter 
a large force of the enemy, and it will be con- 
venient to consider its march separately 
bearing in mind that it was engaged in a con- 
certed and converging invasion, in which it 
was all important to seciire the proper timing 
of the move from the east with the move 
from the south. It was a complete army, 
and its composition was as follows : 

The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 12th (active) Army 
Corps. 

The 3rd and 4th Reserve Divisions. 

Five Cavalry Divisions, including the Guard. 

Its numerical strength must have been from 
225,000 to 250,000 men, and further reserves 
were busily collected behind the Niemen. 

The early days of the campaign, while mobili- 
zation continued, were employed in cavalry 
raids and reconnaissances. The Germans only 
once attempted an offensive ; in these 
small affairs the enterprise was on the Russian 
side. A Russian cavalry division (the 3rd) 
crossed the frontier, south of Eydtkulinen on 
August 6. Two days later (the 8th) a small 
force of Russian infantry with machine guns 
was skirmishing far to the north, almost up to 
the outskirts of the important town of Tilsit, 
memorable for an historic meeting between 
Napoleon and the Tsar Alexander. Its mission 
was to destroy the railway line. A cavah'y 
reconnaissance on a larger scale, in which three 
divisions took part,' on the 10th, helped to 
raise the spirits of the Russians, and gave con- 
fidence to its leaders. General Rennenkain{)f 
v/ith his Staff visited the fighting lines, and the 
impression was general that these skirmishes 
had dissipated the legend of German invinci- 
bility. In one of these early engagements the 
Russian Cavalry of the Guard covered itself 



with glory. A certain village in advance of 
the German lines was held by a strong body of 
sharpshooters with two field guns, which were 
doing terrible cxeciition at short range against 
the Riissian advance. To clear the village was 
infantry work, but the "Gardes a Cheval " 
and the " Chevaliers Gardes " were at hand 
and ready, and the infantry was far behind. 
Three squadrons were dismoimted. They fixed 
the bayonets, which the Russian cavalry carry, 
to their carbines, and under the fire of the two 
gims and of a distant battery, attacked the village 
in open order, and cleared it house by house. 
They lost two-thirds of their officers in the pro- 
cess, but still they advanced, charging over the 
open space upon the German lines. At the 
psychological moment a mounted squadron 
was latmched on the two guns. It sabred the 
men who served them, and then wheeling roimd, 
crashed into the flank of the Gterman infantry 
as the three dismounted squadrons reached 
their front. The exploit was costly, but it was 
one of many minor achievements which set 
Rennenkampf s Army marching forward with 
the confidence of victory. 

The general advance may be said to have 
begun on August 16, the seventeenth dav of 




GENERAL SAMSONOFF. 
Killed !n East Prussia. 



22G 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



the Russian mobilization. On the 17th the 
RiLssian van encountered the Gennan 1st 
(Konigsberg) Army Corps, which fought a 
delaying action at Stalluponen. It was a 
stubborn contest while it lasted, and the Ger- 
mans claimed to have taken the improbable 
number of 3,000 prisoners with six machine 
gun? before they fell back on Gumbimien. 
Here was fought the first considerable battle 
of this campaign. The lUissian advance 
covered a front of about 35 miles, from Pil- 
kallen on the north to Goldap on the south. 
The centre followed the line of main road and 
railway froin Stalluponen to Gumbinnen. 
The ground was fiat and nearly featvireless, a 
country of rye and potato fields, with scattered 
farmhouses, little villages and windinills. The 
Russian left had to clear and traverse the pine 
\\ oods which stretch for many a mile east and 
north of the important railway junction of 
Goldap. The Russians had at their disposal 
four corps of the active army and two reserve 
divisions. The Germans had only one first 
line corps (the 1st) with two reserve corps, and 
were therefore outnumbered by at least five to 
thi-ee. They relied in this, as in all the fighting 
on the Eastern Front, mainly on their second 
and third line troops. A force so manifestly 
inferior could only hope to fight an obstinate 
delaying action. The dispositions in this 
battle presented few features of interest. It 
began on the extreme right of the Russian lines 
at Pilkallen. The little town was cleared 
without much difficulty, and the Germans \\ ho 
held it fell back south-westwards towards 
Gumbiimen. The main battle was fought next 
day (the 20th) before Gumbinnen. It is a 
picturesque country town, with many fine old 
gabled houses, dating from the early eighteenth 
century, when it was colonized by Austrian 
Protestant refugees from Salzburg. It had 
14,000 inhabitants, and was distant 22 miles 
from the Russian frontier. General Rermen- 
kampf's tactics were extremely simple. He 
had a numerical superiority which inight have 
suggested the possibility of an enveloping 
movement. He preferred a straightforward 
frontal attack on the enemy's centre. The 
fighting iDegan at dawn with an artillery duel, 
bvxt the Russian infantry charged with irre- 
sistible ardour without waiting for much in the 
way of artillery' preparation, and carried 
position after position by the use of the bayonet 
and the hand grenade. The Germans counter- 
attacked ^^■ith stubborn coiu^age, and some of 



the ground changed hand.s .several times in the 
course of the day. One Cierman brigade was 
caught in a cross-fire of rifles and Maxims, and 
left 3,000 dead on the field. The fighting la.sted 
fourteen hoiu-s, and it was only at nightfall 
that the Germans withdrew. The German 
wings held out longer, and von Fran9ois (the 
general of Huguenot descent, who commanded 
tlie Konigsberg corps, and its two auxiliary 
corps) niay even have hoped to outflank on the 
north. A German cavalry division retook 
Pilkallen on the 20th. It was expelled again 
on the 21st by a superior force of Ru-ssian 
cavalry, and had much difficulty in rejoining 
the main army. Roiuid Goldap also the 
fighting continued obstinately throughout the 
21st. The 1st Corps, with its supports, had 
meanwhile fallen back through the town of 
Gimibinnen, and thence on Insterburg. 

It is hard to say whether von Francois 
could have achieved anj-thing by attempting 
a fiu-ther delaying action in the prepared 
positions east of Insterbiu"g. The place was 
an important railway centre, the junction of 
lines to Konigsberg, Tilsit, Goldap, and above 
all the key of the vital south-western line to 
AUenstein and Thorn. It was a dignified 
country town, with a fine market-square, and 
about twice the population of Gumbinnen 
(31,000). It would have been worth much to 
delay Rermenkampf here, but the importance 
even of these railway's might be exaggerated. 
The East Prussian system was so amply 
designed that Konigsberg was still very far 
from being isolated, even when it lost touch 
with Insterbiu-g. The Germans, moreover, 
had lost heavily in men at Gumbinnen, and 
they could not afford to repeat that loss in- 
definitely. The Russians took 12 field 
gims and 400 prisoners there, some of whom 
were Poles who boasted that they had not fired 
a shot against their brother Slavs. One notes 
the puzzimg statement in the German oflficial 
news, that von Francois on his side took 8,000 
prisoners and some heavy gvms. An army 
which elects to retire may none the less have 
acliieved some local tactical success, but this 
German claim was improbably high. A re 
tirement was ordained, but tlie Germans niust 
have imagined tliat they had inflicted a severe 
check on Rermenkampf' s advance. A notice 
posted up in Insterburg stated that the German 
troops must " obey a superior order to march 
elsewhere," but told the inhabitants that the 
Russians could hardlv arrive within a week. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



227 




EFFECTS OF RUSSIAN BOMBAKDMEN T IN EAST PRUSSIA. 

Top left: A wrecked street; top right: The last German Patrol leaving; centre: Irussian refugees 

leaving their homes ; bottom left : Barracks at Soldau ; bottom right : A ruined town. 



22S 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




GENERAL RENNENKAMPF (marked with a cross) AND HIS STAFF. 

In a town in East Prussia. 



and counselled them to remain in their houses 
and welcome the invaders with " hospitality." 
The Russians reached Insterbvirg in point of 
fact late on the 23rd, and by the 24th had occu- 
pied it in force. Henceforward Rennenkampf's 
advance was practically unopposed. His left 
wing pressed on from Goldap to Darkelimen, 
and southwards to Angerburg, on the edge of 
the lake countrj-. Thence it followed the 
cross-country strategical railway Nordenburg- 
Gerdauen-Allenburg. On the north it held 
Tilsit, and the Tilsit-Konigsberg railway as 
far as Labiau. On the main line to Konigsberg 
it reached Tapiau. The northern portion of 
East Prussia was securely held as far as the 
River Alle, and Rennenkampf's cavalry pushed 
doA\-nwards as far as Rastenburg and Korschan 
Junction. The claim was currently made for 
it in the Press that it had " invested " Konigs- 
berg. It hardly did that, for it left open the 
vital Konigsberg-Danzig railway. But cer- 
tainly it threatened Konigsberg, and might 
soon expect to be able to contain its garrison, 
and to press on towards Danzig and the Vistula. 
It held the main railway line, but the use which 
it could make of tliis facihty was limited. The 
gauge of the Russian differs from that of the 
German railway system, and though some rolling 



stock had been captiu-ed, it is not probable 
that it sufficed for all the needs of a great army. 
The prospect was dazzling, for the only con- 
siderable German force in this portion of East 
Prussia had been defeated, and no longer 
ventvu-ed to give battle. The retirement 
of von Francois from Insterburg had more- 
over been hasty, and the road to Konigsberg 
was littered with quantities of abandoned 
material. 

Meanwhile the Army of the Xarew was ad- 
vancing rapidly and successfully from the south. 
It was of about the same strength as the Army : 
of the Niemen, and consisted of five army ■ 
corps of the active army, and three cavalry 
divisions, and cannot have fallen far short of 
a total of a quarter of a miUion men. General 
Samsonoff had to operate in a niiich more diffi- '. 
cult country than General Rennenliampf — the 
region of the Masurian Lakes. He advanced , 
along three lines : 

(1) North-west by the Warsaw -Mia wa-Soldau 
railway ; 

(2) To Lyck by the Osowiec line, and thence 
by a detour south of the larger lakes to Johan- 
nisburg ; 

(3) To Lyck, and thence by a still wider 
detoiu" above Lake Spirding. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAF. 



229 




THE FLKJHT FROM EAST PRUSSIA. 
1. A home in the fields. 2. Refugees in Berlin. 

3. On the wav to Berlin. 4. On the road. 



280 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




GENERAL VON FRANCOIS. 



9' 



The Russians found the enemy in very 
inferior numbers. In the early stages of this 
in^•asion only one corps of the active arn'iy, the 
20th, was present in thLs region, but as it was 
stationed in times of peace at Allenstein, it had 
at least the advantage of famiharity with this 
diflficult country. The German defence de- 
pended for the rest upon Landwehr troops, 
the middle-aged men of the countryside, 
called to the colours to defend their own soil. 
A brigade of Landwehr fought a delaying action 
at Soldau, and were of covu"se forced back by 
superior numbers of younger troops. Neiden 
burg was next won. Allenstein was taken by 
the Russians after a stiff contest with the 
Land%\ehr. The hardest of this series of en- 
gagements was at Franlcenau, where Samson- 
off' s right encoiuitered the German 20th Corps, 
entrenched in strong prepared positions with 
rifle pits and \\ire entanglements. It held 
them for two days (the 23rd and 24th) and then 
gave way partly to the determined frontal 
attacks of the Russians, and partly to an out- 
flanking march of the Russian right. Its 
retreat to Osterode was some%vhat hasty, and 
it was forced to abandon guns, stores, and 
prisoners. On the same day that Rennen- 
kampf entered Insterburg, Samsonoff had 
broken the resistance of the weak forces whicli 



opposed the advance of the Narew Army. 
His cavalry swung round by Sensburg and 
Bischofsburg, as far as Rothfhess, a junction 
station on the main line, from which a branch 
lino ran up to Konigsberg. The main line 
was also held more solidly at Allenstein, an 
important junction and garrison town, an air- 
ship station, and the headquarters of the 20th 
Corps. The Russians, in short, had driven the 
enemy from all that part of East Prussia which 
lay east and south of the main railway line. 
On the north they were far to the west of it. 
Rennenkampf's front now faced south-west, 
on the line Friedland-Gerdauen-Xordenburg- 
Angerburg. Samsonoff occupied the triangle 
Soldau- Allenstein-Frankenau. The intervening 
space was over-run by their cavalry, which had 
nearly, but not quite, met. In a few days the 
converging invasions would meet, and two 
Russian armies totalling nearly half-a-million 
men would be threatening the lines of the 
Vistula. The Germans had lost the use of 
nearly one-half of their elaborate system of 
strategic railways, and the intricate defences of 
the lake-country had not availed to stay the 
invaders. 

It was a black week for German confidence 
A\ hich opened on Sunday the 23rd. The inva- 
sion of their territory was a heavy blow to their 
military pride. They were now suffering 
something of what they had themselves in- 
flicted on the Belgians. The civil population 
of East Prussia was everywhere fleeing before 
the invaders. The townsmen poured into 
Konigsberg and Danzig. The peasants packed 
a few belongings in their carts and trudged the 
roads in vast disconsolate cohuuns, impeding 
the movements of the troops and dislocating 
the supplies of food. Feu" of these fugitives 
waited for the appearance of the Russians : they 
fled from their owai terror of the Cossac ks. For 
the modern German the Cossack was still what 
he was in the days of the Seven Years' War and 
the Napoleonic campaigns, a pitiless and un- 
disciplined marauder. The usvial tales of 
atrocity, miirder, and mutilation were told with 
the usual levity. Some frontier towns were 
destroyed by artillery or burned as a punitive 
measure against civiUan combatants. There 
were, of course, the usual requisitions of food. 
Some pillaging there naay have been when 
houses were found deserted, but the German 
newspapers stated quite candidly that in the 
to\vns at least the Russians paid for what they 
took, and one case is cited in which a Cossack 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



231 



convicted of robbery was promptly shot as an 
example. The Mayor of Insterburg, Herr von 
Sachs, wrote an article in wliich he condemned 
the senseless cowardice of the fugitives, and 
went on to eulogise the " civility and con- 
■iideration " of the Cossacks, the respectful 
behaviour of the Russian troops generally 
towards v/omen, summing up with a formal 
statement that to his personal knowledge the 
behaviour of the Cossacks towards the civil 
population was " exemplary and irreproach- 
able."' The panic, none the less, was general, and 
even Berlin was soon called upon to pro\'ide 
for many thousands of refugees, who arrived 
from the occupied territory. So little secure 
did the Germans feel, even on the lines of the 
Vistula, that the sluices at Elbing were opened 
and the country flooded. An almost pathetic 
telegram from the Kaiser reflected the general 
mood. It expressed his "deep sympathy" 
with his " loyal provinces of East Prussia " on 
the infliction of this invasion, and bade them 
" steadfastly believe in the help of the living 
God, who up to the present has rendered the 
German nation such wonderful assistance in its 
just cause and defence." 

It was not until after the defeat at Guxn- 
binnen that the Germans began to take the 
danger to East Prussia seriously. They were 
aljsorbed in their offensive in P'rance, and they 



had left only five corps of the active army (the 
1st, 20th, 17th, 5th, and 6th) to operate on the 
entire Eastern Front. Of these the (ith 
(Breslau) was sent to assist the Austrians in 
Galicia, and only two (the 1st and 20th) were 
at this moment available in East Prussia. 
On Saturday, the 22nd, the General Staff 
realized that serious measvires must be taken 
to stop the Russian advance, and a telegram 
from the Kaiser summoned General von 
Hindenburg to conduct them. He was waiting 
for the call, and on Sunday, the 23rd, he 
reached his headquarters at Rlarienburg, a 
fortress town near the mouth of the VistvUa, on 
the extreme edge of the invaded province. He 
arrived when the German fortunes were at 
their lowest ebb, and the story of how within 
a week he tvirned the tide and achieved one 
of the few really decisive victories in this war 
makes a brilliant page even in the rich military 
history of Germany. 

Paul von Hindenburg was, when the war broke 
out, a well-preserved veteran of sixty-seven, 
living in retirement at Hanover. He came of 
a typical Prussian family, and for two centuries 
his ancestors had served the State, as officers 
and officials. Their estate was at Neudeck 
in West Prussia, on the edge of the province 
which he was called upon to save, a place rich 
in memories of the Napoleonic wars — of a 




COMMANDEERING. 



232 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




GENERALS VON HINDENBURG (left) AND VON LUDENDORFF (right). 



grandfather who had dealt face to face with the 
Emperor, and of a woiinded French soldier 
who had been nursed back to health after the 
retreat from Moscow. The General's father 
was a regimental officer who retired with the 
rank of major, and he himself was born in the 
garrison town of Posen. The traditions of the 
family are described in an engaging and very 
simple-minded biograjihy by the General's 
younger brother. They were based on that 
curious amalgam of piety, loyalty, and mili. 
tarism which was the moral foundation of the 
Prussian " Junker " class. Paul von Hinden- 
burg entered the Service at the beginning of 
Germany's period of military glory. He left 
the military college to serve as a heutenant 
in the Austrian campaign, and was slightly 
Moimded and decorated for gallantry at his 



first battle. He fought in the French war at 
St. Privat, Sedan, and Paris. Thereafter, he 
served on the staff of the 1st Army Corps at 
Konigsberg. Here began the studies which 
absorbed his mind for the rest of his military 
career. He was fascinated by the problem 
of turning the mazes of the Jlasiu-ian lakes and 
sv\amps to account for the defence of East 
Prussia. On duty and on holiday he tramped 
every mile of the country, and knew to a nicetj' 
what gravelly shore would bear the weight of 
a field-gun, and which swamp would engulf 
a battery. He lectvu-ed on this subject at the 
StafT College in Berlin, and in later life success- 
fully led the military opposition to a promising 
scheme launched by an agricultural sjTidicate 
for the drainage and cultivation of these in- 
valuable marshes. His military career was one 



TEl^' TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



233 



of regular but not brilliant advancement, 
and he retired in 1911 from the conimand 
of an Army Corps. Of genius no one suspected 
him, and his powerful, square-cut face suggests 
rather resolution and method thaii inspiration. 
How far his brilliant success in East Prussia 
is proof of a military talent of the first order, 
how far it was the outcome of very special 
study and minute tojaographical knowledge, 
it is not easy to decide. He soon became the idol 
of Germany, but there were many who thought 
that a greater soldier than Hindenburg was his 
brilliant Chief of Staff, General von Ludendorff. 
The strategical problem that confronted 
Hindenburg was, with very limited forces, 
and those largely composed of second-line 
inaterial, to beat two armies which had nearly 
united, each of them equal to his own in numbers 
and possibly a little more than equal. Clearly 
he must take them in detail, before they 
supported each other. The essence of success 
was rapidity of movement and promptitude 
in assembling his forces. He set to work to 
gather all the men he could muster, but so 
siu-e was he of his stroke, that he did not wait 
to secm-e more than a local superiority in 
niunbers against one-half of the enemy's 
forces. He resolved to deal first of all with 
Samsonof5's army, and then, if that first stroke 
should prosper, with Rennenkampf. His chief 
strategical asset was the superb railway system 
of Prussia. It worked night and day collecting 
an army for him, and one German war-corre- 
spondent described the congestion at the end, 
when a solid and miinterrupted procession of 
trains filed back and forward on the main line 
from Thorn to Osterode. The available re- 
sources in men were, however, very limited. 
On the spot was the beaten 20th Corps and its 
Landwehr supports. The next step was to 
bring down von Francois' army from Konigs- 
berg — the 1st Corps and its Reserve auxiliaries. 
Some part of it was left in Konigsberg to 
reinforce the garrison, but the equivalent of 
two corps undoubtedly came down to join 
in Hindenburg' s coup. A choice of railway 
routes was open to it by Elbing and Marien- 
burg. The sea was also open to Danzig. Tlie 
garrisons of Graudenz, Thorn, and possibly of 
Posen were laid under contribution. They 
probably consisted mainly of Landwehr troops, 
but they supplied what was at least as neces- 
sary as men — heavy guns. The Russian 
General Staff, according to the military critic 
of the Russkoe Slovo, reckoned that by these 



means Plindenburg was able to gather nine 
divisions. That is a maximum estimate. Of 
these, seven divisions had already been heavily 
engaged, and must have been mucli weakened. 
Two consisted of fresh troops from the for- 
tresses. Of these nine divisions (if there were 
so many), four only were first-line troops. 
Hindenburg had, in short, the equivalent of 
about four full army corps (at most 160:00C 
men). Samsonoff liad five corps (over 200,000 
men) under his command. They were some- 
what scattered, and it is said that not more 
than three and a half corps (seven divisions) 
were actvxally engaged in the disastrous struggle 
among the lakes which came to be known as t he 
Battle of Tannenberg. Where precisely the 
other corps and a half was posted (if it was 
absent), it is not possible to say, nor why it 
failed to come up to take part in the battle. 
The Germans in their official accounts stated 
emphatically that they had been dealing with a 
superior force of five corps. The Russian 
military critics were no less insistent that 
Hindenbiu-g had much the larger force. It is 
not possible to dogmatize on the point, though 
one ixiay note that even if Hindenburg had 
this not very large numerical superiority, it was 
nothing more than a local and temporary 
superiority, achieved at one point by his energy, 
against an enemy who outnumbered him by 
two to one. More than half his force, more- 
over, was composed of Landwehr formations, 
while the whole Rvissian Army was drawn 
from the " active " first line. A theory grew 
up that Hindenburg drew his army lai-gely 
from the Western Front, and the estimates of 
the number of corps which were sent to him 
from Belgium rose steadily from one to five or 
even seven. These corps were never named or 
identified. The theory was based on the state- 
ments definitely made and puhlishe-d at the 
time that on Friday night, the 28th, German 
troops were seen entraining in Belgium for the 
East. At that moment Tannenberg was 
virtually won. If these reinforcements (what- 
ever their extent) were destined for East 
Prussia, ratlirr than Galioia or Poland, thry 
nuist have arrived at a later stage, wluii 
the Germans had already crossiMi tiie Ru.ssian 
frontier. The probabilities aie h.eavily against 
this th(>ory. 

Hindenburg handled his tactical pronlen\ 
as skilfully - as he had conceived Ins lun;id 
strategical plan. The Knssians had iHi\;nieed 
with \ery little forethiuiulit • t'nr then- ea.sy 



284 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 




THE MASURIAN LAKE COUNTRY. 
A German trench with barbed wire entanglements in front. 



successes against an inferior enemy had led 
them to suppose that they had nothing worse 
to fear than a repetition of the same aimless 
opposition. They learned, as the fight went 
on, that they were dealing with larger masses of 
the enemy than they had yet encountered, but 
they realized too late that they were fighting 
against a well -conceived idea. They had some 
aviators, and an abimdance of cavalry, but 
their intelligence department was clearly defec- 
tive. Samsonoff's army was massed within 
the triangle Soldau-AUenstein-Frankenau. No 
attempt had been made to occupy the good 
road which ran from Osterode through Gilgen- 
burg to Soldau, still less the two railways which 
fed Soldau from Eylau, Graudenz and Thorn. 
Von Hindenburg's first step was to occupy this 
road (much of it concealed by forest) and to 
make himself master of Soldau junction. This 
line was gained on Wednesday, the 26th, only 
three days after Hindenburg had assumed 
the command. It was a line easily defended, 
for there were marshes before it and a good 
road behind it. Above all, there were railways 
at either end of it by which its flanks could be 
reinforced. Samsonoff saw that the loss of 
Soldau might be fatal to him, for it cut him off 
from liis own main line of retreat and supply. 
He tried on the 27th to concentrate his forces 
to retake Soldau, but the tract within his 



triangle was ill-supplied with roads, his forces 
were scattered, and he could not convert his 
total superiority in numbers into a superiority 
at the threatened place. He dislocated his 
forces to defend his left, only to be driven back- 
wards to Neidenburg, and still further isolated. 

The German line was also active on its left. 
One of the hottest corners of the great battle 
was at Hohenstein. In this pleasant village 
of 3,000 inhabitants the Russians were in con- 
siderable force, struggling to break Hinden- 
burg's line by forcing a way to the north-west. 
Their opponents were at first Landwehr troops, 
and the fightmg lasted for three days (20th to 
28th). It was decided partly by the arrival of 
heavy artillery, which battered the place and 
its outlying defences to pieces, partly by the 
coming of reinforcements of first-line troops 
from AUenstein. which the Russians had 
evacuated. Two days after the battle a German 
war-correspondent saw the streets still full of 
dead Russians and dead horses. The village 
was carried eventually by a bayonet charge. 
Some of the Russian defenders hid in its cellars ; 
many surrendered ; the remainder were driven 
back upon the marshes and lakes behind it. 

On the 27th and 28th Hindenburg developed 
the more formidable part of his plan. He 
had already taken the first step to surroimd 
Samsonoff, by turning him with his right wing 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



235 



at Neidenburg. He now gave his left wing an 
enormous extension. The Russians had aban- 
doned Allenstein more easily than Soldau, 
failing to realize that it was the key to their 
position. The Germans thus regained the us-e 
of their trunk railway as far as Rothfliess, and 
eventually of part of the branch line which 
runs down to Passenheim and Ortelsburg. 
They did not rely mainly on the railway, how- 
ever. They had also the good main road 
which runs beside it, and they used petrol to 
give mobility to their infantry. From all the 
towns within reach they had collected every 
conceivable species of motor-vehicle. Omni- 
buses, taxicabs, and tradesmen's lorries were 
loaded with all the human burden they could 
carry, to the number of many tens of thousands 
of men, with a due complement of machine guns. 
This novel motor-infantry swept round the 
Russian right as far as distant Bischof sburg. It 
took Wartenburg on the railway and then 
moved down the road to Passenheim, which 
was captured only after a bloody and deter- 
mined struggle. The Germans now held three 
good roads which ran round three sides of the 
Russian position. They could move their heavy 



guns upon them, and they flung their shells at 
will iipon the Russian masses, congested and 
bewildered in a nearly roadless area of swamps 
and woods. It seems at first sight increcUble 
that anything but a very superior armj'' could 
surround another so effectually. The achieve- 
ment is, however, by no means impossible in 
these conditions even for a nimierically in- 
ferior force. Hindenburg was able, as it were, 
to multiply his forces, partly by his foresight 
in providing motor transport, partly by his 
skill in mancEuvring to secure the roads. His 
minute knowledge of the topography of the 
district enabled him, moreover, so to utilize the 
swamps and lakes that, he need hold only the 
solid intervals between them ; while the un- 
lucky Russians, ignorant of the country, lost 
entire batteries in the marshes, and were 
drowned as often as they were shot. By the 
30th whole battalions and even regiments were 
laying down their arms, and the only question 
was how many could escape by the only road 
open to them, via Ortelsbui'g and Johannisburg. 
On the 31st, in a last effort to rally his men 
and organize the retreat, Samsonoff, who had 
borne himself amid the disaster with steadfast 




GERMAN SOLDIERS IN TANNENBERG. 



2m 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




COSSACKS ENTERING LYCK. EAST PRUSSIA. 



gallantry, rode with his whole Staff into a fire- 
swept zone. " My place is with my men," was 
his answer to remonstrances. He was. examin- 
ing a map, when a shell burst in the midst of 
his Staff. It killed him on the spot, and with 
him General Pestitch, his Chief of Staff, and 
several junior officers. His personal reputation 
suffered nothing in this defeat, and Russian 
opinion inclined rather to blame his colleague, 
General Zhilinsky, for the disaster. A Corps - 
commander. General Martos, was captured in 
his motor-car as he sought to escape. The 
Germans made in all about 90,000 unwounded 
prisoners in this battle. The killed, wounded 
and drowned must have numbered another 
30,000 at least. One corps escaped intact 
before Ortelsburg was taken and the way of 
escape finally sealed, and with it about half of 
another. Isolated fragments of other corps or 
cavalry divisions are said to have broken 
away south to the Russian frontier, or north 
to join Rermenkampf. 

Hindenburg had destroyed one of the two 
armies with which he had to deal. He had 
won the most complete victory which had 
so far fallen to any commander in any single 
battle of the war. His prisoners were as 
numerous as those taken at Sedan. He now 



turned with hardly a pause for rest or re- 
organization to the other half of his task. He 
advanced, as rapidly as the damaged railways 
allowed, against the Army of the Niemen, north- 
wards with a trend to the east. His aim was 
to strike up past Nordenburg, Angerburg and 
Goldap to Gumbinnen or Eydtkuhnen, in order 
to intercept Rennenkampf's retreat. Tlie 
manoeuvre failed in the sense that this Russian 
army was not cut off. It succeeded in the sense 
that the threat to its left and rear compelled it 
to fall rapidly back on its bases and reserves 
on the Niemen. The fighting nowhere amounted 
to more than a rearguard action, but it cost the 
Russians the loss of some 30,000 prisoners, 
captured in bodies of 500 or 1,000 at a time in 
isolated positions. It hurried their retreat so 
that 150 guns and great quantities of warlike 
material were abandoned on the roads. 
On September 11 the Russians evacuated 
Insterburg, and in a general order dated from 
that town on the 15th, General von Hindenburg 
was able to armounce that Prussia was free 
from the last of the invaders, and that German 
troops had penetrated Russia. A Reserve army 
from Grodno, including a fresh corps from 
Finland and a fine Siberian corps, had been 
defeated with some difficulty at Lyck, and 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



237 



again in a small affair at August owo. Suwalki, 
the administrative centre of the Russian frontier 
province, was occupied by the Germans, who 
set up a permanent administration, and allowed 
the wives of officers to join their husbands. 
The signs of over-confidence may be read also 
between the lines of General von Hindenburg's 
orders. He had achieved a brilliant success, 
which his under-estimation of the enemy was 
soon to neutralize. The obscure, retired soldier 
had become in a short three weeks the idol of 
the German people, and the Kaiser confirmed 
the popular verdict by making him a Field- 
Marshal and entrusting him with the supreme 
command of all the German forces in the 
East. 

The dashing Russian invasion of East Prussia 
had failed, and had cost ovu- Ally the loss of an 
army. It is easy to see, after the event, by 
what altered dispositions the mischance might 
have been averted. Samsonoff paid little atten- 
tion to the enemy's communications, which he 
neither occupied nor destroyed, and Rennen- 
kampf lost time in making contact with the 
Narew Army. The larger question is whether, 
in spite of the disaster, this great enterprise had 
a salutary effect on the Allied position as a 
whole. It is probably a mistake to suppose 
that it caused any direct and immediate trans- 
ference of troops from France to East Prussia. 
But without a doubt it did indirectly contribute 
to relieve the pressure on the Western front. 
It demonstrated the power of the Russians to 
assume an early offensive, and forced the 
Germans to provide against its renewal. It 
led the Germans to regard the whole Eastern 
front with a new anxiety and a new interest. 
It was the starting-point in adventm-e after 
adventure, in which they hiirled their forces 
on Warsaw, wasting their resources in the 
process. It was a shrewd blow from the left 
against a boxer whose whole attention had been 
directed to his right. It forced him at length 
to direct his energies to both fronts, and to meet 
the offensive by a counter-offensive. It was at 
once a challenge and a temptation. 



The sequel of Hindenburg's East Prussian 
campaign was destined to tarnish its glory, 
and restore the presti^ of the Russian armies. 
They showed, as they often did in this war, 
their> steadiness and imperturbabiUty imder 
reverses, their ability without a sign of any 
loss of nerve or confidence to resume the 
offensive after a costly retreat, their skill in 



taking advantage of the natural difficulties of 
their country to repel an invader. Suwalki 
was occupied by the Germans on September 1 5, 
and von Hindenburg, ^^•ho believed that 
Rennenkampf's big army had been " not merely 
defeated, but shattered," left the actual conduct 
of operations to General von Morgen, who had 
served under hun at Tannenberg. The order 
was given for a resolute pursuit, but it is 
probable that the Germans aimed at something 
more than this. If they could force a crossing 
of the Niemen, they might hope to cut the Petro- 
grad-Vilna-^^^arsaw railway, and even eventu- 
ally to work southwards, so as to threaten 
the great fortified camp of Brest-Litovsk. But 
if that supremely imprudent idea was enter- 
tained, it was soon abandoned. The Germans 
had no forces to spare for such an operation. 
Tliey had during the brief Campaign of the 
Niemen at most four army corps at their dis- 
posal, as the French General Staff stated in an 
official communique, and these were largely 
Landwehr and mixed formations. Rennen- 
kampf had saved his army intact, and got it 
safely across the Niemen by the 23rd. Here 
he could refit, and fill up the gaps in its ranks 
from his depots. To it we must add the corps 
and a half which escaped from Tannenberg, a 
corps from Finland, and a famous Siberian 
Corps, both composed of fresh troops, together 
with heavy artillery from the fortresses of 
Kovno and Grodno, cavalry, and an unknown 
number of reserve formations. It was a for- 
midable force, acting in its own difficult coiuitry, 
and it must have had a superiority of quite two 
to one. It had, moreover, gained in leadership, 
for General Ruszky, the victor of Lemberg, a 
brilliant scientific soldier, had been detached to 
conunand the defence. The Germans no longer 
had their admirable systera of strategical rail- 
ways at their disposal. They did indeed adapt 
their own rolling stock to the gauge of the 
Russian system, but of Russian lines there were 
hardly any in this region. Their troops were 
fatigued with hard marching, and when once 
the frontier was crossed, they discovered that 
only a few of the better main roads were 
practicable for their heavy motor transport. 
Most of the roads were nothing but beaten 
tracks, which had never been macadamized, and 
became in a wet autumn impassable sloughs of 
heavy mud. The good causeways, as it ha})- 
pened, were often narrow defiles between lakes 
and swamps, where no army could deploy. To 
add to the misfortunes of the invaders, it rained 



238 



THE TIMES H7ST0BY OF THE WAR. 




LIEUTENANT-GENERAL VON MORGEN. 

heavily for three days, from September 27-30, 
the critical period of the fighting. 

The Russian defences were formed primarily 
by two rivers, the Niemen and the Bobr. The 
latter is an inconsiderable stream, of no great 
width, but it is 12 feet deep, and it runs 
through a swampy valley of immense and 
impassable mai'shes. Across these marshes 
there is only one good passage, the high-road 
and railway from Lyck through Grajewo to 
Bialystok. The crossing is defended by the 
little town of Osowiec, which ranks as a third- 
class fortress. It has solid concrete forts, and 
these were provided, after the outbreak of war, 
with a new type of heavy gun, whose perform- 
ances surprised the Gennans. They guessed 
that naval guns had been brought up from the 
fleet, but the weapon was in fact a new siege 
gim, recently made at the Putiloff works. The 
Germans made an effort to take Osowiec, but 
it proved itself a more formidable obstacle than 
Liege. A place with impassable marshes before 
it cannot in the ordinary sense of the word be 
V>esieged, and an assault along a single causeway 
\\ ould be an almost impossibly costly operation. 
The defenders further improved a naturally 
strong position by opening the sluices of the 
Bobr. The attack on this gaJlant little fortress 



earned a singular distinction from the fact that, 
while it was in progress, first the Kaiser and then 
the Tsar visited the opposing camps. The 
bombardment began on September 27, and 
lasted for four days and nights without a 
respite. It destroyed some outlying villages, 
but did singularly little damage to the solid 
and well-built forts. The 17-in. howitzers 
made their appearance as usual in the 
newspaper accounts of these operations, but the 
probability is that the largest guns used were 
the more generally serviceable Austrian pieces, 
on motor carriages. The guns were pushed up 
to within five miles of the fortress, and the 
infantry lines were never nearer than four 
miles. The last episode of the siege was a 
brilliant sortie by the garrison. Bodies of 
infantry, by following paths over the swamps 
known only to the inhabitants, contrived to get 
behind the advanced German lines, both from 
left and right. Another body charged up the 
causew ay, and before the Germans had recovered 
from their surprise, contriv-ed to capture three of 
the guns, while the rest went hurriedly north- 
wards. It was the last event of the siege, and 
a Russian communique announced its end on 
October 1. It was abandoned not merely 
because Osowiec had proved to be unexpectedly 
obstinate, but also because the larger German 
operations against the Niemen had meanwhile 
failed even more hopelessly. A fortnight later 
the Russians were themselves pursuing a pros- 
perous offensive over the road by which the 
Germans advanced, and were on German soil 
engaged in an attack on Lyck. 

By September 23, when Rennenkampf's 
rearguard crossed the Niemen, the Germans 
occupied all the chief strategic points 
in the country between that river and their 
own frontier. The struggle which went on 
during the next week is generally known as the 
Battle of Augustowo. The idea of the Germans 
was to cross the Niemen, and presumably to 
cut the railway at or about Grodno. The idea 
of General Ruszky was not merely to repel them 
from the Niemen, but to drive them back to 
their own frontier, and to disorganize their 
communications by seizing the little town of 
x\ugustowo — a place of no intrinsic importance, 
but vital because it is the point at which several 
of the few good roads of this region cross. A 
curious circular strategic railway runs from 
Grodno to Augustowo, and thence through 
Suwalki back to the Niemen at Olita. Neither 
side could use it, for both had damaged it, and 



1 



THE TIMES -HISTORY- OF THE WAR. 



239 



the Germans had no rolling stock. The chief 
physical feature of this region is the im- 
mense forest, 30 miles long and 20 wide, on 
whose western edge Augustowo is situated. 
Intricate chains of lakes stretch on either side 
of the road from Suwalki to Seiny, begin again 
south-east of Seiny, and are found on either side 
of the road from Surino to the Niemen. It is 
not a country for rash adventures, and the 
Germans were to learn in it the lesson which 
the Russians learned amid the Masurian lakes. 
Above all, the Niemen is itself a formidable 
obstacle. It is more than 200 yards wide ; it 
is too deep to ford, and bridges exist only at 
Grodno and Olita, both of them fortified places. 
The defence had a further advantage. The 
right bank, which the Russians held, was high, 
and in some places might alinost be called a 
cliff. The left bank, on which the Germans 
had to operate, was low, and, what was worse, 
it was in most places swampy. 

The attempt to cross the Niemen was made 
simultaneously at two points. The more 
northernly of these was Druskeniki, about 27 
miles north of Grodno. Here on the morning 
of September 25 the Germans constructed a 
pontoon bridge. The Russians on the steep 
right bank reserved their fire until a dense 
column of men was already on the bridge. 
Then from cleverly screened positions the 
Russian field guns and machine guns fell to 
work. The bridge was swept clean. The 
German guns were then brought into action 
and a long artillery duel followed. Thinking 
that their artillery had at last silenced the 
enemy's fire, the German infantry again 
crowded over the bridge. They met the same 
fate as their predecessors, and it is said that 
thousands of German corpses- floated down the 
river. A third attempt was made, after a 
further artillery duel, towards sunset, and with 
more determination and still heavier slaughter. 
The Cossacks crossed at nightfall by the 
German bridge, and pursued the Germans over 
a distance of tnght miles. Two divisions were 
engaged in this attempt, and they are thought 
to hLve lost fully half their effectives. 

The other attempt was made nearer to 
Grodno, not far from the village of Sopotskinie, 
where the Dul)issa enters the Niemen. Here 
the Russian heavy guns were posted on the 
cliffs of the right bank. The field guns were on 
the sandy shore beloN\- them. Across the river 
on the left bank was entrenched the Russian 
infantry, doomed to destruction if its defence 



should fail, and resolved at any cost to deny the 
Germans access to the river. The artillery 
began to fire on the afternoon of the 25th, and 
all through the night the Germans repeated 
their incessant efforts to take the Russian 
trenches. Twice the soimd of a Russian cheer 
mingled with the thimder of the guns, as the 
defenders delivered coimter-attacks against the 
Germans. The enemy retreated at dawn, and 
the Russians as they pursued counted his dead 
by thousands. * 

The rest of the operations which made up 
the " Battle of Augustowo " were little more 
than 'a retreat by the Germans along the few 
practicable roads, harassed by the fire of the 
Russian big guns, and pursued as occasion 
offered by the Russian cavahy. There was 
some hand-to-hand fighting in the forest, in 
which the Russians showed their usual 
superiority with the bayonet and the grenade 
at close quarters. The decisive action was 
fought in the clear spaces round Augustowo. 
The Germans had disposed themselves with 
considerable skill on three sides of a square, so 
that they commanded the exit from the forest 
with cross fire. The Russians crossed the canal, 
executed a wide turning movement by the 
south, and eventually bombarded Augustowo 
from the west and north-west with heavy guns. 
The town was taken by the Russians on the 
afternoon of October 1, and the infantry pressed 
on by the roads to Raczky and Suwalki, clearing 
the obstacles of barbed wire and felled trees as 
they went. The possession of the roads that 




GENERAL N. N. MARTOS. 



240 



THE' TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



converge on Augiistowo settled the " battle," 
if one can use that word to describe these 
contests. Deprived of these roads, the Germans 
could no longer keep touch with their forces 
before O^owiec, and these at once retired. Nor 
could they any longer supply themselves from 
the strategic railway Lyck-Marggrabowa, which 
runs parallel to their frontier within it. 
Defeated at Augiistowo and Suwalki, their 
scattered forces farther north, towards 
Mariampol, were compelled on October 3 
and 4 to fall back towards the frontier, with 
the Russians pressing hard behind them. The 
stroke at Augustowo was well planned, and the 
whole series of operations was managed with a 
skill worthy of the reputation which General 
Ruszky had won in Galicia. A week of hard 
fighting and hard marching sufficed to hurl the 
invaders back to their own country, their glory 
not a little diminished and their mxmbers 
reduced by a heavy tale of casualties. Some 
of the credit belongs to General Ruszky, some 
of it to the swamps and forests of Lithuania, 
but the real hero of this battle was the Russian 
infantryman. First in renown was the famous 
3rd Siberian Corps. Its men towered in height 
above the European average. They had de- 
veloped in their winters an endurance which 
laughed at fatigue and exposure. Impertvu-b- 
able under fire, they displayed an irresistible 
impetus in the charge. Their crowning exploit 
at Augustowo was a march of 30 miles, with a 
bayonet charge at the end of it. 

A pause of comparative inaction at this point 
followed Tannenberg and Augustowo. Through- 
out October and the early days of November 
the Russians and the Germans faced each other 
in entrenched positions, which followed approxi- 
mately the line of the frontier. The Germans 
dug themselves in elaborately, with all the 
paraphernalia of wire entanglements, concealed 
giui-pits and deep trenches. They attacked the 
slighter Russian trenches every night by a sort 
of habitual routine, with the aid of their search- 



lights, but they evidently had no thought of 
advancing. The real fighting on the Eastern 
Front was now in Poland, and it is probable that 
von Hindenburg had transferred thither most 
of the first-line troops in East Prussia. Towards 
the middle of November the German defence 
weakened. The Russians were again attacking 
at Lyck, while on their old road in the north 
they had reached Stall upone.i (November 14). 
Early in December they were slowly penetrating 
the maze of the Masurian lakes, and the 
Siberians were performing prodigies of courage 
against the elaborate obstacles with which their 
defiles were now defended. It was a war of 
trenches, and by sapping slow progress was 
made against the nearly impregnable German 
positions. They were weakly held by recent 
formations, and when the Russians took 
prisoners they were often mere lads of seventeen. 
Neither side could spare large forces on this 
front, and it was a desultory advance which 
wore down the resistance of a limited garrison. 
The Germans had forbidden their fugitives to 
return to the frontier regions of East Prussia, 
and so long as the Russians did not advance 
beyond GumbLnnen, Angerburg, Lotzen and 
Johannisburg the Germans seemed to regard 
their presence with equanimity. The Russians 
held this area with some vicissitudes through- 
out December, and no serious effort was made 
to dislodge them. The fortunes of war in this 
region were now fairly balanced. Von Hinden- 
burg had indeed destroyed a Russian army in 
a battle which was perhaps the most decisive 
victory, as it was intellectually the most brilliant 
performance, of the whole war. His error of 
judgment in attacldng the lines of the Nieraen 
went far to neutralize that fine exploit. The 
soldiers' battle of Augustowo had wiped out 
the memory of defeat, and at the end of the 
year the Russians in this region could con- 
gratulate themselves that they had cleared 
their own soil and once more carried the war 
into the enemy's country. 



CHAPTER LVII 



THE RUSSIAN CONQUEST OF 

GALICIA. 



Austro-German Misunderstanding of Russia — Plan of the Campaign — Crossing the 
Frontier — Advance of Austrian Armies — Russian Counter-Movements — Battle of the 
Gnita Lipa — Halicz — The Battle of Lemberg — Austrian Reinforcements — Russian 
Offensive in the North — Retirement of Austrian First Army — The Battle of the Grodek 
Line — Rawa-Ruska — The Crossing of the San — Jaroslau — Siege and Fall of Przemysl 
— End of the Campaign — Behaviour of Russian Troops. 



WHEN the Austrians began their 
operations against Russia on the 
Galician frontier they made cer- 
tain vital miscalculations. They 
grossly underestimated the quality of the enemy 
with whom they went to cross swords. They 
counted confidently on having the sjTnpathy 
of the Polish people against their Russian 
" oppressors " ; and they were quite unpre- 
pared for the rapidity with which Russia 
succeeded in massing her armies against them. 

That Germany and Austria should have 
failed to luiderstand at its true worth the 
wonderful regeneration of the Russian Army 
which had taken place since the Japanese War 
is curious ; for, though events, especially recent 
events in the Balkans, had subjected to con- 
siderable strain that " wire to St. Petersburg," 
on the intricate working of which Prince 
Bismarck set so much store, the German 
General Staff had every opportimity of being 
thoroughly informed on Russian military 
affairs. Their failure to anticipate the enthu- 
siastic loyalty to the Tsar with which all the 
peoples of the Russian Empire threw them- 
selves into the war was only symptomatic of 
Vol. III.— Part 33 241 



the incapacity which the Germans had shown 
to grasp the psychology of any people but 
themselves. They looked for a revolt of the 
Poles against Tsardom precisely as they counted 
upon revolution in Ireland and the blazing up 
of sedition in India and in Egypt. In the case 
of Poland the stupidity was, perhaps, a trifle 
aggravated, because, whatever justification the 
Poles' may have had for grievance against 
Russia, Germany, as Sir \'alentine Chirol has 
remarked, " had oppressed her own Poles not 
less ruthlessly than Russia, but a great deal 
more scientifically."* 

In the third of the prime miscalculations 
mentioned above — namely, as to the length of 
time which Russia would take before she could 
oppose any effective opposition to their plans— 
the Avistrians had the excuse of the visible 
inferiority for strategic purposes of the Russian 
railway system as compared with their own. 
On the Austrian side of the international 
boiuidary two main lines of railway ran 
practically parallel to the frontier at no great 
distance away, well built, with abundant 

• " Germany and the ' I'car of Russia,' " >l)y Si» 
Valentine Cliirol (Oxford Pamphlets, No. 14). 



24-2 



THE TUIKS HISTORY OF THF WAR. 




ARCHDUKE CHARLES FRANCIS JOSEPH 
The Austrian Heir-Apparent. 

coruiecting lilies to the interior of the Empire, 
and with spurs running to the frontier itself at 
half a dozen points. On the Russian side the 
main line from Warsaw to Kieff via Lublin is 
on an average between 50 and 60 miles from 
the frontier, and only at three points do branch 
lines project into that intermediate space 
between Poland and the Bukowina. A spur 
from Kovel runs to ^^itliin 20 miles of the 
frontier at Vladimir- Volynsk ; and further east 
a line from near Rovno runs to Lemberg, 
passing the frontier at Brody, throwing off on 
its way a small branch to the southward as far as 
&emenez, wliile the main international Kieff - 
Lemberg line crosses the frontier near Tarnopol, 
Operating under Uke disadvantages, there is no 
knowing how long the Austrians would have 
taken to push any considerable armies into the 
enemy's country. But the rapidity with wliich 
the Russians, moving independently of rail- 
ivays, covered long distances with great masses 
of troops was one of the most remarkable 
features of the war. The efficiency of their 
seemingly irregular road transport was the 
admiration of observers. The Russian peasant 
soldier, too, was inured to hardsliip and scanty 
fare. It seems, however incredible, to be a 
well-established fact that a large part of the 



UiLs.siaii .-Viiiiies, ttiat of General Riizsky, 
in the campaign which we are now discu-sKing, 
liaving outdistanced its coixmiissariat, lived 
lor some six days of hard marching and stern 
fighting entirely on apples which it stripped 
from the orchards as it passed. At the end of 
the six days it executed one of the most 
arduous and most brilhant strokes of the war. 
Such performances had been left quite out of 
the reckoning of the Austrian General Staff. 

The Austrians thus miscalculated the spirit 
and capacity of the enemy opposed to them ; 
and it is doubtful if the plan of invading 
Russia at the beginning of hostilities originated 
with or had the full sj-nipathy of the Austrian 
General Staff. There is some evidence that 
they would have preferred to wait witliin 
their o^^■n territory and meet whatever troops 
the Russians sent agauist them on ground of 
tlieir own choosing. The plan adopted seems 
to have been forced on her allj- by Germany. 

The invasion was not intended as a blow at 
the heart of Russia. The operation was of an 
offensive -defensive character, havmg for its 
chief object the detaining on this front of as 
large a Russian force as possible, so as to 
prevent it from cooperating in the resistance 
to the German adv-ance in the north. The 
cliief offensive was entrusted to the 1st Austrian 
Army under General Dankl, consisting of some 
seven army corps with various additional units, 
or between 300,000 and 400,000 men. From 
its base on Przemysl and Jaroslau its business 
was to push upwards between the Vistula, on 
the left hand, and the Bug, on the right, to 
Lublin and lOiolm. Here it would cut and 
hold the Warsaw-Kieff railway ; and the road 
would lie open beyond towards Brest-Litovsk 
and the main coimiiunications in the rear of 
Warsaw. 

A\'hile the 1st Army tlirust forward to this 
position it would be protected from attack on 
its right and rear from the east and south by 
the 2nd Army under General von Auffenberg, 
\^hich, advancing north-east from Lemberg, 
would dominate Eastern Galicia from the Bug 
to the Sereth and the Dniester. The constitu- 
tion of von Auffenberg's Army at the opening 
of the campaign is uncertain. It was stated 
to contain no more than five army corps with 
five divisions of cavalry. Probablj^ it then 
amounted to about 300,000 men. Whatever 
may have been its strength at first, however, 
circumstances soon compelled a very large 
increase in its numbers, and in the course of 



THE TIME;^ HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



•243 



the fighting, as it developed, von Auffenberg 
seems to have had under his command at least 
six full army corps (the 3rd, 7th, 11th, 12th, 
13th, and 14th), besides the five divisions of 
cavalry and some last reserves ; and he was 
reported to have no fewer than ten. 

This increase was drawn in the first instance 
from the 3rd or Reserve Army, in command of 
the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand. This army, 
as an independent \.mit, took an inconspicuous 
part in the operations. While General Dankl 
was advancing on Lublin, with von Aioffenberg 
protecting his right flank, the Archduke's 
Army seems to have been similarly pushed out 
on the left. Crossing the Polish border, it 
moved, without meeting serious resistance, as 
far as Ivielce and towards Radom. That was 
as far as it was destined or, perhaps, intended, 
to go. 

In these three armies Austria had immedi- 
ately available about, or nearly, one million 
men ; and it will be worth while to stop a 
moment to consider the position which would 
have resulted from the successful establishment 
of these three armies in their respective 
spheres. 

When gathering their forces for the cam- 
paign on the northern front, the Germans had 
left troops at both Posen and Breslau, not less 
than one army corps at the former place., and 
apparently two, with some additional units. 



at the latter. If their offensive on that front 
had been successful and they had reduced or 
penetrated beyond Warsaw, Poland would 
have been at their mercy. While General 
Dankl from the direction of Lublin was joining 
hands with the main German Armies in tlie 
rear of Warsaw, the Austrian Ai-niy of the 
Archdulce, advancing from Kielce, woiild have 
had the assistance of the Posen -Breslau corps 
in taking care of any Russian force which 
remained on the left bank of the Vistula. Any 
Russian troops thus surrovuided in Poland must 
either have surrendered or been annihilated. 
With powerful armies on three sides of it, 
Iwangorod could not have resisted long, and 
Poland would have been a second Belgium. 
By that time, also, it was hoped that the 
" smashing " of France would be completed 
and the two allies, with an unbroken front 
on a straight line from the Baltic to the Car- 
pathians, could have given their undivided 
attention to proceeding against Russia, with 
no fear of a flank attack. This they could not 
do, either from the north or south, so long as 
Warsaw, Iwangorod and Brest-Litovsk remained 
as a base from which the Russians could strike 
in either direction. This we know to have been 
the views of the German General Staff. The 
Austrian advance, thenj was part of, or auxili- 
ary to, the German movement in the north. 
"Ilie outbreak of ^^a^ had been received in 




RUSSIAN ADVANCE GUARD IN KIELCE. 



244 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




RUSSIAN GUNS IN THE TRENCHES. 



Vienna with great enthusiasm. Those who 
had any forebodings when it was kno\\n that 
the enemy was to be sometliing so much more 
formidable than " Httle Serbia " were laughed 
at. Russia was huge but without coherence. 
It was preposterous to suppose that the nation 
wliich had failed against Japan would be able 
to withstand Germany and Austria combined. 
She was unready and woiild be beaten before 
her great shadowy forces could be brought into 
the field. 

All analogy to the Japanese Wai', hou^ever, 
was made fallacious, not only by the regenera- 
tion of the Russian Army, which has already 
been fully described, but, still more, by the 
different spirit in which the new war was 
accepted by the Russian jjeoples. After the 
fighting on the Galician frontier had been in 
progress for two weeks a Berlin newspaper 
quoted Austrian officers as saying that " Rus- 
sian troops are simply growing out of the earth, 
without interruption." It was true. In a 
nobler and more beautiful sense than either 
the Austrian officers or the German jom-nalist 
dreamed, the troops did in very truth gro\v out 
of the earth. Whatever differences of race or 
creed or politics may have separated various 



sections of the Russian people, they were united 
in one passionate sentiment of devotion to 
Russia — the great spiritual entity, beyond and 
above all creeds and governments, of which 
the material symbol was the Russian soil. All 
Russians loved the soil of Russia. It was the 
violation of that soil by the tread of the invader 
— the thought of its subjection to a brutal 
enemy — which enraged the people and aroused 
them to a unitj'^ of religious fervour as in a holy 
cause. It was the soil which bade them go to 
war. They " gi-ew out of the earth." 

In a series of striking letters* to The Times 
Mr. Stephen Graham described the extra- 
ordinary spectacle of the stirring of the Rus- 
sian peoples as he witnessed it in Cossack 
Adllages on the Mongolian frontier when the 
great news came and " a young man on a fine 
horse came galloping down the village street, 
a great red flag hanging from his shoulders and 
flapping in the wind ; and as he went he called 
out the news to each and every one — War ! 
War ! " From another angle another special 
correspondent of The Times, Mr. Stanley 



• Subsequently published in a volume under the title 
of " Russia and the World " (Cassoll). 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



245 



•Wafihbiirn', was at the same moment describing 
what went on in Ht. Petersburg (as the town still 
was) and comparing it with what occurred at 
the opening of the war with Japan. In the 
former war " tlie peasants had to be driven 
almost at the point of the bayonet into box 
cars for shipment to Manchuria." Now : 

Before the Winter Palace, the great red house of the 
Tsars, stretches an enormous semicircle, which forms 
one of the greatest arenas in Europe. This is what 
we see now : More than 100,000 people of all classes 
and of all ranks standing for hoiu-s in the blazing sun 
before the building within which is their monarch. 
Quietly and orderly they wait, without hysteria and with 
the patience so characteristic of their race. At last the 
Tsar, moved by the magnitude of the demonstration, 
appears upon the balcony overlooking the square. 
Instantly the entire throng sinks upon its knees and with 
absolute spontaneity sings the deep-throated Russian 
anthem. For perhaps the first time since Napoleon's 
invasion of Russia the people and their Tsar were one, 
and the strength that unity spreads in a nation stirred 
throughout the Empire, from the far fringes of the 
i'acilio littoral to the German frontier.* 

Of all this in those last days of July and the 
beginning of August, 1914, the Austrians knew 
nothing. They knew that Russia was a giixnt, 
but attached no importance to any attribute 
of that giant-hood except its imwieldiness and 
supposed sloth. All the best Russian, troops 
had, moreover, it was declared, already been 
sent to the East Prussian theatre. It would be 



* From the volume of Mr. Washburn's correspondence 
to The Times as republished under the titlo of " Field 
Notes from the Russian Front." (Andrew Melrose.) 



long before she could marshal new armies to 
. oppose an advance on the south. As a matter 
of fact, by the end of August Russia had, 
chiefly from the districts of Kieff and Odessa, 
brought into the fighting line on the Galician 
front about 1,200,000 men. Not only did 
they outnumber the Austrian Armies brought 
against them, but they excelled them in 
fighting power, and, even more conspicuously, 
they were better generalled. 

The Grand Duke Nicholas and tlie Rassian 
General Staff took accurate measure of the 
Austrian advance from the outset, and the 
operations with which they met it will stand 
as a model for similar campaigns, even as it 
produced, perhaps, the most gigantic and most 
desperate fighting which up to that time the 
world had seen. 

Against the main Austrian advance of 
General Dankl with 350,000 men (roughly) of 
the 1st Army no serious resistance was imme- 
diately offered. It was allowed to come on 
almost to Lublin, to within 11 niiles of wliich 
it at one tune penetrated. We have seen how 
the 3rd or Reserve . Austrian Army had been 
sent, on a quite futile errand, into Poland on 
the left side of the Vistula to push towards 
Kielce, while General Daniel went due nortli. 
There is very little information as to incidents 
on either of these marches, but that is im- 
material. We know that Dankl's Army crossed 




RUSSIANS MnTERINU A BURNiNU TOW.N IN EASTERN CMtlClA, «' 

33—2 



24G 



TUK TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



the frontier, on a front al)out 11 miliss wide, to 
the west of Tarnogrod, on August 10. TJie 
frontier posts hardly stopped to have a brush 
with the Austrian advance cavalry before 
falling back. A second brush, but no more 
than a sldrmish, occurred at Goraj, and some- 
thing a little more serious at Krasnik. The 
Austrians seem to have thought that those 
wisps of troops \\ hich met them (even at Ivras- 
nik, of which the authorities in Vienna made 
much, there were only a few battahons) con- 
stituted the real Russian resistance, and they 
marched joyfully. They were going through 
a beautiful country, it was superb weather, and 
the enemy, after doing no more tlian delay 
therrt for a day or two, fell away before them, 
either behind the fortified position of Zamosc 
(which the Austrians kept on their right) or 
back towards LubUn and Kholm. Everything 
tended to verify the expectations with which 
they had set out. Russia, for all her vastness, 
was unready ; and war was a fine thing. 

Meanwhile, on the line from Lublin to 
Kholm, Russia had been massing an army — 
or two armies cooperating as one — under the 
dual command of Generals Ewarts and Plelive, 



though General Ivanoff seeuis to have beea 
in supreme direction or the combined force. 
Here the Russians had the railway beliind 
them, to Wai-saw in one direction and to Kieft' 
and Odessa in the other, and every day, as the 
Austrians drew nearer, tlieir strengtii increased. 
By the first days of S(!ptember the Russian 
force here probably amounted to upwards of 
400,000 men. The Aastrians were within 15 
miles of Lublin before they met real resistance 
and General Dankl became aware that he liad 
a worthy opponent in front of him. ,But it wa.s 
not in the Russian programme to strike on this 
line — -not yet. The Austrians found them- 
selves checked, and then definitely held up, by 
forces at least as great as their ov\'n ; and the 
Russians waited till news came that certain 
things had happened further to the south-west. 
There, it will be reinembered, was tlie 
Austrian second army tmder General von 
Auffenberg. This was not intended to be 
inmiediately an army of invasion, ^'on Auften- 
berg's task was to threaten, but probably not 
push much beyond, the frontier in a direction 
in which the fortresses of Dubno, Rovno and 
l^utzk lay in the path of an advance, besides 




RUSSIAN SOLDIERS KISSING AN IKON BEFORE GOING INTO BATTLE. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



247 




L 



A.:..^ML. 




RUSSIAN TROOPS ADVANCING THROUGH A POLISH TOWN. 



Vladimii'-Volyntk, a foi'tified position of con- 
siderable importance. His chief object was 
to detain in this quarter any Russian troops 
which might come up from Odessa and the 
east, and to protect General Dankl's right 
flank and rear. He was la\'ishly provided with 
cavalry, with which he proceeded at once to 
harry and raid the frontier at various points. 

Even before DankJ had reached Russian soil 
spluttering hostilities had begun all along the 
Volhynian border of Galicia. According to 
reports received in St. Petersbiu-g the Austrians 
commenced operations 12 hovii-s before the 
declaration of war, on August 6, by firing on the 
Russian frontier posts at W'oloczysk, ^\ herc^ the 
Lemberg-Odessa railway line crosses the fron- 
tier close to the border of Podolia. They also 
blew up an arch of the railway bridge, but did 
not cross the frontier. A few miles to the soutli 
of that point on the same day, however, the 
frontier seems to ha\-e been penetrated in botli 
directions by raiding parties in the neigiibour- 
hood of Tonioruda and Satanov. These 
affairs, however, were mere fireworks. More 
serious matters soon showed that the 2nd 
Austrian Ai'my in tliis quarter was to find no 
-sucli complaifsaut recejition as was being 



accorded to the early advances of the 1st Army 
further to the north. 

On August 11 reports from Vienna spoke of 
a Russian cavalry demonstration, backed by 
machine guns, against Brody, a town on the 
Lemberg-Kieff railway a couple of miles on the 
Austrian side of the frontier. Two days later 
more significant news came from St. Peters- 
burg. An Austrian advance m some strength 
had apparently been nneditated in the direction 
of Vladimir-Volynsk, but before the Austrians 
could cross the border the Russian cavalry 
struck them, and struck unexpectedly hard, 
at Sokal, the terminus of the railway line 
fo Rawa-Ruska and Lemberg. Two Austrian 
infantry battalions and three regiments of 
cavalry are believed to have suffered here very 
severely, and the Austrian force fell back 
towards Lemberg in some confusion. The 
news of the affair at Sokal caused great re- 
joicing in Russia. In view of the number of 
troops engaged, its importance seemed at the 
time to be exaggerated. But these were early 
days of tlio war. A success at this point, 
moreover, on the flanks of both Austrian 
Armies, had evident strategic value, tuid the 
Sokal incident wtvs nuieli the most important 



248 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



'that had yet occurred on tliis front. The 
'Russian success in it was smartly achieved and 
excellently complete. It was then accepted 
as of happy augury for Russia ; while to von 
Auffenberg it showed, at least, that the enemy 
was less unready than had been supposed. 

Russia was very far from being unready. 
Four days after the Sokal affair it was officially 
announced from St. Petersburg that the general 
advance of the Russian Armies against Austria 
liad begun, as it also began against Germany in 
the north, it being then the seventeenth day 
after mobilization. 

The chief command of the armies on this front 
was in the hands of General Nikolas Ruzsky. 
General Ruzsky had been Cliief of Staff to 
General Kaulbars in the Japanese War and had 
taken a conspicuous part in the reform of the 
Russian military system which followed. What 
%vas, perhaps, more important, he had been for 
some time commander of the military district 
of Kieff, where he had not only brought the 
organization to a high degree of efficiency and 
Was worshipped by his men, but he had made 
it his business to render himself thoroughly 
familiar with the topography of this southern 
frontier country. He had here the advantage 
which von Hindenburg possessed in East 



Prussia. There was probably no highly- 
placed oilicor on the Austrian side who knew the 
configuration of Galicia to the last stream and 
hill and by-road as it was known to the Russian 
coimnander. General Ruzsky was already 
known as one of Russia's most conscientious 
and most scientific soldiers. He soon showed 
that he was also pre-eminently a fighting 
general, with a capacity for hard liitting and 
vigorous initiative. 

Cooperating with Ruzsky on his left was 
General Alexis Brusiloff, a typical cavalry 
officer, whose active service record dated back 
to the war with Turkey in 1877. 

The total Russian force under these com- 
manders was probably not less than 6.50,000 
men. There were certainly twelve and 
apjjarently fourteen army corps, with several 
divisions of cavalry. Ruzsky, under liis per- 
sonal command, seems to have had eight 
a.'my corps. Brusiloff had not less than five, 
with at least three divisions of Cossack cavalry. 
The practice of adding extra divisions to 
regular army corps, alluded to in a former 
chapter, makes it difficult to estimate the actual 
number of men composing a Russian Army, 
wliich, it may be added, is one of its objects. 
But Ruzsky in the 2nd Russian Army (the 




OIL-WELLS IN GALICIA. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



249 




RUSSIAN TROOPS IN THE HILLY COUNTRY 



1st being that londer Ivanoff, with Ewarts and 
Plehve, at Lublin) had probably over 400,000 
men, and Brusiloff, in the 3rd Army, little if 
any less than 300,000, composed of regiments 
drawn chiefly irom Odessa and Southern 
llussia. Combined they had, perhaps, double 
the strength which at the outset von Auffen- 
berg, with the 2nd Austrian Army, would have 
been prepared to oppose to them. As soon as 
von Auffenberg became aware of the strength 
of the Russian Armies against him, however, he 
drew on the 3rd, or Reserve Army (which, as 
we have seen, had been pushed into Poland as 
far as Kielce) for reinforcements. These troops, 
<'ro.s-;ing the Vistula by means of bridges of 
boats at Josefow, hurried to join him, and 
when the battle wuh really joined the Archduke 
Joseph Ferdinand's Army was operating in 
close contact with that of von Auffenberg. In 
the combined armies on both sides there were 
engaged then, in the operations which followed, 
not less than 1,200,000 men, some advantage 
in numbers still remaining on the side of the 
Russians. 

The Russian offensive definitely began on 
August 17. At the moment when General 
Dankl to the north, with the 1st Austrian Army, 
was finding himself held up in his progress 
towards Lublin, General Ruzsky threw the 
whole weight of his attack against von Auffen- 



berg. The Russian plan of campaign was 
simple but admirable. With his superiority 
in numbers, Ruzsky could afford to aim at 
enveloping the enemy on both flanks. With 
the 2nd, and larger, of the two armies he flung 
himself, advancing along the railway from 
Dubno, at the Austrian left and centre, cross- 
ing the frontier on August 22 and occupying 
Brodj' with only trifhng opposition on the 
following day. On the 22nd also Brusiloff, 
on his left, had crossed the frontier at 
VVoloczysk, the frontier station on the Lem- 
berg-Odessa railway. As the railway line 
changed gauge at the frontier, the Russian 
locomotives and carriages were of no service 
beyond it, and the Austrians, on the enemy's 
approach, had rushed away as much of their 
own rolling stock as they could towards Lemberg 
and destroj'ed what they could not take away. 
As has been explained in a former chapter, 
however, the Ru.ssians were perforce less 
accustomed to rely on railwajs than were tlieir 
opponents, and as soon as they were away from 
railways they much exceeded the Austrians 
in mobility and speed of movement. A good 
wagon road ran parallel to the railway towards 
I^emberg, pushing along which Brusiloff's 
advance cavalry on tiie 23rd hustled tin- 
I'ctreating Austrians, after some three hours' 
fighting, out of Tarnopol. Tlie Austrians 



260 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 




M. KRAVGHENKO, THE WELL-KNOWN RUSSIAN ARTIST, SKETCHING A SUSPECT. 



then fell back on the line of the Ztota Lipa, 
an affluent of the Dniester, which runs almost 
due southward, and on the 25th and 26th there 
was heavy fighting along this stream, especially 
around Brzezany. 

Up to tliis point Brusiloff's Army had 
encountered only the resistance of small 
detachments of the enemy, frontier posts and 
bodies of skirmishers thrown out to delay its 
advance. Xo considerable force of Austrians 
seems to have penetrated here much beyond 
the Ztota Lipa, on the eastern side of which 
there runs a line of small hills, which offered 
an excellent defensive position. Here the 
Austrians had set themselves hurriedly to make 
field works, and they were still at work on the 
trenches when the Cossack cavalry came 
driving the screen of Austrian skirmishers 
before them. The position was too formidable 
for the cavalry to handle alone, and they 
waited for the main body of the army to come 
up. Even then the Austrians offered an un- 
expectedly stubborn resistance, and it took 
two days of sharp fighting before the position, 
which extended some 20 mUes from north to 
south, was finally carried by direct assault, 
and the Austrians fell back, seemingly at 
moderate speed and in good order, in the 



direction of Halicz at the confluence of the 
Gnita Lipa with the Dniester. 

While Brusiloff was thus beginning to press 
von Auffenberg's right, Ruzsky was hammering 
his left and centre. Of tlie details of the 
fightmg there we know little or notliing. After 
crossing the frontier at and between Brody and 
Sokal, Ruzsky's Army spread out on a wide 
front, the centre pushing straight for Busk and 
Krasne in the direct line towards Lemberg, 
while the right, advancing almost due west, 
aimed at driving a wedge in between the army 
of von Auffenberg and that of Dankl to the 
north, and pressed with all its weight on von 
Auffenberg's left. Meanwhile Ruzsky's own 
left felt its way southward towards a junction 
with Brusiloff. The Austrians were forced 
back in all directions, but slowly and resisting 
gallantly. On Ruzsky's right and centre, 
especially, it is known that the fighting was 
sustained and severe and accompam"ed by 
very hea\'y losses on both sides. In liis army 
were some of the ^•ery best of the Russian first 
line troops, and narratives of those who took 
j3art in the operations showed that the Russians 
attacked every kind of position with the same 
recklessness, and the AnstriaiLs. though con- 
tinually overpowered, fought desperately. The 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



2.31 



attention of the Western world was at this time 
engrossed in the stirring events which were 
occurring in France and Belgium, and so little 
v>'as recorded of the operations in Galicia 
beyond the mere statement of the successive 
steps in the Russian advance that the impres- 
sion was created that that advance was an 
easy one. This is far from being the truth. 
General Ruzsky had a week of such stern 
fighting as would at another time have fired 
the world's imagination before he had succeeded 
in forcing his way through on the line from 
Sokal to Tomaszow on the right, and had 
driven the enemy's centre back to the Bug at 
Krasne and across the railway at Zlocow. By 
that time Brusiloff had carried the position on 
the Ztota Lipa, and his right came in touch 
u ith Ruzsky 's left. With this juncture closed 
v\ hat may be considered the preliminary stage 
of the Lemberg campaign. 

Von Auffenberg's Army as yet not only was 
not beaten, but it was hardly shaken. It fell 
back into the strong and carefully prepared 
line of defences in front of Lemberg, stretching 
over a front of some 70 or 80 miles, from near 
Busk in the north to HaUcz on the Dniester in 
the south. Along the greater part of its length 



this line ran through a broken region of vol- 
canic hills, in places very irregular and con- 
taining extinct craters, ending to the south in 
a ridge roughly parallel to the course of the 
Gnita Lipa as far as the Dniester. The rail- 
way running due east of Lemberg skirted the 
northern end of this broken country. North 
of the railway the Austrian left rested on the 
river Bug and the lake district about Krasne. 
It was a line of great natural strength, and mile 
after naile of trenches with extensive barbed 
wire entanglements, and here and there strong 
fortifications of steel and concrete, made it a 
most formidable position to take by assault at 
any point. After the jimcture of Ruzsky and 
Brusiloff, on August 26-27, the Russians lost no 
time in opening the attack along the entire front. 
Knowledge of incidents of the terrific fighting 
which filled the following days is almost 
entirely lacking. Wliat is known is that the 
Russians attacked with fury and with a dis- 
regard for life which undoubtedly cost them 
very dearly. Again and again bayonet charges 
were pushed home, and individual positions 
were taken and retaken. At the end of two 
days the Austrian front was still unbroken, 
but the battle was decided. 




RESERVISTS IN VIENNA. 



25-2 



THE TIMES HISTORY. 'OF THE WAIL 



To General Brusiloff and liis corps com- 
mander, General Radko Dmitrieff (the Bul- 
garian hero of Lule Burgas and Kirk Kilisse), 
belong the lionoui- of the crucial and brilliant 
operation which detennined the fate of the 
battle. After forcing the crossing of the 
Ztota Lipa on August 26, while his right wing 
niade connexion with Ruzsky in the north, 
BrusilofT's left swung wide to the south as far 
as the valley of the Dniester itself. It niu.-t 
have been an extraordinary- inarch. 'J'lie 
country is rough, and not only devoid of rail- 
ways, but almost innocent of roads. On 
August 30 the main bod\r of this flanking force 
had arrived before Halicz, and on the following 
day -the assault began. During that day more 
guns came up, and a furious and, as it proved, 
irresistible attack was concentrated on a point 
on the enen-iy's position near the little village 
of Botszonce. The Austrians fought courage- 
ously, and the condition of the field afterwards, 
the ground everywhere ploughed up with shell 
fire, and almost every yard strewn with frag- 
ments of projectiles and tattered equipment, 
showed how desperate the struggle had been. 
The Russian 9th and 57th infantry seem to 
have carried through the final assault with the 



bayonet under co\er of a \ ery tf)rrent of shell 
fire. Their losses were terrible, but b\- night- 
fall of August 31 a breach some kilometres 
wide had been made in the Austrian position. 

Once the line had been pierced the entire 
Austrian right gave way. A last despairing 
stand seems to have been made in the village 
of Botszonce itself, but the Russian guns, 
pushing forward, imlimbered on ihe very hills 
on which the enemy had fought so stubb irnly, 
and the centre of tlie little town was qui kly 
reduced to a heap of ruins. The I'ctreat of the 
Austrians at this point then became a headlong 
flight. As the Russian offic al statement 
worded it: "The Austrian Army temporarily 
lost all fighting value." The road, strewn 
with abandoned guns, transport, and all the 
flotsam and jetsam of a routed army, showed 
abundant evidences of a panic-stricken stam- 
pede for safety. On the scene of the fighting 
around Botszonce and Halicz the Russians 
buried 4,800 Avistrian dead, and they captured 
32 guns, some of which had been moiuited in 
positions from which they never came into use. 

At Halicz a fine steel bridge spanned the 
river Dniester, and the only thought of the 
extreme right of the broken Austrian Army 




HUNGARIAN LANDWEHR STARTING FOR THE FRONT. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WJR. 



253 




■>" - ^ -.•/ " - .i^-#Wf< -V- 



SUSPENSION BRIDGE CONSTRUCTED BY AUSTRIAN ENGINEEKS. 



seems to have been to get across this bridge. 
But the Russian cavalry was pressing close 
on the heels of the fugitives, and in such haste 
were the Austrian engineers to destroy the 
structure and stop pursuit that, it is said, 
one party blew up the bridge while another 
party was still at work mining one of the piers, 
with the result that all the latter were destroyed 
with the bridge The only other bridge in this 
part of the Dniester, at Chodorow, was also 
destroyed, and the pursuit southward was 
checked until the Russian engineers could throw 
pontoons across the stream. This they suc- 
ceeded in doing on the following day, when 
Cossack cavalry to the strength, it is said, of 
three divisions, crossed the river and caught 
up with the rear of the retreating enemy. 
Not much behind the cavalry followed some 
divisions of Brusiloff's infantry, which, without 
giving the enemy time to take breath, pushed 
on across the south of Lemberg towards Stryj. 

Once the extreme right of the Austrian line 
was shattered, the whole line disintegrated 
rapidly ; the more so as at the other extreme 
Ruzsky had also definitely attained the mastery. 
There also, while every mile of the Austrian 
front was being pitilessly pounded, a wid(^ 



flanking movement was being executed, en- 
veloping the Austrian left from the direction of 
Kamionka. While one end of the Austrian 
line was broken, the other was being bent 
back. On the shortening front the triumphant 
Russians redoubled the fury of their attack, 
and soon the whole Austrian Army was in 
flight, and the great city of Lemberg was in 
possession of the Russians. 

At many points the retreat of von 
Auffenberg's Army became a panic-stricken 
and disorderly rout, the misery of which was 
intensified by a succession of storms and 
drenching rains, by which much of the country 
wa.s flooded. The Russians had suffered 
tremendous losses in the two days, diuring which 
they had flung themselves in a continuous 
succession of reckless charges against the 
Atistrian positions. But those los.ses were 
nothing (ujrnpared to what they now inflicted 
on the enemy. On September 2 the GrantI 
Duke Niciiolas was able to telegraph to the Tsar: 

I uin liappy to gladiloii your Majesty witli (lie news 
of tho victory won by tlic Army of General Hu/.sky under 
Lwow (F^omherfi) after seven days' uninterrupted (indit- 
ing. The Austriiins are retreating in eomploto ilisorder, 
in some places running awav. abandoning guns, riQes. 
artillery parks, and baggage trains. ' 

o — o 



254 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB 




GENERAL DANKL. 

The victorious Russians pressed, almost 
literally, upon their heels. There seems to have 
been, in the first moment of defeat, no attempt 
at any systematic retreat or delaying rear- 
guard action, though it is said that the Austrians 
adopted the rather crude device of placing 
their Slav regiments in the rear. When the 
Russian pursuers discovered the ruse, they are 
reported to have endeavoured to meet it by 
using a high-angle fire with their artillery, so as 
to reach the Austrian troops beyond. If this is 
true, it would in a measure explain the enormous 
number of prisoners that were taken ; and 
there seems no doubt that considerable bodies 
of the retreating troops did svu-render very 
willingly. Austrians afterwards made com- 
plaint that they had been betrayed by their 
Slav comrades, just as, in the disasters which 
were to follow, Germans made similar accusa- 
tions against the Austrians. The Russians 
appear to have taken no less than 64,000 
prisoners, and the lowest estimate of the total 
Austrian losses (including Idlled, wounded, and 
prisoners) was 130,000, and some authorities 
placed them at nearly double that niunber. 
They were certainly very heavy. 

There was at the time much criticism of the 
Austrian commander for failing to rally at, and 
liold, the city of Lemberg itself. The criticism 



is unjustifiable. Thougli it is true tliat th« 
position which had been so stubbornly de- 
fended was over 10 miles east of Lemberg, 
after the line was once broken the city was 
indefensible. We have seen how Brusiloff's 
pursuing army swept to the west of the city. 
Ruzsky was already closing on the place from 
the north. The iimer defences were not sucli 
as to enable the city to resist for any length 
of time. To have attempted to hold it would 
only have been to surrender it to the horrors of 
bombardment, and to sacrifice whatever troops 
were left to defend it. It could not have 
interposed any material obstacle to the Russian 
advance. 

Lemberg or Lwow or Lowenburg was 
originally Leopolis, and was founded in 1259 
by the Ruthenian prince Daniel for liis son 
Leo. It had had a chequered and stormy 
history, having been captured by Casimir the 
Great in 1340, besieged by the Cossacks in 
1648 and 1655, and by the Tiu-ks in 1672, 
captured by Charles XII. of Sweden in 1704, 
and bombarded in 1848. Capital of the crown- 
land of Galicia, it had grown to be a beautiful 
city of parks and wide boulevards, with three 
cathedrals, many churches, and important 
public monuments. It was the seat of a 
University, and contained a most valuable 
library of boolcs and manuscripts, and many 
treasures of antiquarian and liistoric interest. 
After its evacuation in September, 1914, the 
Austrians explained that it was in order to 
save all these treasvires from destruction that 
the place had not been defended. That may 
have been taken into consideration. Certainly, 
the civil population was strongly opposed to its 
being defended. That population was extra- 
ordinarily cosmopolitan, and contained many 
elements — a minority probably, but a very 
strong minority — whose sympathy was with 
Russia, and who welcomed the Russians with 
enthusiasm. What was more important, how- 
ever, was that from a miUtarj' point of view 
the attempt to hold it would have been futile. 

Apart from the moral effect of its capture, 
the actual strategical value to the Russians of 
the possession of Lemberg was of the greatest. 
From it railwaj'^ lines radiated m all directions, 
giving the captors direct communication, subject 
onlj'^ to the inconvenience of the change of gauge 
at the frontier, with Kiefi and Odessa, with their 
fortified positions at Dubno and Rovno and 
thence with Petrograd (the nauie of which had 
now been changed from St. Petersburg), with 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



255 




THH AUSTRIAN FAILURE: IN GALICIA. 

1. Distributing bread to the poor of Vienna. 2. Types of Austrian prisoners. 3. Refugees in Calicin. 
4. Austrian guns captured at I eniherg. 5. Austrian prisoners from I.embcrg. 



250 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



Brpst-Litovsk and Warsaw. Immediatoly after 
crossing the frontier the Russians had begun to 
change a number of raUway engines and car- 
riages to fit the Austrian gauge, but not least 
welcome among the trophies which awaited 
them in Lemberg were thirty locomotives and 
an immense number of railway vehicles of all 
kinds. Tl^ie Russians are said to have rushed 
the station with such rapidity that they caught 
trains loaded with war materials ready to steam 
out. The ability of the Russian Armies to 
operate and move about without the help of 
railways has already been referred to. Through- 
out this campaign hitherto the transport both of 
ammunition and commissariat had been con- 
ducted by road, independently of any railways, 
chiefly in carts diawn by the tough little 
Siberian horses. Few more remarkable inci- 
dents were produced by the war than the 
achievement, inentioned above, of Ruzsky's 
column, which for five or six days " lived on 
the country " in the form of the fruit of the 
orchards, or the feat of Brusiloff in striking 
at Halicz with the rapidity with whicR he did. 
Not only was no defence of Lemberg 
attempted, but very few of the retreating 
Austrian troops passed through the city. 
Various stories crept into contemporary reports 
of hand-to-hand fighting in the streets. These 
seem to have been wholly imaginative. On 
September 3 the Russians entered the citj- 



without a shot being fired and vnthout any sort 
of disturbance or any excesses on the part of 
the victorious troops. The results of the 
great \-ictory were communicated to the pub- 
lic in the following brief official announcement : 

6even days of the most stubborn fighting m Ea<tern 
Galicia have resulted in a complete victory for the 
Russians. Five Austrian Corps were completely 
routed, and are retreating in disordu-r westward, abandon- 
ing their arms and baggage. 

Besides an enormous number of killed, the Austrians 
lost not less than 40,000 prisoners, inclu.ling many 
generals. The roads of retreat of the Austrians are so 
encumbered with carts, guns, and impedimenta that the 
pursuing troops are unable to use the roads. 

Panic is spreading among the Austrian troops. During 
the seven days the Russians have taken over 200 guns, 
■several colours, and about 70,000 prisoners. Lwow 
(Lemberg) is in our hands. 

The news of the victory was received in 
Russia with almost frenzied jubilation. Grand 
Dulce Nicholas conveyed the information of 
the occupation of Lemberg to the Tsar " with 
extreme joy and thanking God." General 
Ruzsky received the Fourth Class of the Order 
of St. George for " liis services in the preceding 
battles " and the Third Class for the capture 
of Lemberg. General Brusiloff received the 
Fourth Class of the same Order. Thanks- 
giving services were held throughout the 
Russian Empire to celebrate " the reunion 
with Galicia " and General Count Bobrinsky 
was appointed Governor-General of the pro- 
vince. Everywhere it was felt that the imoor- 




UFFICERS' QUARTERS IN AN AUSTRIAN TRENCH. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



257 




AN ABANDONED AUSTRIAN REDOUBT NEAR LEMBERG. 



tance of the indirect effects of tliis victory, 
in the disconcerting of all the German plans 
on both fronts, could hardly be exaggerated. 

It is now necessary to turn to the theatre 
ot operations further to the north. Here, it 
will be remembered, was the scene of the chief 
Austrian offensive, by the 1st Army under 
General Dankl, who was believed to have mider 
his command between 300,000 and 400,000 men. 
We left him, in the middle of August, hung up 
by the armies of Generals Ewarts and Plehve, 
which barred his way towards Lublin and 
Kholm. For the moment the Russians were 
content merely to bar his way. They were 
gathering strength, and waited their time to 
strike until Danld's Army was safely cut off 
from reinforcements and until their advance 
would synchronize with the fruition of the ad- 
vance of Ruzsky and Brusiloff on Lemberg. 
It was not until September 6 that a characteris- 
tically simple official announcement was made 

in Petrograd : 

Our armies on September i assumed the offensive 
along a front between the Vistula and the Bug. 

The announcement was received by the Rus- 
sian people, flushed and rejoicing over the 
victory of Lemberg, with immense enthusiasm. 

It will be remembered that in the advance of 
Ruzsky's formidable army, part of the Austrian 
Reserve Army, under Archduke Joseph Ferdi- 
nand, had been hastily withdrawn from its 
position in Poland on the left of the Vistula, 
across the rear of Dankl's Army, to help General 
von Auffenberg. The Austrian General Staff, 
in a communique published on September 3, 



referred to this movement as an " advance." 
It seems undoubted that even at that early 
date some German troops were also being 
brought up on the same errand. Part of the 
Austrian reinforcements were absorbed into 
the army of von Auffenberg and had shared 
his catastrophe. Part remained to screen 
Dankl's right flank. From this time onward, 
however, it is extremely difficult to trace the 
organization of the Austrian Armies, the fact 
being that, under stress of the emergency, that 
organization was continually changing. The 
plans of the campaign had been drawn up on 
the assumption of a successful and victorious 
advance. As soon as things went wrong, 
their weakness appeared. When Auffenberg' a 
Army began to get into difficulties and ita 
advance was checked, the gap betAveen its left 
and Dankl's right and rear grew uncomfort- 
ably wide. The hurrying of the troops from 
the left bank of the Vistula was an effort to 
fill that gap. Then, as the Russian strength 
grew daily more apparent, an entire new 
Austrian Army was hastily fonned, composed, 
apparently, of parts of the Archduke Joseph 
Ferdinand's (3rd or Reserve) Army, increased 
by two corps withdrawn from the Serbian fron- 
tier and some indeterminate number of German 
troops. This 4th Army, which appears to have 
been under the command of the Arclidiike, 
was hereafter spoken of in the Russian official 
annovmcements as the " Toniaszow Army." 
German troops from Breslau were also brought 
up to strengthen Dankl's left, whicli lay upt)u 
the Vistula at Opolie. 



258 



THE TIMES hislOEY OF THE WAPx. 




BATTERY OF HEAVY HOWITZERS. 



During the last days of August and the first 
few days of September there was a good deal 
of confused fighting between detached forces on 
either side in the frontier region between 
Zamosc and Sokal. From Berlin and Vienna 
official claims were made to some minor suc- 
cesses, which a semi-official statement from 
Petrograd immediately declared to be " wilful 
falsehoods." Out of the mass of reports and 
contradictions, clamis and counter-claims, all 
that emerges clearly is that the Russian wedge 
was successfully driven through to Tomaszow, 
where the Austrians suffere'd a severe and 
definite defeat, contemporary reports asserting 
that among their slain were two generals. 
From here the Austrians seem to have fallen 
back to the swampy eovmtry about Bilgoraj 
and upon Tarnogrod. These Russian suc- 
cesses put a final barrier between the two great 
sections of the Austrian forces. All interest 
now centred in the fate of Dankl's 1st Army. 

The fighting on the Lublin-Kholiu front, 
entirely defensive at first on the j^art of the 
Russians, had grown sterner day by day until 
it became one continuous battle along the 
whole line. With the defeat of von Auffeii- 
berg, and the threat to its right and rear, the 
situation of the northern army became so 
evidently critical that it was necessary for 
General Danlil to force a decision. Either he 



must break tlirough the Russian defence or 
fall back. A last desperate effort to pierce 
the wall of resistance between Lublin and 
Ivliolm was made on September 2. when the 
10th Austrian Army Corps led the attack 
against the weaker portioii of the Russian line, 
and it appears to have reached to within 11 
miles of Lublin. There it was beaten back 
with heavy losses. In the retirement 5,000 
prisoners were left in Russian hands. With 
this effort the Aastrian offensive spent itself, 
and the game passed into the enemy's hands. 
The Russian offensive definitely began, we 
have seen, on September 4 ; and it began aits- 
piciously. " The enemy's centre, lying in the 
region west of Ivi-asuostaw," said the imper- 
turbable Russian official announcement two 
days later (Krasnostaw being almost due 
north of Zamosc, about lialf-way to the centre 
of a line drawn from Lublin to Kholm). " wa.*; 
particularly disorganized. The 45th Austrian 
Regiment was surrounded and surrendered, 
including the colonel, 44 officers, and 1,600 
men." The same annoiuicement contained 
the interesting information that " a (German 
Division, coming to the relief of the Austrians, 
was attacked on the left bank of the Vistula." 
Tlie Russian troops there must presvunably 
have come from Iwan'_'orod. But Russian 
armies were indeed "growing out of the 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



•259 



(>urth " ; and nothing is more strilcing in the 
whole of this Gahcian campaign than the 
accuracy with which the Russian General 
Staff took the measure of their enemy's 
strategy at every point, and the promptitude 
with which it met and countered each move. 

When once the Austrian 1st Army had 
started to retreat it was given no rest, and it is 
impossible to regard this phase of the opera- 
tions in Gahcia without profound sympathy 
with Dankl's Army and some admiration for it. 
In some ways it might be compared to the 
falling back of the British Army from Mons. 
There was not, however, on any part of the 
Austrian front the same terrible pressure from 
a hopelessly overwhelming force. There is 
good evidence indeed that over much of the 
front — the Austrian right-centre — the Russians 
were in a numerical inferiority. That was im- 
material, however, retreat being necessary to 
the Austrians as the only alternative to being 
left isolated and ultimately destroyed. As in 
France, the movement was strategically obli- 
gatory in conformity with the movement of 
another army, which army was also falling back 
from the right. And the spectacle of tlir 



Austrian retreat is uiade the more dreadful 
by the mere size of the army. The front on 
which the army of something over 300,000 
men lay extended was approximately 80 miles. 
As it fell back, the left wing hemmed in by tlie 
river Vistula and the right subject to con- 
tinuovis pressure from the Russian forces to the 
east, where swampy country, moreover, barred 
a direct retreat, this front was continually con- 
tracting. By the time the army reached the San, 
the crossing of which, so far as the bulk of the 
force was concerned, had to be made by some 
four or five bridges at different points, the 
front had contracted to less than 40 miles. 
That such a movement might easily have 
degenerated into a panic, accompanied by 
awful slaughter, until the whole army had 
either been obliterated or had surrendered is 
evident. In Russia some such termination to 
the incident was looked forward to with some- 
thing like confidence, and it was evident that 
in other countries also the fate of the Austrian 
1st Army was regarded as practically sealed. 
General Dankl deserves full credit for, at 
least, escaping this final catastrophe, however 
serious his losses were. 




AUSTRIAN CHIEF OF STAFF. 



260 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



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MAP ILLUSTRATING THR GALICIAN CAMPAIGN. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



261 



The high -water-mark of the Austrian advance 
on this front would be represented by a Uno 
drawn from Opolie on the Vistula, through 
Krasnostaw to Grabiowiec, whence the line 
curved southward in the direction of Tyszowce, 
in the region of which place it was that the 
Austrian General Staff had claimed one of the 
successes which Petrograd had so promptly 
denied. We have seen how the Russian 
advance against this front, from the direction 
of Lublin and Kholm, had begun with the 
" disorganization " of the Austrian centre at 
Krasnostaw. The next blow was delivered 
at the Austrian left, beginning at Opolie and 
thence developing all along the line to Tm-obin. 
With sound strategy it was on this wing of the 
Russian Army that the chief strength had been 
concentrated, leaving other parts of the line, 
as has already been said, comparatively weak. 
All new troops that came up had been hurried 
over to the right wing, on the reasoning that, 
even if the Austrians succeeded in brealdng 
through the front where it was weaker, near 
K^holm, it would only make their being ulti- 
mately surrounded the more certain. 

The Russian attack on this Opolie-Turobin 
section of the line seems to have been irresis- 
tible, the enemy being driven southward, 
parallel to the course of the Vistula, in con- 
fusion. Many of the fugitives threw away their 
arms in panic, and for nineteen miles the Russian 
cavalry was busy with the demoralized rear- 
guard of the flying enemy. From here on, 
it was a continual rimning fight, the Russians 
never cea-«ing to press, the Austrians defending 
their rear as well as they could while making 
all speed to get away, and they were now 
traversing again imder vastly different cir- 
cumstances the coimtry over which they had 
advanced so easily and so triumphantly two 
or three weeks before. There seems to have 
been particularly desperate fighting at 
Suchodola and again at Krasnik, where two 
German D visions appear to have been engaged, 
the officers of which afterwards declared that 
the Austrians broke and deserted them. At 
Frampol there is record of a brilliant Russian 
cavalry charge. Thence the Austrian left was 
forced back into the morasses about Bilgoraj, 
while the right and centre were crowded 
together as they neared the river San. By 
this time 10,000 prisoners had been sent back 
to Lublin At Frampol one Cossack regiment 
is said to have captured 17 Austrian officers, 
445 men, and many horses belonging to a trans- 




COUNT BOBRINSKY. 
Russian Governor-General of Ga.icia. 

port train. At a point below Zamosc one 
Russian infantry regiment took 700 prisoners, 
including many officers. One Russian subal- 
tern with three orderlies is said to have taken 
80 prisoners, and a spectator spoke of the 
Austrians as " siirrendering in companies and 
battalions." Among the booty taken here- 
abouts was the treasure chest of the 17th 
Regiment of the Landwehr, containing 140.000 
crowns. Such details give an idea of the char- 
acter of the retreat, on which the Austrians 
are said to have suffered badly from dysentery, 
as was shown by the nuraber of patients in 
the hospitals in towns which were occupied 
by the Russians. 

It is necessary to stop here for a while in the 
narrative, because contemporary writers on 
this phase of the campaign developed a theory 
of what was known as " the battle of tho 
Grodek line." It was declared that somewhere 
about Bilgoraj Dankl's retreating' army got 
in touch with von Auffenberg's left and, 
uniting with it, rallied and took its place in 
the northern section of a carefully prepared 
line of defence which reached, from somewhere 
about this point, through Rawa-Raska to 
Grodek at the extreme soutli. It was asserted 
that on this line both the shattered Austrian 
Ai'mies pulled themselves together and again 



262 



THE I'lMKS HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




A RUSSIAN SEARCHLIGHT. 

offered a firm and united front to the enemy. 
Against them, it was said, the whole combined 
Russian Armies also fell into line, so that about 
2,500,000 men confronted each other and 
then joined battle along their entire .front. 
This is only very partially true. 

While von AufTenberg's Army had been hold- 
ing the position before Lemberg, there htul, 
indeed, been prepared a new line of defence in 
its rear, which ran from Grodek to Rawn- 
Ruska, and thence, apparently, along tiie rail- 
way line towards Xarol. It was a fine achiexc- 
ment on the part of an army which had been 
handled as rouglil\- as tliis had been to pull 
itself together at once after a precipitate fiiglit 
and resolutelj'^ take up this new position. 
Very probably, also, as the Russian wedge 
driven in bet\\ een the two armies at Tomaszow 
had not as yet, apparently, penetrated as far 
as Tarnogrod, the extreme left of von Auft'en- 
berg's forces, or those of the Archduke, which 
prolonged von Auffenberg's front at this point, 
may well at some time have been in momentary 
touch with tiie fringe of Dankl's Anny on its 
way to the San. But there w as at no time an\ 
definite and combined stand. The gi'eat mass 
of Dankl's Anny fell back without pavise, 
anxious only to get across the river. None tiie 
less, the "battle of the Grodek line,"' even 
though IJankl's Army must be excluded from 
any iJarticipation in it (as also must the pm-- 



suing Ru.s.sian Army), was one of the gieat 
episodes of the campaign. 

We do not know the extent of the reinforce- 
ments which had been sent up from Au-stria 
or what the "stiffening" of German troops 
amounted to. According to . some accounts, 
von Auffenberg had no fewer than ten armv 
corps under him around Lemberg. The total 
losses to the Austrian Armies by this time must 
have exceeded 200,000 men. But it was 
jilso said that additional troops, both German 
and Austrian, from Przemysl, had been hurried 
up after the fall of Lemberg into the position 
at Grodek, and that the troops which the 
Russians met there were largely new regiments 
w hich had not gone tiirough the disheartening 
experiences of the campaign. It may well be 
tliat from Grodek to Rawa-Ruska and beyond 
there were engaged on this line in the combined 
armies on both sides over 1,250,000 men. The 
length of the line was about 60 miles, but over 
much of this distance the fighting was unimpor- 
tant, as the struggle concentrated more and 
more on certain crucial points. The two most 
critical of these points were Grodek on the ex- 
treme south, where the Austrians occupied 
a position of great strength, and Rawa-Ruska. 

The Austrians had the advantage of occu- 
pying positions which, if hastily, had been 
efficiently prepared since, and, perhaps, in 
anticipation of a retreat, before the battle of 
Lemberg. Their right at Grodek was protected 
by Nature against a turning movement, and 
they had good railway commimications in their 
rear. On the other hand, they had alreatly 
in the mass, if not all regiments individually, 
been defeated, Axhile the Russians were con- 
fident and flushed with victory. On the whole 
front the Russians also appear to have had a 
numerical superiority. They attacked at all 
points with the same conquering impetuosity 
as thej^ had shown since the beginning of the 
war. 

The battle was joined fii-st round the positions 
at Grodek, into which the Austrians had 
retreated, or been di-iven, immediately after 
the captvu"e of Lemberg. It was the extreme 
north of the line, however, which first began 
to gi\e %\ay. The Austrians were unable to 
make any prolonged stand here, where the 
enemy, besides attacking furiously from in 
front, proceeded to envelop their left. The 
fighting here went on confusedly over a wide 
area. Of it we have only fi'aginentary glimpsi^ 
of scattered units strngglinc in a broken and 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



263 



uiarshj' country, ^^'e know that at several 
places considerable numbers of Austrian 
prisoners were taken, and, long afterwards, 
the Russians were finding Austrian guns and 
batteries entangled in the swamps. In the 
result, this upper part of the AiLstrian line was 
steadily forced back, fighting desperately as it 
went, until the whole line became doubled back 
on itself at an acute angle from Rawa-Ruska. 
At this point the fighting was of a truly terrific 
character. 

The town of Rawa-Ruska was a typical small 
Galician city, chiefly populated by Jews. Most 
of the town was very old, but a modern settle- 
ment had grown up near the railway station, 
for Rawa-Ruska was one of the important 
railway centres of this portion of Galicia. Two 
lines here crossed one another, one running 
north-westerly from Lemberg to the Polish 
frontier at Narol, the other a branch of the 
main line to Cracow, from a point near Jaroslau 
to the frontier at Sokal. Big railway works 
and round houses, besides extensive sidings 
and storage yards, made it an important 
centre of communication. To the east of the 
town a number of low-lying ridges commanded 
the approach from every direction except the 



west. Both for its strategic importance and its 
defensibility, it was evidently marked out as a 
place to be held if possible, and as the northern 
wing of the Austrians was forced back, the 
fighting here became more and more acute. 

