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BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 BY 
 
 PRESTON GIBSON 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 WITH PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1918 
 

 Copyright, 1918, by 
 The Century Co. ^ 
 
 Copyright, 1918, by 
 The Sun Publishing and Printing Associatioh 
 
 Published, April. 1918 
 
 MAY -3 (918 
 
 (I 
 
 ©CLA49595 
 
 •^ T ■'!_- 
 
TO 
 L. M. U 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/batteringbocheOOgibs 
 
Head QUARTERS U. S. Marine Corps, 
 
 Office of the Quartermaster, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Mr. Gibson presents a very graphic pic- 
 ture of scenes and incidents along the French 
 front and of the dangers that attend the 
 work of the personnel of the Ambulance 
 Corps, of which he formed a part. 
 
 Particularly interesting is his description 
 of the splendidly heroic conduct of the gal- 
 lant French at all times and of their unselfish, 
 uncomplaining and stoical attitude in the 
 face of the greatest suffering their country 
 has ever experienced. It should be an incen- 
 tive and example to every American who 
 goes to help them. 
 
 Charles L. McCawley. 
 Brigadier General, Quartermaster, 
 U. S. Marines. 
 
Preston Gibson received the French Cross of War with the 
 following : 
 
 21° Division d'Infie. 
 
 au Q.G. le ler Decembre 1917. 
 
 ETAT-MAJOR , 
 
 CITATION A L'ORDRE DE LA DIVISION. 
 
 Extrait Ordre No. 204 
 
 IiE GENERAL Commandant la 21e, Division d'Infanterie 
 
 cite a r Ordre de la Division 
 
 les miUtaires dont les noms suivent: 
 
 SERVICE DE SANTE 
 Section Sanitaire Automobile Americane No. 7 
 GIBSON, Preston, Volontaire Americain. 
 
 " Volontaire americain admirable de courage et de sang 
 " froid. S'est particulierement distingue devant St. 
 " Quentin et dans I'Aisne par son devouement et son 
 " intrepidite a I'occasion de nombreuses evacuations en 
 " zone dangereuse." 
 
 Le General DAUVIN 
 Commandant la 21e Division d'Infie. 
 Signe: DAUVIN. 
 
 Translation. 
 21st. Division of Infantry 
 
 ETAT-MAJOR at Headquarters, December 1, 1917 
 
 CITATION TO THE ORDER OF THE DIVISION 
 
 Extract. Order No. 204 
 
 THE GENERAL Commanding the 21st. Division of Infantry 
 
 cites to the Order of the Division the following soldiers: 
 
 SERVICE DE SANTE. 
 AMERICAN SANITARY AUTOMOBILE SERVICE No. 7. 
 GIBSON, Preston, American Volunteer 
 
 " American volunteer, admirable for his courage and cool- 
 ness. He particularly distinguished himself before St. 
 Quentin and in the Aisne by his devotion and his fear- 
 lessness on the occasion of numerous evacuations in 
 dangerous places." 
 
 General DAUVIN 
 Commanding the 21st, Division of Infantry 
 Signed: DAUVIN. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Preston Gibson Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 A camouflaged bridge over the Somme . . 8 
 
 Poilu with gas-mask and respirator in dug- 
 out of a third-line trench 9 
 
 A lookout in a trench observation post . . 24 
 
 An improvised headquarters on the Aisne 
 front 25 
 
 A " Saucisse," used for observation before 
 the attack at Chemin des Dames ... 40 
 
 French defenses thrown up on the Aisne 
 plateau 41 
 
 Barbed wire over third-line trench at 
 Chemin des Dames 60 
 
 First-line communication trench^ Chemin des 
 Dames 61 
 
 Observer near Malmaison^ Chemin des 
 Dames 72 
 
 Just before firing a small gun from the sec- 
 ond line trench, Chemin des Dames . . 73 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 Carrying wounded through shelled village 
 of Vailly after attack at Chemin des 
 Dames 88 
 
 French poilus receiving the Crois de Guerre, 
 after the Battle of Malmaison ... 89 
 
 German prisoners used as stretcher-bearers 
 after the slaughter at Malmaison . . . 104 
 
 Mass being held underground near Mal- 
 maison 105 
 
 (These photographs are used by courtesy of The 
 XVIIIth Century Shop) 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
' WJSTENOS 
 
 ♦ BRUSStUj 
 
 SC^^uf Of rMLia 
 
 1. The St. Qiientin region. The author was here 
 during the attack of August 20-2f6, 191T. 
 
 2. The famous Chemin des Dames — now occupied 
 in part by American troops — where the author was 
 during the attack of October, 1917. 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 PART I 
 
 PARIS. Arriving there in July, 1917, 
 one is struck by the great number of 
 English and American officers. The cafes 
 are crowded, as are the hotels. There are a 
 number of private motors and a great many 
 taxicabs. 
 
 The town itself is absolutely closed at 9 :30 
 p. M. There is no dancing and one sees few 
 French people among the pleasure seekers, 
 as the whole nation is in mourning. Soldiers 
 abound everywhere. It is seldom that one 
 sees a young man in civilian clothes, and then 
 it is because he has been wounded and brought 
 back. The taxicab drivers all look like 
 rather young Rip Van Winkles. 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 When one goes to the Madeleine, that 
 beautiful church, one is absolutely awed and 
 silenced in one's heart on observing the hun- 
 dreds, even thousands, of children, girls, mid- 
 dle-aged women and old women, all in mourn- 
 ing. One hardly ever sees a woman except 
 in black. It dawns upon one's sensibility 
 for the first time that out there a few miles 
 from Paris are the sons, brothers and hus- 
 bands of these women, those that are alive, 
 and when one is determined or has deter- 
 mined to do one's part a curious feeling of 
 perhaps dread or fear or apprehension is ex- 
 perienced as one realizes that in a few days 
 one will be in the midst of what has brought 
 about the sorrow of the world. 
 
 SUBLIMITY OF THE MASS 
 
 As one looks at an old lady of 75 bowed 
 with grief and sorrow — she has given five 
 sons to the conflict and they are all lying un- 
 der tiny wood crosses near the city of Meaux 
 4 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 by the swift moving Mame — one's thinking 
 cap comes down close over one's forehead, 
 and the sublimity of the mass is greatly en- 
 hanced by the hush in the hearts of those who 
 are kneeling in silent meditation and adora- 
 tion. 
 
 The streets are gay. The shop windows 
 are brilliant with every device to please the 
 eye of the traveller. Girls, pretty girls, 
 abound on the streets, and the soldiers that 
 are back on leave are especially gay — a 
 gayety of a rather hysterical sort, for they 
 have left those frightful scenes only for two 
 or four days, and, I may phrase it, as they 
 are coming in they are going out. 
 
