Oj^atnell Untocraitg ffiibrarg THE GIFT OF VV. F, WilTtox. 3 1924 088 056 902 The original of tliis bool< is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924088056902 NELSON'S HISTORY OF THE WAR VOLUME IIL NELSON'S HISTORY OF THE WAR. By John Buchan. Volume in. The Battle of the Aisne and the Events down to the Fall of Antwerp. THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN, AND NEW YORK CONTENTS. XVIII. The War at Sea : the Battle of THE Bight of Heligoland . . 9 XIX. The Battle of the Aisne — the First Phase 36 XX. The Battle of the Aisne — the Second Phase 62 XXI. The First Russian Advance towards Cracow 84 XXII, The Political Situation . . . 108 XXIII. The War in Africa 138 XXIV. The Fall of Antwerp . . . . 170 APPENDICES. I. Dispatches dealing with the Battle of the Bight of Heligoland . 205 11. Sir John French's Third Dispatch : THE Battle of the Aisne . . 222 LIST OF MAPS. Battle of the Bight of Heligoland — Aug. 28 (Position at 7 a.m.) 15 Battle of the Bight of Heligoland— Aug. 28 (Position about 8.25 a.m.) 17 Battle of the Bight of Heligoland — Aug. 28 (Position about 11 a.m.) 18 Battle of the Bight of Heligoland — ^Aug. 28 (Position at noon) 2i Battle of the Bight of Heligoland — Aug. 28 (Position at 1.40 p.m.) 22 British Position on Sept. 12, on the Eve of the Crossing of the Aisne 44 Battle of the Aisne : British Crossing of the Aisne, Sept. 13 47 Battle of the Aisne : Fighting on the British Front, Sept. 14 52 Battle of the Aisne : Operations of the 6th French Army (Gen. Maunoury) ... 56 8 LIST OF MAPS. Defences of Verdun 68 The St. Mihiel Position 72 Map of the Rheims District to illustrate the Operations of the 9th French Army (Gen. Foch) 75 Sketch Map to illustrate the Extension of the Allied Left 77 Map to illustrate von Hindenburg's Advance to the Niemen and the Battle of Augustovo 87 First Russian Advance tovs^ards Cracow . . 96 The Carpathian Passes 104 Sketch showing Inlets for German Imports . 122 Togoland 148 The Cameroons 151 German South- West Africa ..... 157 German East Africa 165 The Entrenched Camp of Antwerp . . . 175 Sketch Map showing the Lines of Retreat open to the Antwerp Garrison 198 NELSON'S HISTORY OF THE WAR. CHAPTER XVIII. THE WAR AT SEA : THE BATTLE OF THE BIGHT OF HELIGOLAND. The Task of the Navy— Battle of Bight of Heligoland — Com- position of British Force — Preliminary Reconnaissance — ■ Concentration on Morning of 28th August — The First Phase of the Battle — Doings of the Arethusa — The Second Phase — Arrival of Battle Cruisers — German and British Losses — Strategy and Tactics of Fight — German Mine-fields — Loss of Cressy, Hague, and Aboukir ; Admiralty Memo- randum—The Emden and the Koenigsberg — Attacks on German Converted Liners — Smallness of British Losses — ■ The Declarations of Paris and London. THE work of the British navy during the first two months of war was so completely success- ful in its main purpose that the ordinary man scarcely recognized it. He expected a theatrical coup, a full-dress battle, or a swift series of engage- ments with enemy warships. When he found that nothing happened, he began to think that something was amiss. But the proof of our success was that nothing happened — nothing startling, that is to say, for every day had its full record of quiet achievement. Three-fourths of the game was already ours with- 10 HISTORY OF THE WAR. out striking a blow. The British people depended for their very livelihood on their sea-borne com- merce ; that went on as if there were no war. The rates of marine insurance fell, and freights did not increase beyond the limits dictated by the law of supply and demand. We moved our armed forces about the world as we desired, not as our enemies permitted. Germany's foreign trade, on which she depended in the long run for munitions of war and the maintenance of most of her industries, ceased with dramatic suddenness. Our naval predomi- nance was instantly proved by the impotence of our opponents. The German policy was what the wiser among our people had always desired. No doubt if Admiral von Ingenohl had sailed forth with his Grand Fleet in the early days of August and been summarily sent to the bottom, it would have been even more convenient. But, short of such a wholesale destruc- tion, things could not have fallen out more oppor- tunely than they did. Assume that they had gone otherwise, and that the German admiral, instead of sheltering in the Elbe, had sent out some of his best cruisers and battle cruisers to scour the high seas. The performances of the Emden, which we shall later consider, would have been many times multiplied. We should have lost scores of merchant- men, and a number of our smaller fighting units. Marine insurance rates and freights would have mounted high, prices would have risen, and there would have been heard at home the first mutterings of commercial panic. The transport of troops from South Africa, Australia, and