It is not often that on the vast, extended front 
of modern battlefields one can put one's finger 
on any point and say : " Here the battle was 
decided." But in this battle of the Grodek line 
Rawa-Ruska was such a point. One can even 
pick out one bit of land, only ten acres, which was 
the key to the entire position. As the whole 
huge battle began to develop, the importance 
of this small area became accentuated, and it is 
probable that in the whole war there was no 
more bitter and furious fighting waged in such 
a small area as occurred around Rawa-Ruska, 
and especially on these bloody ten acres. 

The defences on the point of the angle of the 
Austrian line, just behind which nestled the 
little Galician city, probably did not have a 
front exceeding six or, at most, eight miles. 
Yet we are told that for eight days between 
250,000 and 300,000 men fought here con- 
tinuously both night and day. After two days 
the Russians concentrated on the angle, the 
very apex of the whole, which had its point on 




AUSTRIAN TRENGHhS, SHOWING COVERED SHELTERS AND TRAVERSES. 



2G4 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



tlie bluffs at the edge of the ten acres. What 
happened there was hardly less to the credit of 
the Austrians than it was to that of their 
victorious enemy In view of the rapidity and 
comprehensiveness of the Russian successes in 
Galicia, there had been a tendency everywhere 
to decry the valour of the Austrian soldiery. 
The Germans seem to have shared this view. 
As a matter of fact, whatever shortcomings 
there may have been in the organization or the 
strategy of the Austrian Army, there was 
abundant evidence from a score of battlefields 
in Galicia that the men fought gallantly. 
Nowhere was the evidence more convincing than 
here in this angle at Rawa-Ruska. A special 
correspondent of The Times inspected the battle- 
field very shortly afterwards, and described 
it in detail. 

For eight whole days the Rvissian infantry 
assaulted and stormed against the heights that 
defended this angle. The Austrians in a single 
mile made stands at no fewer than eight distinct 
points. Some of these were taken and retaken 
several times before being evacuated, and their 
evacuation then spelled only a retreat of a few 
hundred yards and a more determined resist- 
ance. There is one incredible position which the 
enemy held in a stubble field for hours, while a 
better position was being dug a few himdred 
yards behind in a small dip in the ground. 



For a mile or more across this field one could 
trace where the Austrian line had lain, for there 
was not a yard unmarked by bloody bandages, 
relics of equipment, and exploded shell frag- 
ments, while so thick had been the rain of 
shrapnel that from almost every clod of earth 
broken in the hand it was possible to sift out a 
few of the little leaden balls. The reputation 
of soldiers who could Ue in that hideous place 
needs no defending. 

Two or three hundred yards behind this line, 
just over a small swell in the ground, is another 
line, this time of fairly deep trenches, and here 
the Austrians held on for several days. At one 
time the Russians took the trench, but were not 
strong enough for the moment to push beyond 
it, so they dug themselves in on their side, 
only to be dislodged again on the next day by 
the Austrians. So one saw the curious sight of 
a ridge of earth with a trench on each side, the 
one filled with Russian relics and the other 
with Austrian. 

Once it became evident, however, that this 
was the strategic centre of the whole conflict, 
the Russians were not to be denied, and so, day 
after day and inch by inch, they drove back 
the Austrians until at last they had them in a 
deep trench on the slope of the crest of the final 
ridge of hills defending the town itself. Just 
over the ridge were concentrated the Austrian 




SHELLPROOF TRENCH. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



265 




LEMBERG MARKET. 



batteries. Standing on the gun positions one 
could, with a pair of field glasses, pick out 
distinctly the eight lines of defence which the 
Austrians tried to hold and the Russians had 
taken. But with their recoil the resistance of 
the blue-clad soldiers became more and more 
desperately stubborn. The last trench was not 
above 400 yards in front of their own guns, 
and the Russians seem to have been quite 
unable to make any headway against it until 
they brought up and massed a number of 
batteries of their heavy field howitzers. Then, 
deliberately, in a patient and painstaking way, 
they proceeded slowly but surely to destroy 
with their big shells the entire front of the 
Austrian position. It was possible to read the 
evidence of this operation afterwards, not in 
the trenches, for it was hard to see where they 
were, but in the unbroken line of shell holes, 
each 10 feet across and 5 feet deep, which 
extended for hundreds of yards along the 
former Austrian line. A man could walk for 
nearly half a mile stepping from one crater to 
another, while the ground in and between and 
all around was strewn with shreds and patches 
of blue uniform, with fragments of equipment 
and relics of humanity. Here a clenched hand, 
there a foot sticking out of a boot, and, again. 



a soldier's overcoat ripped into ribbons, told 
what sort of execution the Russians howitzers 
did when once they came into action. 

Yet, in spite of it all, it seems that the 
Austrians stayed on here for above a day, 
when at last, at the point of the bayonet, the 
Russians carried the whole crest of the hill 
and captured the few gims which had not 
already been put oiit of action. This wiis the 
decisive moment in the whole great confiict on 
the Grodek line, and when the grey-clad 
soldiers of the Tsar swept over this ridge tlio 
issue of the day was settled. From the centre, 
in those bloody ten acres, now strewn with 
dead and wounded men and mangled horses 
(for an effort had been made to support the 
position with mounted infantry), the Russian 
wedge spread north and south, and by nightfall 
the Austrian centre was broken and the Rus- 
sians were dropping shells into the outsldrts 
of Rawa-Ruska. Behind the shells cauxe the 
ardent Russian soldiers with such promptness 
as to make any attempt to rally and hold the 
town itself impossible. According to the 
Russian official statement, the booty captured 
at Rawa-Rviska included 30gims, 8,000 prisonei-s, 
and " enormous stores of ammunition and 
food." 



m\ 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 




A RUSSIAN PATROL. 



Even had the Austrians been able to hold 
Rawa-Ruska against the direct Russian attack. 
however, it could not long have delayed the 
inevitable issue of the great battle. Alreadx- 
events were shaping themselves on the southern 
end of the line in such a way that the position 
of Rawa-Ruska would have been enveloped 
on the rear, and its defenders must have been 
surrounded and either annihilated or captured. 

On September 8 the Russian official covi- 
miinique announced that " our armies attacked 
strongly fortified positions at Grodek." 
Apparently these attacks began as early as 
September 6, when the Russian northern army 
was engaged in driving the enemy back from 
Frampol to Bilgoraj. The defences of Grodek, 
including the position at Sadowa-Wisznia, 
were reported to be very strong, being pro- 
tected by a series of six connecting lakes and 
much marshy ground cut up by dykes. The 
Russians were under General Brusiloff, who 
repeated here the tactics of massed and con- 
tinuous assault with which he had overcome 
the Austrian resistance at Halicz. The Aus- 
trian position was on a cluster of wooded hills, 
to reach which the Russians had to cross a 
plain some three miles wide in a series of 
parallels under machine gun and rifle fire. It 
was only after five days' fighting that they 
succeedea in attaining a position from which 
their guns could effectively reach the Austrian 
trenches. These, when finally cleared witli 



the bayonet, were found to be almost choktd 
with dead bodies. Austrian prisoners declared 
that they had had no regular supplies for four 
days, but had lived on wild pears and raw 
potatoes while they fought from the trenches, 
the living lying alongside decaying corpses, 
for the Russians had given them no time, night 
or day, in which to bury their dead. These are 
all the details which we have of what must 
have been truly terrible fighting, the successful 
issue of which was communicated to the world 
on Septeinber 14 in one of the simply-worded 
and restrained annovmcements in which the 
Russian Headquarters Staff habitually con- 
veyed the news of most momentovas events : 

The army of General Brusiloff, againi^t whom the 
Austrians made their last desperate onslaught, has on 
taking the offensive captured many guns, prisoners, 
and artillery parks, the numbers of which are now being 
reckoned. General Brusiloff testifies that his troops 
displayed the highest energy, stanchness, and gallantry. 
The corps commanders calmly and resolutely directed 
their troops and frequently wrested the victory at 
critical moments. General Brusiloff specially mentions 
the distinguished services of General Radko Dmitrieff." 

From the references to the " desperate 
onslaughts " of the enemy and to " critical 
moments " we can gather something of the 
stubbornness of the fighting of the eight days 
since the attack on Grodek began. In a 
campaign on a less gigantic scale, less crowded 
with dreadful and sanguinary incidents, the 
carrying of the defences of Grodek would have 
stood out as an event of the first importance. It 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



267 



will come to be recognized as one of the bril- 
liant and critical episodes of the war. At the 
time, on the day following the vmassnming 
communication quoted above, the Grand 
Duke Nicholas merely announced that, " The 
Russians, after occupying Grodek, reached 
Mocziska, and are now within one march of 
Przemysl." 

At the same time, while Brusiloff's centre 
was "reaching Mocziska" (about 40 miles 
west of Lemberg), his left was pushing south- 
westerly along the railway line to Sambor, arid 
on to ChjTow, wliich latter place, however, was 
not occupied ixntil September 24, thus isolating 
the fortress of Przemysl from the south. 
Brusiloff's men, when Grodek fell, had been 
fighting and marching continuously for more 
than three weeks. They had already performed 
extraordinary feats of endurance, but they 
hunted the flying Austrians from Grodek with 
the same pitiless impetuosity as they had dis- 
played in hunting them from HaUcz. 

Meanwliile, further north, as we have seen, 
Rawa-Ruska had fallen. Ruzsky was not, any 
more than BrusUoff, the type of commander to 
give a beaten enemy any rest, and while the 
latter was driving the Austrian right from 
Grodek to Chyrow on the south of Przemysl, 
Ruzsky, with equal vigour, was following up 
his success and sweeping the shattered remnants 
of the army which had opposed him along the 
railway towards Sieniawa, wliich was occupied 
on the same day, September 18, as Brusiloff 
captured Sambor, and Jaroslau, which latter 
place was carried ]:)y assault on September 21. 



On the \A"aj- there was heavy fighting aroimd 
Javorow, 15 miles east of Przemysl, when the 
Russians claimed to have captiu-ed 5,000 
prisoners and 30 gims. Thus Przemysl was 
cut off on the east, north, and south, and behind 
its defences the remnants of von Auffenberg's 
Army took refuge. 

Events no less momentous, and equally 
disastrous to the Austrian arms, had also been 
going on where Danld's Army had been falling 
back before Generals Ewarts and Plehve. 
We have seen that the continuity of the Aus- 
trian line of defence had not been made good 
in the region north-west of Rawa-Ruska, 
though it extended beyond the frontier between 
Tomaszow and Tarnogrod. After the battle 
at Tomaszow the line of the Archduke Joseph 
Ferdinand above Rawa-Ruska to that point 
had been bent back on to the Rawa-Ruska- 
Jaroslau railway, while the main body of 
Dankl's Army was falling back to the line of the 
San. The Russian pressure on its rear never 
relaxed. That pressure was particularly severe 
from the Russian right, which, after clearing 
the Opolie-Turobin district, had fought the 
battle of Krasnik. The greater part of the 




AUSTRIAN TEI.EGKAPH CORPS. 



268 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 




LOADING A RUSSIAN GUN. 



Austrian troops crossed the San close to its 
junction with the Vistula, and they must have 
hoped that while they, on the other side, would 
be in touch with the Austrian railways, the 
river behind them would form a barrier against 
their piirsviers. But the operation of crossing 
was to cost them dearly. 

Foreseeing the necessity of falling back 
across the San, General Dankl had, it seems, 
been sending his transport back in advance 
of his retreat almost since the retirement began. 
Some of the transport trains had been seen and 
shelled from the left bank of the Vistula as 
early as September 9. It was not until Septem- 
ber 12 that the army itself reached the banks 
of the San. While the main body and the 
baggage were getting across, two strong rear- 
guards, to north and east, were left to hold 
back the pursuing Russians. One of these rear- 
guards had its left protected by the Vistula, 
the other's right was protected by the San ; 
the two forming a bow or arch between the two 
streams. Attack on their front was made 
difficult by marshy ground. They seem to 
have been quite unable, however, to withstand 
the Russian assault, which pierced the screen 
long before the crossing of the river was com- 
pleted. An immense number of prisoners, 
said to have been 30,000, fell into the Russian 
hands, and there was terrible loss of life as the 



Russian artillery came up and shelled the 
bridges over which the Austrians were pressing 
in solid masses. Besides those killed by shell 
fire, many are said to have been forced into 
the river and drowned. 

Nor did the Austrians find any rest on the 
further side of the river. In theory, the 
forcing of the passage of the San by an army 
invading Austria should have been an almost 
impossible task. The Austrians had spent 
immense sums of money in the endeavour to 
make it so. The upper, or southern, part of 
its course was protected by the immensely 
strong position of Przemysl and by Jaroslau. 
Thence a light railway, built purely for strategic 
purposes, ran parallel and close to it.s left bank 
almost to its confluence with the Vistula. At 
various places, as the Austrians fell back, they 
destroyed the bridges behind them. Had they 
destroyed them all, the 1st Army would have 
had at least a few days' rest. But the Russians 
in their advance were too swift. By a brilliant 
stroke they rushed, captured and made good 
their hold on the bridge at Krzeszov, on the 
frontier a few miles west of Tarnogrod. In 
the words of an official communique from 
Petrograd " the Russian soldiers leaped across 
the river on the very shoulders of the retreating 
enemy." 

This victory on the San, with the crossing of 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



i> 



the river, stands out as one of the conspicuous 
achievements of the campaign. What the 
Austrian losses were, in addition to the 30,000 
prisoners taken, there is no \\ ay of estimating, 
but they were very heavy. What Avas more 
important was tliat the barrier wliich the 
Austrians had hoped to interpose between 
themselves and their ruthless enemies had failed 
them. Except that they were now in touch with 
their railways and within reach of safetj'. at 
least for the moment, under the shelter of 
C'racow, there was no more respite for the 
Austrians within the "riverine triangle" 
formed by the Vistula and the San than there 
liad been above it. Within that triangle the 
Riissians seized a prodigious amount of war 
material, supplies, and booty of all kinds. 
With the dash on Krzeszov, moreover, the last 
of the Austrian armies of invasion had been 
driven off Russian soil in this quarter. There 
was no longer an enemy left in the i'ro\inces 
of VolhjTiia or Podolia. 

Nor was this all. ^Mention has been made 
above of the fact that Russian troops, based on 
Iwangorod, had intercepted German reinforce- 
ments on the left side of the Vistula as the\^ 
hurried across Poland to the lielp of Austria. 



From that side of the river Russian gims liad 
also shelled Austrian transports retreating along 
the right bank. As the Russian right pressed 
on the retiring Austrians, it had been able to 
spare a considerable body of troops, which it had 
thrown across the Vistula at Josefow. These 
troops, reinforcing the Russian force already on 
that side of the river, had s\Aept southward 
parallel to the advance of the main army on tlie 
right bank, brushing aside any enemy forces 
which they met, effectually preventing any help 
from reaching the Austrians from that quarter, 
and, finally, at the same time when their com- 
rades on the right bank were delivering the final 
blow to the Austrians at the crossing of the San, 
tliey, on the opposite side of the Vistula, drove a 
strong Austrian force out of, and occupied, the 
important place of Sandomierz. Near San- 
domierz the Russians are said to have en- 
countered and defeated the German 2nd 
Landwelir Corps under General Woirsch. In 
and around the town tliej- appear to have 
taken 3,000 prisoners and 10 guns. 

This advance down tiie left banlc of the 
\'istula, with the occupation of Sandomierz, is a 
final detail illustrating the comprehensiveness 
of the Russian strategy and the precision with 




ADVANCE COSSACK PATROL. 



27C 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 




VIEW FROM OBSERVATION STATION ABOVE HALIGZ. 



which their movements worked in unison. 
It will be well to stop for a moment in the 
narrative to survey the course of events during 
this fateful month. 

It naust be remembered that Russia, more 
or less incompletely i^repared, found herself 
invaded over a wide front by armies operating 
in three different directions, and aggi'egating 
in the neighbourhood of one million n:ien. 
Her soldiers immediately saw and seized upon 
the weak point in the enemy's plans. The 
farther two invading armies operating on 
divergent lines penetrate into an enemy's 
covintry the wider must they become separated, 
and the more difficult it be for them to co- 
operate or for either to act as a shield to the 
other's flanks. The Russians were content, 
then, to allow the northern 1st Austrian Army 
to press on, almost unresisted, to within 
artillery range of its first main objective — 
LubUn and the railway line to Iwangorod and 
Warsaw. They then struck, and struck with 
decisive force, at the weak place between the 
two armies in the neighbourhood^of Tomaszow. 
To meet this tlirust the Austrians were com- 
pelled to withdraw their reserve troops from 
the extreme left across the rear of the 1st Army. 
When they proved insufficient, a new army was 
hastily organized and thrown into the gap. It 
might have served its purpose if it had been 
pushed forward at first simviltaneously with the 
other two armies, but such improvizations 



rarely J prosper when a campaign is already 
well advanced. The Russians had gathered 
strengtli, and, having once driven their wedge 
in at Tomaszow, they kept it there, and suc- 
ceeded in widening it by the subsequent opera- 
tions about Bilgoraj and the forcing back of the 
Austrian line above Rawa-Ruska. The 1st 
Austrian Army was thus left, at tlie extreme of 
its advance, suspended in the air. 

Meanwhile, Brusiloff's finely conceived and 
admirably executed turning movement along 
the Dniester on the extreme south, culminating 
in the blow on Halicz, while Ruzsky, with his 
main force, battered at the Austrian front and 
left, penned in von Auffenberg's Army on a con- 
tinually contracting front, and threw it back 
on its successive lines of defence in the Ztota 
Lipa, before Lemberg, and from Grodek to 
Rawa-Ruska. Hurled from eacli of these in 
turn, with the Cossack cavalry ranging wide 
over Southern Galicia on their right, the 
Austrians had no choice but to fall back, 
guarding their rear as best they might, west- 
ward towards Cracow. 

As soon as von Auffenberg's Army was 
definitely in difficulties, and occupied entirely 
with considerations of its own safety, the 
Russians could afford to give attention to 
Dankl's Army in the north. No help could now 
reach it, and it was already exhausted with 
futile efforts to break the rigid barrier which had 
been thrown across its path. The Russians 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



•271 



rightly massed their chief strength against this 
aiTQy's left, for if that wing was broken, the 
whole army, heiTimed in on both sides, must 
fall back or submit to being surrounded. 
Driven from Opolie along the Vistula, pitilessly 
hammered along its whole front, threatened and 
harried on its right flank from Tomaszow and 
Tarnogrod, we have seen how Dankl'sArmy 
was hustled down to and across the San, to 
And no rest on the further side. 

Every chief movement on the Russian side 
was executed with the same certainty of touch, 
and th^ operations of all the armies synchro- 
nized to perfection. By September 23 Ewarts 
and Plehve had driven Dankl's Army back to 
the line of the Wisloka. Riizsky had taken 
Jaroslau on September 21. Brusiloff was in 
Chyrow on September 24. 

It had been on August 22 that Ruzsky had 
crossed the frontier and occupied Brody, while 
on the same day Brusiloff had also entered 
Galicia at Woloczysk. Beyond doubt the 
world has never seen a month of such gigantic 
fighting as had taken place since then. The 
end of the month saw all the Austrian Armies, 
beaten and broken, driven in from north, north- 
east, east, and south, all herded into the con- 
fined region west of Przemysl, like sheep driven 
from all corners of a field into one narrow pen, 
with only a single opening — the railway leading 
to Cracow. The whole scope of the campaign 
can be clearly followed on the map which is 
given on page 260. A map covering the 




A COSSACK SCOUT REPORTING TO 
HIS COMMANDING OFFICER. 

larger theatre, including Berlin and Vienna, 
has been published on page 220, 

As early as September 17 a Russian official 
statement put the Austrian losses, since the 
taking of Lemberg, at 250,000 killed and 
wounded, and 100,000 prisoners, with 400 gims, 
many colours, and a " vast quantity of stores." 
Again, we hear that the rifles captured num 




BRIDGE OVER THE DNIESTER DESTROYED BY THE AUSTRIANS 

DURING THEIR RETREAT. 



27:2 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




THE ARCHDUKE JOSEPH FERDINAND. 

bered nearly half a million. What the total 
losses on the Austrian side were in the whole 
campaign there is no way of Icnowing. In ail 
they probably put into the field, including the 
later reinforcements, both Austrian and Ger- 
man, about 1,100,000 to 1,200,000 men. It is 
difhcult to believe that they lost, in killed, 
wounded, and prisoners, less than 500,000 of 
these. Official Russian estimates placed the 
enemy's total losses at from 35 to 50 per cent, 
of liis total forces. The Russian losses were 
heavy at times, but it is believed that in the 
whole campaign they did not reach 50,000. 
And the Russians were now masters of all 
Eastern Galicia, in possession of Lemberg and 
Jaroslau, of Brody, Busk, Grodek, Tarnopol, 
Sambor, Brzezany, and many other towns of 
importance, with all the railway system operat- 
ing between them. They controlled the GaU- 
cian oil-fields, of great importance to the 
enemy at such a time, and aU the agricultural 
output of the rich Galician plains. Russian 
cavalry was already feeling at the approach to 
the Carpathians, from the Dulila Pass to the 
Bukowina. Przeniysl alone held out. 

This war was an extraordinary solvent of the 
reputations of fortresses. In this campaign 
we have seen how naturally strong positions, 
with effective defensive works, like Grodek and 
Rawa-Ruska, held out gallantly for some time, 
and were then carried by assault. Lemberg 



had been reputed to be strong. As a matter of 
fact, tlie defences of the city itself were insig- 
nificant, and when the army shielding it «as 
l)rok(>n. no attempt was made to hold it. But 
the fall of Jaro-ilau has never been explained. 
Jaroslau was reputed to be stronger than eitlier 
Liege or Namur. It had been confidently ex- 
pected to offer a i)rolongcd and stubborn resist- 
ance. The whole defences of the San were very 
strong. They collapsed with hardly any de- 
fence, and Jaroslau itself only witlistood attack 
for two days. When the Russians brought 
their hea\ier guns to bear on the fortifications, 
it seems that the garrison simply deserted their 
posts and fled, showing how demoralized tlie 
Austrian Armies had become under tlieir suc- 
cessive catastrophes. Przemysl alone of tlie 
Austrian fortified places justified its reputation. 

Besides its strength as a fortress, Przemysl 
was a beautiful town, a veritable garden city, 
set around with orchards and flower gardens. 
It had a stormy history reaching back into the 
mists of the tenth century. In the town and 
its environs in 191-4 there was a civil popula- 
tion of about 50,000, chiefly Poles and Ruthenes, 
who lived together m great amity and with 
perfect religious toleration. In September of 
that year, when the victorious Russian advance 
swept all resistance before it, there was said, in 
official reports from Vienna, to be an army of 
80,000 men based on Przemysl. under com- 
mand of General Boveerig. He, with a large 
part of this army, seems to have moved to tlie 
line of the Wisloka to help Dankl's demoralized 
forces to make their stand on that stream. 
Probably many of von Auf^enberg's troops, as 
they retreated, were used to form the garrison 
of the fortress^; which was vmderstood at the 
beginning of the investment to contain about 
100,000 men, the defence being in the hands 
of General Kusmanek. Later, this garrison 
appears to have been increased. 

We have already seen how the railwaj^ com- 
munication with Przemysl had been severed on 
the south and east by the Russian advance 
after the fall of Grodek and the occupation of 
]\Iocziska and Chyrow. The fall of Jaroslau and 
the occupation of Rad>^nno, a town on the 
main Cracow railway, on the left bank of the 
San, some eight miles east of Jaroslau. and 
15 miles north of Przemysl, completed the 
isolation of the fortress. The stream of flight 
and pursuit flowed past, lapping round 
Przemysl on all sides, leaving it an islet in the 
middle of a flood. So it stood, except for one 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



273 



short interval, when the tide was torced back, 
and for a while Przemysl was again in com- 
munication with Cracow, throughout the 
following winter until spring, for more than 
half a year. 

In those intoxicating days of September, 1914, 
the Russians took it for granted that the lonely 
stronghold must soon fall to them. The news- 
papers, not of Russia, but of all the Allies, told 
the world that its fate was sealed. But stores 
of aU kinds had been poured into it, and all pre- 
parations made for a long resistance. It was 
announced that it had provisions enough to 
last until May, 1915, and in General Kusn\anek 
it had a commander who had no inclination to 
surrender. The first investment was made 
complete by September 2G or 27, 1914. The 
Russians immediately called on the fortress to 
surrender. General Kusmanek replied that he 
would not even discuss surrender until all the 
powers of resistance had been exhausted. An 
effort was made to carry the place by storm, 
but it was a costly experiment, and the Russians 
gave up the attempt and settled down to a 
regular investment until such time as heavy 
siege grnis could be brougiit up and tlie way 
prepared for an assault. 

In the following month, as will be shown in 
'a later chajDter, the renewed Austro-German 
offensive on this front forced the Russians back 
to a point where, it the pressure on the fortress 
was not entirely removed, the western forts were 
disengaged, and there was unrestricted com- 
munication with Cracow. It is probable that 
at this time extra forces were thrown into the 




RUSSIAN SHELTERS IN THE 
TRENCHES. 



fortress. The Austro-German tide again re- 
ceded towards the end of November, 1914, and 
from that time onwards the investment of the 
fortress was complete and more stringent than 
before. The besieging force was in command 
of General Ivanoff. The heavy siege guns, 
however, were not brought up for some time. 
They are said to have been ready at the be- 
^^inning of the New Year, but determined 
attempts were then being made to relieve the 
fortress from the direction of the Carpathians, 



I 




PRZEMYSL. 



274 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAH. 




GENERAL VON KJjSMANEK, 

In command of the fortress of Przemysl. 

and it was decided to \\ ait until the danger had 
passed, lest the gunji and siege material, diffi- 
cult of transport, should be captured. Real 
bombardment, then, did not begin until early 
in March, 1915. 

During the progress of the siege the garrison 
made many gallant sorties, but without 
material results. Towards tlie middle of March 
the heights dominating the eastern sector of 
the position fell into Russian hands, and on 



the night of the 13th the important positions 
at Mackiowice on tlie north were carried by 
an assault in the darkness. There followed a 
desperate sortie, led by General Kusmanek him- 
self, at the head gf the 23rd division of the 
Honved, wliich was beaten back with a loss of 
over 4,000 prisoners, and many killed and 
wounded, and the forts on the western side fell 
into Russian liands. This was the end ; for 
it seems that the garrison and civil population 
alike were on the verge of starvation. 

It was stated that the defenders in these last 
days deliberately used up all their ammunition l)y 
reckless firing. They destroyed their guns and 
had already eaten all the horses. A final 
but fruitless sortie had been made on March 20 
in the direction of Oikovice. Early on the 
following morning loud explosions were heard 
from different parts of the fortress, where 
the Austrians were blowing up the work.s 
preparatory to surrender. At six o'clock that 
morning, INIarch 21, 1915, the place was sur- 
rendered tmconditionally. According to the 
official lists furnished to the victors by General 
Kusmanek, the girrison captiu-ed with the 
fortress included 9 Generals, 93 superior 
officers, 2,500 subalterns and officials, and 
117,000 rank and file. The town of Przemysl 
was not injured, all the damage being confined 
to the fortifications and the outskirts. 




ARCHDUKE CHARLES FRANCIS JOSEPH (in the centre) VISITING THE 

FORTRESS OF PRZEMYSL. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAE. 



275 







AUSTRIAN OFFICERS IN BESIEGED PRZEMYSL 



The event was celebrated l)y a grand Te 
Deum at the headquarters of the Russian 
Commander-in-chief, at which the Tsar and 
the Grand Duke Nicholas were present. The 
Second Class of the Order of St. George was con- 
ferred upon the Grand Duke, and the Third 
Class upon General Ivanoff. The tenacity with 
which the Russians had clung to the siege 
through all the fluctuating fortunes of the war 
during the long winter, though reports from 
German sources declared that it had cost them 
70,000 men previous to the beginning of the 
bombardment, and the frequent and deter- 
mined efforts made by the Austrians and 
Germans to relieve the fortress, showed how 
much importance was attached to its possession 
by both sides. Its fall seems to have come as a 
shock to Germany. A day or two before, the 
German Press had been loudly proclaiming its 
invincibility. In Russia the news was received 
with great rejoicing, and everywhere it was 
recognized that the captiu"o of the fortress 
profoundly modified the whole situation. 

This narrative of the fate of Przemj'sl, how- 
ever, takes us far ahead of the general course of 
events. The first Galician campaign may bo 
said to have ended with the complete and 
disastrous failure of the Austrian invasion. 
Przemysl was still holding out, but all Eastern 



Galicia — Sanak, Sambor, Stryj, Stanislau — wtus 
in the hands of the Russians. The Austrian 
field armies had all fallen behind the line of the 
Wisloka, where von Auf^enberg had his base at 
Tarlow, with Dankl and the remnants of hia 
broken army on his left. At this moment 
German aeroplanes were scattering proclama- 
tions along the East Prussian frontier whicli 
said : 

Soldiers ! On the Austrian frontier the Russian 
Army lias been routed and is retreating;. Many Russian 
soldiers have been lett on the battlefield. In Poland 
there is sedition, and in Moscow and Odessa there is 
revolution which will speedily extend to the whole of 
Russia. In order to prevent you from surrendering, 
your authorities tell you that we torture Russian 
prisoners. Do not believe this calumny, for where 
would be found executioners to kill tiio hundred thousand 
army of Russian prisoners ? Your prisoners arc now 
peacefully living within oiu- country, together with 
French, Belgians, and English. They are very content. 
It is not worth while to die for a lost cause. Live for 
your wives and children, your native land, and a new and 
liappy Russia. 

But in Vienna other tales were circulated. 
There it was stated that one Austrian General 
had been tried by court-martial and shot, and 
another had been removed from the command 
of a cavalry division which had been almost 
annihilated, and had shot himself. 

The immediate importance of (ho Hiissiuii 
victories was, perhaps, at first overostiiuattxl. 
There was talk in the Press of tiio imiurdiate 



•276 



TBE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAll. 



capture of Cracow and overleaping of the Car- 
pathians, of the roads to Berhn and Vienna 
being now open, of the elimination of Austria 
as a serious factor in the war, and the proba- 
bility of her concluding a separate peace. 

None the less, the results of the campaign 
were of the utmost value. In itself it was on 
such a scale — not less than 2,500,000 fighting 
men being engaged in it from first to last — and 
its battles were so gigantic and accompanied 
with such terrible slaughter that the campaign, 
judged by any standards in liistor3% ought to 
raiik as one of the greatest of wars of all time. 
In comparison with the battles of Lemberg, 
Grodek, Rawa-Ruska, Tomaszow, and others, 
most of the famous battles of liistory were 
trifling things. And the Russian success was 
brilliant and overwhelming. If Austria was 
not, indeed, eliminated, she had received a 
staggering blow, and worse than the blow to 
Austria was the blow to the whole Austro- 
Gennan theory of the war. It showed, as was 
being shown also on the East Prussian front, 
that the Russian military power was a real 
and terrible thing. It showed how complete 
the miscalculations as to Russia's uiu-eadiness 
and unwieldiness had been. It showed the 
folly of all the German expectations of risings 
in Poland, or of any other form of dissension 
among the Russian peoples. It showed that, 
besides her fighting milhons, Riissia had 
generals of first-class strategic ability. It 



showed that all hope of a speedy " smashing " 
of Russia with one hand was as illusory as the 
same hope had proved in regard to France on 
the western front. We have seen that Germany 
had already been giving some actual support 
in men, albeit a useless one, to the Austrian 
Armies in their difficulties. From now on, liow- 
ever, she became much more the predominant 
partner in the alliance than had heretofore 
been the case. It will be sliown in another 
chapter how Germany assumed the direct 
control, not only of the joint operations, 
but of the individual Austrian and Hungarian 
forces, to the bitter humiliation of the pride 
of the Austro -Hungarian peoples. 

Certain aspects of the campaign and the 
inferences therefrom deserve especial treat- 
ment, especialh- the light which it tlirew on 
the quality and characteristics of the Russian 
soldier. The history of the Russian Army, tl:e 
story of its reorganization, and an account of its 
composition at the outbreak of the war ha\ e 
been given in detaU in Chapters XXVIII. and 
XXIX. of this History. Accompanying those 
chapters will be found many illustrations, in- 
cluding portraits of Russian Generals, wiiich it 
\\ ill be profitable to look at again in connexion 
with the narrative of the events with which we 
have just been dealing. ^lention has also been 
made of the miscalculations which Germany 
and Austria made in regard to Russia's readi- 
ness for war. Their misunderstanding of the 




RUSSIAN ARTILLERY. 
The new field gun. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OE THE WAE.- 



'Ill 




A STREET SCENE IN PHZEMYSL. 



Russian soldier was no less remarkable : it was 
on a par with the view of Sir John French's 
" contemptible little army." 

The outbreak of the war produced no more 
remarkable phenomenon in any country than 
the conversion, as it were overnight, of the 
entire Russian people into a nation of total 
abstainers. The day after war was declared, 
■every vodka shop in the Empire was closed by 
Imperial Decree during the time of mobilization. 
Subsequently the prohibition was extended for 
the whole diu-ation of the war. In Russia's cold 
•climate the use of strong drinlis by all classes 
of the people had generally been regarded as 
more or less a matter of necessity. In one day 
its use was stopped, and the whole population 
accepted the decision without complaint. It 
was only one manifestation of the extraordinary 
spirit of earnestness, almost of consecration, 
with which the Russian peoples entered upon 
the war. 

The Russian peoples had been known to be 
possessed of inunense patience and powers of 
endurance. In the mass they were inured to 
hard living and accustomed to scanty fare. 
They are fundamentally by temperament a pro 



foundly religious people. But the fashionable 
view of them throughout Germany and Austria, 
encouraged by many who must have known 
better, was that they were uncivilized bar- 
barians, heavy-witted and incapable of dis- 
cipline, and of ferocious and savage passion. 
The word Cossack, in particvilar, was a thing 
to frighten babies with. The contrast of all 
this with the actual behaviour of the Russian 
Armies in the field was absurd. 

The abstention from liquor probably con- 
tributed not a little to the powers of endiu-ance 
of the Russian troops. Certainly they were 
remarkable. Very seldom have soldiers had to 
endiu-e harder and more continuous work than 
was called for from the soldiers of the Tsar in 
the course of those four terrible weeks. Eye- 
witnesses testified to the fortitude which they 
displayed under all conditions of the campaign 
and when wounded, and to the uncomplaining 
cheerfulness with which they confronted every 
task. On the day after a desperate engagement . 
in which it had lost a large proportion of its 
numbers, a regiment would bo singing as it 
marched along the road. Nor up to tlie last 
did the troops lose their dash. Fresh men of 



278 



■THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



any army could not have attacked with more 
impetuosity than did Bru.silort".s at Halicz 
after an advance of the most arduous descrip- 
tion, Ruzsky's at Rawa-Ruska, or the men of 
the northern army at the crossing of the San. 

The Cossacks, especially, enjoyed before the 
war a n^ost evil rejjutation. It has been men- 
tioned in a former chapter that, in the cam- 
paign in East Prussia, the testimony of German 
authorities was that in towns which they cap- 
tured, the behaviour of the Cossacks v\as 
" exemplary and irreproachable." The evi- 
dence from Galicia is to the same effect. Those 
who know the Cossack will, indeed, know that 
he is, as a rule, if high-spirited, very childish 
and- essentiall}'' good-natured. At Halicz, if 
ever, the fighting spirit of the Russians rnust 
surely have been aroused, and we have testi- 
mony from independent sotirces of what 
happened there. The Russian van which, 
after the Austrian defeat, pushed first through 
Halicz and across the river in ptirsuit of the 
enemy, was apparently composed of three 
divisions of Cossack cavalry. Here v\as an 
occasion, then, when one might have expected 
the worst, when, after a bloody action, the 
victorious troops swept tlirough a defenceless 
country full of Jews, and offering every tempta- 
tion to excesses. The valle-s' itself is a garden 



(illed to overIl(n\i)ig with all the good things 
that a rich and fertile agricultural country 
affords. So far from its having been pltuidered 
or devastated after the Russian advance had 
passed on, the fields were full of shocks of grain, 
in every garden there were chickens and ducks 
and huge white geese, and fat swine wandered 
about the streets of the town. On the outskirts 
of the town every acre seemed to be the grazing 
groiuid of happy and contented cattle. In 
the town itself there was not a single destroyed 
house, while at the settlement aroimd the rail- 
road station only a few buildings, such as ware- 
houses, had been demolished by the Russian 
artillery in the effort to keep the retiring enemy 
on the move. 

Still more significant was an incident which 
occiuTed at the neighbouring town of Botzonce. 
It has been told how the retiring Austrians 
attempted here to make a stand, and were 
shelled out by the Russian guns which pressed 
after them. The whole centre of the town 
was reduced to ruins, except tliree buildings. 
The two churches and the Town Hall, which 
had a chiu'ch-like spire, and was evidently 
mistaken by the Russians for a third place of 
worship, stood alone undamaged among the 
wreckage. It was impossible to believe that 
this had been the result of chance. The Russian 




BOHEMIAN DRAGOONS. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



279 




THE VICTORY OF LEMBERG— CELEBRATIONS IN PETROGRAD. 



gunners had obviously endeavoured to spare the 
religions bmldings, and to confine their fire to 
the streets and buildings of which the military 
necessity of the moment demanded the destruc- 
tion. Similarly, in other towns which the 
Russians were compelled to shell, it was always 
the region of warehouses, depots, station-build- 
ings and the like which was attacked, while the 
himibler sections occupied by the poorer 
classes were spared. 

It was, of course, not to the interest of the 
Russians to Ul-use the people of Galicia. They 
came not to oppress or spoU, but as deliverers. 
At the beginning of the operations, when 
Russia first assumed a general offensive on 
August 17, the Grand Duke Nicholas had 
issued the following appeal to the Russian 
inhabitants of Galicia : 

Brothers. — A judgment of God is being wrought. 
With Christian patience and self-annihilation the Russian 
people of Galicia languished for centuries under a foreign 
yoke, but neither flattery nor persecutions could break 
in it the hope of liberty. As the tempestuous torrent 
breaks the rocks to join the sea, so there exists no force 
which can arrest the Russian people in its onrush towards 
unification. Let there be no longer a subjugated 
Russia. Let the country which forms the heritage 
of Saint Vladimir throw off the foreign yoke and raise 
the banner of united Russia, an iiidivisihlr- land. May 



the providence of God who has blessed the work of the 
great uniters of the Russian lands be made manifest. 
May God aid His anointed, the Emperor Nicholas of 
All the Russias, to complete the work begun by the 
Grand Duke Ivan Kalita. 

Rise, fraternal Galician Russia, who have suffered so 
much, to meet the Russian Army for you and your 
brethren, who will be delivered. Room will be fovind 
for you in the bosom of our mother Russia withovit 
offending peaceable people of whatever nationality. 
Raise your sword against the enemy and your hearts 
towards God with a prayer for Russia and the Russian 
Tsar! 

It is impossible that a conquering army can 
pass through a vanquished country without 
the perpetration of some individual excesses. 
But there can be no doubt that throughout the 
Galician campaign the behaviour of tiie Russian 
troops was extraordinarily good. 

Nor did the Austrians make am- attempt 
to emulate the examples of the doctrine of 
" frightfulness " given by their allies in Bel- 
gium. In Galicia, of course, thej- v.ere in 
their own comitry. As they penetrated 
north into Russia, being in happy mood and 
meeting with little opposition, tliey seem to 
have done small wanton damage. On its retreat, 
however, Daniel's Army laid waste a large jiart 
of the province of Volhynia, ravaginy tlic 
country and burning villages and farnvsleads 



280 



THl'J TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




AUSTRIAN MOTOR CYCLISTS. 



as they pii.^sed. In a measure this was doubt- 
less dictated by supposed miUtary considerations, 
in the hope of delaying the enemy in his pur- 
suit. When a soldiery, however, is started on 
the work of destruction in an enemy's country, 
it is inevitable that many things should be 
done which neither military exigency nor any- 
thing else can excuse. It can only have been, 



also, a complete relaxation of discipline in the- 
beaten and demoralized Austrian Armies whic l> 
pennitted the pillaging which went on in some 
of the larger towns, even in Galicia, as Sieni- 
awa. As a whole, however, the campaign 
appears, on both sides, to have been con- 
ducted towards the civilian population witl> 
moderation and humanity. 




CHAPTER LVIII. 

THE PROBLEM OF EGYPT: 
A NEW REGIME. 



The British Occupation — Defensive Measures of the Egyptian Government — Factors of 
Discontent — The Khedive and the Extrejie Nationalists — German and Turkish 
Intrigues — Remedial Measures, Econojuc, Political, and Military — Measures against 
Enemy Subjects and Shipping — War with Turkey — jNIartial Law in Egypt — British 
Protectorate Proclaimed — Abbas Hilmi Deposed — Sultan Hussein of Egypt — Character 
and Accession — The Sudan — Naval Operations in the Red Sea till the End of 1914 — 
The Action at Bir en Nuss. 



IT is in the pages of Lord Cromer's " Modern 
Egypt " and Lord Milner's " England in 
Egypt " that the fascinating but complex 
history of the British occupation of Egypt 
can best be studied. To describe it and the 
events that led up to it in brief were an impos- 
sible task. It is, however, necessary to preface 
this account of recent events in Egypt by a 
short sketch of the principal features of the 
history of the country since 1882. Only thus is 
it possible to understand the relations between 
tlie British and Egyptian Govermnents which 
had a vital bearing on the developments in 
Egj'pt after the outbreak of the Great "\^"ar. 

Great Britain had been opposed to the con- 
struction of the Suez Canal, ^hich opened a new 
and shorter route to India to tlie Mediterranean 
Powers. Its completion made the fate of Egypt 
largely dependent on the will of tlie leading 
Sea Power. In 1875 Lord Beaconsfield pur- 
chased 176,602 original founders' shares in the 
Suez Canal from the embarrassed Khedive, or 
Prince, of EgjqDt, Lsinail Pasha. England thus 
acquired a definite stake in tiie country and 
was bound to intervene both in the management 
of the Canal and in tlie organization of Egyptian 
Vol. III.— Part 34. 



finance. Ismail Pasha was deposed by his 
Suzerain, the Sultan of Turkey, in 1879. He 
left an empty Treasury and an insubordinate 
army behind him. Anarchy ensued under his 
successor Tewfik, culminating in a military 
mutiny, inspired partly by real grievances 
against foreign usurers and corrupt officials, 
partly by fanaticism, and largely by the native 
Egyptian officers' jealousy of their Turkish and 
Circassian superiors. Great Britain intervened 
on behalf of the Khedive and restored order at 
Tel-el-Kebir in 1882. Owing to the national 
dislilcc for the responsibilities which such action 
would have involved she did not proclaim a 
protectorate over Egypt, There were, indeed, 
several occasions on which her statesmen con- 
templated the withdrawal of the Army of 
Occupation, but after the failure of the Anglo- 
Tiurkish negotiations of 1886-1887 it was 
recognized that this could only be effected, if 
at all, after many years. 

In spite of the jealousy of France, whose 
jioliticians had allowed themselves to be 
mananivred into an attitude of hostility 
towards England by Germany, the hostilitj' 
of reactionarv elements and of the Khodive 



281 



9R2 



TIIJ': riMFS HISTOHY OF THE WAR. 




[From a paintinS by the Hon, John Collier, 

SIR HENRY MCMAHON, 
High Commissioner for Egypt. 

Abbas II., who succeeded his father Tewftk in 
1892, the financial bondage in which Egypt 
Avas held by international jealoiisies, the abuse 
of the Capitulations, and the fact that none of 
the Great Powers had definitely recognized our 
special position and interests in Egj'pt, our 
influence increased and Egypt prospered more 
and more under the masterful hand ' of Lord 
Cromer, British Agent and Consul-General at 
Cairo. In 1898 the Sudan, which had rebelled 
under a religious impostor in 1882 and had been 
for sixteen years a prey to bloodshed and 
anarchy, was reconquered by an Anglo -Egyptian 
Army under Lord (then Sir Herbert) Kitchener 
and placed under an Anglo -Egyi^tian condo- 
minium. A French attempt to effect a lodgment 
on the Upper Nile failed. Six years later came 
the Anglo -French agreement of happy augury, 
by which France, in return for concessions in 
Morocco and elsewhere, recognized England's 
special interests in Egj-pt, while England 
iindertook to make no change in the political 
status of the country. The other European 
Powers, except, of course, Turkey, some sooner, 
some later, recognized the occupation. 

Henceforth, instead of France, more or less 
energetically supported by Russia, it was 



Turkey, encouraged later by the German Em- 
piic, that challenged Great Britain's political 
predominance in Egypt. The Porto had not 
recognized the occupation, had protested 
against the declaration of an Anglo -Egyptian 
condoininium over the Sudan, and had since 
1887 maintained a "Special ^Mission" at Cairo, 
which was never recognized by the Britisli 
authorities, who held that the Sultan's official 
representative in Egypt was the Khedive, but 
was. nevertheless, able at times to exert its 
influence unfavourably to us. 

Egypt, it must be remembered, A^a.s a part of 
the Ottoman Empire. By the Firman of 1879 
the Khedive possessed certain essential attri- 
butes of sovereignty, subject to the pajnuent of 
a tribute of abo\it £075,000. The Khediviate 
was hereditary in the House of IVIohamed Ali 
according to the law of primogeniture. But 
the same Firman debarred the Khedive from 
the right of raising loans without the consent 
of the Sultan and of keeping up an army of over 
18.000 men in time of peace, nor could he 
conclude any treaty beyond certain commercial 
conventions with any foreign Power. At the 
Sublime Porte Egypt was regarded as an 
autonomous Ottoman province ruled by an 
hereditary Governor -General appointed by the 
Sultan, though possessed of greater indepen- 
dence than other Ottoman " Valis." 

In 1906 the Tm-ks, who had taken care never 
to agree to the usual defimtion of the frontiers 
of Egypt, attempted to occupy certain points 
in the Sinai Peninsula, from Avhich tliey only 
retired when the British Ambassador had 
presented an ultimatiun to the Porte. The 
eastern frontier between Egypt and Turkey 
was then delimited, but the frontier convention 
between the two countries was never ratified 
by the Porte. In 1907 Lord Cromer retii-ed, 
owing to ill-health, from the post of British 
Diplomatic Agent and Consul-General, which 
he had held with honour since 1883. He 
had found Egypt banknipt ; he left it solvent. 
He found the Egyptian fellaheen, as the 
peasantry are called, oppressed and poor ; he 
left them prosperous and secured against the 
gi'osser forms of injustice. His name will be 
for ever linked with the history of the revival 
of Egyptian prosperity and civilization. His 
departure took place at a time when the 
excitement aroused by the frontier dispute 
with Turkey had not died down, and the 
lOiedive and the Nationalists of the extreme 
party were violently hostile. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OE THE WAR. 



•28B 



Before j^roceeding with this narrative it is 
necessary to say a few words concerning tlie 
relations between the British Government and 
the Khedive and his Ministers. 

" I hardly need point out," wrote Lord 
Granville in 1884, " that in important questions 
where the administration and safety of Egypt 
are at stake, it is indispensable that Her 
Majesty's Government should, so long as the 
provisional occupation of the country by 
English troops continues, be assured that the 
advice which, after full consideration of the 
views of the Egyptian Government, .they may 
feel it their duty to tender to the Khedive 
should be followed. It should be made clear 
to the Egyptian Ministers and Governors of 
Provinces that the responsibility which for the 
time rests on England obliges Her Majesty's 
Government to insist on the adoption of the 
policy which they recommend, and that it will 
be necessary that those Ministers and Governors 
who do not follow this course should cease to 
hold their offices." Since 1895 the relations 
between Ministers and their British advisers 
had grown steadily more cordial, but complete 
harmony between the British and Egyptian 
sides of the Administration had been frequently 
prevented by the action of the Khedive, who, 
though unwilling, after a couple of severe 
lessons, to place himself in open opposition to 
Gre^it Britain, never ceased for long to intrigue 
against the British and to undermine the 



authority of his own Ministers. Sir Eldon 
Gorst, succeeding Lord Cromer in 1907, doubt- 
less with instructions to avoid friction and 
" incidents," attempted a policy of conciliation 
which did not meet with the success which it 
deserved. He nevertheless was able tempo- 
rarily to detach the Khedive from the extremist 
Nationalist Party and to cvirb the license of 
the extremist Press. Dm-ing his tenure of 
office the Christian Premier, Butros Pasha 
Ghali, was assassinated by an extremist 
student, who would seem to have been in touch 
with the Committee of Union and Progress. 
After the sadly prematvire death of Sir Eldon 
Gorst, Lord Kitchener was appointed in his 
stead. His prestige as a stern soldier and his 
knowledge of Egypt enabled him rapidly to 
calm the local agitation of which the mvu-der 
of Butros Pasha had been a sign. The ex- 
tremist Nationalists lost ground or fled to 
Turkey, but the KJiedive and the Ottoman 
Special Mission continued their intrigues. 
Sedition was, however, scotched, though not 
killed, and Lord Kitchener by his lavish 
expenditvu-e on improvements and by legisla- 
tion on behalf of the fellaheen acqviired great 
popularity.* 

When war broke out in Europe Egypt was 
therefore quiet. The Moslem peasants, who 

* A full account of Lord Kitchener's work in Egypt 
has been given in Chapter XIX., together with portraits 
of Lords Kitchener and Cromer and Sir R. Wingate. 




THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW. 
Australian Imperial Force near the Sphinx and Pyramids. 



284 



THE TIMK!^ HTSiTORY OF THE WAB. 




SIR GEORGE REID ADDRESSING AUSTRALIAN 



formed the enormous majority of the popula- 
tion, appreciated the benefits of the occupation, 
and had no knowledge of and less liking for 
Germans, while their memories of Turkish rule 
were unpleasant. But they lacked initiative, 
and were largely imeducated, so that whatever 
support they were disposed to give the British 
authorities in times of trouble was likely, to be 
platonic. Among the better educated classes 
in the towns there was little love for the Khe- 
dive and little fanaticism against Europeans, 
though Syrian and Coptic Christians were 
generally disliked. On the other hand, the 
numerically small but vocal extremist party, 
which comprised not a few students of law and 
theology and some of the Turco-Egyptians, 
who formed a sort of aristocracy since the days 
of Mohamed Ali, was hostile and had become 
more reactionary in its tendencies since it had 
begun to look to Turkey for support rather than 
to France. The great majority of officials, 
merchants, and landowners supported the 
occupation, which was, of course, anathema 
to the much less numerous entourage of the 
Khedive. The excitability, credulity, and 
fickleness of the urban lower classes, failings 
which extended to many of the half-educated 
intelligenzia, made them imreliable as sup- 
porters of any Government. The Arabic 
proverb, " The Egyptian has. fears, but has no 
respect," is too often true of this element. 
Religion was the side on which this town 
population was most easily approached by 



intriguers, and it is noteworthy that the 
connexion between Egj-pt and Turkey was 
popular among them and among some of the 
fellaheen for reUgious reasons. The Turkish 
Sultanate meant nothing to them, but to be. 
if only nominally, " under the protection of the 
Khalifate " flattered their amour-propre and 
was, so to speak, a sort of guarantee of religious 
orthodoxy. 

On August 2 the Council of Ministers declared 
the notes of the National Bank of Egj-pt 
obligatory legal tender. On the same day it 
prohibited the exportation of foodstuffs. On 
August 3 the Egyptian Government, in view of 
the outbreak of war between Austria-Hungary 
and Serbia and between Russia and Germany, 
i isued instructions similar to those issued 
during the Russo-Japanese War, to its authori- 
ties on the Suez Canal and its ports of access 
and at other Egyptian ports. But witliin 
forty-eight hours the situation had entii'ely 
changed owing to the entry of Great Britain 
into the war. On August 5 the Council of 
Ministers met and arrived at an important 
" decision tending to ensure the defence of 
Egypt in the war between Germany and Great 
Britain." The preamble ran : 

Considering that war has unhappily been declared 
between His Majesty the King of Great Britain and 
Ireland and of the British Dependencies oxer Seas, 
Emperor of India, and the German Emperor ; that the 
presence in Egypt of the Army of Occupation of His 
Britannic Majesty rentiers the country liable to attack 
by His Majesty's enemies ; that in consequence of this 
state of affairs it is necessary that all measures be taken 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



285 




TROOPS AT MENA CAMP. 



to defend the country against tlie risk of such attack — 
all whom it concerns are therefore informed that at a 
meeting of the Council of Ministers held on August 5, 
1914 under the presidency of H.E. the Regent, the 
following decisions were taken. 

The first four articles of the Egyptian 
Goveriunent's decision forbade any person 
residing in or passing through Egypt (1) to 
make any contract or agreement whatever with 
the German Government or any of its agents ; 
(2) to contribute to or participate in the issue 
of any loan to the German Government or make 
any loan thereto ; (3) to conclude any policy or 
contract of insurance with or for the benefit of any 
person residing in or passing through the German 
Empire, or effect any paJ^nent on the basis of 
any existing policy or contract of insurance on 
account of any loss due to warlike acts by the 
forcjes of His Britannic Majesty or of his Allies ; 
(4) to conclude any new contract or enter into 
any new commercial, financial or other obliga- 
tion with or for the benefit of any person as 
defined in (3). Article 5 prohibited any Egyptian 
vessel from entering into or conmiunicating 
with any German port. Article 6 forbade the 
export of arms and munitions of war, military 
equipment and vehicles, petrol, benzine, air- 
craft, coal-sacks, coal and briquettes. The 
next two articles forbade the export of any mer- 
chandize from any Egyptian to any German 
port and the transhipment in any Egyptian port 
of any merchandii(;e for the above destination, 
and prohibited the departure from any Egyptian 
port of vessels which had not been specially 



authorized to sail. Articles 9 to 11 dealt with 
contraband. By their terms any neutral vessel 
which was in itself contraband of war in accord- 
ance with the definition of contraband adopted 
by the British Government, or carried contra- 
band or rendered any services contrary to 
neutrality " to the enemy," would be prevented 
from leaving Egj-ptian jjorts ; any neutral vessel 
embarking contraband of war in any Egyptian 
port would be liable to capture, and any neutral 
vessel on which contraband had been embarked 
before the date of the Eg5'ptian Govermnent's 
decision must unload the contraband cargo, if 
still in an Egyptian port. Article 12 forbade 
the discharging in any Egyptian port of any 
article or merchandize taken on board in a 
German port subsequently to the Egyptian 
Government's decision. The next four articles 
are given in full : 

Article 13. — The Naval and Military forces of Hifl 
Britannic Majesty may exercise all the rights of war in 
Egyptian ports and in Egyptian territory, and war- 
vessels, merchant vessels or merchandize captured in 
Egyptian ports or territory may be brought before the 
judgment of a British Prize Court. 

Article 14. — Under the strict observation of the pro- 
ceding clauses any German vessel which was in an 
JOgyptian port at the date of the opening of hostilities or 
which, having quitted its last port before that date, haa 
entered or shall enter an Egyptian port without know- 
lodge of the outbreak of war, will bo authorized until 
sunset on August 14, 1914, to load or unload and to 
leave port on giving such written engagements as may 
be required by the British naval authorities in con- 
formity with tlie dispositions of Chapter 3 of iho Conven- 
tion of 1907 relative to certain restrictions in the exercise 
of the right of capture in naval warfare. 

Article 15. — German merchant vessels which have left 

34—2 



28G 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 







".jeam- 



«C-. 



HELIOPOLIS GAMP. 



their last port before the declaration of war, and which 
put in witliout knowledge of the declaration of war to 
an Egyptian port after sunset on August 14, 1914, and 
are authorized to enter port, may be required to leave 
immediately, or after the delay deemed necessary by 
the port authorities for the discharging of such part of 
their cargo as they may be required or specially authorized 
to effect, in each case giving in advance the written 
engagements referred to in the preceding article. 

Article 16. — A ship liable to the operation of any of 
the preceding articles, having cargo on board which, 
according to the rules applied by the British Prize Courts, 
constitutes enemy cargo, or which the British naval or 
military authorities wish to requisition subject to 
compensation (moyennant compensation) for the needs 
of the war, shall not leave port till this cargo shall have 
been discharged. 

Under Article 17 cable ships, ocean oil -tank 
vessels, ships of over 5,000 tons displacement and 
14 knots speed, or merchantmen obviously con- 
structed with a view to their use as ships of war 
were expressly deprived of any of the benefits 
referred to in Clauses 14 and 15. 

Article 18 ran: — "All persons whom tliis 
concerns shall render the assistance which may 
te required of them to the naval and military 
forces of His Britannic Majesty." Article 19 
Extended the operation of the Goverimient's 
•decisions to companies, associations, etc., having 
a' legal or de facto existence. Article 20 dealt 
as follows with the Canal ports : 

As regards the ports of access to the Suez Canal, the 

present decision shall be applied with the following 

modifications : 

■■■ (a) Merchant vessels which have traversed or wish 
to. traverse the Canal, whatever their nationality or 
cargo, shall have full liberty to enter or leave the 
ports of access or to pass through the Canal without 
risk of capture or detention, provided that the passage 
of the Canal and departure from the port of access arc 

" Effected normally and without unjustifiable delay. 



(6) These ships may receive such provisions, in- 
cluding coal, as shall be reasonably necessary for the 
voyage on which they are bound. 

(c) Merchandize of all sorts which has passed the 
Canal may be transhipped at the port of departure. 

(d) Article 13 of the present decision shall be inter- 
preted in accordance with the Suez Canal Convention 
of 1888. 

On August 13 the above decisions were 
extended to Austria -Hungary, then at wa* with 
Great Britain, the date of August 22, 1914, 
being substituted for that of Augtist 14 in the 
application of Articles 14 and 15 to Austro- 
Hungarian merchant vessels. 

These decisions had been prepared before- 
hand, in view of the possible outbreak of a 
European war, by Mr. W. E. Briuiyate, C.]\I.G., 
Legal Adviser to the Egyptian Government, 
under the ausjaices of the Imperial Defence 
Committee. They could not be described as a 
declaration of neutrality. They formed, indeed, 
something resembling a Treaty of Alliance of 
local and limited application between Egyjjt 
and Great Britain and her Allies. Egypt, being 
in the military occupation of the British Forces, 
was exposed to attack by the enemies of tliose 
forces, and, therefore, took the necessary 
nteasures against such attack. Against the 
argument that Egypt as a vassal State of 
Turkey had no right to take any such steps the 
Egyptian Government could urge the plea of 
military justification, the naore so as her action 
harmed no neutral State whatsoever. 

Thanks to the Allies' command of the 
Mediterranean, Egypt had nothing to fear 
from naval raiders as soon as the Goeben and 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAE. 



287 



Breslau had disappeared into the Dardanelles. 
But the attitude of Turkey now became 
provocative, while the Germans resident in the 
country, the supporters of the Khedive, and the 
pro-Turk party required watching. Had the 
war caused Egypt no economic distress, their 
efforts to excite popular feeling against the 
occupation need have aroused no uneasiness. 
Unfortunately Egypt suffered severely from 
the war. The country lived on its cotton 
crop. The larger landowners, some of whom 
had already been hard hit by the financial 
crisis of 1907, the consequence of over-specula- 
tion in land, the effects of which were still felt, 
were not as a rule thrifty. They were in the 
habit of obtaining annually large advances 
against the coming cotton crop from the banks, 
and of spending these advances lavishly. The 
great mass of small landowners, if thriftier, 
were still too fond of spending sums they could 
ill afford on marriage feasts and similar festivi- 
ties. ]Many of them were more or less heavily 
in debt, while those who hoarded would only 
part with their money at the last extremity. 
To the landowners in general the war was a 
heavy blow ; all means of financing the culti- 
vators to enable them to lift and pick the crop 
were checked, the banks being unable to make 
the usual advances on cotton, and the general 



indebtedness of the native population conse- 
quently increased. The landowners had been 
looking forward to a big cotton crop and hoping 
to realize it at satisfactory prices. The crop, 
as a matter of fact, was, generally speaking, 
inferior in quality to the last, and the quantity 
was less than had been expected, owing to the 
ravages of the latest Egyptian insect pest, the 
" pink boll-worm." Owing to the absence of 
facilities for financing the cultivators, the ripe 
crop was often left unpicked for so long that 
the first, second, and third pickings were taken 
together, to the detriment of yield and quality. 
There were cases, too, in which the disheartened 
tenant farmers refused to pick, knowing that 
as soon as they had gathered in the crop it 
would be seized by the landlord for rent. In 
the early months of the war, therefore, the 
anxiety and depression of the peasantry were 
great. 

Trade natm-ally suffered. At the beginning 
of the war there was a short spurt in certain 
branches owing to the sudden replenishment of 
stocks. Complete stagnation followed for some 
time. Native industries suffered the most, 
and unemployment increased. The Public 
Works Ministry was compelled from motives 
of economy to cease work on all its various 
projects, except where it was necessary im- 




BRITISH SENTRIES ON DU lY AT THE CITADEL. CAIRO. 
In the background Is the Musque of Mohamed All. 



288 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 





-TT^»^C* . 




^i-^^c^-V/- --ffi^. 



K 



V 



«. fir 



'ti^ 




TROOPS AT RIFLE PRACTICE ON THE DESERT SANDS. 



mediately to spend money to conserve work 
that had already been done. 

The departm-e of a large nmnber of European 
residents — Frencli, German, and Austro-Hun- 
garian — called out for military service, affected 
the shopkeeping class and don:iestic servants, 
as did the general reduction of private expen- 
diture all round. The retiu-ns of imports and 
exports up to December 14 were eloquent of 
the economic loss sustained by the country' : 

Value of imports into Egypt 

from 1.8.13 to 31.10.13 ... £E. 7, 338.000 

Ditto from 1.S.14 to 31.10.14... 3,357,000 
Value of exports from 1.8.13 to 

31.10.13 7,106,000 

Ditto from 1.8.14 to 31.10.14 ... 1,583.000 

Previous crises had merely affected a section of 
t lie population — stockbrokers, speculators, and 
owners of certain urban or suburban proper- 
ties for the most part. The present crisis 
affected all classes, and caused a very general 
rnalaise, more especially among the very poor. 
The risk that sedition-mongers would attempt 
to stir up trouble among the ignorant and 
needy had to be taken into account. Hostile 
intrigue from four different quarters — the 
Kliedive and his supporters, the extremist 
Nationalists, German agents, and Tiu'lcish 
agitators — had never entirely ceased, and was 
the more to be feared now that economic 
conditions were imsatisfactory. 

The Khedive was unpopular, but an Oriental 
ruler can generally rely on some support as 



long as he is on the tnrone, and Abbas Hilmi» 
as the lawful sovereign of Egj^pt, had his 
followers and even his admirers. Lord Cromer's 
" Abbas II." contains an interesting sketeh of 
his earlier struggles with the yoimg ruler of 
Egypt, who, fresh from the narrow training of 
the Teresianum at Vienna, ignorant of Egj-ptian 
conditions, and impulsive, made a series of 
rash " frontal attacks " on the British Occu- 
pation, and was repulsed with considerable 
loss to his prestige. Thereafter the Khedive 
waged a war of intrigue against Great Britain 
in Egj'pt. He did much to create the ex- 
tremist Nationalist party, wliich he financed 
from the proceeds of the sale of grades and 
decorations, often to eminently mideserving 
persons. His entourage was a stronghold of 
anti-British feeling. Officers and officials who 
had misconducted themselves and had been 
dismissed from Govermnent emplojinent often 
fotuid an asylum in liis service. Corrupt 
ex-officials of tlie Ministry of Finance were 
particularly eligible. For long he held the 
Wakfs (Pious Fotmdations) Admim'stration 
in liis hands, and added to liis private fortime 
therefrom. His ambition was, .as Lord 
Cromer has written, '" to enrich himself 
by every possible means in his power." 
His principal interest and amusement was 
political and financial intrigue. Lord Cromer 
has compared him to the Virgilian Dares, 
" seditione potens " — mighty in sedition. To 
such of his Ministers \\ho displeased liim or 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



289 



pleased the British he could on occasion show 
the maximum of discourtesy. 

After Lord Cromer's retirement came a brief 
reconciliation between the occupation, in the 
person of Sir Eldon Gorst, and Abbas Hilmi. 
The Khedive did not, it was true, abandon liis 
sale of decorations or his hunt for " Naboth's 
vineyards," but liis intrigues against the 
occupation became temporarily less energetic. 
His friendship for the new British Agent was 
undoubtedly sincere, and his visit to Sir Eldon 
Gorst's death-bed should be remembered by 
Englishmen in his favour. It must also be 
admitted that, violent as his dislike for England 
was, he was invariably coiurteous to her repre- 
sentatives in Egypt. 

Sir Eldon Gorst undoubtedly broke the 
alliance between the Khedive and the 
Nationalists of the extreme faction. This 
alhance was not renewed till 1913, when Abbas 
Hilmi, who had large estates in Turkej^ and 
regularly visited Constantinople, fearing for his 
interests, made terms with some of the ex- 
tremists. Others remained hostile, and the 
Committee Government, with which he \\as 
frequently on bad terms, and against which he 
undoubtedly intrigued, supported theni. On 
July 24, 1914, a half -insane Egyptian student 
fired at and wounded the Khedive, then on a 
visit to Constantinople, as he drove past the 
Sublime Porte. The ruler's injimes were not 
severe : the would-be assassin was shot, stabbed, 
and sabred with much promptitude by the Otto- 



man escort, who. in their inopportune or prudent 
zeal, woimded several passers-by, and by dis- 
patching the culprit rendered further police 
researches fruitless. The Committee Goverrunent 
was prodigal of kind attentions to the previously 
detested '" Vali of Egypt." Ere Abbas Hilmi 
had fully recovered from his wounds, the Great 
War had broken out. He asked the British 
Government for help to retiu-n to Egypt. The 
request was most embarrassing. The Army of 
Occupation had not yet been reinforced, the 
population was already disttu:"bed by tlie 
economic crisis, and the return of a riiler who 
had sho\\n such capacity for intrigue and such 
skill in rendering the position of his Ministers 
impossible would have added to the difliculties. 
He was recommended to remain at Constanti- 
nople. The Austro-Hungarian and German 
Ambassadors promptly made full vise of theij* 
opportunity and, thanks to their efforts, 
the Austrophile or Anglophobe sentiments of 
Abbas and the assun:ied friendliness of the 
Turkish Government were speedily able to 
reconcile hiui with the all-powerful Committee 
of Union and Progress. Within a month of the 
outbreak of war he was discussing the invasion of 
Egypt by the Turks with INIinisters and Generals, 
while his agents at Cairo and Alexandria were 
spreading alarming reports concerning his 
intentions. The British Ambassador suggested 
that he should withdraw for a while to Italy. 
It was Abbas Hilmi's last chance. He refused 
to entertain the suggestion and thus signed his 




BRITISH SOLDIERS DIGGING TRENCHES IN THE DESERT. 



290 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




EGYPT AND THE NILE. 

1. Grfat Pyramid of Gizeh. 2. A street in Cairo. 3. Blrds-eye view of Cairo. 4. The Nile bridge, 

Cairo. 5. Assuan. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



■29 J 



own political dpath-warrant. His alliance with 
the Turkish Government grew closer. The 
Egyptian police was constantly coming across 
the tracks of his agents. A few weeks after the 
outbreak of war with Turkey none who knew 
his historj' and that of his relations with the 
Committee were much astonished to hear that 
the Talaats and Envers, after flattering his 
vanity and informing the Moslem world that 
he would lead the " Holy Warriors " to Cairo, 
had suddenly turned upon their dupe, accused 
him of playing a double game, and sent him 
packing. It was left to the Egyptian Govern- 
ment, in deference to a request from Sir John 
Maxwell, to appoint a sequestrator of his 
private properties " in the interests both of His 
Highness and of His Highness's creditors." 

The extremist Nationalist group, kno^Ti as 
the " Hisb el Watani " (Patriotic Party), was in 
an evil plight when tlie Great War broke out. 
This party in its tendencies somewhat resembled 
the extreme wing of the Committee of Union 
R.nd Progress, which its brightest ornaments 
eventually joined. There had been " National- 
ism " enough in Egypt before it, largely owing 
to the great uncertainty that prevailed as to 
our intentions, but many so-called " Nation- 
alists " were simply trimmers, who, seeing the 
Khedive and certain magnates hostile to the 
British — who might one day leave the country 
— thought it safer to follow the lead of Abdin. 
After the Fashoda incident, and still more after 
the Anglo-French Agreement of 1904, many of 
these waverers rallied to the British Occupation. 
The extremist party owed its existence to 
Abbas II., who assisted its leader, Mustafa 
Kamil Pasha, and his group with subventions 
which enabled them to foimd a violent but well- 
edited journal, called Al Lewa {The Standard). 
Mustafa was a Turco -Egyptian demagogue, 
whose pleasant manners and French veneer 
found him some influential friends at Paris, 
while his genuine eloquence inflamed the 
enthusiasm of the student class. After a while 
he showed independent tendencies which greatly 
annoyed the Khedive, who cut off supplies, and, 
after making use of him against Lord Cromer, 
gave him the cold shoulder when Sir Eldon 
Gorst was British Agent. Whether Mustafa 
could have stood on his own feet after tlie 
Khedive had disowned him is not certain. Ho 
died rather suddenly in the winter of 1907-1 90S, 
and the examination of his affairs revealed a 
deplorable confusion, from which his journal and 
supporters never completely recovered. After 




SHEIKH SHAWISH. 



[Lekeiian. 



his death the Francophile veneer of his party, 
which had already shown signs of scaling off, 
disappeared entirely, and it became frankly 
reactionary', Turcophile, and anti-European — 
save where Germany was concerned. Its leaders 
were Mohamcd Bey Farid, a rather unimportant 
agitator, and Slieikh Abdul Aziz Shawish, a 
fiery Tunisian who had learnt English admirably 
when Assistant Professor of Arabic at Oxford, 
spoke well, and thoiifjh known when a law 
student as " Ahmak ed Dawla " (the State Fool), 
appealed to the fnnatical through his knowledge 
of the Koran and tlie Traditions. The murder 
of Butros Paslia Ohali, already referred to, 
by a student named Wardani was credited 
by pnpulnr report to the promptings of 
Shawisli and his friends, but no proof of 
this was discovered, and the crime may 
equally well have been inspired by Wardani's 
friends among the revolutionaries of Constanti- 
nople, who had sent emissaries to Egypt in 
1009. After Lord Kitchener's arrival in Egypt 
the relations between the extremists and the 
Khcdiv<e, who had a terror of assassination, 
were fitfully resumed, but neither trusted the 
other, and Abbas Hilmi was probably rather 
relieved when Shawish and Farid fled the 
country, to avoid trial on charges of abetting 
re ipon, and took refuge at Constantinople. 
With their less dangerous local successors he 
was on better terms, but the flight of Shawish 
took the sting out of the extremist group, which 
had never been really dangerous, except as a 



292 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




TROOPS DISEMBARKING IN EGYPT. 

weapon in the hands of the Khedive and of 
Turkish fishers in troubled waters. Shawish 
became a leading member of the Committee of 
Union and Progress and counsellor to Talaat 
and Enver. Another Egyptian Nationalist, 
Dr. Ahmed Fuad, was appointed to the Intelli- 
gence Department of the Turkish Foreign 
Office. The leaders left in Egypt indulged in a 
certain amovuit of pro -German and pro -Turkish 
talk in bars and cafes, but no single Egyptian 
was induced thereby to risk his skin in derailing 
a train or blowing up a bridge. The censorship 
checked anj' jom-nalistic manifestations on 
their part, and when war broke ovxt with 
Turkey some of them, who had been allowed 
to continue to edit their newspapers, re- 
quested to be allowed to go to Italy, and 
their request was granted. 

A far inore dangerous group, the " Servants 
of the Kaaba " (the Holy Stone at Mecca), was 
scarcely represented in Egypt before the war. 
Sheikh Shawish was one of its leading lights, 
but its chiefs were usually Indian, Afghan, and 
Turkish Moslems. Some of its emissaries, who 
were sent to Egypt to incite the Indian Moslem 
troops against their officers, were caught and 
expelled from the country. They were Afghans 
or Indians. 

For several years before the ovitbreak of the 
Great War German dijalomatists, as the French 



^'l'llow Book related, had sough* to make 
Egypt, as tlie intellectual centre of the Arab 
world, a base for their propaganda, which was 
directed against England, France, and to some 
extent Italy. By posing as tlie friends of 
Turkey they won to their side the pro -Turkish 
elements among the Arabs. By flattering the 
extremist Egyptian Nationahsts they main- 
tained friendly relations with the Hisb el Watani, 
and their relations with the Ottoman High 
Commissariat and with the Khedive were 
friendly. Baron Max von Oppenheim, Coun- 
cillor with Ministerial r^nk to the German 
Agency at Cairo from 1904 to 1909, an energetic 
but somewhat theatrical intriguer, showed 
much pro-Turkish activity in 1906, the year of 
the Akaba incident and of the Conference of 
Algeciras. In the same year a branch of the 
Deutsch-Orient Bank, the advanced guard of 
German political and financial penetration in 
the Near East, was founded at Cairo. Its 
methods included house-to-house touting, 
appeals to the nationalist sentiment against 
Coptic moneylenders and British '" Ijlood- 
suckers," the offer of credit on insufficient 
security, and the bait of heavy interest, 
amounting in some cases to 4 per cent., 
on deposits. Rival banlcs were loud in their 
denunciations of the unprofessional methods 
employed by the German and Austrian Jews 
who controlled and managed the Egyptian 
branch, but when the Germans burnt their 
fingers by losing unsecured advances to un- 
trustworthy, if Gennanophile, notables, anger 
gave way to mirth. The Deutsch-Orient 
Bank eventually brought its policy into line 
with that of other Egj^ptian banks, but had 
none the less temporarily to suspend payment 
after the outbreak of war, to the huge indigna- 
tion of its Egj'ptian clientele. 

More important than these politico-financial 
experiments were the intrigues carried on by 
members of the staff of the German Agencw 
Baron von Oppenheim, though he corresponded 
with the Kaiser over the indignant heads of 
his official chiefs, and was even invited to a 
" lunch intune " at Potsdam to which his then 
chief was not invited, was not a persona grata 
either with Herr Ruecker-Jenisch, A\ho dis- 
liked subterranean politics, or with Count 
Bernstorff. who preferred more open warfare. 
He was, however, on good terms with Prince 
Hatzfeldt, who succeeded Bernstorff, and from 
1908 onwards lost no chance of establishing 
close relations with Nationahst or Turkish 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



•293 



intriguers. After the Baron's departure tlie 
threads of German intrigue in Egypt were 
confided to Dr. Pruefer, a retiring httle man, 
but a fme Arabic scholar, who had travelled 
Huich in Syria and visited the Egyptian 
extremist leaders and certain reputed Pan- 
Islamic agents in Oriental disguise. In 1911 the 
leaders of the Hisb el Watani, Sheikh Shawish 
and Mohamed Bey Farid, entered into an 
agreement with Prince Hatzfeldt whereby they 
pledged themselves to use all their influence 
with the Union and Progress leaders at Constan- 
tinople, to oppose any attempt to bring about 
a rapprochement between Great Britain and 
Turkey and to obtain jNIoslem support for the 
Deutsch-Orient Bank. In return they re- 
ceived " postal facilities " — i.e., the use of the 
German official valise for the forwarding of 
compromising documei.ts to Constantinople — 
and monetarj^ subventioiis. When the ex- 
tremists fell on evil days and Shawish and 
Farid had to fly to Constantinople, the German 
Acting Diploniatic Agent in Egypt, Baron 
Richthofen, had the effrontery to propose 
Dr. Pruefer as the German official candidate for 
the post of Director of tlie Khedivial Library, 
in which he \\ould have had abundant oppor- 



tunities of influencing Moslem students and 
divines. The scheme failed owing to the wari- 
ness of Hishmet Pasha, then Minister of 
Education, who refused to be " rushed," 
and the subsequent opposition of the British 
Agency. Meanwhile the German Agency 
maintained close and friendly relations with 
Abdin Palace and with the Ottoman High 
Commissariat, and attempted to open direct 
relations with the Sheikh es Senussi, while the 
German Embassy at <."onstantinople kept in 
touch with Shawish and other exiled extrenaists. 
Dr. Pruefer left Egypt early in 1914, and was 
next heard of in comiexion with the ^lors 
affair, which will Ije described later. He and 
liis chiefs, together with certain German resi- 
dents, had undoubtedly succeeded in infecting 
a limited nmiiber of Egyptians and P^gypto- 
Turks with Germanophile ideas, but this \\ as 
the limit of their success. More timid and 
more practical than the Turks, their Egyptian 
friends confined themselves, even when the 
( Jerman armies were near Paris, to harmless 
demonstrations of sympathy, which became 
more discreet as each fresh British reinforce- 
ment reached Egypt. 

Abdul Hamid had organized Pan-Islam ism 



0iemt^BSs^ ■ "■■■ 







SUDANESE SOLDIERS. 



34 



294 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




!^ ■ ¥ r^ 




AN EGYPTIAN DRINK. 

for defensive purposes. Having given the \\ iider 
Moslem elements of his Empire a free hand to 
plunder, and at times massacre, non-Moslems, 
he sought to exalt the prestige of the Turkish 
Kaliphate among Moslems subject to non- 
Moslem rule or administration, so that pressure 
exercised by Eiu-opean States on behalf of 
Ottoman Christians might be met by counter- 
pressure apphed by their Moslem subjects on 
behalf of an unjustly hmniliated Kaliph. In 
Eg5q:)t, as Lord Cromer confessed in 1906, he 
met with some success : tlie sympathies of a 
large number of Egjqjtians were on the Turkish 
side dvuing the Akaba dispute. After his fall 
the Committee of Union and Progress continued 
liis Pan-IslaiTiic policy, which in their hands 
gradually took an aggi-essive form, and though 
at first hampered in Egypt by the Khedive's 
change of front, tlie death of Mustafa Kamil, 
and the indignation aroused among Moslem 
Conservatives by the manner in which Abdul 
Hamid was deposed, its agents gradually 
regained ground. They \\ere helped in this by 
the general sympathy for Turkey felt through- 
out the Near East when Italy attacked the 
Ottoman Empire and by the long-successful 
resistance of the Turco -Arabs of Cyrenaica 
luider Enver Bey and Aziz el Masri, while 
Ismail Hakki, the real head of the Ottoman 
High (Commissariat at Cairo, was in close touch 
with the Nationalist extremists and lost no 



cliance of flattering wealthy Egyptian.s who 
were likely to subscribe to Turkish political 
or patriotic funds. When Sheikh Shawish and 
Mohamed Farid Bej- left Egypt to avoid 
arrest, the former edited a subventioned 
journal within a few doors of the Porte. 
Egyptian students of extremist views had 
already had a friendly reception at Constanti- 
nople ; Wardani, the murderer of Butros Pasha, 
had visited Constantinople in 1909 and had 
been photographed in the contpany of prominent 
members of the Committee. After the return 
of the Committee Government to power at 
Constantinople over the corpse of Nazim Pasha, 
Pan-Islamism of a most mihtant and aggressive 
description was openly preached by the Turkish 
Press and by members of the " Executive 
Committee," to which Sheikh Shawish and his 
imitator. Sheikh Salih et-Tunisi, Enver Pasha's 
Arabic tutor, belonged. Enver founded an 
" Arab bureau," which entered into close 
relations with Egyptian malcontents, and imder 
the auspices of Ismail Hakki Alexandria and 
Cairo became centres of political espionage and 
pro -Turkish propaganda. The plot against 
Aziz el Masri, if due in the first instance 
to the jealotisy of Enver Pasha, was worked up 
by Shawish, Sheikh Salih et-Tunisi, and certain 
Egyptian jotu:nalists and Beduins, though the 
better elements in the covmtry were disgusted 
by the persecution of this brave Egj'ptian. 
Many of the Turkish Ulema and students of 
Al-Azhar worked in the interests of the Com- 
mittee among the religious. Certain Beduin 
notables were also approached by Turkish 
agents, but it is an interesting fact that no 
attempt was made to win over the " fellaheen." 
The relations between the Ottoman Special 
Mission and Abdin grew closer, and in ]\Iay and 
Jume, 1914, Ismail Hakki caused alms to be 
distributed in certain mosques in the name of 
" Es-Sultan illi gaih " — the Sultan who is 
coming — a performance Mhicli would suggest 
that some at least of the Turkish extremists 
were well aware that 1914 would be a year of 
tension, if not of \\ ar, and had determined to 
profit from any trouble that ensued in Egypt. 
I<ate in June Ismail Hakki left Egypt. The 
outbreak of war in August seemed to the adven- 
turers of Constantinople and Salonika a heaven- 
sent opportunitj'- for the carrying out of then* 
Pan-Islamic schemes at the expense of the Triple 
Entente. To what lengths they were prepared 
to go long before the outbreak of war with 
Turkey was shown by the fact that Shukri Bey, 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



295 



Acting Ottoman High Commissioner, received 
orders as soon as war broke out in Europe to 
prepare public opinion in Egypt for a Turkish 
invasion, and by the disclosures of the Mors 
trial. A German, Lieut. R. C. Mors, of the 
Egyptian police, was arrested in Alexandria on 
arriving from Constantinople in September, 
He had explosives and compromising papers in 
his possession. He confessed under exan^ination 
that he had been introduced by Dr. Pruefer 
to Enver Pasha, who spoke of military opera- 
tions in Egypt. He had a long conversation with 
Omar Fauzi Bey, of the Ottoman General Staff, 
on September 6. This officer had planned a 
scheme for the creation of disturbances in 
Egypt by bands of malefactors under Turkish 
officers and for an attack on the Canal by 
Beduins. Enver afterwards discussed this 
subject with Mors, who was finally given 
explosives to hand over to Turkish agents or 
sympathizers in Egypt. He was condemned to 
death, but his sentence, owing, no doubt, to his 
interesting confession, was afterwards com- 
muted. 

Though more fitful, Turkish intrigue in Egypt 
was more formidable than that of the Germans, 
owing first to the religious ties that xmited 
Egypt and Turkey, and secondly to the quite 
undeserved prestige of the Turkish Army and 
Govemraent in Egypt. This prestige was mainly 
due to the fact that the Turkish rulers of Egypt 



had seldom lost an opportunity of beating, 
squeezing, or otherwise terrorizing the Egyp» 
tians, who had not yet got over their nervous 
respect for their former masters, and still felt 
flattered if they could marry Turkish wives. 
Nevertheless, it failed, as other intrigues failed, 
because the great mass of the Egyptians had 
no great economic grievances to complain of, 
and because the Turks, as usual, mistaking their 
own desires for realities, behoved that persons 
who from time to time invoked curses on the 
infidel and blessings on the Sultan were ready 
to sacrifice themselves for the Talaats and 
Envers. Lord Cromer, in his book " Abbas IL," 
describes how an old Anglophile Sheikh replied 
to those who asked him why he put his name to 
a petition to the Sultan begging him to save the 
country from the " abhorred presence " of the 
Enghsh. "It is all empty words," he replied, 
" I often say to my camel or to my horse if in 
some trifUng way he tries my patience, ' Curses 
on you. May Allah strike you dead, oh, son of 
a pig,' and if I thought it would really happen 
I should be silent ; but I know that the beast 
will remain unlianned. So also I know that tljo 
English will stay here, whether I sign a petition 
or not. What does it matter, then ? I please our 
Lord, the Khedive ; the English remain all the 
same and look after my interests and every one 
is happy all round." 

The economic meas\ires taken by the Govern- 




NEW ZEALANUERS AT ZEITOUN. 



29G 



77-//'; TUiE^ HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




[Zoli. 



MOHAMED BEY FARID. 



ment iniiiiediateiy after the outbreak of war 
in Eiiroi^e may now be described. The bank- 
notes issued by the National Bank of Egyp^. 
were made compulsory legal tender ; and the 
stock and share exchanges and the cotton and 
cotton seed futiire markets were closed. The 
latter markets were eventually re-opehed on 
December 7. The Government also issued (in 
connexion with the payment of debts) various 
moratoria, the last of which disappeared on 
January 31, 1915, and appointed Commissions 
in each Governorate and Province to fix the 
maximum prices of articles of first necessity. 
The exportation of foodstuffs was forbidden. 
This prohibition was afterwards modified in 
the case of beans, maize, and millet, the export 
of limited quantities of wliich was allowed 
after October 28. These measures, thougii 
useful enough, failed to improve the situation 
of the landowners, and especially of the smaller 
owners, who saw the price of cotton falling 
steadily and fast. In late August a cotton 
Commission, comj^osed of Mr. H. Higgs, C.B., 
Inspector- General to the JMinistry of Finance, 
'Mi. Dickson, Sub-Governor at the Alexandria 
Branch of the Nitional Bank of Egj^-j^t, and 
Mr. Critchley, head of the Alexandria Branch 
of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, was appointed 
by the Minihtry of F. nance to take measures in 
England to meet the situation. Its members, 
who between them could claim an unrivalled 
knowledge of Egyptian economics and offic'al 



I i nance, held repeated consultations witli expert 
authorities on currency, finance, banking, and 
cotton in London and l^ancashire. They came 
to the following conchi.'iions : 

Owing to diflicultics of finance and otlwr 
considerations a fresh trade dt-mand for cotton 
was improbable before December. Consump- 
tion, for obvioas reasons, was likely to be le-r"? 
than usual, whereas the supply seemed much 
greater. There were classes of people interested 
in cotton who would be prepared to buy as a 
speculative investment, provided a minimum 
price were fixed. Banks would be prepared 
to finance such 2'>urchases subject to this con- 
dition. There were administrative difficulties 
in the way of making individual advances 
against cotton to landowners or to village 
vmits. 

Taking these factors into account, the 
Commission recommended : 

(1) That the novenimeiit should forthwith aniiaiinco 
its intention to buy and hold — if necessary till Ortober, 
1915 — the estimated surplus production of cotton, fixing 
minimum rates for the purchase of first and second pick. 
ings as hii;;h as prudence allowed, and giving preference 
to small cultivators. It was the Commission's opinion 
that the mere knowledge of this decision, coupled with 
(2), would stiffen prices and stimulate demand with.out 
involving Government in heavy purchases. 

(2) That the acreas^e to be planted in cotton for next 
crop should be reduced by Decree to an amount roughly 
equivalent to the estimated carry forward from the 
season. (It appeared desirable to lose no time in 
artificially curtailing the price of a commoditv which 
was likely to be sold at a loss and stimulate the produc- 
tion of foodstuffs which were likely to become increasin;,'ly 
remunerative.) 

(3) That any Government piu-chases be financed by 
the issue of National Bank notes with the specific 
guarantee of the Eg3rptian Government. 

(4) That a Commissio'i should be appointed to 
authorise further issues of similar notes to exporters 
against approved forward sales. 

(o) That similar notes be issued as required for sound 
business by approved Bunks. 

(6) That in order to avoid an excessive note issue all 
emergency currency was to pay a penalty based on Bank 
of England rate. With this safeguard it was anticioated 
that a comparatively' small gold reserve would suffice t<? 
steady exchange. 

These proposals w-ere telegraphed towards 
the middle of September to the Egyptian 
^Ministry of Finance, which maj^ or may not 
have discovered better expert advice in the 
interim, but in any case rejected some of them. 
On September 22 the Government decided to 
reduce the acreage under cotton to a million 
feddans (1,100,000 acres), and Umit the area 
under cotton in each holding to 25 per cent, of 
that holding. This gave rise to complaints 
from the tenants who paid rent on the basis of 
the area under cotton. Finally, on Octohei- .'JO, 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAF. 



•297 




♦♦ 




7 Vij'^i- 



'^"yj^i.-r^y 



>i^'>-l- 



8 



THE EGYPTIAN MINISTRY AT THE OUTBREAK OF WAR. [Phoiograpiisby /oia 
1. Yusuf Wahba Pasha, Finance. 2. Hussein Ruchdi Paslia, Premier and Minister of Interior. 3. Ismail 
Sirri Pasha, Public Works. 4. Mohamed Moheb Pasha, Wakfs (Pious Foundations). 5. Ahmed Hilmi 
Fasha, Education. 6. Adli Yeghen Pasha, Foreign Affairs. 7. Abdul Khalik Sarwat Pasha, Justice. 

8. Ismail Sidki Pasha, Agriculture. 



208 



THK TIMES TII.^TOjRY OF THE WAB. 




CAVALRY IN THE DESERT. 



the Goveniinent modified its decree of Sep- 
tember 22, and limited the proportion of any 
one holding under cotton to one -third instead 
of a quarter. Little had been done to prevent 
the breaking of the market, whether owing to 
the existence of the other claims on the attention 
of the British Treasury or not, it is uncertain. 
At the beginning of October the Government 
issued the following communique : 

The Egj'ptian Government will shortly issue Treasvii j- 
bonds to the value of £E. 8,000,000, .£E. 5,000,000 of 
which will be guaranteed h\- the British Government 
and the balance by the Egyptian Government's reserve. 
The bonds will be redeemable from a period of three to 
six months, the latter being the maximum date, but are 
renewable if necessary. They will be issued in London 
and Cairo, preference being given to which of the two 
places is the more favourable, but as far as possilije the 
decision of the Council of Ministers to issue £E. 5,000,000 
in London and £E. 3, 000,000 in Cairo will be carried out. 
In no case will the unit of £E. 8,000,000 be exceeded. 
The bonds issued in Cairo will be paid by the Govern- 
ment in National Bank notes, printed specially for the 
purpose ; those issued in London will be paid in gold 
or in notes of the same value. 

These arrangements ha^"ing failed to assist 
the needy section of cultivators effectively, the 
Government at length fell in to some extent 
with the recommendation of the Cotton Com- 
mission, and commissioned four of the principal 
fiitns at Alexandria to buj- the cotton belonging 
to the smallest cultivators as soon as possible 
at reasonable prices to a limit of £1,000,000, 
and at the same time made arrangements 
for the guaranteeing of certain advances 
against cotton by the National Bank of Egypt. 
These measures produced a good effect, and 
the amovmt of cotton which the Government 



needed to purchase was small. The market 
improved immediately, but in the opinion ot" 
good judges earUer action would have saved 
the commimity very considerable losses and 
abated discontent more rapidly than did the 
somewhat tardy steps above referred to. 

But if the Ministry of Finance did not, 
perhaps, quite rise to the situation during the 
period that followed the outbreak of war with 
the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires 
and preceded the rupture with Turkey, the 
^linistry of Interior did admirable work. Its 
handling of the problem presented by the 
presence of large numbers of enemy subjects iii 
Egj'pt and the measures it took against Turkish 
and native . suspects when Turkey had joined 
our enemies will be described later. It may be 
noted here that, with the exception of a law- 
increasing the penalties for breaches of the 
peace committed by assemblies of more than 
four persons, no new legislation was required 
to meet the situation. The police did their work 
well, and both British and Egyptian Inspectors 
of Interior kept a vigilant ej^e on all possible 
agitators, while vagabonds were sent back 
whenever possible to their own provinces and 
bidden to stay there. The direction of the 
various administrative measures for the main- 
tenance of order during the first three months 
of the war was in the hands of the Adviser to 
the Interior, Jlr. (now Sir) R. Graham. After 
the proclamation of martial law the General 
Officer Conunanding the Army of Occupation 
was ultimately respon-sible for public tran- 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



299 



quillity, but the measures taken ad- hoc were 
still carried out under the orders of the Adviser, 
who throughout this -difficult period deserved 
right well of his country and of Egypt. 

The military measures taken at the outset 
cannot be described in detail here. In August 
the garrison was reduced through the departure 
of units belonging to the Army of Occupation, 
but in September Indian troops, detached from 
the Indian Expeditionary Force, landed in 
Egypt and were marched through Cairo, where 
they made an excellent impression. The Sirhind 
Brigade remained for some time with other 
Indian units near the Suez Canal, where all the 
Indian forces m Egypt were eventually posted, 
and was finally sent to France, its place and that 
of other Indian regiments which left for Europe 
being taken by fresh forces from Hindustan, 
including Imperial Service troops. In Septem- 
ber the East Lancashire Territorial Division and 
a brigade of Yeomanry arrived in Egypt. Once 
they had settled down, these troops trained on in 
admirable fashion, and though inferior in phy- 
sique to the Australian troops, who arrived later, 
were superior to them in discipline, shooting and 
manoeuvring power. Their relations with the 
native population were really admirable. At 
the end of November and the beginning of 
December the Australian and New Zealant 



Expeditionary Force arrived. Both contained 
admiraljle military material, and the New 
Zealanders, it may be noted, gave much less 
trouble to the military police. 

On the dejiarture of General Sir J. Byng in 
September, Lieut. -General Sir John Maxwell 
was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 
British Forces in Egypt. Sir John Maxwell, 
who at the outbreak of war was fifty-five years 
of age, joined the Army in 1879. He had 
spent the greater part of his military career in 
Egypt. He was with the Black Watch in the 
Egjqitian War of 1882, and was present at the 
Battle of Tel-el-Kebir. He was a Staff Captain 
in the Hill Expedition of 1884-85, and then 
served as Aide-de-Camp to Major General 
Grenfell with the Egyptian Frontier Field 
Force. He was promoted Brevet Lieut. - 
Colonel for his services at Dongola in 1896, and 
commanded the second Egyptian Brigade at the 
Battle of Omdufman. In the South African 
War be commanded a Brigade, and was after- 
wards appointed Military Governor of Pre- 
toria. In 1908 he was given the command of 
the forces in Egypt, and he held this appoint- 
ment ixntil two years before the Great War. His 
great popularity with the native population of 
all degrees and his remarkable knowledge of 
1 the country were \ aluable assets to the British 




SUDANESE TRIBESMEN. 



300 



thl: times jijstol'Y of the war. 



Occuptition throughout this period, and when 
martial law was declared he imposed it witii the 
nunimum of necessary severity and with 
practically no interference whatever witli the 
normal life of the country. 

There were obvious difficulties in dealing with 
German and to some extent with Turkish 
propaganda as long as tlie German and Austro- 
Hungarian Governments were diplomatically 
represented in Egj^^Jt, and Herr von Pannwitz, 
Acting German Diplomatic Agent in the place 
of Prince Hatzfeldt's successor, Herr von 
jNliquel, received a bi-weekly foreign office 
" bag ■' from Berlin by way of Constantinople 
and Beirut. At the end of August it was decided 
to expel those Gennan and Austro-Hungarian 
subjects, including Diplomatic and Consular 
representatives, whose presence was considered 
undesirable. An intimation to this effect was 
therefore conveyed to Dr. von Pannwitz and 
Count Louis Szechenja by General Sir .T. BjTig's 
aide-de-camp. The aggrieved diplomatists 
protested to the Egjptian Government, which 
retiu-ned no an-\\er to their protest. Article 13 
of its decision of August 5 dispensed it from that 
formality. On Septeniber 10 both left Alex- 
andria for Italy by the s.s. Catania, and the 
American and Italian Diplomatic Agents took 
over the protection of their nationals in Egj^Dt. 
Four (Jerman Consular officials were left under 
the charge of the American Agency and t\\"o 
Austro-Hungarian Consular officials vinder that 
of the Italian Agency. The German Govern- 
ment and that of the Dual ilonarchy did their 
utmost to make capital out of this incident, 
more especially at Constantinople. But the 
measiu"e was pvu^ely a military one, and abso- 
Ivitely defensible on military grounds. As long 
as a British army occupied Eg^^pt the Com- 
mander of that army had the right in war time 
to take all necessary measures for the protection 
of the troops under liis orders, including the 
expulsion of enemy subjects, whatever their 
rank, wliose presence \vas inconvenient or 
dangerous. Till the end of August no steps had 
been taken either to register enemj* subjects 
resident in Egypt or to prevent Austrian and 
German reservists from leaving the country. 
Many of them did so ; those who were unable 
to make their way to Italy taldng passages for 
SjTian ports. In September, first unmarried 
and later married enemy reservists were 
prevented from leaving the coiuitr}-, and on 
October 1, 1914, a proclamation was issued by 
the General Officer Commanding the Army of 



Occupation callinc on all German and Austro- 
Hungarian subjects to register themselves, 
failing which they would render themselves 
liable to arrest b\' the military authorities. 
The registration form showed age, profession, 
length of residence in Egypt, family, and liability 
for military service. It was only retiu-ned, in 
the case of male enemy residents, to persons 
over 48 years of age, for whom it served as a 
licence to reside and carry on business in Egj-pt. 
The authorities, having thus obtained a list of 
enemy subjects liable to service, sent all un- 
married reservists to Alexandria, whence they 
were dispatched to Malta on November 1. 
^Vith them v\ere deported the crews of enemy 
ships taken as prizes and lying in Egyptian 
ports. The papers of the remaining German and 
Austro-Hungarian subjects of from 18 to 45 
years of age were then examined, and all who 
could not furnish proof of their exemption from 
military service were dispatched to Malta with 
a munber of married reservists and some more 
crews of prize ships on November 28. Between 
November 1 and December 17, 1,651 enc^my 
subjects were thub deported. After the pro- 
clamation of the British Protectorate and the 
development of Turkish military preparations 
in SjTia, it became necessary to take more 
sweeping measiu-es towards German and Austro- 
Hungarian subjects, many of ^^hom continued 
to indoctrinate ignorant Egyptians with a belief 
in the ultimate success of the Central Powers. 
iMalta being now overcrowded with deportees, 
including many Turks, a concentration camp 
to holii about 150 persons was formed at 
Alexandria. There were sent to it : (o) Germans 
and Austro-Hungarians who wished to go there ; 
(6) those who had no means of leaving the 
country or whose health would have suffered 
from a European winter ; and (c) persons who 
for special reasons had not previously been 
deported. Early in 1915 all Germans, of what- 
ever age, were requested to leave the comitry, 
and exceptions were only made in cases of age 
or infirmity, or where thoroughly satisfactory 
guarantees of good behaviour were forthcoming 
No male German or Austro-Hiuigarian subjects 
were allowed to land in Eg\pt, and no women 
without permission of the General Officer 
Commanding. 

These measures were strict, but they were 
by no means harshly applied. No Triestines, 
Dalmatians, Is;trians, or Austro-Hungarian 
Slavs were deported unless there were par- 
ticular reasons necessitating their expulsion. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



301 




EGYPT AND THE TURKISH EMPIRE. 