 There have been many amusing incidents 
 so far in connection with the language. An 
 American hired a small victoria at the rail- 
 way station on arriving in Paris and was 
 going through to another railway station. 
 He called out to the driver to stop and asked 
 a wounded soldier, " Ou est la guerre? " 
 5 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 which means " Where is the war ? " instead 
 of saying " Ou est le gare? " which means 
 " Where is the railway station? " Where- 
 upon the soldier, thinking that he was mak- 
 ing fun of the war, became perfectly furious 
 and began to swear at him in French. 
 
 The American, being absolutely certain of 
 his good French, kept repeating, " Ou est la 
 guerre? Ou est la guerre? " whereupon 
 the soldier tapped him on the head with his 
 crutch. A great crowd collected as the 
 American continued to call out, " Where is 
 the war?" instead of "Where is the rail- 
 way station ? " A policeman finally under- 
 stood his mistake and he was allowed to 
 proceed. 
 
 FRENCH WHOLLY APPRECIATIVE 
 
 The appreciation of the French, women 
 and men, of the coming of the Americans is 
 really beautiful. French soldiers go out of 
 6 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 their way to be polite. French girls in the 
 shops and everywhere else, all have a pleas- 
 ant word and smile. But this sentiment 
 does not exist among the women only for the 
 foreigner who has come to do his bit. It 
 exists in the heart of the French girl for any 
 and every soldier. 
 
 In the parade on the Fourteenth of July, 
 when the troops came marching down the 
 Champa El3^sees, in every rifle was a tiny 
 American flag — a great sea of men and 
 American flags coming down the loveliest 
 boulevard in the world. The soldiers were 
 simply deluged with flowers thrown by girls 
 aU along the sidewalks, and one very pretty 
 girl standing near the Travelers' Club was 
 throwing kisses to the soldiers as they went 
 by. One youngster in the ranks called out, 
 " Oh, that 's no good ! You 're too far 
 away." Wliereupon she ran out through the 
 crowd, threw her arms around him, kissed 
 him and ran back again. 
 7 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 HAVE UNDAUNTED SPIRIT 
 
 It is that spirit of youth and joy in spite 
 of all the sadness and sorrow that has kept 
 France intact and has enabled her soldiers 
 to do and fight and bleed and die until the 
 soil of the whole country is saturated with 
 the blood of her best men. That day 9,000 
 men marched bearing their tattered stan- 
 dards before them. One woman, stretching 
 out her arms, cried : " Merci, merci pour 
 nous, les civils" And the crowd took it up, 
 calling, " Merci, mercV 
 
 The medals for the day had Washington 
 and Lafayette and the date July 4, 1776, on 
 one side, July 14, 1789, on the other. In 
 the afternoon, when the patriots of Alsace, 
 2,000 of them, went and paid tribute to the 
 statue of Strasburg, they nearly covered the 
 beautiful figure with roses and lilies, but alone 
 and symbolic over her heart was draped the 
 Stars and Stripes, our flag, the American 
 8 
 
Poilu with gas-mask and respirator in dugout of a 
 third-line trench 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 flag. It made one's heart beat faster and 
 somehow brought a lump in one's throat. 
 France has an ally in us that she can love 
 without conditions. 
 
 Those who can speak French a little are 
 constantly asked questions by those who 
 can't, such as " Why do they call so many 
 dogs in France, * Ici 'F " One hates to tell 
 them the reason is that " ici " means " here," 
 and of course in calling the dog they say 
 " Here, here 1 " 
 
 For a time there was a certain criticism 
 of the great number of English officers in 
 Paris, but that is now entirely changed and 
 the criticism, if any, has been directed toward 
 the great number of American officers in 
 Paris. That, too, is being changed. 
 
 There have been gross and vile exaggera- 
 tions of the amount of drinking done by the 
 officers of all nations in Paris, and I feel 
 that I should go on record as stating that if 
 there were any drunken American officers in 
 9 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Paris I did n't see them, and I saw a great 
 number. 
 
 CHARGES OF EXCESSES ARE LIES 
 
 There may have been one or two men 
 drunk, and this, of course, for mongers of 
 scandal and those who walk with their bellies 
 on the ground, would be sufficient cause to de- 
 clare that the whole American army was 
 drunk. But the statement that such conduct 
 is common is a base and unwarranted lie. 
 There is no finer officer in the world than the 
 American officer, and certainly no braver sol- 
 dier, as has been proved in the past. And he 
 who tries or attempts by any means to take 
 away from the man who is doing his part over 
 there his good name should be court-mar- 
 tialled and shot. 
 
 Going to the front for the first time is like 
 the first experience of a child at the Hippo- 
 drome. One finds one's self at first amazed 
 and more or less awed by the magnitude of 
 10 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 conditions and one finds one's self looking in 
 every direction to see everything one can of 
 the whole show. 
 
 The train goes along through a very lovely 
 country, following the Marne, and then turns 
 north toward the famous Somme. One sees 
 from the window attractive villages. There 
 is no sign of war. Suddenly one comes to 
 Soissons, and on alighting one sees for the 
 first ti];ne the Machiavellian hand of the hein- 
 ous Hun. The beautiful cathedral is shat- 
 tered, the houses are in ruins, homes are deso- 
 late and broken. 
 
 Proceeding from there, one motors out to- 
 ward the front, passing through tiny villages, 
 all of which have been razed to the ground. 
 It is my first glimpse of the dreadful devasta- 
 tion and I am beginning actually to see what 
 I have heard only bits of. Every one is busy. 
 Little gray cars rush to and fro; there 
 are messengers on motorcycles; artillery 
 wagons, long trains of them, going slowly 
 11 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 by; and a stream of camions, ambulances, 
 soldiers. 
 
 ROADS REPAIRED CONSTANTLY 
 
 One is first struck by the wonderful condi- 
 tion of the road. Thousands of Moroccans 
 and French are constantly filling every tiny 
 hole as soon as it appears, and though the 
 traffic all day and all night is absolutely con- 
 tinuous, yet the roads are kept up. 
 
 Our camp is in a wood; about twenty 
 tents; very picturesque. The sunlit Somme 
 winds itself about the camp. Our tents are 
 painted to represent foliage so the Boche air- 
 planes cannot locate them. One man has 
 painted trees and a stream on his tent and a 
 young girl reclining on the bank. One 
 could only imagine that the idea he had was 
 that if a Boche did locate his tent, on seeing 
 the picture he would be too excited to drop a 
 bomb straight. 
 
 And now I hear for the first time the 
 12 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 boom of the guns of the heavy artillery about 
 four miles away from the camp, about eight 
 miles from the third line. It was an inter- 
 mittent firing, boom, boom, only every half 
 hour or so. It was not as impressive as I 
 had anticipated. It was only ominous of 
 what was to be later. 
 