Canada would have been difficult, and we should have had to weaken THE WAR AT SEA. ii dangerously our Grand Fleet to supply escorts. Indeed, with a dozen big German cruisers at large, it might have seemed for a week or two that the offensive had passed to the enemy, and that Britain, not Germany, was on her defence. Of course, we should have ended by destroying the raiders ; the cruisers would have had a short life or a long life, but they would not have returned home. Never- theless this weakening of the enemy's naval strength would have been dearly paid for by the congestion of our ordinary life at that most critical time, the first weeks of war, and by the inevitable interference with our military plans. Had Germany been bolder at sea there might have been no British force to hold the Allied left in the difficult days from the Sambre to the Marne. One of the chief objects of a navy in war is to protect the commerce of its country. This purpose we achieved with ease, and it would have been mere folly to throw away capital ships in an assault on the retreat of an enemy which had virtually allowed our mastery of the sea to go unchallenged. On land an army fights its way yard by yard to a position from which it can deal a crushing blow. But a fleet needs none of these preliminaries. As soon as the enemy chooses to appear the battle can be joined. Hence von Ingenohl was right in saving his fleet for what he considered a better chance, and we were right in not forcing him unduly. Naval power should be used, not squandered, and the mightiest fleet on earth may be flung away on a fool's errand. It should not be forgotten that the strength of a fleet is a more brittle and less replace- able thing than the strength of an army. New 12 HISTORY OF THE WAR. levies can be called for on land, and tolerable in- fantry trained in a few months. But in the navy it takes six years to make a junior officer, it takes tv?o years to build a cruiser, and three years to replace a battleship. A serious loss in fighting units is, for any ordinary naval war, an absolute, not a tem- porary, calamity. It was the business, then, of the British fleet to perform its principal duty, the protection of British trade ; it was not its business to break its head against the defences of Wilhelmshaven or Kiel. At the same time, it had to watch incessantly for the emergence of German ships, and, if possible, entice them out of their sanctuary. Cautious and well- reasoned boldness was the quality demanded, and on 28th August, the day when Sir John French's retreat had reached the Oise, it earned its reward in the first important naval action of the war. The Battle of the Bight of Heligoland was in its way such a little masterpiece of naval strategy and tactics that it deserves to be examined with some attention. First, we must realize the various forces engaged, which may be set down in the order of their appearance in the action. 1. Eighth Submarine Flotilla (Commodore Roger Keyes). — Parent ships : Destroyers Lurcher and Firedrake. Submarines : D2, D8, E4, E5, E6, Ey, E8, E9. 2. Destroyer Flotillas (Commodore R. Y. Tyrwhitt). — ^Flag- ship : Light cruiser Arethusa. First Destroyer Flotilla : Light cruiser Fearless (Captain Blunt). — ^Destroyers : Acheron, Archer, Ariel, Attack, Badger, Beaver, Defender, Ferret, Forester, Goshawk, Hind, Jackal, Lapwing, Lizard, Phcenix, Sandfly. Third Destroyer Flotilla : Laertes, Laforey, Lance, Land- THE WAR AT SEA. 13 rail, Lark, Laurel, Lawford, Legion, Leonidas, Lennox, Liberty, Linnet, Llewelyn, Louis, Lucifer, Lydiard, Lysander. 3. First Light-Cruiser Squadron (Commodore W. R. Good- enough). — Southampton, Falmouth, Birmingham, Lowestoft, Nottingham. 4. First Battle-Cruiser Squadron (Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty). — Lion, Princess Royal, Queen Mary, New Zealand. Joined at sea by Invincible (Rear-Admiral Moore) and by destroyers : Hornet, Hydra, Tigress, and Loyal. 5. Seventh Cruiser Squadron (Rear-Admiral A. H. Chris- tian). — Armoured cruisers : Euryalus, Cressy, Hague, Ahoukir, Sutlej, Bacchante, and light cruiser A methyst. The battle cruisers were the largest and newest of their class, displacing some 27,000 tons, with a speed of 29 knots, and an armament each of eight 13.5 and sixteen 4-inch guns. The First Light-Cruiser Squadron contained ships of the " town " class — 5,500 tons, 25 to 26 knots, and eight or nine 6-inch guns. The Seventh Cruiser Squadron were older ships from the Third Fleet — 12,000 tons and 21 knots. The First Destroyer Flotilla contained de- stroyers each of about 800 tons, 30 knots, and two 4-inch and two 12-pounder guns. The Third Flo- tilla was composed only of the largest and latest type — 965 tons, 32 knots, and three 4-inch guns. Of the accompanying cruisers the Arethusa — the latest of an apostolical succession of vessels of that name — was the first ship of a new class ; her ton- nage