302 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



No women were deported or sent to concen- 
tration camps, and it was only found necessary 
to request three to leave the country. In cases 
where the head of a family had been deported 
and the fanaily hud no means of getting to 
Europe tiir cost ot the passage was borne by 
the Government. All petitions from Germans 
and Austrians were submitted to the General 
Officer Commanding, whose decision in their 
case was final. All denunciations of individuals 
were investigated liy the Ministrj' of the 
Interior through the police, and the decision of 
the General Officer Commanding was taken on 
the result. Enemy subjects who were in the 
service of the Egyptian Government on the 
outbreak of war were recjuired to sign a declara- 
tion in which they gave their name, rank, 
ftmctions, and nationality, and declared that 
the present war would in no way affect the 
proper discharge of their duties as Egyptian 
officials, and that during the war they would 
do notliing to injiu-e the arms or interests of 
Great Britain or her Allies. On November 25 
Sir John Maxwell decided that no Austro- 
Hungarians or Germans could be allowed to 
remain in Government service, except such as 
could either obtain neutral or allied citizenship 



or a certificate from a neutral or allied Con-sulate 
that they had taken all steps in their power to 
renounce their old and to acquire a new nation- 
alitj'. On December '.i all enemy subjects in 
Government service were dismi.ssed, and the 
reinstatement of such as had been able to accept 
th(! above offer was begun. Those who were 
dismissed were treated as if their posts had 
been suppressed, and their rights to pension.s 
and indemnities liquidated. Ten mincjr 
Government emploj^ees were deported with 
other enemy subjects, and one only sent to 
England on parole at his own request. Through- 
out Sir John ]Maxwell used the administrative 
machinery of the Egyptian Govemment up to 
the point where enemy subjects were handed 
o\er to the military' authorities. That this 
machinery was in good hands was proved by the 
rarity of complaints, even on the part of tho.se 
^s■ho suffered from its activity. 

Meanwhile a number of enemy merchantmen, 
mostly under the German flag, had been lying 
in the Canal, and had in many cas«s refused to 
take advantage of the provisions of Article 20 
of the Egyptian Government's decision of 
AugiLst .'5, whereby they were permitted to 
pass through the Canal and quit it,« ports of 




NATIVES BRING FOOD TO BRITISH SOLDIERS. 



THE TIMES HISTOnr OE THE WAR. 



803 




AUSTRALIAN GAMP AT THE PYRAMIDS. 



access without danger of capture or detention 
(in Egyptian waters), provided that their 
passage of the Canal and departure from its 
ports of access were effected without undue 
delay. 

The danger ot a block in the Canal was 
thus greatly increased. In one or two instances 
attempts to sink ships in the Canal were only 
just foiled in time by the vigilance of the 
British and Egyptian authorities. The growing 
tension between Great Britain and Turkey 
made it necessary to remove this source of 
danger, and on October 14 the Egyptian 
Government, which had every reason to com- 
plain of the refusal of the captains of the 
vessels in question to respect its decision, took 
drastic measures against them. On that and 
succeeding days Egyptian troops arriving at 
the Canal ports boarded the ships in question, 
22 in number, and occupied them with the 
object of preventing disturbances. Crews were 
then put on board which took the ships to sea, 
and at the three-mile limit handed them over 
to the British Naval authorities, who took 
them over. All reached Alexandria by October 
20. Meanwhile the British Government issued 
a communication to neutrals and allied Powers 
which had been parties to the Suez Canal 
Convention. It pointed out that since the 
outbreak of war certain ships belonging to 



enemy countries had been detained by the 
Egyptian Government, some on account of 
hostile acts, others through fear that such acts 
were contemplated by their captains, while 
other vessels had declined to leave the Suez 
Canal though furnished with passes, thus 
proving that they wished to use the Canal 
ports merely as ports of refuge. The British 
Government could not admit such an interpre- 
tation of the rights of free access and use of 
Canal ports. To admit it would imply its 
consent to the early blocking of the Canal. It 
was obvious, therefore, that the Egyptian 
Government was justified in removing enemy 
ships which had remained long enough in the 
Canal porta to show that they meant to stay 
there till the end of the war. 

Three days after the arrival of the last of 
these ships at Alexandria the Supreme British 
Court sitting in Egypt gave notice that it had 
instituted actions in its capacity as a Prize 
Court against the owners and parties interested 
in the ships in question, " the said ships having 
been taken as prizes by H.M. Ships of War, 
and for the condemnation thereof." 

Meanwhile the Turkish Government was 
pushing on its preparations for a campaign 
against Egypt. The Sublime Porte assured the 
British Ambassador at Constantinople that 
these measures were piurely defensive and had 



304 



THE TIMES HLSTUUY OF THE WAR. 




SIR MILNE CHEETHAM. 

been taken only in consequence of the general 
mobilization of the Ottoman Army. But 
British Consular reports spoke not only of the 
mobilization of the Damascus Army Corps, but 
of the formation of reserve regiments in Syria, of 
the dispatch to Aleppo of troops belonging to the 
Xllth (Mosul) Army Corps, and of an active pro- 
paganda among the Arab tribes of the districts on 
the borders of the Sinai Peninsula. The officially 
inspired or controlled Arabic newspapers of 
Syria and Palestine were encouraged to publish 
violent articles against the Entente Powers. 
In September the entire Ottoman Press began 
to raise the Egyptian question, and to demand 
by what right the British military authorities 
whose occupation of Egypt the Porte had never 
recognized, had ordered the German and 
Austrian Agents to leave the country, though 
they received their exequaturs from the Porte. 
False accusations of a sort calculated to arouse 
Moslem fanaticism were also made, and wild 
and mythical tales of " massacres " of " harm- 
less Moslems " spread abroad. At a later date 
parties of " fedais " — the political desperadoes 
and agitators whom the Committee of Union 
and Progress eniployed for political assassina- 
tions, the persecution of minorities, and the 
promotion of revolutionary movements in the 
Caucasus and the Balkans — began to drift into 



Syria and incite the popnlatioTi against lOngland. 
At Alcj)po a local tailor was coiiinii.s.sioned t<» 
make " a variety of Indian costumes and 
measurements " on designs .supplied by German 
officers, it being the object of some of tlie 
" fedais " to enter Eg^pt in Indiaii disguise and 
stir up the population, i^argc quantities of arms 
were meantime being distributed among the 
Syrian Beduins with money subventions. 
Beh.:;-ed-din Shakir, a prominent member ot 
the Committee, had made an agreeimuit on 
behalf of the Government in September uitli 
the Slieikh of the Howeytat tribe, and large; 
bodies of Beduins were collected near Gaza. 
Finally, on October 26, the long-ex2)ected raid 
took place, and 2,000 armed Beduins crossed the 
Egyptian frontier and watered their camels at 
Magdaba wells, 20 miles ^\ithin the ICgypiian 
border. Before the Grand Vizier had received 
official news of this aggi-essive movement a 
Turkish destroyer flotilla had raided Odessa 
and sunk a Russian gimboat. On October ;}0 
the British, French, and Russian Ambassadors 
asked for their passports, and on Noveml)er 5 
Great Britain was at war with Turkey. 

The British authorities in Egypt were not 
caught unprepared. No sooner had the news of 
the attack on Odessa and the rupture of 
diplomatic relations with the Porte reached 
Cairo than a large number of suspected Turks, 
among whom were several officers, sent on 
enigmatic missions to Egypt, were arrested, 
together with certain Egyptians whose relations 
with the Ottoman Special Mission were suspect 
or who were notorious sedition-mongers. Sir 
John Maxwell's plan of campaign had been 
skilfully arranged. The British officials of the 
Ministry of Interior were promptly invested 
with what amounted to military powers to deal 
with sedition, under the command of Sir 
Ronald Graham, the Adviser to the Minister 
of Interior, who for the time being acted £S 
Chief of Staff to the General Officer Conunanding 
in all matters connected \^itli the maintenance 
of order. Orders for deportation or imprison- 
ment were signed by the Adviser until the 
situation was regularized by the proclamation 
of the British Protectorate. What amounted to 
a military dictatorship was thu*^ inaugurated. 
On November 2 the following proclamations 
wfjre issued : 

By the General Officer Commanding His Britannic 

Majesty's Forces in Egypt. 

Notice is hereby given that I have been directed by 

His Britannic Majesty's Government to assume mihtary 

control of Egypt in order to secure its protection. The 



I 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



305 



country i>> tlioreioie placed iitidcr .Marlial Law from 
tliU date. 

I, John Grenfell Maxwell, Liouteiiant-Genera!, Com- 
manding His Britannic Jlaje-^ty's Forces in Egypt, 
/entrusted with the applieaiion o! Martial Law, hereby 
give notice as follows : 

(1) The powers to be exercizeil under my authority 
by the Military Authorities are intended to supplement 
and not to supersede the Civil Administration, and all 
Civil officials in the service of the Egyptian Government 
are hereby required to continue the punctual dischar;,'e 
of their respective duties. 

{'') Private citizens will best serve the common end 
by abstaining from all action of a nature to disturb the 
public peace, to stir up disaffection, or to aid the enemies 
of His J3ritannie Majesty and His Allies, and by con- 
forming promptly and cheerfully to all orders given 
under my authority for the maintenance of public peace 
and good order ; and so long as they do so they will be 
subject to no interference from the Military Authorities. 

(.3) All requisitions of service or of property which may 
be necessitated by military exigencies will be the subject 
of full compensation, to be assessed, in default of agree- 
ment, by an independent authority. 

By the second proclamation Sir Jolin Maxwell 
res-erved the right of interfering, if necessary, 
in the civil administration of the country. 
This right was not exercized. That this 
was so was due to the ^\ise and patriotic 
conduct of the Ministry. Telegraphing on 
December 19. after the proclamation of the 



British I'rotectorate, The Tltne.v Cairo Corre- 
spondent said : 

On the outbreak of hostilities with Turkey the position 
became admittedly more dilficult and delicate. Holding 
their mandate from the Khedive as the vassal of Turkey, 
-Alinisters must naturally have regarded certain measures 
which the situation demanded as inconsistent with that 
mandate, but they all realized that their first duty, 
overshadowing all other considerations, was to Egypt 
and the Egyptians. . . . But while the Ministry as a 
whole acquitted itself commendably, the lion's share of 
all the anxious and strenuous work has naturally fallen 
on the shoulders of its chief — Hussein Ruchdi Pasha - 
to whom the greatest credit is due. He had gone thiough. 
the most trying period of office of any Egyptian Pronier. 
The sudden assumption of control by the military 
authorities might well hiive been expected periodically 
to give rise to what many men in his position might have- 
resented as encroachment on the civil prerogatives. 
But Ruchdi Pasha has fehown remarkable adaptability 
and appreciation of the true requirements of the moment. 
At no time has there been friction, nor has one moment 
of anxiety been caused to the British authorities, who- 
appreciate very highly his sincere and valuable co- 
operation, especially in the difficult circmnstances of the 
past two months. 

On November 7 Sir John Maxwell issued a 

proclamation announcing that a state of war 

existed as from November 5 between Great 

Britain and Turkej'. The preamble was followed 

by these important pas -ages : 

Although from the outsat of the war between Hia 
Majesty and the Emperors of Germany and Austriii the- 




AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERS BUILDING A BRIDGE OVER A CANAL. 



306 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




SOME MEN OF THE 9th MANCHESTER 



Ottoman Govemmenl. under tlie influence of Hi.s 
Majesty's enemies, have repeatedly violated the riKhts 
secured to His Majesty by international law and by 
treaty, His Majesty's Government ha\'e scrupulously 
abstained from any retaliatory action imtil compelled 
thereto, not only by militar}^ preparations in SyriM, 
which can only be directed against Epypt, but by the 
violation of the Egyptian frontier by armed bands, and 
by an open and unprovoked attack by the Ottoman 
Naval Forces, under German ofTicers, upon the territories 
of one of His Majesty's Allies. 

Great Britain is now fighting both to protect the rights 
and liberties of Egypt, which were oriainally won upon 
the battlefield by Mehemet Ali, and to secure to her the 
continuance of the peace and prosperity which she has 
enjoyed durinc: the thirty years of the British Occupation. 

Recognizing the respect and veneration with which 
the Sultan in his religious capacity is regarded by the 
Mohammedans of Egypt, Great Britain takes upon 
Herself the sole burden of the present war, without calling 
upon the Egyptian people for aid therein : but She 
expects and requires, in return, that the population 
shall refrain from any action of a nature to hamper Her 
military operation or to render aid to the enemy. 

The dispositions of the Egyptian Govern- 
ment's decision of August 5 were appUed by 
Sir John Maxwell to the Ottoman Empire, bvit 
no period of grace was granted to Turkish 
merchantmen in Egyptian ports. Egj'pt being 
an Ottoman vassal, it was in\possible to take 
measures against Ottomans residing in the 
country. It was also iinnecessary, since a large 
number of the non-Egyptian Ottomans were 
Syrians, Armenians, and Greeks who were 
supporters of the British Occupation, and not 
a few of the Turlvs were deadl}^ enemies of tlie 
Committee of Union and Progress. The officers 
previously referred to were sent to Malta with 
certain Egyptians. Other suspects were 
ordered to leave the country, and requests to 
this effect were served on Prince Mohamed Ali, 



brother of the Khedive, and one or two other 
members of the Kbedivial family, who with- 
drew to Italy. The censorship of the Press 
was strengthened, as was the military censor- 
ship. The former was well managed at Cairo, 
less well at Alexandria. The inUitary censor- 
ship grew more efficient as its organization 
im])roved. Active steps were taken, on the 
whole successfully, to prevent the importation 
and dissemination of seditiovis literature. The 
l^lema, by a proclamation calling on the Moslem 
Egyptians to abstain from political agitation 
and excitement, greatly assisted the Govern- 
ment and the British mihtary authorities. 

This regime was, of course, exceptional and, 
as far as some of its features were concsmed, it 
was necessarily temporary. As long as Egypt 
was de jure a vassal State of Turkey- if de facto a 
" veiled " British Protectorate, Ministers who 
held their mandate from a prince who was 
notoriously on the enemy's side, and whose 
sovereignty was an emanation of that exercized 
by the Sultan, Egypt's Suzerain could not well 
sign orders for the deportation of persons whose 
crime was their devotion to the Sovereign or 
the Suzerain. On the other hand, Advisers and 
Inspectors of Interior could not exercize 
exceptional powers over the heads of the 
Premier and his colleagues for long without 
injuring the prestige of the latter. And the 
British authorities in Egypt had nothing 
whatever to gain by injuring the prestige of 
their good friends. The situation had some- 
how to be regularized. Three questions had to 
be settled — that of the Sultan's suzerainty over 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



307 




REGIMENT AT HELIOPOLIS GAMP. 



Egj'pt, that of the Khedive, and, arising out of 
the first two, that of the future government of 
the country. Turkish suzerainty was a ghost 
that had to be laid. It had ahvays troubled 
some men's dreams in Egypt ; of late it had 
s?emed to trouble more. The Turks, bj!- 
forcing war on the Allies and by massing troops 
in Syria for the invasion of Egj^pt, stood to 
lose their vassal province unless victorious. 
England had forborne to declare a protectorate 
after Tel-el-Kebir ; she had disappointed 
Count Achrenthal by declining to annex the 
coimtry when he had torn up the Treaty of 
Berlin and annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina ; 
she had made no use of the occa.«ions offered 
when Abdul Hamid threatened the Sinai and 
when France declared a protectorate o^•er 
Morocco. The present situation^ — Egypt 
practically at \\ar with Germany and Austria- 
Hungary, yet the vassal of their ally, ruled by 
a Government whose mandate emanated from 
the Sxiltan, but which had undertaken to give 
every assistance to the British Army of Occu- 
pation in the struggle with the Sultan's allies 
— was too absurd to be prolonged. The Com- 
mittee of Union and Progress had led Turkish 
suzerainty in the game for Egypt. It was for 
ixs to take the trick and declare Turkish suze- 
rainty- forfeit to the King of England. 

The Khedive had shown little hesitation in 
joining the enemy. His past was not such that 
his defection could be excvised as having been 
forced upon him. He had intrigued with Abdul 
Hamid against Egj^Dtian interests, ^vith the 
Committee against Arabs and with Arabs 



against the Committee. He had encom-aged 
wealthy Eg\'ptians to aid the Senussi in his 
struggle against the Italians, and he had aided 
the Italians against the Senussi. He had 
intrigued with Turks, Arabs, and the Central 
Powers against the British Occupation. It 
M as impossible that he should remain on the 
Khedivial throne. But no Egyptian machinery 
for his dethronement existed. The Grand 
]Mufti, as the mandatorj'^ of the Sheikh-vU-Islam 
of Tiu-key. who liad recently declared a Holy 
A\'ar (to which Egypt, by the way, paid small 
attention) against England and her AlUes, 
could not issvie a " fetwa " of deposition, nor 
could the ]\Iinisters depose their Sovereign. It 
was for the British Government to declare the 
Khedivial throne vacant by reason of the 
conduct of Abbas Hiln^i. who had joined the 
King's enemies. 

These two questions were easily settled. 
But the question of the future status of Egj^t 
was more difficult. There were two alterna- 
tives — annexation or protectorate — for Egyptian 
independence was not desired by the majority 
of Egyptians, and could not have been main- 
tained against even a second-rate European 
State without a close alliance with the domi- 
nant sea Power. There were arguments for 
annexation which seemed more cogent in 
London than in Cairo. The annexationists 
believed that the adoption of the more simjile 
if more violent course would enable Great 
Britain to deal with the problem of the foreign 
jurisdictions in Egypt more effectively and 
expeditiously than would otherwise be possible. 



;iU8 



THI^J TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



Some tooI< llu' \ic\\ that the proclamalioii of 
ii protectorate would inerely lead in the end 
to fresh difficulties between the Eg\7)tian and 
J^ritish sides of the administration. At Cairo, 
on the otlier liand, it was held by those best 
(jualific^d to form an opinion that this less 
sliowy 2)olicy was the soundest. The intel- 
lectual elements among the Arab peoples 
\\ hom the TurlcLsh and Levantine Pan-Islamists 
had been striving to combine agauist us had 
been profoundly impressed by our unremitting 
efforts to prepare the Egyptians for self- 
government, and bv our abstinence from all 
action calculated to repress the developnient of 
local institutions. Again, we had entered into 
the world's struggle on behalf of " small 
nationalities." True, a national feeling as 
distinct from the religious bond of Islam had 
not vet sunk deep into the minds of the masses 
in Egypt. But it existed, if less strongly than 
in most European States, among the more 
enlightened classes, and there were indications 
that it was gaining ground among them. E\'en 
among the masses there was a racial feeling 
or particularism which contained in itself the 
germs of nationalism and deserved respect, the 
more so when it was remembered that the 
Egyptian people had on the whole behaved 
very well during the period in which its hostility 
might have proved most embarrassing to us. 
Finally there were large vested interests bound 
up with the maintenance of the House of 
Mohamed Ali, the dynasty which had given 
Egypt its rulers since the early days of the 



nineteenth century. It would have been folly 
to ignore, and ultimately dangeroas to annoy, 
them. After hearing both sides the British 
Government supported the " men on the 
spot " and decided in favour of a protectorate. 
It was necessary, too, to choose the Khedive's 
successor. Prince Hassein Kamil, uncle of the 
Khedive, the senior member of the reigning 
House and its worthiest representative, was 
the obvious choice. But the Prince, though 
willing to accept the of?er of the Khedivial 
tlirone, was in no hurry. " I am not " ar- 
riviste,' " he said to the Special Correspondent 
of Tiic Times, to whom he granted an interview 
just before his accession. " I had no need to 
be, for I ' arrived ' 59 years ago." He felt 
strongly and naturally that if he was to appear 
before his people as England's nominee to the 
throne of his deposed nephew he must appear 
with something in his hands. Negotiations 
followed between him and the British Govern- 
ment's representative at Cairo, Mr. (now Sir) 
jNIilno Cheetham. The acting British Agent 
conducted these delicate negotiations in a 
manner that won the admiration of all who 
were conversant with the facts. He received 
useful assistance from the Oriental Secretary 
to the British Agency, IVIr. R. Storrs. It was 
finally settled that Prince Hussein should ascend 
the throne with the title and style of Sultan, 
which had been borne by the independent 
Mameluke rulers of Egypt^ — the " Soldans of 
Egypt " of our crusading ancestors — and the 
Fatimides before them. His title in French 




STATE ENTRY OF THE SULTAN INTO CAIRO-CROWDS AWAITING ARRIVAL 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



309 



was to be Hautesse, in Arabic " Azainat," to 
distinguish him from the Turkish Grandviziers 
and ex-Grandvi/Jers and Sheiks-nl-Islam and 
the minor princ(?sof the Khedivial family, who 
bore the title of " Altesse." The standard 
of the Khedivial House, three white crescents 
with their baclcs to the staff, each with a five- 
pointed white star between the horns on a red 
field, was adopted as the national flag of Egypt. 
The British Government appointed a British 
High Commissioner in Egypt, and the name 
of " British Agency " gave place to that of 
" British Residency," as the title of our repre- 
sentative's official residence. For this impor- 
tant and responsible post the British Govern- 
ment selected Sir Henry McjNIahon, an ex- 
soldier, who had won high distinction as a 
political officer under the Indian Governnient, 
and was thoroughly acquainted with Oriental 
ways of thought. The views of the British 
Go\'ernment as regards the new regime were set 
forth in the following commvinication, which was 
transmitted to Prince Hussein on its behalf by 
Mr. Milne Cheethain, and afterwards published : 

Your Highnkss, 

I am instructed by His Majesty's Principal Secretary 
of State for Foreign Affairs to bring to the notice of 
Your Highness the circumstances preceding the out- 
break of war between His Britannic Majesty and the 
Sultan of Turkey and tlie changes which the war entails 
in tlie status of Egypt. 

In the Ottoman Cabinet there were two parties. On 
the one side was a moderate party, mindfiu of the 
S3mipatliy extended by Great Britain to every effort, 
towards reform in Turkey, who recognized that in the 
war in which His Majesty was already engaged no 
Turkish interests were concerned and welcomed the 
assurance of His Majesty and His Allies that, neither in 
Egypt nor elsewhere would the war be used as a pretext 
for any action injurious to Ottoman interests On the 
other side a band of unscrupulous military adventurers 
looked to find in a war of aggression, waged in concert 
with His Majesty's enemies, the means of retrieving the 
disasters, military, financial, and economic, into which 
they had already plunged their country. Hopmg to the 
last that wiser counsels might prevail. His Majesty and 
His Allies, in spite of repeated violations of their riahts, 
abstained from retaliatory action until compelled thereto 
by the crossing of the Egyptian frontier by armed bands 
and by unprovoked attacks on Russian open worts by 
the Turkish Naval forces under German officers. 

His ]\Iajesty'b Government are in possession of ample 
evidence that ever since the outbreak of war with 
Germany His Highness Abbas Hilmi Pasha, late Khedive 
of Egypt, has definitely thrown in hLs lot with His 
Majesty's enemies. 

From the facts above set out, it results that the 
rights ovt-r Egypt, whether of the Sultan or of the laie 
Khedive, are forfeit to His Maje.^ty. 

His Majesty's Govenunent have already, through the 
General Officer Commanding His Majesty's Forces in 
Egypt, accepted exclusive responsibility for the defence 
of Egypt in the present war. It remain.^ to lay down 
the form of the future government of tlie coinitiy, freed, 
as T have stated, from all rights of suzerainty or other 
rights heretofore claimed by the Ottoman CJoverniMi'nt. 



f**\ 




pl'^ ^ 




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^^t^^r^'*^''^^^ 


1^' • 








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^mMMmj^'^Jt 


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Ik^^^ 



LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR J. 



iLif.iyeUc 

MAXWELL. 



Ot the rights thus accruing to His Majesty, no less 
than of those exercized in Egypt during the last thirty 
years of reform. His Majesty's Government regard 
themselves as trustees for the inhabitants of Egypt. 
And His Majesty's Government have decided that Great 
Britain can best fulfil the responsibilities she has incurred 
toward Egypt by the formal declaration of a British 
Protectorate, and by the government of the country 
imder such Protectorate by a Prince of the Khedivial 
Family. 

In these circumstances I am instructed by Hi> 
Majesty's Government to inform Your Highness that, 
by reason of your age and experience, you have been 
chosen as the Prince of the Family of Mehemet Ali most 
worthy to occupy the Khedivial position, with the title 
and style of Sultan of Egypt ; and, in inviting Your 
Highness to accept the responsibilities of Your high 
office, I am to give you the formal assurance that Great 
Britain accepts the fullest responsibility for the defence 
of the territories under Your Highness against all aggres- 
sion whencesoever coining ; and His Majesty's Govern- 
ment authorize me to declare that after the establish- 
ment of the British Protectorate now announced all 
Egyptian subjects wherever they may be will be entitled 
to receive the protection of His Majesty's Government. 

With the Ottoman suzerainty there will disappear the 
restrictions heretofore placed by the Ottoman tirnians 
upon the numbers and organization of Your Highness's 
Army and upon the grant by Your Higlmess of honorific 
distinctions. 

As regards foreign relations, His Jfajesty's Go\ern- 
ment deem it most consistent with the new responsibilities 
assumed by Great Britain that the relations between 
Your Highness's Government and the Kepresontatives 
of Foreign Powers should henceforth be conducted 
through His Majesty's Representative in Cairo. 

His Majesty's Govenmicnt have repeatedly placed on 
record that the system of Treaties, known as the Capitu- 
lations, by which Your Highness's Government is bomid 
are no longer in harmony with the development of the 
country : but, in the opinion of His Majesty's Govern- 
ment, the revision of those treaties may most con- 
V(>nienfly be postponed until the end of the present war. 



810 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



In the field of intomal administration, I am to remind 
Yovir Highness that, in consonance witli tlie traditions 
of British Policy, it has been the aim of His Majesty's 
Government, while working through and in the closest 
association with the constituted Egyptian Authorities, 
to secure individtial liberty, to promote the spread of 
education, to further the development of the natural 
resources of the country, and, in such measure as the 
degree of enlightenment of public opinion may permit, 
to associate the governed in the task of government. 
Not only is it the intention of His Majesty's Government 
to remain fnithful to such policy, but they are convinced 
that the clearer definition of Great Britain's position 
in the country will accelerate progress towards self- 
government. 

The religious convictions of Egyptian subjects will 
be scrupulously respected, as are those of His Majesty's 
own subjects, whatever their creed. Nor need I affirm 
to Your Highness that, in declaring Egypt free from any 
duty of obedience to those who have usurped political 
power at Constantinople, His Majesty's Government are 
animated by no hostility towards the Khaliphate. The 
past 'history of Egypt shows, indeed, that the loyaltj' of 
Egyptian Mohammedans towards the Khaliphate 13 
independent of any political bond.s between Egypt and 
Constantinople. 

The strengthening and progress of Mohammedan 
institutions in Egypt is naturally a matter in which 
His Majesty's Government take a deep interest and with 
which Your Highness will bo specially concerned, and 
in carrying out sueh reforms as may be considered 
necessary Your Highness may count upon the sjTn- 
pathetio support of His Majesty's Government. 

I am to add that His Majesty's Government rely with 
confidence upon the loyalty, the good sense, and self- 
restraint of Egyptian subjects to facilitate the task of 
the General Officer Commanding His Majesty's Forces, 
who is entrusted with the maintenance of internal order. 
and witli the pre\ention of the rendering of aid to the 
enemy. 

T avail myself of this opportimity to present to Your 
Highness the assurance of my highest respect. 

• MILNE Cheetham. 

December 19. 1914. 

On Saturday, December 19, the following 
proclamation was published at Cairo : 

His Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign 
Affairs gives notice that, in view of the state of war 
arising out of the action of Turkey. Egypt is placed under 
the Protection of His Majesty and will henceforth 
constitute a British Protectorate. 

The Suzerainty of Turkey over Egynt is thus termi- 
nated, and His Majesty's Government will adopt ail 
measures necessary for the defence of Egypt, and protect 
its inhabitants and interests. 

The Proclamation was at the same time 
published in all the provincial centres. Its 
reception there was on the whole good. Many 
of the fellaheen were openly though undemon- 
Ktratively plea.sed by what they believed to be 
a guarantee that their rights would be resi^ected, 
that they would get their water without having 
to bribe the irrigation officials, and that the 
great landlords would not be permitted to 
oppress them. There were grumblers in the 
towns, especially in Tanta, always a centre of 
fanaticism from pre-Islamic days ; some of 
the Beduin notables who had been won over 
by Tm-kish agents^ or who resented the British 



occupation, which pre\cnted them from proyino; 
on the fellaheen as their ancestors had been 
wont to do, talked trea.sonably and hinted at 
an impending Turkish invasion. But no 
demonstration was made again-st tlic I'rotcc- 
torate throughout all the provinces from 
Assuan to Behera. In Cairo and Alexandria 
there was more discontent, not only among 
the ignorant who had heard wondrous tales 
of the coming of " Effendina " at the head of 
the Turkish legions, but among the fairly 
numerous class of extreme Nationalists, stu- 
dents, lawyers, and the like, some of whom 
donned black ties as a sign of their mourning. 
But this was all ; the majority of the population 
remained good-temperedly mdifferent to all 
that was happening. " Rather more than 
10 per cent, of the Egyptians are with you, 
rather less than 10 per cent, against you, and 
the remaining 80 per cent, do not really care 
as long as they and their religion are left alone," 
\\as the verdict of a shrewd Oriental 
observer, and as far as Cairo was concerned 
he was probably right, though the pro-British 
forces were stronger, and hostile elements 
weaker, in the provinces. 

Thus terminated the reign of Abbas IT. of 
Egj-pt. In Lord Cromer's words he had " pre- 
ferred to throw in his lot with the enemies of 
Great Britain, being probably vuider the im- 
pression that he was joining the side which 
would be ultimately victorious in the w ar now 
being waged. In adopting this course he com- 
mitted political suicide." Yet his general 
unpopularity with the best elements of modem 
Egypt and with the peasantry, the abuses which 
he encouraged, and the rather squalid domestic 
scandals in which he was latterly involved, 
would probably have rendered it impossible for 
him permanently to retain his position. Even 
those who disapprov ed of his deposition, on the 
ground that, as a Moslem Viceroy appointed by 
the Sultan he could only lawfully be deposed 
by the Sultan, seldom affected to admire his 
character or his methods. 

The groups, largely composed of ignorant, or. 
at best, half-educated folk, who contiimed 
discreetly to espouse his cause were acttiated 
by fear of his return at the head of the Turkish 
Armies, by fanaticism, or by self-interest. The 
host of palace officials and parasites of both 
sexes, spies, secret agents, and other creatures 
of the ex-ruler, and their relatives, who had 
mostly robbed their master and had been 
permitted by him to rob and blackmail others. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



311 




BRITISH TROOPS. IN EGYPT. 

1. New Zealand men at work. 2. East Lancashire Territorials pontoon making. 3. Brigadier-General 
Briscoe, in command of the Cavalry Brigade, with the members of his staff. 4. Australians on the 
trams. 5, Cooks preparing dinner at the Australians' (]amp. 6. New Zealanders at their 

Christmas Dinner. 



312 



thp: times histoby of the war. 




WESTMINSTER DRAGOONS IN EGYPT. 
No. 2. Troop, "C" Squadron. 



were naturally most genuine in their professions 
of regret, for Sultan Hussein would have none 
of tliem, and dismissed every person who was 
in the Khedive's employ. With some of 
the exalte students, especially those of the 
]ja\v School, ever a centre of political agitation, 
and the more reactionary Ulema and their 
disciples, they formed what might have de- 
veloped into a sort of Egyptian " Legitimist " 
jjarty. But for the present they were silent, 
because they feared. The Beduin notables, 
with few exceptions, had already descended 
with their usual shrewdness to the British side 
of the fence. As for the fellaheen, who had 
no cau.se whatever to love Abbas Hilmi, 
" itkassarit sinunuh " (his teeth are broken) 
was their most frequent comment, when they 
read of the deposition of " Effendina." INIany 
of the members of the Khedivial family who had 
suffered from their kinsman's avarice doubtle s 
echoed the sentiments of the fellaheen in more 
polished language. 

His successor, Sultan Hussein Kamil, was 
born in 1853. At the age of 14 he was sent 
to Paris to continue his education, and there 
\\ as a guest at the court of Napoleon III. and 
the playfellow of the Prince Imperial. In 
1869 he acted as Chamberlain to the Empress 
Eugenie at the magnificent opening of the 
Suez Canal, and retiu-ned to Egypt in 1870. 
He was appointed Inspector-General of the 
Delta in 1872, and later held several port- 
folios, showing exceptional energy during his 
tenure of the Ministry of Public Works, notably 
in the great flood year of 1874. On the abdica- 



tion of Ismail Pasha in 1878, Prince Hussein 
retired to Naples with his father. His brother, 
Tewfik Pasha, was reputed to be jealous of him, 
and there is reason to believe that Ismail Pasha 
had at one time the intention of altering the 
order of succession and appointing Hussein as 
his successor. After his return, he for long 
jDlayed no political role, but was able to render 
considerable assistance in manj' ways to the 
British Occupation. The Khedivial Agricul- 
tural Society was founded by him in 1898, and 
rendered great service to the country. Keenly 
interested in agriculture, gardening, and 
technical and industrial education, he could 
spare time for much philanthropic activity, 
especiallj- in his capacity as president of the 
Cairo First Aid Society. In 1909 he returned 
to political life and became president of the 
Legislative Council and General Assembly. He 
certainly did much to raise the tone of their 
debates, finally resigning in March, 1910, when 
these bodies, inspired by the Khedive and the 
extreme Nationalists, foolishly rejected the 
proposal for the extension of the Suez Canal 
Concession. Strongly Anglophile, and at the 
same time a patriotic Egj^ptian, with a thorough 
knowledge of, and liking for, the fellaheen, 
whom most Turoo-Egyptians were inclined to 
despize, the new ruler of Egj'jit was the anti- 
thesis of his nephew. Honest, open-handed to 
a fault, proud, yet courteous to all, and gifted 
with remarkable personal charm, he inherited 
the best qualities of his father, to which he joined 
a very genuine desire for the betterment of 
the masses. A spare, lithe-built man of aristo- 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



313 



cratic Albanian type, with a manner that com- 
bined dignity and chann, his presence was that 
of a ruler. In religion he was a devout and 
liberal Moslem, in ethics a gentleman. 

The first official act of the Sultan was to 
address the following rescript to Hussein 
Ruchdi Pasha, who, with the other members 
of the Cabinet, had resigned as soon as the 
deposition of the Khedive, from whom all 
Ministers held their mandate, had been offici- 
ally communicated to him : 

My Deab Ruchdi Pasha, 

Recent political events have brought about the 
establishment by Great Britain of her Protectorate over 
Egypt and the vacancy of the Khedivial Throne. 

By the communication, of which We transmit you a 
copy [the reference is to the British Government's 
communication published on page 309], to be brought 
to the knowledge of the Egyptian people, the Govern- 
ment of His Britannic Majesty has appealed to Our 
devotion to Our country to the end that We may take 
the Khedivate of Egypt with the title of Sultan, while 
the Sultanate furthermore shall be hereditary in the 
family of INIohamed Ali following an order of succession 
to be determined. 

After a life devoted to the service of the country, We 
might have aspired to repose : nevertheless We consider 
it Our duty, in the particularly delicate situation of 
Egjrpt which these events have created, to assume this 
heavy responsibility and, faithful to Our past, to continue 
to devote Our energies to the service of the Fatherland. 

This We owe to Egypt and to Our glorious ancestor 
the Great Mohamed Ali, whose dynasty We desire to 
perpetuate. In Our solicitude for the interests of the 
country We shall ever seek to ensure the moral and 
material well-being of its inhabitants by the continuation 
of the programme of reforms which has already been 
commenced. The constant care of Our Government 
will therefore be the diffusion and the perfecting of 
education in all its stages, the good administration of 
justice, and its organization on lines more appropriate 
to the actual conditions of the country ; it will devote 



the most vigilant attention to qviestions connected with 
the tranquillity and security of the population, and will 
give a new impulse to the economic development of 

Egypt- 

As regards representative institutions, Our aim -will 
be to associate the governed more closely with the 
government of the country. 

For the realization of this programme We have the 
assurance that We shall obtain the most sympathetic 
support from the Government of His Britannic Majesty, 
and We are convinced that the more precise definition 
of the situation of Great Britain in Egypt, by dissipating 
all causes of misunderstanding, will facilitate the col- 
laboration towards a common end of all the political 
elements in the country. 

For the task that awaits Us, We count on the loyal aid 
of all Our people. 

Knowing your experience and high qualities. We 
appeal to your patriotism in demanding your aid in the 
accomplishment of this task. We therefore summon 
you to the Presidency of Our Council of Ministers and 
invite you to form the Cabinet and submit to Our high 
approval the names of the colleagues whom you think 
fit to propose to Us. 

We pray the Almighty to bless Our efforts in this 
patriotic task. Hussein Kamix. 

Ruchdi Pasha's reply admirably summed up 
his attitude and that of his patriotic colleagues. 
After thanking His Highness for the honour 
conferred upon him, he continued : 

Though formerly holding office in virtue of a mandate 
from the preceding Sovereign, I am above all an 
Egyptian, and I consider it my duty as an Egyptian 
to attempt under the auspices of Your Hie;hness to 
.•serve my country, the higher interests of which have 
always guided me and have now proved euperior to 
personal considerations. 

The New Ministry was thus composed : 

Hussein Ruchdi Pasha, Premier and Interior. 

Adli Yeghen Pasha, Agriculttire. 

Ismail Sidki Pasha, Pious Foundations. 

Ahmed Hilmi Pasha, Education. 








AUSTRALIAN ENGINEERS BUILDING PONTOON. 



su 



THE TIMES HlSTOllY OF THE WAIl. 




THE SULTAN OF EGVnT. 



[DOiricli. 



Ismail Sirri Pasha, Public ^^'orks. 

Yusuf \^'ahba Pasha, Finance. 

Abdul Khalik Sarwat Pasha, Justice. 

The only member of the former Cabinet who 
-did not resume office was INIohamed IMoheb 
Pasha, the former ]Muiister of Pious Founda- 
tions. This was accounted for by the abolition 
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the 
British Protectorate, and perhaps by the favour 
wherewith Abbas Hilmi was said to regard the 
ex-]Minister, who had left Egypt for Italy. 

On the day of his accession Sultan Hussein 
received the following telegram from Kmg 
George : 

On the occasion when You» Highness fintcis upon 
your high ofiSce I desire to convey to Your Hijjhno^^ the 
expression of my most sincoro friendship and the aasur- 
ance of my unfailing support in safes uardine tiiu integrity 
r.f Egypt and m secuiing her futiue wt-il-being and 
prosperity. 

Youi Highness has been called upon to undertake the 
responsibilities of your high oflico at a g»avc ciisis in the 
national life of Egypt, and I feel convjnccd that you vviJi 
be able, with ths cooperation of jour Ministers and the 
Protectorate of Great Britain, succestiu'Iy to oveicome 
all the influences which are seeUing to destroy the 
independence of Egypt and ths wealth, libeitj', and 
happiness of its people. 

Geobce R. and I. 

The Sultan telegraphed the following rt ph' : 

To H;s Majesty the King, London. 

I present to You^ Majesty the expression of xny 
doepe.si trntitude for tho feeling.-- of friendship with 
which you see fit to honour me and for the assurance of 
your valuable support ia safeguarding tho integrity and 
•independence of Eg\-pt. 



Conifiou'? of thr- respon^lbililie.- T have ju^t os'iimed. 
and resolved to devote myself, in entire co(;peration 
with the Protectorate, to the progress and welfare 
of my peop.e. 1 am happy to be able to count in this 
ta.-k on Your llajesly's protection and on the as.sistanco 
of Your Government. 

^L'SSEIN KAsai.. 

On December 20 the Sultan made his cere- 
monial entry into Abdin Palace. Not a single 
incident marred the order and dignity of the 
{proceedings. The military and police arrange- 
ments were alike admirable, wliile the populace 
showed a good humour and obedience that 
rendered the task of the authorities an easy 
one. 

At half-past nine o'clock the booming of 
tlie first of the twenty-one gims of a salute 
announced that the Sultan had left the Palace 
of Kamil-ed-Din. As the cannon sounded, 
the troops all along the line of the route pre- 
sented arms — the smart Egyptian cadets 
outside the Kamil-ed-Din Palace, the long 
lines of the East Lancashire Territorials, who 
lined the route up the street past the Savoy 
Hotel, the tall New Zealanders along the 
Upper Kasr-en-Nil Road, and the Sharia ]\Iagh- 
raby to the Opera Square near the Continental 
Hotel, the hard-bitten Australians, who carried 
on the line into Abdin Square, where the 
Ceylon Planters' Corps, a trim contingent, 
were ranged between the Australians and the 
British and Egyptian Guards of Honour. The 
guns boomed slowly from the Citadel, and the 




[DuinJi. 

THE EX-KHEDIVE OF EGYPT. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WALL 



315 



Egj'ptian and European onlookers crowded 
forward from windows and balconies as the 
head of the procession came into view. 

First rode the Vico-Commandant of the 
Cairo PoHce, then a squadron of Yeomanry 
moiuited on grey Arabs, next — a bright touch 
of colour amid the long lines of dust-coloured 
khaki and drill — came a squadron of Egyptian 
T.ancers, their red fezes and red and green 
lance pennons contrasting with the blue and 
white of their tunics. Behind them rode the 
Cavalry of the Bodyguard in black and dark 
blue, and then, preceded and attended by 
sj'ces in traditional garb, came the Sultan's 
State carriage drawn ])y four magnificent 
white horses, the scarlet and gold liveries of 
the coaclimen showing l:)rilliantly up against 
the white. 

The Sultan, with the Prime Minister on his- 
left, drove slowly past. His mien was dignified 
and resolute. The slight tilt with whicli he 
wears his high scarlet Egyptian fez gave his 
bearing just that little touch of panache 
that endears rulers to their people, otherwise 
he was soberly but perfectly dressed. As he 
gravely responded to the applause with which 
the people greeted him, looking full in the faces 
of the crowd, there was something in his 
aquiline features and aristocratic bearing that 
reminded one of the proud Skipetars, the Folk 
of the Eagle, of those Albanian hills whence 
came his great ancestor. 



Egyptians, like other Orientals, cheer but 
little, but all along the route, swelUng louder 
and louder above the strains of the Khedivial 
Anthem, sounded the clapping of thousands 
of hands. The streets were bright with flags, 
among which flashed most conspicuously of 
all the scarlet Khedivial Banner, with its 
three white crescents and tliree stars. The 
Ministers followed the State coach, then rode a 
fine squadron of yeomanry mounted on English 
horses. Next came, accompanied by kavasses 
in Pcark't, tiie carriages of the Acting British 
Higli Commissioner, the Agency Staff, and last 
of all, hieutenant-General Sir John Maxwell. 

A great multitude of dignitaries and notables, 
mostly from the provmces, assembled in a great 
marquee in Abdin Square, cheered and ap- 
jjlauded the Sultan as the procession moved 
up to the entrance to the Palace. As he 
ent(;red its doors he turned and saluted his 
subjects. A moment later the sky, which had 
till then been overcast, brightened suddenly, 
and the sun which Ancient Egypt had wor- 
shipped shone out. Thus Sultan Hussein 
entered his palace with favoiu^able omens. 

A reception which lasted over six hours 
followed. During it the Egj-ptian troops, 
whose officers, Egyptian and British, had taken 
the oath to the new ruler, acclaimed Sultan 
Hussein. In the coiu"se of the reception His 
Highness addressed advice on agricultural 
and financial matters to the provincial dele- 




THE SULTAN ARRIVING AT HIS RESIDENCE IN HELIOPOLIS. 



316 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



gations, depre<"a(6>d n-ligioiis (jiiurreLs, and 
urged the notables of Gharbia province in 
particular to use their influence to put an end 
to the family feuds, wliicl^i are the principal 
cause of crime in Egypt, ile admonished the 
iJeduin Sheikhs of Fayum, warning them that 
they must remember that they dwelt in a 
civilized country, and must, therefore, submit 
to ordered rule. Those who preferred lawless 
" desert " conditions of existence had best 
leave the country. 

It was noted that Sir Milne Cheetham, 
the Acting High Commissioner, was accorded 
an enthusiastic recejjtion by the crowd when 
arriving at and departing from Abdin. 

At nightfall the whole of Cairo was brilliantly 
illuminated. Thus closed three of the most 
eventful days in the history of modem Egypt. 

During this period the Sudan had been 
absolutely quiet, to the relief and perhaps 
to the surprise of the British Military autho- 
rities. This huge country of nearly a million 
square miles in extent, peopled largely by 
Moslems who had been conquered by Lord 
Ivitchener only sixteen years before, and were 
among the bravest and most fanatical of 
African races, was jointly governed by Great 
Britain and Egypt with a comparatively small 
garrison which included few white troops. 
1'he religious fervour of large elements of, the 



population excused and explained tlie fear 
that the action of Turkey might stir up the 
tribes to ri.se. It was largely owing to the 
action of the Governor-General of the Sudan, 
Sir Reginald Wingate, and of the many able 
officers under his control that the Ashole 
country was not only quiet but loyal, and that 
the entire population supported the British 
cause. Returning immediately after the out- 
break of the Great War to Egypt, Sir Reginald, 
who was also the Sirdar (Commander-in-Chief) 
of the Egyptian Army, spent some time at 
Cairo, and after satisfying himself that the 
spirit of the f]gyptian Army was good, went 
south to Khartum, \shere he held many 
informal meetings with the senior Egyptian 
officers and the chief local notables. After 
this he held a huge public reception at Omdur- 
nian, where he addressed the religious leaders 
of the people in Arabic, fully explaining the 
origin and causes of the war witli Germany. 
The speech was loyally acclaimed, and from that 
moment there was no doubt of the feeling of 
the leaders of the Sudanese peoples. The 
Governor -General afterwards made a rapid 
tour of the Sudan, and held receptions at the 
chief towns of the Sudan, always with the 
same excellent results. It was made clear 
by him and his chief subordinates to the 
notables in private con\ersations that Turkey 




««l«il#t}H|J' 



^ liUJ '^^ Jii 

|«Att:litl|ll |,,||^ 1:18 8 





THE SULTAN'S ENTRY— ABDIN SQUARE. 
Yeomanry leading procession : Ceylon Infantry : Egyptian Guard of Honour on the right. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



31? 




INDIANS WOUNDED AT SUEZ CANAL ARRIVING IN CAIRO. 



was drifting towards war. When war broke 
out with the Porte the ground had been well 
prepared, and the people were not wholly 
taken by surprise. On November 7 fifty of 
the leading regimental officers, British and 
Egyptian, were suiximoned to the palace at 
Khartum, where the Governor-General ad- 
dressed them, and, after briefly explaining what 
had happened, read a proclamation announcing 
that a state of war between Great Britain and 
Turkey existed as from that day, and calling 
on the inhabitants of the Sudan to render 
all the assistance that might be required of them 
to the British, Egyptian, and Sudanese forces. 
A similar procedure was adopted in all the 
principal garrison towns by the Governors 
or Commandants at the same moment. On the 
following day the principal religious Sheikhs 
and Ulema were assembled, when the Governor- 
General addressed thorn, informing them that 
he was about to call upon the Grand Mufti 
to read them an address from him, and ex- 
pressing his confidence that as enlightened and 
patriotic men they woxild explain the truth 
and give good counsel to the people. The 
Grand Mufti then read an address in Arabic, 
in which, after recapitulating the benefits 
the British had wrought in the Sudan, he 
declared that this war had been unsought by 
Great Britain, but forced on her by the madness 
of " this syndicate of Jews, financiers, and low- 
born intriguers, like broken gamblers staking 



their last coin, and in deference to the urgent 
demands of Germany and our enemies, who 
have gone to war with the one Power who by 
her actions and the sentiments of her people 
has ever been a true and sympathetic friend 
to the Moslems and to Islam." 

Great Britain had no quarrel with Islam or 
its spiritual leaders. She would ever maintain 
and enforce on others the sanctity and inviola- 
bihty of the Holy Places. They need not 
fear that the war would affect the situation 
of Islam in the world. Their fears were 
groundless, for the British Empire would not 
change the position of a single Moslem subject 
for the worse, or repudiate a singje pri\ilege 
granted to its Moslems. 

The Ulema were most enthusiastic and 
pubUcly protested their loyalty. Prominent 
among them was Sherif Yusef El Hindi, a 
descendant of the Prophet, who had enormous 
influence in the Sudan, and the eldest son of 
the Mahdi, who vouched for the fidelity of all 
cx-Mahdists. The Ulema afterwards pro- 
duced an admirable manifesto, signed by 
sixteen of their cliiefs. The popular response 
was extraordinary. From all sides letters 
and telegrams promising support reached the 
Sirdar, and the Egyptian officers made similar 
representations. Generous gifts were made to 
the Prince of Wales's Eimd. Nor did the 
attempts of Turkish agents to excite the people 
meet with the slightest succa«»s. A typical 



m 



THP. TIMES BISTOBY OF THE WAtt. 




SLATIN PASHA. 



[Lekegian. 



example of their failures was the case of Elmaz 
Bey, Enver Pasha's aide-de-camp and creatm'e, 
an ignorant black, who had formerly served in 
the Egyptian Coastguards, joined the Turks 
in Cyrenaica, and had done his utmost to 
perjure away the hfe of Aziz el Masri. 
Girt with a lengthy sabre and clad in Turkish 
uniform this witless blackamoor landed near 
Port Sudan in fuU view of the Coastguards, 
and repaired to some Arab tents, whence he 
made his way in disguise to the oflficers' quarters 
of an Egyptian battalion. He called on the 
officers to revolt. They promptly arrested him, 
and he was sentenced to death after trial by 
court-martial, his sentence being afterwards 
commuted in consequence of the disclosures 
he made. 

The Sudan suffered one serious loss through 
the war. Sir Rudolph von Slatin, the Austrian 
officer, who had been for many years a Mahdist 
prisoner, and after his rescue by the Sirdar had 
done admirable service to England and Egypt in 
the country where he had been a captive, 
felt himself compelled to se\'er his cormexion 
with the service. His motives in so doing were 
creditable to his patriotism as a good subject 
of the Emperor Francis Joseph, and were 
misimderstood by none of his old colleagues, 
least of all by his old friend the Sirdar. 

Such was the history of the Sudan for the 
first seven months of the war. British officers 



stationed there regarded the loyalty and calm 
of its tribes as " little short of miraculous," 
and the Sudan Tiinefi truly said that what- 
ever loss or mihcry the war might have brought 
to the world, it had at least given the British 
a proof such as would never otherwise have 
come to light that their work in the Sudan had 
not been in vain. 

On the outbreak of hostilities with Turkey tlie 
.^lied warships in the Southern Levant and in 
the Red Sea received orders to observe hostile 
ports and to prevent any smuggling or fili- 
bustering expeditions that might be attempted, 
especially from the coast of Arabia. Details 
concerning the activity of these warships, main- 
ly British, on the coast of Syria can be more 
profitably given when the Turkish campaign 
against Egypt can be fully described. In the 
Red Sea an Indian expedition on its way to 
Egypt pluckUy effected the reduction of the 
Turkish fort at Sheikh Said on the mainland 
near Aden. A landing party covered by H.M.S. 
Duke of Edinburgh captured a considerable 
quantity of war material with a loss of three 
killed and a few wounded. 

On November 5 H.M. cruiser Minerva, 
which had observed Akaba during the Anglo - 
Turkish dispute of 1906, appeared before the 
town and demazaded the surrender of the fort. 
Though there were not more than seventy or 
eighty armed men in the place, mostly Arabs 
with a few gendarmes, the Turks refused, and 
the fort and Government buildings were 
consequently destroyed by the cruiser, assisted 
by the destroyers Savage and Scourge. A 
landing party exchanged some shots with the 
enemy in the Wadi Ithm, but suffered no 
casualties. After this a close watch was kept 
on Akaba till the end of the year. Shells were 
fired at parties of Turks who showed themselves 
near the beach, and on one occasion a landing 
party drove a small body out of a trench, 
suffering three and inflicting seven or eight 
casualties. The IVIinerva was once forced to 
shift her anchorage owing to the fire of a con- 
cealed field-gun, which dropped shells near 
her, and on another occasion had a man killed 
on board by snipers. Nothing of note, how- 
evev, occurred till the year's end. 

After the first invasion of Egyptian territory 
by Beduins on October 28, the remaining 
Anglo -Egyptian posts were withdrawn from 
the Sinai Peninsula to the Canal. Fort Nakhl 
was evacuated, the cistern blown up, and 
certain buildings destroyed. Several rock wells 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



311 



which might have been of service to an invading 
force were blo\\n in with ch'namite. The 
Egj^ptian officials ^\•ere withdrawn from El 
Arish \\ithout incident and tlie inajority of the 
nomad Arabs of the desert of Et-Tih repaired 
with their flocks and herds to the mountainous 
countrj' south of the Akaba-Nakhl road. The 
first raiding party which had crossed the border 
seems to have returned after stealing a few 
camels, but in the second week of November a 
force of Terabin Bednins from south-west 
Palestine accompanied by a few Turkish and 
German officers occuj>ied El Arish, and after- 
wards ad^ anced towards Katia. Save for the 
exchange of a few shots between Beduin scouts 
and Eg\'ptian Coastguard patrols no en- 
counters took place till November 21. On 
that morning an Egyptian patrol composed of 
twenty Sudanese camelmen was surprised 
while encamped east of Bir-en-Nuss, and 
captured to a man. Captain Chope, of the 
Bikanir Camel Corps, and an Egj-ptian officer, 
Lieutenant Anis, with a patrol of twenty men 
of the Bikanir Camel Corps, pushing eastward 
to gain touch with the Coastguards, found their 
camp empty. An hour's ride fui'ther east 



Captain Chope ?aw ahead of him a pa.rty of 
twenty men mounted on white camels, waving 
white flags. Thinking they were the missing 
Egyptians he let them approach. AA'ithin th irty 
yards the Bedains raised their rifles and were 
promptly shot down almost to a man by the 
Bikanirs, who similarly disposed of another 
party \\hich attempted to attack. Captain 
Chope then ad\'anced towards Katia, when 
suddenly 150 hoi'semen \\ere observed trying 
to move rovmd his right flank, while a like 
number tried to turn his left. He therefore 
fell back fighting, but ■\\ as hard pressed by the 
mounted men, who kept up a hot fire from 
the saddle but durst not close with the plucky 
Bikanirs, who shot straight and fought the 
enemy off till they reached their supports. Only 
five of them were then unwoiuided, with Captain 
Chope, who had a narrow escape, having his 
water-bottle pierced and his sword hilt shivered 
by bullets, while his camel was wounded in 
the hump by a ball froni a INIartini. The 
Egyptian officer lieutenant Anis and Subadar 
Abdu Tvhan were killed, with ten of the Bikanir 
men. Tliree of the latter came in wounded 
and two more wounded men were afterwards 




AIN MUSA WELL, SINAI, NEAR SUEZ. 
The enemy's scouts reached this point. 



320 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




t'^i.^-J-hr 



'-^^-*^*%^ 



A ' 'A ^* 




A TURKISH HYDROPLANE. 



picked up by a patrol. One of them had a 
narrow escape from tho enemy, who slashed 
at liim as he lay, wounding him severely but 
not fatally in the neck. Of the Beduins over 
fifty, including the brother of the Tarabin 
chief, Sheikh Sufi, were killed and many 



wounded. Tactically the enemy had had 
the best of the skirmish, but the moral effect of 
the resistance of the gallant Indian soldiers 
was such that the raiders immediately fell 
back on Katia, and made no forward movement 
towards the Canal for nearly six weeks. 




CHAPTER LIX. 



THE GERMAN FAILURE IN POLAND. 



The Austro-German Objective in Poland — The Polish Question — German Temptations 
AND Appeals — Polish Solidarity — The First German Advance — Danger to Warsaw — 
Russian Reinforcements and German Retreat — Iwangorod — Defeat of the Austrians — 
Battle of Kielce — Austrian Advance in Gax,icia — Causes of Austro-German Failure — 
Second German Offensive in Poland — A Success at Kutno — Capture of Lodz — Russian 
Move on Cracow — Fighting in the Carpathians — The Situation at the P]nd of 1914. 



IN Chapter LVII. we saw the conclusion, in 
the last days of September, 1914, of the first 
Galician campaign, when the Russians had 
not only successfully beaten off the Austrian 
offensive at all points, but had swept the enemy 
back over his own borders, and had almost 
driven him out of the whole Province of Galicia. 
From the north, down the Vistula and across 
the San, from the east by Rawa-Ruska, past 
Lemberg and Jaroslau, and along the right 
bank of the Dniester, the Russian armies 
under Ruzsky, Ivanoff, Brusiloff, and Dmitrieff 
had forced the Austrians from one position 
after another until, beaten and temporarily 
demoralized, having lost in killed, wounded, and 
prisoners not much less than half a million men, 
the armies of von Auffenberg, Dankl, and 
the Archduke Joseph Ferdinand were herded 
together in western Galicia, beyond the river 
Wisloka, and under the protection of the guns 
of Cracow. Przemysl still held out and was 
not to fall, under circumstances which have 
been described, until six months later. Mean- 
while the victorious Russian cavalry was 
scouring the covmtry to the southward up to 
the very foothills of the Carpathians and in 
places penetrating into the moxuitain pavsses 
themselves. In the later phases of these opera- 
Vol. TIL— Part .3.5 321 



tions some, at least, of the Austrian armies had 
been reinforced by a greater or lesser niunber 
of German divisions, which had been powerless 
to avert or materially mitigate the catastrophe. 
The first month of the war on this part of the 
eastern front had ended in the humiliation of 
Austria, while the Russians had shown a quick- 
ness of movement, a vigour both in strategy 
and in offensive and a fighting spirit which had 
surprised even their friends. In the la,«t week 
of September the Russian advance, after 
tremendous and almost incredible exertions, 
had spent itself, its immediate objective 
achieved, in a momentary exhaustion and 
satiety of triiunph. For a few days the tide 
stood at flood. 

On Septenaber 27 began the first movement 
of an Austro-German coimtor-offensive. 

It is not necessary to dwell again at any 
length on the contour and strategical impor- 
tance of Poland, which have already been 
discussed. It will be sufficient to repeat that, 
thrust out like a wedge between the territories 
of the two empires, it was equally exposed to 
attack from the Germans on the north and 
from Austria on the south. On the other hand, 
so long as it remained Russian — especially as 
long as the great fortified positions of Warsaw 



322 



THI'! TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



Novo Georgievsk, Iwangorod and Loinza, with 
their connecting railway lines, remained in 
Russian hands — neither on the north nor on the 
south could any effective invasion of Russia 
be attempted without evident danger of attack 
from the rear. The first object aimed at, then, 
in the Anstro-CJerman plans had been the 
reduction of Poland — its isolation and lopping 
off from the main body of Russia. If the first 
operations on the north by the Germans from 
East Prussia and on the south by the Austrians 
from Galicia had succeeded, the allied armies 
would have made junction somewhere in the 
Brest -Litovsk-Bialystok region, and, with all 
Poland in their liands, they would have had a 
continuous front on a straight line from the 
Baltic to the Carpathians as a base for further 
advances. 

But these operations did not succeed. They 
failed in the north and failed disastrously in 
the south. With both her right and left hands 
Russia held her enemies at bay. The next 
move of the allies, then, inevitably took the 
form of a direct thrust in the centre at the 
heart of Poland. In their first operations the 
Central Powers had hoped that such a direct 
thrust would be unnecessary. It would have 
been much smipler and less costly if Poland 
could be caused to drop in their hands, like a 
branch falling from a tree, by cutting through 
its junction with the trunk from which it grew. 
And the German General Stai¥ professed, at 
least, the belief that Poland would rejoice to be 
so severed, and Germans and Austrians alike 
proclaimed that the Polish people would seize 
the opportunity offered by the war to rise 
against Russia, and would welcome the 
invaders as the instriunents of their salvation. 

The alternative which confronted Poland 
was, indeed, a terrible and testing one. To 
hold true to Russia and resist invasion could 
only mean the desolation of the land. The 
country must be overrun by hostile armies 
and become one vast battlefield. If they had con- 
sulted their immediate material interests alone, 
the Poles must have thrown themselves into 
Germany's arms. It was, in fact, the same 
dilemma as Belgium had had to face in the 
west, and, like the Belgians, the Poles chose 
the nobler part. 

How far either Germans or Austrians really 
believed in the probability^ of Polish friendship 
for their cause it is difficult to say. Evidence 
is very contradictory. It is certain that up to 
ithat time neither Germans nor Austrians had 



been under much misapprehension as to the 
Polish dislike of themselves. As recently as 
two years before, when the Balkan War was in 
progress, Vienna had been unable to conceal its 
fears of a Polish rising. In the history of Poland 
hostility to the Prussian and the Teuton had 
been an infinitely greater factor than hostility 
to Russia. The former went back for over a 
thousand years. Compared with it the century- 
and-a-half-old fear of Russia was a modem 
thing. As has been noted in a former chapter, 
moreover, since the partition of the kingdom of 
Poland, the treatment of their section of the 
Polish people by the Germans had been in- 
finitely more ruthless and brutal than anything 
that had been done by Russia. If of late years 
the world had heard more of the struggles of 
the Poles against Russia than against Germany, 
it was only because Germany had long crushed 
out the power to struggle. A wounded thing 
still fighting for its life makes more noise than 
one which has already been beaten to un- 
consciousness and is on the point of death. 

It is impossible not to believe that well- 
informed people in Germany must have known 
that the Poles hated them more deejjly than 
ever they had hated Russia, and with good 
reason. The German people, as a whole, 
however, habitually showed singular obtuse- 
ness and ignorance in all discussions of the 
Polish question. The masses had but hazy 
ideas on the subject, and they were extremely 
willing, when this war began, to believe what 
they wished to believe. As for those who 
knew better, for the Austro-German Govern- 
ments and General Staffs, the friendship of 
the Poles was a stake worth making a bid for. 
If it was to be won it must obviously be the 
best policy to pretend that it was expected. 
Everything possible, then, was done to create 
an atmosphere favourable to a Polish rapproche- 
ment. Both Germany and Austria declared 
their confidence in the Polish goodwill towards 
themselves, and both were lavish of promises 
and proclamations explaining how they came 
against Russia as the deliverers of Poland. 
It was not by accident that the Bishopric 
of Posen, which the Prussian Government for 
many years had ostentatiously kept vacant, 
was filled by the appointment of a Polish 
Bishop immediately after the outbreak of the 
war. 

A characteristic German proclamation, typical 
of several issued during the present invasion of 
Poland, was promulgated by General von 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




RUSSIAN RESERVIST LEAVING FOR THE FRONT. 



Morgen, in command of the German First 
Army, which advanced on Warsaw : 

Inhabitants of the Governments of Lomza and War- 
saw ! The Russian Narew Army is annihilated. More 
than 100,000 men, with the commanding generals of t}ie 
13th and 15th Army Corps, are prisoners ; 300 guns are 
captured. The Russian army under General Rennen- 
kampf is retreating in an easterly direction. The Aus- 
trian armies are victoriovisly advancing from Gahcia. 
The French and British troops in France have met witli 
disastrous defeat. Belgium is now midor Gorman 
a<l ministration. 

I come to you with the advance<l armies of other Ger- 
man armies and as your friend. Take up j'our arms ; 
expel the Russian barbarians, who enslaved you, from 
your beautiful country, which sluall regain once more its 



political and religious freedom. That is the will of my 
mighty and gracious Emperor. My troops have orders 
to treat you as friends. We will pay for what you sell 
us. I look to your chivalry to receive us hospitably as 
your allies. 

(Signed) Likutenant-Generai. vdv Morgen. 
In the Kingdcyn of I'oland. September, 1914. 

That the game was worth playing is shown 
by the fact that well-informed Russians were 
by no means unanimous in their confidencc in 
Polish loyalty. German emissaries had, of 
course, been secretly at work in Poland, as 
elsewhere, long before the outbreak of the war. 
That their labours had not been altogether 



324 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



fruitless is shown by the reference to " certain 
Polish organizations " in the following utter- 
ance of the chief organ of Polish political opinion 
soon after the commencement of hostilities : 

Fellow-countrymen ! A danger threatens us, greatest, 
perhaps, among the many calamities which war brings 
to a country : the misdirection of the Nation's mind and 
understanding. 

Various instigations are pressing the Poles to go 
against their own instinct and the dictates of political 
reason in their attitude towards the armies now invading 
our Polish lands, armies ringing with German words of 
command, which even resound through Galician detach- 
ments lured into belief that Poland may be saved through 
alliance with the Germans. Various agitators on both 
the German and Austrian sides, having their own in- 
terests at stake, are seeking to make our people take 
active part in the terrific conflicts now to be fought out 
upon our soil. 

To attain this end by throwing dust into our eyes, 
various manifestoes signed by the leaders of the armies 




beyond the frontier, have promised the Poles extensive 
liberties and privileges at the close of the war. Certain 
Polish organizations, having lost, in the general 
excitement, their healthy sense of judgment, are doing 
likewise. Do not let yourselves be hoodwinked by these 
promises. They are lies. Neither of the invading 
armies has any intention of fighting for Poland's sake. 
Each is fighting in the interests of it.s own Empire, and 
to those Empires we are of no account. They only want, 
in a moment of necessity, to make the Poles pa-ssive 
instruments serving their own ends. Whoever tells you 
that Austria in alliance with Prussia intends to build up 
Poland once again is a blinded dreamer. The result of 
a victory for the Germans and Austrians would mean a 
new partitioning of Poland, a yet greater wreckage of 
our Nation. Grasp this, listen to no seducers. Remain 
passive, watchful, in.sensible to temptation. 

During the coming struggle the Kingdom of Poland 
will be the marching-ground of vaiious armies, we shall 
see temporary victors assum.ing lordship for a while ; 
but change of authority will follow, and inevitable 
retaliation ; this several time^, perhaps, in the course of 
the campaign. Therefore every improvident step will 
meei with terrible revenge. By holding firm through 
the present conflict you best can serve the Polish cause, 
in the name of the love you bear your country, of your 
solicitude for the Nation's future, we entreat you, fellov/- 
3ountrymen, to remain deaf to evil inspirations, unshak- 
able in your determination not to expose our land to yet 
greater calamities, and Poland's whole future to incal- 
culable perils. — From the Gazeta Warszaws'<a, Aug. 1.5, 
1914. 

If this shows that Austro-German intrigue 
had not been all barren of result, it also shows 
even more clearly that the intelligence of the 
leaders of the Polish people was unclouded. 
There was here no ringing appeal in behalf of 
loyalty to Russia — that would have been diffi- 
cult to make — but there spoke clearly the voice 
of the ages-long hatred of the Teuton which 



NEW POLISH LEGION FIGHTING FOR THE TSAR. 
The mascot of the Infantry of peasants. Cavalry of young noblemen drawn up lor inspection. 



THE TIMES HlSTOnY OF THE WAB. 



325 



made a popular rising in bclialf of tlie invaders 
impossible. 

On the following day the same journal and* 
the newspapers of all the world published a 
Proclamation from the Russian Generalissimo 
which may fairly be ranked as one of the world's 
epoch-making dociunents It was a promise 
of the reconstitution of an autonomous Kingdom 
of Poland under the suzerainty of the Tsar : 

Poles ! The hour lias struck in wliicli the sacred 
dream of your fatlicrs and forefathers may find fulfilment. 

A century and a half ago the Hving flcsli of Poland 
was torn asunder, but her soul did not die. She lived in 
liope that there would come an hour for the resurrection 
of the Polish nation and for a brotherly reconciliation 
with Russiii. 

The Russian Army now brings you the joyful tidings 
of tliis reconciliation. May the boundaries be annihi- 
lated which cut the Polish nation into parts ! May that 
nation reunite into one body under the sceptre of the 
Ivussian Emperor. Under this sceptre Poland shall be 
reborn, free in faith, in language, in self-government. 

One thing only Russia expects of you : equal con- 
sideration for the rights of those nationalities to which 
history lias linked you. 

With open heart, with hand fraternally outstretched 
Russia steps forward to meet you. She believes that 
the sword has not rusted which, at Griinwald, struck 
down the enemy. 

From the shores of the Pacific to the North Si ^s the 
Russian forces are on the march. The dawn of a new 
life is breaking for you. 

May there shine, resplendent above that dawn, tlie 
sign of the Cross, symbol of the Passion and resurrection 
of nations '. 

(Signed) Commander-in-Chief General 
Adjutant Nicolas. 

1 (14) August, 1914. 

While the weiglit of Polish ojiinion was 
already strongly against giving any aid to the 
Austro-German forces, it was this Proclamation 
which definitely and immediately crystallized 
Polish sentiment in enthusiastic loyalty to 
Russia. The promise made by the Grand 
Duke Nicholas was afterwards confirmed by 
Imperial Edict. Long before that, however, 
the attitude of the Polish people had been 
irrevocably settled. On August 17 the leaders 
of the several political parties in Warsaw- 
united in the following pronouncement : 

The representatives of the undersigned political parties, 
iissembled in Warsaw on the 16th August, 1914, welcome 
the Proclamation issued to the Poles by His Imperial 
Highness the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Forces 
as an act of the foremost historical importance, and 
implicitly believe that upon the termination of the war 
the promises uttered in that Proclamation will be for- 
mally fulfilled, that the dreams of their fathers and fore- 
fathers will be realized, that Poland's flesh, torn asunder 
a century and a half ago, will once again be made whole, 
that the frontiers severing the Polish nation will vanish. 
The blood of Poland's sons, shed in united combat 
against the Germans, will serve equally as a sacrifice, 
offered upon the altar of her Resurrection. 

The Democratic National Party. 

The Polish Progressive Party. 

The Realist Party. 

The Polish Progressive Union. 




EFFECT OF A GERMAN BOMB ON 

THE RAILWAY TRACK. 

An unexploded shell is seen in the foreground. 

From that date, though the Germans con- 
tinued their futile intrigues, there was never 
any doubt as to the position or sentiments of 
the Polish people. The invading Austro- 
German armies were the enemy ; the Russian 
troops were friends. 

It was only by degrees that the people of 
Poland were to leam the extent of the cala- 
mities which were to be visited upon their 
coimtry ; only by degrees did the German 
invading armies give up the hope that they 
were soon to possess and dwell in a hospitab'e 
and friendly Poland. In their first advance 
from the frontier they seem to have engaged in 
little wanton destructiveness. They regarded 
Poland as already their own country, and, 
as the invading troops expected to spend th» 
winter there, it w^as not to their interest to lay 
it waste. There was, it is true, at least one 
conspicuous exception. As soon as the German 
troops crossed the frontier at Kalisch they 
seem to have set themselves to spread a reign 
of terror in the population. Buildings were 
burned, harmless citizen.s were executed, and 
the jjlace was given up to plunder and rapine. 
The mayor of the town, one of its most respected 
citizens, was dragged from his bed in his night- 

35-2 • 



326 



THE TIMES JJfSTOIfY OF THE WAH. 




RETREATING GERMANS REBUILDING A BRIDGE NE4R KALISGH PREVIOUSLY 

DESTROYED BY THEMSELVES. 



clothes and his old manservant was shot dead 
before him for trying to cover the half-naked 
body of his master with his own coat. The 
facts are, unhappily, too well established ; 
and hardly any town in Belgium was as brutally 
and ruthlessl}^ used as was the old city of 
Kalisch. No explanation of this outrage has 
ever been given ; but that there was not niucli, 
if any, excuse in the form of provocation by 
the civil population seems apparent from the 
fact that the Germans afterwards declared, 
whether truthfully or not, that the officer 
responsible for it had been disgraced. 

On the whole, however, the German advance 
into Poland seems to have been reasonably 
free from outrages on the civil population ; 
and it is to be noted that, from now on, whatever 
credit or discredit attaches to the allies for the 
conduct of this campaign must be awarded 
to the Germans and not at all to the Austrians- 

We have already seen that a certain 
" stiffening " of German troops had been intro- 
duced, without any material result, into the 
Austrian forces in the later stages of tlie 
Galician campaign. When the completeness of 
the Austrian failure in that campaign became 
apparent, Germany assumed control of all the 
military operations. General von AufTenberg 
came near to being relieved of his couunand. 



being apparently held to blame for the failure 
to protect the flank of Dankl's army in its 
advance on Lublin. The commanders of at 
least five Austrian Army Corps — the 6th ^ 
7th, 8th, 11th, and 17th — seem to have been 
removed,* and the Austrian military organiza- 
tion as a whole was treated as if in disgrace. 
Vienna became full of German Staff officers, 
and German officers assisted in the defence of 
Cracow. A system was adopted of linking 
German and Austrian divisions, .and even 
brigades, together, and the supreme control 
of operations was vested in the German Head- 
quarters Staff. It will be remembered that there 
is evidence that the plan of the Galician cam- 
paign had apparently been forced on Austria 
by her ally, and that the Austrian Chief of 
Staff, General Konrad von Hotzendorf, never 
cordially approved of it. There was now a 
widespread inclination in Austria to hold 
Germany responsible for the miscarriage of 
that plan. In Vienna and elsewhere there 
came to be much complaint of the arrogant 
behaviour of German officers towards Austrians, 
whether soldiers or civilians. INIuch jealousy 



* The names of the new corps commanders, as 
announced from Vienna early in October, were : Cth 
Army Corps, General Arz ; 7th, Griesler ; 8tli, Scheucht- 
enstnel ; 11th, Julieic ; 17th, Kritck. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



327 



was engendered and not a little hatred and 
bitterness, which grew as time went on. That 
the German commanders of joint forces, in 
•cases of retreat, gave to the Austrian troops the 
thankless and dangerous task of screening the 
rear of the retiring German corps was sufficiently 
shown by the identity of the prisoners taken. 
Many independent observers in Russia declared 
also that when German and Austrian 
prisoners were confined together there seemed 
to be more hostility between them than either 
showed towards their Russian guards. In 
the newspaper reports of the day many stories 
were told to illustrate the growing lack of 
harmony between the two allies. It was 
even stated that Austria before the end of tliis 
Polish campaign opened overtures looking to 
the making of a separate peace, when Russia 
demanded terms which included : 

(1) The surrender of Galicia to Kussia. 

(2) The surrender of Bosnia and Herzegovina to 
■Serbia and Montenegro. 

(3) Withdrawal from the alliance with Germany. 

(4) The reconstitution of the Austro-Hungarian mon- 
archy into Federal States, one of which should be an 
autonomous Bohemia. 

Austria was said to have considered these 
terms too humihating. AVithout putting too 
much confidence in all the tales of Austro- 
German friction which gained ciurency in the 
literature of the time, it is certain that from the 
autumn of 1914 there ceased to be full sym- 



pathy between the two allied peoples, though 
the exigencies of the situation compelled Austria 
to cling to her more powerful neighbour ; 
and it is also evident that for the misunder- 
standings which arose the responsibility must 
be put, even more than on the Austrian defeats, 
on the arrogant behaviour of individual German 
officers. 

The first German offensive movement, 
it has been said, began on September 27. 
From documents which later came to Light it 
aj^pears that General von Hindenburg had 
been put in chief command of the combined 
Austro-German forces on September 25. For 
how long the preparations for the coding 
advance had been maturing we do not know, 
but ever since the beginning of the Austrian 
retreat there had been reports of German 
troops being moved from the western to 
the eastern front and of the massing of large 
German forces about the Polish frontier from 
Thorn to Cracow. The advance was begun, 
apparently, simultaneously by four separate 
armies or groups of troops. The first, froni 
Thorn, advanced along the left bank of the 
Vistula and the railway to and by Wloclawek. 
The second, from the neighbourhood of Kalisch, 
aimed at Lodz. The third, started from 
Breslau and proceeded via Czestochowa towards 
Piotrokow and Novo-Radomsk. The fourth, 
based on Cracow, moved north-eastward by 




RUSSIAN OUTPOST FIRING FROM A BARN. 



328 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



the loft banlc of the upper Vistula towards 
Kielce. I'his Fourth Army was largely coin- 
posed of Ausirian troops, with, it is believed, 
only two German army corps. The combined 
strength of the four armies probably amounted 
to about 1,500,000 men, of whom something 
over 1,000,000 were Gennan. This Ls exclusive 
of tlio main Austrian forces, which were, of 
course, still in Galicia where they were rallying 
in the country west of the Wisloka. 

The advance seems to have partially taken 
the Russians by surprise. It had rather been 
anticipated that the Germans would prefer 
to await attack behind the strongly entrenched 
frontier line from Thorn to Czestochowa. In 
the view of Russian military authorities the 
advance was a mistake, causing the battle to 
be joined on ground more favourable to the 
Russians. There appears also at first to have 
been some uncertainty as to the German 
objective : whether it was to be pushed home 
as an attack on Warsaw and an endeavour to 
conquer the whole of Poland, or whether it 
was merely a demonstration threatening the 
rear of the Russian armies in Galicia so as to 
compel them to retire. In any case, the 
Russians showed no haste to meet the new 
movement and the German advance was for 
a while almost unresisted. It was pushed with 
characteristic rapidity. 

By October 3 the Austro-German (Fourth) 



Army in the south was at Stobnica, a place 
seven or eight miles over the Polinh frontier 
on the left side of the upper Vistula, about 
midway between Cracow and Sandomierz. 
By October 8, farther north, the Second Army 
had reached and occupied Lodz, and wan 
issuing proclamations calling upon the people 
to rise and join in the task of " saving Poland." 
By the 11th of the month the First Army was 
at Sochaczew, and its right, or possibly a de- 
tached force from the Second Army, was in 
contact with the Russians at Skiemiewice. 
Already Warsaw could hear the thunder of the 
enemy's guns. 

While the northern forces were thus rapidly 
approaching Warsaw, the Austro-German Army 
had also travelled fast, in spite of torrential 
rains which were flooding the country, so that 
on October 13 fighting was going on at various 
points between Sandomierz and Iwangorod. 
On the following day (October 14) a German 
official statement from Berlin announced that 
" the whole of Poland with the exception of 
Warsaw is in our possession." Nor, if the 
statement had excepted also a small area 
round Iwangorod, would it have been an 
exaggeration. On October 15 the Germans 
were within ten miles of Warsaw and on the 
16th they penetrated to within seven miles ; 
and there was no adequate force in sight for 
the city's protection. 




RUSSIANS ATTEND A RELIGIOUS SERVICE BEFORE GOING INTO BATTLE. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



329 




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THE WARSAW FRONT. 



Warsaw was very difficult of attack from 
the north. On that side approach to it was 
barred by the rivers Vistula and Xarew and 
the strong line of fortified positions from 
Novo Ceorgievsk to Lomza. Beyond the 
last-named point ran the Bobr, with the 
fortress of Osowiec and a region of swamp 
and lake to and beyond Grodno. More 
particularly after the recent German repulse 
on the East Prussian front, then, Warsaw had 
little to fear from any enemy on the north 
Apparently the Russians were slow to realize 
how serious was the present threat against it, 
with forces of such magnitude converging upon 
it from all parts of the west and south ; though 
the actual force engaged in the immediate 
attack on Warsaw does not seem to have 
exceeded from five to seven army corps, only 
a small portion of which were first line troops. 

There was much discussion at the time as to 
why General von Hindenburg sent so com- 
paratively small a force for the direct assault 
on Warsaw. There is no doubt that the Ger- 



mans intended and expected to take the place. 
All arrangements had been made for its occu- 
pation on about October 17 or 18. Its value 
to them as a base for future operations against 
Russia was obvious, and its capture at that time, 
just a week after the fall of Antwerp in the 
west, might be expected to have great nioral 
effect. Yet the attack on the position was 
vmaccountably half-hearted. 

It was to be remembered, however, that the 
Germans were well aware that the Russian 
forces in Poland at that time were trivial. A 
few divisions of cavalry on that side of the 
Vistula were all that the Austro-German force 
had to deal with on its advance on Iwangorod. 
It was doubtful if two Russian army corps werie 
available for the defence of Warsaw. There 
was no considerable force at Novo Georgievsk. 
Iwangorod was masked and its garrison suffi- 
cienf ly occupied by the Fourth (Austro-German) 
Army, and no help could come from that 
direction ; and the Germans, still convinced of 
the dilatoriness of Russia, believed that it 



330 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




HEAVY AUSTRIAN ARTILLERY IN ACTION. 



would be a long time before material Russian 
reinforcements could be assembled and sent to 
Warsaw, either from Brest-Litovsk or Bialy- 
stok and Grodno. In these circumstances, it 
may well have been thought that the half- 
dozen German corps under General Mackensen, 
which constituted the first army of invasion, 
were a sufficient force for the purpose, and as 
much as could be advantageously employed. 

The 2nd and 3rd Armies had pushed into 
Poland alongside of the 1st Army. They 
were now held in reserve for use in a comiter- 
stroke against whatever force the Russians 
might ultimately send for the relief of Warsaw. 
The natiu-e of this intended covinter-stroke, 
with the reasons why it was never delivered, 
was disclosed in the German official accoimt of 
the operations published three months after- 
v/ards, and will be referred to later. Mean- 
while, if the Germans underestimated the 
force which would be necessary to take Warsaw, 
the Russians on their side were extraordinarily 
slow in taking any steps for the city's protection. 

The thunder of the enemy's giuis was first 
heard in Warsaw on the night of October 10-11, 
From that time onwards the thunder drew 
gradually nearer, while hostile aeroplanes paid 
daily visits to the city, and something like panic 
soon began to spread. 

The Russian authorities for a time issued 
preclamations of an encouraging nature, 
endeavouring to restore public confidence ; 
but as each day the sound of the guns in- 



creased, and there was apparently no sign 
that any effort was being made to send help 
from Russia, the discouragement became 
profound. The State Bank packed up its 
archives and departed in haste for Siedlice, 
where it alighted for a day or two only, and 
then, taking wing again, flew in one spasm of 
apprehension to Moscow. In the meantime 
the aeroplanes, which were a novelty to the 
people of Warsaw, caused great annoyance. 
The first one that flew over the city was an 
object of immense curiosity to the people, and 
they showered the city with bundles of pam- 
phlets proclaiming that the Germans were 
coming to save the Polish race. The populace 
were exhorted to have no fear of the aeroplanes, 
as no damage would be done to the civil popu- 
lation, but onJj'^ troops and buildings of military 
value would be destroyed. It is probable that 
this was actually believed by the Poles for as 
much as a day, but not longer. For the next 
flock of airmen that flew over evidently came 
from quite a different source of authority^ 
Instead of scattering blandishments and words 
of encouragement about the " future of Poland " 
they commenced to drop bombs. It is hardly 
necessary to say that, as far as is known, not 
a single object of military value was injured, 
nor was any soldier wounded, though forty or 
more civilians were killed or hm-t, and a small 
amovint of private property was destroyed. 

Accoimts of the happenings of the next few 
days inside Warsaw are very confused. That 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



331 



is probably inevitable in such circumstances. 
In Antwerp, in the days preceding its fall, 
wild and contradictory rumours were current ; 
orders to evacuate the city were given and 
cancelled, and the greatest luicertainty pre- 
vailed. So it was in Warsaw. It seems that 
the decision to evacuate the city was actually 
taken on October 15 or 16, and trains were 
provided for the officials and others who wished 
to leave. Practically all the British colony 
and many others who did not care to fall into 
German hands dejjarted in haste. 

Outside the fortifications the few Russian 
troops were holding the enemy back as stub- 
bornly as they could, though they were ovit- 
numbered by nearly three to one. Day and 
night the windows of Warsaw shook with the 
detonation of the guns, while from the roofs of 
the buildings the population could see the shells 
bursting to the west and soxith. Wounded 
were pouring back into the town, but still there 
seemed no sign or hope of relief ; and for a day 
or two the Poles gave themselves up to the un- 
happy conviction that in spite of their loyalty 
they had been abandoned. On Sunday, Oc- 
tober 17, the Germans were literally at the edge 
of Warsaw, and great shells from their 6-inch 
field howitzers were exploding just beyond the 



town Ihnits. Opposed to the advance in tliis 
direction was part of a division of one of 
Russia's magnificent Siberian corps, and it is 
this heroic band that Warsaw has to thank 
for its remaining in Russian hands. 

It seems to be well established that there 
was a period of seven hours when the Germans 
might have entered Warsaw unopposed. The 
Siberians had been fighting all day and were 
cut almost to pieces. Their artillery was said 
to have withdrawn, and they themselves were 
in retreat, offering scarcely any semblance of 
a rearguard action. Individuals departing on 
the train were told that the Germans were 
actually entering the town and that resistance 
liad been abandoned. In from the Radom road 
streamed the shattered fragments of regiments, 
and, according to the generally accepted version, 
there were four hours or more when there was 
not in this direction a single gun or effective 
unit to oppose a German advance. For some 
incomprehensible reason the enemy at just 
this critical moment ceased their attack. 

It is difficult to know exactly what took 
place during that lull of the German fighting. 
Someone seems to have whipped the retreating 
fragments again into shape, and mustered a few 
batteries and thrown them back on the Radom 




AUSTRIAN PRISONERS. 



332 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




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THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



300 



road, so that when the Germans, after those 
fateful hours, again resumed their attack they 
found themselves still opposed as before. 
The most reasonable hypothesis of the German 
failure to seize their opportunity seems to be 
that just at the moment when the Russians 
were giving up hope the Germans also decided 
that they were in too little strength to carry 
the position. Short as it was, the delay was 
fatal to them. The next day there came to 
^Varsaw some weak reinforcements and orders 
to hold on. For another day the still un- 
equal contest was continued, when the Russians 
suffered terribly. Then came news that swept 
tlirough Warsaw from street to street and 
from house to house with such rapidity that 
everyone seemed to know it simultaneously. 
The population poured into the streets in an 
uproar of rejoicmgs and excitement. " War- 
saw," it was announced, " was to be held at 
any cost. The Grand Duke had said it. Rein- 
forcements were actually on the way." And 
almost on the echo of the first announcement 
came the tidings that reinforcements were 
coming as fast as steam could bring them. 

The first corps to come by the railway was one 
of those grand units from Siberia, and the first 
regiment to detrain is said to have been the 
9 1st Siberian. It is told how the soldiers 
actually leapt from their box cars into their 
company formation and without a moment's 
delay swung out over the Vistula bridge 
through the main street of Warsaw and on 
l)y the Jerusalem road to the front. This 
regiment had already so distinguished itself 
in the Galician campaign that a sword of 
honoiu" had been presented to its commanding 
officer, Colonel Letchinsky. To had been 
conspicuous in the fighting before Lublin and 
in the fierce counter-attacks which drove the 
Austrians back into Galicia. Arriving there, 
it had taken an effective part in the eight days 
battle at Rawa-Ruska and had then been in 
the van of the advance against Jaroslau and 
beyond. It was still on active service when 
the orders came that Warsaw must be relieved. 
It was loaded into railway vans, and, as we 
have seen, was the first regiment to arrive at 
Warsaw in the moment of the city's crisis. 
People who saw its entrance into Warsaw and 
its march through the main street and out on 
to a new campaign (in which be it said that it 
fought for eighteen consecutive days and was 
then decorated by the Grand Duke with the 
Order of St. George), spoke of the scene 



on its arrival as an extraordinary one. With 
its brass band blaring, it poured through the 
town. The men unshaven, dirty, haggard, and 
war-stained from their campaign in Galicia, 
inarched through the main street witii the 
swinging strides of veterans. All Warsaw 
seemed almost to go wild. Women and children 
wept. It is said that the flower stores were 
stripped and every sort of blosson\ was thrown 
among the troops, while men and women alike 
ran beside the soldiers tossing them cigarettes, 
fruit, bits of bread, and anything and everything 
that a population frenzied with delight could 
offer to the men who had come to their rescue. 
I\Ien who witnessed it said that they could 
never have believed that they would live to 
see the Poles give such a welcome to soldiers 
of the Tsar. It seemed as if, in that historic 
hour, a century of bitterness had all but been 
obliterated. 

Behind this first regiment came another 
and another and another ; and then guns and 
ammunition caissons. Behind them \A'ere more 
regiments, more guns, more cavalry, and still 
again more divisions and more cori)s, until 
at last there seemed to be no end to the hordes 
of troops that Russia was pouring in. From 
the first day of their arrival Warsaw was safe. 
By October 21 the Germans were in retreat. 

In speaking of the reinforcements which 
Russia sent to relieve Warsaw a Russian 
writer says : " The march of the Russian 
armies down the right bajik of the Vistula 
oveT- roads of which English readers can have 
no conception, and where no automobile 
transport could travel in terrible weatiicr 
across swollen tributaries, was an exi)]oii 
worthy of an honourable place in the history of 
the Great War." What the precise strength 
of these armies was is unknown, but the same 
writer says that in one day " four columns, 
each 250,000 strong, crossed the Vistula over 
sixteen pontoon bridges," and deploj^ed upon 
the left bank to advance upon the Germans. 
Before the Germans definitely fell back thcire 
was desperate fighting, especially about Blonie, 
but a strong Russian force, pushing down the 
Vistula, swung round the enemy's left and 
occupied Sochaczew, making a hurried witii- 
drawal of the whole German force necessary. 
This movement was led by tlu^ Siberians 
Among the German troops which suffered most 
heavily are mentioned the 20th Army Cor|)s: 
and the 17th and Reserve Corps, which bore 
the brunt of the struggle about Blonie. 

3r>-3 



334 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



A curious but seemingly well authentiratcci 
detail of these operations before Warsaw is 
that the King of Saxony was present with his 
suite, one of the equerries having been taken 
prisoner by the Russians. Inspired German 
newspapers had for some time been dropping 
hints of an act of great pohtical importance 
which was to take place as soon as Warsaw \\ as 
in German hands. It is believed that this act 
was to be the resuscitation of a Saxon dynasty 
in Poland. To have all preparations ready 
for so dramatic a stroke would have been 
entirely in accordance with the German pro- 
cedure throughout the war, and it may well 
have been calcvilated that this would be the 
best retort to the promise niade by the Grand 
Duke Nicholas, and confirmed by the Tsar, 
of the establishment of an autonomous Kingdom 
of Poland under Russian suzerainty.* 

* The claims of the Saxon Royal House to the Throne 
of Poland, strictly speaking, are inadmissible, as the 
Electors of Saxony were Kings of Poland only while the 
Republic was an elective monarchy, and the wearing of 
the Polish Crown conferred no sort of hereditary right 
on the children of the King. Frederick Augustus, 
Elector of Saxony, " The Strong Man of Sin," remark- 
able as the father of Marshal Saxe and an innumeraVjie 
progeny, was King of Poland as Augustus II. from 10i>7 
to 1706, when he abdicated; only to be re-elected in 1709 
He died in 1733 and his son was elected as Augustus III. 
(1733-63). When Napoleon erected the Grand Duchy of 
Warsaw in 1807 he gave the Throne to Frederick 
Augustus I., King of Saxony and grandson of Augustus 
III., who was deposed from it in 1813 and lost it definitely 
by the Treaty of Vienna in 181.5. The present King of 



While Warsaw had been going through 
such critical times, fierce fighting had also 
been in progress on the left bank of the Vistula 
opposite luangorod, where the Austro-German 
.tirmy under General Dankl had arrived with- 
out ineeting any more serious resistance than 
minor actions at Kielce and Radom, which had 
hardly delayed its advance. 

Iwangorod lay on the eastern or right bank 
of the Vistula about sixty miles to the south- 
east of Warsaw, and was credited with being 
a fortress of the first class. In the present 
operations it does not appear that its safety 
was ever seriotisly menaced. The Austro- 
German force sent against it apparently 
consisted of seven army corps, two of whicli 
were German, with some additional units. 
^\'hatever its size or composition, it was not 
strong enough to take Iwangorod. If the 
Germans expected that it would prove strong 
eiiougli, it was but another example of their 
over-confidence in themselves and their under- 
estimation of their enemj\ Arriving opposite 
the fortress, on the west side of the river, 
without, as has been said, encountering any 
\-ery serious opposition on the way, the allied 
force opened a bombardment with heavy 
gmis on October 16. On the following days 

Saxony, Frederick Augustus III., is great -grand-nephew 
of the only Grand Duke of Warsaw, and five generations 
removed from the last elective Saxon King of Poland. 




CONVEYING RUSSIAN WOUNDED TO HOSPITAL. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



33i 




RUSSIANS ADVANCING THROUGH THH WOODS WITH FIXED BAYONETS. 



they made several attempts to force a crossing 
of the river on pontoons, but without any 
success. The point from which their main 
attack was directed was at and around the 
Httle village of Kozienice, a little north of, or 
lower down the river from, Iwangorod itself. 

Kozienice was about three miles from the 
Vistula, standing on tlie last elevated ground 
Iiefore the country dips almost to the level of 
the stream. The intervening area between the 
liigh ground and the river was under the best 
conditions low and marshy, and was commanded 
by the road that ran along the ridge. The 
Germans and Austiians had made this ridge into 
an effective line of defence, though there are 
evidences that it was done rather as a forjual 
precaution than out of actual fear of a Russian 
attack. On the night of October 20, however, 
a detachment of one of the Caucasian divisions 
crossed t-he river from the Russian side and 
seems to have gained a foothold on the west 
bank before its approacli was taken seriously. 
After reachmg the shore, the Russians still 
had some two miles of swampy country to 
cover before they could get at their enemy on 
the ridge. - We are told that while in the swamp 
the Russians came under the batteries of the 
enemy, which were able froiTi their elevation 
to sweep the low country with almost direct 
fire ; but the Caucasians, wading in mire up 
to their armpits., worked their way u[), regard- 



less of their losses, through the naorass and took 
the enemy on his exposed right flank. It is 
probable that this flank was not very strong. 
The nature of the ground between the position 
and the river was so obviously bad for infantry 
that attack froni this direction may well have 
been thought improbable. Once on solid 
ground, the Caucasians, not the most docile 
of the Russian troops, seem to have advanced 
against the exposed Austrian flank with such 
ardoiu* and impetuosity that it crumbled at 
the first assault. 

Under cover of this initial advantage the 
Russians brought up more troops, until the 
whole Austrian right was forced back from the 
road wliich it had been holding into a strip of 
wood that lay directly west of the road. The 
retirement of this flank involved the centre, and 
finally the left, which, it is believed, was the 
position held by the German contingent. In 
any event, the whole of the allied line was 
dislodged from its position on the road parallel- 
ing the Vistula and hustled unceremoniously 
into the edge of the forest. The army which 
had hoped to capture Iwangorod could not 
even prevent its supposedly inefticient enemy 
from crossing the river and attacking over a 
coimtry involving the greatest military dis- 
advantages, and tiu-ning it necic and crop 
out of a well-located and strong defensive 
position. The Austrians and Germans were 



836 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




LANDSTURM PATROL. 

^\ell equipped with artillery, and after the 
engagement there were to be counted forty- 
two gim positions witliin a mile of Kozienice. 
Owing to the difficulties of the ground the 
Russians were rniable to give their infantry 
any material support from artillery, and the 
performance of the Russian troops under the 
circixmstances was one of the most remarkable 
exploits of the campaign. 

As has been said, the couiitry directly west 
of the Kozienice-Iwangorod road was heavily 
wooded. For perhaps ten miles east and 
west and thirty or forty miles north and south 
there extended a forest which was almost a 
jungle. Several excellent roads leading toward 
Radom pierced this belt. Otherwise it was 
difficult to traxel through the forest even on 
foot, so dense was the second growth, the 
fallen timber, and imderbrush. It was, then, 
into this belt, which Nat\are seemed to have 
devised especially for their protection, that 
the enemy was forced. Then followed an 
episode which was buried in Russian official 
dispatches in a brief mention of " satisfactory 
progress made against the enemy by our troops 
in the fighting around Iwangorod." As a 
matter of fact, here in this woodland for nine 
days was fought what must by all accounts 



have been one of the most terrible actions tliat 
c\er tof)]c place. 

The problem presented to the Russians wa.s 
a simple one. Into the woods had gone the 
enemy. The woods extended east and west 
for perhaps ten miles. The enemy must be 
driven out. It was perfectly clear that if 
enough Russians went into the eastern side of 
the woods and kept on going, eventually the 
rnemy, or what was left of him, would emerge 
from the western side into the open coimtr\-. 
So dense were the woods even on the outskirts 
that shi-ajjnel was of little value. In the first 
place, it was almost impossible to locate the 
line of the enemy, and the lack of roads and 
tliickness of the woods made anything like 
free movement of giuis impracticable. So, in 
single heartedness of piu-pose, the Russian in- 
fantrj'^ went at their task of driving the enemy 
back by main strength ; and with a stubborn- 
ness that challenges admiration the Austrians 
and Germans went back only almost inch by 
inch, every yard won having to be purchased 
dearly by the Russians. 

After two days the whole fight had become 
what might be called an informal one. Regi- 
ments and battalions might keep more or less 
in touch one with the other, but the man in 
the ranks had no idea of what was going on 
elsewhere than immediately in front of him. 
He knew, perhaps, that a company of the 
enemy had made a little fort of their own, 
and for a day or two the only thing in his mind 
was to take that one spot of resistance. With 
each day the fighting became more scattered 
and more general ; and with each day the lines 
of the enemy gave back slowly toward the 
west. Day after day saw fresh Russian 
battalions, regiments, even brigades and divi- 
sions, led into their side of the wood, to dis- 
appear and to all intents and purposes be lost 
sight of for a week. The losses on both sides 
were appalling ; but the Russians could fill 
their gaps overnight, while the enemy probably 
could not fill his at all. At the end of a week, 
then, the Austrians and Gernaans were almost 
through the wood, %vith only a mile or two 
between them and the stretch of open coimtr\- 
which they must traverse in their retreat, 
and the indications in the forest afterwards 
showed that the fear of that belt of unprotected 
country must have been present to the whole 
retreating army ; for the last narrow stretch of 
woodland was a continuous maze of trenches 
and small forts thrown up by a few soldiers ; 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



337 




MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE OPERATIONS IN POLAND. 



33S 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



and the desperation with which each one was 
fought over was proved by the ahnost innumer- 
able graves and wooden crosses which studded 
the whole region. 

