Chapter XVIII: To Bapaume

My notes do not contain much concerning the 27th of October. In the first place I had a good long sleep and the rest of the day was mostly taken up by “attending to private business,” completing my sketches and plans and writing letters. While I was sitting in the hotel over my late breakfast, a fine-looking officer came straight up to my table. He smiled humorously, wondering whether I would recognise him. Certainly I did! In fact I called out his name before he had time to utter a word: “Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg!”

The Duke had been a friend of mine for several years. In the geographical world he bears a great and famous name, thanks to his travels in Africa, which had been conscientiously planned, most skilfully carried out and ably and entertainingly described. He was now Governor of Togoland, but happened to be in Germany on leave when the war broke out. Under these circumstances, in Germany’s great hour of destiny, he simply _could not_ return to Africa, and since, in his capacity as governor of a colony, he held no military command in the home country, he volunteered for service as intelligence officer, and was appointed to his old army corps.

The Duke seemed glad to see me, and we sat and talked until it was time for him to return to his duties. The upshot was that I faithfully promised to accept his kind offer to come to Bapaume and spend a few days with him. He said I should not want for anything; he himself lived in a small house, but he would find accommodation for me near by. We were to take trips in various directions, as just now he had plenty of spare time; no large operations seemed to be in prospect. I might come whenever it suited me; I should always be welcome. And so we parted for the present.

I had supper with Field-marshal General von der Goltz. The guests included on this occasion Duke Ernst Günther of Schleswig-Holstein, brother of the German Empress, and Duke Georg of Meiningen, who had lost his father and his brother in the war. The Field-marshal proposed that I should accompany him on the 29th of October to the front in the region of Dixmude. As, moreover, General Bailer asked me whether I was disposed to go with him and Councillor von Lumm on a trip to the outer forts of Antwerp on the 28th, my programme was well filled for the next few days.

October 28th broke with a clouded sky, and a thick mist was lying over town and country in the morning. The two gentlemen and the young lieutenant, who sat at the wheel beside the chauffeur, came to fetch me in the morning, and we started out on the familiar road to Malines.

As already mentioned, our purpose was to inspect as many as we could of Antwerp’s southern forts and redoubts. I shall not give any actual description of these fortifications. The few words I will say concerning them are merely added in order that the two or three photos which are reproduced here may not be beside the context.

First of all we drove to Fort Waelhem, where a “42-cm.” had gone right through the bed of concrete, here, as elsewhere, five or six metres thick, and where an observation tower, resembling a gigantic church-bell, had been thrown over on to its side by the air pressure. One of the turrets is supposed to have been blown up by the Belgians themselves when they evacuated the fort. A few Belgian 12-cm. guns inside and outside the fort had been deprived of their breech-blocks. Lying near a barrack-wall were heaps of cartridge cases, tin boxes and baskets for carrying the shells. These latter were as finely and slenderly woven as if they had been intended for carrying grapes.

We drove on to the east and north-east, and our next stopping-place was Fort Chemin de Fer, which had been rather severely peppered with smaller shells, while its shattered turret had been blown up from the inside by the defenders themselves. Fort St. Catherine I have already mentioned, and we will therefore pass on, _via_ the village of Wavre, with its wrecked church, to the Dorpfeld fortifications. An object of particular interest was the infantry breastwork surrounding this entrenchment. Sandbags, and sometimes gabions, had been plentifully applied here. There were numerous traverses, intended for protection against enfilading or slanting fire, and generally consisting of sandbags in timber-lined trenches. The gabions, I thought, looked like defensive works similar to those used in the seventeenth century. But they were as useful now as then.

We did not stop at the Boersbaek fortification, but went straight on to Fort Koningshoyckt, which had received some nasty hits and where a number of captured 12-cm. guns, all without their breech-blocks, had been ranged up in a row.

Fort Talaert tempted me to take one or two photos, which need no comment. In one of them the reader will observe a huge gaping hole in the concrete. Another will give him an idea of what disarranged wire entanglements look like.

Fort Lierre, in Dutch Lier, is the largest of all the fortifications in the outer girdle of Antwerp. Here several 42-cm. shells had wrought terrible havoc. One had struck through the lower part of the concrete bed of a turret and penetrated into the interior regions, smashing all that was in its path. In the interior of the fort we found extensive quartering accommodation for the garrison. Belgian uniforms left behind were still lying about. Generally speaking the Germans found the barrack-rooms in the fort in great disorder. All scraps and lumber had now been removed and formed regular rubbish heaps outside.