was 3,750, her speed 30 knots, and her arma- ment two 6-inch and six 4-inch guns. Her com- panion, the Fearless, had 3,440 tons, 26 knots, and ten 4-inch guns. The two small destroyers which accompanied the submarines, the Lurcher and the 14 HISTORY OF THE WAR. Ftredrake, had 765 tons, 35 knots, and two 4-inch and two 12-pounder guns. Ever since the 9th of August the seas around HeHgoland had been assiduously scouted by the submarines E6 and E8. German cruisers — ap- parently the Strasshurg and the Stralsund — had shown a certain activity, and had succeeded in sink- ing a number of British trawlers ; but the several " drives " which we organized had sent them back /, to their territorial waters. The Fearless °' ' had also been on patrol work, and on 2ist August had come under the enemy's shell fire. By the 26th our intelligence was complete, and at y, ^ midnight the submarine flotilla, under *■ ■ Commodore Keyes, sailed from Harwich for the Bight of Heligoland. All the next day, the 27th, the Lurcher and the Ftredrake scouted for the y, submarines. At five o'clock on the even- ^"g- 27. ing of the 27th the First and Third Destroyer Flotillas, under Commodore Tyrwhitt, left Harwich, and some time during that day the Battle-Cruiser Squadron, the First Light-Cruiser Squadron, and the Seventh Cruiser Squadron also put to sea. The rendezvous appointed was reached early on the morning of the 28th, the waters having been searched for hostile submarines before dawn by the Lurcher and the Ftredrake. The chronicle must now concern itself with hours and minutes. The first phase of the action began ^ « just before 7 a.m. on the 28th. The ^' ■ morning had broken windless and calm, with a haze which limited the range of vision to under three miles. The water was like a mill- pond, and out of the morning mist rose the gaunt THE WAR AT SEA. IS rock of Heligoland, with its forts and painted lodg- ing-houses and crumbling sea-cliffs. It was the worst conceivable weather for the submarines, since in a calm sea their periscopes were easily visible. The position at seven o'clock was as follows. Close to Heligoland, and well within German territorial waters, were Commodore Keyes* eight submarines, Position at 7 a.m. ^.. ^ British Battle Cruiser Squadron ^British \ \ 1st Light Cruiser \\ Squadron British Destroyer Floti 3rd I I ^ Arethusa "^ No Fearless {St British 7th Cruiser Squa was the old gunboat Speedy, which " • 3* struck a mine and foundered in the North Sea on 3rd September. The submarine was a graver menace. On 5th September the Pathfinder, a light cruiser c yi.^ - of 2,940 tons, with a crew of 268, was " • 5- torpedoed ofi' the Lothian coast and sunk, with great loss of life. Eight days later the German light cruiser Hela, a vessel slightly smaller (j . than the Pathfinder, was sunk by the ^ ' ^' British submarine Eg (Lieutenant Max Horton) in wild weather between Heligoland and the Frisian coast — an exploit of exceptional boldness and diffi- culty. During that fortnight a great storm raged, and our patrols found it hard to keep the seas, many of the smaller destroyers being driven to port. This storm led indirectly to the first serious British loss of the war. Three cruisers of an old pattern, 28 HISTORY OF THE WAR. the Cressy, Hogue, and Aboukir, which had been part of Admiral Christian's Seventh Cruiser Squad- ron in the Battle of the Bight of Heligoland, had for three weeks been engaged in patrolling off the Dutch" coast. It does not appear why three large ships carrying heavy crews were employed on a duty which could have been performed better and more safely by lighter vessels. No screen of destroyers was with them at the moment, owing to the storm, o On the 22nd of September the sky had P ' ' cleared and the seas fallen, and about half -past six in the morning, as the cruisers proceeded to their posts, the Aboukir was torpedoed, and began to settle down. Her sister ships believed she had struck a mine, and closed in on her to save life. Suddenly the Hogue was struck by two torpedoes, and began to sink. Two of her boats had already been got away to the rescue of the Aboukir's men, and as she went down she righted herself for a moment, with the result that her steam pinnace and steam picket-boat floated off. The Cressy now came up to the rescue, but she also was struck by two torpedoes, and sank rapidly. Three trawlers in the neighbourhood at the time picked up the survivors in the water and in the boats, but of the total crews of 1,459 officers and men only 779 were saved. In that bright, chilly morning, when all was over within a quarter of an hour, the British sailor showed his unsurpassed discipline and courage. Men swimming in the frosty sea or clinging naked to boats or wreckage cheered each other with songs and jokes. " The men on the Hogue," wrote an eye-witness, " stood quietly by waiting for the order to jump, and pass- ing the time in slipping off their