At last came the final stand, and then the 
retirement of the enemy across the bit of 
open ground. For nine days the sullen field 
artillery of the Rassians had been baying 
ineffectually or else waiting quietly with 
muzzled guns in the reserve until their hour 
should come. When the open country was 
reached it was their turn, and the spectacle 
on that open field must have been one ne\er to 
be forgotten. Some weeks after the action 
acre after aero was still stre%«i with exploded 
shells, cases, bloody bandages, dead horses, 
and broken equipment ; and between and 
among all were the dreadful fragments of 
hiimanity too small to hav'e been picked up 
for burial : a hand, a foot, fragments of bone, 
a bit of skull, a leg sticking out of a boot, 
and all the other ghastly relics which show- 
where human beings have been exposed to 
the rain of shrapnel and shell fire. The woods 
were still filled with unbui'ied dead, lying 
about in every conceivable nook or corner 
where a desperate man could take refuge 
from the guns or defend himself from a hand- 
to-hand attack with the bayonet. Already 
the Russians had buried 16,000 of their own 
and the enemv's dead. Still there were 



thousands left in tlie woods. It is safe to put 
down the killed alone in this action, from the 
crossing of the river until this open spot near 
the village of Augustow, at 20,000, and the total 
casualties cannot have been, in that single 
small area, less than 100,000. It should be 
added that while, in this war, it had already 
become the fashion, both in Germany and among 
the Allied Powers, to decry the valour of the 
Austrian soldiers, there can be no doubt that 
here, as at (.Jrodek and Rawa-Ru.ska, they 
fought, however ineffectually, with great 
gallantry. 

On October 23 a Russian official announce- 
ment said that the enemy was in full retreat 
from before Iwangorod, to the fortifications 
of which " no essential damage " had been 
done by his gun-fire. It was on October 21 
that the Germans had begun to fall back from 
Warsaw. By October 22 the tide had already 
receded so far from the city, and the Russians 
were pressing the piu^uit with such ardour, 
that the cliief fighting on that day was on the 
Bzura beyond Sochaczew and in the neigh- 
bourhood of Louicz. On the 24th DankFs 
army had been forced back to Radom. On the 
25th the Russian official communique spoke of 
the battle as raging along a front from Radom 
to Skierniewice, and on the 28th, at one end 
of that line, Radom, and at the other end, 
Lodz, had been reoccupied bj'^ the Russians. 




DEAD AUSTRIANS AFTER THE BATTLE OF KIELCE. 



THE TIMES FIISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



339 




THE AUSTRIAN HEIR APPARENT IN POLAND. 



According to a Russian writer, extraordinary 
scenes had been witnessed in Lodz during the 
German occupation. From the first days 
there had been a great influx into that demo- 
cratic and industrial town of Princes of the 
German Confederation and German aristo- 
crats. At the Hotels Bristol and Savoy 
stayed many Germans of high rank, including 
the Grand Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. These 
gentlemen, covered with decorations, devoted 
themselves to every kind of enjoyment. In 
the hotels which they honoured champagne 
flowed, nuisic played, and dancers exported 
from Germany gladdened the eyes of the princes. 
Not improbably they had assembled there 
to be on hand to give eclat to the accession of 
the King of Saxony to the Polish throne. 
Just before the German withdrawal from 
Lodz the princes and counts attached to the 
German Stafi went hunting in the Liusmerski 
forests, which are renowned as game preserves. 
It was a fine sight — the cavalcade galloping 
through the woods, the sun reflected from many 
glittering helmets. Two days afterwards, how- 
ever, the scene changed. The German Army had 
broken against the living wall of the Russian 
soldiers. The hunters became the hunted, on 
whose trail a merciless chase was organized. 

The chief lines of German retreat wer.- 
along the main railway from Warsaw by 
Piotrokow and Novo-Radomsk to Czesto- 
chowa, along the line of the light railway 
from Lodz to Kalisch, and north-westerly 
from Lowicz towards Thorn. The Austro- 
German forces fell back on the route by which 



they had come, by Kielce to Olkusz and the 
shelter of Cracow. All the retiring armies did 
their best, by destroying bridges, wrecking 
railways, and ploughing up roads behind theni 
to delay pursuit. The German ofiicial accounts 
of the operations, published three months later, 
declared that these measures were so successful 
that the Russian advance was rendered very 
slow and the allied forces had abundant time 
to retire in good order. This was only partially 
true of the n^ain German forces and very 
far from true of the southern Austro-German 
army. The Russian force which pushed the 
German arinies back was in command of 
General Ruzsky, who had already shown in 
the Galician campaign how thoroughly he 
understood the art of making things uncom- 
fortable for a beaten army and how rapidly 
his men could push a pursuit over any kind of 
country, however lacking in roads or railways. 
The fighting about Skierniewice and Lowicz 
wa.s of a serious character, the Germans 
attempting to make a stand in a carefully 
prepared position which the Russians carried 
with the bayonet. Around Rawa the Russians 
took 400 German prisoners and buried over 
400 (Jerman dead. There was stern fighting 
along the Pilitsa, both nortli and south of the 
river. At the end of October the Russians 
were " advancing victoriously along the whole 
front."' In the first week of November the 
main German retreat had fallen back beyond 
the frontier, not even making a stand at 
Kaliscli or Czestocliowa. On November i) 
the Russian cavalrv crossed the frontier and 



840 



THE TIMES HISTOTiY OF THE WAR. 




RUSSIAN TRANSPORT IN POLAND. 



raided German territory at Pleschon, just 
north of Kalisch, and General Joffre and Lord 
l\jtchener sent glowing telegrams of congratu- 
lation to the Cirand Duke Nicholas. 

If the main German armies in their retire- 
ment, however, were thus harried, they did not 
suffer nearly so heavily as did the Austro- 
German force on its retreat from Iwangorod. 
To the Austrian troops, indeed, as not infre- 
quently, had been entrusted the most dangerous 
part of the allied operations, and, charac- 
teristically, it was, as we shall see, on their 
failure that the Germans subsecjuently put 
the responsibility for the collapse of the whole 
campaign. There is no doubt that in this 
retirement from Iwangorod such German 
troops as there were in the combined army 
went on ahead (bj' not less on the average, it 
is said, than one day's march), and left to the 
Austrians the whole work of protecting their 
retreat and fighting rearguard actions. The 
Austrians fully understood wb.at was being 
done, and it is said that in the coiu-se of the 
retreat many thousands of Austrian soldiers 
surrendered on the slightest pretext, giving 
as their reason afterwards their discouragement 
and disgust with their treatment hy their 
German allies. The Poles in the Austrian 
ranks especially began to lay down their arms 
and give themselves up whenever the^' could 
do so with safety. 



Mention has already been made of the 
fighting about Radom and the occupation of 
that place by the Russians. The struggle 
seems to have gone on for some four days in 
the Radom forests, but the occupation of the 
town itself, on October 27-28, was effected 
without serious resistance. From Radom to 
Kielce there ran an excellent road, which for 
u:iuch of its distance was an elevated causeway 
built above low-lying and often marshy 
ground, while other portions ran between 
heavily wooded forest land. The Austrians 
in retreat did everything that could be done to 
make this highway impassable. The road was 
ploughed up, bridges were burned or blowndown, 
and culverts exploded, leaving great ditches 
across the road. In many places to go round 
these obstacles would have meant traversing 
the soft meadow lands by the roadside, the 
sinldng of transport, and miring of guns. Along 
the wooded portions it was equally difficult to 
leave the road without felling hundreds of the 
big trees that pressed in close to the highway. 
The result was that the Russians were materially 
delayed during the following days in their 
advance. Though the infantry could press on, 
guns and transport had to wait for repairs 
to be accomplished. The Russian engineers, 
however, were on the "heels of the first regiments 
of the advance, and they worked desperately 
in extemporizing bridges and corduroying 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



341 



roads through the marsh lands tliat flanked 
the highway. The delay served to give the 
Anstrians a chance to throw v^p hurried works 
in the vicinity of Kielce, where an action was 
fought on November 3 which in any other war 
would be chronicled as a battle of importance. 

The Austrian line was spread out here on 
a length of, perhaps, seventy kilometres 
from the west of Kielce to near Sandomierz, 
on the Vistula. The centre of the Austrian 
line was in a village perhaps ten imles east of 
Kielce itself, and in the centre of the village 
wa.s a walled-in graveyard, the whole of which 
had been flanked with gun positions and pro- 
tected with wing trenches and hurriedly 
<'rected barbed wire entanglements. It seems 
that the Austrians and their C4erman advisers 
{who, however, had pushed on to the south the 
afternoon before the action) considered the 
position sufficiently strong to delay the enemj'' 
for three or four days. But the Russian army, 
with the famous Caticasian corps in the van, 
came on with irresistible momentum. We are 
told that the main column, its transport keeping 
pace with it, «as moving at the rate of fifteen 
or sixteen miles a day, in spite of all obstacles, 
while flanking regiments thrown out to east 
and west were covering soinetunes as many as 



twenty-five nuU^s in the twenty-four hours. 
-After their gruelling experience in crossing the 
Vistula and the week-longhand-to-hand struggle 
in the woods, the Caucasians were thoroughly 
aroused and in no mood to be checked by any 
rearguard. Just as the Austrians were 
putting the finishing touclies to their field works 
the Caucasians, covered lij'' a screen of Cossack 
cavalry, swept in upon their front and deployed 
against their centre. 

This was towards the evening of November 
3. The enemy, it appears, anticipated an 
engageinent commencing on the following morn- 
ing with the characteristic artillery action, to 
be followed later in the day, or perhaps not 
tmtil the next day. with an infantry attack, 
which the Atistrians would be fully prepared to 
receive. But they were not in the least 
jjrepared for what was to come. The Cau- 
casians, after just enougli rest to give them tinae 
to have sometliing to eat, without even waiting 
lor the complete development of their artillery 
support, attacked the Atistrian centre with the 
bayonet. 

The strongest position of the whole line of 
defence was the graveyard with the little 
white church in the middle. Before the 
Austrians A\ere fully alive to what was going 




POLISH COTTAGERS RAKING OVER THE KUINS OF THEIR HOMES. 



342 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




a 
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O C 

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.2 

C/} 

3 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



343 



on the Caucasians were pouring over the wall, 
overrunning barlied wire and wing trenches, 
with an impetuosity which crumbled the 
Austrian centre as the incoming tide dissolves 
a castle on the seashore. Tho little graveyard 
where for centiu-ies the dead of the village 
had slept beneath the shadow of overhanging 
trees, was transformed into a shambles. The 
only outlet was a single gate, and the Russian 
soldiers took this in their rvish, effectually 
closing the compound within. Here in the 
darkness men fought hand to hand, stumbling 
over graves and wakening the echoes \\ith 
rifle shots and shoutings and with the groans 
and moans of the dying. It is no fiction to 
speak of the ground herfe as being soaked with 
blood. A Special Correspondent of The Times, 
who visited the spot soon after the action, 
found great clots of coagulated blood, " like 
bits of raw liver," lying everywhere. The 
surrounded Austrians, taken by surprise, liad 
fought with desperation and stubbornness, 
but as the hxindreds of dead crumpled up under 
the trees and among the tombstones too well 
indicated, they were no match for the Cauca- 
sians when it came to hand-to-hand fighting 
with cold steel and clubbed muskets. When 
morning came, the Austrian centre had dis- 
appeared and the whole line of the army left 
to screen the German retirement was in retreat. 
At one o'clock of the same day the Russians 
poured into Kielce, horse, foot, and artillery, 
while on the flanks tiieir infantry were sticking 
up the stragglers among the enemy, and, on 
the extreme left, entering Sandomierz, which 
had to be taken by storm against a triple line 
of defences. 

The Austrians are believed to have lost here 
heavily in dead and woLinded, while more than 
12,000 prisoners and fifty giuis, with numerous 
nmcliine guns, fell into the Russian hands. 
After the fight the victors made no stop at 
Kielce but pushed right on. Kielce, which 
had been blue with Austrians at ten in the 
morning of November 4, was grey with Russians 
at two in the afternoon. The artillery that 
had been in action the night before, as well as 
that which had not had time to come up 
on the [)receding evening, now came pouring 
through the town ; the guns, dirty and blistered 
from tho contact with enemy's shrapnel in 
many previous engagements, came clanking 
and jingling over the rough stones of the streets, 
the tired but still eager soldiers eating their 
rations on limber and in saddle as they pushed 



forward to the front. By four in the afternoon 
the Russian advance was again pressing the 
Austrian rear and the hungry guns were once 
more at work. With the Germans well out 
of the way of the Russians moving leisurely 
with their transport and artillery, the Austrians 
evidently had no intention of fiu"ther sacrificing 
themselves vmnecessarily, but made what speed 
they could, losing now and again small con- 
tingents, on their way to the Polish border and 
the protection of Cracow. 

It is now necessarj'^ to turn to the events 
which had been happening since the invest- 
ment of Przemysl, in Galicia, for which a 
Russian Governor had been appointed in the 
person of Count Bobrinsky, under whom the 
civil administration of the newly acquired 
territory was soon working without apparent 
friction. The new governor divided Galicia 
into tliree provinces — Lemberg, Tarnopol, and 
Bulcowina — the first of which \^as destined to 
be part of the new Kingdom of Poland. 

Simultaneously with the begirming of the 
German invasion of Poland, the Austrian 
armies in western Galicia also began to show a 
tendency to take the offensive. It was like 
the slow tiu-ning of a tide or the resiu-gence of 
the water in a well fed by some subterranean 
spring. In a dispatch from the Russian Great 
General Staff the Austrian troops on the advance 
were described as " a mass, operating in diiTe- 
rent directions," and feeling its way "very 
cautiously." This mass seems to have been 
under the command of von Auffenberg and the 
Archduke .Joseph Ferdinand with CJeneral 
Bohm-Ermolli in command of the cavalry. 
To what extent it was composed of the rem- 
nants of the original armies of von Auffen- 
berg and the Archduke, and how much of 
reinforcements and German " stiffening," we 
do not know. In any case, moving on a 
narrow front for its size and with exceeding 
slowness, it constituted a formidable force, 
and before it the Russians, while their cavalry 
continually fenced with and hamed the front 
and sides of tho mass, fell back in the first 
week of October behind the line of the San. 
There they stood. We have seen in a former 
chapter that it was only by an extraordinary 
feat of arms that the Russians had succeeded 
in crossing the San, in the reverse direction, 
on the heels of the flying enemy. They had 
no intention now of allowing the enemy to 
force a recrossing against them. 



344 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



This retirement partially relieved Przeiaysl, 
the western forts of which were disengaged 
about October 10 (or at the same time as 
Warsaw first heard the German guns), and had 
free communication v\ith their friends and with 
Cracow. The Russians, however, still pressed 
upon Przomysl on the eastern side. Though 
their main forces were east of the San, the 
cavalry continued to make raids and recon- 
naissances on the west of the river. Continuous 
rains had reduced the roads to a deplorable 
condition, but we heard of sharp cavalry engage- 
ments on the left, or west, side of the San on 
October 13, and fairly heavy fighting to the 
south and soutli-west of Przemysl on October 10 
(hi the 18th the Austrians made a determined 
effort to cross tlie San, but were repulsed. The 
effort was renewed on the following days, 
seemingly with gallantry but without any 
success, and it was said that the river bore 
numbers of Austrian corpses down to San- 
tlomierz and Iwangorod. During these days, 
also, the fighting on the south-west of Przemysl, 
between Sanok and Sambor, increased in 
intensity, and here the Russians on October 20 
claimed to have taken large numbers of prisoners 
tlirougli a dashing flanking movement by 
troops vrnder General Dmitrieff. 

Of aU these affairs we iiave only very frag- 
mentary information, but it is e\ident that 



much of the fighting «a.s of a desperate 
character, though the country was almost 
waterlogged and half-flooded. About October 
21 or 22 (at the moment when the Germans 
were beginning to fall back from Warsaw) the 
Austrian attack seems to have lost its momen- 
tum. Russian official statements began to 
speak of " our advance " in the neiglibourhood 
of Przemysl, and fierce fighting raged aroimd 
Jaroslau, while farther south an Austrian 
division seems to have been almost annihilated 
in the neighbourhood of Sambor on October 28. 
On the last days of the month there was much 
confused fighting, in which the initiative was 
plainly passing into Russian hands. In the 
first days of November the Russians definitely 
took the offensive on the San, and, having 
beaten off every attempt of the enemy to pass 
the river, themselves began to force a crossing. 
By November i they had established themselves 
at various points on the west side of the river, 
and on November G the news of a complete 
victory there was celebrated by a Te Deuni 
at the Russian General Headquarters at wliich 
the Tsar was present. 

So ended in failure at e\'ery point the first 
Avistro-German invasion of Poland. When the 
completeness of the failure became apparent, 
the Germans spoke of the whole operation as 




AUSTRIAN AMMUNITION BEING TRANSPORTED TO THE FRONT. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



345 




THE KAISER (marked with a cross) RECEIVING THE ACCLAMATIONS OF HIS 
SOLDIERS DURING A VISIT TO THE POLISH FRONT. 



merely a " reconnaissance " If it was a recon- 
naissance, it was the most costly and most ill- 
advised reconnaissance recorded in historJ^ 
But reconnaissances are not iiiade with over a 
million and a half of men, nor are they pushed 
to the point of such fighting as took pjace at 
] wangorod. 

Later, after two months of reconsideration, 
the ofifi(;ial German account of the operations, 
published on January 17, 1915, put forward a 
new theory, which it is not much easier to 
accept. 

According to this theory, as German troops 
could now be spared from East Prussia, it was 
decided to use them in helping Austria. With 
this object an Austrian Army, with a German 
contingent attached, started from Cracow on 
September 28 (the date is approximately 
correct) up the left side of the upper Vistula 
towards Randomierz. Nothing is said of the 
simultaneo\i.s advance of the other German 
armies. It was merely a flanking movement 
ngainst the Kussian troops in (jalicia to relieve 
the pressure on tlie Austrians on and beyond 
the San. At this time there were only some 



six Kussian cavalry divisions in Poland west of 
the Vistula. 

Unfortunately, according to the German 
view, the Austrians failed to take advantage 
of the new situation. They v\ere unable to 
cross the San, although the Austro-German 
invading army had pushed on with great elan 
towards Iwangorod. The Austrians having 
failed to push the Russians back, the enemj- 
was enabled to throw great masses of men 
across the Vistula at Sandomierz and Josefow, 
which threatened to encircle the allied right 
to the east of Opatow At the same time great 
Russian forces advanced from Twangorod. 
Only then was it that the dash on Warsaw was 
undertaken, in order to distract the enemj' 
and withdraw some of his strength from falling 
on the Austro-German Army. The difliculty 
of this part of the story is that the Germans 
were already close to Warsaw ten days before 
the Austro-German troubles began. 

The Russian force advancing on ^^'a^.saw 
outnumbered the 1st German Army by at least 
four to one. So German r(>inforcements were 
hurried up (which is the first that we hear of the 



346 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




< 
U 

< 



en 

z 

o 

< 

Oh 

o 



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l-H 

O 
H 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



347 



2nd Gorman Army), and a counter-offensive 
was begun by crossing the Pilitsa with a view 
to falHng on the flank of the Russians by 
Warsaw. This would undoubtedly have suc- 
ceeded, but once more the scapegoat Austrians 
tailed to do their part. They allowed themselves 
to be dri\'en back from Iwangorod, by Radom 
and I^elce, whereby the German right becaine 
so exposed that there Was nothing for it, in 
view of the great numerical superiority of the 
(-nenxy, but for the whole Une to fall back 
beyond the frontier ; a movement which the 
(<erman armies accomplished with their usual 
steadiness, and with a thorough destruction of 
all the roads and railways as they went. 

This summary of the German official version 
is chiefly interesting for its ungenerous and 
almost brutally contemptuous tone towards 
the Austrians. As a serious story of the 
operations it can only be naade tenable by a 
complete ignoring of dates and an overturning 
of most of the main facts of the campaign. 

It has, however, been already suggested that 
one point which emerges from this story is 
[)robably true, namely, that while the 4th 
Austro-German Army was sent towards I\van- 
gorod to prevent any Russian force from 
crossing the Vistula on the reaches from 
Iwangorod to the San, the 1st Army was sent 
on alone to Warsaw, the other armies being 
lield in reserve for that counter-offensive by 
way of the Pilitsa which was to fall on the 
flank of the Russians when they came to 
Warsaw's relief. Unfortunately, when the 
Russians came, they came in such force and 
with such dash as to swee|) 1st Army, 4th 
Army and Reserve Armies together in one 
comnion ruin. What would Jiave happened 
if von Hindenburg had, in the first instance, 
sent a stronger force to strike at Warsaw, or if 
Mackensen, with such force as he had, had not 
failed to grasp the opportunity of seizing the 
place when it was at his mercy, it is not easy to 
say. Perhaps it could not have been held 
{igainst tlie strength which Russia puslied up 
to its relief. At least, however, the whole 
story of this Polish campaign would have been 
a different one, and this initial German failure 
would have been less inglorious than it was. 

It was, of course, unthinkable that the 
Germans should sit still under the rebuff which 
they liad received. The Russians had treated 
them, including some of their best troops, as 
ui\ceremonious]y as they liad previously treated 




GERMAN MACHINE GUN SECTION. 



the Avistrians. The natiu-al, indeed inevitable, 
reply must be a vigorous and immediate 
counter-offensiv^e. 

Long before the German invading armies 
had been beaten back to their frontier, it be- 
came known that still larger forces were being 
massed from Thorn and Breslau. There had 
been reports before, after the Russian successes 
in Oalicia, of the hurrying of German troops 
from the western to the eastern front. Similar 
reports now were indubitably true. It was 
asserted in Petrograd that the enemy now had 
no fewer than 3,000,000 men facing the Polish 
frontier ready for a new advance. By Novem- 
ber 10 the Russians had not only driven the 
enemy out of Poland, but between Kalisch 
and Thorn detachments of General Ruzsky's 
arinies penetrated 20 miles into German terri- 
tory. At the same date other Russian troops 
of General Ivanoff's forces were within 20 miles 
of Cracow. On November 14 it was annoiuiced 
from Petrograd that a German counter-offensive 
had been " noticed " from Thorn in the direction 
of Wloclawek. 

That the estimate of 3,000,000 Austro- 
German troops on the I'olish frontier was an 
exaggeration we may well believe. In llie 
operations recently described there had ajij^a- 
rently been engaged some 22 or 23 Army ("orj)?. 



348 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAE. 




I 



RUSSIAN PRIEST BLESSING MEN IN THE TRENCHES. 



with various additions. Among these were 
some first line troops, but not many. Most of 
these liad been employed in the last efforts 
to gain a definite success on the Western front. 
Of the 22 Army Corps probably not more than 
5 were active German Army Corps. With 
these appear to have been 8 Reserve Corps, 
the remaining 10 being Landwelir and Land- 
sturm formations. 

There also seems to have been a certain 
mingling of Austro-Hungarian troops with the 
German armies. In addition, the Austro- 
Hungarian forces projjer, under command of 
Duke Albert of ^\'urtemburg, seem to have 
been divided into three armies of some three 
corps each, with additional units. The Austrian 
troops, however, had suffered so severely tliat 
the formation of most of their vinits was no\v 
most irregular. The combined effective Austro- 
German strength on this frontier probably 
amounted to about 2,000,000 men. 

Against these the Russian armies, already 
great, were being constantly reinforced. It 
was supposed that early in November the total 
Russian forces from Warsaw to the Carpathians 
amounted to some 3o army corps, of which 15 
were opposed to the Austrians in Galicia and 



the rest confronted the Germans along the 
Polish frontier. Of these Russian troops in 
Poland (excluding those in Galicia) much the 
greater number seem to have been concentrated 
on the southern part of the line, towards Cracow. 
Tn this direction were combined both those 
troops which had driven the Austro-Gemiau 
army from Iwangorod by Kielce to Olknoz and 
Cracow, and also the niain army which hafl 
followed the bulk of the Germans retreating 
along the line of the railway from Skierniewice to 
Czestochowa. The sparsity of railways in 
Poland, and the absence of any line parallel 
to the frontier on that side, made the transfer 
of large numbei's of Russian troops from one 
part of the line to another — from south to north, 
or vice versa — difficult. The Germans, on the 
other hand, had at their service a most complete 
railway system, by whicli their mobility was 
enormously increased. This fact, enabling the 
Germans to mass troops easily at one point or 
another much more quickly than their enemy, 
was sufficient to neutralize a very considerable 
total mmierical superiority on the part of tlie 
R ussians. 

Taking advantage of this fact, as the chief 
Russian strength was on the left, or southern. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



349 



part of tlie line, whence it could only be 
laboriously transferred, the Germans threw the 
weight of their attack on the comparatively 
weak Russian right. 

In speaking of this as the Russian " right," 
it has to be ahvays borne in mind that, logically 
and in essence, the war in this eastern theatre 
extended over one continuous battle front, 700 
or 800 miles long, from the Baltic to the Car- 
pathians. In that huge line the Thorn-Vistula 
region was not much above the Russian centre. 
But for pm-poses of narration it is necessary to 
divide this great field into sections and to treat 
the operations in East Prussia, in Poland, and 
in Galicia respectively, as separate campaigns, 
though they were in truth interdependent, a 
thrust in one quarter when parrieyl being replied 
to by a covinter-tlirust in another. 

At the present moment it was in the southern 
area that, after the last futile attempt on War- 
saw, the i^eril of Russian invasion of Gern^an 
territory looked most imminent. Here on what 
is generally called the Czestochowa-Cracow 
line, and beyond in Galicia, the chief Russian 
troops were massed. And the shadow of these 
troops almost overhung the rich industrial 
districts of Silesia. At the same time, so long as 
Przemysl held out and Cracow stood firm, 
serious Russian advance on this line by the 
valley of the Oder was obviously difficult. 
From Cracow north to Czestochowa, again, the 
<jrerman defensive position was very strong. 
Rough, broken ground lent itself to defence, and, 



as a Russian official communique frankly 
remarked, in the four months since the begin- 
ning of the war the Germans had been able to 
'■ fortifj'^ it in extraordinary strength."' The 
danger to Silesia, then, was less immediate than 
at first sight it might have looked. None the 
less, it had, if possible, to be removed. But 
against the great Russian strength in this 
quarter it was obviously better that the Germans 
should confine themselves here more or less to 
defensive action behind their formidable 
defences and deliver their blow against the more 
vulnerable part of the Russian Une further 
north. A success there would just as sui'ely 
compel withdra^\•al on the Czestochowa-Cracow 
line as if it had actually been achieved on that 
line. 

It was, it will be remembered, then, from 
Thorn towards Wloclawek that the first 
German offensive had been " noticed " on 
November 14. This offensive was pushed with 
great violence along the left side of the Vistula 
and by the railway line towards Kutno and 
Lowicz. On this immediate front the Russians 
do not appear to have had more than tliree 
army corps, and the CJerman advance soon 
assumed the character of another and more 
determined thrust at Warsaw. Tliis was 
obviously sound strategy. The capture of 
Warsaw itself, after the recent failure, would 
have been a triumph of the first magnitude, 
while, at the least, it was calculated, a serious 
threat to it would, as we have seen, compel the 




THE ROLL CALL. 



350 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



withdrawal for its defence of a large part of the 
Ilussian forces in the south, with a resultant 
relieving of the pressure on Cracow. 

The comparatively small Russian strength 
in this region between the Vistula and the 
Warta, west of the Bzura, could ofTer no effec- 
tive resistance to such weight as the Germans 
threw upon it. So rapid was the German 
advance that by November 16 it had already, 
from its base from Thorn to Wreschen, reached 
a line from Plock to Leczica on the upper 
Bzura, some 50 miles inside the frontier, and 
about half way to Warsaw. Under von 
Hindenburg, the force Wiis divided into two 
armies — the left or northern one being com- 
manded by General von Morgan, tlie right by 
General von Mackensen. On November 15-16 
tlie Russians, in spite of their inl'eriority in 
numbers, had ^'entured a delaying action 
against von Morgen in the neighbourhood of 
Kutno. They were, of course, driven back, 
and General von Hindenburg announced the 




RUSSIAN NATIONAL DANCE. 



result as a great victory, claiming to have taken 
28,000 Russian prisoners. The news was 
received with enthusiasm in Berlin, and von 
i^Iindonburg was rewarded by being made * 
Field-Marshal. 

On the following day MackerLsen".s right 
successfully engaged a Russian force between 
Dubie and Leczica, driving it north-westward 
along the Bzm'a towards Lowicz. Pressing on 
the left flank of this force in its retirement, the 
Germans opened a gap in the Russian lines, 
into which they drove a wedge between Stry- 
kow and Zgierz. If they could make the 
penetration of the Russian line at this point 
effective, and could pour troops through it in 
any strength, the Germans believed that tliey 
had the game — and Warsaw — in their hands. 
According to the German official report, issued 
in January, 1915, it "now looked as if what 
had been originally undertaken merely as a 
counter-offensive movement to relieve the 
strain on Cracow, might be converted into a 
great success." New troops were therefore, it 
is declared, hurried up from Breslau. It is, 
however, as frequently, only possible to accept 
this version of the events with certain modifica- 
tions. 

It is true that at this moment the Germans 
were flushed with enthusiasni and full of tlie 
highest hopes. Disappointment at the earlier 
Russian successes had been intense, and the 
relief at what looked like von Hindenburg's 
triumph was so great that Berlin, decorated 
and wild with joy, was already speaking in 
exaggerated terms of the defeat of the whole 
Russian armies. But the present movement 
had no more been vmdertaken as a mere in- 
definite counter-offensive for the purpose of 
threatening the Russian left on the south, tlian 
the earlier attempt on Warsaw had- been 
a "reconnaissance." Its very formidable 
character had been apparent from the begin- 
ning. The victory of Kutno was no such great 
matter as the Germans claimed, and much 
happened, which is slurred over in the German 
report, between it and the penetration of the 
Russian line. 

After the affair at Kutno the Russians fell 
back upon the line of the Bzura. The Bzura 
itself is a small stream, but its banks are 
bordered for a large part of its length with 
wide marshes, which form a most formidable- 
obstacle to an advancing army. Against this 
obstacle the German progress, hitherto so 
rapid, was definitely held up. Time to bring 



THE TIMES HISTCRY OF THE WAR. 



351 




AN AUSTRIAN ENCAMPMENT IN THE CARPATHIANS. 



up reinforceinents to this part of their Hne was 
of the greatest importance to the Russians. On 
November 18 fighting was in progress around 
Lodz ; on the 20th. between Lowicz and 
Skiemiewice. On the 23rd the Russians claimed 
something of a success in the neighbourhood of 
Strykow, and from that date to the end of the 
month the Germans gained no advantage. The 
Russian armies here had by this time been 
heavUy reinforced, not by weakening the 
armies in the south, but by bringing up new 
troops from the east. According to German 
versions, considerable forces were also thrown 
across the Vistula from the right bank between 
Novo Georgievsk and Plock. At all events, 
after covering the first 50 miles of his advance 
in three days, in the following fortnight von 
Hindenburg beat in v.ain against the Russian 
line along the Bzura and to and beyond Lodz. 

During all this fortnight fighting was of the 
most stubborn and desperate character. The 
Russian official announcements recorded the 
fact from day to day. On November 26 there 
was " some advantage to our troops." On 
November 27 the action " continues to develop 
favourably." On other days there was " no 
change " or " nothing important to report." 
What was, however, of the utmost importance 



was that the Germans were not progressing. 
On the last day of the month the fighting was 
still " extremely stubborn." The triumphant 
German predictions following on the incident 
of the penetration of the Russian line between 
Strykow and Zgierz were by no means being 
fulfilled. It is necessary to explain what had 
happened at that point. 

The German troops which operated at 
Strykow and Zgierz seem to have come from 
two directions. One body had forced the 
crossing of the Bzura marshes at Piontek ; 
another appears to have crossed the Bzura, 
beyond the limit of the marshes, east of Leczica. 
At all events the German official statement 
spoke of their armies advancing " on both 
sides " of that place. Between Zgierz and 
Strykow two army corps with some extra 
units — probably 100,000 men in all — forced 
their way north-east of Lodz as far as Brze- 
ziny. If the penetrating force had been in 
such definitely superior strength as to be able 
to crumple back the enemy's line to the north- 
ward, the coup might have been of almost 
decisive importance. But Russian reinforce- 
ments were by this time arriving, coming by the 
railway from Warsaw, and by the time the 
thrusting corps had reached Brzeziny the 



352 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




ENTRANCE TO AN AUSTRIAN 
ENCAMPMENT. 

"Russian line had been so strengthened that it 
was able to close in on their rear. Later 
German troops, hurrying after the advance 
force, had their hands full in warding off 
Russian attacks from both sides, and it looked 
for two or three days as if the two isolated 
corps would be compelled to surrender or be 
annihilated. As a matter of fact, the Russian 
line behind them was not held in equal strength 
at all points, and they, or their shattered 
remnants, were able to force their way back. 

These two corps seem to have had terrible 
experiences in their endeavours to find a way 
of retreat. Roughly handled around Brzeziny, 
the force seems to have been broken up and 
fragments were described as roaming the 
frozen and desolated land " like a pack of 
hungry wolves." The greater part of those 
which escaped appear to have made their way 
northward by Bielawy and Sobota, between 
whicli places they were attacked by a Riissian 
force and again severely mauled. Ultimately, 
of about 100,000 men, something like 40,000 
seem to have got back. Among them was the 
remnant of a regiment of the Prussian Guards. 
Besides the killed and wounded tho Russians 
took many prisoners. It is known that 5,000 
were taken one day and 6,000 on the next. A 
few days later \\'arsaw \\as full of German 



prisoners, and apparently the two corps lost 
almost all their guns. The news of the catas 
trophe, even in the modified form in which it 
was permitted to the public to know of it, 
brought great depression in Berlin, where a 
comjjlete and brilliant victory by Field-Marshal 
von Hindenbiu'g had been confidently antici- 
pated. In importance, as in the numbers lost, 
it much ovitweighed the German success at 
Kutno. Both, however, were only incidents of 
the struggle on this front which went on 
unc^easingly and on a gigantic scale, and the 
issue of which was by the end of November 
definitely turning in favour of Russia. 

While these tilings had been going on in the 
region from the Vistula to Lodz, fighting had 
also been in progress farther south. In support 
of the armies advancing on Warsaw, other 
German armies had pushed forward along the 
railway from Kalisch by Sieradz towards Lask 
and from Wielun towards Piotrkow ; and the 
montli of December opened with an extra- 
ordinaril}' confused situation along the whole 
front. It was well described at the time as being 
less like one continuous action than " a series 
of more or less simultaneously proceeding 
independent battles," in which fortune veered 
from side to side. Retreats at one point were 
counter-balanced by advances at another, and 
at many places, in the course of isolated 
combats, troops from either side pushed far 
ahead of their general line and were fighting in 
the rear of the enemy on either side of them. 
It is believed that duriiig this period the 
German armies were reinforced by more corps 
transferred from the Western front. 

It would be useless to unravel and follow up 
each thread in all the tangled skein. The 
incident which stood out most conspicuously 
from the txirmoil in the early part of December 
was the occupation by the Germans on the 
6th of the month of Lodz, of which they had 
not had possession since their hunting had been 
interrupted there in October. Lodz was a town 
of considerable commercial importance, the 
" Manchester of Poland." Since the beginning 
of the nineteenth century it had sprung from 
a village of a couple of hundred inhabitants to 
a manufacturing and commercial centre with a 
population of nearly half a million. Occupied 
and reoccupied as it had been since the begin- 
ning of the war, with battles raging around it 
for weeks together, Lodz had suffered terribly 
and become only a shadow of its usual busy self. 
Much the larger part of the population had fled 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



353 







THE WAR IN POLAND. 

1. Russian prisoners being marched through Lodz. 2. A wrecked village. 3. Sacks of flour burned by 
the Germans before their flight— two Russian soldiers on the left. 4. German field post oflice at Lodz. 

5. A destroyed frontier station. 



354 



THE TIMES HISTORY OE THE WAR. 




AN ENCOUNTER BETWEEN RUSSIAN AND GERMAN OUTPOSTS. 



to Warsaw, and those who remained had 
suffered serious privations, food being abnost 
unobtainable. 

The Germans celebrated the capture of Lodz 
as a great triumph, and claimed that they had 
taken a large number of prisoners and war 
booty. The Russians asserted that its evacua- 
tion had only been a strategic move to enable 
them to take up a shorter and more advan- 
tageoas hne and categorically declared that 
they " did not lose a single man " in the 
operation. It was even asserted that for 
fifteen hours the Germans shelled empty 
trenches from which the enemv* had retired on 



the preceding day. The truth undoubtedly is 
that the Russians would not have given the 
place up, if only for its moral effect, unless they 
had been obhged to do so. Its surrender was 
a reverse, and the Germans were justified in 
claiming the acquisition of it as a success of 
some importance. At the same time, it had 
become very embarrassing to the Russian 
campaign. Its defence occupied a large nimabor 
of troops and it constituted a costly saUent in a 
line which was a good deal stronger after it had 
been abandoned. There is, moreover, little 
doubt, from the narratives of individual 
Russian officers engaged in the operation, that 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



355 



the Russian official statement as to the de- 
Uberate nature of the retirement, the reluctance 
of the Germans to advance, and the freedom 
from casualties was substantially acciirate. 

But the Germans needed whatever comfort 
could be drawn from the incident. It was known 
that they had promised themselves to spend 
their Clu'istmas in Warsaw ; but it was plain 
by now that the attempt to reach Warsaw had 
failed. Ner had they succeeded in compelling the 
Russians to withdraw any material portion of 
th.e armies which threatened Cracov\', either in 
Southern Poland or in Galicia. If von Hinden- 
burg's offensive had attained any object it may 
have been the prevention of an invasion of 
Silesia. But it is questionable whether that 
could not have been as effectively prevented, at 
less expense in German lives and with heavier 
loss to the enemy, by awaiting attack along the 
frontier. The course of the campaign had 
clearly shown how rapidly the German advance 
lost its momentum as it drew farther into 
Poland and farther away from its railways. 
On the other hand, every mile that the enemy 
advanced eastward made the Russian problems 
of reinforcement and supply less difiticult. 

About the middle of December the German 
attacks appreciably decrea.sed in violence. 
Much stubborn fighting still went on, as on the 
1 5th and 1 6th of the month, about Sochacze\v. 
A few days later some bodies of German troops 
succeeded in crossing the Bzura, but were 



beaten back or wiped out. About the 22nd 
and 23rd there was heavy fighting about 
Piotrkow, and also near Bolimow, between 
Lowicz and Skierniewice. But this was ground 
which the Germans had reached a month 
earlier, without being able to get any farther. 
Early in December the Germans attempted a 
diversion by a wide flanking movement from 
East Prussia, directed against Warsaw from 
the north, which, however, though a part of 
this general conflict, belongs geographically to 
the narrative of events in that region. It was, 
though dashingly pushed, not made with any 
great strength, and was easily mot and beaten 
back by the Russians. 

The last v\eek of the year saw little of any 
importance in this region. Between Decem- 
ber 20 and 25 the Russian hne, as a whole, fell 
back a little, not so much under pressure as 
for the purpose of taking up a better position 
on a straighter front. Both sides were then 
content to dig and entrench themselves along 
a line which ran from the Vistula along the 
Bzura and Rawka to Tomaszow. Thence sonth- 
\\'ard confused fighting continued along the 
Pilitsa to the neighbourhood of Xovo-Radomsk, 
and thence along the Nida, where in the last 
days of the year the Russians claimed some 
minor successes with the capture of consider- 
able numbers of prisoners. 

Once more we must pick up the thread of 




^:- 






RUSSIAN AMBULANCE AND TRANSPORT IN POLAND. 



856 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




RUSSIAN PRISONERS TAKEN IN EAST PRUSSIA 



events in the Galician theatre, where we saw 
how the Russians, at the beginning of Novem- 
ber, after sviccessfnlly resisting all e-.^orts of the 
Austrians to force a crossing of the San, had 
themselves broken across the river and driven 
the enemy westward. In this final battle on 
the San it was claimed that they took 12,000 
Austrian prisoners with 120 ofificers. The 
Austrians seem to have fallen back in great 
disorder, and contemporary reports declared 
that they were lacking in both food and 
amniunition, and that they suffered serious 
ravages from cholera. Once more the tide 
swept past Przemysl, which, again, and finally, 
as it was to prove, became completely invested. 
By November 13 the Russian advance cavalry, 
following on the heels of the enemy, was within 
thirteen miles of Cracow, which was now 
practically invested on two sides. It was on 
this and the following clays, it will be remem- 
bered, that the German offensive had begun 
to make itself felt from Thorn. We have 
seen, however, that the Russians did not 
withdraw any of their strength from their 
southern front to oppose the German advance. 
The pressure on Cracow, instead of loosening, 
increased. By the beginning of December 
Russian troops were within eight miles of Cra- 
cow, and on the -Ith of the month it was 



announced that they had occupied Wieliczka, 
and were within three and a half miles of the 
outer fortifications. On the same da\' Russian 
cavalry was reported, on the other side of 
the Carpathians, to be raiding Hungarian 
territory as far as Bartfeld, 20 miles over the 
border. 

In this advance towards Cracow, although 
the Austrians were more or less completely 
demoralised, the Russians had formidable 
defensive positions to carry besides the succes- 
sive rivers to cross. All the operations seem 
to have been performed with impetuous 
gallantry. The resistance naturally increased 
as the fighting swept w-estward. Bochnia. 
strongly fortified, had to be carried by assault, 
and the Russians claim to have taken 2,000 
prisoners with ten guns and many machine 
guns. The Raba river had to be crossed by a 
ford in the face of the eneniy's fire, through ice- 
floes and bitterly cold water up to the neck- 
At ^^'ieliczka trenches and barbed wire en- 
tanglements were rushed with the bayonet 
when the temperattire was below zero. At the 
end of such experiences, the Russian General 
Staff was able to say that " the moral of our 
troops, seasoned by fortj^-five days of almost 
continuous fighting, is, according to the report^! 
of army commanders, of the highest order." 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



357 



At this rrioment the safety«of^racow seemed 
seriously threatened. 

Tliroughout the war, both in the East and 
West, the characteristics of German strategy 
had been the resourcefulness and vigour of its 
counter-attacks ; even if that resourcefulness 
itself was of a somewhat stereotyped character. 
A rebuff in one quarter was immediately 
countered by an attack, as swift as possible, in 
another, generally delivered at the remotest 
point on one or other flanlc at wliich it could be 
delivered without becoming . ineffective as a 
retort. Von Hindenburg proved himself so 
adept at this particular manoeuvre that he gave 
it an individual character, stamped with his 
particular genius. To reUeve the pressure on 
Cracow and Silesia we have seen how he struck 
at once for Warsaw along the very banks of the 
Vistula, and when that attack began to spend 
itself he had even tried to swing round from 
farther north and reach Warsaw from East 
Prussia. So now, when the danger to Cracow 
grew imminent, he struck again, not on that 
immediate front but far to the southward along 
and round the Carpathians. 

For two months and more the Russians had, 
except for the one Austrian advance to the 
San, been practically in control of Galicia up 
to the mountains. After the failure of the 



Atistrians on the San it was announced in 
Petrograd, on November 18, that Russian 
troops were " attaclcing Austrian rearguards " 
at the mouths of both the Dukla and Uszok 
Passes. By the 25th they seemed to have forced 
the Lupkow Pass, along the railway line from 
Sanok, and to have occupied Mezo-Laborcz on 
the Hungarian side, taking 3,500 Austrian 
prisoners, three railway trains and some 
machine guns. On the last day of November 
it was announced that more prisoners had been 
made " in the Carpathians," that the Buko- 
wina was cleared of Austrians and Czernowitz 
reoccupied. On December 1, after ten days' 
fierce fighting, the Riissians claim to have 
cari'ied by assault a very strong position 
along the crest of the mountains by Koniec- 
zuka, a point just south of Gorlice, between 
the Dukla and Tamow passes. Altogether 
the number of Austrian prisoners taken in 
the last half of November was now said to 
amount to over 50,000, with more than 600 
officers. 

Fighting continued tlii'ough the first week of 
December all along the Carpathians, but the 
Russians now found that their opponents at 
many points here were no longer Austrian but 
German. Advices from Petrograd to London 
said tliat " the Austrian armies around Cracow 







A POLISH VILLAGE SET ON IIRE BY THE GERMANS. 



nj3 



THE TIMES HTSTOJiY OF THE WAR. 




RUSSIANS WITH HAND GRENADES. 

have ceased to exist as an independent force 
, . . they are all mixed up with Germans." 
A force, largely German, appeared on the River 
Dvmaje<3 near Novo-Sandcc, and at various 
points farther east German troops began 
appearing north of the Carpathians. A new 
German offensive on this extreme left flank had 
begun. 

On December 14 the Russian General Staff 
announced in its characteristically unpertiubed 
way that it had " discovered the enemy trjang 
to assume the offensive." On the 16th it was 
said that Austro-German columns were " pour- 
ing over the Dukla into Galicia." It is believed 
that at this time tliree new German army corps 
had been sent to the eastern front (maldng 
nine new corps since the beginning of these 
operations), while tliree Austrian corps had 
been withdrawn from Serljia. The new armies 
pouring into Galicia by the mountain passes 
were estimated at 170,000 men. The move- 
ment was quite ineffective. It compelled 
the Russian raiding parties which had invaded 
Hungary to retire into Galicia, and to that 
extent it allayed the panic which was beginning 
to be felt in Budapest and Vienna. The 
extreme southern end of the 1-lu.ssiau line below 
Cracow was pushed back from advanced 
positions west of the Raba to and across the 
Dunajec. But the Russians never regarded the 
diversion in this quarter seriously, and the 
Austro-German advance was easily checked and 



held. On December 23 General Sukhomlinoff,. 
tiie Russian IMinister for War, announced that 
it had been " stopped absoliit<ily." 

As a matter of fact, so long as Przemysl held 
out and Cracow stood firm, it is improbable 
that the Russians could have entertained the 
idea of invading Hungary in any force. To push 
an array any distance across the mountains as 
the situation then was would have been almost 
tantamount to giving it as a hostage to the 
enemy. The Russian position in Western 
GaUcia and in Poland would have to be much 
more assured before real invasion could be 
imdertaken without great risk. And before that 
time came there was to be a long winter with 
terrible and prolonged fighting in the deep 
snows and bitter cold of the mountains. That 
will be dealt with in its appropriate place 
hereafter. 

The end of the year saw the war fi\'e months 
old. The result of the struggle during those 
five months had been sufficiently favourable to 
the Allied cause in the east ; much more favour- 
able than, at the beginning, had appeared 
probable. Germany, held on a rigid front in 
France and Belgimn, had been unable, as she^ 
had expected, to ttirn her whole strength to the 




AUSTRIANS BRINGING A SHELL TO 
THE GUN POSITION. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAL'. 



359 




AUSTRIANS ADJUSTING A HEAVY SIEGE HOWITZER. 



eastern front. Against sucli offensive as Ger- 
many had attempted in East Prussia and 
against the advance of Austria in the south, 
Russia had shown herself much less unready in 
massing her first armies than had been ex- 
pected. Those armies had proved themselves 
a match for Germans and Austrians alike. The 
high quality of Russian strategy and the gallantry 
of the Russian soldier had been demonstrated 
beyond dispute. For five months fighting 
such as the world had never seen had raged over 
a front of over 700 miles, from the Baltic 
to the frontiers of Rumania. Dtu-ing that 
period not less than 0,000,000 men had been 
engaged on the two sides. At the end Ru.ssia 
was stronger than ever, Germany had suffered 
reverses at least as heavy as any which she had 
inflicted on the enemy, and the military power 
<)i Austria was broken and discredited. Losses 
on both sides had been heavy, but the combined 
losses of Germany and Austria were certainly 
heavier than those which Russia had suffered ; 
and Russia was much better able to stand losses 
than either of her opponents. At the end of the 
year it was announced that the prisoners in 
Russia included i;il,737 Germans, with 1,140 



officers, and 22 1,447 Austrians and 3,186 officers, 
or a total of 4,326 officers and 353,184 men. 

The saddest feature of all the operations in 
this last part of 1914 upon this front was the 
devastation wrought in Poland. It is a 
subject which will be dealt with more fully 
liereafter. We have seen that the Polish 
people, when they chose the path of loyalty, 
must have known that they would pay a terrible 
price. For five months now the contending 
armies had swept backwards and forwards over 
the land. Almost the whole of Poland had 
become one vast battlefield. Farirts, villages, 
and towns had been almost obliterated ; pro- 
vinces had been laid utterly waste. In their 
first advance the German armies had behaved 
with restraint. On their retreat they do not 
seem to have committed the unspeakable 
outrages that thej^ had perpetrated in Belgium, 
at least in such numbers. But they had 
systematically ruined the land, not only by the 
destruction of railways, roads, buildings, and 
bridges to delay the advance of the piu"suing 
Russians, but by the most exhaustive plunder- 
ing and carrying away of all discoverable 
supplies of food and clothing, and everytliing 



360 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




i 



AUSTRIAN ENGINEERS CONSTRUCTING A TRESTLE BRIDGE. 



else for which they could find a use, or which 
could give any comfort to the enemy. The 
condition to which such of the population as 
remained in the devastated region was reduced 
was, as winter came on, pitiable beyond descrip- 
tion. The world at the time heard less of the 



sufferings of Poland than of those of Belgium, 
and Poland had not the same ready hands 
reached out to succour her. Nowhere did 
Belgimn suffer starv^ation and frozen misery on 
the scale on which they stalked through Poland 
that winter. 




CHAPTER LX. 

SECOND AND THIRD AUSTRIAN 

INVASIONS OF SERBIA: FALL AND 

RECAPTURE OF BELGRADE. 



Serbian Strategy after the Battle of the Jadar — Causes of Delay — Invasion of Syrmia — 
Mistakes and INIisfgrtunes — Serbs Retire — The Second Austrian Invasion — Putnik's 
Strategy — Austrian Failure — The Third Austrian Invasion — Initial Success — Capture 
of Valievo — Serbian Depression — Faxl of Belgrade — The Great Serbian Rally — Battte 
of Suvobor — Recapture of Belgrade — Rout of the Austrians — Austrian Atrocities in 
Serbia — Their Bombakdment of the Serbian Capital. 



THE failure of the Serbian Staff to 
order an immediate pursuit of the 
routed Austro-Hungarian Armj- 
after the battle of the Jadar was 
the subject of much adverse comment in some 
quarters. That the enemy was a beaten rabble 
when he crossed the frontier rivers is beyond 
doubt, and the obvious course would have been 
for the Serbs to follow up their victory and 
run the fugitives to earth. It must be conceded, 
however, that General Putnik and his advisers 
were fully alive to the importance of driving 
home their advantage to the hilt, and that 
very weighty reasons intervened to persuade 
them to call off their troops. No part of the 
army had been awaiting the attack in the 
district in which the battle of the Jadar was 
fouglit. The troops which bore the brunt of 
the fighting had, on the contrary, been obliged 
to undertake a series of forced marches before 
they made contact with the enemy, a,nd, once 
on the scene, they entered into a fierce and 
prolonged combat with a determined and well- 
equipped foe. The Serbs were, therefore, 
more or less physically tired before th(! invaders 
had been chased back into Austrian territory. 
Vol. I n.— Part 36 



Further, the divisions which had been held in 
reserve and which came into action towards 
the end of the battle were even more fatigued, 
for they had been marched about from one 
sector to another as the fortunes of battle 
dictated, and finally entered the arena after 
their powers of resistance had already imdergone 
a certain strain. This fact taken alone, how- 
ever, would have provided no adequate excuse 
for the subsequent Serbian inactivity. The 
Austrians were no less fatigued tlien they were, 
and, for the rest, a few days' repose would 
have served to reinvigorate the men. There 
were other and more potent reasons, originating 
in that Serbian unreadiness for war to which 
concrete reference has already been made, 
which had a serious and decisive bearing upon 
the situation. Among these the shortage of 
rifles was not the least important. The Jadar 
battle had, of course, been fought and won 
despite this deficiency ; but an incursion into 
enemy territory would possibly have neces- 
sitated the employment of all the reserve 
forces in the firing line, and it was precisely 
these reinforcements which had hitherto re- 
mained unarmed in the rear. The tliird and 



Gl 



362 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




SERBIAN OFFICERS EXAMINING A STAFF MAP. 



most weighty reason lay in the absence of the 
material necessary to effect a crossing of the 
rivers. 

The Drina is no ordinary water-way. Rising 
in the tors of the Bosnian hills and periodically 
fed by important tributaries, it rushes north- 
wards to its junction with the Save. Ever 
swift, often torrential, it has washed out a 
bed of imposing width, and by a constant 
cutting of new courses has created a series 
of deltas. The local facilities for the construc- 
tion of pontoon bridges consisted of boats, 
barges, and the crude pontoons of the curious 
water-mills which are a feature of this territory. 
At different stages of the war both armies 
dismantled these latter Installations, flung 
the mills and wheels into the water, and com- 
mandeered the pontoons for the purposes 
of bridge-building. In the period under dis- 
cussion, however, the Austrians had had the 
advantage of first choice. Profiting by their 
unopposed advance, they had seized and 
utilized every suitable floating structure, and 
despite the precipitate natiu-e of their retreat, 
they had, fortunately for them, succeeded in 
massing the boats on their own shore. The 
Serbs, it is true, possessed military pontoon 
trains, but with the exception of those captured 



from the Turks at Komnanovo in 1912, they 
were composed of inferior wooden constructions 
and were not only inefficient, but insufficient 
to make up the number of bridges which 
offensive operations in Bosnia would have 
necessitated. Finally, it was ever-incumbent 
upon the Serbians to bear in mind the fact that 
from the very commencement of hostilities 
they had put es'ery available man into the 
field ; they had no reserves, and they were 
engaged in a life-and- death struggle with a foe 
whose resources at that time were almost 
boundless. 

As a matter of actual fact, the army was not 
sufficiently strong to undertake the defence of 
any longer line than that provided by the 
frontiers of its own country, and as events 
fell out it was demonstrated that the wisdom of 
General Putnik in wisliing to keep his men in 
Serbia was abundantly justified. 

Dm-ing the twelve days which followed the 
battle of the Jadar a comparative calm pre- 
vailed over the entire front. At least one 
of the Austrian Ai-my Corps (the 4th Corps of 
three divisions) was known to have withdrawn ; 
the others had been sadly battered, and all 
available evidence combined to suggest that 
the Hapsburg Government had, as their 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



368 



amusing post-Jadar comnitinique suggested. 
adjourned a renewal of their offensive to a 
more favourable occasion. In the meantime. 
Russian operations in Galicia had progressed 
with almost unhoped-for rapidity and success, 
and a great Austrian Army had been routed 
at Lemberg. At this time a general tendency 
to underrate the military resources of Austria- 
Hungary had developed, and the Serbs, having 
eaten of the sweets of victory, were eager to 
prosecute the combat on foreign soil. They 
were greatly encouraged in this ambition 
by at least one of their powerful Allies. All 
these considerations played their respective 
parts in persuading General Putnik to under- 
take a penetration into Synnia— an expedition 
which in reality was intended to be but the first 
and necessary phase of a general invasion of 
Bosnia. 

While the strengthening of General Potiorek's 
forces in Bosnia by driving down troops from 
the north was rendered exceedingly difficult, 
if not impossible, by reason of the sparsity of 
railways, the network of communications in 
Syrmia permitted the speedy concentration 
of considerable numbers of the enemy on the 
Serbian frontier lying between the Drina 
river and Belgrade. General Putnik's first 



object was, therefore, to protect the western 
lialf of his northern border by seizing the 
territory l\ang between the Save and the 
Danube, and establishing himself in strength 
on the dominating mountain range of Frushka- 
gora. By this manoeuvre he would have 
prevented the reinforcement of the Austrian 
Army in Bosnia and Herzegovina and could 
have proceeded with his offensive in those 
Serbian piovinces in comparative security. 
The idea was rendered the more attractive 
by the known fact that the enemy's forces in 
Synnia were by no means strong, and con- 
sisted only of the 29th Division of the 9th Army 
Corps, the 38th and 68th Infantry Regiments 
of the Common Army, the 21st Jaeger Bat- 
talion, the 12th, 13th, 27th, and 28th Landsturm 
regiments and 6 to 8 bataillons de marche.* 

The task of invading Synnia was entrusted 
to the 1st Army, composed, for the purpose, of 
two divisions, and the Independent Cavalry 
Division. On the left wing support was to be 
rendered by a division in Matchva, while a 
detaclunent known as the " Detachment of 
Belgrade" was to cooperate on the right. 



* Bataillons de marche were made up of the remain.s 
of other regiments and recruits. 




A SERBIAN SIEGE GUN IN ACTION BEHIND BELGRADE. 



364 



IHE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 




THE PRINCE REGENT ALEXANDER OF SERBIA 
Observing the effect of Artillery Fire on Austrian Forts opposite Belgrade. 



One Second Ban division was moved up to 
Obrenovatz, and the rest of the Serbian forces 
remained on their old positions on the Drina. 

For the development of the strategy a sector 
of the Save was chosen lying almost midway 
between Matchva and Belgrade, where the river 
makes a loop-like incursion into Serbia, knowTi 
as the Kupinski Kut. For all miUtary purposes 
both banlis of the Save were here in possession 
of the Serbs, for the whole of this peculiar 
isthmus was controlled by artillery stationed 
on Serbian soil, while the island of Podgorichka- 
Ada on the west and that opposite Skela on 
the east formed additional bases from which 
invasion could be effected with ease and in 
practical security-. 

The decision which had been taken by Head- 
quarters was kept secret from all save the 
Divisional Staffs, and it was not until they 
arrived near the river during the night of 
September 5 to 6 that the Field Officers 
were aware that an offensive against Austria 
had in reality been luidertaken. The marches 
to the centres of concentration were, moreover, 
carried out during the night, for it was necessary 
to screen the movements of the troops from the 
eyes of enemy aeroplanes, which unceasingly 
swept up and down the river in reconnaissance. 
At 1 a.m. on vSeptember 6 the divisions com- 



menced the passage of the river at their allotted 
stations in barges. Once the advance guards 
weie safely across, pontoon trains were brought 
up and thrown across at Xovoselo, while at 
the islands the bridges were made up of pontoons 
belonging to the riverside water mills to which 
reference has already been made. 

The curious detour made by the Save had 
offered the Serbs an ideal crossing-place, and, 
strangely enough, an old watercourse of the 
same river provided them \^ ith a natvu^al bridge- 
head almost opposite the " Kut." At this 
point there exists a small wood, almost circular 
in shape, siu-rounded by what is now a moat. 
At the north-west of the moat lies the town of 
Obrez, and the formation of the whole section 
suggests its having been designed by Nature 
for offensive operations such as those under 
discussion. Once the Serbian divisions were 
safely across the river, they undertook the task 
of clearing the woodland within the moat and 
fortifying it as a bridge-head. The opposition 
encountered was not strong — a matter of two 
legiments of infantry and one battery of 
artillery — and a vigorous shelling of the forest 
speedily drove most of the defenders towards 
Obrez. The left of the Serbian 1st Army then 
steadily worked round on the town itself, and, 
after not more than a score of shells had been 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



365 



dropped into it, the Austrians scattered in a 
nortli-vvesterly and north-easterly direction. 
The Cavalry Division subsequently arrived 
on the scene, and the two units then proceeded 
to fortify the moat and to throw a bridge over 
it. The Serbian right, working towards the 
east and north-east, had a rough fight with a 
hostile regiment and two batteries, but suc- 
ceeded in captiu-ing the villages of Kupinovo 
and Progar. 

While the chief offensive had thus gone well 
for Serbian arms, a supporting action on the 
extreme left at Mitrovitza ended in bitter 
disaster. The division there engaged was 
to occupy and thoroughly fortify Mitrovitza 
and with it a strong bridge-head, after which 
it was to bear on the enemy's flank and 
generally seek to relieve the pressure on 
the army acting in Syrmia. The place 
chosen for the passage of the river in this 
sector was a Customs Station at Jasenova 
(Jrada, between Mitrovitza and Jarak. The 
troops commenced their march from Glustzi 
at midnight on September 5, and in the early 
morning of the next day the head of the column 
arrived on the river and inunediately recon- 
noitred a suitable emplacement for a pontoon 
bridge. Towards 5 a.m. a spii'ited artillery 
and rifle fire was opened with a view to pre- 
paring the terrain for a crossing, it being under - 
stood that in the event of a successful issue two 



regiments would deploy to the left and right 
respectively and subsequently entrench on 
the line from Mangjeloskabara-Shashinshi, 
with the object of countering any enemy 
movement from Jarak. 

The dispatch of the troops in barges com- 
menced at 7 a.m., and was received by a heav3 
volley from the Austrian shore. In the first boat 
5 men were killed and 3 wounded ; the second 
was riddled with bullets and speedily sanl^. 
Orders were given to the artillery to open fire 
on the enemy's trenches with explosive shell ; 
the passage by barges continued, and many 
of the men, chafing at the slowness of the 
movement, threw themselves into the river 
and commenced to swim across. At 7.40 a.m. 
three barge loads had reached the enemy's. 




VOIVODE (FIELD MARSHAL) PUTNIK, 
Chief of the Serbian (»eneral Staff. 

(Photofiraphed specially for " The Tunes History " after the battle of SuvoborJ 

Inset: COLONEL GIVKO PAVLOVITGH, Sub-Chief of the Serbian General Staff. 

3ft— 2 



366 



THE TIMES HISTORY OE THE WAP. 




THE TRANSPORT OF SERBIAN WOUNDED. 



i,"llie limes" i'holij^rapi- 



shore, and while awaiting reinforcements 
three score of the men stormed the Austrian 
trenches, inflicting comparatively heavy casual- 
ties in killed and wounded, and taking 20 
prisoners. Thenceforward events moved 
quickly, and once the troops were across 
they engaged in combat with the Austrians 
at Jarak and Shashinshi while the engineers 
threw a pontoon bridge across the river. 

The forward movement of the Serbian 
forces seems now to have been prosecuted 




l" The Times " Pholosruph. 

THE MILITARY ATTACHES 

ATTACHED TO THE SERBIAN STAFF. 

Colonel Fournier (France), Lieut. -Colonel Harrison 

(Great Britain), Colonel Atamonoff (Russia). 



with some lack of foresight, for, although 
the bridge was not yet in position, the 
troops were pushed on until, at 5 p.m., one 
of the regiments was outside Shashinshi with 
both its flanks exposed to hostile attack. At 
this juncture what might have been foreseen 
happened, and the Austrians, having received 
important reinforcements at Mitrovitza and 
Jarak, delivered a simultaneous attack on both 
flanks of the regiment. That a considerable 
body of the Serbs were able to extricate them- 
selves from their hopeless position and get back 
to the river reflects the greatest credit upon the 
men. They reached the Save after two hours of 
stubborn fighting, carrying with them a mass 
of wounded, to find the bridge near com- 
pletion, the pontoons being already in position 
and all but the last 20 yards of the -400 yards 
span planked. A critical situation now speedily 
developed for the Serbs. On the one side was 
a regunent with half its effectives out of action 
and the other half subjected to a miu-derous 
fire from an enemy in overwhehning force ; 
on the other a battalion of reserves seeking to 
cross to the support of their comrades. I Jet ween 
the two lay the still unfinished pontoon bridge. 
The better to ensure the arrival of reinforce- 
ments before the wounded could rush the 
passage, it was decided to send the pioneers 
immediately in advance of the reserves, and 
by this means assure to them the first crossing ; 
but before this intention could be put into prac- 
tice the wounded flvmg themselves into the 
empty pontoons, wliich, still insecurely fixed, 
parted their moorings and drifted with their 
cargo of bleeding warriors down the stream. 
Moreover, the boats were old and leaking, and 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



867 



the more heavily laden of them speedily sank. 
As the last hope of the gallant band floated 
away, they stood with their backs to the watery 
wall facing their foe like a hiinted stag, their 
curses mingling with the shouts of desperation 
from the thwarted reinforcements and with 
the cries of the drowning and the wounded, 
until they rose above the din of musketry and 
machine gun fire. The Serbians, however, 
were game to the end ; cut off alike from 
supplies and anununition, they fought to the 
last cartridge, and then surrendered. All that 
was saved of the 13th Regiment was the flag, 
rescued by the Colonel himself, and handed to 
the regimental doctor, who swam the ri\'er 
with it shortly after midnight. 

Fortunately, the imprudence which led this 
regiment to disaster did not characterize the 
movements of che main expedition. The line 
was advanced cautiously, preceded always by 
a strong advance guard of cavalry, and it was 
only after the sviccessful occupation of Progar, 
Ashanja, and Obrez that the old bridge- 
head round the moat was discarded and a new 
and more extended ring of earthworks con- 
structed around the villages already named, with 
its western corner at Podgoritchka-Ada. Thus 
the three Serbian bases were thoroughly pro- 
tected by a semicircular field -fortress radiating 
from Kupinovo. 

Having in this manner assured his commimi- 
cations, General Boyovitch advanced the 
Cavalry Division in fanlike formation to tlie 





i^v 




/iK^^[PHi^H||^^|^^ 


-SB .^m^0if^ 




■S--** ., 'Mi»„ ^^^^^^^^I 


9^M^ 




^^^^^^H 




Bh 



[" 1 he i lines h'lwiu^Tuph, 

VOIVODE (FIELD MARSHAL) MISHITCH, 
Commander of the Serbian 1st Army. 

north and west, the norsemen being closely 
followed by one division on the right — on the 
left the other division took a north-easterly 
direction. By the evening of September 7 
movmted patrols had arrived on the line 
Karlovchitch-Subotishte-Grabovtsi, and had 
unmasked the enemy holding a front Detch- 
Mihal j evtsi -Bresach-Platichevo. 

The following day the patrols in the north 
and west sectors arrived at JNIihalj evtsi -Sabo- 
tishte-Bresach-Nikintzi, but the forward move- 




[" The Timts " Photograph. 

SERBIAN WOMEN CARRYING WOUNDED FROM THE FIRING LINE. 



868 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIi. 




Scale of Miles 



Railways 



Scale of Kilometres 



K) Reads 



MAP ILLUSTRATING THE EXPEDITION IN SYRMIA. 



merit of the Infantry was arrested at Voicliin- 
Marich Salas-Vitojevchi. Tliis perhaps un- 
necessary discretion was in part occasioned by 
the knowledge that the Avistrians were in force 
at Detch and Surchin, and it was, therefore, 
considered inadvisable to send the left too far 
ahead until this opposition had been overcome. 

On September 9 the Serbian right proceeded 
to attack Detch and Surchin. The former 
village was captured after a short though 
determined resistance, but the Austrians suc- 
ceeded in holding Surchin, and the advance was 
thereby checked at Bechmen. The following 
day the offensive was renewed against two 
enemy regiments -weU entrenched at Surchin, 
and the village was taken by assault after 
heavy fighting. Tliis task accomplished, the 
Serbians turned north and captured Dobran- 
ovtsi with little difficulty, and the troops 
stationed around Belgrade, taking up their 
role of cooperation, crossed the river and 
advanced to Semlin.- 

On September 11 General Boyovitch com- 
menced a huge sweeping movement over the 
whole front, with the object of driving all the 
enemy units westward on to the Fruslikagora 
mountain — a strategy which would have left 
him in undisputed possession of the plain. 
The two divisions, together with the Indepen- 



dent Cavalry, would then have been free to 
advance against Frushkagora itself, when, that 
stronghold once taken, they would ha\e 
established a mastery of Syrmia — a territory 
of which, it is well to note, the inhabitants were 
ahnost exclusively of Serbian race. 

September 11 saw the Serbs extended on a 
line Hrtkovtsi-Budjanovtsi-Subotislite-^Iihal- 
jevtsi-Voika-Pazovanova, with the Austrians 
entrenched on Jarak-Dobrintsi-Popintsi-Golo- 
bintsi-Pazova Stara. The next morning their 
left occupied Pecliintsi, and advanced north- 
ward to the Romer Canal, where they were 
met by heavy fire, and forced to dig themselves 
in. Farther west, however, a brilliant little 
engagement, in which bombs and bayonets 
were freely used, resulted in the capture of the 
town of Jarak. 

At this critical moment in the liistory of the 
expedition the Austrians couunenced their 
second invasion across the Drina in great force, 
and the Serbian Staff found it necessary to 
abandon the advance in Syrmia and recall the 
divisions there engaged to the defence of the 
homeland. The retirement, effected behind a 
screen thrown out by the Cavalry, was executed 
in perfect order, and so obstinate was the 
resistance offered by the rearguards that the 
entire expedition was safely back across the 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



«69 



Save before the Austrians realized that their 
territory had been evacuated. 

While in Syrmia the Serbs had been the object 
of enthusiastic demonstrations of welcome by 
the population, and their departure was the 
signal for a corresponding degree of depression. 
For these testimonies of affection the Syrmians 
paid dearly upon the rettirn of the Austro- 
Hungarian Arm}\ In the case of one village 
the punishment which a Hungarian regiment 
desired to inflict so greatly incensed a regiment 
of Croats that a pitched battle ensued, in which 
rifles, maxims, and even cannon were employed 
by both sides, heavy casualties resulting. 

While the possibility of a new Austrian 
offensive had been foreseen, the strength of the 
hostile forces engaged came as a surprise to 
the Serbian leaders. As a matter of fact. 
General Potiorek had been able to draw upon 
sufficient reserves to reform his decimated 
army corps, and was thus enaljled once again 
to undertake an advance against Valievo and 
the second Austrian invasion of Serbia com- 
menced. 

From August 25 to September 7 the Austrian 
Balkan Army had been grouped as follows : 

A Combined Corps : — Klenak-Jarak-Bosut. 

The 8th Corps: — Bosut-Bijeljina. 

The 13th Corps: — Janja-Kosluk. 

The 15th Corps: — Kosluk-Zvornik. 

The 16th Corps (less 3-4 battalions) 
Zvornik-Liubovia. 

The 3-4 battalions of the 16th Corps, to- 
gether with 6-10 battalions of Landsturm and 
recruits, were before the Montenegrins, and 
one and a half divisions held the front Zemlin- 
Weiskirchen. 

For purposes of explanation, it will be well 
to divide the theatre of operations into two 
sectors, of which the town of Loznitza maj be 
considered the dividing line. The Austrian 
attack developed in force on September 7, 
when an assault in force was carried out on the 
whole frontier from Liubovia to Jarak. In the 
northern sector fighting of a very severe and 
sanguinary nature took place, and though the 
enemy succeeded in forcing the line at many 
points, they were almost invariably driven 
back across the rivers. In the north-eastern 
corner of Matchva, however, they succeeded in 
obtaining a foothold on a triangular strip of 
swamp bounded by Ravnje-Tolich-Jarak. They 
were checked on the line Ravnje-Tolich, 
where both sides dug then\selves in, and there 



then ensued a period of trench fighting dis- 
tinguished by little save a woeful loss of 
human life, and a continuous and, from the 
(Serbian point of view, disastrous expenditure 
of ammunition. 

The practical failure of the Austrian effort 
to the north of Loznitza was very largely due 
to the fact that the Serbs had there concen- 
trated a force strong enough to cope with the 
invaders. The sector which had been weakened 
in order to provide sufficient troops for the 
expedition in Syrmia was that lying to the 
south. There the Serbians were numerically 
feeble. They were under the impression that the 
exceedingly mountainous nature of the terrain 
was in itself sufficient guarantee against a 
strong attack from that direction, and even 
when the new penetration commenced at 
Liubovia they failed to attach any serious 
importance to it. 

But the Austrians thought otherwise. 
Although their first attempt to cross on 
September 8 was frustrated, they came on 
again in augmented numbers, and very speedily 
caused a general Serbian retirement to the line 
of hills Guchevo-Boranja-Jagodnia-Sokolska 
planina-Proslop-Rozani, where our Allies dug 




"CROWDED OUT." 

A wounded and fever-stricken Serbian soldier for 

whom there was no room in the hospitals. 



370 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



themselves in and awaited a renewed 
attack. 

It is worthy of note that up to this time the 
paramount importance of certain summits of 
the Guchevo-Boranja-Jagodnia ranges does not 
appear to have been adequately appreciated by 
either side. The heights of Guchevo — to take 
a particular instance — absolutely control the 
Jadar plain as far eastwards as Jarabitze, and, 
at a later date, thousands of lives were sacrificed 
in a struggle for predominance there. Yet 
the Austrians failed to fortify the position in 
effecting their first invasion ; the Serbians 
ignored it after their victory, and it was only 
when the second invasion had been checked 
that the Austrians established themselves there 




in force, with the result that, until their retire- 
ment some six weeks later, the Serbs kept 
nearly an entire divLsion engaged in a con- 
tinuous and sanguinary effort to drive them 
from it. 

Meantime, the fight in what may best be 
referred to as the Exupaoj theatre raged 
with ever-rncreasing intensity. The SerJjians 
succeeded in holding the crest of Kostafinik — - 
a position of great strategical importance — but 
farther south they were steadily driven back 
by superior enemy forces and, by September 11, 
the Austrians held all the land west and south 
of the line Shanatz (835)-Sokolska planina- 
Petska. 

At tliis critical period one of the divisions 
wliich had been operating in Syrmia arrived on 
the scene, and the combined troops were at once 
ordered to undertake an immediate offensive 
against the Sokolska planina, all the summits 
of which (Ravno brdo-Kuline-706-Yasenovatz- 
Melatina-Yasharev breg-Petkovo brdo-Goritza) 
were then in hostile occupation. 

The mountainous and thickly-wooded nature 
of the country rendered military action exceed- 
ingly difficult, and progress was at first very 
slow. Little by httle, however, the Serbian 




["The Times" Phologrtphs. 

A SERBIAN REGIMENTAL HEADQUARTERS DURING BATTLE. 
Inset: GENERAL YOURASHITGH STURM, Commander of the Serbian 3rd Army. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



371 



advanced parties, adopting much the same 
tactics all along the line, crept steadily uj) in 
open formation under a heavy rifle and artillery 
fire, and then, throwing up temporary cover, 
they awaited the arrival of the main forces. 

Once these came up, the order to charge was 
given, and a rush made for the positions. The 
effect upon the Austrians was original, if not 
entirely lonsuspected, for they had previously 
advanced before a stubborn but retreating 
adversary. Now, while many turned and 
fled, despite the fact that their own artillery 
was turned against them, the rest stood fast. 
Fierce hand-to-hand fighting then ensued, but 
the Serbs were not to be denied, and they 
succeeded in securing possession of all the 
heights. They found the Austrian trenches 
choked with dead and wounded, the survivors 
having taken hurried flight in the direction of 
the Drina. So complete was the defeat that 
the Serbs were soon able to arrive on the 
line Shanatz-Melenkov Kamen-Brankovatz- 
Obednik - Velesh - Karacliitza - Tchermanovitza 
Gai Brdjanska Glavitza, with cavalry patrols 
extending to the Drina at Liubovia. 

The attention of both armies now centred 
around the commanding position of Matchko 
Kamen (literally "the cat's leg"), a position 



which, by reason of the terrific struggles which 
followed for its possession — it was taken and 
retaken no fewer than eight times — and the 
appalling losses there occasioned, will figure 
large in Serbian military history. 

The sole aim of General Putnik's subsequent 
strategy was to drive the invader out of Serbian 
territory. With the forces at his disposal he 
was unable to play for any startling " coup," 
and he accordingly planned a wide sweeping 
movement in order to push the Austrians north- 
ward on to the hills, thus rendering their military 
position precarious, and force them over the 
border. The general idea was, therefore, to 
storm Matchko Kamen, and subsequently 



.P^- 





1" The Tinu-s " I'liotographs. 

THE OFFICERS OF THE 1st BRIGADE OF THE SERBIAN INDEPENDENT 

CAVALRY DIVISION. 
Inset : VOIVODE (FIELD MARSHAL) STEPANOVITCH, Commander of the Serbian 2nd Army. 



372 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 







MAP ILLUSTRATING THE SECOND AUSTRIAN INVASION OF SERBIA. 



advance and occupy a line of crests — Kriva 
Jela-Tsrni vrh Debelo Osoye -Ugivalishte- 
Charochichi - Polyana - Osmanovo brdo. This 
manoeuvre, as will be observed on reference to 
the accompanying map, would have completed 
the chain of heights which commence with 
Guchevo on the north, and would have given 
the Serbs a frontier which they could have held 
with a minimum expenditure of men and 
ammunition. 

Before this programme could be carried to 
its conclusion, however, both sides were worn 
out by the struggle on Matchko Kamen and 
other points of vantage. The Austrians not 
only showed no inclination to renew the 
offensive over such difticult ground, but were 
doubtless disconcerted by the progress of _the 
Uzitsha Array, which had penetrated a con- 
siderable distance into Bosnia. The Serbs, 
for their part, were equally content to settle 
down and safeguard the terrain which they 
had gained, for, if the operations under dis- 
cussion lacked the incident and display wliich 



characterized the first and third invasions, 
they were in many respects the most desperate 
and sanguinary of the whole campaign. The 
losses incurred by both sides were, in comparison 
with the forces engaged, truly enormous, and a 
conservative estimate of the Serbian casualties 
in lulled, wounded, and prisoners put them at 
well over 30,000 men hors de combat. 

Following the repulse of the second invasion 
of Serbia by the Austro-Hungarian Army 
there set in a stage of siege warfare, closely 
resembling in its principal aspects the periods 
of fighting, at tiiiies uneventful and at times 
desperate, which filled in the intervals between 
the great battles in eastern and western Europe. 
Both sides dug themselves in on positions 
wliich they persistently fortified and rendered 
increasingly impervious to attack, and con- 
structed line upon line of trenches from which 
a maze of communications led up to the actual 
front. 

Throughout the whole of the period 
between tlie second and third invasions, the 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



373 



Austrians, persistently endeavoured to break 
their \\ay through in one or other of the sectors 
of the hne dividing the two forces. They had, 
aa will be remembered, retained possession 
of only two small triangular tracts of Serbian 
territory. To the north of Matchva they held 
a tract of marshy plain — Ravnje-Tolich- Jarak — 
while farther south their conquest had been 
limited to a section of sparsely populated 
moimtain land roughly encompassed within 
a line — Smrdan-Taminovich-Zvornik. On the 
credit side the Serbs could point to the fact 
that their Uzitsha Army had advanced into 
Bosnia as far as Vlasenitza. It would appear 
that the Austrian command had decided that 
in view of the fierce resistance which the Serbs 
had offered in the Krupani theatre little 
success could attend a renewal of offensive 
operations in that direction, and they accord- 
ingly strongly entrenched themselves, and 
settled down to hold what they already pos- 
sessed. Farther north, however, they had 
at length come to appreciate the immense 
strategical importance of the Guchevo moun- 
tains. At the close of the operations which are 
referred to as the second invasion, these moun- 
tains remained in the joint possession of the 
two armies, and there accordingly set in a per- 
petual and sanguinary struggle for supremacy. 
At some points the rival forces were separated 
only by a few yards of hilltop, while at others 
nearly a mile of neutral ground lay between the 
trenches. All the arts of siege warfare were 



employed by one side or the other in the 
constant combats., .which took place, but the 
Serbian engineers were not slow to demonstrate 
their superior initiative, as was evidenced just 
before the Serbian retreat, when they success- 
fully mined over 100 yards of Austrian trench 
and blew 250 of its defenders high into the air. 
This was part of a last attempt to conquer 
the crests, and it was a tragic commentary 
upon the paucity of ammunition from whicli 
the Serbs suffered that the whole manoeuvre 
resulted in no definite advantage for no other 
reason than that the Serbian commander had 
been obliged to fix definitely the mmiber of 
rounds which could be fired from his cannon, 
and to cease the offensive when the apportioned 
quantity had been exhausted. 

Although the Serbians repeatedly demon- 
strated their superiority over the enemy, they 
were always held in check by the Austrian 
siege guns, which controlled the mountain 
from the security of the left bank of the Drina 
river, and though the valleys of Guchevo were 
red with the blood of thousands of victims of 
both armies, the close of the operations found 
the two forces in the same position as they had 
occupied during the second invasion. 

A little farther north along the Urina 
frontier the Austrians had a footing in 
Serbian territory at Kuriachista, but were 
otherwise confined to the left banlc mitil the 
triangular tract which represented their con- 
quest of Matchva in the north-east was reached. 




SERBIAN SOLDIER LYING AMIDST THE WRECKAGE OF TRANSPORT CONVOY 

30— a 



374 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




A YOUTHFUL SNIPER. 

While they kept up a continuous bombardnient 
of the Serbian lines between Kuriachista and 
Paraslinitza andRatcha, it was along the line from 
Paraslinitza to Shabatz that they subsequently 
directed their chief attempt to progress south- 
wards. In adopting these tactics they were 
doubtless occupied by two great considerations, 
the first of which was that over this line very 
potent assistance could be rendered them from 
river monitors, and the second was that the 
Serbian territory which they held was very 
low -lying, with the result that their trenches 
speedily became waterlogged and untenable. 
Experience had, moreover, taught them that, 
despite the resiolt of the battle of the Jadar, 
the Serbians were more vulnerable over level 
ground, and they rightly assumed that they 
would find it less difficult to register progress 
across the plains of Matchva than over the 
broken and mountainous territory farther 
south. 

In view of the preponderance in numbers 
and weight of metal which the Austrians 
possessed, and their own acknowledged shortage 
of gun ammunition, it is questionable whether 
the Serbian Staff would not have been well 
advised had they decided completely to 
abandon Shabatz and the Matchva plain and 
retire at once to the foothills of the Tzer 



Mountains and the watershed of the Dobrava 
river. That they did not do so was due to the 
massacres committed and the devastation 
caused by the Austrians during the first 
invasion. Tliis outburst of barbarism came as a 
complete surprise to all sections of the Serbian 
people. They had been reared in no ultra- 
squeamLsh school. Yet in 1914 even officers 
left their families in frontier towns without 
undue concern, basing their misplaced optimism 
on a belief that they were, on this occasion, 
warring against a civilized monarchy whose 
consideration for non-combatants would be 
second only to their valour upon the battlefield. 
How terribly they erred will be shovvTi later. 

A concentration on what may be designated 
the strategical frontier would, moreover, have 
delivered up the rich and fertUe Matchva 
district to the mercy of Austrian marauders, 
and General Putruk, therefore, yielded to 
sentimental and political influence and de- 
ployed his divisions in a manner which, as 
subsequent developments were so soon to 
demonstrate, was tactically unsoxmd. 

Shortly before their withdrawal from Matchva 
the Serbians gained a success by the sinking 
of one of the largest of the Austrian river 
monitors. Five of these craft had been annoy- 
ing and hampering their military operations 
tliroughout the campaign. Night after night 
they perambulated the Save, disclosing the 
Serb positions with their searchhghts, and 
pounding slirapnel into distant trenches and 
pompoms into those on the water's edge. 
Serbian shell only glanced off their heavily 
armoured and rounded hulls, and previous 
attempts to mine the river had proved aggra- 
vatingly inefficient. But on the night of 
October 22 one of a pair of monitors which 
had been promenading the river with impunity 
struck a mine, and sank before she could be 
steered to the Austrian shore. 

After nearly six weeks of stubborn resistance 
to the Austrian attempts to break across the 
Drina, and following a series of bloody struggles 
for supremacy on Guchevo, the Serbs were at 
length faced with the necessity of retreat 
Various causes contributed to this enforced 
decision to withdraw from the frontiers. With 
the coming of winter the trenches along the 
river side and on the waterlogged plain of 
Matchva became almost untenable ; the 
Austrian attacks increased in intensity ; the 
preponderance in numbers and weight of 



THE TIME^ HISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



375 



metal possessed by the enemy grew almost 
daily ; the Serbian stocks of gun .ammmiition 
fell lower and lower ; and the men showed 
evidence of mental and physical fatigue due 
to their constant vigil in the trenches. The 
Serbian soldiers were subjected to all the 
drawbacks of trench warfare at its ^^•orst 
but without the respite which it had been 
found possible to accord on other frontiers. 
So extended was the Serbian line in pro- 
portion to the strength of the army that 
the troops had, perforce, to remain day and 
night without relief and often without repose 
in the sector of muddy earthworks which had 
been allotted to them. The nerve-racking 
strain thus imposed became almost insupport- 
able. The special correspondent of The Times 
reported that he had seen several soldiers who 
had gone mad under the weight of it, and that 
these were but examples of the nervous tension 
from which the rest of the army was suffering. 

When, therefore, the dictates of military 
strategy were allowed to supersede pohtical 
considerations, and the order was given to 
retire the troops in Matchva to the foothills of 
the Tzer mountains and the summits on the 
right bank of the Dobrava river, the retreat 
acted upon an enfeebled nervous system, and 
the moral of the army gave way. 

The withdrawal had been too long delayed, 
with the consequence that the command of the 
Tzer mountains was lost, and a retirement from 
Guchevo, and, in fact, along the whole line 
became necessary. Thus encouraged, the 
Austrians swarmed over the frontier from 
Shabatz to Liubovia. The Serbians fought a 
series of rearguard actions, but their enemy, 
converging upon Valievo in overwhelming 
force, speedily rendered that stronghold unten- 
able, and the headquarters staff precipitately 
evacuated it on November 11 and drew back 
on Ivragujevatz. 

Valievo was a town of considerable 
strategical importance. The centre of a series 
of routes which led to it from Shabatz and the 
Drina river and from it to Obrenovatz, Belgrade, 
and Kragujevatz, it was also the railliead of a 
light railway which joins up with the European 
line at Miadenovatz and of another which finds 
its northern terminus at Obrenovatz. Its 
capture was, therefore, the first stage in the 
progress towards Kragujevatz, Nish, and 
Constantinople, but, in view of the ease with 
which it had been taken, the jubilations wliich 
followed at \'ienna were hardly justilied, ur.d 



the high decoration conferred on the Austrian 
Commander-in-Chief, General Potiorek, was 
at least premature. Even the ill-fated " puni- 
tive " expedition of August and the expen- 
sive second invasion hi September had 
apparently failed to convince the Austrians 
of the seriousness of the task which they had 
undertaken, and they appear also to have 
failed to realize both the difficulties which lay 
before them in the way of a veteran army 
fighting for its very existence in its own lair, 
and the enormous obstacles presented by the 
question of transport over the switchback 
highways of levelled mud which serve for 
roads in central Serbia. The score of cannon 
which the Serbs were compelled to leave 
behind for tliis latter reason were hailed as 
evidence of hardly fought and dearly-wun 
battles ; the outposts which were captiu-ed and 
the fainthearted who surrendered were accepted 
as signs of a complete demoralization which 
had not yet set in. 

If, however, the Austrian success served 
only to depress and not to demoralize the 
Serbs, it had a most timely effect upon their 
own soldiers. In the case of this army so 
lacking in homogeneity, so devoid of all national 
patriotism, and botmd together only by the 
chains of discipline, victory was a great essential. 




PRINCE PAUL OF SERBIA and 
SIR THOMAS LIPTON AT BELGRADE. 



376 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE TIM/?. 




SERBIAN ARTILLERY ENTRAINING FOR THE FRONT. 



To those of its members who had but Httle 
interest in the cause for wliich they were 
fighting, it supphed an inspiration which had 
previously been non-existent. 

The Serbs, as we have already suggested, 
regarded their enforced retreat as unfortunate, 
but it was bj^ no means considered to be 
serious. They had not yet been driven back 
on to the line where they had originally in- 
tended to hold the Austrians. Durmg the 
days which intervened between the completion 
of the concentration and the first Austrian 
invasion of August 12, what are referred to as 
the Kolubara and Lyg positions were strongly 
entrenched, and, before the actual capitula- 
tion of Valievo, the General Staft' had decided 
that no serious attempt would be made to staj- 
the progress of the enemy vmtil he reached that 
line of fortifications. , 

In itself the Kolubara river presented no 
formidable obstacle to an advancing army. 
It is neither very wide nor very deep, but its 
approaches are sometimes devoid of cover, and 
on other occasions are commanded by formid- 
able mountain heights, with the result that in 
the hands of a determined defence it should 
prove difficult to negotiate. A little south- 
west of Lazarevatz the line of defence left the 
Kolubara, followed the course of the Lyg river. 



and entered country of an exceedingly rugged 
natiu"e. From the som-ce of the Lyg the Serbs 
had fortified the Jeljak and Maljen ranges 
\\hich control various routes converging on 
Kragujevatz, and, proceeding in a south- 
\vesterly direction, they threw up earthworks 
on the Bukovi, Varda, Jelova, Bukovic, Milo- 
shevatz and Leska-Gore ranges, which barred 
an advance towards the Western Morava valley. 
It was upon these positions, therefore, that 
the Serbs elected that the great battle should 
be fought out. At Obrenovatz they had a 
strong brigade known as the " Detaclunent of 
Obrenovatz." Farther south, at Konatiche 
on the Kolubara river, the Independent Cavalry 
Division formed a liaison with the 2nd Anny, 
which held Volujak-Lazarevatz-Cooka and the 
contoiu^ ol the ridge to the left. Tiie 3rd 
-Ai-my occupied the right bank of the Lyg 
liver from Barzilovitza to Ivanovchi. The 
1st Army took up a strong line — Gukoslii- 
Mednik-Batchinova-Ruda, and south-west 
along the Jeljak ridge to Maljen. Finally, the 
" Army of Uzitsha " was withdrawn from a 
meritorious penetration into Bosnia in order 
to protect the base of Uzitsha and the valley 
of the Western INIorava by entrenching itself 
strongly from a point south-west of Yasenovatz 
through Vk. Prishedo along the Jelova crests. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



377 



following which it stretched across the road 
and joined the tors of the Leska-Gora to Shanatz. 
The whole line was naturally formidable, an 
excellent field of view was everywhere obtain- 
able, and sufficient time had been available 
for its adequate fortification. Even admitting 
a shortage of gun ammunition, therefore, tlie 
confidence of the Serbian Staff appeared to be 
justified by the circumstances, although it 
might \\'ith reason iiave been suggested that 
General Putnik was endeavouring to hold 
a very extended front with the comparatively 
small forces at his disposal. 

The Austrians displayed no ixndue haste 
in their advance. Despite the feeble opposition 
offered by the Serbian rearguards wliich had 
been left behind to protect the retirement, 
it took thein nearly six weeks to arrive on the 
ground selected by their adversary, and it may 
be assumed that during that time they were 
able to adapt themselves to the conditions of 
warfare dictated by the peculiarities of the 
country over which they were operating. 
Mid-November had arrived before they got 
into touch with the inain body of the Serbian 
Army. They had almost divested Bosnia of 
its garrisons and had brought up an additional 
corps from the Italian frontier, so that they 
went into action with five Army Corps (roughly 



250 battalions of infantry, in addition to 
cavalry, artillery and corps troops). 

Information that ammunition was en route 
now exerted a cheering influence upon the 
Serbian Staff ; but the men, unaccustomed 
to retreat, were further disheartened by half 
a million of refugees who blocked* the roads 
as they fled in terror before the oncoming 
Austrian hosts and recounted exaggerated 
stories of the enemy's preponderance to their 
comrades-in-arms. The sight of the streams of 
refugees as they filled every nook and corner of 
the towns or stood with their oxen and wagons, 
knowing not whether to tui'n to the left or 
right, spread panic among the civiUan popula- 
tion, and the inhabitants of Lazarevatz, 
Milanovatz, Kragujevatz and other of the 
more populous centres deserted their homes and 
added their thousands to the flotsam of Nish. 

The Austrian general attack on the Serbian 
positions commenced on tlie morning of 
November 1 5. It developed principally against 
the 2nd Army south of Lazarevatz and the 
Uzitsha Army in the direction of Kosjerichi, 
but during five days the offensive was success- 
fully repulsed, and the defenders were able not 
only to inflict considerable loss upon their 
enemy, but to captui'e a fair nmnber of prisoners. 
The intention to seize Lazarevatz and push on 




ONE OF THE 



TWO FRENCH 14cm. NAVAL GUNS 
AUSTRIANS AT BELGRADE. 



I" Jilt Times" Plu)loiiral>h 

DESTROYED BY THE 



J578 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



along the Valievo-Mladenovatz railway was 
meritorious in that it would have both cut off 
the main Serbian Army from the forces around 
Belgrade and permitted an easy outflanking 
movement against Kragujevatz, For the Serbs 
it was a very necessary stronghold on which 
to pivot their operations north and south, 
and it was probably for that reason that its 
defence was confided to Voivode Stepanovitch 
and the division>s whose efforts had counted 
for most in the great victory on the Jadar 
river. 



In order to render the account of the subse- 
quent operations more intelligible to the reader, 
it will be advisable to divide the theatre of 
war into two sectors, and to treat the operations 
against Kragujevatz and Belgrade as separate 
and distinct actions, although, as a matter of 
actual fact, each exerted a considerable influence 
upon the other. For purposes of reference to 
the advance again.st Kragujevatz the 2nd Army 
at Lazarevatz may be considered the right wing 
of the Serbian line, the 3rd Army its right 
centre, the 1st Army its centre, and the Uzitsha 
-Army its left. 

On November 20 a strong enemy force 
advanced and occupied Milovatz m close touch 
with the right flank of the 1st Army, while a 
further colimin made contact Mith its centre 
at Ruda and seized the important sununit of 
Strazhara. The next day this manoeuvre 
developed into a determined onslaught on the 
Serb positions. The men held their groimd 
for some time with undaunted courage, but 
towards evening the resistance in the centre 
broke down, and the army was beaten back 
with heavy losses in men and guns on to the 
line Babina Glava-Rajac. On the right, two 
attacks on the Lazarevatz positions were 
successfully beaten ofi. The 3rd Army (Bar- 
zilovitza-Ivanovchi) held its ground, and 
sanguinary fighting between the Uzitsha Army 
and the Austrian 16th Corps closed without 
advantage to either side. 




I" Tlw Timei "Photographs. 

SERBIAN INFANTRY MARCHING INTO ACTION. 
Inset : PRIVATE LEACH, one of a small group of British volunteers serving with the Serbian Army. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



379 



SERBIAN ARTILLERY ON THE MARCH. 

The disastrous retirement of the 1st Ariny 
from the excellent positions which it had held 
on the Ruda-Mednik-Gukoshi line sent a wave 
of depression over the Serbian ranks. The 
men lost heart, and the high commands became 
discouraged, because they well knew that the 
demoralization could only be stayed by the 
timely arrival of ammumtion, and they feared 
that the situation, so far from manifesting 
any impro\'ement, might steadily worsen until 
ex^en renewed activity by the artillery might 
prove ineffective. Fortiinately, however, the 
Austrians did not immediately follow up their 
success, but rested on the central sector while 
the mountain brigades of their 16th Corps 
came in from Vishegrad-Rogatitza and Bajina 
Bashta, and delivered an indecisive attack on 
ti:e Serbian extreme left on the line Varda- 
Vk. Prishedo - Gjakov - Bukovik - Miloshevatz- 
Gruda. 

On November 24 the battle developed on 
the whole front, with such success to the in- 
vaders that two days later they had stormed 
and taken the heights of Cooka (thus involving 
the retirement of the 2nd Army to the line 
Glavitza-Stubitza-Smyrdlykovatz) and had 
driven the Uzitsha Army back on to theGoinja- 
gora mountains at the head of the Western 
Morava valley. 

Simultaneously with their general offensive 
the Austrian Stafi now inaugurated a deter- 
mined effort to outflank the SerV)ian extreme 
left. To this end they deployed their mountain 
brigades to excellent purpose, and though the 
Serbs, despite all the disabilities from which 
they were suffering, fought gallantly and well, 
they were compelled to retreat, step by stop. 




" The Times " Plwtograph 

A SERBIAN 3rd BAN SOLDIER 
GUARDING A BRIDGE. 



until, on November 28, the Uzitsha Army took 
up a strongly prepared line on Kita-Kablar- 
Markovitza, all paramoiuit heights of great 
strategical importance. 

In the rest of the southern sector many 
efforts were made to retrieve the situation ; 
but, though the counter-attacks were often 
successful,* the defenders were unable to 
maintain any advantage, and, outnumbered 
and outweighted, and with an ever -weakening 
" moral," they ceded ridge after ridge until 
the dominating Suvobor mountains fell to their 
elated enemy. 

■ • 

* A counter attack on Salinatz on November 27, for 
exiimple, resulted in the capture of the position with 
7 olficers and 1,580 men prisoners. 



380 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




Mshe^ad\3 mz^es 



MAP ILLUSTRATING THE THIRD 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



361 




AUSTRIAN INVASION OF SERBIA. 



382 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



In the northern sector (Ohrenovatz- 
Lazarevatz) a succession of hardly fought 
combats took place on the Kolubara river. The 
Serbs, while in a great numerical inferiority, 
fought with great stubbornness, and though 
an enemy division penetrated to Progon on 
November 24, it was subsequently rounded up 
and driven back with heavy loss by the 
Independent Cavalry Division. 

The cliief danger, however, lay in the south. 
In that theatre the Austrians had scored an 
imdoubted success, for they had not only 
driven the Serbs back upon their defences before 
Kragujevatz, but, what was perhaps equally 
important, had succeeded in extending the 
froijt until it stretched from Tchatchak to 
Belgrade — a distance of nearly seventy miles 
from point to point. 

On November 28 the Serbs held the line : 

2nd Army. — Vechani - Medvedjak - Progo- 
reoclii-Vagan-Summits 428 to 262. 

3rd Army. — Kalanjevchi - 498 - across Tru- 
deljska river-700 Gotrovitza-Kelja. 

1st Army. — Silopaj - Nvikuchani - Vmchani- 
Lochevchi-Galich. 

Uzitsha Army. — Kita-Kablar-Markovitza. 

The disposition of the Austrian forces was as 
follows : 

In the direction of the Western Morava 
valley : 

Four mountain brigades of the 16th Corps. 

On the road Valievo-Gn. Milanovatz : 

The rest of the 16th and the entire 15th 
Corps. 



Against Lazarevatz : 

The 13th Corps. 

The 8th and a Combined Corps were moving 
eastward against the line Mladenovatz-l^-l rade. 