 I was given two gas masks and a hel- 
 met and was ordered up to the poste de se- 
 cours. , 
 
 It rains continuously. To-night there is 
 a frightful storm, but above nature, sublime 
 in their individuality, the hungry guns hold 
 the conquest of the air. Nature becomes 
 more wonderful as one is close to it. The 
 trees, a few front of our tents are such good 
 friends for they protect us and shield us from 
 the enemy's gaze. The Somme keeps our 
 bodies fresh and clean and strong and our 
 mouths cool after the dust and grime of the 
 labor laden roads, and the grass and woods 
 give us rest and comfort. The blue sky 
 13 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 though is most essential for an offensive, for 
 if it rains our aero eyes are blinded, we can- 
 not communicate with our artillery and it is 
 difficult to proceed. 
 
 I am sent up to the poste de secours, just 
 a little brick building about a mile and a half 
 from the third line, which in turn is a thou- 
 sand yards from the firing line. August 20 
 I see my first dead man of the war. They 
 bring him in, shot through the breast, and 
 they place him in the room next to where we 
 eat. It is hot. The flies fly back and forth 
 through the cracked wooden door from this 
 corpse to our bread and jam. They could 
 have as well left him in the yard, but every 
 one wishes to house the dead. Why ? 
 
 ORDERED TO THE THIRD LINE 
 
 At S:45 A. M. I hear the field telephone 
 ring and I am ordered to the third line. My 
 comrade, who knows the road, appears, and 
 we start out of the gate, turn to the right 
 
 14 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 over the hill, then to the left, straight for 
 the trenches, over a road bathed in moonlight 
 and in the midst of the frightful thunder of 
 artillery. 
 
 How it impresses one, the blazing, the deaf- 
 ening roar of the heavy and light artillery 1 
 We pass the last observation tree, turn to the 
 right and fly along a road screened from Ger- 
 man trench eyes only by a latticework of 
 boughs most of which are broken or blown 
 down. The road is filled with shell holes. 
 
 We arrive at the third line. Here is the 
 dugout. I go down ; the steps are all as per- 
 fect as if it were Marble House, and we de- 
 scend into the oblong room. There are a 
 surgeon, a man on a stretcher, quiet with just 
 a flicker of life when he sees me ; shelves upon 
 which are candles, bandages, bottles. 
 
 We take him up. When we reach the top 
 
 of the steps one of the brancardiers 
 
 (stretcher bearers) drops his end and the 
 
 man topples over. Not a complaint, not a 
 
 15 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 murmur. They pick him up and put him in 
 the car. His leg is badly shot, below the 
 knee. I give him a cigarette and he is gratc'- 
 ful. They tell him to cheer up, that he will 
 soon be at the hospital. He smiles, points to 
 his leg: " Ca ne fait rien, c'est la guerre. 
 Monsieur, C^est tout.'"' 
 
 LIGHTED BY STAR SHELL 
 
 I start along the road. Suddenly a great 
 white light looms up to the left about 300 
 yards away, and I think I am finished, but it 
 is only a star shell. These are made of silk 
 with four lighted balls at each corner and 
 have a tiny parachute. They are shot up 
 into the air with a large revolver and hang in 
 the air, throwing light all around for a great 
 distance. They are used nearly every second 
 by both sides to see if there is any activity in 
 No Man's Land or elsewhere along the 
 trenches. After getting over my fright I 
 felt not unlike Paul of Tarsus. They are 
 16 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 very beautiful and tale telling, these star 
 shells. 
 
 Of course a German observer had seen the 
 car, but one cannot drive fast with wounded. 
 It was a moment to give one a thrill. The 
 moon, the blazing of the French guns about 
 800 yards away, the wondrous star shells like 
 great, constant comets of light, the glutton- 
 ous gases sweeping their brooms of death, the 
 silence qf the dugout, the stillness of the 
 wounded, the scraping, whistling, screaming 
 shrapnel shells overhead, the firecracker rat- 
 tling of the mitrailleuses, the glare of the 
 signal rockets, the stupendous disembowel- 
 ling roar of the artillery miles to the rear, 
 the hush of death — all, all were electrify- 
 ing, appalling, uplifting ! 
 
 A shell feU about 200 yards to the left. I 
 turn the bend and drive away from the lines. 
 There appears a tall, gaunt, handsome figure 
 of a man on an equally tall, magnificent horse. 
 His cloak enshrouds him and the steps of his 
 17 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 horse seem as measured as the thoughts of 
 the rider. The moon strikes him aslant. 
 
 He hails me and asks if the road has been 
 shelled. I reply, " A little." He inquired 
 quickly, " Many holes ? " I reply, '' A few, 
 sir." He seems thoughtful for a moment. 
 A star shell goes up quite near us. He is 
 thinking — of a woman, perhaps, somewhere. 
 ** It is late," he says. " I go." 
 
 The sun was waking. He must be there 
 with his battery in place before dawn. No 
 one can pass over this road from sunrise to 
 sunset. He gives the order '' Forward ! " 
 The men speak quietly to the horses. Shrap- 
 nel breaks over our heads and my stranger of 
 the night moves toward so many that seek 
 his death. 
 
 I must confess that a queer feeling of se- 
 curity comes over one when one drives away 
 from the third line trench for the first time, 
 away from that cauldron of blood and mud, 
 and though I was only about a mile from the 
 18 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 dugout and the Boche shrapnel was scream- 
 ing a message of destruction over my head, 
 jet, though the feeling of security is droll, it 
 is true. 
 
 The roaring of the French guns as one 
 passes the batteries on the way back from 
 the front is like the constant pealing of the 
 most terrible thunder, simply disembowelling 
 nature. It never ceases, and appalls one 
 by its force, strength and frightfulness. 
 As they go over one's head toward the Boche 
 trenches it is difficult to realize that the sing- 
 ing shells are wending their day to kill and 
 wound men. 
 
 One passes a constant stream of ammuni- 
 tion wagons, men, ambulances, all coming and 
 going. Overhead areos and balloons are 
 thick in the sky and within a stone's throw 
 there is a wireless mast made of bamboo poles. 
 Every house and barn is completely gutted,, 
 with only a few walls standing, and those 
 with great rents. 
 
 19 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 The Boches are constantly shooting at 
 our areos with their anti-aircraft guns and 
 one can see often as many as fourteen or fif- 
 teen puffs of black smoke clustered around 
 one of our 'planes. The Boche anti-aircraft 
 shells have only black smoke. Each puff 
 hangs in the air and stays there a long time 
 before disappearing. Every few minutes in 
 the woods the artillery signals with rifle shots 
 to the aeros circling about and the aeros in 
 reply give the German range. 
 
 It was not long before I was at the hos- 
 pital. 
 
 The next night the moon was like a great, 
 well washed and. shining silver plate edged 
 with gold. It hung in a cloud of rarest blue, 
 surrounded by twinkling stars. The sky was 
 bright now, the moon our friend as well as 
 our enemy, and one could see the German 
 guns clearly as they fired in turn. 
 