clothes." The THE WAR AT SEA. 29 survivors were positive that they saw at least three submarines, but the German official account men- tions only one — ^the U9, under Captain-lieutenant Otto Weddigen. The fate of the three cruisers was not only a disaster ; it was a mistake, of the kind which is inevitable at the beginning of a naval war, before novel conditions are adequately realized. Faulty staff work somewhere at headquarters was to blame. There was no reason why three such vessels should have been employed at all on patrol duty ; and if they were to be employed they should never have been sent out without a screen of destroyers. Again, they had been kept promenading on the same beat for some time, which was simply an invitation to submarines to come out and attack them. Lastly, no instructions had been given them as to what to do in the case of one of their number being tor- pedoed, with the result that the Hogue went to assist the Aboukir, and the Cressy to assist the Hogue, and all three perished. The Admiralty realized this grave omission too late, and a few days after the disaster issued a statement, from which we quote : — " The sinking of the Aboukir was, of course, an ordinary hazard of patrolling duty. The Hogue and Cressy, however, were sunk because they proceeded to the assistance of their consort, and remained with engines stopped endeavouring to save life, thus presenting an easy and certain target to further submarine attacks. The natural promptings of humanity have in this case led to heavy losses which would have been avoided by a strict adhesion to mihtary considerations. Modern naval war is presenting us with so many new and strange situations that an error of judgment of this character is pardonable. But It haa become necessary to point out for the future guidftnG<» 30 HISTORY OF THE WAR. of His Majesty's ships, that the conditions which prevail when one vessel of a squadron is injured in a mine-field, or is exposed to submarine attack, are analogous to those which occur in an action, and that the rule of leaving ships to their own resources is applicable so far at any rate as large vessels are concerned." The Admiralty correctly attributed the catastrophe to an error of judgment, but the error was not that of the captains of the lost vessels. The third method of weakening British sea power was by the attack upon merchantmen by light cruisers. Apparently Germany sent forth no new vessels of this type after the outbreak of war, and her activities were confined to those which were already outside the Narrow Seas, especially those under Admiral von Spec's command at Kiao-chau. So far as September is concerned, we need mention only the Emden and the Koenigs- berg. The former was to provide the world with a genuine tale of romantic adventure, always welcome among the grave realities of war, and in her short life to emulate the achievements and the fame of the Alabama. She appeared in the Bay of 9 M lo ^^^g^^ ^^ ^°^^ September, and within " ■ * a week had captured seven large mer- chantmen, six of which she sank. Next week she arrived at Rangoon, where her presence cut off all 9 i)f -2-2 ^^^ communication between India and " * ■ Burma. On 22nd September she was at Madras, and fired a shell or two into the environs of the city, setting an oil tank on fire. On the o . . 29th she was off Pondicherry, and the " ■ "■ last day of the month found her run- ning up the Malabar coast. There for the present THE WAR AT SEA. 31 we leave her, for the tale of her subsequent adven- tures belongs to another chapter. The Koenigs- berg had her beat off the East Coast of Africa. Her chief exploit was a dash into Zanzibar harbour, where, on 20th September, she caught <-, the British cruiser Pegasus while in the " ' act of repairing her boilers. The Pegasus was a seventeen-year-old ship of 2,135 tons, and had no chance against her assailant. She was destroyed by the Koenigsberg's long-range fire. The exploits of the two German commerce- raiders were magnified because they were the ex- ceptions, while the British capture of German merchantmen was the rule. We did not destroy our captures, because we had many ports to take them to, and they were duly brought before our prize courts. In addition, we had made havoc of Germany's converted liners. The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, which had escaped from Bremerhaven at the beginning of the war, and which had preyed for a fortnight on our South Atlantic commerce, was caught and sunk by the Highflyer near the Cape Verde Islands. On 12th Sep- <^ tember the Berwick captured in the ^ North Atlantic the Spreewald, of the Hamburg- Amerika line. On 14th September the Carmania, Captain Noel Grant, a British converted <^ liner, fell in with a similar German " ' ^' vessel, the Cap Trafalgar, off the coast of Brazil. The action began at 9,000 yards, and lasted for an hour and three-quarters. The Carmania