The Serbian nation was at this tii..- lully 
conscious of the fact that its very existence 
was in jeopardy. The well-equipped armies of 
the mighty neighbour who sought nothing less 
than its annihilation had penetrated far into 
the land, and to all apj)earance would soon 
complete the destruction of the weary defending 
force. On the eastern frontier bands of 
irregulars were destroying the only route 
by which the needed ammunition could 
arrive, and there was fear of the military 
occupation of Serbia's Macedonian territory. 
Rmnania still held aloof, Italy gave no sign 
of prompt intervention, and Greece, ready to 
help, was kept back by fear of Bulgaria. It 
seemed impossible that succour could arri\e, 
and the Serbs, losing faith in themselves, lost 
hope. Yet, save among a section of the 
civilian population, there was no panic. They 
fac<id the new situation calmly and stoically. 
They were a little nation fighting a great 
Empire ; they were worn out by this and 
previous wars and short of everything, and, 
perhaps more tragic than all, ammunition that 
had been hoped for from richer Allies had been 
delayed too long. Thus they felt that even 
if complete defeat followed, it would be no 
disgrace. 

Despite the apparent hopelessness of it all. 
there remained deep down in the heart of the 




THE LETTER HOME. 



[" Th; TiiHtS " Pkoograph. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



383 




A BATTLEFIELD FUNERAL. 



i." The Times " Photograph. 



Serbian leaders a conviction that the decisive 
battle had still to be won. Through the 
darkness of defeat there had shone occasional 
gleams of victory. Day after day Colonel 
Pavlovitch,* the brilliant Director of Military 
Operations on the General Staff, had analyzed 
the statements of the captured Austrians, and 
from these, coupled with the slowness of the 
enemy advance, ho deduced that serious 
difhculties of transport were being encountered, 
and that the demoralization in the ranks of 
General Potiorek's army \\as no less marked 
than in his own. Further, supplies of gmi 
ammunition had at last commenced to arrive. 

Thus the Serbs set about the organization 
of one last, bold bid for victory in the shape of 

* Colonel Givko Pavlovitch was bom in 1871. The 
son of a Serbian farm labourer, he early developed a 
passion for the army, but by reason of the poverty of his 
parents he was unable to attach himself to his chosen 
career until, by his extraordinary ability, he won a 
series of scholarships. After a period of study in the 
Military Academy at Belgrade, he finished his instruction 
at Berlin, and was then admitted to the Serbian General 
Staff. He soon rose to the position of Professor of 
Tactics at the Serbian Military School, and when war 
was declared with Turkey, was the obvious choice for 
the position of Director of Military Operations. He 
visited London in the spring of 1913 as military expert 
attached to the Serbian Delegation, and later proceeded 
to Scutari, where he was in charge of the joint Serbo- 
Montenegrin attack against that town. During the 
Bulgarian War of 1013 Colonel Pavlovitch was the 
principal collaborateur of General Piitnik, and the same 
role was allocated to him in the war against Austria. 
Physically, he posse-;>es the well-developed phj'siquo of 
the average Serbian, but in personal appearance some- 
what resembles the Japanese type. Ho has tremendous 
powers of resistance, and rarely loses his innate optimism. 



a vigorous coiuiter-offensive. The first and 
obvious necessity was to shorten the enormous 
front over which the armies had previously 
been extended. This manoeuvre involved the 
withdrawal of the detachment of Obrenovatz 
and the Cavalry Division from the right bank 
of the Kolubara, and the evacuation of Bel- 
grade (night of November 29-30). A redistri- 
bution of the Serbian forces then followed, the 
troops from the Kolubara occupying the 
heights about Sibnitza and the Detachment of 
Belgrade being placed astride the Belgrade- 
Nish railway on the summits of Varoonitza 
(east) and Kosmai (west). The other armies 
were grouped on the line already indicated, 
meastires having been taken to reinforce the 
centre. 

It had also become self-evident that a change 
in the high command of the 1st Army had 
beconie necessary. This unit, though composed 
of divisions with a record of distinguished 
service behind them, had led the retreat, and 
thus precipitated the general withdrawal. It 
had lost Suvobor, and, if success was ever to 
crown this new offensive, it was considered 
that that range must first be recaptured. 
General Putnik, theri'fore, decided to deprive 
the Staff of the services of General Mishitch, 
his trusted lieutenant through all the three 
wars, and to place him at the head of the 1st 
Army. 

Mishitch was a typical Serbian officer. 
Tlic son of a peasant, he had risen by sheer 



384 



THE TlME>i HlFiTOBY OF THE WAn. 




"The Ttiiies" FlwtOfiraph 

A FRONTIER GUARD OF 3rd BAN TROOPS ON THE RIVER SAVE. 



capacity to the front rank of Serbian military 
leaders. A man of simple and unobtrusive 
tastes, with the fair hair and blue eyes of the 
pure-blooded Southern Slav, and a disposition 
which bordered on self-effacement, he possessed 
a natural genius for command. The sub- 
sequent recaptiu-e of Suvobor was very largely 
due to his superb generalship and inspiration, 
and it was fitting that he emerged from the 
combat a Field-Marshal of King Peter's Army. 

The men, if disheartened by the continued 
withdrawal, had nevertheless in some measiu-e 
recovered from the nerve-racking strain in the 
trenches, and they were now called upon l:)y 
Royal Proclamation to make one great sacrifice 
for their country's sake. The aged King Peter 
rose from a bed of suffering and joined his 
subjects in the firing line. The sale of liquor 
was prohibited. Finalh', as has already been 
stated, artillery aimnunition had at last arrived, 
and guns that had long been silent were again 
to belch forth that encouragement which tlie 
thunder of cannon alone can give. 

The strategy of General Potiorek had now 
become apparent. Using the moimtain range 
of Suvobor as a pivot, he strengthened his 
wings, and attempted to swing round on the 
north by Mladenovatz and south down the 
Western Morava valley. Had this scheme 
been successfully executed, the enemy would 
have been able to round up tlie mass of the 



Serbian Army together with Kragujevatz and 
its arsenal, after which the capture of Nish 
(the temporary capital) would have followed 
as a matter of course, and the campaign in 
Serbia would have been at an end. 

It was under such conditions, and before the 
invaders had been able to develop their great 
outflanking movement, that the order for the 
coLUiter-attack was given on December 2, and 
the advance at once began over the whole 
front. There can be little doubt that, after 
the somewhat feeble resistance which they had 
previously encountered, the brisk offensive 
took the Austrians completely by surprise. 
The Serbians pulled themselves together in 
a manner which finds few parallels in history. 
Mishitch led his 1st Army against Suvobor, 
where, advancing with wonderful elan, during 
three days of combat, they stormed and cap- 
tured the enemy pivot and threw the Austrian 
right and centre (the 15th Corps and 8 brigades 
of the 16th Corps) into headlong flight along 
the road to Valievo. Commencing with this 
dramatic success, the Serbian Armies — the 
demoralized hordes of a few days before — 
advanced with remarkable rapidity, and did 
tiot cease the pursuit until they had driven 
the armed hosts of the Hapsburgs back across 
the Save and Drina. 

Up to December 1 the Austrians had slowly 
advanced towards the Serbian positions, sure 



THE TIMES HISTOEY OF THE WAR, 



385 



that victory now lay within their grasp. In 
fact, so great and deeply founded was the con- 
fidence of the enemy Stafi that the end was 
within sight that the most primitive require- 
ments of the troops went unsupplied. Demands 
for boots and equipment and even for food 
were met by an assurance that two or three 
days would see the end of the campaign, 
and that the inconvenience must be supported 
until that tinae. 

Thus when the 1st Army commenced its 
advance the Austrians were caught leisurely 
trundling along the roads — not on open country, 
hut in valleys and dales commanded from the 
heights above — and by the time they could 
recover from the shock and extend their ranlvs, 
the Serbs had inflicted enormous losses on them 
and thrown the survivors into a state of semi- 
panic. On that day alone General Mishitch 
captured 12 officers, 1,500 men, 5 mountain 
howitzers and 4 machine guns, and advanced 
his army to the line Kostuniche-Teocliin-Gm. 
Branetichi-Vranovicha. The Uzitsha Army 
was heavily attacked on its positions on both 
sides of the western Morava, but repulsed the 
enemy and took 95 prisoners. The 3rd Army 
advanced more slowly towards Lipet, taking 
3 officers, 500 men, and 2 machine guns. The 
2nd Aimy met with considerable opposition, 
but after desperate fighting registered good 
progress and captured a considerable number 
of prisoners. 



In the northern sector the Austrians had 
detached an important force for their triiunphal 
entry to Belgrade, and reconnoitring parties,, 
probably a fianl<-guard of observation, were- 
observed in the direction of Slatina-Sopot- 
Popovitch. 

The signal successes of the first day's offen- 
sive, coming, as they did, hard upon weeks of 
discouraging bulletins, were hailed with en- 
thusiasm by the Serbs. Yet their jubilation 
was quiet and restrained. They recognized 
that their enemy had been taken in more or 
less degree by surprise, and they did not lose 
sight of the fact that he remained in possession 
of mountain positions of great natural strength, 
from many of wliich he would have to be driven 
at the point of the bayonet. But the soldiers 
had recovered their moral, and pressing onward 
^\ ith renewed courage, they swept the Haps- 
burg armies before them with ever-increasing 
rapidity. Tor after tor was stormed and taken, 
and headquarters had scarce announced one 
victory ere news was received of another. 
By December 5 the 1st Army had recon- 
quered the dominating height (802) of the 
Suvobor range and the summit of Rajatz. 
The 3rd Army had overcome a vigorous resis- 
tance and advanced to Vrlaja during the daj% 
and as the result of a night attack the Austrians 
abandoned Lipet witli 2,000 prisoners. The 
2nd Army had pushed steadily on to Kremen- 
itza and Barosnevatz. The Uzitsha Armv 




THE EVENING MEAL OF THE 3rd BAN. 



t" 'I lu Titms " PhtUsruph. 



386 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




SERBIAN SIEGE GUN IN ACTION. 



continued to wage an unequal fight with the 
right wing of the 16th Corps, but nevertheless 
succeeded in holding its own. Thiis encouraged, 
it, too, took the offensive with a night attack, 
and the foUowmg morning saw the enemy 
in full retreat towards Zelenibreg. 

There was now little doubt that the third 
invasion of Serbia would prove a greater 
debacle than the first. The three Army Corps 
on the Austrian centre and right had been 
completely broken, and were retreating in 
disordered fiight towards Valievo and Roga- 
titza, ceding thousands of prisoners and 
abandoning enormous quantities of impedi- 
menta of war. On December 7 the Uzitsha 
Army reached Pozega, the 1st Army quicldy 
overcame the last enemy resistance on the 
summit of Maljen, and took the line Maljen- 
Ruda-Donia-Toplitza. The 3rd Army pushed 
on with great vigour and reached Milovatz- 
liochnyanovitch-Dudovitza, making a great 
haul of guns and prisoners. 

Only the 2nd Army failed to make headway, 
for the Austrian command, doubtless regarding 
the situation on Suvobor as irretrievably 
lost, attempted to create a diversion on the 
north. The 8th and Combined Corps had, in 
effect, held their ground more stubbornly 
than those opposed to the Serbian Ist and Srd 



Armies, and they not only succeeded in check- 
ing the 2nd Army, but somewhat audaciously 
opened an attack on the position held by the 
'"Detachment of Belgi'ade " at Kosmai and 
Varoonitza. The Serbs had, however, no occasion 
for discontent with this day's operations, for 
their booty included 29 officers, 6,472 men. 
27 field guns, 1 mountain gun, 15 gun carriages. 
56 wagons of artillery armniinition, and be- 
tween 500 and 600 transport wagons. They 
had also decided the issue in the south, and the 
13th, 15th, and 16th Austrian Army Corps 
were flying — ^a disordered rabble — before the 
armies of General Stiirm (3rd Army) and 
General Mishitch. 

On December 8 the Uzitsha Army met with 
considerable opposition before the town of 
that name, but the Serbian soldiers were 
not to be denied, and the remnants of the 
famous 16th Austrian Corps turned tail and 
fled for the frontier. The 1st Army, con- 
tinuing its triumphal progress, recaptvu"ed 
Valievo. The 3i'd Army lilcewise reached the 
Kolubara (at its junction with the Lyg), and, 
deploying one division eastward, tlireatened 
the right flanlv of the Austrians on Cooka, 
and permitted the 2nd Army to carry the posi- 
tion. By this success the Serbians drove in 
a wedge and completely cut off the tliree 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



387 



fugitive corps in the south from the two which 
were still manifesting some measure of martial 
activity in the north. 

The operations towards the west and north- 
west now resolved themselves into a race for 
the frontier. There was little fighting, for 
the fugitive Austrians sou,!.'ht only to put a 
safe distance between thejQselves and their 
pursuers, and jettisoned enortnous quantities 
of war material, which littered the routes to 
Banjabashta, Rogatitza, Loznitza, and Shabatz. 

From this stage railifary interest centred 
in the operations against Belgrade. On Decem- 
ber 8 and 9 the " Detachment of Belgrade " 
had been hard pressed on the line Kosmai- 
Varoonitza ; but the completeness of the 
Austrian debacle in other theatres enabled 
General Putnik to rearrange his troops. He 
therefore dispatched the left wing of the 3rd 
Army against Obrenovatz, attached the re- 
mainder of the 3rd Army and the Cavalry 
Division to the 2nd Army, and placed this com- 
bined force, together with the " Detachment 
of Belgrade," imder the supreme command of 
Voivode Stepanovitch, the hero of the fii'st 
battle on the Tzer Mountains. 

Voivode Stepanovitch was typical of the 
peasant stock from which he sprang. Short, 
fat, and stvunpy, he was distinguished by a 
roimd, chubby head, a well-lined ruddy face. 



and smiling blue eyes which radiated kindli- 
ne.-s. Towards his ofificers he maintained 
v4 severe and vmcompromising attitude ; he 
was intolerant of incapacity or idiosyncrasy, 
and his morose temperament and preferenct- 
for his own society rendered him at times 
a most difficult chief. Yet towards his 
soldiers his demeanour was entirely different. 
It is no exaggeration to say that he loved them 
as children, made their comfort and well- 
being his first consideration, and became, in 
consequence, the idol of the ranlc and file. 
In the piping times of peace Stepanovitch 
devoted much time to quiet reflection. Each 
day he sauntered from his Belgrade home to 
the most remote park of the capital, and, 
seating himself in a lonely spot, was wont 
to study visions in the azure space. If any 
interloper arrived on the scene the General 
would glare at him with undisguised annoy- 
ance, and move off into solitude. So accus- 
tomed had the Belgradians become to this 
habit of one of their most famous military 
leaders, that a seat in the park was known and 
respected as the Voivode's own. The Geneml 
carried the same dislike of intrusion into war, 
and oft-times declined conversation with his 
Staff for hours on end, the better to preserve 
an uninterrupted flow of thought. Yet he 
was a great General. The castles which he 




[■■ The Times" l'lwlji;rnpl . 



AUSTRIAN PRISONERS EN ROUTE TO VALIEVO. 



388 



THE TIMES HISTUUY OF THE WAR. 




SERBIAN PEASANT WOMAN MINISTER- 
ING TO WOUNDED SOLDIER. 

built were strategical plans which had a habit 
of maturing to the discomfort of his enemy, 
and although an exclusively home-growm pro- 
duct, he was able to point to a distinguished 
military record. 

Wlien, on December 10, Voivode Stepano- 
vitch took up the command of the movement 
towards Belgrade the 3rd Army was pressing 
onwards towards Obrenovatz ; the cavalry 
division held the left banlc of the river Bel- 
janitza ; the 2nd Army wero on the line 
Volujak-Sibnitza-Nemenikuchir ; "The Detach- 
ment of Belgrade " maintained the positions 
on Kosmai-Varoonitza, and the detacliment 
from Semendria had come up and occupied 
Pudarchi. The troops thus occupied a semi- 
circular front practically stretching from the 
Save to the Danube rivers. 

The Austrian main positions stretched from 
Obrenovatz up the right bank of the Kolubara 
to Konatitcho, and then across to Grocka 
tlirough Boran-Boshdarevatz-Vlashko-Lipa- 
Krajkov^o-bara. 

A general advance was ordered for De- 
cember 11, and, particular importance being 
attached to the control of the railway, the 
centre pushed rapidly ahead, and after over- 
coming a desperate resistance stormed and 
captured the summit of Vlasliko the same 
evening, thereby securing control of the rail- 
head at Ralia, the virtual terminus of the line, 
since a tiuincl a few kilometres north had been 
blown vip by the Serbs after their evacuation 
of Belgrade. The next day the left wing of 
the 3rd Army reached Obrenovatz and its riglit 
occupied a line Konatitche-Borak-Boshdare- 



vatz Tlie 2nd Army occupied the summits 
418 and 287, and the Belgrade force advanced 
to a front Koviona-Lipa-Krajkovo-bara. 

Thus, with disconcerting suiftnes-s, the 
Austrians were being pushed up into the 
triangular sector of Serbian soil which ha.s its 
apex at Belgrade. They contested the ground 
inch by inch, and, despite the cativstrophe 
which had befallen them farther south, they 
manifested a grim determination to retain 
possession of the capital. Although the enemy 
had been driven in rout from all the territory 
lying between the Save and the Drina b\- 
December 13, with such desperation did In- 
cling to Belgrade that he delivered re2:)catcd 
counter-attacks upon the positions of Koviona 
and Krajkovo-bara before ho finally retired 
north in a dense column of panic. The vic- 
torious Serbians followed up the retreat with 
great vigour and jjressed along the banks 
of the Topchiderska river on the left and up 
the main road on the right. The Austrians 
now attempted to block the advance ])y 
heavy rearguard forces entrenched on the 
several strong positions which distinguish 
that part of the comitry. The hills command- 
ing the road north of Ralia, for example, are 
strategic points of inunens& inihtary im- 
portance, but the Serbs pushed ahead •n-ith 
ever-mcreasing energy, so that on the morning 
of December 14 they approached the line 
Ekmekluli-Dedigne-Banovobrdo, the southern 
defences of Belgrade. Upon these hills the 
Austrians had tlarown up extensive eartli- 
works consistmg of well-executed entrench- 
ments and numerous gun emplacements, and 
it was evident that they had calculated there 
to make a determined stand. Their troops 
were, however, now in a demoralized con- 
dition, and though the combats which ensued 
were of a very sanguinary nature, nightfall found 
the Serbs in possession of the heights. 

In the meantime the Cavahy Division had 
been engaged in a meritorious attempt to 
work along the banks of the Save and cut off 
the Austrian retreat. They were faced, how- 
ever, by the flat, marshy plain of Makesh. 
where the fire from hostile guns on Topchider 
and two monitors in the river effectually barred 
their progress. 

The invaders comnnenced the repassage of 
the Save on the morning of December 14 
Throughout the day, as the news became 
more and more serious, the movement increased 
in intensity, and during the night developed 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



389 



into a huiried scamper across the river. Next 
day at dawn the Serbians got their guns on 
one of the . surrounding hills, shelled and 
broke the pontoon bridge, and rendered 
further escape impossible. A detachment of 
cavalry then descended from Torlak, and while 
it was engaged in street fighting with a party 
of Hvingarians who refused to surrender, 
King Peter drove into his capital, and pro- 
ceeded to the cathedral to render thanks for 
the success of Serbian arms. 

The Special Correspondent of The Times, 
writing after his return to Kragujevatz, thus 
described his impressions of the great battle : 

The road to Suvobor follows a pleasant enough valley, 
now winding and twisting round cliff or crag, now striding 
some half-dry waterway over a crude bridge, and again 
bisopting a little village that seems all church and coffee 
shop. Then, as we left the low foothills and were 
pushed up the ever-rising slopes of tho range, we topped 
a domineering ledge and entered the battlefield. 

Here was the aftermath of war. Deep-diig trenches, 
fields spitted with gaping holes bored by falling shells 
that had shot the earth up fountain-like, broken rifles, 
bits of clothing, knapsacks., and still unbuvied corpses. 
Ploughed land and stubble that had been flattened by 
thousands of warring feet as the tide of victory ebbed 
and flowed ; well-worked Serbian earthworl<s in the 
rear and then little mounds thrown up by the advancing 
infantry as they crept onwards to the enemy. Then 
the signs of the final rush that sent the Austrians head- 
long towards Valievo. 

It had been no sudden flight, this retreat from Suvobor. 



Rather had the wave of disaster risen in a rreacendn from 
a small beginning until it reached the dimensions of 
dihdcle. At first there had b?en time and to spare, for 
the early prizes consisted of mountain howitzers placed 
in almost inaccessible positions and limbers from which 
the guns had been lifted at no little pain and carefully 
buried. We =aw them there, neatly interred on the 
mountain-side in graves surmounted, like those of fallen 
warriors, with a wooden cross, the better to conceal 
their hiding. 

Farther along were heavy siege guns left by the road- 
side, their breechblocks removed and every accessory 
easilj' transportable carried off. Thus early the retreat 
was difficult to understand. The Austrians had held 
well-entrenched positions of undoubted military value. 
Line after line of rising crests, each commanding the 
other, pdl with an excellent field of fire over the country 
before them, had been held and well foitified. The 
approacfies were always of the most arduous. Yet, 
more and more impetuously as the battle progressed 
these strongholds had been successively abandoned, 
until, shortly after the Lyg and the little ''illage of 
Gukoshi were left behind, the real, live, panic-stricken 
rout commenced. 

One might as well seek to print the lily as try to 
describe the scene. Take the tableau near Gomi 
Toplitza, where the road winds round a commanding 
promontory which overhangs the valley. Right on the 
edge of the cliff, protected by a copse of prune trees, the 
Austrians had placed a battery of field guns, while in the 
road were placed a score of ammunition wagons, from 
whence the guns were served by crude little two-wheeled 
carts. Deploying on the flank of this position, the 
Serbian gunners had covered it w ith a terrible enfilading 
fire, and men, horses, carts, w.agons, lay in a mangled 
heap upon the ground. There were dead horses in the 
shafts of the carts with dead men's hands still clutching 
the bridles — all shot down by a veritable torrent of 
shell. Some few had tried to escape, and as they ran 




AUSTRIAN PRISONERS CARRYING SERBIAN WOUNDED. 



390 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




SERBIAN SOLDIERS COMPLETING TRENCHES AND PUTTING WIRE 
ENTANGLEMENTS AROUND THE FORTS OF BELGRADE. 



they jettisoned caps, cartridges, and haversacks, only 
to meet death themselves ere they could reach the shelter 
of a neighbouring ravine. It was a pathetic, moving 
picture of bewildered flight. 

Thereafter the Austrians had but one thought — to 
get outside the range of Serbian guns. Everything was 
cast off. Cannon were left perfect and iminjured ; 
maxims abandoned in the trenches ; accoutrements of 
every description fairly littered the road. Some ammu- 
nition wagons were left fullj' charged ; from others the 
live shell had been pitched otit upon the roadway to 
lighten the load until, with the increasing pressure of 
the pursuit, the vehicles themselves had been left 
behind. Jumbled up with this mass of artillery were 
countless transport wagons and innumerable field ovens. 
Horses, fallen by the roadside, were loft to die if injured, 
shot if they had but succumbed to fatigue. 

Wounded \vaiTiors were abandoned to their fate ; dead 
soldiers uncountable left to add a touch of blue-grey 
colour to the mass of dark -green carriages. There were 
rifles by the thousand, dropped by their flying owners. 
Most were whole, others splintered by shot or broken in 
some of the fierce hand-to-hand fighting that preceded 
the rout. Ammunition littered the route like the 
coloured tissues of a paper-chase ; sometimes in batches 
where they had been tipped out of the wagons, and again 
sprinkled over the earth as the fugitives had emptied 
their belts to ease the burden by a few oiuices. 

Thus for mile upon naile. At every few yards some 
discarded trophy ; in every ditch gun or rifle ammuni- 
tion ; and towards the end the gunners had cut the 
traces of their teams and fled onwards with the horses, 
'i'here were few dead to be seen now, for the Austrians 
no longor stayed to fight. Nothing seemingly mattered 
save to put a distance between themselves and the 
pursuing Serbians. 

Before Valievo itself the garrison holding the town 
had prepared the defence. The approach by the main 
road had been entrenched and guns were in position. 
But the Serbs were inconsiderate. They went along the 
road, it is true ; but their main force deployed round 
the hills and the Austrians wore taken as completely by 
surprise as if they had never heard of their coming. 
While the fugitives hurried through the town towards 
Loznitza and Shabatz, a rearguard of Hungarians on the 



hills to the north-west put up an indifferent fight before 
they, too, fled in disorder. The last of them were caught 
by the Serbian artillery, and on the rising ground I saw 
nigh a hundred lying stretched out on the road, shot 
down as they ran. A few — severely wounded — sat 
nursing their sores amid their dead comrades, tended only 
by a little Serbian lad who fetched water to soothe their 
raging thirst. 

All along this highway of tragedy we had jostled two 
streams of hapless sufferers. Going in our own direction 
were streams of refugees, their oxen, in divers stages of 
life and death, yoked up to every conceivable manner of 
sprinErless wagon piled high with the few odds and ends 
of furniture and bedding which they had snatched up 
when they fled before the Austrian advance. Atop the 
bundles lay starving and sick children, wan with want 
and exposure ; by the side of the convej'ances, urging 
the emaciated cattle along with weird cries and curses 
walked sore-footed and weary women-folk returning to 
the devastated remains of what were once their homes. 

Crossing us came a continuous procession of Austrian 
prisoners. Now and again there would be a thousand 
or more marching along in charge of a couple of Serbians. 
They were men of every age, and of every race which 
that hotch-potch of nationalities called .4ustria-Hungary 
can provide — recruits, common Army, the Landwehr 
and the Landsturni ; Austrians, Hungarians, Musulmans , 
Serbs, Czechs, Moravians, Slovanes, Rumanians, Rus- 
sians, &c. A sorry enough crowd, and of them all I 
liked best the Bosnian Musulmans. 

In between the convoys straggled men who had fallec 
out bj' the way. Weary, pain-stricken souls, these, who 
groaned and panted as they staggered along by the aid 
of a supporting stick hewn from the roadside trees. 
Many of them, footsore, had sking their boots across 
their shoulders and walked with feet enwrapped Ln rags 
of sack -cloth. And ever and anon we passed some blue- 
gi'ey soldier stretched out by the way, awaiting death, 
alone and unbefriended. 

For almost two months until November 11, when I 
liad to flee with the Headquarters Staff, Valievo had 
been the centre of my wanderings, and it was pleasant 
to retread its cobbled streets. The town had, however. 
a strange and deserted appearance. Crowds of Austrians 
and but a handful of Serbs gave it the air of still being 



I 



THE TIMES! HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



391 



under enemy occupation. Save for one barracks and two 
houses burned, the place was outwardly intact, and the 
few inhabitants who had remained had not been molested. 
But never were external impressions more misleading, 
for every unoccupied house had been pillaged from floor 
to ceiling. Room after room had been ransacked, eveiy- 
thing of value pilfered, and pictures of the Serbian royal 
family defaced. 

What surprised one most, however, was the state of 
indescribable filth which these people left behind them 
and in which they had obviously lived. The bedrooms 
which had been occupied by officers and men alike were 
positively pestilential. Worse, indeed, were the hospitals. 
Three thousand Austrian woimded had been left in the 
charge of 13 doctors with ambulance staffs, and yet the 
men were lying anywhere and anyhow on handfuls of 
hay, suffering and dying in a condition of appalling filth. 
It cannot be suggested that Austrian doctors knew no 
better ; but this experience, taken with the many other 
evidences of indifference to the well-being of the troops 
which I have observed of late, forces me to the conclusion 
(hat, in the eyes of his superiors, the Austrian soldier 
ceases to be worthy of consideration the moment he is 
indefinitely pvit out of action. He is just " cannon- 
fodder,"' as the Prussian has it. 

From Valievo I hastened onwards towards Belgrade 
and 48 hours later, ^-cached the outskirts of the capital. 
The previous daj' (December 14) had seen fighting of a 
very deterniined character. Driven back on to a ring 
of commanding hills, of v/hich Torlak may be taken as 
the centre, the Austrians had there put up their last 
defence. These positions were captured the same 
evening, not, however, without heavy sacrifice. The 
Commandant of the Serbian force which attacked this 
sector stated that his men alone had buried 1,800 dead 
Austrians, and he described the fighting as the stiflest 
of the campaign. 

When we arrived in the rear of the Army on the 15th 
the Serbian gunners were firing through a cloud of fog 
and rain against the pontoon bridge over the Save, and 
on a hostile reaiguard without the city. The opposition 
was soon overcome, and a detachment of cavalry rode 
in, closely followed by King Peter. The Serbian Monarch 
is an old campaigner, and the fact that street fighting 
was still going on had no more effect on his enthusiasm 
than the inclemency of the weather. He stayed to 
trample under foot a Hungarian flag freshly hauled down 
from the Palace, and then attended a hastily arranged 
Te Deum at the Cathedral. 

Ninety minutes later the Cro^vn Prince Alexander, 



accompanied by his brother. Prince George, a strong 
cavalry escort, and the British Military Attache, ap- 
proached Belgrade. They were met on the outskirts by 
a crowd of poor women and children who, with few 
exceptions, were the only inhabitants who had remained. 
These joyous souls, themselves dependent upon a pittance 
from the municipality which had ceased with the evacua- 
tion, brought their all. They had quickly collected 
masses of chrysanthemums, and with these they bom- 
barded and decorated the incoming heroes until they 
pranced over a veritable pathway of flowers. The maidens 
brought the embroidered scarves and sashes which they 
had worked in preparation for marriage, and these they 
hung about the cavaliers till the men looked like so 
many garcons d'honneur at a Serbian village wedding. 
Hugo tricolor streamers now hung from the mansions ; 
little bits of dirty flags from the cottages. There was a 
touch of heartfelt simplicity about this welcome from 
deserted Belgrade that, to the looker-on, was most 
impressive. 

The Austrian occupation of Belgrade had 
lasted but for foiu-teen days, and even in the 
retrospect had something of the unfinished 
about it. The invaders had evidently settled 
down for a prolonged stay. Under the guidance 
of their late military attache in Serbia, they 
established themselves in the best available 
buildings, commenced to repair the roads 
which they had themselves ripped oi^en by 
shell fire, and setup a pretence of city adminis- 
tration. On the Torlak hiUs solid earthworlcs 
I^rotected by barbed wire entanglements had 
been constructed, and concrete foundations 
were ready for the big guns. Yet they had 
scarcely had time to decide what they would 
do with Belgrade before the Serbian hosts 
swooped down and drove them helter-skelter 
back across the Save. Thus the good and 
evil which was the city's lot depended largely 
upon individual benevolence or malice. Two 
currents — the one respect for civilians and the 




DRAWING WATER FOR THE TROOPS. 



392 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



other the product of Prussian example — ran 
side by side. The buildings occupied by one 
military authority remained cleanly and intact, 
even King Peter's photograph being left vm- 
damaged ; in others filth was everywhere, 
furniture destroyed, and the Royal image shot 
and slashed to ribbons. Entire sections of the 
town escaped pillage ; other quarters were 
pitilessly looted from end to end. While tlie 
Cathedral and various other churches were 
not seriously damaged, the General Post OfTfice 
was completely wrecked ; all the furniture in 
the Parliament House was destroyed and 
broken, and the Royal Palace was officially 
stripped from floor to ceiling, and the contents 
carted off into Hungary in furniture vans 
brought specially from Semlin for the 
piu-pose. 

The troops of the Dual Monarchy made their 
unopposed entry into the capital with flags 
flying and bands playing. There was much 
merry making, much feasting and drinking. 
The Hixngarian banner floated from the Palace, 
and twelve peasants were hanged in the centre 
of the town. The news of the " conquest " 
was flashed to Vienna and Berlin, where it was 
the occasion of great and enthusiastic rejoicings. 

Yet, even at this epoch, when easy victory 



over the Serbians seemed beyond doubt, the 
Austrian authorities manifested that same 
indifference for the welfare of their soldiery 
which had been so painfully apparent at 
Valievo. Their medical service was hopelessly 
disorganised. With the army of occupation 
came 800 wounded from other theatres. They 
had spent many days on the road, racked with 
pain and unattended, and on arrival at Bel- 
grade, they were unloaded upon the small 
American Red Cross unit already burdened 
with a charge of 1,200 manned Serbians. 
Day by day further batches of dirty, neglected 
Austrian warriors, their sufferings augmented 
by hunger and inattention, were deposited in 
the American Hospital, until it sheltered nearly 
3,000 patients. Althougli the Staff strove 
heroically to cope with the avalanche which 
had thus suddenly descended upon them, 
they received no assistance from the Aastrian 
doctors, who were manifestly incompetent or 
luiwilling either to instal hospitals of their 
own or to assist the overwrought little band 
of American surgeons and nurses. Up in th 
town the Staffs were banquetting and cele- 
brating their " victory "' in a debauch of wine ; 
down in the hospital the woiinded starved 
imtil Dr. Ryan — the energetic haad of the 




A FIELD HOSPITAL NEAR THE BATTLEFIELD. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



393 




EFFECT OF SHELL FIRE ON SOME SHOPS IN BELGRADE. 



mission — took a brougham and forcibly com- 
mandeered 400 loaves from a military bakery. 

When the evacuation commenced, the 
Austrians took not their own people, but the 
wounded Serbians, whom thej^ transported 
into Hungary to swell the numbers of their 
prisoners of war. Several hundred natives 
of Belgrade — the exact number will probably 
never be established — were led captive into 
Austria-Hungary. A few of these were males, 
and included a boy of nine years of age and an 
old man, deaf and dumb ; the rest were women 
and girls. 

It was on the morning of December 14, that 
the real preparation for departiu-e conunenced. 
A Staff officer visited Dr. Ryan, and requested 
him to take charge of the Austrian wounded 
who must needs be abandoned, and thence- 
forth there went a procession of wagons across 
the Save and along the road to Semlin. As 
the day wore on, and the news from Torlak 
became more and more serious, the movement 
developed into a wild rush for the other shore, 
and the pontoons were choked with transport. 
Cannon, it is stated on very good authority, 
were unlimbered and thrown into the river, and 
troops fought among themselves for precedence. 

All through the night the panic-stricken 
retreat continued, until, on th(> early inorning 



of the 15tli, the Serbian gunners shot away 
three of the pontoons. At that time the 
stream of fugitives stretched from the bridge 
away down the road towards Obrenovatz. In 
the streets of Belgrade the Austrians left five 
cannon, eight ammiinition wagons, 1,000 
hoi'ses, and 440 transport wagons — many of the 
latter filled with loot from the city. Some 
150 junior officers and 10,000 men likewise 
found their retreat thus suddenly cut off, 
but among them there were few officers of 
high rank. The army chiefs were among the 
first to leave. In the officers' mess lay the 
evening meal of the 14 th — the soup half 
consumed, the wine half drunlv. 

Thus ignominiously ended the third Austrian 
invasion of Serbia. Of the army of 300,000 
men who crossed the Drina and Save rivers, 
certainly not more than 200,000 returned. 
In the last 13 days of combat the Serbs cap- 
tured 41,538 prisoners (including 323 officers), 
and an enormous booty, including 133 cannon, 
71 machine guns, 29 gun carriages, 386 ammuni- 
tion wagons, 45 portable ovens, 3,350 tran- 
sport wagons, 2,243 horses and 1,078 oxen. 
The Austrian killed and wounded numbered 
not less than 60,000. 

Though there were successes more vast, it 
is doubtful whether any had a more important 



394 



THE TIMl^:S HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




ALBANIAN RECRUITS AT MEAL TIME. 

bearing upon the progress of the great war. 
Kouinanovo, Monastir and the Jadar did 
much to establish the martial prestige of Serbia ; 
but the victory of Suvobor constitutes one of 
the finest deeds in military history, and is 
unique in its example of the manner in which 
an army, ill-equipped and without reserves, 
was able, notwithstanding the absence of 
material and the fatigue of unceasing work in 
the trenches, and with almost certain defeat 
staring it in the face, to rise up. and snatch a 
brilliant and decisive victory out of a menacing 
and dangerous situation. 

The presence -of the King in the firing line, 
the strategy of the Staff, the arrival of the 
gun ammunition, and the leadership of 
Mishitch, all contributed to the glorious 
result of this great battle ; but the pride of 
place <must be accorded to the gallant Serbian 
peasant soldiers who, worn out by years of 
warfare, suffering from hardships luiheard of 
in other": armies, and demoralized by weeks of 
unaccustomed retreat, rose up with renewed 
courage at their country's call, and, with 
xinsur passed vigour and elan, drove the well- 
armed and disciplined armies of the Hapsbiu-gs 
beyond their frontiers in utter rout. 

THE AUSTRIAN ATROCITIES. 

The Austrian " Straf expedition " of August 
1914, resulted in ignominious -failure ; the first 
invasion of Serbia ended in the headlong flight 
of the Imperial and Royal soldiers ; but the 
Serbian nation was, nevertheless, punished 
in a manner so cruel and savage as scarce 
finds a parallel in the bloodstained pages of 
Balkan history. The calamity was not, of 
course, so vast as that which overtook Belgium : 



but in proportion to the population it was 
infinitely greater. The Austrian armies " out- 
Prussianized the Prussians " in their treatment 
of the peaceable peasant population of the 
country they had invaded. 

Even the trumpery excuse that troops had 
been fired on from private houses was in this 
case absent, for the villages were denuded of 
firearms, and all males, save those too young 
or too old, or those suffering from some physical 
incapacity, were with the colours. Yet the 
Austrians, beaten on the battlefield, avenged 
themselves by the slaughter of defenceless 
women and children. 

In the course of the description of the battle 
of the Jadar, reference was made to the recaj)- 
ture of the position of Marianovitchevis, when 
an Austrian officer and 500 men were taken 
prisoners. The officer in question was a Major 
Baltzarek — a Moravian by nationality. He 
was afforded every courtesy, and, as befitted his 
rank, sent to Valievo under escort of a Serbian 
officer. Shortly after his departure the SerLs 
discovered near the position seventeen jiersons 
— old men, women, and children — who had been 
bound together and massacred. Peasants 
declared that the outrage had been committed 
at the order of Baltzarek ; one of the victims — 
an old man who had had the veins of his wrists 
severed — was still alive and supported the 
accusation. 

A telephone message sped along the wires 
which follow the road ; the murderer was re- 
called, and, now bound and under a guard of 
soldiers with fixed bayonets, brought back 
and confronted with the results of his ghastly 
deed. Then, whining for mercy for himself 
and pity for his wife and family in iNIoravia, 
he was conducted to Valievo to stand his trial 
by court-martial. Before the door of the tri- 
bunal, his cords were unloosed, and, darting 
a hand from pocket to mouth, he swallowed 
a tablet of poison, tottered, and fell at the feet 
of his warders. 

The truth of the massacre at Marianovitchevis, 
like others perpetrated in the same lo'^ality, 
was attested by a commission which included 
Dr. A. van Tienhoven, of The Hague. 

A factor which served to augment the suffer- 
ings of the populations was the advice gi\en to 
the inhabitants to go quietly about their affairs 
when the AiLstrians entered. This war, they 
were told, differed from the two preceding 
campaigns in that it was being wag-^d with a 
civilized European Power, and r. on -combat mts 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



395 



had, therefore, nothing to fear. Yet there is 
no doubt that many crimes were at least 
condoned by Austrian officers. Even the order 
issued by the " Imperial and Royal Command- 
ment " having regard to the " Instructions 
for the conduct of the troops towards the popu- 
lation in Serbia," was a direct incentive to 
massacre : 

" You are engaged in war," read this instructive 
document, a copy of which was found on tlie body of 
a wounded officer, " in a hostile country inhabited by 
a population possessed of a fanatical hatred towards 
us ; in a country where cowardly assassination, as 
the catastrophe of Sarajevo showed, is held to be per- 
missible even by the upper classes, and where it is glori- 
fied as an act of heroism. 

" For such a population any disposition towards 
humanity or kindliness would be entirely misplaced ; 
it would even be fraught with danger, for such sentiments, 
which may occasionally be exercised in time of war, 
would here constitute a continual menace to the security 
of our troops. 

" I therefore order that during the military operations 
everyone shall be treated with the greatest suspicion 
and harshness. 

" In the first place, I will not allow persons armed, 
but wearing no uniform, to be taken prisoners ; they 
must be executed without exception.* 

"■ In any case (in passing through a hostile village) 
hostages — priests, schoolmasters and rich men — must be 

* The true import of this paragraph will be realized 
when it is remembered that, as the Austrians well 
knew, the Serbians had not received their new uni- 
forms. At least one-third of their Army was obliged 
to take the field in ordinary peasants' dress. 



taken and kept until the last house has been passed, 
and they must be all killed if a single shot is fired at the 
troops. 

"Any person encountered outside an inhabited 
place, and, above all, in forests, must be considered 
only as a member of an irregular band who has hidden 
his arms somewheie." 

It will be remembered that the mountain 
range of Tzer practically divided the two chief 
theatres in which the battle of the Jadar 
was fought. In the northern sector the 
Austrians retreated westward and northward, 
and it is significant that between the Dobrava 
and the Drina rivers there stretched a chain of 
villages, viz. : — Grushitch, Tsulkovit(5h, Des- 
sitch, Belareka, Chokeshina, Leshnitza and 
Prnjavor, in which the fugitives left their 
bloody mark. 

While every hamlet through which they 
passed had its story of murder, pillage, and out- 
rage to tell, while every roadside displayed 
its advertisement of Austrian savagery, the 
first outstanding example was presented by 
the village of Grushitch. There all the houses 
were looted, the mayor and twenty other of 
the inhabitants — mostly young women, youths, 
and children — were put to death, and many 
of the aged males carried off into captivity. 

The neighbouring village of Tsulkovitch 
through which the Hapsburg soldiers retired 




SERBIAN SOLDIERS RESTING. 



390 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAU. 





rA- 










J 



IN THE TRENCHES. 



after their first defeat on Belikamen, was the 
subject of special attention. As the advance 
guard of the Serbians le.ft a village where they 
had discovered a group of three men and two 
old women lying with their throats cut, they 
entered a neighbouring ravine which offered 
the desolating spectacle of an indiscriminate 
mass of twenty-five boys aged 12 to 16 years, 
and two old women of over 60, all riddled with 
bullets and mutilated by bayonet thrusts. 
In the village itself, one terrifying picture 
after another met their sickened gaze. 

From the neighbouring village of Dessitch, 
lying a few miles to the south-west, the entire 
population had fled, leaving the deserted 
cottages to the care of five women, four old 
men, and five infants — all slaughtered before 
the " Swaba " left. 

The Austrians thoroughly looted Chokeshina, 
a little hamlet consisting of but a sprinkling 
of houses. At Leshnitza. on August 19, 
they shot fifty peasants before the eyes of 
an assembly of women and children of the 
locality, with the object of terrorizing the 
population. The town was pitilessly sacked ; 
all objects which could be carted off were 
taken, and the rest, such as stores of grain, were 
soaked with petroleum and fired. Before the 
retreat a further massacre was ordered, and 
over one himdred of its victims were buried 



in a trench dug in front of tlic railwaj' station. 
Nearly fifty persons were led off into captivity. 

Prnjavor was another of those towns which 
the Austrians, for some unexplained reason, 
singled out for special treatment. They re- 
duced half of it to a smoking shambles. 
Immediately upon the entry of the Imperial 
and Royal soldiery, many of the male inhabi- 
tants were seized and shot in the cafe of jNIilan 
Milutinovitch, and all stores were confiscated. 
The houses were perquisitioned, and everything 
of value removed, particular affection being 
shown for the bridal robes of young women. A 
reign of terror for the unfortunate inhabitants 
accompanied the occupation. The destruc- 
tion of the town followed the reception of the 
order to retreat. In many cases the owners 
of the habitations were driven inside their 
property before fire was applied, and thus 
perished in the flames, and it was no uncommon 
thing to discover among the debris the chaired 
bodies of young mothers clutching their infants 
to their breasts. 

At Shabatz the Austrians allowed their 
savagery full and unbridled demonstration. 
Immediately after their entry a patrol arrived 
before the house of a rich resident, with a 
written document, and demanded the delivery 
of six valuable horses which occupied his 
stables. Later on they burned down his house. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



397 



Animals, stores of fodder, and such like were 
commandeered in a formal, if irregular manner. 
Houses were occupied in accordance with the 
laws of warfare, and the inhabitants were 
assured by proclamation of their personal 
safety. 

Presently the official control was relaxed ; 
soldiers commenced to steal objects of minor 
value but military utility. Then came a raid 
upon provisions in any shape or form, to be 
•crowned, prior to evacuation, by the general 
looting of the town. Not a house or a shop 
escaped this pillage. Every habitation was 
ransacked from floor to ceiling, and everjrthing 
of value was carted off across the Save. Shops 
were turned inside out and their contents 
thrown into the streets ; banks and offices 
■wrecked and safes prized open and the contents 
rifled. In fact, the appearance of the whole 
place suggested that an army of expert burglars 
had descended upon it, worked their will for 
some time, only to be disturbed with the job 
still unfinished. Drawers and cupboards had 
been hurriedly sacked, and their contents 
scattered about in the hunt for valuables, and 
so they were left, standing open amid the litter 
of the rooms, no time havmg been availabk' 
even to close them. A strange, cruel air of 
devastation permeated the streets where mer- 



chandize, gramophones, broken furniture, and 
safes lay jumbled up with wine and spirit 
barrels, whose contents had been let rim to 
waste along the cobbled gutters. 

Incessant shell fire wrecked all the public 
buildings and hundreds of houses and shops, 
and what the guns failed to accomplish Austrian 
soldiers completed by fire. The fine old church 
(which served as a stable during the occupation) 
was pitilessly bombarded, and stood the centre 
of a scene of destruction resembling nothing 
so much as the effect of some tremendous 
earthquake. The prefecture was riddled by 
shot and sheJI, and the same description applied 
to countless habitations in all directions — 
of the extensive artillery barracks but the four 
walls were left standing 

In the region of the Jadar valley similar, if 
less extensive, ma.ssacre marked the Austrian 
retreat. 

At Pushcarevatz, Maidan, and Draghintse, 
pillage, outrage, and murder were freely in- 
dulged in. Many women were outraged. In 
the villages of Cohuritze, Tsikoti, Dvomitsa, 
Moikovitch, Chlivoir, Stave, Bastavi, and 
Breziak, a total of 49 men and 34 women were 
left massacred and mutilated. 

There was, fortunately, little repetition of 
this ghastly savagery during the retreat which 




RUINS IN BELGRADE. 
View from the Royal Palace windows. 



398 



THE TIMEFi HISTOBY OF THE WAB 




SERBIAN SOLDIER OF THE 3rd BAN. 

followed the third Austrian invasion. So 
terrible had been the disillusionment of the 
Serbians after the battle of the Jadar that 
when the enemy came again the people flung 
a little bedding into tlieir oxen wagons and fled 
in terror. Those who had no conveyance 
walked. Throughout the great Serbian retreat 
the roads leading from the front were blocked 
with a constant stream of fugitives who, 
hvingry and rain -sodden, struggled along the 
muddy roads in the bitter cold in their search 
for sanctuarv. 



Thus originated the problem of the Serbian 
refugees. In normal times there is no poverty 
in S(!rbia — the distribution of wealth is very 
equal, and all have sufficient for their meagre 
requirements. But now they lost all. More 
than half a million people were reduced to 
beggary, and the towns became choked with 
applicants for food and lodging. Even more 
disastrous was the fever which the Austrian.^ 
left behind them after " Suvobor." Its germs 
infected the devastated homesteads, to which 
many of the refugees returned, and, more 
powerful than the Hapsburg soldiers, it deci- 
mated the ranks of the Serbian Army. 

The better to preserve an approximate 
chronological order in the story of the 
Austro-Serbian Campaign, it will be advan- 
tageous to take, as an epoch in the military 
history of Belgrade, that period which began 
at 1 a.m. on July 29, 1914, when a detachment 
of irregulars beat off a river steamer and two 
troop -laden barges which attempted to approach 
the Serbian shore, and ended at 9.27 a.m. on 
December 15 of the same year with the entry of 
King Peter at the head of his victorious army. 
During these momentous four and a half months 
Belgrade and its inhabitants tasted of all the 
varied experiences of modern warfare. The 
thiuider of cannon and the screaming of shells 
flrst startled and then coldly interested tham ; 
attacks and counter-attacks on riverside islands 
degenerated from an excitement to a common- 
place ; ruined edifices, wrecked houses, and 
slaughtered civilians became an luunarked 
portion of their everyday life. In quick suc- 
cession they passed through the varied emotions 
occasioned by the evacuation of Serbian troops 
and the entry of unopposed Austrians with 
flaunting banners and blaring bands ; they saw 
their women and children taken as hostages,^ 
and their citizens hanged, their houses looted 
and their homes despoiled, and then, to the 
music of booming guns and crackling rifles, they 
watched the hostile rabble fight its way back 
across the Save, until, in delirious joy, they 
went without the city walls and cheered the 
Serbian victors of the greatest battle in Balkan 
history. 

For the gi-eater part of the period under dis- 
cussion Austrian cannon on land and river poured 
shell, shrapnel, and incendiary bombs into an 
undefended town with intent to destroy the 
evidences of State, civilization, and cultiu-e 
which had there been erected during the 
iiundred odd years of Serbian independence. 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR 



399 



Both Belgrade and its environs were devoid 
of permanent defensive works, and no effoit 
was, in fact, made to protect the capital. 
Those military precautions wliich were under 
taken were directed against any attempted 
passage of the rivers Save or Danube, and. 
for this reason also, the island of Tsiganlia 
to the west of the railway bridge, continued 
to enjoy a considerable measure of importance. 
With the exception of the troops engaged in 
the occasional expeditions against Bezanin 
and those stationed sometimes in and sometimes 
against Tsiganlia, the infantry played littk- 
part in the work of defence, but a frequent 
use was made of artillery. Surrounded as he 
was by a series of dominating heights of great 
strategic value. General Djivkovitch had a 
plethora of excellent gun positions at his 
disposal, and he moved his batteries from one 
to the other as the exigencies of the ever- 
changing situation required. Banovo brdo, to 
the south-west, and Topchider and Dedigne 
to the south, were, however, outstanding 
summits upon which cannon were more or less 
permanently installed, and it was from these 
points that an almost continuous artillery 
duel was fought with the Austrian gunners 
on Be/ania. 

The bombardment of Belgrade will rank 
as one of those inexcusable acts of vandalism 
which disgraced the European war. It was 
unprovoked, served no military purpose what- 
soever., and could have had for its object only 
the wanton destruction of private and State 
property. During the period under discussion 
over 700 buildings were struck by bombs, 
shell, or shrapnel, and of these but sixty 
were the property of the State. Nothing was 
sacred. The old, unarmed fortress, with its 
memories of the Turkish occupation ; the 
University, where centred Serbian culture ; 
the riverside factories, which represented her 
industrial progress ; the museum, which housed 
priceless relics of Rome and Macedon ; even 
foreign legations, hospitals, and pharmacies — 
all suffered in the lust for revenge. The 
cigarette factory belonging to the State mono- 
poly was wrecked by shell and fired by grenades; 
tobacco and machinery to the value of £320,000 
were destroyed in the flames. The foimdries, 
bakeries, and all the factories along the Serbian 
shore of the river were razed to -the ground. The 
King's Palace bore little evidence of external 
injury, but Austrian howitzers dropped sholl 
through the roof until Uttle remained of the once 




SERBIAN SOLDIER OF THE 1st BAN. 

gorgeous interior. The University was riddled 
until the building, with its classrooms, labora- 
tories, libraries, and workshops, was entirely 
demolished. Even the cellars were destroyed 
by groat shells, which broke down the wal.s 
and pierced their way into the very bowels of 
the earth and there exploded. In an ineiiective 
attempt to destroy the State and other banks, 
one street rumiing up from the water's edge 
was ripped open from edge to edge. 

Nowhere were the terrible effects of modern 
artillery more visible than in the streets 



400 



THE TIMES HISTORY OE THE WAR. 




SERBIAN INFANTRY HAULING ARTILLERY. V The Times" Phoiograpk 



themselves. Missiles pierced the wood paving 
and its concrete foundations bj'^ a small hole, 
pressed then* way underground for some dis- 
tance and then exploded, throwing particles 
of the roadway far and wide, and exposing 
an immense hole often measuring 15 feet 
in diameter by 12 feet in depth. 

Though the greater part of Belgrade's 
population fled the city with the Government, 
there remained many too poor, or, for divers 
reasons, unable to move. It was inevitable, 
therefore, that a certain loss of life should 
have been caused. Most of the victims were 
quietly sitting in their own homes when a shell 
fell and buried their dead or maimed bodies 
in the debris of the shattered walls. More 
intrepid spirits were in the streets when an 
unawaited shot laid them low. Yet others 
were foully murdered, for Austrian sharp- 
shooters were placed in positions covering 
certain exposed streets, whence they wantonly 
fired on passing civilians. In all, some thirty 
non-combatants were killed and 150 wounded. 
The losses among the mihtary were confined 
to a few gendarmes on police duty. 

The installation of two French 14 cm. 
naval gmis at the beginning of November 



put an end to the activities of the Austrian 
monitors which had previously been able to 
steam into the river and shell the city with 
impunit3\ The Frenchmen sent their first 
message into Hungary on November 8. The 
damage inflicted so impressed the monitors 
that they feared to venture again within 
range. INIoreover, spies, with whom there is 
every reason to beUeve Belgrade was still 
infested, had doubtless advised the Aus- 
trians that the mining of the river had been 
scientifically carried out. Preparations for 
offensive operations were, therefore, afoot 
when the sudden and vmwelcome order was 
received to abandon the city and retire south- 
ward with all the material that could be saved. 
The French saw themselves obliged to sacrifice 
their cannon, but, in the early morning, they 
fired off their stock of 240 rounds of ammunition 
and in little more than half an hour deposited 
some twelve tons of melinite on the enemy 
forts at Bezania, with such terrifying effect 
that the garrison fled 12 miles into the interior. 
Thus it came to pass that the two strongholds, 
having snarled at one another across the divid- 
ing waters of the Save for nearly five months, 
were both evacuated at the same time. 



CHAPTER LXI. 

THE AUTUMN AND WINTER 
CAMPAIGN IN EASTERN FRANCE. 

The Eastern Front — Before and After the Passage of the Aisne — -Argonne — Woevre — 
Lorraine — Vosges — Upper Alsace — Distribution of Armies — The French Mistakes in 
Alsace — The German Advance towards Verdun — Situation at End of August — The Line 
of Fortresses — Fall of Manonviller — The Defence of Nancy and Toul — Heroes of 
Lorraine — German Atrocities — -The Fight for Nancy — German Failure and Retreat — 
The German Crowt;? Prince and the Verdun Objective— Camp des Romains Destroyed — 
The St. Mihiel Wedge — Fau^ure to Reach Verdun— The Turn of the Tide — The Argonne 
Fighting — The Winter Campaign — -Campaign in Alsace — Position at End of February, 19 lu. 



ON the eastern frontier of France the 
war during the opening months fol- 
lowed in one respect the same course 
as it did farther north. Up to the 
date of the battle of the I\Iarne there was a 
period of more or less important skirmishes 
and battles in the open field, all along the line 
from Verdun to the Swiss frontier. By the end 
of that time, or soon after the passage of the 
Aisne, both sides had strongly entrenched them- 
selves in the positions which they had won or 
to which they had been driven back, and from 
the beginning of October onwards there was 
hardly any change in the ground occupied by 
the opposing armies. For the time being the 
spectacular battles of the old style, with the 
huge loss of life which they entailed, had come 
to an end. Along a front of more than 200 
miles (from Verdun to Pfetterhausen) French 
and Germans faced one another from the shelter 
of two almost continuous lines of trenches, often 
not more than forty or fifty yards or even less 
a[)art. The day of the saj^per and miner had 
come, backed up by artillery bombardments 
from positions well in the rear, which prepared 
the way for short charges and counter-charges 
Vol. III.— Part 37 401 



by the infantry. The cavalry were dismounted 
and were armed with rifles and spades instead 
of swords and lances. In the language of 
Rugby football, the struggle had settled down 
into a tight scrummage in mid-field. Until it 
')roke up, neither side was likely to score any 
goiils. 

The first of these two periods, while the 
r'^lative strength and fighting qualities of the 
<>;jponents were still miknown, was incomparably 
I he more interesting. There ■«ere more in^por- 
t ant ups and downs in it, first one side and then 
the other seeming to hold the advantage, and 
it was always full of dramatic possibilities. 
Unlike the operr*tions farther north, where the 
allied forces retreated or advanced as a compact 
whole, in obedience to one concerted plan or 
necessity of action, the fighting in the Argonne, 
the Woevre, Lorraine, the Vosges, and Upper 
Alsace was split up into several sub -sections, 
more or less closely corresponding with these 
territorial divisions. In each of them almost 
anything might have happened. 

There was first, between Reims and Verdun, 
what a special correspondent of The Times called 
the guerre des apaches between the Third French 



102 



THE TIMES TITSTOnV OF THE IF. 17?. 




ijpn'Tr' 



AFTER A FRENCH VICTORY IN ALSACE. 
. German prisoners being brought into Belfort. 



Army under General Sarrail and the force com- 
manded by the Crown Prince, which was to 
have been the connecting Unk between the 
armies which entered France by way of Bel- 
gium and those which advanced by the. legiti- 
mate avenue of attack between the Dnchy of 
Luxemburg and the Vosges. In the Woevre, 
between the Meuse and the Moselle, the chief 
issue was the repulse of the efforts of the Army 
of Metz to join the Crown Prince in investing 
Verdun, which resulted in the peculiar bulge 
in the German line at St. Mihiel. East of the 
Woevre the triangle between Pont-a-Mousson, 
Nancy, and Cirey, at tiie head of the Vo?ges, 
was the theatre of the second great German 
objective, the capture of the unfortified capital 
of French Lorraine. Below Cirey, along the 
west side of the Vosges as far as Epinal, the 
fighting was partly connected with the attack 
on Nancy, and partly with the French advance 
into Alsace through the passes of the Vosges and 
the Trouee of Belfort : and lastly, this French 
offensive in Alsace was itself a flanking move- 
ment intended to support the cjiuckly abandoned 
advance of om" allies into the annexed province 
of Lorraine. 

Broadlj^ speaking, each of these separate 
movements fonned part of the general 
scheme of operations by which the Germans 
tried to attack and the French succeeded in 



protecting the great frontier fortresses of 
Belfort, Epinal, Toul, and Verdim. The 
offensive tactics of the French failed badly in 
Lorraine and were only moderately successful in 
Alsace. But the balance was in their favour. 
The capture or at any rate the masking of the 
fortresses was essential to the triumph of the 
German plan of campaign. Except the fall 
of Paris, there was no object that they were at 
the beginning so bent on or so confident of 
attaining. After six months of persistent effort 
they were fm"ther from it than they were at the 
end of the first week. Tliat in itself was a \ic- 
tory of the first magnitude for the arms of our 
allies. It was mainly due to the heroic stand 
made in front of Nancy by the Armj' of General 
do Castelnau, supported by General Dubail and 
the First Army, during the last days of August 
nnd the beginning of September. No chapter in 
the history of the first part of (he \\ ar was more 
glorious for the French, and none more vital. 
If Nancy liad fallen, Toul and \'erdun would 
ahuost certainly have followed suit, and the 
battle of the Marne would have been fought in 
vain, perhaps miglit never ha\-e been fought at 
all. No doubt it was the issue of that battle 
which was the final cause of the retirement of 
the Germans in Lorraine. But that does not in 
the least detract from the splendour and the 
value of the defence of Nancy by the famous 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



403 



Vingtieme Corps, and the other gallant army 
Corps of the Annies of the East.* 

The achievement was all the more meritorious 
because the prelude to it was the serious defeat 

*For various reasons it is dil'licult to give the com- 
position of the cliftLM-ent armies with absolute accuracy, 
but the following analysis of the troops on which they 
were based niny }>e of some assistance in following the 
operations in Knstern France from the !)eginning of the 
A-ar. The Belfort Command, from which was drawn 
the army that operated in Alsace, consisted of the 
garrison of the fortress imder Genera! Therenet, and the 
Vllth Army Corps (General Bonneaii). The garrison 
troops were : infantry, the 35th and 42nd Regiments (14th 
Division), and 171st and 172ad (Independent Division); 
cavalry, 11th Dragoons ; garrison artillery, 9th Regi- 
ment : field artillery, 47th Regiment. The Vllth 
Army Corps: infantry, 23rd, 35th, 42nd, 133rd (14th 
Divi-iion), 44th, 60th, and 152nd (13th Division); the 
5th and 15th Chasseurs-a-pied ; the 11th and 18th 
Dragoons, the 4th, 11th, 14th Chasseurs-a-cheval, the 
12th Hussars ; the 8th and 9th Garrison Artillery, and 
the 4th, 5th, 47th, and G2nd Field ArtUlery. Their 
business was to guard the Trouee of Belfort, and conduct 
the offensive in Alsace. The First Army (General 
Dubail) was based on Epinal, and its original sphere 
extended along the Vosges as far as Luneville. It was 
niade up of the Epinal garrison and Field Army (170th 
Infantry, 1st, 3rd, 10th, 17th, 20th, 21st and 31st 
Chasseurs-a-pied, the 11th Engineers, and the 6th 
Colonial Artillery) ; and the XXIst Army Corps : 
infantry, 21st, 109th, 112th (13th Division), and 149th 
and 158th (43rd Division), and the 12th, 59th, 61st Fiold 
Artillery. The men composing this army came from 



at ^Nlorhange, between ]\Ietz and Saarbiu-g. 
That unfortunate calamity was the outcome 
of what was to many minds the great surprise 
and even the great mistake of the beginning of 

Lyon, Epinal, St. Die, Raon I'Etape, and other places in 
the foothills of the Vosges ; ^hey fought mostly in their 
own country, and also helped to defen i Nancy. 

The Second Army, General de Castelnau'.s, about 
200,000 men strong at first, guarded the frontier line 
between Metz and the Vosges, especially Nancy and 
Toul. It consisted of the Toul garrison, the IXth, 
X.Kth, XVth and XVIth Army Corps, and the 50th, 
68th, and another Division of reserve. In the Toul 
garrison were the 167th, 16§th, and 169th Regiments of 
infantry, the 2nd and 4th Chasseurs-a-pied, the 10th and 
20th Engineers, and the 4th and 6th Garrison Artillery. 
The two divisions of theXXth or L( rraine Arrny Corps, 
commanded by General Foch, were the 39th (the 146th, 
153rd, 156th and 160th infantry regiments) and the 11th 
(the 26th, 69th, 37th and 79th). To this last Divi.siou, 
the special Nancy contingent, known as the Division do 
Fer, ^^e^e added the 5th Hu.ssars, the 8th Field Artillery, 
and the 20th Engineers and 4th Garrison .Artillery 
■stationed at Toul ; and the other troops of the Army 
Corps were the 8th, 12th and 31st Dragoons, the 17th 
and 18th Chasseurs-a-cheval, the 39th and 60th Field 
Artillery, and the 20th Legion of Gendarmerie. The 
IXth Army Coqjs was commanded by General Dubois. 
Its infantry, drawn from the Tours district, were the 
32nd, 66th, 77th and 135th (18th Divi-^ion), and the 
68th, 90th, 125th, and 114th (17th Division). For 
cavalry it had the 5th and 8th Cuirassiers, the 2oth 
Dragoons, the 7th Hussars, and the picked squadron of 
S.°-unuu' : the 20th, 33rd, and 49th Field .-Artillery, and 




'^...'iKs^ 



■A. i 



THE FRliNGH IN ALSACE. 
A railway station at Burnauf, near MUlhausen, occupied by the French after a severe engagement. 



404 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIL 




AFTER THE BATTLE. 
The Place de Baccarat and a corner of Gerbeviller. 



the war. For some reason a large number of 
strategists, professional as well as amateur, had 
formed the opinion that the only wise course 

the 6th Kegiment of Enj,'inecri. The XVlth Army 
Corps (General Taverna) recruited, from the Pyrenees, 
Carcanonne, Montpellier and Lozdre, contained the 96th., 
81st, 142nd, 122nd, 15th, 143rd, 53rd, and 80th Regi- 
ments, of the 31st and 32nd Divisions, the 19th 
Dragoons, 1st Hussars, and 2nd Engineers, and the 3rd, 
9th, and 5Cth Regiments of Field Artillery. A special 
tribute is due to the airmen attached to General de 
Castelnau's army, who were stationed at Toul and 
Mancy. Apart from their business of watching and 
pursuing the enemy areoplanes, which were constanth' 
dropping bombs on Nancy, they did splendid recon- 
naissance work over the enemy's lines and military 
centres, such as Metz and Strassburg. They were 
always ready to take great risks ; and unfortunately 
one of the most valuable of them, the Senator Reyn^^ond, 
met his death while flying too low over the Germans 
during an engagement. There was a three hours' fight 
for the possession of his body, which was won by the 
French. When they picked hun up he was still alive. He 
had pretended to be dead in order to deceive the enemy, 
and was thus able, before he actually did die a few 
hours afterwards, to give to the General the information 
which he had collected as the result of his too daring flight. 
The XVtli Army Corps (General Espinasse) ^vas also 
a frontier force, recruited from Nice, Grasse, Mentone, 
Marseilles, Toulon, and other places on the Mediterranean 
coast. The regiments composing it were the 3rd, 111th, 
ll4th and !41st (20th Division), the 40th, 55th, 58th 



for the French was to await the enemy's attack 
in their own country. General Jotfre thouglit 
otherwise. When there was no longer any 

and 61st (30th Division), the 163rd and 173rd (Inde- 
pendent Division), the 22nd Colonial Infantry and 3rd 
Colonial Artillery, the 0th, 7th, 2.3rd, 24th and 27th 
Chasseurs Alpins, the 6th and 11th Hussars, the 7th 
Engineers, the 7th and 10th G^irrison Artillery, the 
19th, 3Sth. and 55th Field Artiller\', and two Legions of 
Gendarmerie. 

The Third Army (General Sarrail), consi.^tiiig ot the 
Vlth and VIITth Ai-my Corps, wa> based on Vordnn ; 
the garrison and Field Arn;y of which was made up of 
the 164th, 16?th, and 166th Infantry, the 8th, 16th, 
19th, 25th, 26th and 29th Chassems-i'i-pied. In the 
Vlth Army Corps there were three infantry Divisions, 
the 12th (the 9ist, 132nd, 147th and 148th), tl<e 42nd 
(the 94th, 106th, 151st, and lG2nd), and the 40th (the 
150th, 161st, 154th and 155th) together with the 3rd, 
6th, and 9th Cuirassiers, the 4th, 16th, 21st, 2?nd, 
28th, and 30th Dragoons, the 5th, 10th, 12th, and 15th 
Chasseur.s-.'i-cheval, and the 2nd and 4th Hussars. 
These men belonged to the district between Chalons and 
Commercy. 

'J'he Vlllth Army Corps (General de Ca.'-telli) drew its 
forces from the centre of France, and contained two 
infantry Divisions, the 15th (the 10th, 27th, 29th, and 
o6th Regiments), and the 16th (the 13th, 85th, 95th, 
and 134th Regiments), the 17th and 26th Dragoons, 
the 8th, 14th, and 16th (!;hasscurs-i-chevai, the 7th 
Engineers, t'ne 1st, 37tli, and 48th Field Artillery, and 
the 8th Legion oi Ciendarmerie. 




AFTER THE STORMING OF STEINBACH. 
French troops standing in front of houses destroyed by the heavy shells of the Germans. 

right is a post that divides France and Germany. 



On the 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



405 



doubt as to the violation of Belgian territory 
by the Germans he ordered a special Alsace 
Army, built up round the regular frontier force 
of the Belfort district, to occupy Miilhausen, 
the commercial capital of Alsace, to cut the 
Rhine bridges at Huningue and below it, and 
to flank the attack of the first and second armies 
which were to advance into German Lorraine. 
The sequel was tersely described in a French 
summary of events published on March 22 : 

In Alsace this operation was badly carried out by a 
leader who was at once relieved of his command. Our 
troops, after having carried Miilhouse ( Jliilhausen), lose it, 
and were thrown back on Belfort. The work had there- 
fore to be recommenced afresh, and this wa. done from 
August 14 under a new conmiani') * 

-Alulhouse was taken (for tlie second time) on the 19th 
alter a brilliant fight at Dornach. Twenty-four guns 
were captured from the enemy. On the 20th we held 
the approaches to Colmar, both by the plain and by the 
Vosges. The enemy had undergone enormous losses 
and abandoned great stores of shells and forage, but 
from this moment what was happening in Lorraine and 
on our left prevented us from carrying our successes 
farther, for our troops in Alsace were needed elsewhere. 
On August 28 the Alsace Army was broken up, only a 
small part remaining to hold the regions of Thann and 
the Vosges. 

That is a clear and accurate statement of 
V hat happened. The second occupation of Miil- 
hausen was brought to an end by a voluntary 

* General Pau. 



retirement, and not by pressure from the 
Germans. But the first force, which marched 
unopposed into the town on August 8, con- 
sisted of only one Division, and was not strong 
enough for the task it had been set to accom- 
plish. On the following day it fell into a trap 
which ought to have been foreseen. It was 
badly defeated between Miilhausen and the 
Hartz forest by an army much stronger than 
itself, reinforced by troops which were brought 
south from Colmar, and was lucky in being 
able to fall back on Belfort without having 
its retreat cut off. Little, therefore, was 
apparently gained by the invasion of Alsace, 
except the excellent moral effect produced 
throughout France by the feeling that part, 
at all events, of the ravished provinces was 
once more occupied by the soldiers of the 
Republic. That, however, was a very real 
gain, upon which Gt>neral Joffre had doubtless 
counted. But he had also a simple miUtary 
aim in view, which had escap^ the attention 
of most of liis critics. It was given as follows 
in the summary of events quoted above : 

The purpose of the operations in Alsace — nam.ely, 
to retain a large part of the enemy's forces far from the 
northern theatre of operations — it was for our oSensive in 
Lorraine to pursue still more directly by holding before 







THE FRENCH INVASION OF ALSACE. 
A notable scene In a small Alsatian town, the Inhabitants of which have never faltered In their 

allegiance to France. 

37—2 



406 



THE TIMES HISTOHY OF THE WAR. 



it the GeiTuan Amiy Corps operating to the south of 
Metz. This offeusive bi'gan brillinntly on August 14. 
On the 19th wo had reached the region of Saarburg, 
and that of the Etang^ ; we held Dieuze, Morhange, 
Dpiine, and Chateau-Salins. On the 20th our success was 
stopped. The cause is to be found in the strong organi- 
zation of the region, in the power of the enemy's artil- 
lery, operating over ground which had been minutely 
surveyed, and finally in the default of certain units. 

On the 22nd. in spite of the splendid behaviour of 
several of our Army Corps, and notably th».t of Nancy, 
our troops were brought back on to the Grand Couronno, 
while on the 23rd and 24th the Germans concentrated 
reinforcements — three Army Corps at least — in the 
region of Luneville, and forced us to retire to the south. 

Little need be added to this account beyond 
the main facts that the defaulting units belonged 




A FRENCH COLONIAL. 
An Algerian Infantryman. 

to the Fifteenth Army Corps (which, however, did 
excellent work later on both in Lorraine and the 
Argonne) and that the leading French troops 
had got too far in advance of their artillery. 
This last was an unfortunate mistake, as was 
also the choice of an Army Corps recruited in 
the south to form the vanguard, since the 
troops composing it could not be expected 
to have the same racial interest in the reconquest 
of the province as the troops native to Lorraine. 
The whole movement appears to have been 
executed in too light-hearted a spirit. It 
began with a series of facile victories by which 



the invading army was lured on till it suffered 
a crushing defeat at the hands of oxerwhelm- 
ingly superior forces. The slaughter was 
terrible and the retreat that followed was at 
first a rout, till the flying troops were rallied 
and steadied by the 20th Army Corps and the 
other regiments in reserve, though they, too, 
were obliged to fall back ahnost as far as Nancy, 
fighting a strong rearguard action as they 
retired. For the time being the triumph of 
the Gfennans was complete. The effort to 
recover the lost province had ended in a dismal 
and costly failure, and there were grave fears 
for the safety of Nancy and, what was more 
important, of Toul. Only one advantage had 
been gained. The offensive, although it had 
not succeeded, had, as General Joffre expected, 
necessitated the presence in Alsace and Lorraine 
of a very considerable German force. It 
remained to be seen whether the armies of 
General de Castelnau and General Dubail were 
strong enough to resist it. 

L"p to tliis date (the beginning of the fourth 
week in August) the fighting on the rest of the 
frontier was not of great importance. In the 
hope of avoiding hostilities the French for some 
days before war broke out withdrew their troops 
a few miles from the border. The Germans not 
only did not follow their example but precipi- 
tated the conflict by sending small bodies of 
patrols into French territory in three or four 
different places (Longlaville, Cirey, and Petit- 
Croix) before war was declared. Consequently 
when it did begin they were first in the field. 

To begin with, they distinctly scored by this 
typical example of German " preparedness."' 
While the French were marcliing eastwards in 
front of Belfort, Epinal, and Toul, the van- 
guards of armies from Strassburg and ^letz, 
vmder General von Strantz and the CrowTi 
Prince of Bavaria, advanctti in the opposite 
direction into France. On August 5, 6, and 8, 
to the south of the army wliich was penetrating 
into German Lorraine, they bombarded and 
occupied Cirey, Badonviller, and Baccarat, 
tliree small towns close to the frontier, and to 
the north of it the guns of St. Blaize, one of the 
forts of Metz, shelled Pagny-sur-jNIoselle and 
Pont-a-ilousson. Still farther north a naore 
important demonstration was made by the Army 
of Metz, which quickly occupied Briey, Conflans, 
]Mangiennes, Damvillers, and Spincourt, and so 
got within about 15 miles of Verdim. Above 
this district, on August 22, the Crown Prince's 
Army, which had crossed the frontier close to the 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



407 




w 

l-H 

H 
Z 

o 

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u 
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408 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



Luxemburg border near Longwy (which did not 
however fall till the 27th), flung back a French 
offensive from the INIeuse in tliis region and 
pushed the French before it across the Mouse 
at Dun, 23 miles north of Verdun, and, making 
a detour to the north-west of the fortress, con- 
tinued to press them back till finally it took up 
its position facing eastwards between Bar le 
Due and the Ardenne forest, and having the 
army of General Sarrail opposite to it along the 
left bank of the Meuse. Further west the army 
of the Duke of Wiirtemberg, working south- 
wards on the Crown Prince's right, had also 
routed the French advancing from the Meuse 
into the Ardennes and had crossed the Meuse 
-lower down near Meziores, and following a course 
parallel to his had advanced almost in step with 
liim till it was deployed along a line facing 



south between his right wing and Eprrnay. 
During tliese operations the French gained 
certain minor successes (as at Dinant, where 
the Duke of Wurtemberg's army corps were 
momentarily repulsed on August 15), but the 
net result was that they were steadily and 
surely driven back. 

Generally speaking, therefore, at the end of 
August and the beginning of September, the 
French prospects on the right wing of the Allies' 
line were no brighter than they were in front 
of Paris. The special Alsace army had retired 
on Belfort, and had taken the place of part of 
the First Army about as far north a.s Gerardmer, 
below St. Die. The First Army, tmder Genera! 
Dubail, after occupying the crests of the X'osges 
had been obliged, as a consequence of the defeat 
at jNIorhango, to fall back in front of Epinal, and 
in the footlulls of the Vosges and the \alley of 
the Mortagne as far as Baccarat was fighting 
hard to keep the pursuing Germans at ba}-. 
General de Castelnau with the Second Army (the 
sphere of which after the violation of Belgium 
had been extended westwards from the Moselle 
to Verdun), was liolding the Grand Couronne 
east and north of Nancy against several army 
corps from Strassburg and Saarburg under 
General von Strantz. At the same time it was 
facing the garrison army from ^letz between 




A FRENCH SOLDIER'S FUNERAL. 

An impressive funeral service over two Garibaldian heroes. 

Inset : Infantryman in his du;g-out. 



THE TIMES HlSTOm OF THE WAB. 



409 




LIFE IN THE FRENCH TRENCHES. 
French officer making observations from a first- 
line trench. 
Inset : Receiving a message by telephone." 

Pont-a-Mousson and Commercy (where it had 
the support of the Toul garrison), and from 
Commercy northwards along the valley of the 
]\Ieuse past St. JVIiloiel tiU its left rested on the 
garrison defences of Verdun. The line was 
then continued by the Verdun garrison force 
facing outwards to the east, north, and west of 
the fortress round to the south-west, where it 
joined the third army under General Sarrail (now 
back to back with the left wing of the Second 
Army on the other side of the Meuse), wMch 
with the Foiu-th Army under General Langle de 
Gary was hard pressed by the forces of the 
Cro^vn Prince and the Duke of Wurtemberg. 
On the whole of their front, therefore, except 
behind the lower part of the Vosges, the position 
of our alhes was extremely critical, especially at 
the places where they had been driven back — 
to the south-east, east, and north of Nancy, 
and between Verdim and Reims. The way in 
which little by little they pressed the enemy 
back till it was they and not the French who 
were acting on the defensive was a splendid 
example of unfailing covzrage and determination. 
The opening disasters and faults of generalship, 
instead of unnerving the French, steadied them 



and filled them with fresh spirit. From the 
moment when the armies felt that they were 
in touch with each other, and standing shoulder 
to shoulder in one unbroken line, with their 
backs against the wall, they began slowly to 
make ground instead of yielding it. 

This wall was no imaginary figvire of sp(>ech. 
It was the forty-mile Une of fortresses planted 
along the JMeuse from Verdun to Toul. For the 
plans of General Joffre and the safety of France 
it had to be held. It could only be held if the 
whole of the front on the Allies' right wing stood 
lirni. Looked at as a series of straight lines, that 
front was at tliis time likr tlio side \i(>w of a 
Windsor chair, of which the line Verdun to 
Toul was the back, Toul to Nomen_\- the seat, 
and Nomeny to St. Die the front log, with 
Epinal at the foot of the back loir. Aotnaliy it 



410 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




GENERAL MAUNOURY. 

The saviour of Paris. He led the Sixth French 

Army out of the French capital in taxi-cabs 

and motor omnibuses, and turned von Kluck's 

flank on the Ourcq. 

did not qviite follow these lines, but extended 
from Verdiin to just above Commercy (a few 
miles short of Toul and west of the Verdun- 
Toul line), and from there to Pont-a-Mousson 
and Nomeny, whence it curved slightly inwards 
between Nancy and Luneville before, reaching 
St. Die. 

In front of this position there was the 
solitary fort of Manonviller, ten niiles to 
the east of Lvuieville, of which great things 
were expected by the Germans as well as the 
French. These expectations were not realized. 
On August 28 its garrison of 900 men surren- 
dered after a two days' bombardment, probably 
carried out by two Austrian 305 guns stationed 
at Avricourt on the frontier. Many stories were 
told of its fall ; the most clearly established 
facts appear to be that the fort was totally 
demolished, that its own guns were never fired, 
that the garrison only lost four or five killed 
and wounded, and that the telephone communi- 
cation with Toul was found to have been cut 
off at the beginning of the bombardment — a 
combination of circumstances which present a 
not very satisfactory contrast with the story of 
the defences of Fort Troyon and Longwy. 

Although Manonviller did not fall till six 
days after the occupation of Luneville, when 
the main German armies were already several 
miles further west, it played practically no 
part in delaying the ad\ance of the enemy. 



The real bulwark of Nancy consisted in the field 
armies of do Castelnau and Dubail. The 
troops composing them were some of the finest 
in France. Both by training and tradition 
they were the frontier force of the Repubhc. 
In time of peace they held the post of honour 
along the vulnerable border-line between Metz 
and the Vosges, always ready for war, as their 
ancestors had been for generation after genera- 
tion. Many of the beat generals of France 
had served their novitiate in these famous 
army corps, and ever since 1870 officers and 
men, nearly all of them children of the soil, 
were bound together at first by the desire for 
la revanche, and later, when that died out, 
by the feeling that when the threatened German 
invasion came the task and the glory of repelling 
it would be theirs. The people and army corps 
of Lorraine were therefore something apart ; 
they occupied much the same position in relation 
to the rest of the army as the British frontier 
force in India to our own Regular Army. 
Now they were to be put to the test. On them 
depended the fate not only of Nancy and of 
Toul, but in aU probability of the whole of the 
Verdun-Toul line of fortresses. The Germans 
were already maldng desperate efforts to 
approach and if possible burst through th?.i/ 
line, but for the time being it was Nancy, 




GENERAL BELIN, 

One of General JoflFre's principal executive 

officers. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



411 




DINNER TIME. 

French officer testing soup prepared for the men 
under his command. 

Inset : Taking food to the trenches. 

or rather the entrenched positions in front of it, 
which took up most of their energy. It was 
perhaps fortimate for the French that it was a 
field army and not a fortress with which their 
enemy had to deal at this particular point. 
This was the conclusion arrived at on the spot 
by the special correspondent of The Times on 
the French eastern frontier : 

When Bismarck interfered in 1874 to prevent the con- 
struction of fortifications ronnd the town by threatening 
to renew the war of 1870 he was, without knowing it, 
working against the interest of his country rather than 
for it. If Nancy had been encircled by a ring of stereo- 
typed forts it is almost a certainty that the French 
would have fallen back on the protection of their guns, 
and that tlie town would have been taken long ago. 
It is because Nanny did not, because it could not, put 
its trust in forts that the German ad\'ance has been 
checked (and will perhaps be checkmated) at this one 
point only on the whole line. 

Further south the enemy have crossed the difficult 
barrier of the Vosges mountains, and by the Col de 
Sainte Marie, the Col du Bonhomme and the Col du 
Donon and other passes have penetrated some little 
distance into France. To the north the whole of the 
rest of their line has swung across Belgium and France 
to Compiegne and then part of the way back again, 
like a bar (though never a straight nor a rigid bar), 



hini^ed to a fixed point. And the immovable pivot 
which tlii-ee months' eon-tant sapping on three sides 
has not been able to undeiinine is the open and unpro- 
tected town of Nancy. That is one of the wonders and 
one of the chief lessons of tlie war. 

Before, however, the wonder was finally 
accomplished there was for the French a period 
of heroic fighting and acute suspense to go 
through. The quiet and confident way in 
which the people of Lorraine faced the anxiety 
was another of the war's marvels. Their 
town was attacked (and the nearest phase of 
the attack was kept up for three weeks) from 



412 



THi'J TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



foiir directions at once. Yet they never lost 
heart, and even when its streets and barracks 
were thronged with wretched refugees, and 
its hospitals with wounded from the burnt and 
ruined villages and blood-drenched battle- 
fields only a few miles off, the life of the place 
went on with very little change. The inhabi- 
tants of the town, like the army in front of it, 
felt that they stood at the outposts of the State 
and that they owed a duty to France. They 
had at their head two exceptional men, who 
were able to work together with perfect 
unanimity. Monsieur Leon Mirman (once 
a chasseur-a-pied and " soldat-depute " for 
Reims) had resigned his position as Directeur de 
I'Assistance Publique at Paris in order to take 
up at Nancy the anxious and sometimes 
dangerous office of Prefect of Meurthe et 
Moselle. Monsieur Simon, whose appointment 
as Mayor also dated from the beginning of 
the war, was unanimously chosen by his 
municipal colleagues as the fittest man for 




the post in the unexampled emergency. It 
was largely due to the personal example of 
these two men and the official and emergency 
staffs which they gathered round them that the 
population kept its head and it^ bonne humeur 
all through the difficult and trying days when 
the enemy stood at its gates. At night, jus 
at Verdun, Commercy, Toul, Epinal, and 
Belfort, very few people were to be seen 
abroad in the darkened streets. But by day, 
except for the convoys of prisoners, of wounded, 
and of ravilaillemcnt, the constant going and 
coming of long columns of troops, and the 
never-ceasing sound of the guns, there was httle 
to show that teclinically the town was in a 
state of siege. Everyone had his or her work 
to do (Madame Mirman, like her husband, was 
untiring in the organization of relief for the 
refugees and the wounded), everyone did it 
willingly and even cheerfully, and everjom- 
refused to despair of the Republic. 

Meanwhile the attack was in full swing. 
It came, after the retreat from Morhange, by 
Pont-a-Mousson to the north, Chateau-Salins 
to the north-east, Cirey to the east, and St. 
Die to the south-east. The routes chosen 
by the Germans were naturally the easiest for 
reaching their objective. From St. Die along 
the wide valleys of the Mei'j-the and its tributary 
the Mortagne ; from Cirey past Luneville 
down another Meurthe tributary, the Vezouse ; 
from Chateau-Salins by the main road across 
the frontier between the forests of Champenoux 
and St. Paul ; and from Metz southwards past 
Pont-a-Mousson up the chamiel of the Moselle 



A STREET IN VITREMONT BUKNT BY THE GERMANS. 
Monsieur Leon Mirman, Prefet of the Meurthe and Moselle Department (inset). On the right of 

picture M. Mirman is talking to a homeless villager. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



413 




LOOKING FOR THE ENEMY. 

Chasseurs scouting along a road. 



and the Meurthe, the ways into Nancy are 
straightforward and the ground for the most 
part flat and unbroken. But, besides the 
villages and towns by which they pass (most 
of which were used by the French in delaying 
the advance of the Bavarian troops), there 
is, at irregular intervals between them, a 
ring-fence of wooded heights, proudly known 
as. the Grand Couronne of Nancy, which served 
as the main hne of the defence. To the north 
these hills rise to a height of about 1,000 feet 
on each side of the Meurthe and encircle Nancy 
from the south, along the side away from the 
frontier, rovind to a point a little east of north. 
Through the remaining segment of the circle 
of which the town is the centre, towards the 
frontier on the east and south-east, a wide 
plain rises gently to the horizon five miles 
away, with more hills and forests springing 
out of it. The most important of these land- 
marks are the Plateau of Amance, six miles 
north-east of the town, with the forests of 
Champenoux and St. Paul just beyond it, north 
and south of the Chateau-Salins road, and 
secondly, more to the east, in the direction of 
Luneville and Cirey, the forests of Vitrimont 
and Parroy. 

At the beginning of August, as we have seen, 
the opposing forces were making several for- 
ward movements in opposite directions, each in 



front of one of the rival fortresses of Verdun and 
]\Ietz, Toul and Saarburg, Epinal and Strass- 
burg, the garrison armies of which, before the 
^\ ar began, were waiting like kennelled watch- 
dogs, ready once they were let loose to fly at 
one another's throats. By the fourth week of 
the month, except in Alsace, all these cross- 
cvu-rents were setting in the same direction, 
converging steadily on Luneville and Nancy 
(wliich is only ten miles from the frontier), as 
the French fell back before the pursuing Ger- 
mans. Once the retreat had begun in the north 
the result was felt all along the line. In the 
centre the Germans reoccupied Cirey and 
Badonviller, from which they had fallen back 
earlier in the month, and occupied Blamont, 
between Cirey and Limeville. Lower down 
their second army took possession of St. Die, 
Raon I'Etape, and other small towns between 
Epinal and the Vosges, and General Dubail 
with the First French Army gradually retired 
westwards, which had the effect of straightening 
the French line. There %^as some very severe 
fighting at the Col du Chipotte (where the 
losses on both sides were exceedingly heavy) 
and other places in the spurs of the Vosges at 
the end of August and the beginning of Sep- 
tember, in which the French behaved with great 
gallantry and were not content with acting on 
the defensive. But the general result was tliat 

37—3 



414 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



the Germans, though they could never get as 
far west as Epinal, at first ahvays lield the 
upper hand. 

Farther north, as the French fell back from 
Saarburg and Morhange, they rallied first at a 
position marked by the river Meurthe to the 
south of Luneville and the Marne canal and 
the bovmdary river, the Seille, above it, and 
tlien farther west along a front that began in 
the valley of the Mortagne and extended in the 
same line in the direction of Champenoux. 
Beyond that line, which practically coincides 
with the Grand Couronne of Nancy, the Germans 




FRENCH COLONIAL. 
An officer taking observations. 

never advanced. The position was well chosen. 
Beginning in the north at Mount Toulon, 
it was based first on the heights of Mont 
St. Jean, La Rochette, and Amance (the 
rock on which the attack broke), then pro- 
tected by the forests of Chanapenoux, St Paul, 
and Crevic, and finally by the forest of Vitrimont, 
and a short stretch of the Mortagne. The most 
important of the towns which stood between it 
and the frontier was Luneville, which the 
Germans entered without resistance on August 
22, and held till September 12. It was de- 
liberately and wisely sacrificed by the French 



m order to gain the advantage of the stronger 
position behind it. The first two army corps 
engaged in the invasion of Lorraine started 
from Strassburg and, entering France 
by the upper pa.sses of the Vosges and 
between Cirey and Baccarat, advanced along 
the three river valleys on Luneville and the 
group of villages siurounding it. All of these 
villages suffered severely from the shells of 
both sides and the still more destructive 
incendiarism of the Germans, especially Ger- 
beviller and Badonviller, in each of which the 
French put up a stiff fight. Badonviller, three 
times occupied by the enemy, was the scene of 
nearly continuous fighting for the first month 
of the war. The second arrival of the Germans 
on August 23 was described as follows by one of 
the special correspondents of The Times : 

At 8 in the morning the French hurriedly evacuated 
Badonviller and took up a position at Pexonnes, about 
two miles to the rear, and the Germans, after a desiiltory 
bombardment, which went on all day, marched in at 
6 in the evening. For the next few hours there wa.s 
furious fighting in and around the town between the 
Chasseurs Alpins and the Chasseurs d'Afriqne on the 
one side and on the other the Bavarians, the I..andwehr, 
the 162nd Regiment of Strassburg, and the regiment 
of the notorious Lieutenant Von Forstner (since reported 
killed), the 99th of Zabcrn. The Germans, as soon as 
they entered the town, began ordering the terrified 
inhabitants to come out of the cellars in which they had 
taken refuge, when suddenly they were interrupted by a 
furious counter-attack of the Chasseurs, and driven out 
of the town at the point of the bayonet. Once more 
the natives shiit them.selves up in the cellars and listened 
panic-stricken to the noise and confusion of the struggle 
overhead. One comfort they had in their alarm. All 
the time, above the din of the fighting, they heard the 
stirring notes of the French bugles sounding the charge, 
and all the time the voices of the French soldiers singing, 
as they charged, the famous Sidi-'Brahim bugle march : 

Pan ! Pan ! L'Arbi ! 

Los Chacals sont par ici ! 

Mais plus haut c'est las Turcos ! 

Little by little, as the Germans retreated, the sounds 
died away in the distance, and then suddenly began 
again as the Chasseurs, still chanting the Sidi-'Brahim, 
marched back through the town and retired to their 
position at Pexonnes. Then once more the Gernianf, 
and at last the silence of the night. 

The church . . . was the part of the town that 
suffered most from the bombardment. Dome and roof 
have both been entirely shot away ; shattered fragments 
of the pillars in front of the church and the shapeles.* 
remains of the four walls are all that is left. Except for 
one thing — a statue of Joan of Arc, with one arm broken 
off short at the shoulder, standing erect and serene on 
its pedestal, surrounded by the piles of stone and mortar 
and timber and glass that litter the floor of the roofless 
nave. ... In the rest of the town comparatively little 
damage has been done by the shells. And there is this 
curious fact to note, that the bombardment which did 
the mischief took place while the town was actually 
occupied by German troops. They were .simply ordered 
to keep out of the range of the fire, which meant away 
from the neighbourhood of the church. These troops — 
they were Bavarians — completed the work of destruction 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



415 




" LA TRICOTEUSE," THE HEAVY FRENCH 120 MM. GUN. 
A powerful gun of the French Heavy Artillery concealed from the enemy's observation. 



416 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 





SEEKING A FALLEN COMRADE ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 
A French soldier searching for a friend after an attack on a German trench. 



by b'lrning tVie quarter of the town nearest to the 
GkTniau frontier, some 30 houses in all, besides pillaging 
many others. They also phot 12 of the inliabitants, 
including jMadame Benoit, the wife of the heroic mayor, 
another woman and the child she was holding in her 
arms, and an old man of 78, who was sitting peacefully 
by hi^ window. 

But it was at Gerbeviller, a small town about 
five miles south of Luneville, that the systematic 
German policy of terrorising the population 
by shooting civilians and burning their houses 
reached its height. According to the accoimt 
given by the same correspondent, less than 
ten houses out of more than 460 remained 
habitable after the Germans were finally driven 
from the town. On the day on which they 
first attacked it it was defended with splendid 
courage by a body of 60 or 70 Chasseiu-s 
against a force of three or four thousand. 
When they were at length forced to retire, a 
few of their number who got separated from 
the rest hid till nightfall in a cellar, and, as 
they were making their escape, shot a sentry 
who had been jjosted at the lower end of the 
town. By this time the place was full of 
German troops. Roused to fury by the 
heroic resistance which had kept them so long 
at bay, and assuming, without any justification, 
that tlie sentry had been killed by a non- 
combatant, they set to work to wreak their 
vengeance on tlie unfortunate to\\-n, of wliich 
they I«>ft practically nothing standing except 
a melancholy desolation of blackened and 
tottering walls. The autliors of the outrage 
were eventually driven out by the French 
artillery. But it was not the two bombard- 
ments suffered by the to%An that did the mis- 
cliief . It was caused by deliberate incendiarism, 
carried out by petrol, and at least two different 
kinds of firelighters, which the soldiers had 
ready in their haversacks. One by one the 



churches and houses were set on fire and burned, 
in many cases burying in their ruins the charred 
bodies of the inhabitants in hiding in the 
cellars. Nor were these the only victims of the 
insensate lust for blood of the German soldiery. 
The French Government have in their posses- 
sion a photograjah taken bj' a responsible 
official of m'ne white-headed old men, whose 
dead bodies were found after the German with- 
drawal, lying in a field close to the to%vn. Their 
hands were bound together, their trousers had 
been imbuttoned, and were clinging rottnd their 
knees, either as a cruel insult, or else — the 
irony of it — to prevent them from running 
away, and they had been shot down in cold 
blood. The Avretched inhabitants, when they 
were able to come back to gaze sadly at the 
crumbling heaps of stone that had once been 
their homes, said that many more of their 
acquaintances and relations had been "judici- 
ally murdered " in the same ^va}-. The one 
bright spot in the story of the nightmare of 
barbarism was the fuie coiu-age of Sceur Julie, 
the brave religieuse who, vnXh. other sisters of 
her order, stuck to her post through all the 
horrors of the double bombardment and the 
incendiary fires, and nursed the wounded of 
both sides. She richlj- deserved the decoration 
of the cross of the Legion of Honour which she 
received from the hand of the President of the 
Republic. 

As for the Germans, almost everywhere 
that ihey went in this part of France at 
Nomeny, at Baccarat, at Remereville, and 
scores of other towais and \illages in Lorraine, 
the Vosges and the Woevre, endless stories 
were told by responsible level-headed eye- 
witnesses, not only of indiscriminate house- 
burnings (the evidence of which remained 
for aU the world to see), but of women and 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



417 



•children, shot Uke rabbits at their windows or 
in the streets, for the mere pleasure of killing, 
■of horrible rapes, and of disgusting bestialities. 
There were, of course, many men and many 
officers who had no hand in these atrocious 
acts. In some cases their occupation 
of conquered villages and towns was free 
from the stain of them ; in others the stories 
told were no doubt untrue or exaggerated. 
In Luneville, for instance, though they wantonJy 
burnt down about forty houses in one of the 
subxirbs, shot some of the inhabitants (more 
probably from nervousness than brutality), and 
helped themselves freely to their belongings, 
the record of their three weeks' stay, during 
part of which they were being hotly bom- 
barded by the French, was not for them a 
particularly black one. It is true that the 
fact that the town got off comparatively lightly 
was chiefly due to the firm and courageous and 
dignified conduct of M. Minier, the sous-prefet, 
M. Keller, the mayor, and M. Mequillet, the 
-deputy of the town, who, sometimes at the risk 
of their own lives, boldly stood up to the Ger- 
nnan military authorities, and at the same time 
kept a hold over their fellow citizens. But to 
rank the Germans' treatment of Luneville as 
■one of their minor misdoings is enough in itself 
to expose the gravity of the case against them. 
After making all reasonable allowances, far 
more than enough evidence remains to convict 
the Bavarian and Prussian troops which in- 



vaded the east of France of callous cruelties 
and acts of degraded grossness which, except 
in rare instances, ought to have been imheard 
of in the national army of a modern civilized 
State. The names of Gerbeviller and Nomeny 
were blots that could not soon nor easily be 
wiped out from the escutcheon of German 
" Kultur." In Eastern France no less than in 
Belgium, the campaign proved to demonstration 
the poisonous influence of the German teaching 
that in war might must be right. It had resulted 
in a general lowering of the ethical and moral 
standard of the German people and army — even 
as compared with 1870 — and by suppressing the 
finer impulses of human nature had brought to 
the surface its more cruel and brutal instincts. 

The great final fight for the possession of 
Nancy was now definitely staged. The two 
first invading armies had made good as far as 
Luneville. The Third, and main army, which 
also consisted of Bavarians, with more and 
heavier guns, and some Prussian cavalry in 
the shape of Uhlans, and the White Cuirassiers 
of the Guard, marched from Chateau- Salins 
and engaged in a violent series of conflicts 
with the French in and about a group of villages 
round the forest of Champenoux. At the same 
time part of the Army of Metz, which began by 
marching westwards towards Verdun, wheeled 
round facing south, between the Meuse and the 
Moselle, with its left resting on Pont-a-Mousson. 
and joined in the attack on the Lorraine capital. 




AFTER A BATTLE. 
Dead German soldiers left on the battlefield after a French charge. 