The small town of Lierre has fared terribly ill, but the church stands almost untouched among the ruins. The village of Duffel has also suffered considerably. In its labyrinth of narrow lanes people were busy removing the rubbish.

On our way back we found the market-place of Malines crowded with carts and carriages full of visitors who had come from Brussels to see the scenes of destruction. On the road to the capital, too, we passed quite a procession of sorrowful pilgrims.

At night I saw the Field-marshal for a minute. He said he should be unable to travel the next day, as the King of Saxony was then expected in Antwerp. Remembering that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, I thereupon decided to go on to Bapaume. A car was to be placed at my disposal whenever I wanted it.

I accordingly proceeded on the morning of October 29th to the office of the Governor-General, where I was informed that the Field-marshal had instructed von Siemens to take me to Bapaume. I said good-bye to my friends Majors Nethe and von Weller, stowed my luggage away in the car and was ready for starting. I cannot abstain from remarking that I never had a more distinguished chauffeur than on this occasion, as it was the head of the firm of Siemens and Halske himself who had donned the motor goggles and thick driving-gloves, and with strong skilled hands grasped the wheel. I sat down by his side and was thus conveniently at his elbow. A soldier was seated in the car, armed with rifle and revolver. The weather was fine, but the air was damp, as usual at this season.

It was 10.45 when, with piercing shrieks of the hooter and the warning trills of the pipe-horn, we bowled along the Boulevard du Midi and Rue des Belges and came out on the Chaussée de Mons--a hybrid between a country road and a paved street and with a canal running by its left side. A whirl of fallen brown leaves rose in the wake of the car as it dashed on to Hal at the rate of seventy-four kilometres an hour. Narrow winding streets lead up to the market square of the little place, where the market was in full swing and where pigs and vegetables were being sold from peasants’ carts and stalls. Perfectly peaceful, rustic scenes, bustling life and motion--nothing to remind one of the war.

In Tubize the bells of the village church were tolling, as if for a funeral. The country further on is somewhat hilly. Beyond Braine le Comte the splendid high road was without stone paving. The autumn wind moaned in the yellow crowns of the trees, and the leaves were falling around us like snow-flakes.

We reached Soignies in a couple of minutes. Our speed was up to eighty-two or eighty-four kilometres per hour, falling off on slight curves to sixty. At all cross-roads, bridges and villages German Landsturm men in spick-and-span helmets and dark-blue uniforms stood posted, trusty and alert as ever. The road to Mons is straight and was in excellent condition, but the traffic was very inconsiderable. About noon a tyre burst, but was replaced in thirteen minutes--one could see that a great engineer was handling the nuts and tools.

In the Mons region we passed through the great coal-mining district. All useless mineral taken out of the pits had to be cleared away so as not to take up any space which might be utilised to better advantage. By means of special tipping arrangements the refuse had thus been piled up into veritable pyramids, or rather huge cones, whose strange-looking summits towered high on either side of the road. To the right we saw a whole row of tall smoking chimneys--one is always glad to observe any signs of resumed activity and reawaking life. The smoke hung like a dark pall over the neighbourhood. It was no longer a country road, it was an unbroken street as far as Boussu--which therefore seemed to be an integral part of Mons. “_Sehr starke Industriegegend_” (“very ‘pronounced’ industrial region this”) shouted von Siemens in my ear; he had been here on business just before the war.

Just on the other side of Quiévrain we crossed the French frontier. Poplars, stately and solemn like cypresses, rose up on both sides of the high road, now once more provided with stone paving. Here, too, we observed the absence of men in the prime of life. Only old men and boys are to be seen, and now and then a cripple. Women are greatly in the majority--widows and sorrowing sisters and brides who for three months have not heard a word from their menfolk.

Valenciennes, an Intermediate Base Commandant’s post--numerous motor-cars and innumerable troops! The country opens up more and becomes flatter. We leave Demain and Bouchain to the right of our road, which runs _via_ Douchy. The mist lies over the landscape like a heavy veil, through which we dimly discern the outlines of thickets and orchards. Many of the crops were still standing in the fields, waiting for hands to bring them in. But these are not forthcoming! Only in one little field did we see some old people and children busy gathering beets into baskets. Of horses not a sign. The carts that were at work were drawn by oxen. Lonely women, ever and anon, looked after us with sad, wondering eyes. One could guess their thoughts, but their demeanour was always calm and demure; now and then one saw, not without pity, a white-bearded old man, with his staff in one hand leading a waif by the other.