was skil- fully handled, and her excellent gunnery decided the issue. Though the British vessel had to depart prematurely owing to the approach of a 32 HISTORY OF THE WAR. German cruiser, she left her antagonist sinking in flames. Other instances might be quoted, but these will suffice to show how active British vessels were in all the seas. The loss of a few light cruisers and a baker's dozen of merchantmen was a small price to pay for an unimpaired foreign trade and the practical impotence of the enemy. Modern in- ventions give the weaker power a better chance for raiding than in the old days ; but in spite of that our sufferings were small compared with any other of our great wars. It is instructive to contrast our fortunes during the struggle with Napoleon. Then, even after Trafalgar had been fought, French privateers made almost daily cap- tures of English ships in our home waters. Our coasts were frequently attacked, and the inhabitants of the seaboard went for years in constant expecta- tion of invasion. In the twenty-one years of war we lost 10,248 British ships. Further back in our history our inviolability was even more precarious. In the year after Agincourt the French landed in Portland. Seven years after the defeat of the Ar- mada the Spanish burned Penzance and ravaged the Cornish coasts. In 1667 the Dutch were in the Medway and the Thames. In 1690 the French burned Teignmouth, and landed in Sussex ; in 1760 they seized Carrickfergus ; in 1797 they landed at Fish- guard. In 1775 Paul Jones captured Whitehaven, and was the terror of our home waters. The most pros- perous war has its casualties in unexpected places. As for the alleged slowness in bringing the enemy's fleet to book, it should be remembered that in the Revolution Wars England had to wait THE WAR AT SEA. 33 a year for the first naval battle, Howe's victory of the I St of June ; while Nelson lay for two years before Toulon, and Cornwallis for longer before Brest. " They were dull, weary, eventless months " — to quote Admiral Mahan — " those months ot waiting and watching of the big ships before the French arsenals. Purposeless they surely seemed to many, but they saved England. The world has never seen a more impressive demonstration of the influence of sea power upon its history. Those far-distant, storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world." In Nelson's day we had one advantage which is now lost to us. We were not hampered by a code of maritime law framed in the interests of unmari- time nations. The Declaration of Paris of 1856, among other provisions, enacted that a neutral flag covered enemy's merchandise except contraband of war, and that neutral merchandise was not captur- able even under the enemy's flag. This Declara- tion, which was not accepted by the United States, has never received legislative ratification from the British Parliament ; but we regarded ourselves as bound by it, though various efforts had been made to get it rescinded in times of peace by those who realized how greatly it weakened the belligerent force of a sea power. The Declaration of London of 1909 made a further effort to codify maritime law.* It was signed by the British plenipotentiaries, though Parliament refused to pass the statutes necessary to give effect to certain of its provisions. In some respects it was more favourable to Britain than * Parliamentary Paper, Cd. 4554 of 1909. III. 3 34 HISTORY OF THE WAR. the Declaration of Paris, but in others it was less favourable, and it was consistently opposed by many good authorities on the subject. Generally speak- ing, it was more acceptable to a nation like Ger- many than to a people situated like ourselves.* When war broke out the British Government announced that it accepted the Declaration of London as the basis of our maritime practice. The result was a position of some confusion, for the consequences of the new law had never been fully realized. Under it, for example, the captain of the Emden could justify his sinking of British ships instead of taking them to a port for adjudication. One provision, which seems to have been deduced from it, was so * The following are a few examples of the way in which it impaired our naval power : It was made easy to break a blockade, for the right of a blockading Power to capture a blockade-runner did not cover the whole period of her voyage and was confined to ships of the blockading force (Articles 14, 16, 17, 19, 20) ; stereotyped lists of contraband and non- contraband were drawn up, instead of the old custom of leaving the question to the discretion of the Prize Court (Articles 22, 23, 24, 25, 28) ; a ship carrying contraband could only be condemned if the contraband formed more than half its cargo ; a belligerent warship could destroy a neutral vessel without taking it to a port for judgment ; the transfer of an enemy vessel to a neutral flag was presumed to be valid if effected