■lis 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



The Genuan plans had so lar succeeded 
that they were now nearly in a position to 
advance from two directions at once on the 
plateau of Amance, the hill on which General 
de Castelnau had concentrated the bulk of 
his artillery. Before they could cooperate 
in this attempt with the armies coming from 
Saarburg and Strassburg, the Northern or Metz 
Army, after occupying Nomeny on August 20, 
had to take the village of Ste. Genevieve, about 
ten miles north-west of Amance, where a 
moderately strong French force under General 
Foch had been posted. They started from 
Pont-a-Mousson on August 22 full of enthusiasm 
with confident cries of " Ste. Genevieve to- 
night : to-morrow Nancy 1 " Three miles 
up the river they left the main road at Loisy to 
climb the hill to Ste. Genevieve, and foimd 
themselves confronted by the wire entangle- 



ments which the French had erected about 
tliree-quarters of a mile in front of and to the 
left of their trenches. This obliged them to 
make the attack from their own left front, and 
they decided to prepare the way with field 
guns and some heavier artillery, which, in 
the course of the next 75 hours, poured into 
Ste. Genevieve over 4,000 shells. The French 
had only one regiment of infantrj- in the village 
(about 3,000 men against 12,000), but they 
v\ ere well sheltered in their trenches, and only 
lost three killed and soine 20 wounded in the 
course of the bombardment. The batteries 
in support were so well hidden that the enemy's 
aeroplanes failed to locate them, and they 
allowed the Germans to waste their ammunition 
without firing a shot in return. They knew 
that the position was critical and that the safety 
of Nancy in all probability depended on their 
success. The brilliant fight that followed wa.s 
described as follows by the special correspondent 
of The Times : 

On the evening of the 24tli the German comniandor, 
deceived by their silence and imagining that the infantry 
force had been crushed by the bombardment, ga\ e the 
order to attack, and his formidable little army, still 
covered by the fire of its artillery, advanced on Ste. (^ne- 
vieve in massed columns. Then at last, when they had 
come to a convenient rnncre, the 7.5's opened on their 




WINE CASKS AS A BARRICADE. 
Scene in the streets of Nomeny, Eastern France. Inset : French troops in the trenches. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



419 




THE DEUTSGHES THOR, METZ, 
Known to the French of the City as La Porte des Allemands. 



closely-formed rank?. Most of the work fell on one 
particular battery from Toul, as the others were so 
placed that they could not fire effectively without 
endangering their own infantrj-. For three hours they 
pounded the Germans, cutting them up badly, and then, 
when he had fired his last shell, the captain of the 
battery ordered his men to fix bayonets and join the 
infantry (the 314th Regiment) in a last effort 
to check the assault, to which the Germans at 
once advanced, crouching low as they came on up 
the slope. 

The order had been given to the infantry to let them 
got within 300 yards. When they reached that distance 
the French officers shouted at the top of their voices 
the command which, of all others, the Germans dislike, 
'' En avant a la bai'onnette." But the infantry had also 
been warned that, on hearing this word of command, 
instead of charging they were to stay in the trenches 
and fire a succession of volleys. It was a neat idea, and 
it came off. Hearing the order and the bugle sounding 
the charge, the German front ranks quickly rose from 
their crouching position and hurriedly fixed bayonets 
to repel the attack. The first volley caught them just 
as they reached the wire entanglements in front of the 
trenches, and mowed them do«^ in hundreds. They 
fell in such dense masses that the uien who came on 
from behind climbed over their bodies and the first row 
of entanglements at the same time. But they could get 
no farther. The French Lebols wiped them out, and 
the only result of their fine courage — for they came onto 
the assault four separate times — was that they left 4,000 
dead in front of those murderous trenches. Then, 
almost at nightfall, they gave up the attempt, and fell 
back on Atton, the village in front of Pont-i-Mousson, 
through which they had passed bo cheerfully three 
days before with their cries of " Nancy domain." For 
the moment their demoralization was complete. In 
the darkness some of them lost their way, and stumbling 
on the wire entanglements in front of Loisy foil into the 
river and were drowned. The survivors, when they 
reached Atton, christened Ste. Goiievi6ve " The Hole of 
Death." 

The attack on Amance and Nancy from tJio 

east was a more protracted affair, but it was 



equally unsuccessful. At first the struggle 
was most severe along the French right, on 
the Nancy side of Lun^ville (which is 15 miles 
from the Lorraine capital), round Haraucourt, 
Rosieres, and Dombasle, the last of which places 
was occupied by the Germans on August 22, 
though they were quickly driven out and retired 
on the heights and woods of Crevic. Next day 
there was the same sort of give-and-take fighting 
along the low hills north of the Dombasle- 
Lun6ville road, and at Leomont, Crevic and 
Vitrimont, where thousands of German dead 
were left in the forest. On the 25th, between 
Courbesseau and Drouville, a strong German 
position was attacked by five French infantry 
regiments. Owing, however, to insufficient 
support by their artillery, they suffered 
severely. One regiment lost 65 per cent, of 
its men killed and wovmded, and for the time 
being the attack failed. But the spirit of 
the whole army remained excellent. During 
that long drawn out fortnight of fierce charge 
and counter-charge, in the fields and forests, 
and the streets of the ruined and smoking 
villages, the fighting was so continuous that 
sometimes even to pick up the dead and 
wounded was impossible. There were places, 
too, where the Germans, hidden in the v\ oods, 
pcsrsistently fired on any of the wounded who 
moved a limb and anyone who went to their 
rescue even after the engagements had stopped. 
Some of th(>m lay and suffered, without food 




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421 



iE CHAMPAGNE AND THE ARGONNE. 



422 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



or drink, for as much as five days. But even 
they, or those of them who survived tlie ordeal, 
only asked to be cured of their wounds that they 
might go out and fight again. They had but 
one thought — to defend Lorraine and avenge its 
sufferings. 

Further north along the line a series of 
violent engagements at Remereville, Erbeviller, 
and other places round the forests of Cham- 
penoux and St. Paul, culminated in a 
sustained attack on the plateau of Amance. 
The bombardment lasted for more than a week, 
night and day. Before it began, on August 30 
and 31, there was a trying period of suspense 
for the men who were working the guns on 




AERIAL WARFARE. 

Machine that winds up the rope of the 
French captive balloon. 



the top of the plateau. They were surrounded 
by a thick fog. They had a feeling that 
the enemy were near, but could see 
nothing. All that they could do was to 
work at the entrencliments which they had 
been constructing since their arrival from 
Toul and to shell the roads likely to be used 
by the enemy. 

Meanwhile, as they suspected, the Germans 
were placing their heavy guns in position. 
\Vhen the fog had cleared away German airmen 
flew over the plateau at a great height, and 
once they had made out the position of the 
French artillery their gunners had little rest. 
Fotir batteries opened fire uj^on them, and the 
shells fell thick and fast, mth a deafening din. 
At one time the fire was so severe that the 
drivers and most of the men serving the guns 
were ordered to retire to the village behind the 



hill. But here as well they were quickly de- 
tected by the enemy war planes and captive bal- 
loons, and followed by a rain of shells which .sent 
the villagers scuttling to their cellars or flying 
over the fields. After a time the French artil- 
lery men made a dash for the plateau through a 
storm of flame and iron and reached the trenches 
near the guns, which were well concealed and 
had not been touched. Their wounded they 
were obhged to take into the trenches with 
them. The fire was so hot that it was out of 
the question to show even a hand. Tlien at 
last it began to show signs of slackening, and 
the battery commanders and gun layers, who 
had been waiting for this moment in the little 
wood on the plateau, were able to get back to 
their pieces, which were soon once more in full 
action. 

Up to September 8 the battle was fought 
with increasing violence all along the 25 niiles 
of the French front, which at its nearest point 
\\ as within about six miles of Nancy. To break 
through that Une had become for the Germans 
a matter of urgent importance. West of 
Verdun their armies were being steadily pushed 
back beyond the IVIame. In front of Amance 
one of their divisions had been heavily defeated 
on the 7th in the forest of Champenoux. On 
the 8th they braced themselves for a final effort 
vmder the eye of the Kaiser, who in spite of the 
gravity of the situation on the Mame, had 
journeyed to the eastern front to give to his 
armies there the encouragement of his presence 
and authority. If he had been able, as he 
probably expected, to enter Nancy in triumph 
at the head of liis victorious troops, the moral 
effect both in France and in Germany would 
have been immense. But before that was 
possible the heights of Amance must be stormed. 
When the order for the assault was given the 
Germans came out of the woods a mile away, 
and headed by their fifes and drums, as if they 
were on parade, advanced sr lemnly and 
pompously to the attack of the French infantry 
positions halfway tip the east side of the liill. 
The French guns were silent. There was no- 
tliing to show whether they had been put out 
of action or were onlj- biding their time. 
Except the music of the bands there was not a 
sound, for the infantry also reser\-ed their fire 
till the enemy were within 200 yards. Then 
suddenly, with loud shouts of " Vive la France," 
they sprang from the trenches and charged 
with fixed bayonets. The two lines met with 
a violent shock, and the German ranks broke. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAE. 



423 



As they fled to the shelter of the forest the 
75's came into action, and firing at short range, 
mowed theiw down rank by rank. But the 
Kaiser was there to inspire them. The work 
that he had given them to do was still undone, 
and they fought on with wonderful coiu-age 
and tenacity. Six times they advanced to the 
attack, and six times they were driven back 
again to the woods. At some places at the foot 
of that deadly hill the bodies were piled up 
five or six feet high, and when the survivors 
took shelter behind the heaps of dead and 
wounded the 75's still raked them through and 
through,' smothering dead and Uving in a 
horrible mire of flesh and blood, wlaile the 
155's, firing over the heads of the front ranks, 
finished off the work farther back in the forest. 
The German losses were enormous. Thousands 
of their dead were left lying on the plain, and 
in the evening they asked and were granted a 
four hours' truce to bury them. It was 
believed by the French that they took advantage 
of the opportunity to place in position near 
the village of Cercenil the heavy guns which 
shelled Nancy on the night of September 
9, They might have saved themselves the 
trouble. 

The bombardment, which should have 
been the dramatic finale of the assault on 
the town, was instead a rather feeble anti- 
climax. It began at about half-past eleven, 
when most of the inhabitants were in bed. A 
violent storm was raging, and at first the sound 



of the bursting shells was mistaken for claps of 
thunder, till everyone was roused by the crash 
of falling masonry and the roar of the French 
guns replying to the attack, which they com- 
pletely silenced in about an hour's time. 
About 70 shells were fired, kilUng and womiding 
a few civilians and damaging a certain number 
of houses. As a military manoeuvre the 
bombardment was purposeless and futile, and 
was so quickly over that it scarcely had the 
effect of alarming the population, though some 
of the more timid retired the next day to towns 
further removed from the enemy and the 
frontier. But they were the exception. The 
great majority showed the same confidence in 
the armies of General de Castelnau and General 
Dubail as their Prefect, whose response to the 
bombardment was to send for his young son 
and daughters to come and live with him and 
Madame Mirman at Nancy. The watchwords 
of the whole town w^ere courage and duty. A 
good example of the prevailing spirit was given 
by one of the very few Englislimen who were 
in Nancy at the time. He had under his charge 
an important municipal usine, containing 
several big boilers, which, if they had been 
burst by a shell, would have caused widespread 
damage. His first thought when the firing 
began was to empty them, and though liis 
works and the streets leading to them were 
exactly in the line where the shells were falling, 
he started off at once from his hotel, went 
down to the works, and did what was necessary 



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FRENCH BALLOON AT VALMY. 
Taking observations above the famous old mill. 




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42i 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAE. 



425 



to make the boilers liarmless. That was typical 
of the waj' in wluch almost everyone behaved, 
not only at the time of the bombardment, but 
during and after the formidable and prolonged 
efforts of the enemy to invest the town. At 
the Prefectixre, the Mairie, and the Chamber 
of Commerce, in the temporary and permanent 
hospitals (where the regular staffs were supple- 
mented by devoted bands of nurses and some 
of the foremost civilian doctors of France), in 
all the various organizations which busied them- 
selves with the care of the refugees and tlie 
poorer inliabitants, there was everywhere the 
same activity and the same undismayed 
resolution and devotion to duty. The local 
newspapers, in spite of the galling and some- 
times absurd restrictions vmder which they were 
placed, always maintained a high standard of 
patriotic loyalty to the one supreme cause and 
of unswerving faith in its sure and certain 
triumph. Lorraine, like France, had become 
a united whole. The common danger and tlie 
common effort had put an end to the dislike 
and distrust between Church and Stat(> and 
all the other differences of French political and 
public life. The armies of the Eastern frontier, 
which shared and were fortified by this new- 
born spirit of luianimity, had their minds anr' 
their hands free for their own special business. 
Tlie victory on the Marne put the finishing- 
touch to the work that they had done and the 
fight that they had so gallantly fought before 
xsancy. The bombardment of the town was 
the Germans' parting shot. On September 10 
they evacuated ront-a-Mousson, and on the 
12th Lunevillc, Baccarat, Raon-l'Etape, and 
St. Die ; there was a general advance along 
the wliole French front, and though the enemy 
still held a bare footing on the edge of Lorraine 
and in the department of the Vosge^ the effec- 
tive occupation of the two provinces was at an 
end. The attack on the Epinal-Verdim line 
by way of Nancy had completely failed. The 
Kaiser and his men had looked at the promised 
land and turned their backs on it. 

From this time onwards the weight of the 
attack was shifted from the soutliern to the 
northern half of the barrier line of fortresses — 
between Toul and Verdim — and Verdun took 
the place of Nancy as the main German 
objective. The army of the Crown Prince of 
Bavaria occupied a front extending to the 
north-west from the frontier opjiosite Lunevillc, 
past Thiaucourt to Consenvoye on the Meuse 
ten or twelve miles north of Verdim, where its 



riglit rested on the left of the Crown Prince's 
army. Its left w ing as far as Thiaucoiu-t was 
kept busy in preventing the French from 
advancing on Saarburg and Metz ; its centre 
and right began about this time a serious 
forward movement across the plain of the 
Woevre to the wooded heights of the Meuse. 
It had two objects in view : to break tlirough 
the line of fortresses, and then to cross the river 
and join hands with the right wing of the Crown 
Prince's army so as to encircle Verdun. 

The fortress of Toul is almost exactly half 
way between Epinal and Verdun, 40 miles from 
each. In the lower stretch of country, the 
Trouee de Chamies, there are no forts, and the 
failure of the Germans to break through in 
this region and so approach Toul from the 
south is the strongest possible testimony to 
the generalship of Dubail and the magnificent 
resistance of the Chasseiu-s-a-pied and 75's of 
the First Army. Between Toul and Verdun 
the French position was far stronger. East 
of the Meuse the wooded Hauts de Meuse 
slope gradually down to the river, broken at 
intervals by a series of deep and precipitous 
ravineS; guarded by forts, ancient and modern. 
On the north the district is bounded by the 
Verdun-Metz railway, below which is the plain 
of the Woevre, and on the south by the quick - 
flowing Rupt de Mad, which runs from Com- 
mercy on the Meuse north-east past Thiaucourt 
to Arnaville, where it falls into the Moselle a few 
miles south of Metz. All along the INIevise, 
on both sides of the stream, there is a chain 
of forts. South of the Rupt de Mad, between 
Commercy and the Moselle, the forts of Liou- 
ville, Gironville, Jouy, I^ucey, Bruley and St. 
Michel point their guns to the east and north, 
towards the German frontier. Lower down, 
on the right bank of the river, the guns of the 
Camp des Romains, a little south of St. Mihiel, 
and of Forts Troy on and Genicourt to the 
north of the town, are trained on the rixcr, 
ready to dispute its passage, and still further 
north are the southern defences of Verdun, 
facing up the channel of the stream, on 
the fm'ther or left bank of which the Fort 
des Paroches. between Troyon and St. Mihiel, 
faces to the east. This was the formidable 
position which the Germans had to attack 
in earnest, as a riposte to the battle of the 
IVIarne and their repulse in front of Nancy. 

They had already, from September 8 to 13, 
hotly bombarded Troyon (which the Crown 
Prince had also made a rather feeble attempt 



4-26 



THE TIMES HI, STORY OF THE WAR. 




WAITING FOR THE ENEMY. 

French troops have a quiet half-hour in the trenches on the banks of a French river. 



to bombard from the other side of tlie river). 
The defence of the fort was one of the most 
gallant feats of the 1914 camjjaign. In the 
first three hours of the bombardment the 
German loO's dropped shells into it at.the rate 
of one a minute, firing from positions in the 
ravines which the French artillerymen were 
unable to reach, and a nimiber of French 
120's and 90's were destroyed by an explosion 
caused by a " Grosse Marmite " (a 210 shell) 
which burst in a store of melinite. On tlie 
other side of the river the enemy were retreating 
on the Marne, but no one could come to the 
lielp of Troyon. Telephone messages from 
Verdun told the Commandant that on his 
resistance depended the success of the big 
movement to the west, and that he must at 
all costs hold out. At the same time the 
Commandant of the fort at Paroches tele- 
phoned that his guns could not reach the 
positions of the Germans who were bombarding 
Troyon. There was, therefore, notliing left 
for its garrison but to fight on as best it could 
while the fort gradually crumbled to pieces 
round them. On the 9th two German officers 
and a bugler arrived and three tiines called 
upon it to siu-render. The Commandant 
proudly refused. " Never,"' he said ; " the 
fort has been trusted to me by France, and I 
would sooner blow it up," and finally told 



them to decamp, as he had had enough of 
their company, though he wished thein au revoir 
— at Metz. Then the Germans brought heavier 
guns to bear on the place, 280"s and 305's. and 
during the night their infantry advanced and 
cut the wire entanglements in front of. the 
fort. Their charge was, however, checked by 
the French mitrailleuses, and further German 
onslaughts in dense masses on the 10th and 11th 
were repulsed with great slaughter by the 
garrison, aided by a battery of 7o's and the 
2nd Cavalry Division from Toul. The same 
fate befell a final German charge on the 13th, 
and they were at last compelled to give up 
the attack on the fort, in front of wliich they 
lost from seven to ten thousand men, and to 
retire on the frontier. 

On September 20 they reoccupied Thiau- 
court (often confounded, even in the official 
reports, with Triaucourt, in the Argonne) 
and once more advanced on the line of fortresses 
and began a fresh bombardment of Troyon, 
Les Paroches, and the Camp des Romains, 
from a front extending north and south in 
front of them, between Tresauvaux and 
Heudicourt, a distance of about 12 miles. In 
the covu-se of the next few days, as the result 
of flank attacks on the ^Nletz army by the 
garrison of Toul from the south and the garrison 
of Verdun from the north, coupled with a 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



427 




FRENCH ARTILLERY IN NORTHERN FRANCE. 

Firing a heavy gun at a German position. The report from these guns is so terrific that some of 

the gunners have to protect their ears. Many have been rendered completely deaf. 



determined advance of the Germans in the 
centre, the dispositions of their troops were 
altered till they took the double alignment that 
came to be known as the St. Mihiel pocket or 
wedge, from which there was to be no material 
change for a period of many weeks. The effect 
of the change was that the German front was 
pushed forwards from the Thiaucourt-Fresnes 
line (the 17 mile base of the triangle of which 
St. Mihiel is the apex) so as to occupy the two 
sides of the triangle, St. Miliiel-Fresnes and 
St. Miliiel-Thiaucourt, each 14 miles long. 

This advance was not due to any defeat of 
the French in the Woevre. It simply meant 
that the Germans marched forwards as far 
as they could, till they were brought up short 
by the fire of the forts along the line of the 
Mense and the line of the Second French Army, 
almost at right angles to it, wliich extended 
from the Meuse north of Commercy to the 
frontier north-east of Nancy. Their position 
then was that they still had to reckon with 
Troyon, the Camp des Romains, and the other 
forts before they could hope to cross the Meuse, 
and that they also had to guard their left 
flank fron^ the army of General do Castelnau 
to the south. Their double front was not 
therefore a matter of their own choosing. 
It was imposed upon theixi by the disposition 



of the French lines of defence, which was in 
part due to the fact that before the war began 
the Gennans had trespassed on the neutral 
zone established and respected by the French. 
At the same time the loss of St. Miliiel was 
obviously not a part of the French programme. 
It appears to have been due to a miscalculation 
on their part. They were said, rightly or 
wrongly, to have come to the conclusion that 
the enemy, discouraged by the heavy losses 
they had suffered, had given up the idea of 
crossing the Meuse. At all events, it was 
thought safe to move a number of battalions 
away from the river to reinforce the troops 
on the Moselle and to the east of it where there 
were signs of an impending German advance. 
Intelligence of what had happened was quickly 
carried to the enemy, and while the French 
ri"ht was engaged beyond Champenoux and 
its^eft was pushing back the main body of 
the 14th German Army Corps on the Rupt de 
Mud, the movement was made which resulted 
in the occupation of St. Mihiel. The right wing 
of the Army of Mete executed a bold flank 
march up the left or north bank of the Mad, 
and the advance guard on arriving at St. 
Mihiel foiuid that it was empty of Frencli 
troops. I'rac'tically without opi)osition they 
had [lenetrated into the heart of the barrier 



4-28 



THE TIMES HJSTOliY OE THE WAR. 




SCEUR JULIE AND MONSIEUR 
DOMINIQUE BONNARD. 

Soeur Julie received the Cross of the Legion of 
Honour for her courage and devotion to duty. 

of fortresses, midway between Verdun and 
Toul. 

The next thing was to cross the Mense. 
On the evening of September 25 the main 
body of their army reached the right barJc, 
to the north of tlie to^^•n. To resist them 
there was on the other side of the river a single 
battaUon of Territorials, but no artillery. 
The French troops managed, however, to 
delay their advance as long as dayUght 
lasted, and diu"ing the night, thoiigh they 
were in a minority of one to ten, with 
rifle-fire only they prevented the German 
engineers from making a pontoon-bridge. 
Early on the morning of the 26th the position 
suddenly changed. The enemy placed Sonne 
heavy gims on the right bank, and after that 
further resistance was useless. The French 
artillerymen in the Camp des Romains were 
unable, o\\ing to the intervem'ng heights, to 
bring an effective fire to bear on the troops 
crossing the river, the Territorials were obliged 
to fall back, carrying their wounded with them, 
• and by midday the Germans were across the 



Mouse, marcliing in the direction of the valley 
of the Aire. At la.st it must have seemed to 
them that the moment had come when their 
dreams of encircling Verdun were on the point 
of being realized. The French, however, were 
fully alive to the gravity of the situation, and 
two forces were hurrying to dispute the enemy's 
advance. From the north General Sarrail. 
who was pushing the Crown Prince's Army 
before him towards the Argonne, was able to 
detach a body of cavalry to hold them in check. 
But the main work fell on the shoulders of the 
20th Army Corps who had hastily been ordered 
back from Champenoux when the news of 
St. ISIiliiel was received. Fresh from their 
engagement in Lorraine they marched through 
the night of the 25th and the morning and 
afternoon of the next day, and at 5 o'clock in 
the evening their advance guard of cavalry 
which had crossed the Meuse at I^erouville, 
just above Commercj', got into touch with the 
enemy some miles to the north in the vallej- of 
the Aire. The dragoons attacked at once with 
mitrailleuses, and so gave time, first for the 
artillery and then for the infantry to come up 
to their support. Tliree times the Germans 
made ^■iolent attempts to dislodge them from 
tlie heights of the Aire, but all tliree, after 
furious fighting, were repulsed, and during 
the night, after suffering severe losses, the 
enemy were obliged to fall back on the Meuse. 
The bold attempt of the Metz Army to come 
to the help of the Crown Prince had failed. All 
that they could do was to entrench themselves 
at St. Mihiel (still keeping their footing in the 
part of the town on the left bank of the river) 
and from there continue their bombardment 
of the French forts. The Camp des Romains 
(the nearest of them, and, for their piirjDose, the 
most important) they completely destroyed, 
the garrison being compelled to surrender after 
a most gallant resistance. This, or rather the 
new fort which they constriicted close to it, 
since notliing was left of the old, made theii- 
position in St. Miliiel secure, and for the next 
few months .all the attempts of the French to 
dislodge them were unsuccessful. But the 
strategic advantage that they gained by their 
continued occvipation of the point at the end 
of the St. ]\Iihiel wedge was always doubtful. 
It enabled them to keep vmder (but not to take) 
Troyon, Les Paroches, and the rest of the 
lesser Meuse forts, and to bombard open towns 
and villages like Sampigny and Lerouvillc. 
But it also, as was said in 2' he Times, 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



4-29 




ARTILLERY DUEL IN THE AR(iONNE. 

Cleverly concealed Erench batteries replying to the German guns, which directed a searciiing 

shrapnel fire. 



430 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




GERMAN MOUNTS IN HIDDEN STABLES IN THE ARGONNE. 
Each horse has a tent to protect it from the cold ; the tent is covered with branches to hide it 

from the enemy. 



kept a large part of their force in a 
position of considerable danger ; all through 
the winter the trenches forming the legs of the 
compasses of which St. IVIihiel was the pivot, 
were gradually closing in on them and im- 
perilling their chances of retreat in case it was 
forced upon them. 

On the west side of the Meuse th^ other 
effort to invest Verdun had proved equally 
unsuccessful. At first things went well for the 
Crown Prince's army, though it was said that 
his Imperial father was seriously annoyed at 
his prolonged failure to reduce the fort of 
Longwy and by the great number of lives that 
were sacrificed before it fell. Still, fall it did, 
on August 27, after a siege of 24 days, in spite 
of the splendid defence of its commander, 
Colonel Darche, and its garrison of only one 
battalion, and from then till September 7 the 
Crown Prince and his army shared in the 
general triumphant advance of the German 
centre and right. He had under him the 
XVI., XVIII., and XXI. Army Corps, on his 
right the Duke of Wm-temberg, commanding 
the IV., XI. and XIII. Corps, in front of Mm 
General Sarrail and the VI. and VIII. French 
Corps. On the day after the fall of Long^vy 
these two German armies, tlie 4th and oth, 
erossed the Meuse at Mezeires, Sedan, and 
Stenay, 50, 40, and 25 miles nearly due north of 
Verdun, the armies of Langle de Cary and 
Sarrail retiring before them. On the same day, 
the 28th, the Crown Prince reached Dun, five 



miles liigher up the INIeuse, on September I 
Clermont in the Argonne, 14 miles west of 
Verdun, and on the 3rd Ste. Menehould, a little 
further west, on the opposite edge of the forest 
of the Argonne, halfway between Verdun and 
Chalons, with the Duke of Wurtemberg's army 
always on his right, between Ste. Menehould 
and Reims. Two days later, after what was 
known as the battle ol Reims, the French fell 
back still fiu-ther, but on September 6 the 
retreat from the ]\Ieuse to the Marne had almost 
reached its furthest limit. The Crown Prince's 
army was now occupying a front of about 
' 20 miles, from a point south-west of Verdun 
and quite close to it as far as Revigny, just short 
of Bar-le-Duc, facing almost due east, with 
Sarrail between him and the ^leuse, and on his 
right the Gtemian 4th army extended west- 
wards past Vitry-le-Fran9ois on the Marne, 
facing rather more to the south. The loop 
round Verdun and on both sides of the Verdim- 
Toul line was now nearly completed ; the only 
opening in it was the 30-mile stretch to the 
south, between Bar-le-Duc and Toul. 

But here, too, just as on September 26, in the 
valley of the Aire, after the Germans crossed the 
Meuse at St. Mihiel, the cup was snatched from 
their lips at the last moment. The retreat of 
the French was over. The time for the advance 
had come, and while Troyon was being bom- 
barded on the east bank of the Meuse they 
began to drive the enemy northwards towards 
the Aisne in two divisions, one each side of 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



431 



Bar-le-Duc. To the west of the town they 
pursued them hotly past the forest of the 
Three Fountains and Revigny, across the 
Ornain to the forest of Belnoue ; to the east 
they forced them to abandon the line of the 
Saulx, which they had strongly entrenched, and 
followed them up past Vavincourt, and then 
on to the forest of Argonne, where the whole 
German line split in two, like a torrent dashed 
against a huge rock in mid-stream, and flowed 
on right and left, leaving the plateau liigh and 
dry in the centre. From this time onwards 
there was constant fighting in and round the 
forest — an arduous campaign of fierce combats 
in which the French showed extraordinary 
patience and pertina3ity, and the enemy an 
equally dogged spirit of resistance. The local 
conditions are difificult in the extreme. The 
forest is a narrow rocky plateau, about 30 miles 
long by 8 wide, in the angle between the Aisne 
and its tributary the Aire. Its shelv-ing slopes 
are covered with den' e masses of oak, beech, 
and hornbeam, and a very thick undergrowth, 
broken only by occasional glades and sides and 
hardly any roads. It runs nearly due north 
and south, and as a rule is highest on its east 
side, from which a number of small burns, 
rimning at the bottom of deep-cut ravines with 



precipitous sides sometimes 150 feet high, drop 
down into the Aire. The road and railway 
between Ste. Menehould and Clermont, wliich 
lie opposite to each other on its left and right 
borders, about on a level with Verdun, divide 
the forest into two nearly equal parts. Five 
or six miles north of this road is another, 
between Vierme-la-Ville (just below Vienne-la- 




IN THE ARGONNE DISTRICT. 
A French outpost in the woods around Bagatelle. Inset : In a German trench. The wire netting seen 

above is used as a protection against hand-grenades. 




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432 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



433 



Cliateaii) and Varennes, in a part of tlie forest 
known as the Bois de la Grurie, and two miles 
above this again a rough track, too small for 
wheeled traffic, which runs left to right from 
Servon to Montblainville. One or two other 
places that were constantly referred to in the 
official accounts of the Argonne operations 
from September to February are, on the Vienne- 
Varennes road, La Harazee, the Four de Paris, 
and la Barricade, and, bet\\een Servon and 
Montblainville, the Pavilion of Bagatelle — tiny 
little hamlets, gamekeepers' cottages, and 
roijfless slieds, but none the less important 
landmarks in the intricate story of the fighting 
in the forest. 

On September 15 the Germans were on oppo- 
site sides of the forest, at Vienne-la-Ville 
and Varennes, nine miles apart. The French 
threw themselves into the interior between these 
tMO positions with the object of preventing 
communication between them and eventualh- 
of enveloping one or the other, and entrenched 
tlie space between the two roads, a rectangle of 
about nine miles by three, the right side of 
which, from Bagatelle, past a little hovel called 
St. Hubert and Fontaine Madame to Barricade, 
faced the east section of the German Army at 
Varennes, while the left faced the enemy along 
the line Binarville-Servon-Vienne. In this 
tiny theatre of war, in spite of constant en- 
counters of the fiercest description, the relative 
positions remained practically unchanged from 
the end of September all through the winter 
months. On the west side of the rectangle, 
where they had to deal as well with the French 
troops posted at Melzicourt, at the jiuiotion of 
t)>e Aisne and the Tombe, the Germans were 
never able to encroach on the forest. Their 
thief efforts were all made on the other side, 
fr()n\ their position between Varennes and 
Mon blainville. As the result of a series of 
det3rmined attacks between October .3 and 
October 20 the XVI. Army Corijs, forming 
part of the Crown Prince's army, succeeded at 
last in forcing their way at this point into the 
Bois de la Grurie between the two roads. On 
the 12th they took Bagatelle and on the ir)th 
St. Hubert and the Barricade. From here 
they advanced along the lower or Varennes- 
Vienne road to within a quarter of a mile of 
tlie Fom- de Paris, and extending their left front, 
occupied the Bois Bolante and Bois de la 
Chalade, just south of the road. 

Then came the French riposte. From Octo- 
ber 21, all through November, they fought their 



way steadily back, with infinite determination 
and great gallantry, through these four or five 
miles of bloodstained forest, till on the 29th, 
after six weeks of charge and counter-charge, 
they once more reached Bagatelle and occupied 
tlie same front as in the middle of September, 
except that the enemy still had a footing at 
Barricade. During December, January, and 
February fighting of this kind went on day 
after day with hardly a break, and still with no 
modification of the rectangle of forest held by 
the French. But though they could claim 
nothing tangible in the way of an advance 
since September 15 they had gained here, as on 
the whole of the rest of the front, one enormous 
advantage. They still had to turn the enemy 
out of their two positions— especially that 
l)etween \^arennes and Montblainville — but on 
the whole, as compared with the first weeks of 
the war, it was they and not the Germans who 
\\ere the attacking partj-. 

The moral as well as military importance 
of this bouleversement of the original con- 
ditions was immense. It was won by 
heroic perseverance on the part of all 
the troops engaged, including the gallant 
Garibaldian contingent, which fought for a 
long time in this district. Much of the fighting 
consisted of attacks and counter-attacks on 
trenches extraordinarily close to one another, 
especially in the Bois Bolante, where they were 
often only from ten yards to the length of a 
cricket-pitch apart. These attacks were 
generally preceded by the explosion of mines, 
to the making of which the clayey soil — though 
an added difficulty in the way of infantry 
charges — was admirably adapted. In the re- 
treat before the battle of the Marne, no less 
than at the critical moment when they stood 
with their backs to the Meuse before they in 
turn became the pursuers, the army of General 
Sarrail show-ed all the traditional qualities of 
the French soldier. But the finest, as it was 
the most anxious and trying, work that they 
did during the first six months of the war was 
the trench-to-trench struggle in those few 
square miles of deep ravines and trackless 
thickets, the short furious bursts and rushes 
and the patient sapping and mining of the 
hiind-man's-buff fighting in the Forest of the 
Argonne. 

To the west of the Argonne and the Third 
Army there were at the time of the retreat to 
the Marne three other French armies between 
General Sarrail and the British Expeditionary 



434 



THE TIMES HlSTOIiY OF THE WAl!. 



Force, those of General Langle de Gary, General 
Foch and General Franchet d'Esperey. Unlike 
the first three armies they had no concern with 
the line of frontier fortresses. They were 
defending the heart of France, the huge open 
roIUng plain of Champagne, in the district 
north of Chalons and east of Reims. There is 
one obvious difference between it and the 
country farther east which had a direct bearing 
on the course of the war. The big rivers, the 
Seine, the Mame and the Aisne, run from west 
to east, instead of from south to north like the 
Meuse, the IMoselle, and the ^Vlortagne. In the 
plains through which they flow there are no 
steep bhiffs and deep-cut ravines, and no 
forestS; but numbers of httle fir woods, of geo- 
metric regularity, with wide, bare spaces 
between them. The soil is dry and chalky, 
and the work of digging trenches corresponding- 
ly easy. The villages on the watercourses in 
the hollows of the wide, shallow valleys can be 
seen from great distances, and for the same 
reason the movements of troops are both 
difficult and costly. 

The distance due north from Chalons on the 
Marne to Rethel on the Aisne is about 30 miles ; 
Reims lies halfway between them, a little to 
the west of the direct line from river to river. 
On September 6 the Duke of A^'urtemberg and 
General von Hansen, commanding respectively 
the IVth, Xlth, and Xlllth Army Corps and 
the Xllth, XlXth and the Guard, occupied 
a front of 50 miles extending from Revigny, 
past Vitry-le-Fran9ois and the Camp de Mailly, 
which is about 20 miles south of Chalons, to 
the plateau of Sezanne. On the next two days 
the French in front of them retreated still 
farther south, but on September 9 General 
Foch, reinforced bj?^ the Xth Army Corps (part 
of the army of General Franchet d'Esperey) 
repulsed an attack of General von Hansen and 
the Prussian Guard, pushing them back on 
Vitry-le-Frangois. On the 11th there was a 
general advance all along the line, and tliree 
days later the French had driven General 
von Hansen and the Dulce of Wurtemberg back 
more than 30 miles across the plain to a position 
north of Reims (which they re-occupied on the 
14th) and to Souain. This village, which lies 
just above the Camp de Chalons, about inidway 
between Reims and the German position at 
Vienne in the Forest of the Argonne, became 
from that time the centre of most of the fighting 
in the Champagne district. Between it and 
the Forest of the Argonne the railway from 



\'ouzieres to Ste. Menehould runs up the valley 
of the Aisne, skirting the west edge of the 
forest. At the north end of the forest, in the 
narrow passage which separates it from the 
Forest of Boule, a branch line from this railway 
follows the channel of the Aire southwards 
along the east side of the Argonne to the other 
German position at Montblainville. The pos- 
session of this passage, wliich is called the Gap 
of Grand-Pre, was therefore of great strategical 
importance, and became the chief French 
objective in this direction,, so as to force the 
enemy away from the Forest of the Argonne. 
On September 19 they repelled a strong German 
attack on their centre and succeeded in taking 
Souain, but after that the position remained 
stationary all through October and November, 
the French line extending from Souain and the 
neighbouring village of Perthe les Hurlus. past 
Ville-sur-Tourbe to join, on the other side of 
the forest. General Sarrail's front reaching as 
far as Charny and Eix, a few miles north and 
north-east of Verdun. From December on- 
wards there was almost daily fighting round 
Souain, Perthe-les-Hiu-lus, Tahiu-e, Beausejour 
and Le Mesnil, all within a iew miles of each 
other. Great slaughter and little progress 
(though what there was was in fa\"our of the 
French and towards the north) was the story 
of the fighting here through December, January 
and Februarj-, in which months the Germans 
alone lost 10,000 men. The severity of the 
struggle was a clear proof of the importance of 
the position in the eyes of both of the com- 
batants. The Germans probably felt that a 
French advance here, if it reached the Gap of 
Grand-Pre, would so seriously threaten their 
lines of communication that it might prove the 
beginning of that piercing of their line which, 
since the battle of the Aisne and the beginning 
of the war of trenches, had necessarily become 
the chief object of the Allies — and the chief 
fear of the enemy. 

For the conditions of the war had by now 
completely changed. Not only in the north of 
Champagne and in the Argonne, but east of 
Verdun, between the Meuse and the Moselle, 
in the valley of the ^Moselle towards Metz, and 
all along the frontier to the Vosges, the first 
force of the characteristic Germanic invasion 
had spent itself. Everywhere the Germans 
were besieged, and their efforts to advance 
became more like the sorties of a beleaguered 
garrison than the impetuous onrushes of an 
army of attack. Even in the AA'oevre and the 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



435 



St. Mihiel wedge, in spite of their apparently 
tlireatening position, it was their lines much 
more than Verdun that were in a state of siege. 
Verdun, indeed, in spite of numerous German 
statements to the contrary, had not been 
besieged at all. General Sarrail, believing 
strongly in the maxim, " ville assiegee, ville 
prise," had seen to that, by extending its 
fortifications many miles in advance of the 
original zone. But though the day of the old- 
fashioned rampart had gone, the value as well 
as the power of artillery had enormously 
increased, and the guns on both sides played a 
prominent part in the autumn and winter 
operations. A good idea of the way in which 
they were employed, and of the ordinary life 
of the infantry when not actually in the trenches 
was given in an article written by the Paris 
correspondent of The Times, in which he 
described a visit to Verdun in December : 

Verdun, he wrote, summarizes a development in the 
art of siege operations. It is a walled, battlemented city, 
with moat, drawbridges, and portcullis, protected by an- 
outer ring of forts, which were modern a few months ago. 
Now every height and every valley in the country for 
20 miles aroinid has been so laboured at that there are 
fields ploughed by trenches and hillsides so closely dotted 
with short poles supporting barbed wire that they recall 



the vineyards of Champagne when the vines have been 
cut in the autumn. 

In the valleys through which we passed on our way 
to a vantage point in the Meuse heights from which to 
survey an artillery duel in progress we gained more 
clearly than in the plains of Flanders some idea of the way 
in which war is a test of national efficiency, and the 
completeness with which an army is self-contained. 
Regiinents were at work making new roads and remaking 
old where they were worn by the constant stream of 
food and ammunition convoys, of artillery on the march, 
of rushing motor-cars, and of ponderously moving heavy 
g\ms. In the woods other regiments were felling trees, 
clearing the fire-zone of some hidden battery. Others 
were weaving twigs into basliets wliich, filled with earth, 
will strengthen the scattered defences. In the liilU 
others, again, were cutting the trunks of young trees 
into stakes for barbed ^^'ire entanglements, preparing 
planks for the roofing of trenches, or for the manufacture 
of hospital beds, or for the construction of the niar- 
vellous winter dwellings which the handy soldier of 
Franco is building for himself in these exposed regions. 

Gazing from the observation station the eye was 
caught here and there by clusters of men busy as bees. 
White ribbon-like roads were speckled with slowly, 
moving dots of motor convoys, of the ever gay-hearted 
French artilleryman going or returning from his posi- 
tion in the battery emplacements, constructed with 
marvellous skill by French engineers in the exposed 
hillsides around Verdun. 

By giving free rein to the initiative and constructive 
abilities of the private in the Frencli artillery, the whole 
of this section of the front is dotted with charming 
artillery " garden cities," made by the men themselves 
without any supervision from their officers. A huge 
scoop is taken out of the wooded, sandy hillside and the 
\illage nestles right into the heart of the hill. About 




FRENCH GUNNERS AT WORK. 
The famous 75 mm. gun in action in the Argonne Forest. 



4^C, 



THE TIMES HISTOUY OF THE WAB. 



it is a firorowned crest over \vl;ic!i the guns firo at 
point " 4ti " on " X " lull some mile.-- away. Below 
it stretches a valley flaked with the blue smoke of the 
soldier-woodmen's fires. Over the distant range of hills 
float-; a captive balloon. Here and there is a glmt of sun 
upon the wings of a speeding aeroplane. The battery 
itself contributes nothing to the general view. Its 
four gun.=, each in its little stall of turf, are covered with 
branches of spruce. The cottages of the men are built 
of straw or covered with the branches of trees and are 
lost in the general covmtryside. When wo approached 
the " village " the men tumbled out of the porches and 
lined up for inspection by the General. They seemed 
At first sight to be the only sign of war in the whole 
valley. It was perfectly preposterous to think that at 
any moment a distant thud and a strange whistling 
■sound would either send everybody scuttling to splinter- 
proof shelters or to the removal of the spruce branches 
in front of the battery and the dispatch of several tons 
of steel and explosives towards the distant, unseen, and 
tnysterious point " 4G " far awaj' on the other side of the 
hill. An artiUery duel is a curious affair. 

Climbing higher up the hillside — indeed quite to the 
very crest of the range — we had a wider view of the 
battlefield of the Meuse, which stretches, taking the 
German line, from Vauquois, through the Bois de Mont- 
tancon to the north-east, through Flabas to Azannes, 
then south to Ornes to the east of £tain, then south-west 
to Maizeray, then south-west to Les Epargos, thence 
almost in a straight line through Amorville to St. Mihiel. 
From the point upon which we were standing, facing 
north-east, a ragged white line in the plain marked the 
German trenches. Behind it, across the wood of IMont- 
faucon, set like a piece of jade in the silver of innumerable 
lakes and streams, rose the pointed spire of ]\Iontfaucon, 
its outline blurred by a cloud of smoke hanging over the 
village. The sound of guns firing upon Montfaucon was 
mnftied by the cushion of the intervening hill and forest. 
Never was there such a pleasantly peaceful afternoon. 

Suddenly, with a soaring roar over the woods in the 
foreground, four shells from the battery near which we 
stood sped out towards the hidden Germans. It all 
seemed very aimless until General Sarrail,- pointing 
overhead, explained this sudden activity. An aeroplane 
wr>rking with this battery had transmitted by wireless 




IN THE CHAMPAGNE DISTRICT. 

French soldiers searching for Germans in a 

village farmhouse. 



the result of its reconnaissance. Little speckq of lij^ht, 
such as splinter the darkness of the night on an overhead 
electric tramway, showed bright even against the day- 
light sky as battery after battery came into action. All 
seemed as if anxious to join in the conversation — bass, 
alto and tenor mado their voices heard — and down in 
the jjlain along the tree-lined roa<! the men in the trenches 
stopped their game of dominoes and prepared to add an 
asthmatic soprano of musketry to the general '^horu.s. 

Day and night this apparently aimless artillery duel 
fills the hills with the sound of the banging of big gongs. 
Day and night French cavolry patrol the two neutral 
zones, the no-n^an's land left between Etain and Haute- 
Cour, between Hermevillc and Warcq, watching for 
any sign of advance by the enemy through these two 
inviting corridors, stumbling every now and again upon 
a German patrol engaged upon the same mission, and 
adding their weekly quota to the list of killed and 
wounded. 

It is the men in the trenches who are giving Verdun 
her elbow room. It is the artillery which renders their 
existence possible. 

Tt was the same story all along tlie line. The 
men in t'le trenches gave Verdun and Toul 
and Epinal and Belfort elbow room, and the 
artillery made their existence possible. As the 
result of their combined operations the Germans 
were everywhere pressed slowly back, or at least 
prevented fron^ advancing, through the five 
months from October to February. Between 
\'erdun and the Vosges this pressure on the 
enemy's Unes was most severe at certain point."^ 
of particular strategic value. Thus in the 
Woevre, though it was kept up without inter- 
mission on both sides of the St. IMihiel wedge, 
it was most vigorous in the neighbourhood of 
liltain, on the line between Fresnes and St. 
Mihiel, and on the southern side of the wedge at 
the forest of Apremont and the Bois de Mort- 
Mare, a little south of Thiaucovui;. The 
reasons for this were two-fold. It was never 
the French policy to clear the enemy out of the 
Woevre by hammering at the point of the 
wedge. The strength of the fort in the Camp 
des Remains, close to St. Mihiel, made its 
western extremity almost impregnable, except 
a the cost of very heavy losses. Their main 
idea, therefore, was to compel the Germans to 
evacuate St. Mihiel and the Camp des Romains 
by bringing lateral presstore to bear at the other 
end of the two sides, so as to press them to- 
gether hke the legs of a pair of compasses. 
At the same time they \\ ished to get at the 
strategic railway by which the enemy brought 
their supplies to St. Mihiel througli the Trouee 
de Spada. The fighting was therefore most 
severe at the points wliich best lent themselves 
to the prosecution of these two objects, both of 
which were intended to compel the retreat of 
the Germans from the point of the wedge. 
North of Nancy there was in the same way a 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



481 




prolonged succession of infantry and artillery 
engagements all through the winter, near Pont- 
a-Mousson, in the Bois le Pretre. Very slowly, 
foot by foot and trench by trench, and not 
without splendid courage and many costly 
rebuffs, the French fought their way through 
the wood, and therefore along the valley of the 
Moselle, towards Metz. Measured in miles, 
or even yards, the advantage gained, at great 
expense, was trifling. But it prepared the way 
for a possible advance on the fortress in that 
direction, and at the same time pressed the 
enemy bac^k towards the frontier, in the same 
way as the less well known operations lower 
down ill the forest of Pasroy, and in front of 
Badonviller. As the Germans were actually 
at first, and technically afterwards, the attack- 
ing force, they could hardly look upon the 
general result of the winter campaign on this 
part of the line as satisfactory. They had 
killed or deported as Hostages a large number 



BARBED WIRE DEFENCES IN FRANCE. 

French sentry in his dugout behind entanglements 

on a main road. Inset : Bringing in the wounded 

in the Argonne. 

of innocent non-combatants, and had pillaged 
and bvu-nt the villages and towns in which they 
lived, and they had driven back the French 
aniij' which tried to invade Lorraine. But at 
the end of February they were almost as far 
from their original goal as they were before the 
war began, and much further from it than at the 
end of August. 

Alsace and the Vosges. 

In Alsace and the Vosges they fared still 
worse, since here the French had still a strong 
footing, though their positions were not as far 
advanced as they were at the beginning of the 
war, when at one time they penetrated within 
ten miles of the Rhine. For this partial 
retirement there were two reasons. It was 
due, in the first part of the campaign, to mis- 
takes of generalship which followed on the 
brilliant opening. After the first occupation of 
Miilhausen, the French retreated because they 
were obliged to by a defeat on the spot. They 
fell back from Miilhausen the second time 
because of the reverses suffered further nortli, at 
Morhange and elsewhere, as the result of which 
General Joffre decided to reduce the size of tlie 
army in Alsace, so as to concentrate stronger 
forces at the points where the need for the time 
being was greatest. In subsequent operations 
during the course of the \\'inter on practically 
every occasion when the French withdrew 
nearer to their own frontier, they did so in 
order to avoid useless loss of life in holding 



438 



THE TIMKS HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



ptxsitions not so strong or so strategically 
important as others further back. 

From a mihtary point of view the campaign 
in Alsace up to the end of February was not 
of great importance. There was plenty of liard 
fighting in the Vosges and the long narrow 
plateau, twenty miles across, between them and 
the Rhine, but neither side made use of such 
large bodies of troops as were employed along 
the rest of the front. The moral effect, how- 
ever, of the continued PVench occupation of 
part of the annexed province w-as considerable 
in both coimtries. The French were elated and 
the Germans proportionately depressed by the 
partial undoing of one of the visible results of 
the war of 1870. In Alsace itself the behaviour 
of the Germans greatly increased the disUke 
with which they were already regarded by a 
large part of the inhabitants. In the big 
towns, from the beginning of the war, they 
systematically kept them in a state of complete 
ignorance of everything that did not tell in their 
favour. In MUlhausen, for instance, and also in 
jVIetz and Strassburg, the news of the battle of 
the Marne and of everj^ other success of the 
Allies was carefully concealed, and on the other 
hand the extent of German triumphs was 
greatly exaggerated. Spies and informers made 
life intolerable for all who were suspected of 
pro -French sympathies, and even the speaking 
of French was automatically suspended, as it 
was certain to lead to denunciation. No one 
dared to risk it. When the German troops came 
back to Miilhausen after the first occupation, 
they proceeded to round up two or three 
hundred of the male inliabitants who were 
foreigners, including a large nmnber of French 
Alsatians, and imprisoned them for varj'ing 
periods in the interior of Germany. There 
Mere people of all classes and ages among them, 
rich manufacti.u'ers and poor artizans, old and 
young, and all were treated with the same 
callous inhumanity (their only crime being 
that they were not Germans),- except that the 
handful of English, whatever their station, 
were bvillied and browbeaten more than the 
rest and set to tio the most degrading tasks. 
On the evening of their arrest, before they were 
taken away from Miilhausen, the whole body of 
the prisoners were suddenly ordered to form 
themselves into ranks, and the first rank were 
then placed against a wall opposite to a few 
files of soldiers who M-ent through the motions 
of loading and presenting their rifles. The 
unfortunate men naturally concluded that their 



last hour had come, wlien suddenly the oflficfp 
who was presiding over the heartless ceremoiij 
stepped forward and explained brutally that 
now they knew what would happen to theni if 
they showed any signs of insubordination. 
In all the sliameful story of the callous cruelty 
of the Germans during the war it would be 
difficult to find a more glaring example of I he 
way in which the lust of conquest had blinded 
a part of the nation to the most elementary 
principles of right and wrong. 

After the second retreat from Miilhausen the 
army of Alsace, very much weakened l)y the 
removal of some of its units to different parts 
of the frontier, proceeded to entrench itself in 
front of Belfort along a line of about 25 miles, 
starting from Thann at the foot of the Vosges, 
and passing between Dannemarie and Altkircli 
to Moos, near the jimction of the Frencli, 
German and Swiss frontiers. Supported by 
the garrison of Belfort they held this line all 
through the autimin, in spite of many deter- 
mined efforts to dislodge them, besides making 
it the base for constant reconnaissances in force, 
which sometimes advanced 20 miles into the 
enemy's country. During the winter, when 
the rain-soaked ground l:)egan to make mana:'u- 
\Tes of this kind ahnost impossible, in order to 
avoid wintering in the open country and 
because of the floods which threatened to cut 
them off from their base of supply, they fell 
back a little nearer to Belfort, on the railway 
between Daiuiemarie and Pfetterhausen, in the 
A'allej? of the Largue. The enemy, who com- 
manded the railway north of Pfirt by Altkirch 
to Miilhausen, and from there to Cernay, did 
not suffer from the same difficulties of transport, 
and were able to occupy tlie various positions 
as they were evacuated by the French, but 
only after they had retired of their own accord. 
Not one of them ^^•as taken by assault, and 
through most of December there was hardlj- 
any fighting in Haute Alsace beyond trifling 
skirmishes and affairs between the outposts. 
But about Christmas snow began to fall, and 
as soon as the frost had made marcliing more 
possible the French resumed the offensive. 
They had in the meantime received reinforce- 
ments, consisting partly of Alpine troojis who 
were used to manoeuvring in the snow, and 
they succeeded quickly in gaining several 
important strategic jjositions near Steinbach 
and Altkirch, from which they w^ere able to 
tlu-eaten IVIiilhausen from two directions at 
once. To this the Germans replied by bringing 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



439 



down fresh troops from the north of France 
and strengthening their artillery, which up to 
that time had been rather weak. From now 
onwards the campaign in Haute Alsace settled 
down for the most part into tiie stubborn 
snails pace warfare of the trenches. But every 
now and then there \\ere exceptions. Between 
Deceiliber 27 and January 8 there was fierce 
fighting for the possession <>f tlie point 425 
r.ear Cernay. and the Germans finally succeeded 
by a characteristic attack in column, in estab- 
lishing themselves on the side of the hill. 
Another position in the same district, a sliort 
distance farther to the north, a few miles above 
Thann, which became the centre of a prolonged 
struggle, was the hill of Hartmannsweilerkopf, 
2,8G8 feet above the level of the sea. At the 
end of December the Germans held the east 
slope and the French the west. In the first 
days of the new year the French captured the 
.sunuuit, and established on it a post of about 
one company in strength. A German detach- 
ment of two battalions was ordered to dislodge 
them. Approaching the hill from the east, 
they attacked two bodies of French troops, 
first at Hirzenstein, to the south of their 
objt'Ctive, and then in the depression between 
Hartmaiuisweilerkopf and Molkenrein, another 



steep mountain a mile or two to the west of it, 
a dangerous but clever movement which was 
rewarded with success. The small detachment 
of Alpine troops on the top of Hartmanns- 
weilerkojjf was thijs completely cut oE from 
its base, but for several days from their strongly 
entrenched position kept up a gallant fight 
against the much stronger force of the enemy. 
At last about 40 of the chasseurs, mounted on 
skis, determined to make a sortie and try to 
join the main body. The order was given to 
fix bayonets, and, headed by two officers, \\itli 
loud cries of " Vive la France," the little body 
of heroes ghssaded down over the frozen snow 
right, into the middle of the enemy. At the 
end of a few minutes of fierce hand to hand 
fighting not a single Frenchman was left alive. 
The rest of the company at the top of the hill 
fought on bravelv till two-thirds of tlieir number 
and all of their ammunition was gone, and then 
were finally' overcome. For the time being 
Hartmannsweilerkopf was lost to the Frs^neh, 
but they still held the almost impregnable 
mountain of Molkenrein, the chief peak of the 
di.strict, 3,375 feet high, close to it, and effec- 
tually barring the entrance to the middle and 
upper parts of the valley. 

From the end of Januarv onwards both sides 




CHASSEURS ALPINS NEGOTIATING A MOUNTAIN STREAM 



440 



THE TIMES HISTOHY OF THE WAR. 



tnade several attacks in various parts of Alsace 
without gaining any material advantage. 
Cernay, Miilhausen, and the Rhine-Rhone canal 
were the chief objectives of the French ; the 
most vigorous fighting was round Altkirch. 
between Aspach and Heidweiler, to the north 
(if the t >un, and in the forest of Hirzbach, just 
south of it. The affair at Aspach wa,s par- 
ticularlj' violent, and in the end the French, 
as the result of a brilliant bayonet charge, 
succeeded in establishing themselves well in 
front of their original position. Generally 
speaking, the fighting in the rest of Alsace up 
to the end of February consisted chiefly of a 
violent series of artillery duels, though even 
these were conducted with great difficulty 
owing to the flooded state of the country. Both 
sides were waiting for the spring to come, and 
there was little change in the relative position.s 
of the two armies. But the net result was in 
favour of the French. They held not only the 
crests of the Vosges, but the valleys running 
down through them to the plain of the Rhine, 
and at the lower ends of the valleys they 
continued to resist successfully the efforts of 
the Germans to force a way up them into 
France. South of the range they had estab- 



lished a strong line across the entrance to the 
Trouee of Belfort, and by advancing towards 
Miilhausen and Altkirch had practically shut 
them out from any hope they might have had 
of making a direct attack on the famous fortress. 
Before the coming of spring, therefore, it 
seemed likely that Belfort (which was further 
protected by many miles of newly constructed 
entrenchments) would remain, as in 1870, 
unsubdued and even unattacked. 

But that was the one solitary point in which 
there was any resemblance at all between the 
state of affairs in 1870 and at the beginning of 
1915. Everything else was diiferent, and the 
whole of the change was strongly in fav-our of 
France and her allies. The Germans had come 
once again, but they had not conquered. The 
France that they found this time was a united 
France, headed by a united Government, and 
defended by a united anny — an army purged 
of its incompetent officers, biu-ning with 
indignation at the wanton attack that had been 
made upon the freedom of France and of 
Europe, and unflinching in its resolve to fight 
and to go on fighting, no matter how great the 
cost, till all fears of another such attack were 
at an end. 










rffi ^ -li^ " 



x 



(C^^^ 



s> 



^ ,^^ 



•^^ 



/ 



>r '-^- 



4/ 



Frnncp a'^'hi) fires pric h-s 



Facsimile of official vise of the Mayor of Eadonviller, Monsieur Benoit, on 
the passport of the "Times" special correspondent in the East of France. 
Badonviller was three times occupied by the Germans, who took away all 
the official stamps of the town except the one pictured above, which is 
that of the " Tueries," a local slaughter-house. The wife of the N.'ayor 
(whose signature forms part of the iist) was shot by the Germans in the 

street before his eyts. 



CHAPTER LXII. 



THE BATTLE OF YPRES 
(FIRST PHASE). 



The Opening Moves of the Battle of Ypres — The French Advance to Roulers, and the 
British on Menin and Lille — Duke of Wurtemberg Heavily Reinforced — Victory of the 
Germans at Roulers — Arrival of Sir Douglas Haig and I. Corps — Situation on October 19 

The Field of Battle — Strong and Weak Points of the Ai.lied Position — Attempt of 

Sir Douglas Haig to Break the German Centre North of the Lys — The Allies Obliged to 
Fight a Defensive Battle — Le Gheir Lost — General Hunter-Weston Retakes it on the 

21st The Battle of October 22 ; Retirement of Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien to the Line 

Givenchy-Neuve Chapelle-Fauquissart ; Cavalry Corps Reinforced by Indian Infantry ; 
The 7th Infantry Division in Danger ; The Line of the I. Corps Broken near Pilkem — 
Battle of October 23 ; The British Drive Back the Germans and Save the Day — Arrival 
OF French 9th Coups. 



WHILE, as related in Chapter LIV., 
the Duke of Wurtemberg from 
October 16 to 23 was struggling m 
face of the Belgian Army and 
Ronarc'h's Marines to cross the Yser, a battle 
of the most desperate natiire was proceeding 
from Dixmude to Armentieres and trom 
Armentieres to La Bassee. It arose out of the 
efforts of the Allies to take the initiative against 
the Germans. 

The plan of campaign adopted by Joffre and 
French was to fight a defensive battle with the 
left wing of their armies on the Yser and to 
attack with their centre in front of Ypres and 
with their right south of the Lys On the 
17th, when the Germans were shelling the 
Belgians in the villages east of the Yser, 
the cavalry of De Mitry cleared the Forest of 
Houthulst of the Germans ; the 3rd British 
Cavalry Division extended its left to West- 
roosebeke and its right to Droogonbroodlioek. 
The next day (the 18th) Ronarc'h rcoccupied 
Eessen, the mounted African troops threatened 
Bovekerke and the woods of Couckelaerc, 
Vol. III.— Part 38 



De Mitry's cavalry entered Cortemarck and 
Roulers, the 7th British Infantry Division 
marched on Menin, and our Cavalry Corps 
pressed down the north bank of the Lys to 
assist in captm-ing the bridge-heads over the 
river. 

The III. Corps, north of the Lys, on the 17th 
had occupied Le Gheir at the eastern edge of 
the Bois de I'loogsteert opposite Pont Rouge, 
and its centre and right wing extended over 
the Lys towards Radinghem on the ridge be- 
tween the Lys and the La Bassee-Lille Canal.* 
Though the enemy had been heavily rein- 
forced, on the 18th Pulteney captured Rading- 
hem, Ennetieres. Capinghem, at which last- 
mentioned village the British troops were 
between Forts Englos and Carnot, the two 
works guarding Lille from an attack on flio 
west. The left of the III. Corps was astride 
the Lys, 400 yards south of Frelinghien, 
its right in touch with Conncau's Cavalry 
Corps. Beyond Conneau's Cavalry the II. 

* The Corps of the Britisii Expeditionary Force ai*o 
numbered in Roman figures. 



441 



442 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




ON GUARD. 

A British sentry on the walls of a ruined 
chateau. 



Corps had on the 1 7th taken Aubers on 
the ridge and Herlies to its south, and the 
next day it gallantly repulsed several severe 
counter-attacks. If the ridge could be held, 
the Germans might be driven from Lille 
and La Ba*!s6e. 

So far the only misadventure in the battle had 
been the repulse of the 7th Infantry Division, 
which had been unable to take Menin. Mr. 
Underwood, an interpreter to the Staff of the 
21st Infantry Brigade, describes some of the 
fighting of that Division on the 18th. The 
21st Brigade before dawn had marched to 
Becelaere and moved on Terhand : 

The troops marched out of Gheluvelt at 4.30 a.m., 
and arrived at Becelaere 7.30 a.m. The 22nd R.F.A. 
opened fire on our left, and the battle began. This was 
the baptism of fire for most of our brigade, and they 
stuck it well. At 8.30 a.m. the whole line advanced to 
Terhand. At 11 a.m. our first casualties were reported : 
1 officer killed and 2 wounded in the Bedfordshires, and 
20 men wounded. We took up our quarters at five 
o'clock in a farmhouse 200 yards in rear of Terhand wind- 
mill. A battery of our gims was posted there, and 
opened fire on the enemy. The farmer, his wife, two 
daughters, and one son, with two refugee women and 
three children from Ghent, were also there. The battery 
had hardly opened fire when the enemy replied, -and 
soon the shells were whirring right over the farmhouse, 
much to the discomfiture of the inmates. By six o'clock 
our guns had silenced the enemy's batteries, and we were 
once more at peace ; but the shells had done a good deal 
of damage to Terhand village. We did not undress that 
night, as we expected a night attack. This, however 
did not mature. 

The explanation of the Allied offensive 
north of the Lys is a simple one. For their 
operations against the AlUed line north of 
the Lys the Gtermans were bound to keep 
hold of the Menin-Roulers-Thourout-Ostend 
highway, because from it proceeded west- 
wards all the roads by which they could 
approach the Allied line between Ypres and he 
sea. Moreover, a little to the east of it ran the 
Lille-Menin-Thourout-Ostend railway, joined 
at Roulers, Lichtervelde, and Thourout by 
lines connecting with Liege and thence with 
the strategic railways of Germany. Joffre's 
object was to cut the Menin-Ostend road and 
railroad. 

On the morning of the 19th, though Menin 
had not been taken by the 7th Infantry 
Division, Roulers was in the possession of .the 
French, and French cavalry was menacing from 
Cortemarck both Lichtervelde and Thourout, 
and the African horsemen near Couckelaere 
were advancing north-east of the latter town. 
Other troops were coming up ; the I. Corps 
(Sir Douglas Haig's) was detraining between 
St. Omer and Hazebrouck, and marching on 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



443 



Ypres ; the Lahore Division of the Indian 
Army was assembling behind the IT. Corps. 
The British monitors and destroyers, com- 
manded by Rear-Admiral Hood, had made 
their unexpected appearance off the coast, 
and were protecting the left wing of the 
Belgians along the Yser. 

On their side the Germans had been heavily 
reinforced. For example, three Reserve Corps 
(Nos. 26, 27, and 28) had reached Courtrai 
from Germany. Each company in them was 
composed of 100 Volunteers — some of whom 
had had about six or seven weeks' training — 
100 Reservists (Landwehr Reserve), aged 
from thirty-one to thirty-six, and 40 Landwehr- 
Ersatz Reserve between thirtj'-six and thirty- 
nine years of> age. The officers and equipment 
(many soldiers had obsolete rifles) might be of 
inferior quality but the men were full of enthu- 
siasm. An inhabitant of Courtrai, on whom 
three officers — respectively an evangelical 
clergyman, a doctor of classical philology, 
and a commercial traveller — were quartered, 
relates that, in answer to his question whether 
they " expected to meet the British," one of 
his " guests," who two days later was woiuided, 
replied : " Oh, yes, we've come to see them run ; 
that's all their long legs are good for. We shall 
be in Calais before the end of the week." On 
the 19th (Monday), as the men were about to 
march to the field of battle, their officers 
announced to them an encouraging piece of 
news: "Boys," they said, "you'll be glad to 
hear that Paris fell into our h-ands last night." 
The soldiers, some of whom danced for joy, 
sang the " Waeht ani Rhein," and a song 
specially composed for the entry of the Germans 
into Paris. One of them, who had been already 
in the fighting line, however, observed : " Un- 
fortunately, this is the fourth time we have 
had the fall of Paris announced to us ! '' The 
soldiers were given half-an-hour's leave to 
drink to the triumph of the Fatherland, and 
under the influence of stimulants such sceptical 
utterances fell on unappreciative ears. 

Reinforced on their centre and wings the 
Germans on the 1 9th took the offensive. Issuing 
from Ostend and exposing themselves to the 
fire of the British flotilla, they assaulted 
Lombartzyde, the Belgian advanced post in 
front of Nieuport. Their attacks were repulsed 
with heavy losses. On the right bank of the 
Yser between Nieuport and Dixmude they fell 
upon the Belgians in Keyem and Beerst. 
Keyem held out, but Beerst was taken and 




THE PERISCOPE. 
Seein}* without bein^ seen. 



444 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



then recaptured by the French Marines and 
part of the Belgian 5th Division from Dixniud(\ 
Eventually the Allies were compelled to retire 
from this point and also from Keyem, as the 
Germans had captured Roulers, and thus were 
able to threaten the right flank of the 
Allied Arn"iy on the Yser. They had forced 
bac^k the French cavalry demonstratmg 
t(n\ai-{ls the Rouler.s-Thourout-Ostend road, 
and they had advanced along the high road 
wliich branches off from it three miles north of 
RouJers to Hooglede. On the hill of Hooglede, 
German artillery had been posted, and, covered 
by it, the German infantry descended to attack 
Roulers. 
From the Bruges-Coirrtrai road other colmnns 



Menin and establish himself on the Roulers- 
Menin road. To cover the advance of the 7th 
Infantry Division on Menin, Bj-ng's Cavalry 
Division (the 3rd), placed on its left, had 
pushed eastwards from the line Westroose- 
beke-Moorslede. By 10 a.m. the 7th Ca\alry 




of the Germans had marched on that town, 
which was shelled from Ardoye and from 
Iseghem. By nightfall Roulers was once 
more held by the enemy and its defenders had 
withdrawn to Oostnieuwkerke. The African 
Cavalry on the extreme left were even brovight 
back behind the Ypres-Yser canal. 

While the battle of Roulers was proceeding, 
another attempt was being made by Sir Henry 
Rawlinson with the IV. Corps to capture 



BELGIAN REFUGEES LEAVE THEIR 
COUNTRY. 

Top picture : Crowds at Ghent outside the Town 
Hall waiting to obtain passports to permit them 
to travel to England. Centre: Arrival of refugees 
at the Gare du Nord, Paris. Bottom picture : 
Waiting on the Quayside at Ostend. 

Brigade was in touch \\-ith considerable bodies 
of the enemy and had to fall back. North 
of Moorslede " K " Battery of the Royal 
Horse Artillerj^, which had been attached 
to the brigade, came into action and afforded 
it great assistance. From Moorslede and 
Droogenbroodhoek the 6th Brigade, aided by 
" C " Battery and jjrotected by the 7th Brigade, 
liad pushed ahead to St. Pieter and thence 
had crossed the Roulers-Menin road, and after 
a brisk action occupied Ledeghem on the 
Roulers-Menin railroad and RoUeghemcappelle. 
In the meantime the 7th Infantry Brigade 
from the edge of the belt of woods which to 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



445 







■'^..- 







•^3 .1 ^i 



-..rfl'i^-iL- .2P^i>,*< .si'5^1^^- V, 



THE BELGIANS IN THE TRENCHES. 
The famous 7th Regiment of the Line. 



the south and east of Ypres stretches from the 
end of the Mont-des-Cats ridge to Zonnebeke 
had been heavily engaged with the enemy, 
who at Menin and Wervicq had crossed to the 
north bank of the Lys. The Division made 
some Uttle progress, and, with the 6th Cavalry 
Brigade in Ledeghem and Rolleghemcappelle, 
there was a prospect that Menin and Wervicq 
might be taken. 

But the German victory at Roulers, com- 
bined with the movement of the enemy from 
Courtrai on Ledeghem, obliged Sir Henry 
Rawlinson to suspend the advance of Capper's 
Division. The 7th Cavalry Brigade had 
ha<l to be withdrawn to the high ground east 
of Moorslede, on whicli village the 6th Cavalry 
Brigade, ptirsued by considerable forces from 
Courtrai, was being gradually brought back 
from Ledeghem and Rolleghemcappelle. 
Covered by the 7th Cavalry Brigade, it retired 
through Moorslede, and at nightfall it was 
in billets in and round Poelcappelle, south of 
the Forest of Houtluilst, on the Hooglede- 
Westroosebeke - Ypres highway. The 7th 
Cavalry Brigade, mider a heavy shell fire, 
effected its retreat to Zonnebeke, south of 
Poelcappelle on the Roulers-Ypres railroad, 
and French cavalry occupied Passchendaele 
between Zonnebeke and Westroosebeke. The 
7th Infantry Brigade by sunset was in its old 
position from Zandvoorde through Kruiseik to 
Gheluvelt, and to the north of that village ; 
its left was prolonged by the 7th Cavalry 
Brigade, and, beyond Zonnebeke, by the 
French as far as Westroosebeke. 

Thus the Germans on the 19th had recovered 
most of the Roulers-Dixmudo road and all 
the Menin-Roulers-Thourout-Ostend road and 
I'ailroad; they were threatening the route from 



Westroosebeke to Wervicq. The northern 
end of it round Westroosebeke was held by 
the French, but lower down towards Wervicq, 
which was in the hands of the Germans, parties 
of the enemy had crossed to the western side 
of the road. 

It was under such critical circumstances 
that Sir John French on the night of the 19th 
met Sir Douglas Haig. As, after Sir John, 
Sir Douglas was perhaps the most important 
British officer who took part in the battle of 
Ypres, it may not here be out of place to 
supply the reader with a brief biography of 
the soldier whose name will always bo asso- 
ciated with that of the I. Corps. 

Three years the junior of Sir Horace Smith- 
Dorrien — the other of Sir John- French's 
principal lieutenants at the battles of Mons, 
Le Cateau, the Marne, the Aisne and Ypres — 
Sir Douglas Haig was born on June 29, 1861. 
He was the youngest son of John Haig, J.P., of 
Cameronbridge, Fife. He was educated at 
Clifton College and at Brasenose College, 
Oxford. In 1885 he was gazetted to the 
7th Hussars, and was Adjutant of that regiment 
from 1888 to 1892, and obtained his captaincy 
in 1891. During this time he showed that he 
was not only a studious soldier but a dashing 
polo player. From April 28, 1894, to March 31. 
1895, ho was A.D.C. to the Inspector-General 
of Cavalry, and then passed tlirough tJio Staff 
College. 

His first active service was with Lord 
Kitchener in the River War of 1898. Ho waa 
present at the battles of the Atbara and 
Omdurinan, and was mentioned in dispatches. 
At the outbreak of the South African War 
Major Haig was sent to Natal, and served 
luider Sir John French at the actions of Filands- 

38—2 



446 



THE TIMES HISTOriY OF THE WAR. 



laagte, Rietfontein and Lombard's Kop. He 
was on the Staff of Sir John French during the 
operations round Colesbcrg at the beginning 
of 1900, and accompanied him on his cele- 
brated ride to Kimberley. Later he took part 
hi the battles of Paardeberg, Poplar Grove, 
Dreifontein. He was present at the actions 
of Karee Siding, Vet River and Zand River, at 
the takings of Johannesburg and Pretoria, at 
the battle of Diamond Hill, and in the advance 
to Middslbxorg and Komati Poort. When 
I^itzinger invaded Cape Colony in December, 
1900, Lord Kitchener gave Haig the command 
of four columns sent in pursuit of the Boer 
leader. Haig next joined in the abortive 
efforts to capture De Wet, who had followed 
Kritzinger and Hertzog into the Colony. When 
De Wet and Hertzog returned to the Orange 




PAY-DAY ON THE BATTLEFIELD. 

German Infantry being paid in notes. 

Free State, Haig was stationed in the southern 
district, from which he was again transferred — 
in April, 1901 — to Cape Colony. During 
May he was hunting Kritzmger. On July 16, 
1901, he became Lieutenant-Colonel of the 
17th Lancers. During the remainder of 
the war he assisted French in clearing Cape 
Colony. 

Haig left South Africa with a greatly enhanced 
reputation, and, now a Colonel, he was appointed 
by Lord Kitchener Inspector-General of Cavalry 
in India (1903-6). Promoted a Major-General 
in 1904, he returned to England in 1906 to 
take up the post of Director of Military Training 
at the War Office. In 1907 he became Director 
of Staff Duties, and in 1909 Chief of the Staff 
in India. Three years later he was given the 



eonunand of the Aldershot District, which 
formed practically the I. Army Corps. 

In August, 1914, Haig, a Lieutenant-Ccneral, 
proceeded to France at the head of the 1. 
Corps. He brilliantly commanded the right 
wing at the battle of INIons and during the 
subsequent retreat, and at the battles of the 
Marne and Aisne highly distinguished himself. 

To what point in the battlefield was the 
I. Corps to be directed ? 

The bold offensive taken by French and 
General d'Urbal had failed. The Germans at 
Keyem and Beerst were on the banks of the 
Yser. Its waters are carried from Dixmuda 
to Nieuport in a channel raised some twenty- 
five feet or so above the fields to the west, 
easy for the Germans to hold if they were in 
possession of it and difficult for the Allies to 
retake. To the west of the banks of the canal 
there were only the low enabanlanent of the 
Dixmude-Nieuport railway and a number 
of dykes and ditches to impede the enemy's 
advance to Furnes. If this point were gained, 
Nieuport and Dixmude would become un- 
tenable, and the left of the Allies romid 
Y^'pres could ba attacked by the Germans in 
flank. 

Between Dixmude and Ypros the position was 
also precarious. Part of the Dixmude-Roulers 
road had been lost, and, south of it, the Forest 
of Houthulst was being reoccupied by the 
enemy. 

From Dixmude to Bixschoote the Allied 
line ran along the Yser Canal to the old and 
dismantled Fort de Ivnocke, then along the 
Y^perlee Canal towards Y^pres. At Bixschoote 
the Allied line st"uck east and roughly 
formed two sides of a triangle, the apex of 
which was Westroosebeke, eight miles or so 
north-east of Ypres. The base of the triangle 
might be said to be formed by the Yperlee 
Canal, by the city of Ypres, and by the Y^pres- 
Comines Canal as far as Houthem. A glance 
at the map on pages 460-1 will sho^vthe reader 
that an enemy debouching from the Forest 
of Houthulst could attack the Bixschoote - 
Langemarck-Poelcappelle-Westroosebeke side of 
this triangle, which was about 7 miles in length. 

The third side of the triangle was ten miles 
long. The Allies, as related, held the main 
road from Westroosebeke through Passchen- 
daele to the neighbourhood ox Zonnebeke. 
From Zonnebeke their lins stretched roimd 
the woods to Gheluvelt on the Menhi- Ypres 
road ; thence it proceeded over the fields 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



447 



to Ivruiseik ; from which point it bent west- 
wards to Zandvoorde, and from Zandvoorde it 
descended to Houthem on the Comines-Ypres 
Canah Behind the Hne Zonnebeke -Houthem 
the country, which is of a roIUng nature, was 
in parts thickly wooded. North of Zonnebeke 
the space in the triangle was fairly open, though 
near the apex there were clumps of trees. 
East of the line Zonnebeke-Westroosebeke, 
towards Roulers, there were more woods. 

Keeping in mind the distance to which 
modern guns can throw shells, it is obvious 
that if the Germans arranged their artillery 
in a crescent from the north of Langemarck 
round Westroosebeke to the east of Zonnebeke, 
the position of the Allies in the area Zonnebeke- 
Westroosebeke-Langemarck would become very 
perilous. The distance between Zonnebeke 
and Langemarck, which villages are connected 
by a cross-road, is only four miles, and towards 
the apex of the triangle, between Poelcappelle 
and Passchendaele, the trenches of the defenders 
facing north and east respectively, would be 
scarcely three miles apart. 

Thus on the north and the north-east the posi- 
tion of the Allies was a bad one, but on the east 
the belt of woods which extends south of Zonne- 
beke to Gheluvelt and thence to HoUebeke on 
the canal and thereafter to the eastern spurs 
of the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats, opposed a 
substantial barrier to an enemy moving on 
Ypres from the north bank of the Lys between 
Courtrai and Warneton. Llost of the trees, 
on the 19th October, were still intact and 
standing. In the tops of some of them sharp- 
shooters or even machine guns could be en- 
sconced, and the branches here and there to 
some extent protected the troops from shrapnel. 
The trunks of the trees stopped or diminished 



tlie velocity of rifle bullets and the foliage 
screened men and guns from hostile air-craft. 

On the eastern side of the Comines-Ypres 
Canal the main approaches to Ypres through 
the woods which, be it noted, were not con- 
tinuous, were — -beginning from the canal — the 
road from Wervicq on the Lys by Zandvoorde- 
Klein Zillebeke, and Zillebeke, that from Men in 
through Gheluvelt and Hooge, and one from 
Courtrai through Ledeghem-Dadizeele-Terhantl- 
Becelaere to Gheluvelt and thence to Hoogi', 
From the north the woods could be turned by 
the road from Roulers by Moorslede and Zoiuie- 
beke to Ypres. 

In making their calculations. Sir John Frencli 
and Sir Douglas Haig had to take into accoimt 
that the Germans, who held all the crossings 
of the Lys from Frelinghien, three miles north- 
east of Armentieres, to Comines, as well as 
those from Comines to Ghent, might attack 
Ypres from the south. 

The gap between Zandvoorde through the 
woods to the eleven-mile-long ridge — in places 
two miles wide and some hundreds of feet higli 
— of the Mont-des-Cats, which from Gode- 
waersvelde to Wytschaete and Messines crosses 
the plain and divides the Poperinghe-Ypres 
road from the Lys, was filled by the two 
Divisions of the British Cavalry Corps. These 
troops, the number of which could not much 
have exceeded 4,000 horses, were now being 
used principally as infantry. Crossing the Lj-s 
at Warneton and at Comines the Germans 
could advance on Ypres either through HoUe 
beke or by the main road which leads from 
Warneton to St. Eloi. The country south of 
the line Messines-HoUebeke was sparsely 
wooded. A cross road connected St. Eloi with 
Vlamertinghe between Poperinghe and Ypres, 




AN OLD METHOD REVIVED. 
British troops throwing hand-grenades from the trenches. 



448 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




and if St. Eloi, two miles south of Ypres, were 
captured, not only could that city, which lies 
in a hollow, be assaulted, but all the com- 
munications of the Allies through Ypres south 
of the Ypres-Poperinghe high road might be 
cut and the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats attacked 
from the north. 

The ridge was of cardinal unportance to the 
Allies. If it were occupied, Ypres, Vlamer- 
tinghe and Poperinghe must be abandoned, 
and the line of the Ypres-Dixmude-Nieuport 
Canal could not be maintained. From the ridge 
of the Mont-des-Cats the German artillery 
would sweep the plain on both sides, and, 
descending from the ridge, the German 
infantry would be 'at Godewaersvelde on the 
Hazebrouck-Poperinghe-Ypres railroad and at 
Bailleul on the Hazebrouck-Armentieres rail- 
way. These two lines were, with the Dunkirk- 
Furnes-Dixmude railroad, the sole railways 
going eastward from the line Dunkirk-Haze- 
brouck-Merville. The ridge of the Mont-des- 



BELGIAN PRISONERS DIGGING 

TRENCHES, GUARDED BY 

GERMAN SOLDIERS. 

Inset : German observation post on top of a 
haystack. 

Cats was thus the key to the Allied position 
north of the Lys. 

At its eastern end, as already mentioned, 
nestled on high ground the village of Wyt- 
schaete and, south of it, the village of 
Messines. Below Messines and flowing from the 
west along the base of the ridge of the INIont- 
des-Cats was the little river Douve. Beyond 
it rose Hill 63, a knoll on a low ridge wliich 
separated the Douve from the Lys. On the 
other side of this ridge and divided by th& 
Ypres - St. Eloi - Wytschaete - Messines - Ploeg - 
steert-Armentieres chaussee was the Ploeg - 
steert wood, called by the British troop:* 
" Plug Street," a straggling patch of woodland 
some 3,000 yards long by 1,500 wide. Tlie 
ground under the trees was a treacherous bog, 
the roads scarcely passable on account of mud. 

The right flank of the Cavalry Corps rested 
on tlie north-eastern end of the wood, a detach- 
ment holding the hamlet of St. Yves. Along 
the eastern and the south-eastern edges of the 
Bois de Ploegsteert were entrenched units of 
the left wing of the III. Corps. Le Gheir, 
which is at the south-eastern corner of the 
wood, was occupied by the British. Tlie 
remainder of the III. Corps north of the Lys 
was disposed between Le Gheir and the bank 
of the ri\er 400 yards south of Frelingliien- 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



449 




BELGIAN ARMY IN THE FIELD. 

After a fortnight's fighting the Belgians 

have been relieved and are 

going back for a rest. 

Inset : A message by telephone. 

From the western outskirts of Frelinghien 
the front of the III. Corps cxirved round 
Armentieres to Radinghem, a village on the 
long, low ridge which divides the flat and 
usually waterlogged plain south of the Lys 
from the La Bassee-Lille Canal. On it are 
the villages of Radinghem, Fromelles, Aubers, 
Violaines, Givenchy. The ridge is south of 
Givenchy traversed by the La Bassee-Lille 
Canal at Cuinchy. It extends beyond Cuinchy 
to Vermelles. 

Conneau's Cavalry Corps and, to its west, 
the II. Corps, were disposed between Radinghem 
and Givenchy. The II. Corps had captured 
Givenchy, Violaines, Aubers, and HerUes, and 
Major Daniell with the Royal Irish Regiment 
had just stormed the village of Le Pilly. 

South of the La Bassee-Lille Canal the right 
wing of the II. Corps joined on to the left 
wing of General de Maud'huy's Army. 

The German forces operating against this 
fifty or so miles long line of the Allies between the 
sea and La Bassee were in greatly superior 
numbers. The II. Corps and Conneau's Cavalry 
Corps had been originally opposed by a part 
of the 14th German Corps, four Cavalry 
Divisions and several battalions of Jaegers, but 



from the 19th to the 31st the enemy here were 
reinforced by the remainder of the 14th Corps, 
by a Division of the 7th Corps, and by a 
brigade of the 3rd Corps. The British III. 
Corps, which was astride the Lys, holding a 
line from thirteen to fifteen miles long, was also 
outnumbered and outgunned. On the 18th 
Sir John French had directed its corrunander. 
General Pulteney, to drive the enemy eastward 
towards Lille and then to assist the Cavalr\' 
Corps to cross the Lys east of Frelinghien. 
Confronted by the 19th Saxon Corps, at least 
one Division of the 7th Corps, and three or four 
Divisions of Cavalry, and the German troop?- 
being constantly reinforced from Lille, the 
Cavalry Corps and III. Corps foimd themselves 
unable to accomplish the task set them. The 
road from Lille to Frelinghien remained in 
the German possession, as also the high road 
which from Lille passes Fort Carnot and crosses 
the Lys at Pont Rouge and by Warneton and 
Wervicq goes to Menin. Behind that road in 



450 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



the section south of the Lys flowed the canalised 
river Deule to Deulemont, where it entered 
the Lys. Protected on his left flank by the 
Deule and by Forts Carnot and Englos, the 
Crown Prince of Bavaria could throw his 
troops across the Lys to attack Le Gheir, the 
wood of Ploegsteert, Messines, Wytschaete, 
St. Eloi, Hollebeke, Zandvoorde. Gheluvelt, 
and Zonnebeke. 

The left wing of the Allies — in a straight 
line over 120 miles long — was now perpendicular 
to the centre from Compiegne to Verdun, 
which centre — about the same length — \\as 
nearly perpendicular to a front of similar 
dimensions from Verdun to Belfort. \^'^ith 
the railroads and motor traction at their dis- 
posal the German leaders could shift their 
troops across the 125 miles separating Lille 
from Verdun more quickly than Joffre could 
transfer his from the neighbourhood of Lille 
to the great fortified camp which barred the 
advance of German Armies from Metz on 
Paris. 

For the moment, then. Sir John French 
and Sir Douglas Haig could not count on any 
immediate assistance from the French. Between 
the slag heaps near La Bassee and the seventv 



feet or so wide Lys, running through a shallow 
depression in the plain, they could oppose to 
the Germans only the II. Corps, Conneaus 
Cavalry Corps, and a part of the III. Corps ; 
from the Lys northwards to the Bois de 
Ploegsteert the remainder of the III. Corps, 
thence to Zandvoorde the Cavalry Corps ; 
from Zandvoorde to Gheluvelt on the Ypres- 
Menin road, and from Gheluvelt to Zonnebeke, 
the 7th Infantry Division, with the 7th Cavalry 
Brigade round Zonnebeke. Between Zonne- 
beke and Westroosebeke and south-west- 
ward to Poelcappelle detachments of General 
d'Urbal's Armj% which then consisted of no 
more than two Territorial Divisions and four 
Cavalry Divisions, with the British 6th 
Cavalry Brigade, presented a thin line to 
the Germans on the north and north-east 
of Ypres. From Poelcappelle to Bixschoote 
some French Cavalry and Territorials, whose 
left extended to the junction of the Yperlee 
Canal with the Yser, and, along the Yser to 
Dixmude, mounted African troops and part 
of the Fifth Belgian Division had to defend a 
line of fifteen miles. Roixnd and in Dixmude, 
which could be attacked from three sides, 
were, indeed, the rest of this Division and the 




THE BRITISH HEADQUARTERS STAFF. 
Sir John French and his Staflf passing through a French village near the Belgian frontier. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



451 




A BRITISH SCOUT. 
On the look-out from the loft of a wrecked farmhouse. 



6,000 Marines of Ronarc'h. But only the 
4th and 1st Belgian Divisions held the Yser 
Canal to the region of Nieuport. The 2nd 
Belgian Division, assisted by a detachment 
of British sailors from the monitor Severn, 
under Lieut. E. S. Wise, with some machine 
guns, was posted in and to the east of Nieu- 
port. It was flanked by the British flotilla 
moving along the coast from Nieuport Bains 
to Ostend. 

With the exception of the Lahore Division, 
which liad never before faced European 
troops, and the I. Corps, there were practically 
no reserves behind the fifty mile or so long line 
of battle. The Belgian troops were exhausted 
by over two months' fighting ; they were 
dispirited by the loss of Liege, Brussels, Namur, 
Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, and Ostend. The 
handful of French Marines were mostly raw 
troops, and the remainder of the Allied Army 
was becoming stale from constant marching 
and entrenching and battling against larger 
numbers and predominating artillery. 

To quote his own words. Sir John French 
' ' knew that the enemy were by this time in 
greatly superior strength on the Lys, and that 
the II., III., Cavalry, and IV. Corps were 
holding a much wider front than their numbers 
and strength warranted, and ... it would 
have appeared wise to throw the I. Corps 
in to strengthen the line." But ho had already 
decided to move Sir Douglas Haig's Corps to 



the north of Ypres in order to relieve the 
German pressure on the Yser. The I. Corps 
was to advance through Ypres on Thourout 
and through Thourout on Bruges, At Thourout 
and Bruges it would be athwart the com- 
munications of the Duke of Wvu-temberg's 
Army, wliich, if Bruges were occupied, would 
have to evacuate the coast line from Ostend 
to the Dutch frontier. Then, if it were feasible, 
Sir Douglas was to drive the Germans towards 
Ghent. 

This bold and, as it turned out, unrealizable 
project was based primarily on the considera- 
tion that Sir Douglas, " would probably not 
be opposed north of Ypres by much more than 
the 3rd Reserve Corps," which had suffered 
considerably, and by " one or two Land\\'ehr 
Divisions." The leading idea was to move 
the extreme left of the Allied Armies to the 
north bank of the Lys from Frelinghien to 
Ghent. 

De Mitry's Cavalry was to operate on the left 
wing of the I. Corps. Byng's Cavalrj- was to 
be on Haig's right. The 7th Infantry Division 
would, according to circmnstances, either 
remain on the defensive round the woods to 
the east of Ypres or support the advance to 
the north. 

The Cavalry Corps from Zandvoordo to the 
wood of Ploegsteert, and the III. Corps from 
Le Gheir across the Lys to the Radinghom- 
Givenchy ridge. Conneau's Cavalry Corps, 



452 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 




THE BRITISH TROOPS IN FARMHOUSES. 
An old deserted farmhouse near the British trenches, which has been converted into billets for the 
troops, who are here seen entering the loft. On the right : A sergeants' mess in a ruined farmhouse. 

The remnants of the wall are strengthened with sandbags. 



I 



and the II. Corps (Smith-Dorrien's) were 
ordered to reniain on the defensive. 

" I fully realized," says Sir John French, 
" the difficult task which lay before us, and tho 
onerous role which the British Army was called 
upon to fulfil. . . . No more arduous task 
has ever been assigned to British soldiers ; 
and in all their splendid history there is no 
instance of their having answered so mag- 
nificently to the desperate calls which of 
necessity were made upon them." 

Sir John French relied on the qualities of 
the British troops ; he also reckoned that 
if Sir Douglas Haig wedged his Corps between 



the Armies of the Duke of Wurtemberg and 
the Crown Prince of Bavaria, he would be 
rapidly reinforced by French troops. Later, 
it may be mentioned, Foch transported by 
automobile some 70,000 men to the region of 
Ypres. 

Sir Douglas Haig was unable to carry out 
Sir Jolm's instructions. The news that the 
British Expeditionary Force with General 
d'Urbal's skeleton Army was trying to wrest 
from him his newly acquired coast line had the 
same effect on the Kaiser that Sir Joiin Moore's 
march on Burgos had had on Napoleon in 1808. 
The " little armv," which he could no longer 




THE BRITISH ARMY'S LIFE-LINE. 
Engineers laying a cable-line. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



463 




THE GERMANS IN BELGIUM. 

Repairing a fracture in a cable. On the right is seen a German soldier in his " hotel." 



regard as " contemptible," might be annihi- 
lated, and, counting on the psychological 
disturbance in the British Isles and outside 
Europe which would be caused by a decisive 
victory over the British Army, the Kaiser and 
FalkenhajTi unhesitatingly decided to throw 
north of the Lys every man and gun they 
could possibly spare. The result was that a 
British offensive on Thourout, Bruges, and 
Ghent became impossible. 

The next day (October 20) the left wing of 
the I. Corps reached Elverdinghe (south of 
the Zuydschoote-Bixschoote bridge over the 
Yperlee Canal, and on the road from Ypres to 
Furnes) ; the centre traversed Ypres ; and the 



right wing stretched beyond Zonnebeke to 
the Westroosebeke-Wervicq road. From Elver- 
dinghe troops could be rapidly transported 
either to the Noordschote bridge over the 
Yperlee Canal or to the support of the Belgians 
and French Marines at Dixmude. 

An anonymous officer of the I. Corps in 
Blackwood's Magazine for March, 1915, has 
described the march of his regiment to Ypres 
on October 20. "At about 10.30," he says, 
" we crossed the Belgian frontier for the second 
time. . . . One could not help noticing as one 
went along how much more like England this 
part of the country was than any we had passed 
through as yet. Except for the large number 




BRITISH HEAVY GUNS. 
A 6-in. gun being got into position. These guns have done good work ia 

Belgium. 



38-3 



454 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




of windmills scattered all over the country on 
every little knoll, one might have been at 
home." At 12.30 the regiment to which this 
officer was attached reached the city, where it 
remained till 4.55 a.m. on the 21st. Ypres was 
full of French troops. A French gminer, who 
during dinner visited some of the officers, 
appeared to thinlc that " the whole of the 
German Army " was in front of the Allies. 

This was, of course, an exaggeration, but 
that the Germans were in superior numbers 
hiad been proved by the day's events. Before 
the I. Corps could reach the fighting line the 
Duke of Wurtemberg struck his hardest. Dis- 
regarding the shells of the British flotilla, 
on the 20th he pressed his attack along the 
coast. In the morning the farm of Bam- 
berg was taken by the enemy ; it was re- 
captured by the Belgians, but at nightfall had 
to be abandoned. All the villages held by the 
Belgians to the east of the Yser \\cre in the 
hands of the Germans, who were now pre- 
parmg to cross the canal. Heavy howitzers 



THE FRENCH ARMY IN BELGIUM. 

Senegalese troops in the streets of Furnes. 

Inset : German prisoners at Furnes. 

had been brought up to shell Dixmude, and 
Rear-Admiral Ronarc'h's Marines and General 
]\Teyser's Belgian Brigade with difficulty re- 
sisted several desperate assaults on the town. 
South of Dixmude the enemy firmly estab- 
lished himself in the Forest of Houthulst, and 
was preparing to cross the Yperlee Canal. 

In the triangle Bixschoote-Westroosebeke- 
Houthem there had been severe fighting. 
BjTig's Cavalry Dixasion had taken up a 
defensive position supporting the French 
between Westroosebeke and Passchendaele. 
Desultory firing commenced about 8 a.m. and 
was succeeded by an artillery duel until noon. 
The Germans then attacked the French and 
drove them south and west of the \\'estroose- 
beke-Wervicq high road. A portion fell back 
down the Westroosebeke-Ypres road to Poel- 
cappelle, at which village the main road from 
Dixmude through the Forest of Houthulst 
ends. Later in the afternoon these troops, 
■«ho were heavily shelled in Poelcappelle, were 
withdrawn still farther. Their retreat involved 
that of Byng's Cavalry Division, the left of 
^\hich was swung back to the Langemarck- 
Zonnebeke road. 

Thus the eastern end of the triangle Bix- 
schoote-Westroosebeke-Houthem had been lost. 
On the side of the triangle Westroosebeke- 
Houthem the enemy, besides driving the Allies 
off most of the Westroosebeke-Wervicq road 
up to the environs of Zonnebeke, had repulsed 
the advance of the 21st Brigade (General 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



455 



Watts) from Gheluvelt through and beyond 
Becelaere. At 12.30 p.m. the General, with 
Captain Drysdale and Mr. Underwood, pro- 
ceeded through Becelaere. " As we got up to 
the firing line the shells started raining over the 
ridge where the Scots Fusiliers, the Wiltshires 
and the Bedfords were advancing." So hot 
was the fire that the machine gun section 
was called in and the General, who had been 
nearly killed by a shell, sought a less-exposed 
position. " As we rounded the church, shells 
were raining down into the village, and one 
carried away the arm of a Wiltshire who was 
standing where we had stood only two minutes 
before." The engagement continued till 
7.30 p.m. "In the distance we could see 
Becelaere in flames, the church steeple standing 
out against the red glare." 

While the 7th Infantry Division on the edge 
of the woods between Zonnebeke tlirough 
Gheluvelt to Zandvoorde was resisting the 
Germans who had poured out of Courtrai, 
Menin and Wervicq, the Cavalry Corps down 
both sides of the Comines-Ypres Canal and 
away to the right had been making another 
effort to secure the line of the Lys from Wervicq 
to Pont Rouge, which is opposite Le Gheir. 
But the attempt had failed, and the 1st Cavalry 
Division had to retire to the line St. Yves- 
Messines, the 2nd Cavalry Division to that of 
Messines - Garde Dieu - Houthein - Kortewilde. 
By nightfall a body of the enemy faced the 
south-eastern spur of the ridge of the Mont- 
des-Cats and other bodies were advancing up 
the roads from Warneton towards St. Eloi and 
from Comines towards HoUebeke. 

We have been used as infantry [writes an oflicer of the 
4th Dragoon Guards,, present at this fighting] and armed 
■with rifles, bayonets and spades. The spades are very 
necessary, as it is impossible to hold a position for any 
length of time without digging oneself in. On the 20th 
iny squadron was in reserve in a big forest, and orders 
oame about 10 a.m. to support our infantry advanced 
line. We left our horses and went on two miles, where 
I halted the squadron under cover and walked on to 
I'sconnoitre. 

Captain Hornby had gone on just ahead of me with his 
squadron, and I found him with some of his men lying 
down behind a hedgerow. A company of Inniskilling 
Fusiliers were 100 yards on in front lying in the open 
and firing on the enemy about 400 yards in front and 
slowly crawling on. Our guns were firing hard from 
behind the wood, but shells started dropping short right 
into the Inniskillings. After sticking it for a bit they 
got \ip to come back, and the Gennans opened on them 
with two maxims. They lost some men and came back 
behind our lines. By then 1 had some of my squadron 
up. 

Captain Hornby was badly hit ; his subaltern Sharp 
got four maxim bullets in the arm, and some of their 
men wore killed and wounded. I'oor Charles Hornby 
fell right in the open, and we had to get him back to 



cover as best we could. We stuck to our hedge, and 
advanced again to almost where the InnLskillings had 
been, and as soon as it got dark we dug. We dug all 
night and fortified a farmhouse, and by the morning 
we had a jolly strong position in the middle of the 
infantry line. They didn't have enough men to oscupy 
it themselves.* 

Advanced posts of the 12th Brigade of 
the 4th Division of the III. Corps had been 
forced to retire between the Ploegsteert Wood 
and the Lys, and at dusk it was evident that 
the enemy were preparing to attack Le Gheir 
and the wood. With Le Gheir in the 
German possession the right of the 1st Cavalry 
Division at St. Yves might be turned. 

South of the Lys theGermans from Lille had on 
the 20th been battering at the thin line of British 
infantry and French cavalry strung out from 
the west of Frelinghien to Givenchy. The aim 
of the Germans was to recover Armentieres and 
the RadingheiTi-Givenchy ridge. 

A British soldier, wounded that day in the 
trenches near Armentieres, told a Times' 
Correspondent that, at daybreak, a deadly fire 
had opened upon the trench in which he lay 

* This narrative was published in the Daily Telef/raph. 




THE KING OF THE BELGIANS 

Chatting with one of the French Geuerai Staff at 

Market Square, Furnes. 



456 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




BRIG.-GEN. E. S. BULFIN, C.V.O., D.S.O. 

with his company. It was an enfilading fire. 
The enemy had crept up very close in the dark- 
ness to the right of the Une. One btillet 
destroyed the back sight of this soldier's rifle ; 
another struck hrm in the head. The men in 
the trenches were helpless, and the enemy 
attacked them with the bayonet. They sur- 
rendered, but both friend and foe were for 
fourteen hours shelled by the artillery from 
both sides. Then the trench was retaken by the 
British and the Germans made prLsoners. 

South of Radinghem, and three-and-a-half 
mUes east of Neuve Chapelle, the II. Corps had 
on the 20th suffered a reverse. The Royal 
Irish Regiment had lost heavily in prisoners 
at Le Pilly. 