 Soon I was again at the dugout. 
 
 20 
 
PART II 
 
 IT is planned to take the city of St. Quen- 
 tin, which lies about eight kilometers 
 from where we are. The attack is scheduled 
 for to-morrow. 
 
 The fidd telephone rings. The cathedral 
 at St. Quentin is on fire. The flames are 
 high in the air. We expect the attack, but 
 the wind is from the wrong direction. For 
 the past month they have been bringing up 
 gas cylinders, but each day the wind has been 
 blowing directly in our faces. It is to be 
 hoped that it will change to-morrow. The 
 roads are filled with camions. Chasseurs, 
 Moroccans and Zouaves, all attacking troops 
 going up. 
 
 We had a visit to-day from an American 
 who came out to observe. He was rather 
 21 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 a comic looking person whose face gave up 
 the struggle between the mouth and the 
 apple of Adam. He left just before the 
 attack to make his report in Paris. 
 
 Boche 'planes were coming over in 
 droves. One got directly above us, evi- 
 dently taking photographs of some of the 
 artillery batteries. It must have been cir- 
 cling for half an hour when like a meteor 
 out of a white cloud about 10,000 feet up 
 came a French speed aero and flew directly 
 toward the Boche aero. 
 
 The German tried to dip and duck and 
 turn, but the Frenchman followed him and 
 pounced upon him from above. There was 
 a roar of the Boche mitrailleuse. The 
 Frenchman was maimed. Then both ma- 
 chines turned over and over in the air and 
 fell in the wood just near us. It was a nerve 
 racking sight and thrilling. 
 
 We rushed over and found the machines 
 entangled one with the other, the two Boches 
 S2 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 and the two Frenchmen mangled and burned 
 beyond recognition. What a brave deed 
 and how little it seemed to count I Yet by 
 giving their lives, the French fliers probably 
 saved at least two entire French artillery 
 batteries, which would have been bombed 
 and destroyed before dawn if the German 
 had got back with his photographs. 
 
 The French are a glorious race. They 
 never weaken and when they go into Paris on 
 leave they do not loaf around doing nothing, 
 but at once go back to their trade, watch- 
 makers, chauffeurs or tailors — - all work 
 until it is time for them to travel again the 
 long road to the trenches. 
 
 We are now quite near St. Quentin with 
 telephone connections to our advanced poste 
 de secours. As the Germans and French 
 have a perfect system of listening in on a 
 telephone by means of an instrument which 
 is stuck in the ground and which enables 
 you to hear conversations going along on 
 23 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 the other side of the trenches, all villages 
 near the lines have been renamed. The 
 street names are comic. 
 
 Here in this village, a mile from the firing 
 line, we have the street of Rheins, the 
 street of Lyons, the street of Paris; it is 
 also necessary that curious numbers and 
 odd codes be employed. Thus when send- 
 ing for small ammunition a message will 
 sound something like this : " Send to Paris 
 street five baskets of grapes," which would 
 mean five wagon loads of small ammu- 
 nition. " Send one small handbag to 
 Rheins street " would mean one small 
 automobile at once. " Send three large 
 trunks by express to Soissons street," would 
 mean send three large automobiles quickly, 
 and so on. The detail of the war is almost 
 greater than the war itself. 
 
 In the afternoon of August 22 I went up 
 to our last observation tree through a ceme- 
 tery whose appearance was harrowing. 
 24 
 
A lookout in a trench observation post 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Every grave had been opened by the Ger- 
 mans and the little chapel razed to the 
 ground. In some of the underground mau- 
 soleums the Germans had lived and there 
 were German newspapers strewn here and 
 there. Then there were graves out of which 
 the Boches had thrown the French bodies, 
 putting some of their own killed in their 
 places. 
 
 I ascended the ladder of the observation 
 tree and found established aloft a tele- 
 graph operator with powerful lenses and in- 
 struments. He let me look through his 
 glasses. Within half a mile, directly below 
 me, were the French trenches and, only a 
 little further beyond, the German lines. I 
 could see the towers of the cathedral at St. 
 Quentin. 
 
 It was a great sight and the spectacle was 
 
 made more impressive by the whizzing of the 
 
 German shells breaking in every direction, 
 
 the screaming of the French batteries and 
 
 25 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 the soft purr of the French aeros, much 
 smoother and faster than the Germans', 
 overhead. One skilful German aviator came 
 in, swept so low as to be out of the im- 
 mediate range of the French guns, went 
 straight for a balloon, and destroyed it 
 and got back safely, flying almost along the 
 ground. 
 
 Before writing concerning a night which 
 enthralled, amazed, thrilled and stunned me, 
 I must say a word or two about my impres- 
 sions gathered from men everywhere I have 
 been — poilus, Captains, Generals, ambu- 
 lance men, sergeants, nurses, cooks, lookout 
 men, stretcher bearers. It is this : France 
 is brave, but is tired. 
 
 France needs men, men for her soil, her 
 industries, her homes, her army. And we 
 need an American army, not on Long Island, 
 not in South Carolina, not near Paris, not in 
 the army zone near Soissons, but actually in 
 and on that Lane of Blood which sweeps 
 26 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 from St. Quentin to the Vosges, in the 
 trenches. But, as an English officer said, 
 " When Fritz meets the Sammies hell will 
 break loose." 
 
 The wind is favorable, the attack is for 
 to-night. It is very dark and inky. You 
 cannot even see the end of the fender in front 
 of the car. There it but very little traffic, 
 the main road to the front is quiet, there is 
 little firing and the two lines of trenches 
 seem to be getting a well needed rest. A few 
 Boche star shells light up my car, but that 
 is all. 
 
 I reached the poste de secours and got out. 
 Of course I had on my helmet and carried 
 both gas masks. This is a very bad gas 
 sector. It was a close night, the wind blow- 
 ing gently toward the German lines. I went 
 into the dugout for a moment. Here were 
 literally dripping surgeons and stretcher- 
 bearers, soaked-in-blood heroes, men and 
 boys, with great holes in their heads, arms 
 27 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 and legs, or shot through the body, all 
 silent in their suffering. By the dim candle- 
 light the surgeons went about their task 
 ploddingly and methodically. 
 
 I soon had my load and started back 
 along the same road to our base hospital. 
 An hour later I was again at the base. 
 There were no more wounded to be trans- 
 ported. All was quiet. I saw two men 
 standing on top of the third line dugout, 
 so climbed up and discovered they were 
 a General and his aid. We smoked a cig- 
 arette and talked of Paris. 
 