more than thirty days before the outbreak of war (Article 55) ; the question of the test of enemy property was left in high confusion (Article 58) ; a neutral vessel, if accom- panied by any sort of warship of her own flag, was exempt from search ; belligerents in neutral vessels on the high seas were exempt from capture (based on Article 45). With the Declara- tion of London would go most of the naval findings of the Hague Conference of 1907. The British delegates who assented to the Declaration of London proceeded on the assumption that in any war of the future Britain would be neutral, and so endeavoured to reduce the privileges of maritime belligerents. THE WAR AT SEA. 35 patently ridiculous that it was soon dropped — that belligerents (that is, enemy reservists) in neutral ships were not liable to arrest. Presently successive Orders in Council, instigated by sheer necessity, altered the Declaration of London beyond recogni- tion. The truth was, that we were engaged in a war to which few a priori rules could be made to apply. Germany had become a law unto herself, and the wisest course for the Allies was to frame their own code, which should comply not only with the half- dozen great principles of international equity, but with the mandates of common sense. CHAPTER XIX. THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE — THE FIRST PHASE. Meaning of " Initiative " — Nature of VaUeys of Aisne and Suippe — German Position — Arrangement of Allied Armies — Cross- ing of the Vesle — Crossing of the Aisne, 13th September- Work of the Engineers — Sir Douglas Haig's Advance on the Ladies' Road, 14th September — Heavy British Casualties — French Repulse North of Soissons — Arrival of 6th British Division — Von Buelow's Attack on Rheims — Change of AlUed Plans — End of Battle of the Aisne Proper, i8th Sep- tember — Enveloping Movement up the Oise Valley — Crea- tion of French 7th and loth Armies. WHAT is tbe initiative in war ? It is not the offensive, wKi^ is merely the power to attack. An army may consistently have the offensive and be the attacker throughout a whole campaign, and yet never possess the initiative. Perhaps it may be most simply defined as the poH:er to dictate to the enemy the form of„ actioh : to lay down the type of the commg battle. When combined with the offensive it is a terrible weapon. Moltke had both at Sedan, as had Napoleon at Jena, and Lee at Chancellorsville and Thomas at Nashville. But a general acting on the defensive may have the initiative. Wellington never lost it during his early years in the Peninsula, though his main strategy was defensive. Kutusov when he led Napoleon to Moscow had the initiative, for he com- THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE. 37 pelled his great enemy to conform to his own ideas of war. In the present campaign Tannenberg is a good example of a fight where the victor had both the offensive and the initiative. On the retreat from Mons the Germans had both ; at the Marne the Allies snatched both from them ; but, once the retreating forces were entrenched on the Aisne, General Joffre had only the offensive remaining. The Germans secured again the initiative — that is, they compelled their adversaries to adopt the form of battle on which they had decided : a trench battle, well suited to their own stubborn and me- chanical genius. A war of entrenchments began which was to last for many weary months, and which can only be paralleled from the annals of mediaeval contests. Let us glance for a moment at the topography of those wide grassy vales of Aisne and Suippe which are scored from west to east across Northern France. The Aisne, which enters the Oise at Com- piegne, has on its north side, at an average of a mile or more from the stream, a line of steep ridges, the scarp of a great plateau. The valley floor is like much other French scenery — a sluggish stream, resembling the Trent, villages, farmhouses, unfenced fields of crops, poplar-lined roads, and a few little towns, the chief of which is Soissons, with its twelfth-cen- tury cathedral, the scene of many great doings in France's history. On the north the hills stand like a wall, and the spurs dip down sharply to the vale, while between them the short and rapid brooks have cut steep re-entrant combes in the plateau's edge. The height of the scarp varies from some 200 feet, where the uplands begin on the west above Com- 38 HISTORY OF THE WAR. piegne from the Forest of the Eagle, to more than 450 feet thirty miles east in the high bluffs of Craonne. Beyond this latter place the Aisne takes a wide sweep to the north-east towards its source in the Argonne, and the banks fall to the lower level characteristic of the shallow dales of Champagne. The section from Compiegne to Craonne is every- where of the same type, with sometimes a bolder spur and sometimes a deeper ravine. The top of the plateau cannot be seen from the valley, nor even from the high ground to the south. It is muffled everywhere by a cloak of woods — what are called in Hampshire " hangers " — which dip over the edge and descend for some distance towards the river. The lower slopes are, for the most part, steep and grassy, with enclosed coppices here and there. The plateau stretches back for some miles, till at La Fere and Laon it breaks down into the plains of north-eastern France. Seven miles east of Soissons as the crow flies the river Vesle enters the Aisne on the south bank. It is the stream on which stands the city of Rheims, and its valley is a replica in miniature of the Aisne. At Neufchatel-on-Aisne the river Suippe comes in from the south, flowing from the Argonne. It rolls its muddy white waters through a shallow depression in the chalk of Northern Champagne. Both its banks are long, gentle slopes of open plough- land, with a few raw new plantations to break the monotony. Beyond the southern slope and over the watershed we descend to where Rheims lies beautifully in its cincture of bold and forested hills. The German armies had chosen for their stand, not the line of the Aisne, but the crest of the pla- THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE. 39 teau beyond it, at an average of two miles from the stream side. Long before it had been decided upon, and as they advanced to the Marne, they left parties of sappers to prepare the trenches. A more perfect position could not be found.* It commanded all the crossings of the river and most of the roads on the south bank, and even if the enemy reached the north side the outjutting spurs gave excellent oppor- tunities for an enfilading fire. The blindness of the crests made it almost impossible for the German trenches to be detected. Eastward towards Neuf- chatel, where the Aisne valley changed its char- acter, the line crossed the river, and followed in a wide curve the course of the Suippe, keeping several miles back from the stream on the northern slopes. Here the position was still stronger. Be- fore them they had a natural glacis, and across the river they could command the bare swelling downs for miles. The line crossed the Champagne-Pouil- leuse, with the Bazancourt- Grand Pr6 railway behind it, and rested on the Argonne, to the east of which the army of the Imperial Crown Prince was ringing Verdun on north and east from Montfaucon to the shaggy folds of the Woevre. von Kluck, with the ist German Army, held the western section from the Forest of the Eagle to the plateau of Craonne. He had against him Mau- noury's 6th French Army — ^whose left wing was also destined to work up the Oise towards Lassigny and Noyon — the British army, and the 5th French Army * It had been once before used as a defensive position by an invader — by Bluecher in February and March 1814. The study of this campaign may have suggested the idea to the German Staff. 40 HISTORY OF THE WAR. of d'Esperey. Von Buelow held the ground from von Kluck's left, from the Aisne crossing at Berry- au-Bac, along the line of the Suippe. The Saxon general, von Hansen, about this time fell sick, and vi^as relieved of his command, and the Saxon troops seem to have been joined to von Buelov(?'s forces. Against von Buelow was ranged the 9th Army of General Foch, some corps of which may have been detached for reserves elsewhere. The line of Northern Champagne was defended by the Duke of Wurtemberg, who joined hands in the Argonne with the Crown Prince. The French in Cham- pagne were Langle's 4th Army, advancing against the Bazancourt- Grand Pre line. The Crown Prince was faced by Sarrail's 3rd Army, which at once set itself to entrenching and to enlarging the Verdun enceinte, with a clear perception of the truth that, if Verdun was to be held, the big German howitzers must be kept out of range. In the south of the Woevre, linked with Sarrail by the forts of the Meuse, the 2nd Army of de Castelnau was front- ing the Bavarians, while Dubail held a portion of the Vosges and rested his right on Belfort. When the Allied troops on the 13th and 14th ol September first became dimly cognizant of the nature of the German position they did not realize its full meaning. They could not know that they were on the glacis of the new type of fortress which Germany had built for herself, and which was pres- ently to embrace about a fifth of Europe. On the nth and the 12th they had believed the enemy to be in full retreat, and when they felt his strength their generals were puzzled to decide whether he meant to make a serious stand, or was only fighting THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE. 41 delaying actions preparatory to a further retirement to the Sambre or beyond. Had General Joffre known the strength of the Aisne positions, he would probably from the beginning have endeavoured to turn them on the west, or — what would give far more decisive results — ^to break through the Crown Prince's