In view of the results of the day's fighting, 
of the progress made by the Germans to the 
east of the Yser, of their victorious advance 
into the triangle Bixschoote-Westroosebeke- 
Houthem, of their successful attacks on the 
Cavalry Corps and III. Corps between Houthem 
and the wood of Ploegsteert, and of their 
recapture of Le Pilly, the plan formed by Sir 
John French of driving a wedge between the 
Duke of Wurtemberg's and the Crown Prince 
of Bavaria's Armies was no longer feasible. 
Nevertheless, the I. Corps and the Lahore 
Jbivision might be able to recover the ground 



lost on the 20th. General JofTre had arrived 
in Flanders, and during the 21st Sir John 
French saw him. Joffre assured Sir John 
that he was bringing up the 9th French 
Array Corps to Ypres, and that more French 
troops would follow it. He, like Sir John, 
was full of confidence. He told the British 
GeneraUssimo that it wais his intention on the 
24th to attack the Germans and drive them 
eastwards. 

On Wednesday the 21st the Germans once 
more attacked the long, thin line of the 
Allies. 

The enemy crossed the Yser Canal and 
tried to take Schoorebakke, one of the 
vulnerable spots in the Belgian centre. They 
were beaten back, leaving behind them lines 
of dead and wounded. Dixmude was furiously 
bombarded by heavy howitzers, and no fewer 
than eight separate assaults launched by the 
Duke of Wurtemberg against the town so 
bravely defended by the French IMarines and 
the Belgians. At nightfall the Yser, south of 
Dixmude, had been temporarily passed by 
the enemy, but they had not been able ta 
maintain their hold on the west bank. 

Farther south, and north and east of Ypres, 
it was the Allies who had at first attacked. With 
De Mitry's Cavalry and Bidon's Territorials on 
his left, and Byng's Cavalry on his right. Sir 
Douglas Haig had directed the I. Corps to retake 
Poelcappelle and Passchendaele, and the ground 
between those villages. The attack was some- 
what delayed through the roads being blocked, 
but it progressed favourably in face of severe 
opposition, often necessitating the use of the 
bayonet. The 26th Reserve Corps round 
Passchendaele replied by a violent counter- 
attack, which was repulsed with heavy loss, 
and up to 2 p.m. it looked as if Sir Douglas 
Haig would achieve his object. The enemy 
from the Forest of Houthulst were, indeed, 
threatening his left, but it was not until De 
Mitry was ordered, it seems by Joffre, to with- 
draw his cavalry behind the Yperlee-Yser 
Canal that Sir Douglas was obliged to suspend 
his advance. This retrograde movement of De 
Mitry was presumably due to the impression 
created on the Allied Commander-in-Chief by 
the frantic efforts of the Germans to cross into 
the loop of the Yser, and pass the canal at 
Dixmude, and between Dixmude and Fort de 
Knocke. The 42nd French' Division had not 
yet detrained at Furnes, and the only reserves 
Joffre could tlu-ow into the battle of the Yser 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



457 



were the 16th Chasseurs and the African 
Cavalry stationed near Loo. 

The I. Corps, supported by General Bidon's 
Territorials, now halted on the line Bixschoote- 
Langemarck - St. Julien - Zonnebeke. On its 
left the Corps faced the German 23rd, in the 
centre the 26th Corps, 

Meantime, the 27th Corps had been pushed 
against the 7th Infantry Division. The 22nd 
Infantry Brigade, commanded by General 
Lawford, was attacked by these newly raised 
troops with frenzied zeal. Its left flank, near 
Zonnebeke, was in great danger, and Byng sent 
the 7th Cavalry Brigade to its support. 

Thus reinforced, Lawford managed to main- 
tain himself round Zonnebeke. To the south, 
between Zonnebeke and Zandvoorde, the 21st 
and 20th Infantry Brigades were resisting the 
efforts of the Germans from the neighbourhood 
of Becelaere to gain the fringe of the woods to 
the east of Ypres. Apprised of the formidable 
attack on the 7th Infantry Division, Sir 
Douglas Haig had early ordered his reserves 
to be halted on the north-eastern outskirts of 
Ypres. 

It has been seen that Byng had had to rein- 
force with his 7th Brigade the left of the 7th 
Infantry Division roimd Zonnebeke. At 1.30 
p.m. it was reported to him that the left of 
General Gough's Cavalry Division (the 2nd) 
had been pierced south of Zandvoorde. Byng 
promptly dispatched his 6th Brigade to fill the 
gap ; it rode over and occupied the crossings of 
the Comines- Ypres Canal, north of Hollebeke. 



Later in the evening the brigade moved to its 
left between Zandvoorde and the canal, near 
the Chateau de Hollebeke ; the 7th Cavalry 
Brigade, wliich had been relieved at Zonne- 
beke by battalions of the I. Corps, rode to the 
west of the canal, and was stationed to the 
west of Hollebeke at St. Eloi and Voomiezeele. 
The use made by Sir John French and his 
subordinates of the cavalry was on tliis day 
no less masterly than it had been during the 
retreat from Mons. The lessons which 
French had learnt at Colesberg had not been 
forgotten. 

By sunset the 2nd Cavalry Division, which at 
4 p.m. had been violently attacked, was dis- 
posed between Messines and Hollebeke. The 
enemy had advanced a considerable distance 
across the open groiuid which divides the ridge 
of the Mont-des-Cats at Messines from the 
roUing, wooded district east of Ypres. 

The 1st Cavalry Division wliich was deployed 
between Messines and the wood of Ploegsteert 
had also been in peril. At 7 a.m. the Germans 
had taken Le Gheir and begun to file into the 
wood. A battalion of the 104th Regiment of 
the Saxon 19th Army Corps entrenched itself 
in the village. The importance of Le Gheir 
does not need to be insisted upon. Through 
it the Germans could enter the wood of 
Ploegsteert, turn the flank of the 1st Cavalry 
Division at St. Yves, spread out on the ridge 
beyond, cross the Douve and attack from 
the south Messines and the ridge of the 
Mont-des-Cats. 




1. BRIG.-GEN. H. E. WATTS, C.B. (21st Infantry Brigade). 

2. BRIG.-GEN. H. J. RUGGLES-BRISE, M.V.O. (20th Infantry Brigade). 

3. BRIG.-GEN. S. T. B. LAWFORD (22nd Infantry Brigade). 



458 



THE TIMES HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 




THE GERMANS AT DIXMUDE. 
Well-protected infantry firing from beneath a concrete roof shelter. 



Happily a British soldier of daring and 
resource was on the spot. General Hunter- 
Weston, who in the South African War had 
passed through the Boer lines and cut the 
railway between Bloemfontein and Pretoria, 
had anticipated the German attack on Le 
Gheir. At 2 a.m. he had moved the East 
Lancashires and Somerset Light Infantry from 
the south to the north bank of the Lys. With 
Lieut-Colonel Aniey he now organized a counter- 
attack. Le Gheir was recaptured, and the 
brave Germans defending it were practically 
wiped out. Some 400 dead were picked up 
in the British lines alone, and 130 prisoners 
were taken. In this fighting the Iving's Own 
Lancaster Regiment and the Lancashire Fusi- 
liers of the 12th Infantry Brigade were well- 
handled by Lieut. -Colonel Butler. 

Details of the fighting are supplied by an 

officer of the East Lancashire Regiment in a 

letter published by the Morning Post : 

At 2 a.m. on the 21st we had orders to trek on anotlier 
tlireo miles across the river. The bridge had been blown 
up, so we went over on a pontoon bridge, and got to the 
village of Ploegsteert, when we were hurriedly sent for 
and ordered to take the battalion out to the trenches 
defending the village. So away we went, and then met 
a stream of wounded, all declaring that the Germans 
were in thousands when they attacked their trenches 
two miles away and captured them. We were now 
ordered to make a counter-attack and recapture the lost 
trenehes, so with A and D companies we plunged into a 
thick wood and gradually worked our way through it. 
The Germans wore firing into it with rifle and machine- 
guns, so the bullets were humming through the trees. 
On getting through the wood and looking over the fence, 



we saw we were behind the Germans, who were occupying 
a trench in the open. Then the fun began. We enfiladed 
them and knocked the.n over like rabbits. Lieutenant 
Hughes and his platoon charged them in front, and as 
they got near he was killed, shot through the head. 
His slayer was spitted on a bayonet, and even then tried 
to kick his man, but he was downed and spitted through 
and through. Afterwards we found he was the proud 
possessor of the Iron Cross. He died game. Two com 
panics of the Somersets also joined in with us, and 
between us we got over 100 prisoners and of the dead 
we picked up about the same number, but many others 
are lying in the fields. 

It was a funny sight to see our men picking up the 
Germans out of the trenches and making them high-step 
away with hands above their heads and with fixed 
bayonets at their backs. We came off cheap : some ten 
killed and fifty wounded. We put the — — back in their 
trenches, and we were warmly thanked by their com- 
manding officer. As soon as the German artillery 
realized their men were driven out they began shelling 
us, but with no result. At dusk we were ordered to take 
over the trenches. 

South of the Lys there had been a succes.sion 
of fierce encounters. Away on the extreme 
right at Violaines, a mile to the west of La 
Bassee, the Germans had endeavoured to break 
through the line of the II. Corps. They had 
been repulsed with considerable loss. A little 
to the north of Violaines, however, the British 
had been driven from the ridge, but had 
regained their trenches by a counter-attack. 
Between that ^^oirit. and Armentieres the 
Germans had captvued some trenches. The 
total losses of the enemy south-east of Armen- 
tieres were estimated at over 6,000. A subal- 
tern who pictures for us one of their attacks 
on the 21st permits us to understand how it 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



459 



vras that they received such heavy punish- 
ment: 

A German attack is an extraordinary thing, but I 
must say they are very brave indeed. First you hear 
their trumpets blowing, also a kind of hunting horn, 
then the orders of the officers and the yells of the soldiers. 
Then follows a hail of bullets and they come on in 
masses, making an awful noise. We let them get about 
40 yards off and then we let them have it with a ven- 
geance. What with the shrieks, yells, horn-blowing, 
rifles firing, and everything on fire, it is as if hell were 
let loose. Well, we beat them back ; that was the first 
day. The next two days the same thing happened, 
except that we dug ourselves in the first of the two nights. 
Then we were shelled all day long for the two days and 
attacked at night. At length, the third night, we were 
relieved after the attacks, and the men who relieved us 
counted 740 dead Germans in front of our trenches, at a 
distance of about 40 yards. As the average of killed to 
wounded is said to be one to three, the German casualties 
must have been about 3,000. 

The horrible sights behind the German 
hnes must have given the German Commanders 
furiously to think. They brought home to 
tliem very definitely that the destruction was 
not all on one side. 

Though the Germans had suffered on the 
21st the most appalling losses, it was now 
apparent to the British Generalissimo that the 
utmost he could do was to maintahi his very 
extended front and to hold fast his positions 
until French reinforcements could arrive from 
the south. 

Elated by their successes, if depressed by the 
awful slaughter incurred in gaining them, the 
Germans on Thtirsday, October 22, pressed on. 
They issued from the trenches near La Bassee, 
and captured the village of Violaines and 
another point on the long, low ridge. Violaines 
was lost to the Allies, but the Worcesters and 
]\Ianchesters prevented the enemy from march- 
ing through Violaines to cut the connexion 
between Maud'huy's left and the IT. Corps, 
while the French and British artillery saved a 
third village near Violaines from the German 
advance by interposing a ctirtain of bursting 
shells. At sunset Smith-Dorrien's exhausted 
and nerve-shattered troops still clung to the 
greater part of the Radinghem-Givenehy ridge, 
but during the night, which was very cold, Sir 
Horace withdrew his Corps to a position which 
he had previously prepared. This ran from 
the eastern side of Givenchy, east of Neuve 
Chapelle, to Fauquissart on the Armentieres- 
Neuve Chapelle chaussee. The British aban- 
doned most of the ridge and descended into 
the flat, waterlogged plain behind the stream 
of the Layes, which flows into the Lys at 
Amientieres. 

A few hundred yards to the south of Neuve 




TO DRAW THE ENEMY'S FIRE. 
The British expose a dummy from the trenches. 

Chapelle the Armentieres road joins the high- 
way from La Bassee to Estaires on the Lys. 
Henceforth Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien's ainos 
were three. At any price he must prevent 
the Germans from dividing him from Maud- 
'huj^'s left in front of Bethune ; at Neu\'e 
Chapelle he must bar the advance of the enemy 
on the Lys and to the single -line railway which 
south of the Lys connects Armentieres with 
Bethune ; between Neuve Chapelle and 
Fauquissart he must defend the road which 
linked his Corps to Conneau's Cavalry Corps 
and the II. Corps. Fighting from the plain 
against the Germans on the ridge his tasks 
were, it need hardly be said, extraordinarily 
difficult. 

From the east of Fauqvtissart the Allied line 
covering Armentieres and touching the Lys 
west of Frelirighien was on the 22nd again 
subjected to heavy cannonading and — in the 
evening — to a n amber of attacks by the 
German infantry. Here the Germans made 
little headway. 

North of the Lys at 4 a.m. the Germans 
assaulted Le Gheir for the second time, but 
were beaten off. All day they shelled the vil- 
lage, but as the British were not in it but in 
the surroimding trenches, they inflicted little 




460 




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461 



462 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




BELGIAN CAVALRY AT WORK. 

This unit of a patrol is the last man left to 

watch the movements of the approaching 

Germans. 



loss. North of Le Gheir the Cavalry Corps 
defending the gap between the wood of 
Ploegsteert and Messines and that between 
Messines and Hollebeke was by Sir John 
French's orders reinforced by the 7th Indian 
Infantry Brigade less one battalion. That 
brigade moved to Wulverghem on the Douve, 
and General Allenby, who commanded the 
Cavalry Corps, sent one battalion of the Indians 
across the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats to Wyt- 
schaete, north of Messines, and another bat- 
talion to Voormezeele, a village a little to the 
west of St. Eloi. These dispositions permitted 
Byng to move the 7th Cavalry Brigade from 
Voormezeele and St. Eloi over the Comines- 
Ypres Canal to Klein ZUlebeke on the Wervicq- 
Zandvoorde - Klein Zillebeke - Zillebeke - Ypres 
road. The 6th Cavalry Brigade, it will be 
recollected, had the day before entrenched 
itself between Zandvoorde and the canal. For 
the next few days the 6th and 7th Cavalry 



Brigades alternately occupied the Zandvoorde- 
Chatean dc Hollebeke trenches, being con- 
stantly shelled, sniped at. and charged by the 
enemy. 

Seldom have cavalry rendered such services 
as Byng's Division and the Cavalry Corps 
now performed. Great, indeed, liad been the 
progress made in the training of the British 
since the South African War, which had made 
them equally adept in fighting on horseback 
or on foot. As infantrymen these splendid 
troops rivalled the best foot-soldiers in the 
Army. On horseback they had more than 
maintained the traditions of Waterloo and 
Balaclava. It must have been gall and bitter- 
ness to the Kaiser that his cavalry, niu-sed in 
the memories of Ziethen, Seidlitz and Bliicher, 
and taught to regard itself as invincible, had 
fled headlong before the British troopers, who 
now dismounted, held at bay enormous masses 
of the German infantry. 

From Zandvoorde over the fields to Ghelu- 
velt on the INIenin-Ypres road, and from 
Gheluvelt to Zonnebeke, the German efforts 
against the 7th Division had not on the 22nd 
relaxed. At daybreak shells began to fall. 
About 3.30 p.m. the battle raged fiercest, and 
General W^atts received a message from Sir 
John French that he must hold on at all costs, 
"as the I. Corps was coming up as quickly as 
possible to his support." The Wiltshires and 
Scotch Fusiliers, among other regiments of 
the 7th Infantry Division, suffered terribly. 
The Germans had brought up heavy howitzers, 
and many men had been buried ahve in their 
trenches. At 5 p.m. the firing slackened and 
the German prisoners were brought in. They 
were mostly fathers of families, about the ages 
of 39 and 40, and had received little training ; 
their unifornis were brand new. To render 
them desperate they had been told that the 
British took no prisoners. 

Meanwhile the I. Corps, hampered by the 
necessity of sending support to the 7th Infantry 
Division, had with ever increasing difficulty 
held its own between Zonnebeke and Bix- 
schoote. During the day a series of attacks 
had been beaten oH, but late in the evening 
the enemy broke through the line south-west 
of Langemarck and north of Pilkem. The 
Cameronian Highlanders retired and the road 
to Ypres for a moment was open. 

That night the German commanders must 
have believed that a crowning victory was 
within their grasp. Away on the Yser they 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



468 



had crossed the loop of the canal at Tervaete ; 
the low embankment of the railroad from 
Dixmude to Nieuport might at dawn be 
in their possession ; from the embankment 
they could march through Pervyse and Rams- 
cappelle either on Nieuport and Dixmude or on 
Furnes. From Furnes high roads led to 
Dunkirk and Ypres. North of Ypres the 
Germans, as mentioned, had penetrated the 
line near Pilkem, and to the east of Ypres the 
7th Infantry Division seemed in its last gasp. 
To the south of the city only cavalry and a few 
Indian troops stood between them and the 
capital of Western Flanders, and the right 
wing of the Allies was withdrawing from the 
Civenchy-Radinghem ridge. 

Early in October the Crown Prince of 
Bavaria had exhorted his soldiers "to make 
the decisive effort against the French left 
wing and to settle thus the fate of the great 
battle which had lasted for weeks." The 
defeat of the Allies north of the Lys and 
between the Lys and La Bassee would not only 
transfer Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne to the 
Germans and prepare the way for the invasion 
or starvation of Great Britain, but would also 
force Maud'huy to beat a pre(;ipitate retreat 
to the Somme. The morrow might see the 
annihilation of the British and Belgian Armies, 
and after such a disaster would not the 
French resistance everywhere collapse ? 

Happily on the 23rd, as on subsequent 
days, the hopes of the Germans were not to be 
realized. The 42nd French Division under 
General Grossetti and several howitzers of 
large calibre had reached Furnes. The 42nd 
was directed by JofEre to relieve the Belgian 
2nd Division in Nieuport. Owing to the fire 
of the German artillery Grossetti had to pass 
his troops in small bodies over the Nieuport 
bridge, but by nightfall the Belgian troops 
who had lost Lombartzyde had been replaced 
by some of the best fighting material in the 
French Army, and at last big guns on the land 
as well as from the sea supported the defenders.* 
The Germans, who had swarmed into the loop 
of the Yser and driven back the Belgians to 
the railway embanl<ment between Rams- 
cappelle and Pervyse, could make no further 
progress, and the fourteen assaults on Dix- 
mude delivered by the Duke of VVurtemberg 



during the night of the 23rd-24th ended in 
failure. 

North of Ypres the gap in the line of the 
I. Corps between Bixschoote and Langemarck 
was closed. Major-General Bulfin. with the 
2nd Infantry Brigade (less the 2nd Royal 
Sussex Regiment, which was left at Boesinghe 
to guard the Yperlee Canal), had been sent to 
reinforce the 1st Infantry Brigade. At 6 a.m. 
on the 23rd the 1st Loyal North Lancashires, 
the King's Royal Rifles, and the Northamptons 
moved on the enemy, mostly consisting of 
troops of the recently raised XXIII. Corps. 
Near Bixschoote, through close and difficult 
country, the Lancashires, under heavy shell 
and rifle fire, advanced steadily, aided by 
the regiment's machine guns. Within a 
comparatively short distance of the hostile 
trenches they formed up, fixed bayonets, 
and charged. The position was taken. Hard by 
the King's Royal Rifles and the Northamptons, 
at the point of the bayonet, were driving 



♦ The Gorman forces on the Yser at this date appear 
to have consistod of the 3rd and 21st Reserve Corps, 
one Ersatz Division, and a brigade of Landwehr. 
Later a Division of Marines joined them. 




LIFE IN THE TRENCHES. 
A British soldier eating his dinner. 



464 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



the Germans before them. As the foe fled the 
British field artillery and howitzers opened. 
The rain of shrapnel drove the Germans for 
shelter into villages and farms. Out of these 
they were expelled by high explosive shells. 
Again in the fields hundreds of the Germans 
fell victims to the shrapnel bullets. 

The enemy, who were reluctant to forgo 
what the night before had appeared to be a 
certain victory, were five times brought back 
to charge Bulfin's Brigade and the 3rd Brigade. 
They marched in masses, singing " Die Wacht 
am Rhein," but lack of training and faults in 
leading told their tale. The British reserved 
their fire till a very close range, and then with 
their rifles and maxims mowed down the 
6nemy. If the columns of the Old Guard at 
Waterloo had not been able to withstand 
the fire of infantry armed with the Brown Bess 
what chance had these masses against soldiers 
with repeating rifles and machine guns ? As 
on each occasion they retired the scene wliich 
had followed their flight before the Lancashires, 
Northamptons, and King's Royal Rifles was 
re-enacted. The British field guns and howit- 
zers gave them no rest ; for that day the guns 
were worked with almost superhuman haste, 
one field battery alone expending 1,800 rounds 
of ammunition. 

Six hundred prisoners were secured, and 
fifteen hundred German dead were counted in 
the neighbourhood of Langemarck alone. 
How many were wounded, how many managed 
to reach their own lines and there die, is not 
known. From correspondence found subse- 
quently on a Ger:nan officer it transpired that 
on the 23rd the attacking corps lost 75 per cent, 
of their strength. 

Between Bixschoote and Langemarck the 
Germans had in the open met with the same 
fate as their comrades who were trying to storm 
Dixmude. " We are all in the seventh heaven," 
wrote on the 23rd a non-commissioned officer 
of the Loyal North Lancasliires. " Have given 
the Germans an awful slap and have them 
going all along the line. Their losses must be 



enormous. Our fellows got among them with 
the bayonet, and nothing could withstand 
them." 

From Langemarck to Zonnebeke and from 
Zonnebeke to Zandvoorde and the Ypres- 
Comines Canal, the fighting had been also of a 
severe character. At Zonnebeke Corporal W. J. 
Askew, of the 2nd Coldstream Guards (part of 
the 4th Infantry Brigade, 2nd Division of the 
I. Corps) had showTi conspicuous courage 
and great ability. He had voluntarily taken 
out a patrol to hold ground 300 yards in front 
of the trenches, and, placing his small party in 
pairs, 150 yards apart, he held up the enemy's 
attack for no less than three hours, and then 
succeeded in retiring under heavy fire from 
both flanks. 

The Cavalry Corps between the Ypres- 
Comines Canal and the wood of Ploegsteert 
and the III. Corps from Le Gheir across the 
Lys and Conneau's Cavalry Corps were also 
violently but luisuccessfully attacked. On the 
right the enemy, having discovered that Smith - 
Dorrien had withdrawn the II. Corps to the 
line Givenchy-Neuve Chapelle-Fauquissart, con- 
fined himself to an artillery duel in which several 
of his batteries wore silenced by the British fire. 

Joffre and Foch had reinforced the Belgians 
on the Yser in the nick of time ; they were 
now reinforcing the British. That evening a 
division of the French 9th Army Corps who 
had reached Ypres came up into line and took 
over the trenches held by the 2nd Division 
(I. Corps). 

With the simultaneous arrival of French 
reinforcements on the Yser and at Ypres the 
first phase of the battle of Ypres may be con- 
sidered to have ended. The British and the 
Belgians, with Ronarc'h's 6,000 Marines, Bidon's 
two Territorial Divisions, De Mitry's four 
Cavalry Divisions, and Conneau's Cavalry 
Corps, had from the night of October IG to the 
night of October 23, attacking and counter- 
attacking, acted as a firm barrier in the path of 
the hosts of the Duke of Wurtemberg and the 
Crown Prince of Bavaria. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

THE FRANCO-BELGIAN BATTLE 

OF THE YSER. 



The Germans on October 24 Across the Yser at Tervaete — Grossetti Retakes Lombart- 
ZYDE AND Moves Towards Ostend — The Germans over the Yser at St. Georges — Bombard- 
ment OF NiEUPORT — French and Belgians Drive Germans into the Yser — Battle of the. 
25th ; Renewed Offensive of the Duke of Wurtemberg — Exhaustion of Allies — Inunda- 
tion OF the Yser District Ordered — Nature of the Inundation — Battle of October 26 ; 
Attempt to Surprise Dixmude ; Belgian Staff Leaves Furnes but Returns ; Victory of 
THE Allies — Battle of October 28 ; H.M.S. Venerable Rakes the Germans Advancing on 
NiEUPORT — Effects of the Fire of the British Flotilla ; The Inundation Spreading 
Towards Pervyse — Battle for the Railway Embankment (October 29, 30, 31) ; Ramscappelle 
Lost and Recovered ; Victory of the Allies ; Germans Driven Headlong into the Floods 
AND Over the Yser. 



FROM the preceding chapter and from 
Chapter LIV. it will be gathered that 
on October 24 the Germans seemed to 
be on the point of gaining at Ypres 
and on the Yser victories which, even if they 
were not decisive, would gravely imperil the 
cause of the Allies. Those two battles formed 
what the French call the " Battle of Flanders," 
which was by far the bloodiest of the battles 
delivered by the left wing of the AlUes from the 
middle of September to the middle of November. 
The heroic resistance of the Allies on the 
Yser from October 16 to October 23 has been 
already related. In the present chapter will 
be told the story of the fighting in October 
from the 23rd to the 3 1st. 

By the morning of the 24th the Germans had 
crossed into the western side of the loop which 
is formed by the Yser half-way between 
Dixmude and Nieuport, and General Grossetti 
with the French 42nd Division had the day 
before reUeved the Belgian 2nd Division round 
Nieuport and, protected by the fire of the Allied 
flotilla, had marched on Lombartzyde. His 
aim was to recapture that village, storm 

465 



Westende, iliddelkerke and Mariakerke. and 
seize both the Digue, running westward along 
the Dunes from Ostend to the last-named 
seaside resort, and also the north bank of the 
canal which from Nieuport runs into the 
Ostend -Ghent Canal between Ostend and 
Bruges. A blow at Ostend, which could be 
bombarded by the British monitors and 
destroyers, would oblige the enemy to 
reduce his effectives on the Yser south of 
Nieuport. 

During the night of the 23rd-24th there 
were several fierce encounters round Lom- 
bartzyde. A French company caught b 'tween 
two fires was severely handled. Another 
company which had crept forward to an 
advanced trench found a party of what ap- 
peared to be Belgian infantry on their right. 
In the morning of the 24th a heav-y sea-fog 
spread over the coast land. Suddenly through 
the mist a jet of bullets swept the French 
trench. It came from the soldiers on the right 
who were Germans dressed in Belgian uniforms, 
and they had turned on Grossetti' s men a 
machine gun. Dcsjiito these unfortunate in- 



466 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




Exercising Artillery horses. 




Belgian dogs drawing a gun across the sands. 




^^fcJlPSUB 






r'^^^PISi 




cidents, tlie French infantry pressed on, 
stormed liOmbartzyde and attacked Westende. 

At any price the Germans }iad to prevent 
Grossetti turning their right flank. To do this 
the obvious course was to shell Nieuport, and 
from Mannekensvere to cross the canal at 
St. Georges and to assault the eastern streets 
of the town. All through the morning, there- 
fore, howitzers and field guns played on Nieu- 
port and the bridges there which led over the 
Yser and its various branches. From the 
little watering place of Brueders-Duynen, west 
of Nieuport Bains, and from other points the 
French artillery unavailingly endeavoured to 
keep down the German fire. Over Nieuport 
hung an intensely black pall of smoke, broken 
every moment by the gleaming flashes of 
bursting projectiles. The streets had been 
barricaded, and motor-ambulances found diffi- 
culty in threading their way through the town 
in their efforts to bring back the wounded. 

In the afternoon the German artillery gave 
Nieuport a rest and the bombardment died 
down. The enemy was charging the Belgians 
defending St. Georges, and his artillery was 
wanted elsewhere. " There seemed," says an 
observer at Nieuport, " no cessation to the 
continuous roar of the guns through the mist." 
Crowds of Belgian wounded and fugitives from 
the trenches along the Yser trooped into the 
town. 

At last the resistance of the Belgians in and 
around St. Georges broke down. Two bat- 
teries of artillery and several machine gun sec- 
tions were withdrawn, and the worn-out de- 
fenders retired. Near Nieuport they were 
rallied, and their faces were again turned to- 
wards the foe. At 5.30 the bombardment of 
Nieuport, where the inhabitants were hiding in 
the cellars, began afresh. .The Germans had 
taken (at St. Georges) another crossing over tlie 
Yser ; if they were not checked, they miglit 
carry Nieuport and cut off Grossetti's Division, 




Belgian Lancers on the way to the fighting line. Inset : Motor-cyclist scout. 

THE BATTLE OF THE COAST— 
From Ostend to Dunkirk along the shore stretch the Dunes -great heaps of sand, some planted with trees. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



467 



or, avoiding Nieuport, they might pierce the 
Alhed Hne at Ramscappelle on the railway 
between Nieuport and Dixmude. 

Ramscappelle was also threatened from the 
east. Orders had been given to the Germans 
to break through the Allied centre at all cost. 
Between St. Georges and Schoorbakke (at the 
northern end of the Yser loop) and into the 
loop of the Yser from Keyem tlirough Tervaete 
rushed the long lines and columns of the 
Kaiser's infuriated soldiery, accompanied by 
dozens of machine guns, while another attempt 
was made to carry Dixmude from the right 
banlc of the canal. Over the heads of the 
struggling combatants passed the huge shells of 
the German and French howitzers. From the 
sea came the reverberations of the 6 -inch guns 
of the British warships as they fired at the 
advancing infantry of the Kaiser. 

On the edge of the canal, and in the network 
of dykes and ditches between the canal and the 
low railway embankment there were terrific 
hand-to-hand encounters. With bayonet and 
butt-end soldiers fought after the fashion of 
the middle ages. A huge Belgian who had 
come from British Columbia used his rifle as 
prinaitive man was accustomed to use a club. 
To destroy the illusion that the world had gone 
batik many centuries, soldiers from time to 
time would empty their jjistols or repeating 
rifles, and machine guns would drill long holes 
through advancing columns, or sweep to the 
ground a line of charging men. 

To stem the tide of Germans flowing towards 
the railway embankment the Belgian 2nd 
Division, which had been relieved by Grossetti's 
had been brought up to the railway ; from 
Lombartzyde and Xieuport, French troops 
were hiu"ried back. Belgian cavalrymen dis- 
mounted and went into action as infantrymen, 
and French Territorials were pushed forward. 
Ronarc'h had already detached froin Dixmude 
to Oud-Stuvvekenskerke Commandant Jeanniot 





Belgian scout. 




Goumiers on the Dunes. 




Belgian Artillery on the sands. Inset : A macliinc-gun. 
—THE SAND DUNES. 

Skirting the Dunes on the south side is the canal from Dunkirk through Furnes to Nieuport. 



468 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




DUKE ALBREGHT OF WURTEMBERG. 

■with a battalion ; for the Germans from 
Tervaete seemed about to attack Dixraude 
along the west bank of the canal. 

Gradually step bj' step the Germans, who 
fought with even more than their accustomed 
recklessness, were thrust back to and then up 
the high bank of the canal. On the edge of 
the canal groups of struggling men could be 
seen against the sky line. At places the jjon- 
toon bridges had been destroyed by shells, and 
there the Germans, followed by their pursuers, 
were precipitated into the muddy, sluggish 
waters. By nightfall the attack had failed. 
The Germans had lost some 5,000 men ; 
Jeanniot had established himself round Oud- 
Stuyvekenskerke ; and, though the enemy 
still held the crossings at Tervaete, Schoore- 
bakke and St. Georges, the whole line of the 
railway embankment remained in the hands of 
the Allies. 

Dixmude was safe from an attack delivered 
by the enemy down the west bank of the canal. 
The long continued assault on it from the east 
during the day had failed. It and Nieuport 
were in ruins ; the flames of four or five 
villages marked the track of the Germans 
and the work of their artillery, but the Allied 
line was intact. The sensations of the average 
German who took part in the day's fighting 



may be surmised from this note found the 
next day on the body of an officer killed at 
Oud-Stuyvekenskerke : 

" Everywhere we lose men, and our losses 
are out of proportion to the results achieved 
... Our guns cannot silence the enemy's 
batteries ; the attacks of our infantry lead to 
nothing ; they end in frightful butcheries. . . 
Our losses must have been enormous. The 
Colonel, Major, and many other officers are 
dead or wounded." 

Soldiers and officers might be disturbed by 
the awful slaughter, but the German higher 
command had no compassion for its men. On 
Sunday (the 25th) the battle was renewed. 

While the French from Lombartzyde attacked 
Westende, the Germans again bombarded 
Nieuport. The centre of the town was an 
inferno. Shells were blowing up or setting fire 
to houses, others were falUng with a hiss into 
the canal waters. To the south there was 
another advance of the enemy from Schoor- 
bakke on Ramscappelle, and from Tervaete on 
Pervyse. The Belgians and the detachments 
of Grossetti's Division, one of which — a bat- 
talion of the 19th Chasseurs — had relieved the 
marines in Oud-Stuyvekenskerke, did not. 




THE GERMANS IN FLANDERS. 

The enemy have a quiet half-hour. 
Note the food-cans on the side of the trench. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



469 



however, give way. But there is a limit to 
human endurance ; the Belgians were tired 
out, and away to their right Ronarc'h and his 
Marines found it ever more difficult to maintain 
themselves in Dixmude. The town was a 
wreck, and the trenches on its outskirts were 
full of water, for there had been a heavy rain. 
The men in the open, often soaked to the skin, 
were up to their knees in mud and slush. Well 
may the German observers in the cradles below 
the two cigar-shaped captive balloons which 
had gone up behind the enemy's lines have 
imagined that in a few hours the world would 
be echoing with the news of a genuine victory 
on the Yser, a prelude to the Kaiser's triumphal 
entry into Calais. To counter the Allied 
flotilla, more and more of the guns which had 
destroyed the Briahnont forts at Antwerp, 
Liege, Nam\ir and Maubeuge were being 
moimted among the Dunes, and it was becoming 
evident to Rear-Admiral Hood that the arma- 
ment of most of his ships was too light for the 
task which they had undertaken. Many of 
the vessels had been hit and several seamen 
killed or wounded, chiefly by shrapnel. So 
seriously was the situation regarded by the 
Belgian staff that the doctors and musses in 
the hospitals of Fxu-nes had already received 
orders to be in readiness to clear out the 
wounded at two hours' notice. 

Facts such as these were not likely to be lost 
on Joffre and Foch. It was now abundantly 
clear that the Germans were bent on delivering 
a decisive blow north of the Lys. Instead of 
having to rmi the risks and losses which would 
be entailed in an advance on Ghent, Joffre 



would have only to confine himself to fighting 
defensive actions between the coast and La 
Bassee. It was round Ypres and the ridge of 
the Mont-des-Cats and between the Lys and 
La Bassee that the Germans were almost 
certain to make their chief effort ; and yet, as 
has been seen, the Allies on the Yser were fast 
weakening. Could nothing be done whicli 
would not involve a further expenditure of 
French troops to strengthen the defence 
there ? 

One resource was still at Joffre's disposal. 
Inundations had not saved Antwerp, but they 
might here be effective. The celebrated Vau- 
ban had proposed to protect this very district 
by flooding it. In 1795, Nieuport had been- 
defended by an inimdation. Some years 
before the Great War, Commandant Delarmoy, 
a Belgian Staff Officer, when a pupil at the 
Ecole de Guerre, had published an essay 
explaining how the obstacle of the Yser might 
be increased by flooding the surrounding 
country.* The idea of an inundation between 
Nieuport and Dixmude was familiar to the 
Belgian commanders, and had not been over- 
looked by an engineer officer, like Joffre, or a 
profound thinker on war, like Foch. 

That no steps had hitherto been taken to 
materialize this idea is easily explainable. An 
inimdation would protect the Belgians, but it 
would also have hindered Joffre in his intended 
offensive between Dixmude and Nieuport, and 
up to the present the French generalissimo had 
hesitated to believe that the Kaiser would 

* " Fighting with King Albert," by Capitaine Gabriel 
de Libert de Flemalle (Hodder & Stoughton), p. 298. 




,i.mtj^ . JlJ^v U' **^ ■i^ *V ''^i**^^ '■■KBIBHkk.Ji Bah " 



THE BRITISH IN BELGIUM. 
Infantry behind a barbed-wire entanglement awaiting the enemy. 




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470 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAB. 



471 



accumulate his reserves north of the Lys. For a 
German victory north of the Lys might, indeed, 
lead to the occujiation of the Channel ports, 
but did not, liko a victory between the Somme 
and the Oise or one near Verdun, promise to 
wound mortally the French Army. 

By the 25th, however, the evidence that 
dynastic and political motives were disturbing 
the minds of the German strategists was 
becoming overwhelming, and the inundation 
was decided upon. 

The meadows and fields to be flooded were 
on an average three metres or so above sea level, 
but not at high tide, when the sea at this point 
rises 4.50 to 6.0 metres. By a system of 
sluices at the mouth of the Yser the waters of 
the canal and the innumerable dykes and 
ditches which drain into it were ordinarily 
discharged into the sea. At high tide the 
sluices were closed and the land water held 
back until the sea again fell. 

On the 25th M. Charles-Louis Kogge, the 
Sluice Master who superintended these opera- 
tions at Nieuport, received directions as it were ■ 
to reverse engines. From that day onwards no 
land water was permitted to enter the sea, 
while at high tide the sea was introduced into 
the canal to push back the land water. 

The result, though slow, was certain. From 
the eastern side of the hill of Cassel and the 
northern side of the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats 
the streams, increased by heavy rains, flowed 
down into a cul-de-sac, the bottom of which 
was covered by hundreds of ditches and dykes 
already filled almost to the brim by the recent 
downfalls. To spread the inundation the 
Belgian and French artillery during the 25th 
and the succeeding days fired shells into the 
raised bank of the canal of the Yser, thus 
breaking this water-channel in several places, 
while to prevent the floods extending west of 
tlie low railway embankment from Dixmude 
to Nieuport, the culverts and bridges imder it 
were closed up. In the evening of October 
25 the Belgian Staff informed Rear-Admiral 
Ronarc'h that they " had taken all the necessary 
measures to flood the left bank of the Yser be- 
tween the canal and the railway from Dixmude 
to Nieuport."* 

Napoleon, it is said, was unaware of Welling- 



* In November M. Kogge was created Knight of the 
Order of Leopold, " for liis courageous and devoted co- 
operation " in the work of inundation. The map 
showing the inundations, based on reports of Belgian 
Engineers, will bo found at p. 479. 



ton's creation of the lines of Torres Vedraa 
until he was informed of their existence by 
Massena. It seems probable that the Duke of 
Wurtemberg did not anticipate that a lake 
might be formed between the Yser and th.e 
railway. Otherwise it is to be supposed that 
at any cost he would have taken Nieuport 
between October 16 and 2^. and seized the- 
sluices. The contemporarv German reports 




GENERAL MEYSER, 
Commander of the Belgian Naval Brigade. 

which mocked at the Allied artillerymen for 
firing into the canal banlc confirm the hypo- 
thesis that for once the elaborate spy system 
of the Germans had broken down, and that 
they had no knowledge of the possibility of 
flooding this area. Before the war the Germans 
had built in Dixmude at the unfinished flour 
mills platforms for the Krupp howitzers, and to 
the south they had in prace-time constructed 
a veritable! fortress — the Chateau do Woumen — 
from which they could, it necessary, assault 



472 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




IN THE TRENCHES. 
The Belgians at Ramscappelle. 

the town. But they do not seem to have 
apprehended an inundation of the Dixmude- 
Nieuport district. 

From the 25th onwards the Germans, on the 
west side of the Yser, were in a trap. Their 
only chance of escaping was to carry Nieuport, 
and obtain control of the sluices. 

To pierce the Belgian centre, vinless it led to 
the retreat of the Allies from Nieuport, would 
be of small advantage to them. Joffre could 
have railed more troops to Furnes, and the 



Germans would ultimately have been driven 
into the artificial lagoon forming east of the 
railway embankment. 

Unconscious of the snare which was being 
laid for him, the enemy on the 26th threw 
three pontoon bridges across the Yser and 
attacked Nieuport, but the majority of tlie 
20,000 troops who were passed over the bridges 
seem to have been directed on Pervyse, which 
was mercilessly bombarded. It was against 
these that General Grossetti, a man of gigantic 
build, sitting in an armchair opposite the 
ruined village church, calmly encouraged 
his men to press on tlirough the flaming 
and shell-swept street. Many such calm 
leaders had the war produced in the French 
Army. 

At noon (October 26) it looked, however, as 
if the enemy would reach Pervyse. " The 
gradual progress made by the Germans," says 
an observer, " could be marked by the way in 
wliich their bursting shells approached nearer 
and nearer to Furnes. Amidst the din could 
be heard the rattle of continuous rifle fire and 
the ceaseless pap-pap-pap of the machine guns." 
Large numbers of the Belgians began to file 
off to the rear. About 3 p.m. so critical had 
affairs become that the Belgian Staff left 
Furnes for Poperinghe. Tliree hundred of the 
worst wounded in Furnes were hastily em- 
barked on the Red Cross train for Calais. 




THE GERMANS IN FLANDERS. 
Troopers outside a destroyed factory take up a position behind an overturned gun. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



473 



Most of them would probably die on the 
journey, but they preferred to run any risk to 
that of falling into the hands of the exponents 
of KiUtur. " They knew as well as we did," 
observes Mr. Souttar, a surgeon who assisted 
at their entraining, " that they were not fight- 
ing against a civilized nation, but against a 
gang of organized savages."* 

The hospitals in Furnes were three hours 
later sent off to Poperinghe. The fine avenue 
" running between glorious trees " from Furnes 
to Ypres was crowded with fugitives — boys 
and girls, women, old men — some push- 
ing wheelbarrows and perambulators, others 
driving or sitting in carts. Every vehicle was 
laden with such articles as could be hastily 
collected from houses and cottages. To the 
right and left of the road were encamped 
African troops in their bright robes. At 
Oostvleteren a cross-road goes south through 
sleepy villages and hop-fields to Poperinghe. 
Here all was peace. " Little cliildren," says 
Mr. Souttar, " looked up from their games in 
astonishment as we rolled by." Children were 
playing by the roadside, and cattle slowly 
wending their way to their stalls. In the 
great square of Poperinghe, along one side of 
which was drawn up a squadron of French 
cavalry in bright blue and silver uniforms, 
were collected ambulance wagons, guns, and 
ammunition trains. Between these foot- 

* " A Surgeon in Belgium," by H. S. Souttar (Edward 
Arnold), p. 140. 



soldiers passed to and fro. The men and 
machinery of war were awaiting orders to 
proceed to Armentieres, Ypres, Dixmude, or 
Fumes. 

Later in the day Mr. Souttar returned to 
Furnes for stores. " It was a glorious night," 
he writes, " and one had the advantage of a 
clear road. We were driving northwards, and 
the sky was lit up by the flashes of the guns 
at Nieuport and Dixmude, whilst we could hear 
their dull roar in the distance. All along the 
road were encamped the Turcos, and their 
camp fires, with the dark forms huddled around 
them, gave a picturesque touch to the scene." 

Since his journey into Poperinghe, the posi- 
tion had changed for the better. The French 
and Belgian artillery, firing at very short 
ranges, had deluged the advancing Germans 
with shrapnel and case shot. 

From the villages in rear of the Allied lines 
reserves had been pushed forward, and had 
established at points a new line of trenches. 
The Germans had in the end sullenly retired ; 
many had surrendered and the remainder had 
taken refuge in their trenches in front or behind 
the Yser. 

The Belgian Staff on the 26th slept not in 
Poperinghe but in Furnes. 

Meantime a strange and alarming event had 
happened at Dixmude. The information which 
Rear- Admiral Ronarc'h received from the 
Belgian Staff on the evening of the 25th that 
the inundation was about to commence had 




FRENCH SUCCESS IN BELGIUM. 
Guns aod a Taube captured from the Germans. 



474 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAIl. 



■come at an opportune moment. That night 
the weakness of his position had been 
brought home to tlie Admiral by an occur- 
rence which showed that his system of 
defence by trenches and barbed wire wa^ 
defective or that his Marines were becoming 
exhausted. 

At 7 p.m. on the 25th, one of liis companies 
marching to the trenches south of the town had 
run into a body of Germans who had apparently 
slipped through the lines. The Marines after a 
short hand-to-hand fight put the Germans to 
flight, and up to 2 a.m. there was no further 
disturbance. No sounds were to be heard but 
those of the falling rain and the occasional 



German bombardment. In spite of orders, 
the firing however continued, and the Admiral 
sent an officer to reconnoitre. The officer 
proceeded to the bank of the canal, but met no 
signs of the enemy. The fusillade behind him 
ceased but, on returning, he ran into a French 
ambulance. It was in the hands of Germans 
who were promptly secured. 

When day broke on the 26th the mystery of 
the firing was cleared up. A German detach- 




movements of sentinels and patrols. Suddenly 
there was an alarm. Firing was heard from 
the direction of the railway station of Caes- 
kerke, the Admiral's headquarters. It was 
followed by the half muffled sounds of a hand- 
to-hand struggle. Then there burst out sud- 
denly the shrill tones of trumpets sounding the 
assembly and cries of " To Arms ! ' ' Perceiving 
that the shots came from the interior and not 
from the exterior of the lines, the officers at 
Caeskerke shouted to their men to cease fire. 
Doubtless a false alarm had been given by 
some excited sentinel. Some man's nerves 
jiad broken under the strain of the recent 



INUNDATIONS O.N THE YSER. 

A scene near Ramscappelle. 

Top picture ; Belgian outpost sentry guarding a 

dyke bank near Nieuport. 

Bottom picture : On the Yser. 

ment had apparently glided along the railway 
line. Doctor Duguet and the Abb6 Le Helloeo, 
who at the noise of the firing had risen from 
their straw couches and rushed into the street, 
were wounded. Before Doctor Duguet died the 
Abbe had given hmi absolution. The band of 
Germans passed on and reached an ambulance, 
whose attendants they seized and dragged along 
with them. Commandant Jeanniot, who had 
displayed such courage at the assault of Beerst 
on the 19th, dashed out of his house to ascertain 
what was happening. In his excitement he 
had forgotten to pick up his pistol. Supposing 
that there was a jianic and mistaking the Ger- 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



475 



mans tor some of his own men he had run 
towards the enemy, who made him prisoner 
and with shouts of " Hoch, Hoch ! " continued 
to advance on the bridge over the Yser. Some 
of the Germans (with the prisoners) had already 
crossed when the ofificer commanding the 
guard at the Grand-Pont turned on them fu'st a 
searchUght and then his mitrailleuses. The 
bridge was covered with dead and wounded, 
and those of the enemy who were on the point 
of crossing it scattered and hid in the ruins of 
the town. As for the head of the column, it 
sought to escape across the fields to the German 
trenches. Jeanniot and the other prisoners 
were an encumbrance and might prove a danger. 
They were, of course, massacred. " Prisoners 
may be put to death," says the German General 




* "The Germim War Hook," translntod by Professor 
J. II. Jloryan, M.A. (John Murra>;. i)|i. Til 4. 



476 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



of overwhelming necessity, as reprisals, either 
against similar measures or against other 
irregularities on the part of the mianagement 
of the enemy's Army." * 

An episode of this kind which might have led 
to the capture of Dixmude- had naturally 
disturbed Ronarc'h, and he asked for reinforce- 
ments. Two battalions of Senegalese were 
sent from Loo to his support. During the 
day of the 26th Dixmude was again bom- 
barded, but the French howitzers, west of it, 
kept of^ the German infantry from attacking 
the trenches till nightfall, when another 
charge on them was made. The mitrailleuses 




IN A GERMAN TRENCH BEHIND THE 

YSER. 

Germans cleaning up their kits. 

stuck, but headed by Lieutenant Martin de 
Pallieres, the Marines with their bayonets 
flimg off their assailants, many of whom were 
schoolboys worn out by long vigils in the 
trenches, by the inclement weather and by 
insufficient nourishment. 

The next day (October 27) the first effects 
of the efforts of M. Kogge and his assistants at 
Nieuport to flood the district between the Yser 
and the railway embankment became apparent 
to the Belgians. That their trenches were 
an inch or so deeper in water does not seem to 
have distiu-bed the Germans. The rain and the 

* " Tho German War Book," translated by Professor 
J. H. Morgan, M.A. (John Murray), p. 73. 



damp nature of the soil would account for 
that phenomenon, and the soldiers were so 
tired out by the fighting of Monday and the 
previous days that it may have escaped their 
notice. At any rate, though every minute 
they delayed in their attack on Nieuport 
was of vital importance to them, they showed 
no unusual activity on the 27th. The defenders 
of Dixmude, indeed, spent almost a peaceful 
day. Between the railway and the canal 
there were some insignificant engagements, 
and two British cruisers and a torpedo 
boat, directed from a captive naval balloon, 
bombarded the German lines south of 
Nieuport. 

The 27th, the twelfth day of the long-drawn 
struggle, was virtually a contest between the 
guns of the two armies, but how differently 
would the Duke of Wurtemberg have behaved 
had he known that the inundation had begun ; 
how feverish would have been the activity of 
his troops, if they could have heard what a 
French ofilicer who had motored from Ver- 
sailles told a Times correspondent in Fumes 
at 5.30 a.m. that morning ! He had passed, 
said the officer, a continuous stream of motor 
transport stretching out along the road for 
a hundred kilometres (sixty miles). With 
the Germans caught in the trap, Joffre and Foch 
were hurrying northward in auto-omnibuses, 
taxicabs, motor lorries, some of those reserves 
of men and munitions which they had been so 
carefully and cautiously husbanding. 

Perhaps informed of this movement which 
threatened to snatch the coveted Calais from 
his grasp, and certainly now aware of the 
inundation, the Duke of Wui-temberg on Wed- 
nesday, the 28th, again attacked all along the 
line ; he hoped to win Nieuport, the railway 
from Nieuport to Dixmude, and Dixmude 
before the floods retarded his further progress. 
Under the fire of the 12-inch guns of H.M.S. 
Venerable and other cruisers, and of the sloops 
and gunboats which Rear-Admiral Hood 
had summoned from the English ports, the 
Germans advanced down the coast on Nieuport. 
"From the muzzles of the 12-inch'' guns," an 
eye-witness tells us, " came a thin puff of smoke, 
envelopiag a great ball of fire, which seemed to 
rush from the muzzle a yard or two and then 
move back towards it a little before vanishing. 
The huge shells could be seen smashing in the 
German Unes, the fall of each marked by a pall 
of green-black smoke." Nevertheless Lom- 
bartzyde was evacuated by the Allies. 




BRITISH MONITORS IN 

ACTION OFF THE BELGIAN 

COAST. 

The monitors, being of light draught, approached close to the siiorc of the Belgi in coast. So close to 
land did they come, that the crews even fired with rifles at the enemy. 1 he portrait at top is 
of Rear- Admiral the Hon. H. Hood, the Commander. Bottom left : Lieutenant-Commander R. A. Wilson 
(Monitor Mersey), and on right, Commander A. L. Sn.igge (Monitor Humher.) 

477 



47J^ 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 




THE MAIN STREET, RAMSCAPPELLE. 
Most of the towns and villages in Belgium present the same appearance — wrecked beyond recognition. 



The effect of the fire from the British ships 
may be gathered from the accoiint furnished 
that day by a German soldier to a Dutch 
journalist. 

" Tlie bayonet attacks were fearful. Some of the 
combatants were pierced from breast to back. It was 
hell. There we stood in trenches, sometimes breast- 
high in water — and that awful sea firing ! ^\"e could see 
the ships lying there. We got the attack from the side. 
Bodies lay in heaps. Many were killed too in the region 
of Middelkerke and the canal. It was indeed sometimes 
red with blood. (My informant meant the canal iiom 
Ostend to Nieuport, which also played a part in this 
battle.) Yes, it was hell, and if you've a wife and 
cliildren — " (the man burst into tears). 

" All soldiers arc not warriors," I ventured to say. 

" No," he replied ; "many are longing earnestly for 
the end — for home, wife, and children. The stream of 
volvmteers was very great but, alas ! when they are 
actually in the fight for a moment some of them in 
£inguish call upon fathers and mothers, and one could 
do nothing with them. There was enough to eat ; but 
weariness, shock, the fear of death, all this broke the 
soldiers."' 

South of the canal, which from Nieuport 
joins the Canal de Ghent, the Germans across 
the Yser at St. Georges also assaulted the town, 
beliind which lay the machinery causing the 
inundation. Nearer Dixmude, they endeavoured 
from the loop of the Yser to get astride of the 
railway at Ramscappelle and Pervyse, and to 
penetrate between those villages to Boitshoucke 
and thence to Furnes where five shells from 
their 28 cm. howitzers dropped that day just 
short of the railway station. 

Impressed by the fact that reinforcements 
were arriving the Allies stuck to their trenches. 
The Belgians scarcely needed to be reminded 
by their King in the following proclamation 
of the issues at stake. 

Soldiers, our towns aie burnt, our homes annihilated, 
there is mourning upon our beloved Fatherland. But 



still crueller things will befall our compatriots if you do 
not deliver them from the invader. It is an imperative 
duty for you. You can deliver our Fatherland with the 
help of our brave Alhes. 

The shout of " Louvain ! Termonde ! " wliich 
rose from the Belgian Army on the Yser was the 
reply to the words of the King. And once more 
the wearied soldiers attacked the eneiny with 
the bayonet. 

The Germans also fought energetically. 
Ditches and dykes were overflowing, and water 
pouring down the high bank of the Yser Canal 
into the fields. Every private perceived the 
snare laid for the Duke of Wiu"temberg,. but 
with task-masters who flogged them forward 
and even turned machine guns on to them, 
retreat seemed the more dangerous alternative. 
By sunset they were still in swarms round 
Rainscappelle and Pervyse. Ronarc'h and his 
heroic band, shelled most of the day by heavy 
and light artillery — to which the French 
howitzers had made some reply — in the evening 
had had to beat off another violent assault on 
the south of Dixmude. 

The battle was resmned on Thursday, the 
29th. Dixmude was merely bombarded, while 
the Duke of Wurtemberg aimed blow after 
blow at the Allied centre from Per\-j-se to 
Ramscappelle. He did not yet regard himself 
as beaten and still might lay his hands on the 
Nieuport sluices. With their numerous " ' table- 
tops " (light, roughly-constructed but strong 
portable platforms on legs which could be 
thrown across rivulets as bridges) his infantry 
might manage to make their way across the 
artificial lake wliich, excej)t at the points where 
there were ditches and dykes, could be fcrded 
by cavalry and even by infantry. His advanced 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR, 



479 




MAP 'iHOWING THE INUNDATED AREA ON THE YSER. THE INUNDATION IS 

SHOWN DOTTED. 



480 



THE TIMES HJSTOnV OF THE WAR. 



guard was on part of the riin of tlic inundated 
district. If he could take Ramscappelle and 
cross the Furnes-Nieuport Canal, he nxight 
isolate Nieuport or seize Furnes, which could be 
attacked from Ramscappelle, Boitchoucke, or 
Pervyse. The tremendous effort being made 
on his left to crumple up the Allied .Axmy round 
Ypres was calculated to prevent Joffre and Foch 
largely rein'crcing Grossetti and the Belgians. 
So long as it was humanly possible to continue 
the attack, it was the Duke's duty to do so in 
order to influence the centre and right of the 
Allied Army engaged in this gigantic battle. 
To keep the French reserves in the plain north 
of the ridge of the Mont-des-Cats was well 
worth sacrificing liis " cannon fodder." 

During the afternoon the offensive was, there- 
fore, resumed, and that night in a violent storm 
of wind and rain Ramscappelle was at last 
captured, and so dangerous for the Allies was the 
situation at Pervyse, that Ronarc'h depleted liLs 
scanty garrison roimd Dixmude and sent to the 
latter village two companies of Marines. 

The morning of Friday, the 30th, dawned. 
Five French torpedo-boat destroyers had been 
added to Rear-Admiral Hood's flotilla. He 
hoisted liis flag on the Intrepide and led the 
French ships into action ofl Lombartzyde. The 
French and British destroyers guarded the 
larger vessels from submarines, whose presence 
was betrayed by periscopes, and from their 
torpedoes. From the Dunes the German 
howitzers hurled their huge shells. The 
Amazon had been badly holed ; Lieutenant 
Wauton commanding the Falcon and eight 
seamen on it had been killed, eighteen disabled. 
The monitor, Mersey, during the operations 
had had its 6-in. gim turret disabled and 
received several shots on the water-line. 

The Germans were in front of Nieuport ; 
they were barricaded in Ramscappelle and along 
the railwaj' to the north and south of it ; but 
between the railway and the canal the inunda- 
tion was slowly and steadily advancing towards 
Pervyse. All day the battle raged for the 
possession of Ramscappelle, the railway em- 
bankment and Pervyse. The former village 
was taken and retaken by the French and 



Belgians, Pervyse remained in the hands of 
the Allies. 

At daybreak on the 31st Ramscappelle was 
bombarded. The Germans finding the village 
untenable advanced westward from it. The 
moment for which the Allies had been waiting 
in the small hours had come. The bugles 
sounded the charge, and the French and Belgian 
infantry, under a hail of shot and slirapnel 
and in* face of batteries of machine-guns 
pouring lead as a hose pours water, rushed 
forward with a courageous and irresistible 
impetus. Tlie distance between the two 
lines rapidly diminished. The assailants were 
soon 300 yards, 200 yards, and then but 50 
yards from the foe ; which side would give way ? 
For a second the issue was in the balance. 
Then, with a mighty shout, the AUied troops 
luu-led themselves on the Germans, and drove 
them headlong backwards to Ramscappelle 
and the railway. Seven mitrailleases were 
capttired and 300 prisoners taken. The ground 
was littered with the dead and dymg. 

In Ramscappelle the Germans ralUed, and 
there was a terrible struggle at handy - 
strokes. But the Alhes would not be denied, 
and still pressed onward drivmg their foes 
before them. In vain did the German officers 
with threats, curses, blows, and even shots 
from their pistols try to keep their soldiers 
from tlirowing down their weapons and evacua- 
ting the village. Fear had overtaken this once 
brave host, and by 9 a.m. Ramscappelle was 
lost to them. An horn* later the Alhes were 
over the railway embankment. Then the 
" seventy-fives " were brought up at a gallop 
and poured a hail of shell on the demoralized 
German infantry wading frantically tlirough 
the water towards the canal. Rifles and 
machine guns joined in the work of destruction, 
and the placid lake between the railway and the 
canal was soon dotted with drowning Germans 
fallen from the demoralized crowds struggling 
to reach a haven of safety over the bridges 
at St. Georges, Schoorbakke, and Tervaete. 

The crisis of the Battle of the ,Yser was over ; 
the Germans had made their great effort and 
had failed. 




CHAPTER LXIV. 



THE SOUTH AFRICAN REBELLION. 



Origins of the Rebeixion — A Political Movement — The South African Dutch and their 
Leaders— The Botha -Hertzog Quarrel — Rival Ideals — Hertzog's Fall — His Responsi- 
bility — Rebel Leaders — Maritz's Intrigues — The Prophet Van Rensburg— Death of 
de la Rey — Maritz Rebels — Outbreak in Transv.\al and Orange Free State — Negotiations 
WITH Rebels — Defeat of Bey'ers and de Wet — De Wet Surrenders — Death of Beyers — 
End of the Rebellion. 



IT would be easy to say that the rebellion 
which broke out in South Africa soon 
after war was declared in Europe was 
the result of German intrigue — easy, 
but superficial. German intrigue had no doubt 
a good deal to do with the rebellion. The 
rebel leaders had long looked forward to the 
day when a conflict with Germany should give 
them the opportunity of making with some 
hope of success an attempt to restore republican 
rule in South Africa. What is known already 
about the efforts of Germany before the war 
to prepare the way by organizing such elements 
of discontent wherever they seemed to exist 
in the British Empire makes it quite certain 
that the obvious oiDiJortunities of South 
Africa did not escape the vigilance and industry 
of the German Secret Service. We know, too, 
what hopes were built in Germany itself upon 
the possibilities of revolt in South Africa. 
We have the word of the South African Govern- 
ment for the existence on a large scale of 
a system of German propaganda in many 
districts in South Africa. And, lastly, the 
speeches and manifestoes of the rebel leaders 
show that they had great expectations of 
Vol. ITT.— Part 39. 



German aid in men, and, more important 
than men, in supplies of heavy guns, ammuni- 
tion, and equipment. The evidence of (he 
extent to which all this had gone is still in the 
hands of the South African Government. It 
will be revealed when the proper time comes. 
Meanwhile, it is as well not to assign too great 
an in^portance to these machinations of the 
enemy. There were elements in South Africa 
which had made for rebellion long before 
August 1914. Whether they would actually 
have brought rebellion about if there had been 
no war is uncertain. But it is certain that 
rebellion was their natvu'al consequence, and 
that German intrigue was the breeze that 
fanned the smouldering fires of revolt into a 
flame, nuich more than the match wliich first 
set it burning. 

The South Africaji rebellion was a political 
movement carried to its logical extreme. Its 
inilitary significance was slight, though it 
miglit have been far more serious. Not as a 
campaign can it have any groat interest for 
the student o; the war ; but as a revelation of 
the problems that had to be solved by Great 
Britain in South Africa, 6is a test of the efficacy 



481 



48-2 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




THE PREMIER OF SOUTH AFRICA AND HIS FAMILY AT GROOTE SCHUUR. 

Mrs. Botha, Miss Frances Botha, General Louis Botha, Captain Louis Botha, Headquarter StaflF ; 
Mr. John Botha, Cape Town Highlanders ; and Mr. Philip Botha. 



of the solution that had been attempted long 
before the war came, as a criterion of the 
ultimate eflficacy of that solution. It cannot, 
in fact, be regarded as an isolated and inexplic- 
able outbreak, hopeless from the first, speedily 
suppressed. It was much more than that, 
and to make clear its objects and its chances of 
success its relation to the history of South 
Africa since the end of the Boer War must be 
investigated and explained. 

The history of the Dutch-speaking race in 
South Africa is largely the product of the 
personality of its leaders. The reason for 
this is not difficult to understand. They lived, 
most of I hem, isolated lives. They were a 
farming people, and in South Africa the farms 
were large. The defects of their racial character 
were mostly due to this fact. They were not 



a highly educated people. Their beliefs, their 
habits, their methods of agriculture were all 
primitive. The organization of their social 
system was still patriarchal. The family, with 
its flocks and herds, was the unit. Upon it 
was grafted three characteristics, each of which 
had a strong influence on their development. 
They were a land-owning people, and, as the 
family grew, a progressive sub-division — in 
legal right though not in practice — of the land 
belonging to the family went with it. They 
lived in a land where native labour was at hand 
to do all the manual work and so became 
inevitably more the masters of labour than 
labourers on the land themselves. Their 
religious belief was a fervent, if narrow, 
Calvinism. Among a people with whom 
reading was in little favour this intensity of 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



4S8 



religious belief gave the minister of religion— 
the Predikant — an immense influence. It 
followed from these three conditions of their 
life that they grew to believe in themselves 
as a kind of chosen race, specially favoiu-ed 
by Providence,, given South Africa as a dwelling- 
place and expressly appointed to rule over the 
native population for its good. With thepe 
strong traditions they combined an indi- 
vidualism created by the hard struggle that 
they had with Nature in that land of sparse 
rainfall, of thronging plagues and blights 
on beast and crop, of immense distances. Add 
as a culminating element in the formation of 
Dutch racial character two facts : first, that 
the tradition of ordered government and of 
respect for constituted authority was strong 
in them. Second, that combination was 
constantly imposed vipon them as the one con- 
dition of success in early wars against the 
natives, and that where they were so few and 
the natives so manj% success could only be 
won by matching the cunning of their enemies 
by a superior craft and the overwhelming 
native superiority in numbers by better weapons 
and a more resolute courage. Throughout 
the early history of the South African Dutch 
a leader of exceptional ability was always a 



necessity for survival and was always found. 
AN'hen the small Transvaal Republic found 
itself threatened by the stream of British 
pioneers that poured north to exploit the riches 
of the goldfields. President Kruger was surely 
established as the leader of his people in the 
north. In the Cape, after peace with the 
natives had made possible responsible go\ ern- 
nieiit under the British Crown, the Dutch 
found it necessary to organize politically if 
their traditional claims were not to be aban- 
doned. Here, too, there was need for a leader. 
He appeared in the person of Jan Hofmeyr, 
whose word was law to the Dutch of the Capo 
through many years of jjolitical conflict. 
When the Tran.svaal took up arms against 
Great Britain and Paul Kruger was too old to 
lead her troops in the field, natural leaders 




MEN WHO CRUSHED THE REBELS. 
General Smuts delivering his famous speech at Johannesburg. Inset : General Smuts. 



484 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OE THE WAH. 




SPECIAL CONSTABLES ON A ROUTE MARCH. 
Town Police section of Pretoria who volunteered to do night duty in order to release the 

South African Police for active service. 



of men appeared from the ranks of the com- 
mandoes and were followed because they 
proved their capacity. They were Louis 
Botha, de la Rey, Smuts, and Beyers in the 
Transvaal ; in the Orange Free State President 
Steyn and Christian de Wet. 

The Boer War ended on May 31, 1902. 
Twelve years and a few months later the Boer 
leaders who had won eminence during the war 
were ranged against each other in the field. 
Botha and Smuts were Ministers of the Crown, 
the Jourdan and the Carnot of the King's 
forces in South Africa. De la Rey was dead, 
shot by accident upon the threshold of rebellion, 
whether he knew that he stood there or not. 
Beyers and de Wet were rebel leaders in the 
field. And every Dutchman in the country 
looked anxiously towards Onze Rust — the farm 
near Bloemfontein where ex-President Stej-n 
nursed the shattered remnant of health that 
the war had left him — looked, and wondered 
whether he would speak the word that would 
leave Beyers and de Wet with only the desperate 
remnant of a following. The history of these 
men during those twelve years is very largely 
the lustory of South Africa. The loyalty to 
them of the Dutch-speaking people was con- 
stant and unshaken. VVhen they split into 
two sections and went their different ways, the 
Dutch split also and followed — most Botha and 
Smuts ; the rest ex-President Steyn, Beyers, 
de Wet. and Steyn's lieutenant and mouth- 
piece in politics, Hertzog. 

In this breach between the Dutch leaders 



Botha was the protagonist on the one side, 
Hertzog on the other. But Hertzog spoke and 
acted in all essentials as the representative of 
ex-President Steyn, though with a personal 
violence and a passion of individual conviction 
that constantly exaggerated his own importance 
and obscured the hand of ex-President Steyn 
which guided him. The breach had thus -two 
sides. It was a personal quarrel, and a very 
violent personal quarrel, between Botha and 
Hertzog. But it was also much more than 
that. It was a definite and irreparable lupture 
between two ideals. Wlien Botha won and 
Hertzog was beaten there remained only two 
courses for him and those who held the same 
ideals as he did. They could submit, or they 
could prepare for rebellion and await a favov.r- 
able moment for taking the field in arms against 
Botha and Great Britain. This statement 
needs some superficial qualification. Hertzog 
did not rebel. Both he and ex-President 
Steyn claimed when all was over that they had 
done everything possible to prevent armed 
rebellion. But the rebel commanders fought 
for their ideals, inscribed Hertzog's name on 
their banners, constantly assured their followers 
that Hertzog was on the same side as they 
were and approved everytliing that they did. 
Essentially, the verdict that the South African 
rebellion was the natural development of the 
breach between Botha and Hertzog at the 
end of 1912 is beyond question. 

A brief retrosjject^of the events that led up 
to the qviarrel will show this. South African 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



485 



history, between the Peace of Vereeniging, 
which ended the Boer War in May 1902, and 
the rebeUion at the end of August 1914, divides 
itself naturally into tlu'ee periods. In the first 
period the conquered Republics — the Transvaal 
and the Orange Free State — were governed as 
Crown Colonies. In the second they received 
responsible government, elected their own 
representatives in Parliament, and were ruled 
by a Ministry of their own choosing. In the 
third they united with the other two South 
African Colonies, Cape Colony and Natal, to 
form the Union of South Africa. The first 
period need not keep vis long. It \^'as a time 
of reconstruction during which the Transvaal 
and the Free State* were re-settled after the 
war, their farmliouses rebuilt, their lands re- 
stocked and cultivated again, the whole fabric 
of their normal life restored. Dviring this 
period the Dutch leaders in both Colonies took 
practically no part in the work of government. 
They stood on one side and allowed the British 
authorities to do all they could to restore the 
destruction that war had brought. In the 
second period the men who had become leaders 
of the Dutch during the war became in both 
Colonies Ministers of the Crown and rulers of 
the State. This period also, but for one thing, 
— the outbreak in the Free State of open hos- 
tility by the Dutch towards tlie British — need 
not detain us long. Elsewhere the two I'aces 
lived side by side in a peace that was siu-prising, 

* The Orange Free State was called the Orange River 
Colony from the Peace of Vereeniging till the beginning 
of Union. It then became a Province of the Union, and 
was again called the Orange Free State. 



seeing how recently they had been at war. It 
was, as everyone felt, a period of transition. The 
tour Colonies of South Afric-a were not strong 
enough to stand alone. Tliey had no natural 
boundaries ; their railways were a single system ; 
their peoples, Dutch or British born, were of the 
same two races and lived side by side in each 
of the four Colonies. Their interests were 
unquestionably identical and Union meant no 
great sacrifice on the part of either of the two 
white races that inhabited tliem. If Natal liad 
a great preponderance of British population, 
the Orange River Colony had an equally 
marked preponderance of Dutch. In the Cape 
and in the Transvaal the nvmibers of the two 
white races were more equally balanced, 
though in both the Dutch had a sutticient 
Ijolitical majority to keep their representatives 
in power. Union of the four States was thus 
in the air all through this second period. It 
overshadowed all other considerations. Obvi- 
ously it could be established only on a basis of 
peace between the two white races. This was 
the reason why, though the Dutch were in 
political power in three of the four Colonies so 
soon after the war, there was so little open 
racial dissension. 

There was one exception. In the Orange 
River Colony the period of responsible go\ern- 
ment saw the sudden rise to power and influence 
of " General " Hertzog and gave a foretaste of 
the policy which he was afterwards to develop 
and elaborate as a member of the first South 
African Ministry under Union. This is no 
place for recalling in any detail the educa- 
tional policy of Hertzog in the Orange River 




LOYALIST TROOPS IN BOOVSONS CAMT, JOHANNESBURG. 



:]'.) 



4bG 



THE TIMES HISTOUY OF THE WAR. 



Colony. It caused acuto dis>:ension between 
the two white races. It set even the Dutch of 
the Orange River Colony by the ears, since it 
forbade the teaching of English as a language in 
the State schools to any but the elder children, 
and many of the Dutch fully realized how 
advantageous it was for their children to learn 
English while they were young. But, most of 
all. it revealed the personal character of General 
Hertzog and so justifies more notice than could 
otherwise be given to it in an estimate of 
the origins and causes of the South African 
rebellion. 

I\lr. Hertzog wa^ commonly given the title 
of ■■ General " by friends and opponents alike 
in South Africa. It did not mark any dis- 
tinguished service in the field, as in the case of 
Generals Botha, Smuts Beyers, and de Wet. 
Yet as soon as the Free State Parliament met 
he emerged as the strong man of the IVIinistry. 
The Prune Minister, Mr. Abraham Fischer, was 
a barrister of considerable age and no great 
strength of character. The- other members of 
his Cabinet were undistinguished, except de 
Wet, and he ne\'er pretended to be a politician. 
In such company Hertzog had full play for his 
peculiar gifts and every opportimity to give 
effect to the views which he held with the 
passionate strength of a narrow and fanatical 





GENERAL C. F. BEYERS, 

One of the Rebel leaders. Before the Rebellion he 

was Commandant-General of the Citizen Forces. 



GENERAL MARITZ, 

Who was, in August 1914, appointed to command 

the Border, German South-West Africa. One 

of the principal leaders of the rebels. 

character. Even so, without the strong backing 
that he received from Mr. Steyn, who had been 
President of the Orange Free State RepubUc 
before the war, Hertzog would scarcely have won 
to the position which he soon occupied in the 
estimation of a section of Dutch South Africans. 
He had certain very obvious qualities. In 
private Ufe he was kindly and disinterested. 
He had courage and determination. He held, 
with an almost religious fervour — though 
himself not a rehgious man in the conventional 
sense — the full creed of Dutch South African 
nationaUty. He believed in the prescriptive 
right of the Dutch to the soil of South Africa. 
He resented the presence of the British and 
looked on them as interlopers. He would have 
had South Africa remain a community of 
pastoralists, entirely cut off from intercourse 
with European countries and blissfully remote 
from the problems that are created by the 
growth of great industries and the population 
that they attract. Appointed a Minister of the 
Crown, he acknowledged the duty of loyalty to 
the Sovereign of Great Britain, but foimd it not 
inconsistent with that duty to enunciate the 
doctrine that in all matters the claims of South 
Africa must be paramount. " South Africa 
first " : this was his motto, the text of niany of 
his public utterances, the test that he would 
apply to any matter which concerned the 
Empire of which the Orange River Colony had 
become a part. The test was to be thoroughly 
applied. No sacrifice of the immediate claims 
of the jjart to the welfare of the whole could be 
tolerated for a moment. To contemplate such 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



487 




GENERAL HERTZOG, 
Whose policy led to rebellion in South Africa. 

a sacrifice was to be guilty of treachery to South 
Africa, to be branded as a " foreign adventurer," 
to be excluded once and for all from the company 
of good patriots. His was the whole gospel of 
Krugerism, modified only in appearance so as 
to conform with the changed conditions of a 
country in wliich Krugerism had been 
encountered and defeated by Great Britain. 
Its logical outcome was rebellion as soon as 
the moment came when a decision would have 
to be made between the momentary interests 
of South Africa and the welfare and safety of 
the Empire. 

But that was not yet. The seed of this 
doctrine, however, fell in the Free State upon 
ground only too well prepared for its reception. 
The war was still a thing of the recent past. Its 
memories rankled. The Dutch were in a large 
majority over the British-born people of the 
Colony. When they were granted responsible 
government it was inevitable that some at least 
of them should set themselves to win again 
what they had lost through the war. And the 
British-born people, whose country had been 
victorious in arms, found themselves as soon 
as Parliament met at the mercy of any man 
svho should care to be vindictive. Hertzog was 
that man. He had two great grievances, and of 
both he was determined to make the most. 
Crown Colony government had done much for 
the Free State. It had built railways, resettled 
the country, established schools on a scale 
luilcnown before. Under a wise policy of State 
research and encouragement farming had 
flourished. If they had been let alone, Boer and 
Briton might have settled down to a futiu'e of 



mutual prosperity. But Hertzog had his 
grievances. He believed that the Crown 
Colony government had attempted to crush 
out the Dutch language, and lie was convinced 
that the Dutch had not been given their fair 
share of adnainistrative posts. He set himself 
to \indicate the claims of the Dutch to speak 
their language, to penalize English, and to 
take a part in the administration of the coimtry 
proportionate to their preponderance in popu- 
lation over the British. There is no need to 
go in detail into the steps which he took to 
these ends. Their results show their nature. 
Separate schools for English-speaking children 
were established in many of the Free State 
towns, and numbers of English-speaking 
Civil Servants were driven out of Government 
posts. 

Then came the Union movement. It was 
clear that the Free State could not stand out. 
Hertzog went as one of the delegates to the 
National Convention which had been summoned 
to draw up a constitution for United South 
Africa. There he met the representatives of the 
other colonies : Generals Botha and Smuts, 
leaders of the Dutch in the Transvaal ; Mr. 
Merriman, Mr. Sauer and Sir Henry de V'illiers, 




GENERAL CHRISTIAN DE WET, 
Who led the rebels against the Union forces. 



488 



THE TIMES IlISTOBY UF THE WAR. 




READY TO PURSUE THE REBELS. 
Commandant Collins and his troops, after attending service at the Dutch Reform Church, 

leaving Pretoria. 



all closely identified with the Dutch in Cape 
Colony ; Dr. .Jameson, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, 
Sir George Farrar, and the leading men of 
Xatal, all representative of the British popula- 
tion in South Africa. Ex-President Steyn and 
Mr. Jan Hofmeyr were not members of the 
National Convention. The former was too ill to 
attend ; Mr. Hofmeyr had long ceased to take 
a public part in the political life of Cape Colony, 
though he had still great influence as a power 
behind the throne. Union meant compromise 
between the claims of the Dutch on one side 
and the British on the other. From the first 
meeting of the National Convention the 
representatives of the British showed that they 
were prepared for compromise. And at once 
there also appeared a distinct cleavage between 
the moderate Dutch, whose opinions were 
voiced by General Botha, Sir Henry de Villiers, 
and Mr. Merriman, and the extreme section of 
Dutch nationalists, championed by Mr. Hertzog. 
The moderates prevailed. Hertzog, seeing that 
he could not carry his proposals, gave way. 
Union was formed, and General Botha became 
the first Prime Minister of South Africa. His 
Cabinet included Hertzog and Fischer and was 
formed on party lines, being composed of chosen 
men from the Ministries in power in the Cape, 
the Transvaal, and the Free State. All \\ere 
the representatives of parties supported by the 
Dutch-speaking section of the South African 
people. 



From the first it was an ill-assorted and 
uneasy combination. The cleavage between 
the moderate Dutch and the reactionists con- 
tinually asserted itself. Contradictions between 
the speeches of Botha and Hertzog became 
more and more frequent and glaring. It was 
impossible to reconcile them. General Botha 
took office on May 31,1910. The first elections 
for the South Afi'ican Parliament were held in 
September of that year. The Unionists, luider 
the leadership of Sir Starr Jameson,* fought 
the elections on a platform which pledged theia 
to support Botha in every naeasure that was 
consistent with the compromise betv^een the 
claims of British and Dutch which was tjie 
basis of Union. They openly proclaimed tlieir 
dislike of Hertzog and his views, and their 
leader in his election speeches foretold the 
necessity of supporting Botha against tlie 
reactionary section of his party led by Hertzog. 
The events of the next eighteen months showed 
the justice of this prediction. As the incon- 
sistencies between the convictions of Botha and 
of Hertzog on race questions became more and 
niore plain the protests of the Unionists in- 
creased in frequency and in effect. In Decem- 
ber, 1912, the end came. Botha at last made 
up his mind that the speeches of Hertzog could 
not be tolerated any longer. He asked Hertzog 
to resign from the Cabinet. Hertzog refused. 
Thei-eupon Botha resigned and, on the request 
* He received a Itnronetey on Union Dav. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



489 



of the Governor- General, formed a new Cabinet. 
Hertzog was not a member of it. From iliat 
moment the breach between the two sections 
of tlie Dutch was complete and irreparable. 
Des-perate efforts were made to heal it. it 
defied them all and grew wider and wider. 
Personal dishkes between the rival leaders 
helped to broaden it. At last Hertzog was 
defeated on a formal vote at a conference of 
supporters of the Botha Ministry. He left the 
conference chamber with his following. A few 
months later he formed a ne\\ party to oppose 
Botha. 

It is important to understand the exact 
nature of this breach between Botha and 
Hertzog. The views to wliich Hertzog ga\e 
expression wliile he was a member of the 
Botha Ministry were the same views as Beyers, 
Maritz, and de Wet proclaimed when they went 
into armed rebellion nearlj^ two years later. 
They amounted to a complaint that the Dutch 
were not being fairly treated under Union ; 
that the Dutch language was not in practice 
being given absohite equaUty with Enghsh, as 
the Act of Union had declared that it should 



be given ; that those who spoke Dutch only 
were at a disadvantage as compared with those 
who spoke only English, especially as to their 
chances of promotion in the Civil Service ; and, 
generally, that the interests of South Africa 
were being sacrificed to those of the British 
Empire. On these points Botha broke witli 
Hertzog. He took this drastic ste[) because he 
believed that perpetual bickering about them 
would be fatal to peace between English and 
Dutch in South Africa, and peace between 
the two white races were essential to the pros- 
perity of the country. He was right. The Hertzog 
policy led at last to rebellion in South Africa, 
though Hertzog himself flinched from the 
extreme and refused to take up the arms of 
the rebel. 

An extract from a speech made by General 
Hertzog while he was a member of tlie 
Botha Ministry, and from the proclamation 
issued by Maritz after lie had gone into 
rebellion, will show that on the most 
important of these issues the rebels merely 
carried the Hertzog doctrine to its logical 
conclusion : 




WITH THE UNION FORCES. 
Wireless Outfit and the Operators. 



490 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



General Hertzog at De WHdl in the Transvaal. Decern- 
her 7, 1912. 

Imperialism i= important to inc only when it is useful 
to South Africa, to its land, and to its people. When it 
is not serviceable, I have respect for it from a distance, 
but as a South African I have little to do with it. and 
when it is contrary to the interests of South Africa and 
tli'> interests of the people of the country, then I am a 
distinct enemy of Imperialism. I am prepared to let my 
future as a politician depend on that. That is my 
feeling and by that 1 stand. Imperialism is important to 
me when it is in the interests of South Africa, and when 
any question of that kind is to be dealt with, then it will 
always bo my duty to ask myself, is the solution of this 
question in the interests of South Africa, and if it is to 
t he detriment of the country then it is my duty to have 
nothing to do with it. 

Maritz. Extract Jrom Proclamation issued on December 
10 1914, explaining his reasons jor going into armed 
rebellion. 

Because both the English Government and the jingo 
section in England have continually brought pressure to 
bear on the Union (South African) Government, contrary 
to promises made, to extinguish and suppress the 
national aspirations of our people and to place the 
interests of the Empire above those of South Africa. 

It is worth noting that the words quoted 
above from Hertzog' s speech at De Wildt in 
December, 1912, finally convinced Botha that 
it was impossible to allow Hertzog to remain a 
member of his Ministry. Two months later 
Botha issued a public statement in which he 
explained his reasons for expelling Hertzog 
from the Ministry. In this statement he showed 
how mischievous the condemnation in Imperial- 
ism in Hertzog's De Wildt speech might be : 

A public man must not only be held responsible for 
what he himself intends to convey, but especially for the 
impression which his words have left reasonably in the 
public mind ; and it was, above all, General Hertzog's 
duty, in the high official position which he occupied, to 
consider and weigh his words most carefully when 
discussing our relations towards the British Empire. 
Instead of doing that, he spoke frivolously, and in a 
manner which induced many of the Dutch as well as the 
English-speaking public to imagine that it was a matter 
of circumstances whether South Africa would remain 
part of the Empire or not. 




MOTOR-CYCLIST SCOUT. 



Botha reinforced this condemnation of Hert- 
zog's policy by a reference to a pas.sage in 
another speech made by Hertzog, in which he 
declared that, " a-s a ^limster, I am a Minister 
of South Africa and not of the Empire." 
Botha pointed out that in maldng such a 
statement Hertzog seemed to have " forgotten 
the oath of allegiance to the King which every 
IMinister, when accepting office, must take." 
Events were to show how just was. Botha's 
estimate of the effect that such words were 
likely to have on some of the Dutch-speaking 
people of South Africa. 

It is thus hardly too much to say that from 
the moment when Hertzog ceased to be a 
member of the first South African Ministry 
some at least of his following believed that in 
the end rebellion would be the only mean? of 
making the doctrines that he had preached 
prevail. Hertzog liimself may not have thought 
so, probably did not think so. His gospel was 
the old gospel of IG'uger. He may well have 
clung to the belief that it would prove irre- 
sistibly attractive to the mass of the South 
African Dutch, and that when the next General 
Election came — it had to come not later than 
September, 1915 — he would return to Par- 
liament as leader of a party strong enough to 
force Botha to submit to his dictation. His 
formation of a new party, his intrigues with the 
Labour party, seem to show that this was his 
idea. Let him have such credit for it as may 
be his due. But he never realized — or if he 
realized was reckless of the consequences — that 
he had to deal with the most ignorant and pre- 
judiced section of the South African Dutch. 
They still looked back with regret to the days 
of their independence. They resented the in- 
fluence of the British in South Africa. A 
]5eople bom to arms and tried in war, they were 
impatient of constitutional methods. In their 
eyes Hertzog — driven from the Botha Ministry 
— became a martyr to the cause of their race, 
sacrificed by Botha to placate the British. 
Hertzog might have known that this would be 
the way they wotild look upon his fall from 
power. It is almost incredible that he should 
not have known. Yet, even knowing this, he 
may have flattered himself that they wotild 
wait for the fruition of his poUtical organization 
and intrigues. He trusted, perhaps, in their 
loyalty to himself, and to ex-President Steyn, 
whose mouthpiece he was. If so, he reckoned 
tipon a characteristic of the South African 
Dutch to which we have already assigned its 



THE TIMES HTSTOBY OF THE WAR. 



491 



due importance. But all such calculations 
broke down when other leaders — men like de 
Wet, and Beyers, and Kemp — abandoned con- 
stitutional methods and set themselves to 
organize armed rebellion. Hertzog should 
have known this. But the truth is that he was 
a man who had no real' gift for leadership. 
Hei fumbled with the ambitions of passionate 
men' as'though they were books in a library. 
He was blinded by his own self-importance. 
His slow, yet passionate, mind saw only the 
path that he had marked out for himself, and 
followed it with an intense preoccupation. 
This is the most charitable assiunption about 
Hertzog's part in the plot that led up to the 
rebelhon. It is quite possible that he knew 
nothing of what was going on. If so, the less 
credit to his intelhgence. Nor does such bUnd- 
ness — if blindness there were — lessen his respon- 
sibility for the tinsel tragedy that was being 
prepared. Men who aspire to lead their fellows 
shoulder«a responsibility far too heavy to be 
weighed by the literal meanings of spoken 
words. And Hertzog might have known, 
shovild have known. De Wet, for instance, 
warned him in a speech made at Pretoria within 
a month of the definite breach between him and 
Hertzog. De Wet chose on this occasion to 
select a dung-heap as his platform. The whole 
substance^ of his speech was a vindication of 
the rights of Dutch South Africans and an 
attempt to prove that they were trodden 
vmder foot when Botha broke with Hertzog. 
Hertzog was held up to admiration as the only 
man who fully represented the South African 
people. And de Wet dramatically declared 
that he would rather be on a dung-heap 
among his people than on the most brilliant 
platform among foreigners. The " foreigners " 
were clearly the British people of South Africa, 
and Botha was represented as having sur- 
rendered to them. Language of that kind 
could only mean one thing. It meant war 
in South Africa against the " foreigners " 
and their dupes, whenever the " patriots " 
should think that their time had come. 

Such were the political antecedents of the 
rebellion. Knowing them, we should expect 
to find that the rebel leaders, when their 
moment had come, would select some occasion 
which wovild give theni the opportunity of 
proclaiming that the interests of South Africa 
were being sacrificed for those of the British 
Empire, that the Dutch were being down- 
trodden and oppressed, that the Botha Ministry 




GROUP OF LOYAL SOUTH AFRICANS. 

were the tools of " foreigners," and that a 
recoiu-se to arms was the only way of ending 
these evils. This was exactly what happened. 
The Blue Book issued by the South African 
Government shows how the chief conspirators 
went about their work.* 

They were four — Beyers, de Wet, JNIaritz, 
Kemp. Besides these there were a niunber of 
minor leaders — four members of the South 
African Parliament, several ministers of the 
Dutch Reformed Church, and more than one 
member of the Free State Provincial Council. 
Of these minor leaders none were men of first- 
rate importance. The type to which they 
belonged was illustrated, though with many 
of its characteristics exaggerated, in the per- 
sonality of Hendrik Serfontein, who was elected 
to represent the Free State constituency of 
Kroonstad at a by-election. Tall and stooping ; 
with the immense shoulders, long arms and 
enormous hands of an almost primitive son of 
the soil ; his face rugged, narrow, bearded and 
frowned upon by great overhanging eyelrows ; 
violent in speech, yet often almost inarticulate 
for lack of education to provide him with tlie 
words in which to express himself, Hendrik 
Serfontein amazed his colleagues in the South 
African Parliament by occasional exhibitions of 
the narrowness and concentrated bitterness of 
his mind, no less than by the almost grotesque 
uncouthness of his personal habit. With such 
leaders as this, it was no wonder that many of 



♦ This Blue-Book was issued on Februury 20, 1915. 
The Preface states that " a mass of material in the hands 
of the Government could not bo used, as it fonns inijior- 
tant evidence in the cases of individuals on trial or 
awaiting trial. In the case of certain German agents, 
investigations are still being pursued, and it woultl be 
premature to disclose the information so far collootod. 
On certain points, again, the available evidence had not 
yet been properly sifted at the time of writing." 



492 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




the Boero of the Free State were led blindfold 
into rebellion by appeals to race hatred and 
I>rejudice. The Transvaal rebel-member of the 
South African Parliament, Piet Grobler, \\'as 
quite a different type. Young, a nephew of 
Paul Kruger, a lawyer not a fighting man, 
pleasant and mild-mannered, he seemed the 
last man to plunge into rebellion. The news 
that he had joined in the conspiracy and was 
in arnxs must have seemed to those who Icnew 
him as strange as the news that Hendrik Sor- 
fontein was a rebel leader was natural and ex- 



GAPE PENINSULAR RIFLES ON THE 

MARCH. 

A morning bath after a heavy night march. 

Inset : Ready to advance. 

pected. But these minor leaders need no very 
detailed mention or description, though doubt- 
less their influence in their own districts was 
considerable. It is quite otherwise with two 
at least of the four chief leaders — Beyers and de 
Wet. Taking into consideration the character 
of the back-veld Dutch, it is quite certain that 
without two such leaders of national reputation 
the rebellion would have been a far less serious 
affair than it was. It is more than doubtful, 
indeed, whether there would have been any 
rebellion at all if they had not sanctioned and 
fomented it. 

Yet the contrast between the characters of 
Beyers and de AVet was very great, so great that 
even if tilings had gone well with them, success 
in the field would almost certainly have revealed 
fatal differences between them. Both were fight- 
ing generals who had won enduring reputations 
during the Boer War. The name of de Wot was, 
of course, far better known outside South Af rica, 




THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIKI- IN SOUTH AIRICA. 
General Botha leaving his special "saloon" on his way to the front. 

493 



30- n 



4U4 



THI'J TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




THE TROOP TRAIN. 
Officers of the Union Forces travelling in shallow open trucks on their way to the Front. 



but in their own country and among their own 
people the military cajiacity of Beyers was 
rated as high as. if not higher than, that of his 
more famous colleague. Beyers was young, 
})rave beyond the ordinary bravery of the Boer, 
endowed with the stark coiu-age that burns like 
a flame among the more clouded spirits of 
normal men. During the last desperate days 
of the Boer resistance to the armies of Great 
Britain he had done great deeds in the Eastern 
Transvaal. He and Louis Botha, alone among 
the Boer leaders, had shown some gi-asp of 
the deep principles of strategy and had proved 
their ability to direct with success a composite 
force in the field. Beyers' s handling of his 
guns through a long and arduous campaign had 
given him, indeed, some title to be regarded as 
the most able military leader that the younger 
Boers had produced during the Anglo-Boer War. 
He had, too, the reputation of a chivalrous and 
merciful foe. In person he was tall, straight, 
black-bearded, with a keen eye and all the 
})earing of the born soldier. His religion was 
a deep and ardent passion — narrow as such 
icrvent con\ictions arc apt to be, yet com- 
manding respect and admiration by its very 
f'incerity of conviction. Endowed with all these 



qualities, Beyers stood out among the Boers of 
South Africa, till the day of trial came and 
found him wanting, as a singular, romantic and 
almost heroic figure. As Speaker of the Trans- 
vaal Parliament during the days of responsible 
government he had shown a sense of justice 
and fair-play towards poUtical opponents 
which had raised him high in their estimation. 
When the South African Parliament met 
the Transvaal Unionists joined with Botha 
in urging Beyers's claims to the Speakership. 
But Mr. Merriman, who had been Prime 
Minister of the Cape till the day of Union, but 
had been passed over by the Governor- General 
in favour of Botha when the time came to call on 
someone to form the first South African Ministry, 
had also a candidate for the Speakersiiip. 
The Cape was the Mother Colony of South 
Africa. Its representatives in the South African 
Parliament were inclined to think that one of 
its men should have been the first Prime 
Minister of the Union. They backed Mr. 
Merriman in his demand that his nominee 
should be made Speaker. Botha gave way and 
Beyers lost the post. There is some reason to 
think that he never forgave Botha and Smuts 
for this defection. They tried to soothe his 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



495 




THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF AND HIS WIFE. 
General and Mrs. Botha at a Railway station In German South-West Africa. 



f(H'lings by making him Commandant-General 
of the Active Citizen Force when they passed 
the Defence Act in the session of 1912. But 
those who had known Beyers from boyhood 
had always declared that vanity was his weak- 
ness, and the vain man does not easily forgive 
a wound to his self-esteem, nor can subsequent 
favours quite eradicate its smart. So, pro- 
bably, it was with Beyers. If Botha had had 
liis way and Beyers had been made the first 
Speaker of the South African Parliament, there 
might have been no rebellion, at least in the 
Transvaal, where Beyers was the outstanding 
leader. 

Tlie case of de Wet was very different. He 
had none of the superficial attractions of Bej'ers. 
Rugged, uncultivated, almost totally unlettered, 
he owed his reputation to a natural gift of 
handling men by the most forceful methods of 
the guerilla leader. Several times during the 
Boer War the savage that lurked under his 
homely exterior of a Dutch farmer revealed 
itself. He treated prisoners with brutal fero- 
city, ill-used and bullied his own men, showed 
no mercy when mercy could not have injured 
his cause and would have done honour to him- 
self Like Beyers in the Transvaal, de Wet in 



the Free State came with credit through the 
days of responsible government. As Minister of 
Agriculture he presided over a department 
whose energy and efficiency was an example to 
the rest of South Africa. It employed experts 
who knew the country and its needs. Their 
methods were backed by de Wet with all the 
force of a character as strong as it was simple, 
and with a loyalty that never wavered. When 
Union came, he retired to his farm and took no 
more part in public life, refusing the preferment 
from the State that must have been his If he 
had cared for it. There was little more heard 
of him till the day when he burst out of his 
retirement, just after Hertzog's expulsion from 
the Botha Ministry, to make the violent speech 
at Pretoria which has already been mentioned. 
The other two chief leaders, Kemp and 
Maritz, had no position in ^< uth Africa like 
that of Beyers and de Wet. Kemp w is known 
as an efficient soldier. He had 1 een de la Rey's 
chief lieutenant during the Boer War through- 
out the operations in the \\estern Tr.vns\aal. 
but he was overshadowed by the merited 
distinction of his loader. Since the war. he 
had done nothing to single himself out, though 
when the Defence Force w as organized in the 



496 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WJH. 



Transvaal lie was appointed a .Major. He 
appears to have been in command of a training 
camp at Potchefstroom in the Western Trans- 
vaal just before the rebellion began. Maritz 
liafl had a variegated career. He had given 
some proofs of a natural aptitude for leadership 
during the Boer War. When peace was made, 
lie tried his fortune first in ^Madagascar and 
afterwards in German South-West Africa, 
where he made hunself useful to the Germans 
in the Herrero campaign. He then returned 
to the Orange Free State, entered the Union 
Police, and when the Defence Force was 
formed was given a commission in it. going 
through a course of training at the INIilitary 
College at Bloemf ontein i n 1 9 1 2. Early in 1 9 1 3 
he was appointed to command Military District 
Xo. 12, which included the north-western 
districts of the Cape Province. At the begin- 
ning of August, 1914, he became Lieutenant - 
Colonel in command of the South African 
border between the Union and German South- 
West Africa, with headquarters at the little 
town of Upington. Promotion was rapid in 
South Africa in those days. The Defence Force 
was being organized, and old soldiers who had 
shown capacity during the Boer War were 
natui-ally given preference when selections for 
the higher posts were made. But the rise of 
Maritz was meteoric even for South Africa. 
His appointment to the command of the 
frontier districts marching with German terri- 
tory was due to the " repeated and urgent 
demands " of Beyers, who was Commandant - 
General of the Citizen Forces. 

Beyers's anxiety to have Maritz as Comman- 
der of the Border must have warned General 
Smuts, who was Minister of Defence, that 
something -sinister was in the wind. Maritz 
was known to have friends in German South- 
West Africa. No doubt his experience in that 
country was the ostensible reason for Beyers's 
demand. Smvits, we may be sure, had his 
doubts, but it was obviously difficult for him 
to reject the nominee of the Commandant- 
(Iteneral on such a point. The post to which 
Maritz was thus appointed was very important. 
War had just broken out in Europe and the 
South African Government had at once offered 
to release the garrison of Imperial troops in the 
Dominion for service elsewhere. On August 7 
the Imperial Government telegraphed to the 
South African Government that if they desired 
and felt themselves able " to seize such parts 
of German South-West Africa as would give 



tliem the command of S%vakopmund, Luderitz- 
bucht, and the wireless .stations there or in 
the interior, we .should feel that thi.s was a 
great and urgent Imperial service." On 
August 9 the Imperial Government sent another 
telegram to the South African Government 
saying that they regarded the capture of the 
wireless .stations at Swakopmund and Luderitz- 
bucht a.s nece.ssary and urgent ; that this 
could " only be effected in reasonable time 
by a joint naval and military exjieclition up 
the coast '" ; and that the capture of the 
German long-distance wireless .station at Wind- 
liuk. which was "' of great unportance," might 
follow another expedition against tlie coast 
-stations, or might be carried out indepen- 
dently from the interior. On August 10 General 
Botha replied by telegram that he and his 
colleagues had given careful consideration to 
these proposals and that they cordially agreed 
" to cooperate with the Imperial Government 
and to assist in sending an expedition for the 
purpose indicated, the naval part to be under- 
taken by the Imperial authorities and the 
militaiy operations to be imdertaken by the 
Union (South African) Government." * 

It was not till September 9 that General 
Botha announced the intention of the South 
African Gov eminent to undertake tliis expedi- 
tion. It had then to be submitted to a special 
session of the South African Parliament, where 
it was bitterly denounced by the Hertzog party, 
but approved by a large majority. But General 
Beyers must have been consulted by the 
Government as soon as the telegram of August 7 
from the Imperial Government was received. 
He was Commandant-General and the natural 
adviser of the Cabinet on a military question 
of this importance. JNIaritz was appointed to 
command the Border " early in August." It 
would be interesting to know- whether Beyers, 
when he insisted on the appointment, knew of 
his Government's intention to invade German 
South-West Africa. 