 It was the dawn of August 24, 1917, 
 about a quarter of one in the morning. I 
 must have stood there half an hour when 
 by the light of occasional star shells I 
 saw stealing over the meadow, silent, death 
 dealing and grim, in its task, the gas, gas, 
 gas. To the right and left, as far as one 
 could see, great masses of vapor went slowly 
 toward the Boche lines. It was like a cloud 
 28 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 of gray-blue chiffon as borne by the wind it 
 sought the lives of those who could neither 
 advance nor retreat. And so it went on 
 and on till it hung like a pall over the enemy. 
 Then resolved itself into a great cloud, wave 
 after wave, bearing death and the greatest 
 agony. 
 
 Suddenly, as though God Himself had 
 rent the heavens with His hand, there blazed 
 forth :^rom 800 guns a fiery roar that seemed 
 as if hell had broken loose. The General 
 remarked to his aid as he looked at his watch, 
 « It 's 1 :15. The wind is good." The tir 
 de barrage (curtain of fire) had begun, 
 throwing a curtain of fire in front of the 
 Boche front line and a second curtain of fire 
 back of the Boche third line, so that they 
 could neither advance nor retreat, while they 
 breathed the gas between. 
 
 Now the star shells in thousands lit up the 
 sky. It was a great sight. Back of me the 
 75s and 155s were sending their shells over 
 29 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 my head and in front and to the right were 
 thousands of star shells over the trenches, 
 and hand grenades exploding and enemy ar- 
 tillery dropping bombs and shells near the 
 road. 
 
 Wounded were now being brought in and 
 French caught in their own gas. Here for 
 the first time I saw a gas sufferer ; the effect 
 is terrible. The gassed men cannot get their 
 breath; they cough, spit and vomit blood. 
 When I reached the hospital with my first 
 load the men had suffered great agony. 
 But there was no murmur or complaint. It 
 is a horrible death, that of a gassed man. 
 But only four of the affected died, we got 
 them to the hospital so efficiently. 
 
 The gas was shut off about 5 A. M. and the 
 artillery continued all day and into the night. 
 Then the order " Comrades, over the top ! " 
 was given and out they came with bayonets 
 and hand grenades — rifles are seldom used 
 any more in charges; they are practically 
 30 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 obsolete except to hold a bayonet. The 
 main reason for this is that an individual 
 rapid-fire gun — handled by one man — or 
 a similar gun handled by two men is much 
 more effective. They shoot from 300 to 700 
 a minute. One could take 16 men and four 
 rapid-fire guns and be more effective than a 
 whole section of infantry firing rifles. Out, 
 over, through and into the barbed wire they 
 went, cutting, hewing, slashing their way to 
 No. 1 trench, and they took it by storm. 
 The Boches were finished by the gas. This 
 continued until 4? P. M. Then our curtain 
 of fire was lifted. 
 
 At 5 A. M. August 25, the Boches started 
 a tir de barrage, but the French held on. 
 This lasted all day. The Boches attempted 
 a counter from their second line that night 
 with hand grenades, so we had our job cut 
 out for us and we worked for nearly ninety 
 hours without a wink of sleep, all of us, and 
 just coffee and bread, and our boots on. 
 31 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Here I must say a word concerning our 
 American Lieutenant Marcel Du Cassee. 
 He stood outside of that dug-out all night 
 and all day during the entire attack with 
 shrapnel bursting over him constantly and 
 directed the loading of the wounded into the 
 cars, helping the stretcher-bearers himself. 
 It was due mainly to his alertness, courage 
 and magnificent spirit that we were enabled 
 to evacuate the wounded so rapidly. He was 
 justly cited by the French General for his 
 splendid work. 
 
 Our French Lieutenant, De Rose, did his 
 share and if the war has been of no benefit 
 to me in any other way it has at least made 
 me many firm friends, whom I have seen and 
 admired in good days and in bad, and none 
 of these friendships do I cherish more than 
 that of this splendid soldier, Lieutenant De 
 Rose. 
 
 The last fellow I took to the hospital was 
 shot in the side of the head. He was very 
 handsome, about twenty-five years old, with 
 32 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 a wonderful clear skin, a fine figure, square 
 shoulders, small waist and fine hands. He 
 lay quite still as we put him in the ambulance 
 and I bolstered up his head with my overcoat. 
 He just looked at me as a dog looks at one 
 when you are binding its wound. 
 
 I knew the road quite well, and though a 
 stream of great wagons and men were going 
 up — fodder for the men and for the guns 
 — I went very fast and helped carry him into 
 the hospital myself. He lay quite still, a 
 great red blotch on the linen around his head. 
 I leaned over him and whispered : " You '11 
 be all right now; this is the hospital." He 
 opened his big eyes and looked at the dingy 
 lamp flickering over his head, at the nurse, 
 the doctor and me. " Bon Dieu! " he mur- 
 mured. 
 
 Then they started to undress him, but he 
 would not let them take off his coat. I 
 guessed why. So I took the picture case out 
 of his pocket and put it in his hand. He 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 tried to smile. They took off his coat and 
 began to unwind the bandage. As they 
 pulled the cloth away the blood poured out. 
 
 He sat half way up then and said to me: 
 "You brought me here.?" I nodded. "If 
 I can only see her, you know ; you know it 's 
 France and her, and if you come back — 
 if it had not been for you — " 
 
 " Oh, no," I said, " it 's just part of my 
 job. I '11 come in and see you." 
 
 I did in a few days. She was kneeling by 
 his cot holding his hand. I was happy and 
 went up to him. " I am so glad you are go- 
 ing to pull through. That was a bad hole," 
 I said. 
 
 " I am going to be all right. Where is 
 the American who brought me here.'' I 
 would like to see him again," he replied. 
 
 " I do not know," I said and went out. 
 
 The next day began the Boche counter at- 
 tack, starting with the mustard gas. This 
 is sent over in shells which make no noise 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 whatever compared with shrapnel. They 
 drop in a field or near a trench, open like a 
 cauliflower and exude a gas which aff^ects the 
 eyes so that they water terrifically and itch. 
 
 You at once put on your gas mask, and 
 if you are wise you keep it on. The Boches 
 have a system by which they first send over 
 this mustard gas, then when your eyes pain 
 and itch so you are tempted to lift the mask 
 they fire shells of deadly poisonous gas, and 
 in breathing this you are killed. They also 
 have a gas which it is practically impossible 
 to detect, which is sent in the same way and 
 which is odorless and tasteless. It is very 
 poisonous. The shells in which it is car- 
 ried open like a lily pad. 
 
 The wearing of a gas mask gives one a 
 feeling of suff^ocation mingled with a curious 
 sense of a lurking danger. The bombs drop 
 so quietly and give out their charge of cer- 
 tain death so gently that one sometimes finds 
 oneself looking on all sides for these German 
 35 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 gas bombs and even thinking of lifting one's 
 mask to see how the stuff smells. Several 
 have tried it, and men continue to try it 
 through curiosity. There is a man who 
 makes little wooden crosses for them. 
 