army in the east, and so get between them and their own country. As it was, he decided to make a frontal attack, which would be the natural course against an enemy in retreat who had merely halted to show his fangs. The fighting on the Aisne was to continue for many weary months, and to show a slow and confusing series of trench at- tacks sandwiched between long periods of stagnant cannonades. But the Battle of the Aisne in the proper sense of the word — the battle during which the Allied plan was a frontal assault — lasted strictly for six days only, and on the widest interpretation for no more than a fortnight. Of this conflict Sir John French's third dispatch gives us a full tactical account, so far as the work of his own army is con- cerned. Our information about certain parts of the Allied line is still defective ; but the story of the whole operations must be attempted, for it was all one battle, and the real danger point did not lie in the British section. The first fighting was an affair of advanced Allied cavalry and strong German rearguards. On Saturday, 12th September, Maunoury's ^ ^, 6th Army was in the Forest of Com- -^ ' piegne, with its right fronting the enemy in the town of Soissons. It had secured several good artillery positions on the south bank, and spent the day in a long-range duel with the German guns 4? HISTORY OF THE WAR. across the river, in the endeavour to " prepare " a crossing. Practically all the bridges were down, and since the Aisne, though not very wide, is fully fifteen feet deep, the only transport must be by pontoons. It took some time to capture a German post on the Mont de Paris, south of Soissons. On Maunoury's right the British Third Corps was busy at the same tactics just to the east of Soissons. East of it, again, the two other British corps were advancing in eche- lon, while the cavalry was driving the enemy out of the ground around the Lower Vesle. On the day before our cavalry had arrived in the Aisne valley, the 3rd and 5th Brigades just south of Soissons, the ist, 2nd, and 4th Brigades at Couvrelles and Cer- seul in the tributary glen of the Vesle. On the 1 2th AUenby discovered that the Germans were holding Braisne and the surrounding heights in some force, and after a fight, in which the 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays) distinguished them- selves, and much assistance was given by some advanced infantry of the 3rd Division, drove them out, and cleared the stream. Shortly after midday the rain began, and our advance in the afternoon was handicapped by transport difficulties in the heavy soil. In the evening the First Corps lay between Vauxcere and Vauxtin ; the Second astride the Vesle from Brenelle to near Missy, where the 5th Division on its left found the Aisne crossing strongly held ; the Third Corps south of Soissons, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Buzancy, while its heavy batteries were assisting Maunoury. East of the British d'Esperey brought his army up to the Vesle, and Langle was moving down the Upper Suippe. The fighting around Verdun must be THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE. 43 left till later, for it did not belong to the present series of engagements. Sunday, the 13th, was the beginning of the passage of the Aisne. The 6th French Army con- structed pontoons at various places under ^ . a heavy fire, and several divisions were " * ■'' got over. Vic and Fontenoy were the chief crossings, for a pontoon bridge at Soissons itself was made impossible by the guns on the northern heights. A number of French infantry did succeed in making a passage by means of the single girder which was all that was now left of the narrow-gauge railway bridge. To the east the British operations during the day were full of interest. The Third Corps attempted the section between Soissons and Venizel. The Aisne was in high flood, and the heavy rain made every movement difficult. Its bridging train at- tempted to build a heavy pontoon bridge on the French right, but this failed, like the similar French attempt, owing to the fire of the German howitzers. The 19th Brigade was left behind in reserve at Billy, while the nth Brigade seems to have got across the river either during the night or very early in the morning, for during the day it held a position on the northern slopes east of Bucy. At Venizel there was a road bridge, not completely destroyed, which was mended sufficiently to allow of the pas- sage of field-guns. A pontoon bridge was built beside it, and early in the afternoon the whole of the 4th Division was across, and co-operating with the left of the Second Corps against the German positions at Chivres and Vregny. Farther east the Second Corps had been in difficulties. The 5th Division on its left found ' "'^ ^ r . 1^. .-=^ >./7 rs. to •J 1 1 - •■U/0 1 f~? ^- ^ y*''^/ /-C J J) £>^ / / ^ §/■? 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