Whether he did or not, the evidence that 
Beyers and INIaritz were in collusion with the 
Germans and seized on the outbreak of war 
as the long-looked-for opportunity of making a 
bid for independence, of breaking the power of 
Botha, and of installing themselves as the rulers 
of a South African Republic, is very strong. 

* These telegrams were published in an Imperial 
White Paper [Cd. 7873] giving a Return of Correspon- 
dence laid upon the Table of the South African House 
of Assembly on March 11, 1915. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



497 




O 

on 

< 



H 

o- 

o 
< 



498 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 



Against Alnritz it is quite conclusive. Against 
Beyers it is not, and in his case there is just a 
possibility that it was really his objection to 
the German South-West expedition that drove 
him into rebellion. Dead, he may be given the 
benefit of the doubt, but the doubt is very 
rilender. However that may be, nothing can 
excuse or palliate the way in which he went 
about his preparations. As Commandant- 
General he must have been in the most intimate 
confidence of the Government. He had been 
for years a close political associate, a near 
personal friend, of Botha and Smuts. Con- 
spirators are doomed to have dirty hands. If 
they succeed there are always plenty of 
sycophants ready to lick them till they look 
clean. But the treachery of Beyers was 
peculiarly black. He held to his confidential 
and important post till the last moment. 
Then, when everything seemed ready for the 
rising, at the very last moment as he thought, 
he launched his resignation at the head of his 
old colleagues in the form of a political manifesto 
published broadcast in the Press. 

The first step, then, towards the rising was 
the appointment of Maritz, at the instance of 
Beyers, to the command of the German border 
very soon after war had broken out in Europe. 
It would natvu'ally be his first task to prejaare 




the invasion of German territory from the 
south-east. Beyers had different plans for 
him. The evidence all goes to show that the 
rising had been concerted before war broke 
out. On August 11 Maritz was in Pretoria, 
where he saw Beyers. It should be remembered 
that before he was appointed to the general 
command of the border, Maritz had been since 
the beginning of 1913 in command of Military 
District No. 12, comprising the magisterial 
districts of the Cape which adjoin German 
territory. Probably he had been in treason- 
able communication with the Germans, and 
came to Pretoria on August 11, just after his 
appointment to the general command, with 
offers of German aid to show to Beyers and the 
other conspirators. At the moment when he 
was on his way to Pretoria one Joubert — his 
intimate personal friend — who had been in 
German South-West Africa during July, had 
just returned to South African territory. At 
the earliest possible moment Maritz, hurrying 
back from Pretoria to the German border, sent 
several telegrams to Joubert, evidently des- 
l^erately anxious to get into touch with him. 
They met immediately and Joubert was 
appointed Staff -Captain by Maritz. Joubert 
was soon afterwards sent to Pretoria, where he 
reported to Botha and Smuts, and also saw 
Beyers. Maritz himself, hearing that there 
had been a collision between the Germans and 
some Dutch South-African farmers at Schuit 
Drift on the Orange River, the southern 
boundary of German South-West Africa, 
hastened there, first sending a telegram to 
Beyers, on August 21, informing him that he 



BREAK-UP OF THE REVOLT. 
South African Mounted Rifles behind barricades. Inset : A rest in the open. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



499 




CHASING DE WET. 
The Motor-car Contingent passing through Vryburg, 



was leaving by motor to prevent difficulties. 
Reaching Schiiit Drift, one of the few practicablti 
fords over the Orange River, Maritz crossed 
into German territory and talked on the 
telephone to the Officer Commanding the 
German forces at Warmbad. On his return he 
spoke publicly with great indignation about the 
conduct of the Dutch farmers who had fired 
on the Germans, and declared that they ought 
to be shot. Within a few days German patrols 
had crossed the river at Schuit Drift and were 
searching for these farmers on South African 
territory. Meanwhile the Germans had also 
set foot on South African soil at Nakab, a 
police post on the South African frontier about 
eighteen miles north of the point on the Orange 
River where the boundary between German and 
South African territory strikes the river from 
the north. This was on or about August 19. 

Within a week of the beginning of war with 
Germany in Europe, therefore, the position 
in South Africa was exceedingly gi-ave. The 
Commander of the Union Forces on the border 
was in league with the Germans. The Com- 
mandant-General, or Commander-in-Chief, of 
the South African Army was disaffected, 
if not altogether, at least as far as the question 
of active hostilities against the neighboiu-ing 
German Colony went. And the South African 
Govermnent had already committed itself 
to such hostilities. But this was not all In 



various parts of the Union there were miittor- 
ings of discontent and disaffection. In the 
Western Transvaal particularly the look of 
things was serious. Here there was a " seor," 
or prophet, named Van Rensburg, who had 
attained a position of considerable influence. 
The tale of his visions and prophecies throws 
an extraordinary light on the character of tlio 
Dutch people of those parts. His reputation 
rested on a vision correctly foretelling events 
that preceded the Peace of Vereeniging wliicli 
ended the Boer War. Another vision had shown 
him the number 15 on a dark cloud with blood 
issuing from it and General de la Rey returning 
home without his hat, followed by a carriage 
covered with flowers. This vision was widely 
known in the Western Transvaal, where de la 
Rey was the hero of the people. He was 
called, in fact, the "uncrowned King" of 
the Western Transvaal. When war broke 
out, it was recalled and discussed. Tlie 
plotters against the Government determined 
to make use of it. A great meeting of burgli»>is 
was summoned, to take jjlace at Treurfontein 
on August 15, the day of tlie first month of war 
that bore the number seen by \'an Rensburg 
in his vision. Information came to tlie Govern- 
ment from many quarters that this meeting 
was designed to begin a rising. It was to be 
addressed by de la Rey. On August 15 flu> 
meeting was held. About «0() burghers rode 
in to attend it. De la liey spoke to tliem. but 



500 



THE TIMES HISTOHY OF THE WAR. 




OS 

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C 

CO 

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Q 

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a 

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> 
o 

O 

z 

X 

o 
J 



lie had had an interview with Botha some days 
bef'oni. He exhorted Iheni to remain cool 
and calm, and to await events. " A strange 
and unusual silence" fell on the burghers as 
he finished. They pa.ssed without dissentient 
voice a resolution expressing complete con- 
fidence in the Government. Then they dis- 
persed to their farms. The voice of their 
leader had spoken. They obeyed. 

The first concerted plan of rebellion thus came 
to nothing. Beyers remained in chief command 
of the South African forces. Maritz was busy 
on the German border intriguing with the 
enemy. Meanwliile, in Europe, all went in 
fa \- our of the Germans, whose armies were 
pouring in an unending stream, with an un- 
exampled efficiency of equipment and transport, 
to the overtlirow of Belgium and the advance 
on Paris. Visions still played before the eyes 
of Van Rensburg. He saw the English leaving 
the Transvaal and moving down towards 
Natal. " When they had gone far away, a 
\'ulture fiew away from among them and re- 
turned to the Boers and settled down to remain 
with them. That was Botha. As for Smuts, 
he would flee to England. There was no hope 
that he would see South Africa again." * The 
value set by the conspirators upon these 
hallucinations of a disordered and fanatic 
brain is shown by their devotion to the number 
15. August 15 had proved useless for their 
ends. They determined to make their next 
attempt on September 15. The date was 
favourable for them. The Citizen Forces in 
the Western Transvaal would be gathered for 
training at Potchefstroom under the command 
of Kemp. They might be induced to rebel, 
would vmdoubtedly rebel, if de la Rey could 
be persuaded to lead them. And Botha and 
Smuts would be in Cape Town at the special 
session of Parliament which was to discuss 
the expedition against German South-West 
Africa. 

Again their plans failed. This time there 
intervened a tragedy so fortuitous that they 
might well have seen in it the hand of Provi- 
dence raised against them. As the appointed 
day drew near, the camp at Potchefstroom 
seethed with rimaours. Kemp, in command; 
Kock, the Lieutenant-Colonel of "A" Squadron, 
had prepared everything for the rising. Kock 
iuluallj' addressed his men and told them that 
h • would not obey Govei'nment ordei's to march 



* South Afiitaii 15hie Hook | l". 9, Xo^. 10-1.51. p. 10. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAB. 



501 



I 



against German South-West Africa. Kemp and 
Beyers both prepared their resignations. Every- 
thing depended on de la Rey. As a Senator of 
the South African Parhament he had gone to 
Cape Town to attend the special session. He 
was to start from Cape Town on his way 
back to the Transvaal on September 14. There 
are two alternative routes. That through 
Kimberley would have brought him to Potchef- 
•stroom on the 15th. He was expected to take 
it. He took, however, the other route through 
the Free State and reached Johannesburg 
on the 15th. That evening Kemp at Potchef- 
stroom was noticed to be in a fever of anxiety. 
Beyers at Pretoria must have been no less 
anxious. On the morning of the 15th Joubert 
arrived at Pretoria from Upington, where 
Maritz awaited the signal to join hands with the 
Germans. He brought a message which told 
Beyers that " all arrangements had been made 
and all was ready." Beyers sent liim to 
Johannesburg in a motor-car to fetch de la 
Eey. There was still time to reach Potchef- 
stroom that night. Kemp's resignation had 
been received at the Headquarters' Office. As 
soon as Joubert had gone Beyers summoned 
his Staff, and announced his resignation. He 
had already handed to the Press the manifesto 
in which he made it public. The motor-car 
returned from Johannesburg with de la Rey, 
who was evidently then persuaded to go to 
Potchefstroom that evening witli Beyers. 
Their way lay through Johannesburg. The 
roads leading into the to^vn were guarded by 
armed police on the look-out for a motor-car 
in which a gang of criminals had escaped. 
Beyers's car was summoned to stop. The 
■chauffeur took no notice and drove on. The 
patrol hi'ed on the car. De la Key, shot in 
the back, died instantaneously. At Potchef- 
stroom that night the officer who shared 
Kock's tent woke to see Kemp leaning over 
Kock's bed and wliispering something in his 
ear. " Kock, in a profoundly startled voice, 
exclaimed, ' Oh, God ! ' Kemp left immediately, 
and Kock then whispered to his friend, ' General 
de la Rey is dood geskiet ' ('General de la 
Rey has been shot dead.') " * September 15, 
like August 15, had failed the conspirators. 
But the vision in which the prophet Van Rens- 
burg had seen de la Rey returning home 
without his hat — a cari'iage covered with 
flowei-s following liim, and overhead the 

* South African Blue Book. p. 18. 



number 15 stamped upon a cloud that dripped 
blood- -had come tragically true. 

With de la Rey dead, the plot drifted into a 
disorganization that made faihire almost certain. 
Beyers and Kemp had burned their boats by 
resigning from their posts in the Defence Force. 
Kemp hurried to Pretoria to try to withdraw 
his resignation, and failed. Beyers had other 
things to think about. There is no doubt that 
when his car was summoned to stop outside 
Johannesburg he thought that he was trapped. 
When he found the whole affair an accident, 
he still had to explain a good many awkward 
circmnstances. The extremity reduced him to 
a very abject figure. At de la Ray's funeral, 
with a Bible in his hand, he passionately de- 
clared that rebelUon was far from his thoughts, 
and called the spirit of de la Rey to witness to 
the truth of tlus pitiful lie. That was on Sep- 
tember 20. The next day a meeting of about 
800 burghers was held at Lichtenburg. Kemp 
presided, and Beyers and de Wet were both 
present. The flag of the Orange Free State 
Republic was unfurled by one of the audience, 
but Beyers told liim that " we don't want any 
of this nonsense here." De Wet also declared 
that they wanted to act constitutionally. The 
truth was that de la Rey's death had deprived 
them of the one man who could have raised 
the whole of the Western Transvaal against 
Botha, and that, with Beyers no longer at the 
Defence Headquarters in Pretoria, they had 
no means of co-ordinating their plans in 
different parts of the coimtrj% So long as 
Beyers was Commandant-General the telegraph 
could be Tised at the expense of the Govern- 
ment ; no one could question the meaning of 
messages that came to or went from him : and 
he could keep his finger on the puLse of the 
whole movement. Now all tliat was done 
with. The mere distances between Beyers in 
Pretoria, Kemp in the Western Transvaal, 
de Wet in the Free State, and IMaritz on the 
German frontier, made real combination im- 
possible. And no doubt by this time the 
telegraph was closely watched. 

Beyers's resignation manifesto left, indeed, 
little doubt of what his intention had been 
when he sent it broadcast. It afTirmod that " by 
far the great majority of the Dutch-speaking 
people of the Union ' ' disapproved of the 
expedition against German South-West Africa. 
It raked up bitter memories of the Boer W'nr. 
It insinuated that the Botha Ministry had been 
bought 1)\' tlie Impei'ial (_!o\ernmt«nt i\t the 



502 



THE TIMES HISTOBY OF THE WAR. 




COMMANDO OF LOYAL BURGHERS. 
Returning to Pretoria after rounding up the rebels. 



price of a loan of £7,000,000. It cited the 
authority of Maritz for the statement that the 
Germans had not invaded South African 
territory. And almost its last words were the 
question, "Who can foretell where the fire the 
CJovernment has decided to light shall end ? " 
If Beyers had not intended to rebel the same 
night as his manifesto was published he would 
hardly have asked that question. The reply 
of General Smuts is well known. Its tone was 
one of supreme contempt for a, irxan who could 
have descended to such ignoble depths of 
treachery as Beyers had reached. It reminded 
Beyers that only the freedom granted by Great 
Britain to South Africa enabled him " to write 
with impunity a letter for which you wovild. 
without doubt, be liable in the German Empire 
to the extreme penalty." To Beyers's phrases 
about duty and honour it supphed the crushing 
retort that '' the people of South Africa will 
. . . have a clearer conception of duty and 
honour than is to be deduced from your letter 
and action. For the Dutch-speaking people in 
particular I cannot conceive anything more 
fatal and humiliating than a policy of lip loyalty 
in fair weather and a policy of neutrality and 
pro-German sentiment in days of storm and 
stress," 

Meanwhile, on the German frontier, events 
were hurrying Maritz into open rebellion. 
Within a few days of Beyers's resignation a 



telegram was sent from Headquarters, where 
Smuts had now taken the reins, to Maritz at 
L'pington, asking him to send a small force to 
Schuit Drift, and himself to move towards the 
German border in cooperation with Colonel 
Lakin, who, in command of a column, had 
orders to invade German territory, and to try 
to captiu-e Warmbad. ]\Iaritz's reply showed 
how little he could be trusted. He advised the 
Government to abandon the expedition, de- 
clared that his force was quite unfit to take 
the offensive against the Germans, and ex- 
pressed his willingness to "do my best to 
support you on this side of the frontier.'^ Maritz 
ended his telegram, sent on September 25. by 
saying that " if there are further plans to 
attack German South-West Africa mider the.'^e 
conditions, I shall be glad if my resignation is 
accepted." An emissary from Smuts went, on 
the instant to Upington. He reached it on 
September 27, and found a most serious state 
of affairs. Maritz was in constant communi- 
cation with the Germans. The force under his 
command, about 1,600 men, had been corruj:)ted 
and was not to be trusted. Smuts hastily 
moved all the troops he could lay liis hands on 
towards L^pington, and, as soon as they were 
gathered, placed them under the command of 
Colonel Brits, who was instructed to move on 
Upington, and if possible, to arrest Maritz. 
In the meantime Maritz had twice been in- 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



503 



structed by telegram to report hiniseif at 
Pretoria, and had twice refused. 

Brits arrived at Upington on October 7. 
He did not find Maritz there. On October 2 
Maritz had moved towards the German border, 
concentrating all the forces imder his command 
at Van Rooisvlei, about 25 miles west of 
Upington. On October 6, taking Joubert with 
him, he crossed the border and had a consulta- 
tion with the Germans. On October 9 he 
assembled and made a speech to his command. 
Sixty loyal officers and men were taken 
prisoners and handed over to the Germans. 
The rest agreed to rebel, and elected hixn as 
their leader. Major Bouwer, sent by Colonel 
Brits to summon Maritz to surrender his 
command, was put tmder arrest. He was 
released, however, and sent back to Colonel 
Brits with an ultimatum in which Maritz 
declared that imless he was allowed to meet 
Hertzog, Beyers, and de Wet, and was other- 
wise advised by them, he was determined to 
fight to the bitter end. In this ultimatum 
]\Iaritz also boasted that he would overrun the 
whole of South Africa, and that the Germans 
had supplied him with 100 guns and unlimited 
quantities of small arms, ammunition, and 
money. Major Bouwer, when he reached 
Colonel Brits, reported that he had foimd the 
Dutch rejjublican flag flying over Maritz's 
camp, and that Maritz had shown him num- 
bers of telegrams and heliograph messages from 
the Germans which showed that Maritz had 
been in frequent communication with them 
at least since September 10. These facts 
were communicated to the public of South 
Africa in a statement issued by the Govern- 
ment on October 12. On the same day 
martial law was proclaimed throughout the 
Union. 

The measures taken by the Government to 
deal with this outbreak were both prompt and 
effective. The situation was difficult. Maritz's 
force had been intended to cooperate with 
other South African columns in the invasion 
of German territory from the south-east. Its 
defection disorganized the whole plan of 
campaign. More, unless the counter-stroke 
was rapid and effective, it left the north-western 
districts of the Cape Province open to invasion 
by a combined force of rebels and Germans. 
The test brought out the great ability of 
Smuts as an organizer of victory in the field. 
The force rapidly concentrated and placed 
under the command of Colonel Brits attacked 



Maritz within ten days of his open rebellion. 
As early as October 15 Colonel Brits was able 
to report that he had engaged Maritz's com- 
mando at Ratedraai, ten miles south of Uping- 
ton on the road to Kenhardt. After a brief 
fight the rebels were driven off, leaving 70 
prisoners in the hands of the Loyalist forces. 
This first success was followed up with great 
energy. Within a few days Maritz found that 
v\ hen he relied on German help he leant on a 
roed that broke and pierced his hand. On 
October 26 Colonel Brits met him at Kakamas, 
■n hich had been evacuated by its small garrison 
as Maritz approached. There the decisive 
engagement took place. Maritz was com- 
pletely defeated ; his force broken into fugitive 
bands that scattered in all directions through 
the barren and waterless veld ; himself 
wounded and forced to take flight over the 
German border. Three days later Colonel 
Brits could report that he had defeated a 
remnant of the rebels at Schuit Drift, and 
that the rebellion in the north-west of the 
Cape Province was completelj'^ broken, so much 
so that he handed over the command of 
the Loyalist troops in that region to Colonel 
Royston. and returned to the Transvaal, 
where more important work in the field 
awaited him. 

For in the 20 days that it had taken the 
Government to smash Maritz. a far more 
serious outbreak had taken place at the very 
heart of the Union. General Botha's reply to 
the resignation of Beyers was to announce that 
he himself would take command of the South 
African forces, and would personally direct 
operations in the field against the neighbouring 
German colony. This bold and decisive step, 
characteristic of the man who took it, must be 
ranked in its effects among the most important 
events in the laistory of South Africa after tiie 
Peace of Vereeniging. Botha, when he decided 
to lead the King's forces in the field, must have 
foreseen, if he did not Icnow for certain, that 
the first enemy whom he would have to meet 
would he, not the Germans, but Beyers and 
de Wet and Kemp — men who had been his 
fellow-generals in arms against Great Britain 
only 12 years before. With what anxiety, 
with what heart-searchings, must he have 
weighed and balanced a crisis that demanded 
of iiini so supreme a personal sacrifice. From 
the standpoint of his own advantage it must 
have seemed tt) him tliat he had ('V(>r\thiiig to 



501 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



lose — nothing to gain. His reputation as a 
military commander of far more than local 
distinction had been won for all time in the 
Boer War. It was secure so long as he did not 
put it to the test again. And Beyers, de Wet, 
and Kemp were the tliree men yet living who, 
after himself, had proved themselves in the 
Boer War the best leaders of fighting men 
among his people. He might well have 
shrunk from such a te3t. The years that had 
passed over his head since peace had been made 
at Vereeniging in May, 1902, had been exacting 
years. They had notorious! \'^ taken a heavy 
toll of his strength and health. The work of 
Prinae Minister of South Africa, head of a Dutch 
Government under the British Crown at a 
mpment when many of the Dutch throughout 
South Africa were on the brink of rebelUon, 
was heavy enough for any ordinary man. No 
one could have thought of blaming him if he 
had been content with tliat burden. He was 
not content. It took him exactly seven days 
to make up his mind. Beyers had resigned 
on September 15. On September 22 it was 
annomiced that General Botha would take 
personal conimand of the South African forces. 
It will never be easy for the people of Great 
Britain to recognize the full extent of the 
obligation laid upon the Empire by General 



Botha when he made that decision. Such an 
obligation can never be discharged. But it is • 
the welcome task of the historian to set it at 
its true value. 

Coming two days after the funeral of de la 
Rey, this announcement of General Botha's 
determination to take the field must have made 
the rebel leaders in the Transvaal and the 
Free State realize that their task would be 
formidable. The prestige of Botha rallied 
many waverers an^ong the Dutch and brought 
the whole British population of the Union 
to a fervour of enthusiastic support of the 
Government. The rebel leaders redoubled 
their intrigues. They shamelessly spread a 
riunour that de la Rey had been shot, net 
accidentally from behind, but in front — the 
victim of deUberate assassination committed 
on Govermnent orders. Still proclaiming their 
loyalty, they busily organized in the Transvaal 
and the Free State meetings of protest again.st 
the German expedition. Botha, well aware of 
their real designs, replied by a speech to a great 
meeting at Bank, in the Transvaal, on Septem- 
ber 29, when he emphasized the fact that only 
volunteer troops would be used in the expedi- 
tion, and that no one would be forced to go. 
Nevertheless, the campaign of slander and 
thinly- veiled sedition grew throughout the Free 




INSPECTION OF TROOPS AT THE CAPE. 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



505 




GENERAL DE WET'S BROTHER GIVES INFORMATION TO COLONEL COEN BRITS. 
General de Wet's brother, Piet, seen on the right, is a Loyalist. The white armlet distinguishing 

a Loyalist soldier may be seen on the Colonel. 



State and the Western Transvaal. The news of 
the rebellion of Maritz on October 9 reached 
Kemp and Beyers on October 12. Already it 
was freely rumoured in many districts that 
rebellion would break out immediately. The 
leaders hardly held their followers in. A 
meeting of the chief conspirators took place 
at Kopjes, in the Free State, on October Hi. 
It was adjourned. The next day Beyers and 
de Wet met in Pretoria and concerted their 
final plans. When the news of Maritz's rising 
reached the Government, all the District 
Commandants were ordered to collect their men 
for the defence of the Union. The district of 
Lichtenbiu-p was responsible for 300 men. It 



had throughout been a centre of sedition. Here 
de la Rey had been buried, and here the 
Republican flag had been displayed at the 
meeting that was held the day after the funeral. 
Of these 300 men, 150 suddenly refused to obey 
orders on October 19. They rode of^, taking 
with them the horses and rifles and other 
(^overnnvent property with wliich they had 
been equipped. On the same day Beyers left 
Pretoria and disapjjeared. He had made no 
reply to urgent requests from the Government 
that he should go to Maritz and persuade him 
to siu-render without more bloodshed. Three 
days later the Govcriuuent knew thai lieycrs 
was at Danihoek, in the Transvnal, with a 



506 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE 



AH. 





WHERE DE WET'S FORGES WERE SCATTERED. 

General Botha (on left) and staff at Mushroom Valley, where the rebel forces were 

completely defeated and routed. 



rebel commando. From there he sent a mes- 
sage to the other leaders, M'ho met again at 
Kopjes on October 22. " Here," he told 
them "everything is ready, and the burghers 
practically under arrns." The meeting re- 
solved that : 

Whereas the Dutch Sovilh African people in the Orange 
Free State and the Transvaal are oppressed, the meetinp 
resolves to confide all further measures to General Beyers 
in the Transvaal and to General de M'et in the Orange 
Free State. 

Kemp was at that meeting, and de Wet and 
other subordinate leaders from both the 
Transvaal and the Free State. The next day 
the rebellion broke out in the Free State ; the 
daj- after in the Transvaal. On the evening of 
October 23 a rebel force occupied Heilbron, 
in the Free State. On October 24 Reitz 
^^a.s threatened, and a train stopped which 
contained volunteer recruits for the South 
African forces. They were deprived of their 
rifles and ammunition. That same day other 
trains were stopped at Treurfontein, in the 
Transvaal, and men and war material were 
commandeered " bj- order of Commandant - 
General C. Beyers." 

The energies of the Government were now 
directed towards two ends. They had first to 
ensure sufficient forces to dispose of Beyers and 
de Wet in the field. But they had also to use 
every endeavour to avoid bloodshed if that 
was possible. They were not lacking to either 
need. General Botha had already appealed 
to ex-President Steyn and to Hertzog to make 
public declarations condemning the rebellion 



of Maritz, From Hertzog this had met with 
no response. Nor had Steyn thought fit to 
declare himself publicly. When Botha heard 
of Maritz's treason on October 11 he at once 
sent a telegram to Steyn inforining him of the 
facts, telling him that the Government intended 
to proclaim martial law, and concluding, " You, 
of course, know the seriousness of the affair. 
A word from you will go far." Steyn replied 
by letter (October 12), saying that his health 
was bad, his position difficult, his personal 
disapproval of the expedition against German 
South-West Africa strong. In these circum- 
stances he fovmd himself unable to inake any 
public pronouncement without including in it 
a statement as to his disagreement with the 
Government on the question of the expedition. 
He also used a phrase implying that the 
rebellion of Maritz was caused by the policy 
of the Government in imdertaking the expedi- 
tion. Botha's reply (October 13) disposed 
effectively of this implication. " There is no 
connexion/' he wrote, " between the decision 
of Parlianient (approving of the expedition) 
and this act of treason. I possess the proofs 
that long before tlie resolve of the Government 
became known, in fact long before that resolve 
was come to, a plot was already on foot, a plot 
with wliich IVIaritz and others with him were 
closely associated. . . . The cause of this treason 
is nothing but the outbreak of the war with 
Germany and the deplorable and fatal idea of 
the present traitors that now that the British 
Empire finds itself in difficulties the time has 



THE TIMES HISTOEY OF THE WAR. 



oOl 



come to recover our freedom by making 
common cause with the Germans across our 
border. It is an abominable thing that Maritz 
hti-s done." 

Botha made in the same ktlcr. in words 
full of deep feeling, another appeal to Steyn 
to say tlie v/ord that might save numbers 
of the Dutch from being led away into 
rebellion : 

The misery .and the sorrow that may come upon our 
people in consequence of this action are so awtul that 
in' my opinion it is the sacred duty of every man of 
influence in our country to do everything in his power 
to keep those consequences within as narrow limits as 
possible. There is no one, Pre^^ident, wlio could speak 
ii word with greater effect than you. ... I would 
address an earnest appeal to you who stand above 
jvolitical parties and interests — speak a word to warn 
(uir peop'e against treason, against the everlasting 
stain that anything of the kind would be upon our 
national honour, and against the incalculably latal 
consequences. 

Stej-n made no response, and the word for 
which Botha asked remained unspoken. But 
on October 22 Botha wrote again, telling Ste3-n 
that the Government had unquestionable 
information that de Wet, Bejers, and Kemp 
were on the brink of rebellion : 

I consider it imperative that you should without 
delay, through your son Colin and other reliable men. 
dispatch a letter to de Wet, Beyers, and Kemp, and 
either summon them to meet you or in some other way 
turn them from the path of destruction where they now 
stand. If they come to you the (lovernment will take 
no steps to arrest them, and will provide every facility 
for your messengers. 

Do your best. President, to sa\o our people from this 
reproach, this indelible dishonoiu'. 'J'he position is more 
serious than words can describe. 

What you do must be done at once : an outbreak may 
now be expected any dav. 



Then, at last, Steyn was moved to action, 
though his reply to Botha still kept the un- 
gracious tone of a sick man disturbed in liis 
brooding over bodily ailments. It questioned, 
also, the accuracy of the Government's 
information about de Wet's treasonable 
intentions. But it announced Steyn's inten- 
tion to summon Beyers, Kemp, and de Wet 
to come to Onze Rust (Steyn's farm near 
Bloemfontein). 

Colin Steyn was accordinglj- dispatched with 
the letter. He went on October 24 to Dam- 
hoek; where Beyers lay at the head of a rebel 
commando. He returned to Pretoria that 
night, and reported that Beyers would not go 
to see Steyn until he knew that de Wet was 
going too. A telegrana had been sent during 
the day to de Wet, telhng him that Colin 
Steyn had a letter for him from Steyn, and 
asking iiim to leave word with a mutual 
acquaintance at Vrede where he could be 
found. No reply had come from de We't. 
Colin Steyn waited in Pretoria till October 20, 
and then went back to Bloemfontein to consult 
with his father. On October 28 he went with 
Hertzog to Heilbron, hoping to meet de Wet, 
but did not find him there. During the next 




SEARCHING FOR THH HNHMY. 
General Botha and his stafif. 




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508 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF TEE WALL 



509 



three days Hertzog succeeded in meeting de 
Wet twice, on the second occasion in company 
with Colin Steyn, but failed to persuade him 
to go to Steyn. He reported, however, that the 
position was hopeful, and the commanders of 
the Government forces were ordered to take 
no hostile steps against de Wet, while a safe 
conduct was sent him to enable him to go to 
Steyn at Onze Rust. This was on the last day 
of October. 

In the meantime there had been a colUsion 
between the Government forces under Botha 
and Beyers's Commando in the Transvaal, at 
a place called Commissie Drift, near Rusten- 
burg. There is ample evidence to show that 
the Government had done its utmost to avoid 
active hostilities. On October 23 the Com- 
missioner of Police was informed that General 
Smuts, the Minister of Defence, was most 
anxious to avoid, bloodshed. On October 26 
a public statement was issued that burghers, 
who had refused to obey the Government's 
summons to active service, need not fear any 
action agamst them so long as they remained 
quietly at home and abstained from acts of 
violence or hostility against the authority of 
the Government. Throughout the rebellion, 
indeed, the Government went to the furthest 
limits of moderation and self-restraint. The 
troops were ordered, for instance, not to fire 
upon rebel commandoes unless they fired first, 
an order which led directly to some loss of life 
among the Government men, and caused a 
good deal of murmuring by the loyalist popula- 
tion. Thus Colonel Alberts, a Dutch member 
of the South African Parliament, who had taken 
command of one of the columns which were 
being concentrated against the rebels, reported 
from Treurfontein on October 31 that there 
was a very strong feeling among the officers 
under his command against the policy of allow- 
ing rebels who were openly organizing to return 
freely to their homes on simply surrendermg 
their arms and ammunition. General Smuts 
replied (October 31) : 

It is in the interests of the Government to put an end 
to the rising in the Western Transvaal as speedily as 
possible. Therefore we promise pardon to those who 
surrender immediately. If not, they will be punished 
as rebels. 

These steps were taken after the collision at 
Commissie Drift. The earlier efforts made by 
the Government to end the rebellion without 
bloodshed evidently encouraged the rebel 
leaders in the Transvaal to believe that the 
Government would do nothing decisive by \\ay 



of armed force. Beyers and his colleagues were 
commandeering men on the pretended authority 
of the Government, were spreading reports that 
Botha and Smuts were really on their side, and 
would give way as soon as force was used, and 
were looting stores and breaking up railway 
and telegraph lines. So it became necessary 
to show that the Government w-as in earnest. 
On October 27, three days only after Beyers's 
men had committed the first hostile acts in 
the Transvaal, General Botha took the field 
against him, fell on his commando at Com- 
missie Drift, and scattered it to the whids. 
Beyers himseK escaped. For some days no 
one knew where he had gone. 

In the Free State, while Steyn's emissaries 
were doing their best to induce de Wet to go 
to Onze Rust, and there listen to Steyn's 
advice, de Wet himself was giving full rein to 
his passionate resentment against the Goveni- 
ment. On October 29 he cr.me with a band 
of about 120 armed men to Vrede, a town of 
the Free State. There, while his men looted 
and pillaged, he delivered a violent speech in 
which he denounced " the miserable, pesti- 
lential English," the " ungodly policy of General 
Botha," and the German South-West Expedi- 
tion — " a dastardly act of robbery." This 
was also the speech in which de Wet com- 
plained that he had been fined 5s. by a magistrate 
for flogging a native, and gave Smuts the 
opportunity of a biting retort on the subject of 
" the 5s. rebellion." The tenour of the whole 
utterance was a complaint that the Dutch 
were being ojopressed by the E.:glish, that 
their language was boycotted, that their 
customs were trampled under foot, and tliat 
they did not receive their fair share of Govern- 
ment posts. ]\Iany have wondered that de 
Wet could make such a speech as a j ustificat ioi i 
for his rebellion. They need not have been 
surprised. He spoke the ordmary jargon ol 
Hertzogism, though with more violence and 
less subtlety than its exponents ordinarily' 
affected. But then de Wet was no politician, 
and troubled himself little about those nicntal 
reservations and verbal quibbles which enabled 
Hertzog and his followers to take their seats, 
quite unabashed, in the South African Parlia- 
ment after the rebellion was over, and to lay 
their hands upon their hearts and protest that 
rebellion had always been far from their 
thoughts. 

To such heights of sophistry de Wet never 
aspired. He was one of the dui)es, ami when 



510 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 




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the time came to put the doctrines of Hertzog 
to the practical test, he flung himself into 
rebelUon with rugged enthusiasm. But he 
had, nevertheless, a kind of cunning of his own, 
and as the Government still held its hand, and 
the attempts of Stej-n to get him to go to Onze 
Rust continued, with the countenance of Smuts 
and Botha, he made the best use of them to 
gain time. More than once he assured Colin 
Steyn that he would go to see ex-President 
Steyn. His officers all urged him to do so. 
But all the time, as his captured letter-books 
show, he was sending orders to the commandants 
of his detached columns directing the attacks 
on towns, telegraphs, and railways which they 
were making. Thus on November 4 the rebels 
blew up a railway bridge south of Kroonstad ; 
on November 5 they blew up the Kroonst ad- 
Natal line in two jalaces ; and on the same day 
a commando, under Conroy, blew up the rail- 
way bridge at Virginia. On November 6 a 
loyaUst patrol was attacked by rebels south of 
I^joonstad. And on November 8 a sharp 
engagement took place between some of de 
Wet's men and a small commando iinder 
Comimandant Cronje. In this action the 
loyalists suffered a reverse, which cost them 
several men. It con\'inced the Government at 
last that de Wet wovild have to be dealt with 
by means of armed force, and closed the last 
avenue to a bloodless settlement througli the 
mediation of StejTi. 

In the Transvaal the rebellion had already 
been brought to the issue of arms. After liis 
reverse at Commissie Drift on October 27, 
Beyers was believed by Smuts to have retired 
to the fastnesses of the hill country north of 
Rustenburg. It was the only case during all 
these days of doubt and haste in A\hicli the 
intuition of Srauts proved to be at favdt. 
Beyers's next appearance was at Katbosfontein, 
north-west of Wolmaranstad. There he had 
again collected a commando, and there a long 
interview took place between him and a ]Mr. 
Cecil jNIeintjes, who acted on behalf of the 
Government, on November 4. From this inter- 
view ^Ir. ^leintjes retvumed charged by Beyers 
with a message defining the terms on which 
the rebels would lay down their arms. In this 
document Beyers offered to disband his force 
if the Government w ould use only volunteers 
against German South-West Africa, and ^^ ould 
guarantee rebel officers and leaders against 
prosecution. Smuts' s reply gave this guarantee 
and pointed out that the Govermnent had 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



511 




CAUGHT AT LAST. 
General Christian de Wet (in centre) directly after his capture. He surrendered on December 1, 1914, 

at Waterburg, 110 miles west of Mafeking. 



repeatedly pledged itself not to press men for 
service against German South-West Africa. 
But Beyers's request for terms was not sincere. 
By noon on November 5, before he could 
possibly have had any reply from the Govern- 
ment, he had marched 25 miles south, and 
was close to the railway line at I^ingswood. 
Here the railway was guarded by Government 
troops. Beyers attacked them and broke 
tlirough. His object was evidently to cross 
the Vaal into the Free State, and there join de 
Wet. But the Government troops were rapidly 
closing romid him. On November 7 they 
attacked his camp, took it, and captured 850 
of his men, more than a third of his whole force. 
Smuts, meanwhile, on November 6, had sent 
Beyers a safe conduct to go to Steyn. Defeated 
and in flight, Beyers determined to use it. He 
reached Bloemfontein in a motor-car with three 
companions. There he was arrested by a single 
armed scout riding a motor-bicycle. The 
Government might have re^judiated the safe 
conduct, which Beyers had not attempted to 
use till he was a beaten and broken man. They 
recognised it, and allowed Beyers to go to Ste\'n. 



He reached Onze Rust on November 10. 
Steyn immediately telegraphed to Smuts a.-*king 
him to give Beyers a safe-conduct to go to 
de Wet. But the affair between de Wet's men 
and Cronje's commando had taken place 
meanwhile. On November 9 de Wet himself 
had entered Winburg, one of the largest towns 
in the Free State, and had behaved with 
brutal ferocity to the Maj'or and other leading 
inhabitants. De Wet had had ample time to 
go to Onze Rust if he had desired peace. The 
patience of the Government was exhausted. 
Smuts refused to give Beyers another safe- 
conduct. 

Botha now took the field agamst de \\'et. 
On November 12 he met his main force at Mush- 
room Valley. The result of the engagement was 
the complete defeat and rout of the rebel forces. 
The Mayor of Winburg and a Senator of the 
South African Parliament, who had both been 
taken prisoners by de Wet, were rescued. De 
Wet himself escaped, but liis power was broken. 
Thereupon he, like Beyers, suddenly became 
anxious to secure the mediation of Steyn. 
Again Smtits refused, pointing out to Stoyn 



512 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



that tills might be merely another attempt to 
gain time, and that great dissatisfaction existed 
among the loyal burghers at the leniency of the 
Government, and telling him that '' uncondi- 
tional surrender on the basis of the Prime 
Minister's conditions is necessary, on the under- 
standing that there is at present no intention 
to apply capital punishment in the case of the 
leaders." Meanwhile, de Wet was a fugitive 
before the Government forces. After Mush- 
room Valley he fled south, tiuned east, and then 
doubled due west ; till on the night of Sunday, 
November 15, he reached the railway at 
Virginia. The next day, after a sharp action, 
he managed to break through the Government 
forces guarding the railway, and fled west- 
wards, closely pursued by Government mounted 
troops, aided by a fleet of motor-cars. On 
November 22 he was cut off, and agam turned 
back east. With onK* 25 men he attempted 
to cross the Vaal Ili\'er into the Transvaal, but 
was driven back from the river. A second 
attempt was more sviccessful. But realising 
at last that all was lost, lie then' turned straight 
west, evidently hoping to be able to make the 
German border. It wa« no use. The motor- 
ears that were in pursuit were too swift for his 
tired horses. On December 1, at Waterburg, 
110 miles due west of Mafeking, his pursuers, 
having surrounded hiiu while he slept, com- 
pelled him to surrender, with the small remnant 
of men that still clmig to him. The officer to 
\\hom he gave himself up was Colonel Brits, 
Mho had dealt so successfully with INIaritz six 
weeks before. 

Beyers, since he had left Steyn's fanu, had 
been vainly trying to join hands with de Wet. 
It says much for the fairness of the Govern- 
ment that, after he was refused a second safe- 
conduct by Smuts on No\- ember 10, he was 
allowed to make good his escape. Botha and 
Smuts might have drawn a cordon round Onze 
Rust, through which Beyers could never liave 
broken. But they had recognised his safe- 
conduct, out-of-date thovigh it Mas, and the 



spirit of tliat recognition required tliat hts 
should be unmol&sted if he chose to leave the 
shelter of Steyn's roof. So much law, in fact, 
was given him that he got clear away, and was 
not heard of for some days. Then he reappeared 
with a handful of men in the Free State. 
Reports about his being at various jilaces kept 
coming in. On December 7 he Mas engaged, 
and again defeated, about 15 miles south of 
Botha^•ille. The pursuit pressed him on to the 
Vaal River — then running high and SMoUen 
Mith flood Maters from the moiintains. Beyers 
tried to SM-im his horse across, while the bullets 
swept the water all round liim. No bullet 
touched him, but the stream was too SMift for 
him. Hampered by a heavy coat, he Mas 
carried aMay and drowned. Tmo daj's later his 
body was recovered from the river. 

The capture of de Wet and the death of 
Beyers really ended the rebelHon, though 
scattered parties in the Free State held out for 
some time, and were only gradually brought 
to suiTender. Kemp, who operated throughout 
on the extreme M^estem border of the Transvaal, 
penetrated some May into the north-western 
districts of the Cape. On November 7 he 
attacked Kuruman, but was beaten off. The 
Government forces in pursuit brought him to 
action on November 16 at Klein ^Vitzand, 
about 80 miles from Kiu-iunan, but Kemp had 
occupied a strong position and compelled them 
to retire. Closely pursued by Government 
troops, he, nevertheless, managed to elude 
them, and finally disappeared westwards into 
the Kalahari Desert on Novenaber 25. About 
two months later, in company with Maritz, he 
reappeared, and invaded the north-western 
districts of the Cape. They attacked Upington 
on January 24, 1915, but Mere repulsed with 
heavy loss. After desultory fighting during the 
next feM" days, Kemji suddenly appeared at 
Kakamas Mith 43 officers and 486 men. All 
surrendered, voluntarily and without conditions, 
to the Government. The South African 
rebellion Mas at an end. 



END OF VOLUME THEEE. 



INDEX TO VOLUME III. 



Abbas Hilmi, Khedive of Egypt, 
288 ; deposed, 307, 310 ; 
in Constantinople, 289 ; in- 
trigues in Egypt, 291, 307. 

Abdul Hamid, 63, 293 

Aircraft : German, drop bombs 
on Warsaw, 330 ; Taube 
drops bombs at St. Omer, 
32 ; wrecked, 32 ; Taube 
shot down by British, 170 

Akaba, shelled by H.M.S. 
Minerva, 146 

Allenby, General, commanding 
Cavalry Corps, 5 ; ordered 
to secure passage of the 
Lys, 37 ; 462 

Allenstein : captured by Rus- 
sians, 230 ; Russians evac- 
uate, 234 

Alsace-Lorraine : campaign in, 
437-440 ; General Joffre's 
strategy in, 405 ; German 
atrocities in, 416 ; position 
at end of August, 1914, 408, 
at end of February, 1915, 
440 

Altkirch, French gain important 
position near, 438 

Amazon, H.M. monitor, dam- 
aged on Belgian coast, 480 

Anglo-Persian Oil Company, 
danger of damage by Turks, 
108 

Anlcy, Lieut. -Colonel, at Le 
Gheir, 458 

Ardahan, Russians drive Turks 
oiit of, 71 

Ardenne, General von, article 
on importance of Calais to 
the Germans quoted, 167 

Arethusa, H.M.S. : in Cuxhaven 
raid, 153 ; in North Sea 
action (January 24, 1915), 
155 

Argonne, fighting in the, 430- 
434 

Armentieres : British occupa- 
tion of, 37 ; Germans evac- 
uate, 175 ; Allied line at- 
tacked at, 459 

Armoured motor car, impor- 
tance of, 31 

.\skew. Corporal W. J., 464 

Aubers, British capture, 442 

Auffenbcrg, General von, in 
command of 2nd Austrian 
Army, 242, 326, 343 

Augustowo, battle of. 238-240 

.Augnstowo, forest of, descrip- 
tion, 204 

Aurora, H.M.S., in North Sea 
action (January 24, 1915), 
155 

Australian Army, Ex))cditionary 
Force arrives in Egypt, 299 

Austria, rumoured overtures of 
jjcace, 327 

Austria, Archdukes Joseph Fer- 
dinand of, in command of 
3rd Austrian Army, 243, 343 

Austrian Army, advance in 
Calicia, 242 

Austrian atrocities in Serbia, 
394-398 



Austro-German friction, 327. 
Azizel Masri, 294, 318 



B 

Badonviller, lighting at, 414 

Bagatelle, Germans capture, 433 

Baghdad Railway : agreement 
between Great Britain and 
Germany, 101 ; British op- 
position to, 90 ; conces- 
sions granted to Germany, 
90 ; negotiations in London 
regarding, 99 

Bailleul, British enter, 35 

Baker, General Valentine, in 
Russo-Turkish War (1877- 
8), 58 

Barrett, JJeut. -General Sir 
Arthur, in command of 
operations at Basra, 110. 

Bashkola, Turks defeated at, 79 

Basra : British occupation oi, 
116 ; description of eountiv 
round, 83; fall of, 114"; 
histor}' of, 115 

Battenberg, Prince Louis of, 
resigns office of First Sea 
Lord, 121 

Bavaria, Crown Prince of, in 
Flanders, 166, 40(), 42r., 
450 

Bavazid, Russian occupation of, 
■ 77 

Beatty, Vice- Admiral Sir David, 
in Ncrth Sea action (Janu- 
ary 24, 1915), 155 

Becelaere, bombardment of, 455 

Beerst : Belgian occupation of, 
176 ; captured by (Jermans, 
18(i, 443 ; retaken by Allies, 
187 

Belfort, French driven back to, 
408 

Belgian Government transferred 
to Havre, 7 

Belgians, King of the, in the 
trenches, 185 

Belgrade : Austrian wounded 
in, 392 ; bombardment of, 
398-400 ; operations at, 
387 ; Serbians evacuate, 
383 ; Serbians recapture, 
389 

Beresford, Lord Charles, on 
submarine warfare, 152 

Bernstorff, Count, on conditions 
of ])eace, 16 

Beyers, General, 484 ; chai- 
aciter of, 494 ; Comman- 
dant - General in South 
Africa, 495 ; defeated, 511 ; 
drowned, 512; given safe 
conduct to Steyn, 511; 
in collusion with the Ger- 
mans, 496 ; in rebellion, 503 ; 
refusal to meet Steyn, 507 ; 
resignation of, 501 

Bidon, General, 5, 190. 457 

Bikanir Came! Coipi at Bir-eu- 
Nuss, 319 

Bir-en-Nuss, action at, 319 

Birniinghaw, H.M.S., in Noitli 
Sea action (Januuiy 24, 
1915), 155 

513 



Bixschoote - Langemarek - St. 
Julien - Zonnebekc line, 1st 
Corps on the, 457 
" Black Country," description 
of, 19 

Blamont, German occupation of, 
413 

Blonie : action at, 333 ; Rus- 
sian line at, 216 

Blucher, German cruiser, in 
North Sea action (January 
24, 1915), 157 ; sunk, 158 

Bobr, River, Russian line at, 207 

Bobrinsky, General Count, ap- 
pointed Governor- General 
of Galicia, 256, 343 

Bochnia, Russians capture, 356 

Bohm-Ermolli, General, 343 

Bompard, M., French Am- 
bassador, leaves Constanti- 
no])le, 52 

Bonneau, General, 403 

Botha. General Louis, 484 ; 
appeals to Ex-President 
Steyn, 506, 507 ; first Union 
Prime Minister, 488; on 
treachery of General Maritz, 
506 ; relations with General 
Hertzog, 488 ; takes com- 
mand of South African 
forces, 503 

Botszonce, fighting around, 252 

Boveerig, (Jeneral. in command 
of Austrian Army based on 
Przemysl, 272 

Boyen, fortress of, 207 

Bo3-ovitch, General, 367 : ad- 
vance on the Frushkagora 
Mountain, 368 

Breslau, German cruiser, bought 
by the Turkish Govern- 
ment, 44 ; damaged in 
Black Sea, 76 ; engaged 
in Black Sea, 147 

Brest-Litovsk, fortress of, 21() 

Bristol, H.M.S., in Falkland 
Islands action, 136 

British Army : 7th Division, 
constitution of, 168, 169 

British Navy : operations on 
Belgian coast, 154, 189, 
443, 469, 476 

Brits, Colonel ; de Wet sur- 
renders to, 512 ; instructed 
to arrest General Maritz, 
502 

Brodv, Russian occupation of, 
249 

Browne, Lieut.-Coloncl Wogan, 
111 

Brownlow, Major, apjiointed 
Military Governor at Basra, 
116 

Brugere, General, 1 

Bruges, German occupation of. <V 

Brusiloll. General Alexis, 248; 
Hanking movement at the 
Ztota Lipa, 252, 270 ; 
Order of St. George con- 
ferred on, 256 ; victory at 
Rawa-Ruska and Grodek, 
266 

Brzezany, lighting at, 250 

Bukowina : description of. 2*11 ; 
Russian occupation of, 357 

Bulliu, Major-Gcncral, 463 



51 



THE TIMKS HISTOIIY OF THE WAR. 



Bulwark, H.M.S.. blown up at 
Shecrnoss, 149 ; inquiry on 
loss of, 151. 

Butlor, Lieut. -Colonel, at Li' 
Gheir, 4oS 

Bynij, Major-Oeneral the Hon. 
Julian, commanding 3r(l 
Cavalry Division, 2, 34, 
444 ; at Zonnebeke, 457 ; 
diary quoted, 170 ; enters 
Ypres, 5 

Bzura, River, Russian line at, 
207 ; Germans eros.s the. 
351, 355 ; Russians fall 
back on line of the, 350 



c 

Camp des Rf^miins, 427; des- 
troyed, 4 28 

Canopus, H.M.S., absent from 
action off Chilean coast. 
130 ; in action at Falkland 
Islands, 136 

Capper. Major-(}cneral, in com- 
mand of 7th Infantry Divi- 
sion, 34, 1(J8 ; at the Lvs. 
37 

Catnarvon, H.M.S., in Falkland 
Islands action, 136 

Carpathians : description of 
passes, 213 ; fighting in 
the, 357 ; strategical im- 
portance of, 212 

Castelli, General de, 404 

Castelnau, General de, 1, 174, 
403 

Caucasus ; campaign in the, 
67-80 ; description of 
Russo-Turkish frontier, 68 

Chaldea. British invasion of. 
81-120 

Champagne district, fighting in 
the, 434 

Chcetham, Sir Milne, Acting 
High Commissioner in 
Egypt, 308, 316 

Chilean coast, action off, 129- 
134 

Chope, Captain, at Bir-en-Nuss, 
319 

Churchill. Rt. Hon. Winston, 
on North Sea action (Janu- 
ary 24, 1915), 159 

Cirey, Germans occu{)y, 413 

Cocos- Keeling Islands, action 
at, 126 

Col du Chipatte, fighting at, 413 

Conneau, General, 2, 5, 174, 
449 

Cornwall, H.M.S., in Falkland 
Islands action, 130 

Courtrai, German reinforce- 
ments reach. 443 

Cox, Colonel Sir Percy, British 
Resident in the Persian 
Gulf, 111 

Cracow: description of, 211 ; 
German defensive position 
at, 349 ; Russian advance 
on, 270, 356 ; strategical 
importance of, 212, 215, 
216, 218 

Cradock, Rear- Admiral Sir 
Christopher, 129 ; death, 
133 

Cromer, Lord : in Egypt, 282 ; 
relations with Abbas Hilmi, 
288 

Cronje, Commandant, engages 
de Wet near Kroonstad, 
510 

Cuxhaven, raid on by British 
sea])lanes, 153 

Czernowitz. Russian occupation 
of, 357 



D 

Daniell, Major, at Le Pilly, 449 

Dank!, General, in command of 
1st Austrian Army, 242, 
245 ; at Rawa-Ruska, 262 

Da re he. Colonel, defender of 
Longwy, 430 

Dardanelles : closetl. 51 ; first 
bombardment (Novembers, 
1914), 147 

Delamain, Brig.-General W. S., 
in command of Poona Bri- 
gade in the Persian Gulf, 
107 ; at Fao, 108 

de la Rev, General, addresses 
meeting at Treurfontein, 
499 ; killed, 484, 501 

Dtrfjli iKjcr, German cruiser, in 
North Sea action (Januarj' 
24, 1915), 157 

d'Esperev, General Franchet, 
434 ' 

Detch, Serbians capture, 368 

Dewa, Admiral Baron, com- 
manding Japanese First 
Fleet. 121 

de Wet, General Christian, 484 ; 
character of, 495; in re- 
be lion, 503 ; speech at 
Pretoria quoted, 491 ; sur- 
renders, 512 

Dixmude : bombardment of. 
456, 473-478 ; deseri])tion 
of country round, 176 ; 
German attacks on, 185, 
repulsed, 191-195 

Djavid Bev, 49, 63 

Djemal Pa'sha, 47, 49, 63 

Djivkovitch, (General, 399 

Dniitrieff, General Radko, 252, 
344 ; distinguished services 
of, 266 

Dniester, River : bridges on 
destroyed by Austrians, 
252 ; Russians cross the, 
253 

Dobbie, , Brig.-General W. H., 
110 

Dobranovtsi, Serbians capture. 
368 

Dombasle, German occupation 
of, 419 

Donetz, Russian guardship. sunk 
in Odessa harbour, 52 

Dresden. German cruiser, escape 
in Falkland Islands action, 
143 ; in action oS Chilean 
coast, 130 ; sinks two ves- 
sels, 134 

Drina, River ; Austrians cross 
the, 368, 374 ; description 
of, 362 

Dubail, General, at Nancy, 403 

Dubois, General, 403 

Duke of Edinburgh, H.M.S., in 
Red Sea, 145, 318 

d'Urbal. General, 1, 5, 12, 183, 
185, 446 

Dwarf, H.JLS., German attempt 
to blow up, 145 

E 

East Coast raids, early, 153 
Egypt : British occupation of, 
281-284 ; British Protecto- 
rate proclaimed. 310 ; col- 
ton industry, effect of war 
on, 287. 296 : Dentsch- 
Orient Bank. 291, 292 ; 
economic measures after 
outbreak of war, 296, 298 ; 
financial conditions. 287 ; 
German intrigues in, 292 ; 
Hisb. el Watani (Patriotic 
Party), 291-293 ; martial 
law proclaimed, 304 ; mea- 



sures taken again U enemy 
subjects and shipjdns, 284- 
286. 300. 302-3U4 ; Minis- 
try, new, 313; .Ministry, 
resignation of, 313 ; Ser- 
vants of the Kaaba (Secret 
Society), 292 ; Turkish in- 
trigues in. 283, 292-295 ; 
Turkish suzerainty in, 282 
Egyj)t, Khedive of. Abbas Hilmi. 
288 ; in Constantino))!e, 
289 ; intrigues in Effypt. 
291, 307 ; depo.sed, 307^ 310 
Egypt, Sultan of. Prince Hus- 
sein Kamil. created, 308, 
312, 314-316 
El Arish, occupied by Turks, 319 
Emden. German cruiser, des- 
troyed by H.M.A.S. Sydneif 
123-129 ■ 
Ennetieres, attack described, 38 
Enver Pasha, 45, 49, 60, 70, 294 
Erbeviller, fighting at, 422 
Espiejle, H.M.S., guarding oil 
refinery at Abadan, 108 ; 
in the Karun River, 107 
Espinasse, General. 404 
Essen, French enter, 186 
Evatajji, Russian flagship, fires 

on the Goeben, 147 
Ewarts, General, 246, 267 

F 

Falkenhayn, General von, ap- 
pointed Chief of the General 
Staff, 162 ; strategy of, 
162-166 

Falkland Islands, British victory 
at, 134-143 

Fao, seized by British, 108 

Feilding, Lady Dorothie, 189 

Fisher of Kilverstone, Lord, 
appointed First Sea Lord, 
121 

Foch, General, 403, 418, 434, 452 

Formidable, H.M.S., torpedoed, 
151 

France, Eastern, distribution of 
armies in, 403 

Fran(,'ois, General von, retires 
from Insterburg. 226 

Prankeuau, action at. 230 

French, Field-Marshal Sir John, 
174, 190, 445, 450, 451 ; 
at Ypres, 445 ; meets 
General Joffre in Flanders, 
456 

French marines in battle of 
Yser, 199 

Frushkagora Mountain, Serbian 
advance on, 368 

Fry, Major-General C. J., 110 

Fuad, Dr. Ahmed. 292 

Furnes, Belgian Staff leave, 472 

G 

Galicia : Austrian advance in, 
343 ; Austrian plan of 
campaign in. 242 ; Austrian 
reinforcements in, 257 ; 
frontier railway system, 
241 ; retirement of 1st 
Austrian Army, 258, 259 ; 
strategical position of oil- 
fields, 210 

Garibaldian contingent in the 
Argonne, 433 

George V.. King : decorates 
William Pillar for services 
rendered to crew of H.M.S. 
Formidable. 152 ; message 
to Sultan of Egypt, 314 ; 
message to Sultan of Tur- 
key, 49 

Georijio'i. S..S., sunk by Russian 
torpedo boat.s, 76 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



515 



(jierbeviller, fighting at, 414 ; 
German atrocities in, 416 

German Army : cavalry, in- 
feriority of, 18 

(jerman influence in Turkey, 42 

(lerman plan of campaign in 
Poland, 216, 217 

German South-West Africa, 
proposed invasion of, 49(5 

German West Africa, British 
and French landing forces, 
145 

<Termany : strategical railways 
on Russian frontier, 202 

Germany, Crown Prince of, at 
Longwy, 430 

Ghent : British evacuate, 170 ; 
German occupation of, 6, 
170 

Giers, M. de, Russian Ambassa- 
dor, leaves Constantinople, 
52 

Givenchy-Neuve Chapelle-Fau- 
quissart line, British retire 
to, 459 

Glasgow. H.M.S., escape in 
Chilean coast action, 133 ; 
in action at Falkland Is- 
lands, 136 

Glossop, Captain John C. T., 
official dispatch on destruc- 
tion of Emden, 127-129 

Gneisenau, German cruiser, in 
action off Chilean coast, 
130 ; sunk at Falkland 
Islands, 140 

Goeben, German cruiser bom- 
bards Sebastopol, 147 ; 
bought by the Turkish 
Government, 44 ; damaged 
by Evstafp, 147 ; damaged 
by mine, 76 

Goltz, General von der, enters 
Ostend, 9 

Good Hope, H.M.S., sunk in 
action off the Chilean coast, 
129 

Gorst, Sir Eldon, in Egypt, 283, 
289 

Gough, General, 457 ; in com- 
mand 2nd Cavalry Division, 
15 ; at Mont-des-Ca»K, 33 

Graham, Sir R., work in Egypt, 
298. 304 

Grand Couronne of Nancy, 413 

Great Britain takes over Turkish 
battleship Sultan Osman. 43 

Greece, relations with Turkey 
before the war, 41 

Grobler, Piet, 492 

Grodek line : Austrian strength 
on, 262 ; battle of, 261-267 

Grosetti, General, 197 ; at Nieu- 
port, 463, 465 

Guchevo, fighting at. 370 

(Jumbinnen, battle of, 226 



H 

Haig. General Sir Douglas, 

450, 451, 456 ; biogra])hi('al, 

445, 44() ; at St. Oiner, 38, 

190: at Ypre.s with 1st 

Corp.s, 442 
Halicz, bridge destroyed by 

Austrians, 252 
Hamburg- Atncrika Company, in- 

tere.sfs in Per.sian Gulf, 

9()' 99 
Hamidiih, Turkish cruiser, 

damaged in Black Sea, 76 
Hamilton, General Sir Hubert, 

killed, 25 
Hardinge of Penshurst. Lord, 

visits Persian Gulf, 119 
Hartmannsweilerkopf, fighting 

at. 439 



Hassan ed Din Pasha, 76 

Hausen, General von, 434 

Hazebrouck, German occupa- 
tion of, 4 

Herlies, captured by the British, 
26 

Heniies, H.M.S., sunk by German 
submarine, 148 

Hertzog, General, 484 ; char- 
acter of, 486 ; expelled 
from the Botha Ministry, 
489 ; influence in Orange 
River Colony, 485 ; policy 
of, 489 ; relations with 
General Botha, 488 ; speech 
at De Wildt quoted, 490 

Hesse, Prince Max of, death at 
Mont-des-Cats, 33 

Hewlett, Flight Commander, in 
Cuxhaven raid, 153 

Hilmi Pasha, 60, 62 

Hindenburg, Field-Marshal von, 
347, 350 ; advance to the 
Niemen, 204 ; career, 231- 
233 ; in command in East 
Prussia, 231 ; in command 
of Austro-German forces. 
327 ; strategy in East 
Prussia, 233-237 ; tactics 
at Warsaw, 329 ; victory 
at Tannenberg, 205 

Hishmet Pasha, 293 

Hofmeyr, Jan, in South Africa, 
483, 488 

Hoi brook, Lieut. -Commander 
Norman D., awarded the 
V.C, 148 

Hood, Rear-Admiral, bombards 
the Belgian coast, 154, 189, 
443. 469 

Hotzendorf, General Konrad 
von, 326 

Houthulst, Forest of, Germans 
driven out of the, 441 ; re- 
occupied by the Germans, 
446 

Hunter- Weston, General, at Le 
Gheir, 458 



Indian Army, Expeditionary 
Force arrives in Egyi)t, 299 

Indomitable, H.M.S., in North 
Sea action (January 24, 
1915), 155-157 

Inflexible, H.M.S., in Falkland 
Islands action, 136 

Insterburg : German retirement 
from, 226 ; Russian occu- 
pation of, 228 ; Russians 
evacuate, 236 

Intrepide, French destroyer, 
Rear-Admiral Hood hoists 
his flag on the, 480 

Invincible, H.M.S., in Falkland 
Islands action, 136 

Iskan Pasha, defeated at Sari- 
kamish. 71, 73 

Ismail Hakki, intrigues in Egypt, 
294 

Ivanoff, General, 246 ; in com- 
mand of besieging force at 
Przemysl, 273 ; Order of 
St. George conferred on, 
275 

Iwangorod : Austro - German 
force defeated at, 336 ; 
bombardment of, 334 ; forts, 
216 ; Gorman advance on, 
329 



Japan, declaration of war 
against Germany, 121 

Japanese Navy at Tsing-Tau. 
121 



Jarak : fighting at, 366 ; Ser- 
bians capture, 368 

Jaroslau : fighting around, 344 ; 
Russians capture, 267. 272 

Jeanniot, Commandant, at Dix- 
mude, 474 ; at the Yser, 
467 ; killed, 475 

Joffre, General, 404, 437 ; di- 
recting operations on the 
Yser, 190 ; meets Sir John 
French in Flanders, 45(i ; 
strategy in Alsace-Lorraine, 
405 

Julie, Sceur, Cross of Legion of 
Honour conferred on, 416 



K 

Kaiser, The : at Nancy, 422 ; 

in Flanders, 161 ; visits to 

Constantinople, 90 
Kniserin Elizabeth, Austrian 

cruiser, lost at Tsing-Tau, 

123 
Kakamas, Maritz defeated at, 

503 
Kalisch, Germans cross fron- 
tier at, 325 
Kamimura, Rear-Admiral, as- 
sists in landing of troops at 

Lunkiang, 122 
Kara Kilissa, Russians seize. 76 
Kara-Urgan, Russian victory 

at, 75 
Kato, Admiral, commanding 

Japanese Second Fleet, 121 ; 

concentrates on Kiao-Chau 

Bay. 122 
Kemp, Major, character of, 495 ; 

in rebe'.lion, 5C3; surrenders 

at Kakamas, 512 
Kent, H.M.S., in Falkland 

Islands action, 136 
Keyera : Belgian occupation 

of, 176 ; Germans capture, 

186, 444 
Kiamil Pasha, 63 
Kielce, battle of, 341, 343 
Kitchener, Lord, in Egypt, 282, 

283, 291 
Kock, Lieut.-Colonel, refuses to 

march on German South- 
West Africa. 500 
Kogge, Monsieur Charles Louis, 

opens sluices on the Yser, 

471, 476 
Kolubara, River, fighting on the, 

382 
Kolubara line, Serbians with- 
draw from, 383 
Kolubara-Lyg line, Serbian de- 
fence along, 376 
Konigsberg : fortress of, 213 ; 

threatened by Russians, 228 
KOnir/nberg, (icrman cruiser, 

shells H.M.S. Pegasus, 143; 

destroyed, 144 
Kopjes, meeting: of rebel leaders 

{October 13, 1914) at, 505 
Koprukeui, Russians eaptur(\ ()9 
Kostaiinik. Serbians hold. 370 
Kowcit : agreement Ix-twcen 

(Jreat Britain and Tuikey 

regarding, 99 ; German at- 

temjits to seize, 92 
Koweit, Sheikh of, refusal to 

lease territory to Germans. 

92 
Kozieniee, attack on, 335 
Kragujevatz, Serbians retire to. 

375 
Krasnostaw. fighting at, 258. 261 
Kroonstad-Natal line, blown up 

by rebels. 510 
Krujiani. fightiTisj at. .370, 373 
Kupinovo. Scri)inn.s eai)tiin'. 3li5 



510 



37/2'; TIMES HlSTOIiY OF THE ]yAli. 



Xupinski Kut, Serbians cross the 
Save at, 364 

Kurna : advance on, 117 ; fall of, 
118 ; first action at, 117 

Kusmanek, General, in com- 
mand at Przemysl, 272-274 

Kutno, Russians driven back at, 
350 



La Bassec, description of coun- 
try around, 22 

Lambe, Captain C. R., 148 

Langle de Gary, General, 409, 434 

Lansdowne, Lord, on British 
control of the Persian Gulf, 
107 

Lawford. General, in command 
of 22nd Infantry Brigade, 
457 

Lazarevatz, Austrian attack on, 
377 

Ledeghem, captured by British. 
39, 444 

Le Gheir, British occupation of, 
441, 448 ; Germans re- 
attack, 459 

Leipzig, German cruiser, in 
action off the Chilean coast, 
130 ; sinks three steamers, 
134 ; sunk at Falkland 
Islands, 140 

Leke, Belgian occupation of, 176 

Lemberg (Lwow) : Austrian re- 
treat, 253 ; battle of, 253- 
257 ; history of, 254 ; posi- 
tion, 211 ; Russian occupa- 
tion of, 253 ; strategical im- 
portance of, 254 

Le Filly, British capture, 449 ; 
Germans recapture, 456 

Lerouville, bombardment of, 428 

Lille : bombardment of, 28, 29 ; 
fall of, 28 ; Germans in, 2, 
29 

Liman von Sanders, General, in 
charge of German Military 
Mission to Turkey, 51, 57, 
64, 66 

Limpus, Admiral, and British 
Naval Mission dismissed by 
Turkey, 44 

Lion, H.M.S., in North Sea ac- 
tion (January 24, 1915J, 
155-159 

Lodz : description of, 207 ; 
fighting around, 351 ; Ger- 
man occupation of, 328, 
352-355 ; reoccupied by the 
Russians, 338 

Lombartzyde, Allies evacuate, 
476 ; Belgian occupation 
of, 176 ; lighting around, 
465 ; Germans attack, 443 

Longwy ; fall of, 430 ; Germans 
cross the frontier at, 408 

Lorraine, attitude of the people 
in, 411 

Lowestojt, H.M.S., in North Sea 
action (January 24, 1915), 
155 

Loxley, Captain, death on H.M.S 
Formidable, 151 

Lublin, Austrian advance on, 
246 

Luce, Captain John, report on 
Chilean coast action, 132 

Ludendorff, General von, 233 

Luneville : German occupation 
of, 410, 417 ; Germans evac- 
uate, 425 

Lwow; see Lemberg. 

Lyck, attack on. 238 

Lys : Allied position north of 
the. 442, 448 ; description of 
country around, 30 ; French 
cavalry cross the, 16-19 



M 

Macedonia, armed liner, in Falk- 
land Islands action, 136 

Mackensen, General, 330, 347, 
350 

Magdala, Wells of. Bedouin oc- 
cupation of, 51 

Mahan, Admiral, on British con- 
trol of the Persian Gulf, J 06 

Mahmoud Shevkct Pasha, 63 ; 
assassinated, 64 

Mallet, Sir Louis, 45, 48, 49 ; 
interview with Sultan of 
Turkey, 50 ; leaves Con- 
stantinoj)le, 52 ; on Turkish 
neutrality, 46 

Mannekensvere : Belgian occu- 
pation of, 176 ; Germans 
capture, 186 

Manonviller, fall of, 410 

Maritz, General, 491 ; appointed 
Commandant of the Border, 
496; at Schuit Drift, 499 ; 
character of, 496 ; defeated 
at Kakamas, 503 ; in com- 
munication with the Ger- 
mans, 502 ; in rebellion, 503 ; 
proclamation quoted, 490 

Martos, General, taken prisoner, 
236 

]\Iasurian Lakes, description of, 
2C5 

Matchko Kamen, fighting at, 
371, 372 

Matchva district, Serbian with- 
drawal from, 374 

]\Iaud'huy, General de, 1, 174 

Maxwell, Lieut. -General Sir 
John : appointed Comman- 
der-in-Chief of British 
. Forces in Egypt, 299 ; is- 
sues proclamations, 305 

Mayer, Colonel, in command of 
French force occupying 
Edea, 145 

Mayes, Sergeant Charles, 142 

McMahon, Sir Henry, aj^pointed 
High Commissioner in 
Egypt, 309 

Meade, Captain the Hon. H., in 
North Sea action (January 
24, 1915), 157 

Mtdjidieh, Turkish cruiser, en- 
gaged at Sinope, 76 

Melle, action at, 6 

Menin, British advance on, 441, 
444 ; strategical importance 
to the Germans, 40 

Mersey, H.M. monitor, damaged 
oS Belgian coast, 480 

Messudiyeh, Turkish battleship, 
torjiedoed by British sub- 
marine B 11, 148 

Meteren, captured bv the British, 
33 

Meuse : fortresses on the, 409, 
425 ; French cross at Lerou- 
ville, 428 ; Germans cross at 
St. Mihiel, 428 

Meyser, General, 189, 454 

Mezera shelled by the British, 117 

Michel, General, commanding 
Allies on the Yser, 183, 187 

Middle East, German influence 
in, 88-90 

Midhat Pasha, annexations of 
Gulf Territory, 88 

Milovatz, Austrian occupation 
of, 378 

Minerva, H.M.S., cruiser, in the 
Red Sea, 318 ; shells Akaba, 
146 

Mirman, M. Leon, Prefect of 
Meurtho et Moselle, 412 

Mishitch, General : at Suvobor, 
384 ; in command of Serbian 
l.st Armv, 383 



Mitrovitza, Serbian disaster ati 

365 
Mitry, General de, 35, 185, 190, 

451, 456 
.Mohamed Ali, Prince, requested 

to leave Egypt, 306 
Mohamed Bey Farid, 291, 293 
-Molkenrein, French take, 439 
Moitke, General von, superseded 

by General von Falkenhayn, 

161 
Moitke, German cruiser, in North 

Sea action (January 24, 

1915), 157 
Monmouth, H.M.S., sunk in 

action off Chilean coast, 130 
Mont-des-Cats, description of, 

19 ; strategical importance 

of, 448 
Moore, Lieut.-Commander A. P., 

148 
Morhange, French defeat at, 41)3, 

408 
Morgen, General von, 237, 350 ; 

issues ijroclamation to Poles, 

323 
Mors, Lieutenant R. C, German 

plot in Egypt, 295 
Miilhausen : French occupation 

of, 405, 437 ; German bru- 
tality in, 438 
Miiller, Captain Karl von, in 

command of the Emden, 126 
Munro, Dr. Hector, 189 
^Muscat, attacks on, 120 
Mustafa Kamil Pasha, 291 

N 

Nancy : bombardment of, 423 ; 
defence of, 402, 410 ; fight 
foi, 417-419, 422 ; strate- 
gical position of, 413 

Narew, River, Russian line at, 
207 

Nazim Pasha, assassinated, 63 

Neidenburg, captured by Rus- 
sians, 230 

New Zealand Army, Expedi-- 
tionarj' Force arrives in 
Egypt, 299 

New Zealand, H.M.S., in North 
Sea action (Januarj- 24, 
1915), 155-157 

Niazi Bey, heads Young Turk 
movement, 62 

Niemen, River, description of, 
204 ; German attempt lo 
cross, 239 

Nieuport ; bombardment of, 
197 ; British naval men at. 
451 ; French at, 463 ; Ger- 
mans bombard, 466, 468 ; 
history of, 179 ; naval opera- 
tions at, 154 

Niger, H.M.S., sunk by German 
submarine, 148 

Nomeny, German occupation of, 
418 

North Sea, action in (January 
24, 1915), 155-160 

Nottingham, H.M.S., in North 
Sea action (January 24. 
1915), 155 

Novo Georgievsk Forts, 216 

Nurnherq, German cruiser : cuts 
• Pacific cable, 134 ; in action 
off Chilean coast, 130 ; sunk 
at Falkland Islands, 140 





Oder, River. German fortresses 

on the, 214 
Odessa : harbour raided by 

Turkish torpedo boats, 52 ; 

Turkish raid on, 304 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



517 



Odin, H.M.S., in bombardm,ent 

of Fao, 108 
Opolie-Turobin line, fighting at, 

261 
Oppenheim, Baron Max von, 292 
Osowiec, German siege of, 238 
Ostend : Belgian exodus from, 

7-9 ; strategical importance 

of, 13 
Olranto, auxiliary cruiser, in 

action off Chilean coast, 130 
Oud-Stuyvekenskerke, fighting 

at, 4B8 



Pannwit/., Dr. von, Acting Ger- 
man Agent in Egyy)t, 300 

Papeete, Gorman squadron bom- 
bard, 134 

Passchendaele, fighting at, 456 ; 
French occupy, 445 ; Ger- 
man occujiation of, 190 

Passenhcim, Germans recapture, 
235 

Pavlovitch, Colonel, director of 
Serbian military operations, 
383 

Pcchintsi, Serbians occupy. 368 

Prtjasus, H.M.S., shelled by 
Konigshcrq, 143 

Persia, neutrality of violated by 
Turkey, 79 

Persian Gulf : British interests 
in. 84, 95-98, 101, 105; 
character and history of, 
81-83 ; first German traders 
in, 91. 101 ; history of 
British influence, 102-105 ; 
operations in, 81-120, 140; 
])earl fisheries, 94 ; (Jerman 
interests in, 95 ; Turkish 
interests in the, 84 

Pervyse, German attempt to 
reach. 472, 478 

Pestitch, General, death, 236 

Pilkem. Germans penetrate line 
at. 462 

Pillar, William, deccr.ited for 
services during the Formid- 
ahlr disaster, 151 

Piotrkow. fighting around, 355 

Plateau of Amanr-e, attack on, 
41!>, 422 ; description of 
413, 418 

Plehvc. General, 246, 267 

Plcschen, Russians cross frontier 
at. 340 

Ploegsteert (" Plug Street ") 
Wood. 448 

Poelcap])olle. British withdrawal 
from. 454 ; German occupa- 
tion of, 190 

Poland : description of. 207 ; 
devastation in. 3.'".9 ; first 
German invasion of, 321- 
S4t; (ierraan proclamation, 

324 ; German propaganda. 
324; Russian proclamation, 

325 ; second German inva- 
sion, 347 ; situation at end 
of 1914, 359; .strategical 
importance of. 203 

Poles : (Jermans anticipate re- 
bellion, 208 ; Prussian o|)- 
pression of, 209 

Polish feeling in regard to the 
wai. 20« 

]'oli,><li loyalty to Pvussia. 322 
Polish Quadrilateral," 2i() 

Pont-a-Mousson, Germans evac- 
uate, 425 

Port Stanley, Admiral Sturdec's 
fleet atl 135 •*. 

Portuqnl, French vessel, dam- 
aged in Odessa harbour. 52 

Potiorek. General, 363, 375 ; 
strategy at Suvobor, 384 



Princess Royal, H.M.S., in North 
Sea action (January 24, 
1915), 155-157 

Progar, Serbians capture, 365 

Pruefer. Dr., German agent in 
Egypt, 292 

Prussia, East : description of. 
. 205 ; first invasion of, 223- 
240 ; panic in, 230 

Przemysl : fall of, 275 ; fighting 
around, 344 ; history of, 
272 ; investment of, 267, 
272 ; strategical import- 
ance of, 215 

Pulteney, General, in command 
3rd Army Corps, 5, 449 ; 
at Radinghem, 441 

Putnik. General, 361. 363, 374, 
377 ; strategy at Matchko 
Kamen, 371 



R 

Radinghem, British capture. 

441 ; British reverse at. 456 
Radom. Russian occupation of, 

340 

Ramscappelle, bombardment of, 
480 

Ravnje-Tolich line, fighting on 
the, 369, 373 

Rawa, River, Russian line at, 
207 

Rawa-Ruska, battle of, 263-267 

Rawlinson, Geneial Sir Henry, 
in command of 4th Army 
Corps, 2, 170, 174, 185; 
advances on Ypres. 5, 11 ; 
decides not to attack Menin. 
39 ; ordered to the line of 
the Lys, 38-40 

Red Sea, operations in the, 145, 
318 

Reims, battle of, 430 

Remereville, fighting at, 422 

Rennenkampf, (Jeneral, 225 ; re- 
tires beyond the Niemen. 
237 ; retreat from East 
Prussia, 236 ; tactics at 
Gumbinnen, 226 ; threatens 
Konigsberg, 228 

Reymond, Senator (French avia- 
tor), death at Nancy, 404 

Richthofen. Baron, 293 

Rolleghemcappelle, captured by 
British, 39, 444 

Ronarc'h, Rear- Admiral, 170, 
467. 471 ; at Dixmude, 183 
185, 473 ; biographical, 182 : 
in command of French 
Marines at battle of the 
Yser. 176 

Roulers, British occupy, 34 ; 
eye- witness's story of fight- 
ing around, 38 ; 7th Division 
march on, 170 ; French ad- 
vance to, 441 ; French take. 

442 ; Germans capture, 18(>. 
444 

Ruchdi Pasha. Hussein, Pre- 
mier of Egy|)t, 313 

Russia : popularity of the wiw. 
219, 244; prohibition ot 
drink, 222. 277 

Russia, (hand Duke Nicholas of. 
245 ; issues ])roclanuvtion to 
inhabitants of Galicia, 279 ; 
Order of St. George coii- 
feri-cd on, 275 ; proclama- 
tion to Poles, 325 

Russian Army : beha\iour of 
troops in the field. 277-280 ; 
defective equipment. 201 ; 
mobilisation, 218 ; Siberian 
Corps at Warsaw, 331, 333 ; 
91st Siberian Corps, Order 



of St. George conferred on, 
333 ; transport, efficiency 
of road, 242 ; want of strate- 
gic railways, 202 

Russian offensive, at Lublin, 
257 ; on the Galician fron- 
tier, 249 

Russian strategy in East Prussia, 
223 

Russo-Prussian frontier, 224 ; 
description of, 203-210 

Ruszky, Genera', 242. 339. 347 ; 
at battle of Augustowo, 238 ; 
in command of Russian 
armies on Galician frontier, 
248 ; Order of St. George 
conferred on, 256 ; takes 
command of Russians on 
the Niemen, 237 



s 

Sahain, action at, 112 

Sahil, battle of, 112 

Said Halim, Prince, 41. 64 

St. Die, Germans occupy, 413 

St. Georges, Germans cross 
Yser at. 466 

St. Mihiel. 43S ; Germans cross 
the Meuse at, 428 ; German 
occupation of, 427, 428 

Ste. Genevieve, bombardment 
of, 418 

Sambor, Russians capture, 267 

Samsonoff. General, 225 ; death. 
236 ; operations along the 
Masurian Lakes. 228 

San, battle on the, 356 ; Rus- 
sians cross the, 268, 344 

Sandomierz, Russian occupation 
of, 269 

Saniyeh, Turks checked at, 110 

Sarikamish, Russian victory at, 
71, 73, 74 

Sarrail, General, 404, 4.30. 433. 
435 

Save, River, Austrian monitor 
sunk by Serbians, 374 ; 
Austrian retreat across. 388 ; 
Serbians cross, 364; Serbians 
retire to, 366 

Saxe-Meiningen, (Jrand Duke of. 
in Lodz. 339 

Saxony, King of, at Waisaw. 334 

Scharnhorsl. German cruiser, in 
action off the Chilean coast, 
130 ; sunk in the Falkland 
Islands action, 140 

Schoore. Belgian occupation of, 
176 

Schroder, Admiral von, 197 

Schuit Drift : fighting between 
Germans and Dutch at. 499; 
South African rebels defeat- 
ed at. 503 

Sebastopol. bombarded by the 
Goebeii, 147 

Serai, Turks defeated at, 79 

Serbia, secontl Austrian invasion 
of, 368-372 ; third Atistrian 
invasion of, 374-394 

Serbia. King Peter of. in the 
firing liiu', 384 

Serbian Army, shortage of am- 
munition, 374 

Serfontein, Hendrik, 491 

Severn, H.M. monitor, sailors at 
Nidiport, 451 

Sei/dlitz. (!ei-ninn cniiscr. in 
North Sea action (.lanuarv 
24, 1915). 157 

Sliashinshi. fighting at, 36(i 

Shaw, Brig.-Generul, in I'oni- 
mand of 9th Infantry Bri- 
gade. 2(i 

Sheikh Abdul Aziz Sliawisli. 291. 
293 



518 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAH. 



Shiratai, Japanese destroyer, lost 

at Tsing-Tau, 123 
Shiikri Bey, Acting Ottoman 

High Commissioner, 294 
Silesia, strategical position of, 

209 
Simon, Monsieur, Mayor of 

Nancy, 412 
Skicrniowice, (Jermans at, 32S 
iSlatin Pasha, resignation of. 318 
Smith- Dorrien, Genei'al Sir 
Horace : at Givenchy, 25 ; 
on the line Aire-Bethune, 
2, 15 ; ojx'iations against 
the (Jernian right. 19 -2() 
Smuts, (Jenera', 4S4 
Sochaezew : lighting around, 
355 ; Germans at, 328 ; 
Russian occupation of. 333 
Sokal, Russians repulse Aus- 

trians at, 247 
Soldau : action at, 23(1 ; Ger- 
mans recaptuie. 234 
Souain, French capture, 434 
South Africa : after Boer War, 
482-485 ; constitution of 
Union of, 487 ; German in- 
trigues in, 481 
South African Rebellion, 481- 

512 
Southampton, H.M.S., in North 
Sea action (Januarv 24, 
1915), 155 
Spec, Admiral von : command- 
ing (Jerman Far-Eastern 
Squadron. 122 ; in Chilean 
coast action. 130-133 
Stalluponen, action at, 22r> 
Steinbach, French gain impor- 
tant position near. 438 
Stemrich, Herr, visits Koweit, 91 
Stepanovitch, Field - Marshal, 
378 ; in command of opera- 
tions against Belgrade. 387 
Steyn, ex-President, 484 ; 
General Botha's appeal to, 
500, 507 ; influence in 
Orange River Colony, 480 
Stobnica, Germans at, 328 
Strantz. General von, 406, 408 
Strazhara, Austrians seize, 378 
Strykow, Russian success at, 351 
Sturdee. Admiral : dispatch on 
Falkland Islands action. 
138-142 ; in Falkland Is- 
lands action, 135 
Stiirm, General, in command of 

Serbian 3id Army. 380 
Subhi Bej- surrenders Kurna to 

the BVitish, 119 
Submarines, British : B 1 1 tor- 
])edoes the Mcssudii/ch, 148 ; 
D 1 1 rained, 153 
Submarines, German : U 18 

sunk, 149 
Sudanese, loyalty of. 310-318 
Suez Canal. British interests in, 

281 
Surehin, Serbians capture, 308 
Suvobor. Serbian victory at. 

384-387 
Suvobor Mountains, Austrians 

capture, 379 
Suwalki. German occupation of. 

237 
Sydney, H.^NI.A.S.. destroys 

Emden, 123-129 
Syrmia : Serbians evacuate. 308; 
Serbian invasion of, 303 



Tabriz : in 1909, 79 ; Russians 
re-enter, 80 ; Turkish oc- 
cupation of, 80 

Takachico. Japanese cruiser, lost 
in Tsing-Tau operations, 
123 



Talaat Boy, 49, 03 

Tannenbe.g • history of, 205 ; 
importance of battle of, 205, 
218 ; Russian defeat at, 
233-235 

Tarnogiod. 1st .\ustiiai) .Army 
cross frontier near, 240 

Tarnopol. Aiistrian retreat at, 
249 

Taverna, (Jeneral, 404 

Terhand, fighting at, 442 

Tervaete, Gern'ar.s foiee the 
Yser at, 190 

Theodosia. bombardeil. 52 

Therenet. (Icncial. 41)3 

Thiaucourt. (German reoccupa- 
tion of, 420 

Thielt, entered bv the British, 
170 

Thourout, British offensive 
against, 451 ; French 
Marines in, 170; French 
retreat to Dixniude, 173, 
182 

Tiflis, 08 

Tiger, H.M.S., in North Sea 
action (Januarv 24, 1915), 
155-159 

Tisza, Count, 212, 213 

Tochinai, Vice- Admiral. 123 

Tomaszow, Austrian defeat at, 
258 

Toul, defences of, 425 

Triumph, H.M.S.. at Tsing-Tau, 
123 

Troyon. bombardment of. 425- 
427 

Tsing-Ta\i : bombardment of. 
122 ; surrender of. 123 

Turkey : Battleship Sultan ()■■<■ 
man taken over by Great 
Britain, 43; capitulations, 
abolition of the. 47 ; tier- 
man influence in. 42 ; rela- 
tions with Greece before- 
the War. 41 ; Young Tuik 
revolution (1908). 59 
Turkey. Sultan of, interview 

with Sir Louis Mallet, 50 
Turkish Army. 55-56 ; Artillery 
50 ; Cavalry, 57 ; German 
reforms, 55, 04-00; In- 
fantry, 57 : mobilization. 
07 ; strength, 5(). OC. 
Tyrwhitt. Commodore. Reginald 
Y., in North Sea action 
(January 24, 1915). 155 

u 

Undaunted, H.M.S. : in Cux- 
haven raid, 153 ; in North 
Sea action (Januarv 24, 
1915), 155 

Usk, H.M.S.. at Tsinir-Tau. 123 



V 



Austrians cajjture. 
Serbians recapture. 



Valievo : 

375 

380 
Van Rensburg. pi-oph"c:es related, 

499, 500 
Venerable, H.M.S.. o])erations 

on Belgian coast. 470 
Venezelos. M., and the Turkish 

Problem, 41 
Verdun : defences of, 425. 435 ; 

(Jerman advance on, 400 
Victoria, occujiation by Royal 

^larines. 145 
Violaines, Germans capture. 459 
Virginia, railway l>ridge blown 

up by rebels. 510 
Vistula, River : Austrians cross 

the, 249 ; description of, 

207 ; German fortresses on, 



214 ; liussians cros'^ at 
Sandomierz, 345 
Vosges, campaign in tfie. 437- 
440 

w 

Wahabi movement in .\iabia. 
85, 80, 103 

\V'arn"ton, captured bv British, 
36 

Warsaw : attack on. 32^-334. 
345 ; l)ombs dropped on. " 
330 ; fortifications. 329 ; 
(ierman retreat at. 333. 
338 ; Russian reinforce- 
ments arrive in. 333 ; stra- 
tegical importance of, 207 

Wason, Commander Cathcarf R.. 
in bombardment of Fao, 108 

Watts, General, 455 

Westende, Nava! operations at. 
1.54 

Westphalia, strategical impor- 
tance of, 209 

Wieliczka, Russians occupy. 350 

Williams, (ieneral Fenwick. de- 
fence of Kars during Cri- 
mean War, 57 

Wingate, Sir Reginald. Sirdar 
and Governor- (Jeneral of 
the Sudan. 310 

Winn, Lieut. Sydnev Thornhill. 
awarded the D.S.O.. 148 

Wise. Lieut. E. S.. of Monitor 
Severn, at Nieupoit. 451 

Wisloka, Austrians driven back 
to line of, 271 

Woevre district, 436 

Woirsch, (ieneral. defeated near 
Sandomierz, 209 

Woloczysk. Russians cross the 
frontier at. 249 

Wonckhaus, Messrs.. interests 
in Per.^ian Gulf. 91-9S 

Wurtemberg, Duke of, 408. 434. 
441. 452 ; attacks on Dix- 
mude. 198 : before Ypres, 
454. 478; in command of 
Austro-Hungarian troops. 
348 ; in Flanders. 10(i 



Yenikoi, Russian victory at. 75 

Yorck, (ierman cruiser, mined, 
153 

Ypres : Allied advance on. 15- 
40 : British and French 
troo])s enter, 33 : descri])- 
tion of country around. 174. 
175 ; first phase of the 
battle of. 441-464; French 
enter. 174 ; German occu- 
pation of, 2, 4. 172 ; posi- 
tion of Allied line October 
20. 1914. 453 : situation 
October 19, 1914, 445. 447 

Yser: Allied line on the. 440; 
Belgians reinforced on. 4(i4 ; 
description of country, 174. 
175 ; Germans driven into 
the. 468 ; inundation of the 
district. 469-480 ; retreat of 
French Marines from Ghent 
to, 168 

Yser, Battle of, 101-2^0 : ar- 
rival of French reintoi ce- 
ments, 197 ; Franco-Belgian 
battle of, 405-480 ; German 
tactics, 178 ; position of 
Belgian Armv, 170 



Zhilinskv. General, 230 
Zonnebcke, 7th Cavalry Brigade 

retreat to, 445 
Ztota Lipa, fighting on the lino 

of, 250 



i 



ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME III. 



PORTRAITS. 



PAGE 

Asciiclu'tf, Colonel ... 213 

Atamonoff. Colonel ... 306 

Austria, Archduke Charles 
Francis Joseph of 

242, 274, 339 



Earrctt, Lieut. -General Sir 

Arthur, K.C.B. 
Bavaiia, Prince Leopold of 
Belgians, King of the 
Belin, General 
Beyers. General C. F. 
Bobrinsky, Count... 
Bonnard, Monsieur 

Dominiijue ... 
Botha, General, and family 

482, 493. 495, 506, 
Briscoe, Brig.-tJeneral 
Brits, Colonel Coen 
Brock, Rear - Admiral 

Osmond de B. 
Bulfin, Brig.-General E. S. 
Byng, Major-General The 

Hon. Julian ... 

Capper, Major-General Sir 
Thompson 

Chatficld, Captain A. S. M. 

Cheetham, Sir Milne 

Cox, Colonel Sir Percy ... 

Cradock, the late Rear- 
Admiral Sir Christo- 
pher ... 



104 
162 
455 
410 
486 
261 

428 

507 
311 
505 

154 
456 



163 
153 
304 
108 



129 



Dankl. General ... ... 254 

Delamain, Brig. - General 

W. S. 107 

De Wet, General Christian 

487, 508, 511 

Be Wet. Piet 505 

Djavid Bey 68 

Djemal Pasha ... ... 54 

DUrbal. General 164 

Egypt, Hx-Khedivc of ... 314 

Egypt, Sultan of ... ... 314 

Egyptian Ministry at Out- 
break of War ... 297 
Enver Pasha 63 

Fairar, Sir (ieorge ... 509 

Feilding, Lady Dorothie... 195 

Foch, General ... ... 164 

Fournier, Colonel... ... 366 



PAGE 

Fowke, Brig.-General, C.B. 162 
Francois, General von ... 230 
Fry, Major-Gcneral C. J.... 119 

Glossop, Captain John 

^ C. T 124 

Gough, Major-General H. 

de la P 23 

Halsey, Captain Lionel ... 154 
Harrison, Lieut. -Colonel ... 366 
Hertzog, General ... ... 487 

Hewlett, Flight Com- 
- mander Francis E. T., 

R.N 145 

Hindenburg, Field-Mar- 
shal von 232 

Holbrook. Lieut. - Com- 
mander Norman D., 

V.C 147 

Hood, Rear-Admiral the 

Hon. H. L. ... 151,477 



./offre. General 
•lulie, Sceur 



164 

428 



Kaiser, The ...168,205,345 

Kravchenko, M 250 

Kusmanek, General von... 274 

Lawford. Brig. - General 

S. T. B. ^ 457 

Leach, Private ... ... 378 

Lipton, S'r Thomas ... 375 

Ludendortf, General von... 232 

McMahon, Sir Henry ... 282 

Mallet, Sir Louis 48 

Maritz, General 486 

Martos, General N. N. ... 239 

Maud'huy, General ... 9 

Maunoury, (ieneral ... 410 
Maxwell, Lieut. - General 

Sir J 309 

Mayes, Sergeant Charles ... 144 

Meyser, General ... ... 471 

Mirman, Monsieur Leon ... 412 

Mishitch. Field-Marshal ... 3()7 

Mohamed Bey Farid ... 296 

Morgen, Lieut. -General von 238 

Munro. Dr. Hector ... 185 

Pares. Mr. 213 

Pavlovitch. Colonel Givko 3<)5 

519 



PAGE 

Pelly, Captain Henry B 155 

Putnik, Field-Marsha! ... 365 



Rennenkampf, General ... 228 

Ruggles - Brise, Brig.- 
General H. J. ... 457 

Russia, Grand Duke 

Nicholas of ... 202, 206 

Russia, Tsar of ... ... 202 



Said Halim Pasha, Prince 

SamsohofI, the late 
General 

Sanders, General Liman 
von 

Serbia, Prince Paul of 

Serbia. Prince Regent 
Alexander of... 

Serbian Staff, Military 
Attaches of Allies ... 

Shakes])ear, the late Cap- 
tain W. H., CLE. ... 

Shaw, Major-General F. C. 

Sheikh Shawish ... 

SHeikh-ul-Is'am ... 

Shukri Pasha 

Slatin Pasha 

Smuts, General 

Snagge, Commander A. L. 

Soldatenkow, Mr 

Souchon, Admiral 

Spee, Admiral Graf von ... 

Stepanovitch, Field- 
Marshal 

Stoddart, Rear-Admiral 
Archibald P 

Sturdee, Vice-Adrairal Sir 
F. C. Doveton 

Stiirm, General Youras- 
hitch 



Talaat Bey 
Tewfik Pasha 
Turkey, Crown Prince of. 
Turkev, Sultan of... 



Washburn, Mr. Stanley ... 

Watts, Brig.-General H. E. 

Wilson. Lieut. - Com- 
mander R. A. 

Wurtemberg. Duke Al- 
brecht of 



225 

52 
375 

364 

366 

85 
182 
291 

44 

69 
318 
483 
477 
213 

74 
141 

371 

140 

138 

370 

45 
49 
42 
42 

213 

457 

477 
408 



520 



THE TIMES HISTORY OF THE WAR. 



PAGE 

Abakan Island, Anglo- Per- 
sian Oil Company's 
Refineries ... ... 109 

Albert 184 

Argonne District ... 431, 435 
Assuan ... ... ... 290 



Bahrein Island ... 89, 94 

Basidu, Kishm Island ... 93 
Basra, Asshav Creek 83, 116 

Belfort 402 

Belgrade 397 

Bosphorus... ... ... 46 

Boulogne ... ... ... 31 

Burnauf, Railway Station 403 



Cairo 

Capetown ... 
Constantino ;)!(• 
Cracow 



287, 290 

... 504 

43 

... 218 



Danzig 
Dardanelles 
Dixmude .., 



Fao 



215 

Fort Chanak 73 
177, 184 



84, 104 



PLACES. 

I' Mi K 

Gerbcviller 404 

Ghent, St. Pierre Railway 

Station 194 

Gizeh, Great Pyramid of 290 

Halicz 270 

Henjam Island ... ...86, 98 

Heliopolis Camp ... ... 286 

Kiel Canal 143 

Kishm Island, Basidu ... 93 
Konigsberg ... ... 217 

Koweit, the Bazaar at ... 88 
Kurna 102. 106 



Lemberg 
Lille 
Lodz 
Lyck 



212, 257, 265 

4, 28 

353 

236 



Madras, Oil Tanks ... 127 

Magi], near Basra ... 113 

Masurian Lake Country ... 234 

Matra 91 

Metz, The Deutsches Thor 419 

Muscat 100 



Nieuport 
Nomeny 



177, 184 
... 418 



PAGE 

Oman, Malcolm Inlet, 90; 

Elphinstone Inlet ... 96 
Ostend JO. 35. 166 

Pervyse 177. 184 

Place de Baccarat ... 404 

Port Stanley ... ... 13.5 

Pretoria 488,502 

Przemysl ... ... ... 273 

Ramscappelle 177, 184, 474. 478 

St. Adresse ... ... 5 

Shargah 82,92 

Sinai, Ain Musa Well ... 319 
Soldau Barracks ... ... 227 

Sphinx and Pyramids ... 283 

Tabriz ... ... ... 75 

Tannenberg ... ... 235 

Thorn 219 

Tiflis 78 

Valmy 423 

Valparaiso Harbour ... 128 

Vitremont ... ... 412 

Vryburg ... ... ... 499 

Warsaw ... ... ... 216 



Argonne, Fighting in the 

420-421 

Caucasus, the Campaign 

in the ... ... 72 

Champagne, Fighting in 

the 420-421 

Coeos - Keeling Islands, 
Sketch illustrating 
fight between H.M.S. 
Sydnei/ a,nd the Emden 126 

Coronel, Action off ... 131 

Delta of Tigris and Eu- 
phrates ... ... 105 

Eastern Theatre of War 220, 221 
Egypt and the Turkish 

Empire ... ... 301 

Euphrates and Tigris, 

Delta of 105 



MAPS AND PLANS. 

Falkland Islands, Action 

off, 128; position of ... 133 
Flanders, Operations in 

3, 20, 21, 181 
Franco-German Frontier 407 



Galician Campaign 260, 346 



Indian Ocean 



122 



Kurna, Plan of Actions at 117 



Persian Gulf 87 

Poland, Operations in ... 337 
Port Stanley Harbour, 

British Squadron in 135 



Russo- Prussian Frontier... 224 



Serbia, Second Austrian 
Inva.sion of, 372 ; 
Third Austrian In- 
vasion of ... 380, 381 

Shatt-al-Arab, Scene of 

Actions on the ... 102 

South Africa ... ... 497 

Syrmia, Expedition in ... 368 

Tigris and Euphrates, 

Delta of 105 

Turkish Empire, The, 
Distribution of Army 
Corps ... ... 61 



Warsaw Front 



329 



Yser, Battle of the ... 188 

Yser Inundations... ... 479 

Ypres, Battle of (First Phase) ... 460, 461 





BINDING SECT. SEP 2 3 1982 



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