 A great many French are caught by gas 
 liberated by their own side. Nothing up to 
 this time had impressed me so vividly as gas. 
 Injuries of men to their arms, faces, legs or 
 heads did not seem comparable with the fate 
 of those who lay silently, coughing once in a 
 while, lethargic, dormant, practically dead, 
 wounded by this unseen spectre. 
 
 We assist the surgeon in bringing many 
 of them to. He cuts the artery inside the 
 elbow and the blood comes out perfectly 
 black. I take the wrist of one and bend it 
 backward and forward until the flow be- 
 comes red. Then a bandage is put on and 
 the man is hurried to the base hospital. 
 
 About dusk the Boches began to let out an- 
 other link of their batteries, more and more 
 36 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 screaming " I come ! I come ! " and the 
 wounded were brought in in great numbers. 
 Following this the Boches attacked with the 
 bayonet on the right near where the English 
 joined our lines, but they were held and 
 driven back. This lasted another twenty- 
 four hours, when the Boches retreated. 
 
 In my last load was a poUu called Louis. 
 I did not intend to relate the incident, but 
 the dog has made it impossible for me not to. 
 
 He was brought in among the last. It 
 was very bad; gas and shrapnel. His leg 
 was bleeding terribly from a cut artery. It 
 seemed impossible to stop it. I was advised 
 to wait a little before taking him to the hos- 
 pital, as the shelling was intense ; but seeing 
 he would die from loss of blood if I waited, 
 I of course did what any one else would do. 
 
 In a jifFy we had him in the car and I went 
 
 like hell. The road was well lit by star 
 
 shells. I put on the accelerator and flew, 
 
 and in twenty-four minutes he was on the 
 
 37 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 table, his artery tied and they thought he 
 would live. 
 
 I saw him a few days afterward and he 
 said : " My business is gone, my brothers 
 are killed and I have nothing to give you." 
 Then he took the chain off a chair and 
 handed me his dog, who had never left him, 
 who was at Verdun, the Marne, the Meuse 
 and the Somme. I nearly choked, thanked 
 him and refused to accept the gift. 
 
 " Here," he said, pointing to the new 
 Cross of War on his breast, " that is mine. 
 He is yours. I know all about what you did, 
 my comrade." I went out. 
 
 The attack was over. Hundreds of 
 wounded, dying and dead; artillery which 
 had never ceased; mud, blood and cold. 
 One's heart is wrung by the stoicism and 
 the heroism of these splendid French. 
 
 38 
 
PART III 
 
 A FEW days afterward Gen. Petain came 
 out to review Gen. Dauvin's division, 
 which was now en repos. We were in the lit- 
 tle town of Nesle and they were refilling the 
 ranks of the division. 
 
 There is a great deal of misstatement 
 about the time men are in the trenches; in 
 fact, any one who has a friend at the front 
 always speaks of him as being in the trenches, 
 when as a matter of fact he may not be there 
 at all. 
 
 A division goes up and attacks. It loses 
 artillery, men, officers, stretcher bearers, 
 cooks, sergeants, gas men, hand grenade 
 throwers, &c. When the attack is completed 
 and it has done its task that division is re- 
 placed by another fresh divison, which goes 
 39 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 in and takes the place of the first in the 
 trenches. The division which has made the 
 attack goes back several miles from the line 
 and there proceeds to refill the gaps. This 
 takes sometimes two or three months. It all 
 depends on what the losses have been. 
 
 During this time the soldier has little to 
 do, and if in a year he is in more than three 
 attacks he is doing more than most of the 
 army. The time he usually spends in the 
 trenches is from twenty to thirty days at a 
 time, so that in twelve months he would not 
 be actually in the trenches over seventy days. 
 
 It was a beautiful, sunlit Sunday after- 
 noon in September. The remnants of the 
 band were playing in the square and Gen. 
 Dauvin was going among his soldiers. 
 There is a wonderful comradeship between 
 the French officer and the soldier and little 
 line of discrimination is drawn. An officer 
 does not hesitate to offer a soldier a 
 cigarette and stand and talk to him, so that 
 40 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 the French army is really like one great 
 family. When the officer calls upon the sol- 
 dier to do something the order is executed 
 with the greatest spirit of enthusiasm. 
 
 There have been other armies in which 
 officers have been extremely overbearing, and 
 I am told there have been instances in which 
 a great many officers have been killed by the 
 enemy — and otherwise ; but this state of 
 things has never existed in the French army. 
 The new American army officer may be very 
 prone to feel his authority, and if such cases 
 develop the sooner the new officer realizes that 
 the soldier is more important than himself 
 the sooner he will have a force willing to 
 fight with him and under him. 
 
 The Division then moved to Neuilly St. 
 Front and one afternoon Gen. Petain drove 
 up into the square with an aide, followed by 
 two empty cars. The French commanding 
 General is always followed by two other cars, 
 so in case anything happens he can immedi- 
 41 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 ately get from one into another. It is a jail 
 sentence for a chauffeur if his car fails owing 
 to his direct negligence. 
 
 Another rule along this same line is that 
 if a soldier is hit by a bomb dropped from 
 a German airplane and wounded, after he 
 comes out of the hospital he is then sentenced 
 to fifteen days in jail. This may seem cu- 
 rious, but of course it is a very wise pro- 
 vision, since if a German airplane is circling 
 around overhead and a man is fool enough 
 to stand out in the open looking at it, when 
 there are shelters to get into, and he is hit 
 by an airplane bomb, he is necessarily in- 
 capacitated for no good reason. It used to 
 be common at the beginning of the war for 
 a great crowd of men to stand out watching 
 an airplane fight and for a number of them to 
 be struck and put out of business for the time 
 being. 
 
 A short while before this near the front I 
 was standing in a dugout while an aeroplane 
 42 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 battle was going on, when a Frenchman went 
 out past me and said he wanted to watch it. 
 I told him that there was a great deal of 
 shrapnel breaking, but he said, " Oh, that's 
 nothing," and stood about twenty yards in 
 front of me, I being perfectly protected and 
 looking up at the fight. 
 
 As he was about to speak a piece of shrap- 
 nel about as big as a saucer simply cut his 
 head off as he stood facing me, just as 
 though an axe had done it. That cured me 
 from ever watching an airplane battle with 
 shrapnel breaking, unless it was part of my 
 duty. 
 
 It is rumored that Gen. Petain and Gen. 
 Dauvin have arranged for an attack which we 
 are to go into as soon as the division is able. 
 We shall see. 
 
 Some of us now had two days in Paris, 
 and it was a joy to sit in a chair again be- 
 fore a table with a tablecloth, a plate and a 
 knife and fork. The situation in Paris had 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 become very interesting. The work of the 
 secret services has been simply amazing. 
 They have rounded up a great number of 
 spies and practically cleaned up the city. 
 