At Cambrai von Siemens drew up at the Base Commandant’s office to obtain some information. Numbers of cars were passing there, or waiting in the market-place. I noticed here once more the first indications of our proximity to the front. Cambrai is a railhead, and at the station troops were busy transferring the material from the railway wagons to the lines of communication transport column, or direct to the Army Service Corps detachments of the troops ahead. Fresh bodies of troops were also detraining to march west.

We next proceed through a landscape characterised by extensive shallow undulations. The road is perfectly straight, stone-paved and lined with autumn-tinted or leaf-bared trees.

We meet several cyclist orderlies and pass a supply column with its wagons covered with green branches.

When finally we reached Bapaume we had been three and a half hours on the road, whereof three-quarters of an hour had been taken up by stops on the way. One could scarcely cover a distance of about one hundred English miles in a shorter time--allowing for the slowing down in passing through towns and villages.

We drove direct to the quarters of Captain Trutz, who had charge of all matters concerning cars, petrol, quartering and the like, and began by taking lunch with him--consisting of bread and butter and ham, hard-boiled eggs and claret. Then my excellent friend von Siemens took leave and sped back to Brussels. Duke Adolf Friedrich was out, but was expected back about five. I was advised in the meantime to take up my quarters in some house near the Duke’s. A non-commissioned officer was ordered to conduct me to the Maire and I received from the latter a quartering ticket entitling me to occupy a room just opposite the Duke’s quarters. The French Maire was sitting in his office up to his eyes in work and surrounded by big piles of papers. But he was very polite and obliging, and no doubt consoled himself with the trite reflection that “necessity knows no law.”

I also had to report myself at the Base Commandant’s office, where I was received, as always, with the greatest kindness. But then came the Chief himself, an old Bavarian Colonel who had retired from the service, but on the outbreak of the war had rejoined. And now he began to storm. “Who the thunder is this civilian?” he roared--“what business have you here?--where do you come from?--are you a pressman? I shall want to know what you are here for, and whether you have permission to stay here in Bapaume!” I tried to conciliate the irate Colonel by every imaginable means, but he went on raging like a model drill-sergeant. A few days later I met him again, and he then said: “Can you ever forgive me for being so rude the other day?” “Yes, dear Colonel, I assure you that it was a priceless pleasure to me to see a Bavarian warrior in the full flower of his vigour and forcefulness; I might have been a spy, and you had your orders to obey.” Of course we became friends for life, and it would give me pleasure to meet him again some day.

I was then conducted by my non-commissioned officer to the house where I was to stay. A name-board bearing the inscription _Notaire_ was over the door. We rang the bell and an elderly servant came and opened it--followed, close at her heels, by an old gentleman of distinguished appearance, tall and with lofty forehead, kindly dark eyes below bushy brows, snow-white hair and white moustache and whiskers. This was the _Notaire_, Maître Emile Cossart, who had not been scared away from house and home by the war, but had quietly remained behind to face the turmoil. He asked me kindly to put up with the only visitors’ room he had to offer me, and which was duly shown me by one of his three nieces, Mademoiselle Lengagne, and the servant. The room was plain but neat and cheerful, and its two windows looked out on to a little garden.

As regards terms, I told Monsieur Cossart that I would pay rent for the room for the days I should occupy it. But he would not hear of this. Without going into lengthy details I pleaded my capacity as citizen of a neutral country--a circumstance which forbade me taking quarters without paying for them. But it was all no use. To all my arguments he had but one reply: “_C’est impossible!_”--uttered in an inimitable manner. In the end I had no alternative but to thank him for his great hospitality.

M. Cossart was a typical elderly _rentier_ in a French country town--and a most attractive and estimable specimen. Notwithstanding the storm which had burst over his country, his province and his home, he still retained an unquenchable good humour. In the war of 1870-71 he had served in the army and had been taken prisoner in Peronne and interned in Jüterbog, where he remained two and a half months. He had been well treated while a prisoner in German hands, and had never had cause to complain, and I was able to assure him that at the present moment the French prisoners were treated most kindly. We talked together with the greatest frankness. M. Cossart did not believe that the Germans would win. In the former war it was different, but now they had England, too, and great and powerful Russia against them. The fact that Germany, by her astounding offensive power, had been able to swamp Belgium and part of north-eastern France, did not signify so very much after all. The fortune of war would soon turn, and change in favour of France. “We shall see! We shall see!” he said over and over again.

I tried to explain to him the position in the eastern theatre of war and told him of Hindenburg’s victories, of the great calmness which reigned in Germany, and of the Russians’ “march to Berlin,” which General Rennenkampf had promised but of which nothing had been seen so far. It had not been beneficial for France, I said, to invest thousands upon thousands of millions of francs in a country whose aid failed just at the moment when it was most needed. If I did not admire France and love her intelligent, industrious, thrifty and patriotic people I might have rejoiced at a diplomacy which had brought about such calamities as the present; as it was, I was grieved at a policy from which no good could ever come.

“_Nous verrons--nous verrons_,” M. Cossart replied, nodding his head and smiling. But then it occurred to him that perhaps he had said too much, and wondered whether the German officers would take offence and cause him trouble if they got to hear of it.

Certainly not, I assured him, he need not be afraid of that. He might tell the German officers without fear that he blindly trusted in the victory of the French arms and the eventual retreat of the German hosts, without causing a single forehead to frown in anger. Any German officer would honour such speech and show his respect for a man who had fought for his country in his younger days, and who still, in the autumn of life, was cherishing great and glorious ideas concerning his nation. “For you may say what you like of the Germans, and look upon them, if you like, as your sworn enemies, yet it is a fact that the Germans admire in others the qualities which they cherish in their own people. Therefore the German soldiers feel nothing but esteem for their French opponents; as regards General Joffre, the whole German army is unanimous in thinking him a great and talented general.” Among the Germanic race, I told him, there is not a vestige of national hatred of the French, nothing but good-will and sympathy.

And when I told him how sorry I was that the whole of his people should suffer in consequence of a mistake which had been made by a few responsible professional politicians, he could but shrug his shoulders and raise his eyebrows and reply: “But please always think and speak well of France!”

We had many a discussion on this topic as I went in or out through his hall. And when I had time to spare before joining the German officers at dinner, I would knock at the door of the French drawing-room--for was I not a neutral?--and was always met with a cheery “_entrez_.” There sat M. Cossart in his rocking-chair, and his three amiable nieces were busy with their needlework round the table beneath the lamp, and then we could argue on politics to and fro without either party yielding one jot. Not because he was of the Latin and I of the Germanic race, but because our political views were as irreconcilable as fire and water. If Germany was crushed, I maintained, Russia would push forward to the Atlantic, and this could only be done over Swedish soil--across the Scandinavian peninsula, up there in the north. Therefore, for the sake of my country, I _could not_ but wish for Germany’s victory--a complete victory. But to M. Cossart Germany’s victory meant fearful calamities for his own native land. Hence it was, and _could not_ but be impossible for us to agree.

Yet we always spoke with dignity and calm. The old lawyer never forgot himself, and I entertained the warmest and sincerest regard for him. I was always glad to have a chat with him, and regretted that, as a rule, time was so short.

How different he was from those hot-heads I met elsewhere, who when confronted with an opinion at variance with their own, are so far from being able to master an opponent that they cannot even master themselves! Or how unlike a newspaper press which--Heaven knows by what means--may be induced to be silent on questions which concern the very life and existence of a nation, but loses all restraint and dignity in the face of a frankly and openly expressed opinion.

M. Cossart was a man of quite another kind. There was no room in his soul for malice or cowardice. He was a gentleman to his finger-tips. His name, his avocation, his address are all stated above, and he is easily found. I have no fear lest my openness of speech might cause him any harm. He runs no risk as far as the Germans are concerned. I would, moreover, entreat my German friends in Bapaume--if this book should ever meet their eyes--to show him if but a fraction of the kindness they have shown to me. And as regards the French, they may--when peace once more reigns on earth--ask M. Cossart whether my statement is true. Nor should they forget to thank him that, in the face of the overwhelming might of the invasion, he always fearlessly stood up for France, with unruffled brow, unflinching eyes and manly speech--speech which made one bow in fancy before the laurel-wreathed tricolor over his head.