Chapter IX: The Movements in the North

Sunday night.

THE Germans are turning sharply south, descending diagonally on the east of Paris. The country they held, or partially held, three days ago, as far west as Compiègne, Gisors, and Pontoise, is now free of all but isolated patrols. The brilliant cavalry action at Compiègne, where the British lost six and recovered sixteen guns, may have been but a feint to cover the alteration of direction. Amiens they still hold, and the line due south of it. Our forces, keeping touch with the enemy, have moved forward their covering line across and to the east of Paris on the side of the Marne, with a curve south near Paris on their left wing. What is the reason of the change? Is it merely a move in the great chess game designed at Berlin; first the powerful "marching column" striking directly at the more vulnerable north-west corner of Paris, so as to draw out the French defence in that direction, thinning its connecting links with the eastern army; then a swift change, and a blow at the weakened centre, with the intention of cutting off and surrounding the eastern army very near to fatal Sedan?

Is it an attempt to force a decisive action before attacking Paris, since the Allies, in spite of their costly retreat, are still an undefeated army, now safely established in a strong defensive position? Is it this attempt, combined with the intention of joining forces with the Rheims armies of von Buelow and Wurtemberg, and of cutting communications behind the army opposing the Crown Prince?

Or has there really been some definite change of plan forced upon the northern army of von Kluck? Has he recognised the danger of pressing in upon Paris from the north and north-west between the scissors of the armies in the Marne and of some other army in the west and north, still unknown to us. The difficult change of line is, in that case, to be made in order to secure a concentration of the armies, and a later attack on Paris from the east. This I suggested as an explanation yesterday. It is the more certain coup, if it can be brought off; and it is less exposed during its operation to any threat from the north than would be a diagonal blow at north-west Paris. A few days will show; but I expect to hear shortly that the armies have been engaged on the east side of the Oise, along the Marne.

I traversed to-day all the region from Paris to the north country, passing through the subtle Paris entrenchments and over the nervous Seine bridges, all ready to be dynamited.

The country, forest and field, was strikingly beautiful in really hot sunshine. But empty. The picturesque white villages were deserted and green-shuttered; the grey stone towns with only a few silent soft-footed peasants, and solitary neglected children. Here and there a few black-hooded women were hanging a wayside cross or shrine with votive flowers. There was again the oppressive expectant feeling of the country that is left open to the enemy, undefended. Under the trees, or trekking aimlessly along the roads, knots and processions of homeless peasants, with their high carts heaped with household goods. Here and there a little drove of their cattle. All the folk, brown, depressed but resigned. As the tide of Germans has passed south and east, they have been creeping inevitably back, with a sort of homing instinct. A few blue cavalry patrols, French, caused them succeeding fear and reassurance. Magny, Mantes, Gisors, Gournay, Beauvais, back and fro, we made certain that the tide was retreating; and followed on the tail of our own advance close enough to get clear as to the general position. The wayside refugees were from local villages, and we could do little to relieve them except to help some of the more helpless on their way.

At Pontoise, a French cavalry column was passing through eastward, the direction of the new move. The women stood ready with bottles and jugs, and ran beside the horses to receive back the glasses, cramming cigarettes into the smiling troopers' hands. Several of the men, with difficulty controlling their horses, plucked the red wool tassels from their epaulettes, and gave them in return as souvenirs.

At Mantes we came upon a collection of motors, families flying from Paris to the north on the safe western route. For miles together we ran through entrenchments and fortified positions, prepared to meet the expected stroke of the hammer at the west of Paris. Only a few troops remained in the trenches, sparks of colour through the orchards on the great rolling wooded uplands. The others have moved eastwards, to the scene of the battle now imminent on the east of Paris.

We met a brown, battered company of our own men also. They were resting from their exhausting retreat, and lined the roads, cheerfully greeting columns of French who moved eastward past and through them.

Later, the shuttle was weaving in different fashion. Here, on road and train, our troops in their turn--but this time fresh-complexioned reinforcements--were pouring eastward; while the worn-looking French soldiers stood aside, or lay resting to let them pass, with hearty jokes and salutes.

Then we ran out north into open undefended territory. Again deserted villages. Now and then a sharp contrast, when we hit some level crossing, and a line of trains passed us, pouring continually south with crowded carriages and trucks of ever fresh reinforcements.

Beauvais is unoccupied by either side, but it remains a funereal town. A few women in black, a few inhabitants creeping back. Silent clusters on the Cathedral steps.

Here an incident occurred, illustrative of the interpenetration of the armies in these "open" districts.

We were sitting at coffee in the square. A car, blowing a continuous blast, rushed through. In it were two grey figures, German officers, with a grey-tunicked driver. They flashed through, sitting very low. Immediately there was a quick, quiet rush of women and boys to the shelter of the Mairie and the Cathedral. The movement seemed instinctive. Their faces remained expressionless, almost apathetic.

Ten minutes later we were carefully leaving the town. When the German patrols take to motors, one cannot count upon the start we had in Belgium against the customary Uhlan horse. Another motor dashed quickly past. In it were two other grey-tunicked German cavalrymen. But these were prisoners, being run through south from near Amiens. Supposing these two cars had met, what would have happened?

I have asked a number of questions, to some of which we know the answers. I will venture one more. Why have the valuable little sea-ports been left absolutely unguarded against the small raiding German patrols that alone at present threaten all the coast? Not an army of occupation, but a few hardened men landed, would be sufficient to protect much that is valuable, but which now lies open to any chance three men with arms. And time allows the Germans to spare little more.

Monday.

The great battle on the new front has begun. This is the third day of the fighting. The German left, pushing south past Ourcq, got as far as Coulommiers, at the same time pressing upon Paris from the east. They have retired again upon Meaux, in this quarter. Of the fortunes further east there is no news. The British troops are holding a vital point in the defensive against the double move, the direct blow south and the eastern attack upon the city.

The countermove of the Allied left wing to meet the German change of front has been carried out with remarkable rapidity. The alternate passing of our own and the French troops through each other's positions in taking up their fresh lines was an interesting time of intricate manœuvre to watch. Paris has become a pivot; no longer the direct object of defence or attack. Any victory of the German right outside the eastern line of defence, would have the advantage for the Germans of sending both armies intermingled back upon and through the forts, impeding their fire. The new move thus places Paris in the position of the prize of the battle.

The north is clear of both armies. Amiens is the most westerly town occupied by the enemy. The new position of the Allies has led to an abandonment of all the sea-ports. The inhabitants have been ordered to disarm, and the bases and stores have been removed.

The recent moves of the Allies have suggested, in their mass, remarkable mobility and promptitude. They have worked with a precision and simplicity that have made them seem the product of very cool design, and even of long anticipation. The Germans would seem to have made the mistake of considering our army out of the game. They have advanced heedlessly across it, unaware of its elastic recovery and of its reinforcement.

The very complexity of the few moves met with in detail during the last few days has given considerable reassurance. Their very disconnection from the course of apparent events, engagements already officially acknowledged, shows them to be no expedient of the moment, but part of a prepared scheme, played now on the chosen field, and with the moves following an expected order.

I have been spending most of the day witnessing the development of one of the expected moves. The sunlit fields were alive with marching troops. The headquarters, at Rouen, were crowded with staff officers. Several nationalities and all arms were represented. There was the quivering suspicious atmosphere that accompanies an action in near prospect. Beyond certain boundaries, Evreux, Les Andelys, Gisors, I was told I should go in "peril of life," "at my own risk." Long before I had traversed them sufficiently to be satisfied of the positions, through the orderly, coloured confusion of an army in the field, the risk had been sufficient, without crossing the bounds to find the enemy. There was anxiety, strain, but there was the new excitement of men on the offensive. We are assured of our defensive lines. We can afford to take the initiative.

There was plenty of personal incident--a conversation with a fierce general in a shady, deserted château, agreeable in process and issue; arrest and escort by a clattering Lancer patrol; the sight of dismounted cavalrymen making embrasures in the walls of an orchard, with momentarily turned, scowling faces.

In general purport the hours with this elusive force were more interesting than the sight of an actual engagement--that is, all the spectator can see of one.

Later in the day, in the course of a wide circle, I came down from the north on the rear of the German right flank. This country was supposed to be deserted. But the German army is well in touch with the chess-board in the north and west. The peasants told me of the proximity of two hundred Uhlans and a battery of guns. But it was impossible to find any trace of a further German advance westward.

The check to the Germans near Coulommiers is promising. Their right wing seems to have recognised that the forces opposed are too strong, for several reasons, for their congenial fashion of attack, and is falling back. Their combined armies have withdrawn too far south-east to attack Paris again by any surprise move. They have been moving to break the line of our armies opposed to them directly south, and to cut through them well east of Paris, towards Sézanne. There is a general atmosphere of reassurance among our troops to-day. The tide has turned, and I date the turn from _September 6th_.

Tuesday.

There is a very satisfactory development of the position beginning on the west of Paris. Much of the north-west region, which for a time was left unoccupied (including the sea-ports), is again in process of resumption. The rapidity of the German hammer-attack made a concentration of our troops necessary outside the weaker defences of the city. It was remarkable, the pace and precision with which the Allied Armies, after ten days of continuous fighting, and their hurry of difficult retreat across France, took up position on their new base at Paris. They converted a widespread movement of defensive retreat, over an infinite number of small tactical points, into a finely consolidated, new strategic position. But they could do no more for the moment in the north than hold the railway lines through which the reinforcements were being poured.

Then came the German new front to the south. The Allies' reinforcements had to swing to meet them, or rather to pour men across to adjust the balance at the threatened points. To this the fresh British reinforcements were specially devoted; again to hold the key, and more than one key, of the new lines of defence.

The movement is complete. Strengthened at the weak link, the French have been able again to set their grasp upon the "open" country of the line north of the Seine. The boundaries of the extension, and the ultimate intention of the movement may be best left to the intelligent to surmise. Its significance for us is its reassurance as to the confidence of our armies in the strength of their eastern line of defence, its evidence that they are now strong enough to attempt in turn offensive movements and resume their connections, only briefly threatened and never entirely interrupted, with their north-western sea-bases.

The last two days have been spent in following this movement in far more detail than can yet be written. Its interest has been due to its moral effect as much as to its strategical importance. The great issue is being fought out, for the present, on the east of Paris.

After leaving our new headquarters to-day we swung across to the east. The country--Forges, Gournay, Gisors, Clermont--is still unoccupied. The beautiful brown and grey stone villages with faint-red roofs and dark mediæval gateways are shuttered and empty. A few noiseless children, a woman or two, a hungry couple of curs on the dusty cobbles. The roads are clear of refugees, wandered further afield in their high-wheeled laden carts. Only here and there a few stolid, hardy or resigned village folk cling on, and form clusters before a solitary open restaurant, headed by some sturdy Maire. The restaurant has still good bread and wine, nothing more.

The fields are almost deserted; miles of rich meadow and crops in the white sunshine. One or two farmers or women with stout little sons at work in the crops, make rare and startling breaks in the passing lonely landscape.

But there was a change to-day. Every now and then in remote places a scouting car with a splash of uniforms, or a vicious-looking mitrailleuse car with helmets cloaked in linen, threatening over its grey edges, met us in the miles of shaded lanes.

Some of the small towns had again guards, military or civic, who gave us pause; while each protested that the new military control had made some different kind of "pass" necessary. Some wanted a red one, some a blue. Some wanted a "visé" from the local Maire. Fortunately during most of the hot day, the Maires were absent or asleep, and it was agreed to be better to wake the one at the next village. The next village was generally also asserted to be a regimental headquarters. In these cases it usually proved to be utterly deserted.

In one little town, near Clermont, we came in for a strange echo of the war. A woman in a high cart drove past quickly, while we were talking with the Maire and the woman of the inn. There was a sudden silence. Then a dramatic, passionate outburst from the handsome, sibyl-faced hostess, who had two sons at the war:

"Think of it: that woman! There were three of our soldiers chased from the fight at Creil. They took refuge with her. She is rich and has a garden. She hid them in the hayloft; threw their uniforms in the garden. The Germans came. They slept in her house. They said: 'We are forced to fight; it is not of our seeking: the French attacked us.' They found the uniforms. They put a pistol to her breast: 'We will shoot you if you do not say where are those soldiers.' She cried:'In the loft.' They shot them; all three. The traitress!--and it would have been so easy for a woman to lie!"

A village near Creil itself gave us another echo. A German field-cap hung over the forge. The old smith, one of the last men now left in the village, explained it had fallen from the head of one of three or four German soldiers who had been chased through the street a few days before. "It shall hang there till the owner returns for it," he added grimly, "May my great-grandchildren see it still hanging so!"

And yet one more, and this within sound of the guns, that have been echoing nearer or fainter these last days. A woman ran out of the door of a solitary cottage towards Senlis, waving her arm. One stops quickly these days. A man was dying inside. She had burned his uniform; but I knew at once he was a German. He had been shot while scouting; had hid himself, and crawled to her house. We did what we could for him. From him I learned that the Germans are already reinforcing to meet the western move, and of many things that are hidden from us--no doubt, for our good--or vaguely guessed at. It was no matter of "communication with the enemy"; he was already past the line that divides small irritable tribal mortals; he was joining issue with the last great common foe.

We left him to die in the care of the woman who had not "passed by on the other side." Her son would visit her shortly--she had refused to leave her cottage--and would bury him in the field. No one else was to know.

This is the meaning of the machine of war: The man joins the machine for the honour of the nation. The machine drives him, one of a nameless herd, for a few days, beyond his strength, to his death, for the honour of the machine. And yet the nation is made up of the men; and the machine is made up of the men; and the men die. But for such machines we should know better what is the honour of the nation--that is, of the men--for the men would judge of it, as men, for themselves.

We approached as near as we could venture--for we were behind the enemy--north of Betz and close to the sound of the guns. We saw as much as anyone is likely to see of the fighting in such warfare: the distant sight of greeny-white smoke-balls bursting over trees on a far hill; the slight movement, round the edges of distant woods that sloped towards us, of small grey dots, that were assumed to be the enemy.

Returning across the north of Paris by circuitous ways, we came round by the west, through the entrenched positions. During the day, we passed over five bridges already mined with dynamite, and one wooden bridge with the props half cut through. It is a stimulating experience to crawl over bridges, like Kew Bridge for size and sunny situation, with the warning from armed soldiers at either end that too much vibration may send them exploding into the air, or dropping into the river. We are warned to avoid even the comfort of a cigarette; and there are other impediments to make the passage tortuous and exciting.

The one relief on nearing Paris is the infection of its unconquerable gaiety. After days in the terrible "war atmosphere," every face suspicious, every mile a wrestle with the shadow of puzzled mistrust, it was a lightening of the whole evening when two veteran "grey moustaches" levelled their muskets on a bridge, and threatened to shoot us with a twinkle in their blue eyes--the first smile of the day.

And this is only one day on the fringe of the great struggle of whose incident, triumph, and lonely death there shall be small record.