 There is a story that some American offi- 
 cers who had met a few of the very attractive 
 French girls (of the secret service) and had 
 loosened their tongues were dumbfounded 
 later to find out that what they said had been 
 reported to Washington. Their mistake was 
 natural, with a new army not understanding 
 the conditions of this modern war, and it 
 only took two or three instances of this kind 
 to close everybody's mouth. 
 
 We hear of terrible bread riots in Milan; 
 that 1100 women and children were killed, 
 and we hear that that was why a Milanese 
 regiment on the front surrendered without fir- 
 ing. The whole Second Italian Army, which, 
 it is said, was made up of anarchists, social- 
 ists and pro-German suggestion, surrendered 
 without a shot being fired, and about 65,000 
 44 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 of the Third Army did likewise. Brought 
 about by German propaganda entirely. 
 That situation, of course, has come out with 
 the accusations against Caillaux, but the 
 hand of Clemencau is so strong that he is 
 sure to handle the situation for the benefit of 
 the French people rightly and fearlessly. 
 
 Gen. Pershing is lauded on all sides by the 
 French and English ; his appointment was un- 
 questionably^ a wise selection. 
 
 We return to the front, this time to the 
 Chemin des Dames, by motor. We arrive at 
 Meaux, the scene of some of the hard fight- 
 ing of the Battle of the Marne. Here are 
 hundreds and hundreds of graves, all dec- 
 orated with red, white and blue flags. The 
 cathedral is magnificent ; only one gray tower 
 is destroyed. 
 
 I begin to realize now what the war ac- 
 tually means to the individual soldier. It is 
 not going out to the front that one minds. 
 It is not the lack of good food. It is not 
 45 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 the cold and the rain. It is not never sleep- 
 ing in a bed. It is not that one is on duty 
 twenty-four hours out of twenty-four, sub- 
 ject to call at any time during the day or 
 night. It is not the being hit with shrapnel. 
 It is not the wound of the flesh. But it is the 
 gnawing of one's heartstrings for the oiie one 
 has left behind, the wife, the sweetheart, the 
 mother, the sister. 
 
 It is the longing for home, whether it is a 
 shack on a side street, a room over an inn or 
 a palace at Versailles. And the gnawing 
 seems greater if home is across that great 
 stretch of 3,000 miles infested with deep sea 
 monsters seeking to destroy you. It is the 
 longing for that place, whether it is iii the 
 mountains of Vermont, the plains of Cali- 
 fornia or the sweet, slumberous Southland. 
 
 When within about five miles of the third 
 
 line one sees all the woods on either side 
 
 of the road piled with ammunition, and since 
 
 the forests would hold no more the fields had 
 
 46 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 great blocks of it, covered by canvas. This 
 continued for miles and miles all the way 
 up to the third liue. 
 
 The two months' preparation for this at- 
 tack at the Chemin des Dames cost in am- 
 munition about one hundred million dollars, 
 to be used in about ten days, when the bom- 
 bardment was to begin. The feeling is in- 
 describable, but it does make your heart beat 
 a little bit faster as you look at these inani- 
 mate, huge masses of ammunition and realize 
 that soon they will be wending their way, 
 smashing through German men, rocks and 
 dugouts, doing their part in the deliverance 
 of the world from this despotic demon. 
 
 The Ambulance Corps was taken over by 
 the American army. We were ordered in to 
 Paris. It was with a feeling of real regret 
 that I found myself again going in, as I 
 knew the attack might come any day and I 
 did want to be a part of it. 
 
 My heart was really heavy and Paris 
 47 
 
BATTERING THE EOCHE 
 
 seemed heartless and dull, but I had deter- 
 mined from the moment that we were ordered 
 to Paris to make every effort personally to 
 get out again. The town seemed filled with 
 Americans. There were many who had been 
 to the front (of the Ritz hotel) and many 
 who, when they got to the front, were going 
 to Berlin. How little they knew or know of 
 *' the mole route." 
 
 I met a woman who had charge of one of 
 the best hospital units at the front (not of 
 the Ritz). She told me rather an amusing 
 incident of a very pretty young French girl 
 who came out to see her boy and was met by 
 my friend in the doorway. 
 
 My friend asked the girl what she wanted. 
 She replied that she had come to see Lieut. 
 So-and-So, who was wounded. My friend 
 replied, " You know we don't admit peo- 
 ple here generally. You must have some 
 reason to see him," The girl smiled quite 
 cordially and replied : '' I have a very good 
 48 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 reason. I am his sister." Whereupon my 
 friend, also smiling, replied : " Really ! I am 
 so glad to meet you, because I am his 
 mother." 
 
 The girl became frightfully embarrassed, 
 but my friend simply said, " Oh, that 's all 
 right; you can go in and see him." 
 
 On my arrival in Paris I at once went to 
 Col. Kean, the head of the new service, and 
 volunteered my services with the new, green 
 American Ambulance Corps. After some 
 time and with the consent of the French I 
 received my paper to go again to the front. 
 I went in rather a curious capacity; that is, 
 I was attached to and fed by the American 
 army and was attached to and paid by the 
 French army. 
 
 It was on the morning of October 23, 
 1917, at six o'clock that I tucked myself in 
 a first class compartment on the train bound 
 for Mont Notre Dame or Braisne, where I 
 knew the Twenty-first Division was, as I had 
 49 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 only left it a few days before. My feelings 
 were very mixed as the jiggly train mean- 
 dered along. 
 
 Paris, with its warm bed and hot water 
 and many conveniences and good food and 
 my dog, seemed better each mile that the 
 comic engine drew me nearer to the scene 
 of what was to be one of the greatest battles 
 of the war. A feeling of great solitude came 
 over me. Here was I going out to forty 
 green strangers alone and was not sure that 
 they were at Braisne or that I could possibly 
 find them before nightfall. 
 
 The cold and wet and the ghastly sights I 
 had passed through loomed up in my vision 
 and Paris seemed good. Yet when I thought 
 that I alone of the ambulance men of the 
 Norton-Harjes and American Field Service, 
 that I alone, was allowed to go to the front to 
 assist these green men, a warm feeling of, 
 perhaps, shall I say pride circled about my 
 60 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 heart and I was glad I was bound for the 
 front. 
 
 The train was in no hurry, so I arrived at 
 Fere-en-Tardenois four hours late, and at 
 two o'clock went up to a cafe and attempted 
 to get lunch. Being a stranger I had to go 
 before a commissioner in order to take out a 
 card so that I could get some lunch. This is 
 true Hooverism. 
 
 Another leisurely train came along about 
 S:30, after I had been standing for an hour 
 in the drizzling rain, but it had made up its 
 mind not to go to Braisne, but to Mont 
 Notre Dame, which was about eight kilo- 
 meters from where I thought the division was. 
 As it was the only train which was going to 
 the front for twenty-four hours, I piled in 
 and arrived at Braisne just fourteen hours 
 late. 
 
 I got out in a perfect sea of mud and a 
 driving rain storm with my duffle bag and a 
 51 
 
BATTERINiS THE BOCHE 
 
 blanket roll. Not a soul was in sight but an 
 old man who had a small pushcart. I offered 
 him five francs to push my things over to 
 Braisne, and he characteristically replied 
 that if I gave him the five francs I could 
 push them over myself; which I did. 
 
 It was now dark and the rain and mud 
 were inches deep. You could only see a few 
 feet ahead. At the turn by the hospital a 
 camion ran into a staff car and the car 
 looked like an egg that some one had sat 
 upon. 
 
 On I went, pushing the horrible little cart, 
 the man on the other side being more of a 
 drag than a help. At last we reached the 
 little hospital at Braisne, by a lovely stream, 
 and I went in through the courtyard and 
 asked an old friend there to telephone for a 
 car for an American. 
 
 When I came out all my stuff had been 
 thrown on the ground in the rain. So I 
 gave the man five francs and lay down close 
 52 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 to the wall, resting my head on mj duffle bag, 
 I was too tired to care whether it was raining 
 or snowing or the moon was out; but I did 
 think the sky was ominous, for it was dark, 
 lowering, foreboding; the rain had just 
 ceased. I was asleep in two minutes. Then 
 I heard " Whizz — e — e," far over my head, 
 and, believe me, I sat up like a shot, went in 
 and said, " That was a Boche shell — or was 
 I dreaming? " 
 
 " Oh, you 're not dreaming," said my 
 friend. " They dropped several notes a few 
 days ago that they were going to shell 
 Braisne to-night." So I had arrived just in 
 time for the shelling party. 
 
 I went out into the courtyard and sat 
 down. There was n't room inside, as the 
 room was filled with a line of soldiers who 
 had been affected by mustard gas, which 
 is n't very serious, in their eyes and they 
 were all crying like babies at a party. In 
 fact, sitting as they did in a row, with their 
 53 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 eyes streaming, waiting to be treated, they 
 struck me as a band of mourners who had all 
 been left money. 
 
 Shells now came over every ten minutes, 
 but they were high up in the air and nothing 
 to concern one. In about an hour a ram- 
 pant Ford car drew into the yard and Earl 
 Bibb, a very attractive young Southerner, 
 got out, and appeared greatly excited. He 
 saw me lying across my duffle bag and 
 wanted to know where I was wounded. I 
 told him nowhere that I knew of, that I 
 simply wanted to join the division. 
 
 He was very much amused and said the 
 boys were all 4;hrilled ; that a message had 
 come to send a car at once to Braisne with 
 an ambulance for an American, and he sup- 
 posed I was the first American wounded in 
 the war. I was glad to disappoint him. 
 
 We piled my things in and soon we had 
 reached the camp. I had been travelling 
 about eighteen hours and of course had had 
 54 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 little to eat or drink. I was informed that 
 the attack was to begin the next morning 
 and I felt happy that I should be there in 
 time for it. 
 
 There was no place for me to sleep, but I 
 spied a big Fiat car which was broken down 
 in a field. I went over, opened the back, and 
 — joy! — it was empty. So I threw my 
 things in — I did n't see them again for five 
 days afterward — got a cup of coffee, and at 
 once went to work. 
 
 55 
 
PART IV 
 
 THE evacuation hospital near Braisne 
 held about 1,800 men at one time and 
 was made of canvas, the wounded being 
 put on the ground on stretchers. There 
 was a small bar where four separate di- 
 visions contributed coffee, hard boiled eggs, 
 sandwiches of cheese, and champagne, free. 
 Of course they were only for the wounded 
 and those working in the hospital. 
 
 Here again the French were wonder- 
 ful. No man took even a slice of bread 
 unless he was really hungry, and then 
 ate very sparingly, and I was shocked to 
 see one — thank heaven, only one — Amer- 
 ican eat sandwich after sandwich after hav- 
 ing had a full supper at six o'clock — and 
 these wounded men taking simply a bite or a 
 56 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 swallow, though some of them had not had 
 anything to eat all day. 
 
 The wounded began to arrive in a line of 
 automobiles stretching for a mile and a half 
 along the road. It was a stupendous attack 
 and a big job was on. The cold got under 
 my skin, for I was outside most of the time. 
 
 The wounded now came in so fast that 
 finally there was not room for one more 
 stretcher in the hospital and the last arrivals 
 had to stay in the cars on the road until some 
 of the patients could be removed to other 
 base hospitals. Yet this hospital covered an 
 area equal to that of the lower floor of the 
 Biltmore Hotel. I noticed that nothing but 
 Colonials came in — Senegalese, Zouaves, 
 Moroccans, Algerians, Chasseurs. 
 
 It was now about six o'clock in the morn- 
 ing of October M, 1917. The smell, the 
 stench of blood, the tiny stoves bringing it 
 out, was overpowering and the surgeons were 
 literally dripping. I talked to the one 
 57 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 youngster who was shot in the head. He 
 said the attack was going splendidly. He 
 was one of the first over the top. It 
 was launched about midnight, following 
 a terrific tir de barrage which had been 
 going on for eleven days and nights and 
 which had used up about $100,000,000 worth 
 of ammunition. 
 
 With star shells illuminating their path the 
 Negroes, Zouaves and Algerians, armed with 
 hand grenades and long knives only, went 
 over and kept going over in wave after wave. 
 The Boches could not stand the thousands of 
 knives glittering in the star shell light and 
 they gave way. The first trench was taken 
 and the Chasseurs came over, followed by the 
 Zouaves. 
 
 The French lieutenants then rounded up 
 the Senegalese, who took advantage of many 
 opportunities to dodge the bullets from Ger- 
 man rapid fire guns by hiding in shell holes. 
 The officers simply gave them a kick and said, 
 58 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 " Get up and go on," and if the Negroes did 
 not obey they, of course, would threaten to 
 shoot them, but the order was usually suffi- 
 cient. Throat after throat was slit from ear 
 to ear by these expert Southern troops. The 
 Boches don't like this kind of fighting and fell 
 back over the Chemin des Dames, up to the 
 Fort of Malmaison, where they had their big 
 guns. 
 
 Cowardly methods with the Germans have 
 become part of their present warfare, so 
 many Boches have feigned to be wounded or 
 shouted " Kamerad ! " with both hands up, 
 only to stab their captor from behind as soon 
 as his back was turned. This piece of treach- 
 ery accomplished, they lie down again, await- 
 ing the next victim. So these Senegalese, 
 who are marvellous with the knife, cut the 
 throat. It is the only safe method. 
 
 The Zouaves, Chasseurs and Senegalese do 
 not like to take prisoners in any event. 
 They have suffered too much from the 
 59 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 " Kamerad " trick. There was a case in 
 which a whole regiment of Boches were taken 
 prisoners with their hands up. