Chapter XV: The Battle of the Labyrinth

This is a story about what, in the minds of the French military authorities, ranks as the greatest battle in the western theater of operations, following the battle of the Marne.

So far as I know the battle has never received an official name. The French _communiqués_ have always vaguely referred to it as "operations in the sector north of Arras."

I cannot minutely describe the conflict; no one can do that now. I can, however, tell what I saw there when the Ministry of War authorized me to accompany a special mission there, to which I was the only foreigner accredited. I purpose to call this struggle the Battle of the Labyrinth, for "labyrinth" is the name applied to the vast system of entrenchments all through that region, and from which the Germans have been literally blasted almost foot by foot by an extravagant use of French melinite. This battle was of vital importance because a French defeat at the Labyrinth would allow the Germans to sweep clear across Northern France, cutting off all communication with England.

The battle of the Labyrinth really began in October, 1914, when General de Maud'huy stopped the Prussian Guard before Arras with his motley array of tired territorials, whom he had gathered together in a mighty rush northward after the battle of the Marne. These crack Guards regiments afterward took on the job at Ypres, while the Crown Prince of Bavaria assumed the vain task of attempting to break de Maud'huy's resistance and cut a more southward passage to the sea.

All winter de Maud'huy worried him, not seeking to make a big advance, but contenting himself with the record of never having lost a single trench. With the return of warm weather, just after the big French advance in Champagne, this sector was chosen by Joffre as the place in which to take the heart out of his enemy by the delivery of a mighty blow.

The Germans probably thought that the French intended to concentrate in the Vosges, as next door to Champagne; so they carted all their poison gases there and to Ypres, where their ambition still maintains ascendency over their good sense. But where the Germans think Joffre is likely to strike is usually the place furthest from his thoughts. Activities in the Arras sector were begun under the personal command and direction of the Commander-in-Chief.

I doubt whether until the war is over it will be possible adequately to describe the battle, or rather, the series of battles extending along this particular front of about fifty miles. "Labyrinth" certainly is the fittest word to call it. I always had a fairly accurate sense of direction; but, it was impossible for me, standing in many places in this giant battlefield, to say where were the Germans and where the French, so confusing was the constant zigzag of the trenches. Sometimes when I was positive that a furious cannonade coming from a certain position was German, it turned out to be French. At other times, when I thought I was safely going in the direction of the French, I was hauled back by officers who told me I was heading directly into the German line of fire. I sometimes felt that the German lines were on three sides, and often I was quite correct. On the other hand, the French lines often almost completely surround the German positions.

One could not tell from the nearness of the artillery fire whether it was from friend or foe. Artillery makes three different noises; first, the sharp report followed by detonations like thunder, when the shell first leaves the gun; second, the rushing sound of the shell passing high overhead; third, the shrill whistle, followed by the crash when it finally explodes. In the Labyrinth the detonations which usually indicated the French fire might be from the German batteries stationed close by but unable to get our range, and firing at a section of the French lines some miles away. I finally determined that when a battery fired fast it was French; for the German fire became more intermittent every day.

I shall try to give some idea of what this fighting looks like. Late one afternoon, coming out of a trench into a green meadow, I suddenly found myself backed against a mud-bank made of the dirt taken from the trenches. We were just at the crest of a hill. In khaki clothes I was of the same color as the mud-bank; so an officer told me I was in a fairly safe position.

Modern war becomes a somewhat flat affair after the first impressions have been dulled.

We blotted ourselves against our mud-bank, carefully adjusted our glasses, turned them toward the valley before us, whence came the sound of exploding shells, and watched a village dying in the sunset. It was only about a thousand yards away--I didn't even ask whether it was in French or German possession. A loud explosion, a roll of dense black smoke, penetrated at once by the long, horizontal rays of sun, revealing tumbling roofs and crumbling walls. A few seconds' intermission; then another explosion; a public school in the main street sagged suddenly in the center. With no pause came a succession of explosions, and the building was prone upon the ground--a jagged pile of broken stones.

We turned our glasses on the other end of the village. A column of black smoke was rising where the church had caught fire. We watched it awhile in silence. Ruins were getting very common. I swept the glasses away from the hamlet altogether and pointed out over the distant fields to the left.

"Where are the German trenches?" I asked the Major.

"I'll show you--just a moment!" he answered, and at the same time signaling to a soldier squatting in the entrance to a trench near by, he ordered the man to convey a message to the telephone station, which connected with a "seventy-five" battery at our rear. I was on the point of telling the officer not to bother about it. The words were on my lips; then I thought: "Oh, never mind! I might as well know where the trenches are, now that I have asked."

The soldier disappeared. "Watch!" said the officer. We peered intently across the fields to the left. In less than a minute there were two sharp explosions behind us, two puffs of smoke out on the horizon before us, about a mile away.

"That's where they are!" the officer said. "Both shells went right into them!"

Away to the right of the village, now reduced to ruins, was another larger village; we squared around on our mud bank to look at that. This town was more important; it was Neuville-Saint-Vaast, which was occupied by both French and Germans, the former slowly retaking it, house by house. We were about half a mile away. We could see little; for strangely, in this business of house-to-house occupation, most of the fighting is in the cellars. But I could well imagine what was going on, for I had already walked through the ruins of Vermelles, another town now entirely in French possession, but taken in the same fashion after two months' dogged inch-by-inch advances.

So, when, looking at Neuville-Saint-Vaast, I suddenly heard a tremendous explosion and saw a great mass of masonry and débris of all descriptions flying high in the air, I knew just what had happened. The French--for it is always the French who do it--had burrowed, sapped and dug themselves laboriously, patiently, slowly, by torturous, narrow underground routes from one row of houses under the foundations of the next row of houses. There they had planted mines. The explosion I had just witnessed was of a mine. Much of the débris I saw flying through space had been German soldiers a few seconds before.

Before the smoke died away we heard a savage yell. That was the French cry of victory; then we heard a rapid cracking of rifles. The French had evidently advanced across the space between the houses to finish the work of their mine. When one goes to view the work of these mines afterward all that one sees is a great round, smooth hole in the ground--sometimes 30 feet deep, often twice that in diameter. Above it might have been either a château or a stable; unless one has an old resident for guide it is impossible to know.

It takes many days and nights to prepare these mines. It takes correct mathematical calculation to place them. It takes morale, judgment, courage, and intelligence--this fighting from house to house. And yet the French are called a frivolous people!

A cry from a soldier warned us of a German aeroplane directly overhead; so we stopped gazing at Neuville-Saint-Vaast. A French aeroplane soon appeared, and the German one made off rapidly. They usually do, as most German war planes are too light to carry anything but rifles and bombs; French machines, while slower, all have mitrailleuses. A fight between them is unequal, and the inequality is not easily overcome.

Four French machines were now circling above, and the German batteries opened fire on them. It was a beautiful sight. There was not a cloud in the sky, and the sun had not yet gone. We could not hear the shells explode, but little feathery white clouds suddenly appeared as if some giant invisible hand had just put them there--high up in the sky. Another appeared; then another. Several dozen little white clouds were vividly outlined against the blue before the French machines, all untouched, turned back to their own lines.

The soldier with us suddenly threw himself face down on the ground; a second after a German shell tore a hole in the field before us, less than a hundred yards away. I asked the officer if we had been seen, and if they were firing at us. He said he did not think so, but we had perhaps better move. As a matter of fact, they were hunting the battery that had so accurately shown us their trenches a short time before.

Instead of returning to the point where we had left our motors by the trench, we walked across an open field in a direction which I thought was precisely the wrong one. High above us, continually, was a rushing sound like giant wings. Occasionally, when a shell struck near us, we heard the shrill whistling sound, and half a dozen times in the course of the walk great holes were torn in our field. But artillery does not cause fear easily; it is rifles that accomplish that. The sharp hissing of the bullet resembles so much the sound of a spitting cat, seems so personal--as if it was intended just for you.

Artillery is entirely impersonal; you know that the gunners do not see you; that they are firing by arithmetic at a certain range; that their shell is not intended for any one in particular. So you walk on, among daisies and buttercups. You calculate the distance between you and the bursting shell. You somehow feel that nothing will harm you. You are not afraid; and if you are lucky, as we were, you will find the automobiles waiting for you just over there beyond the brow of the hill.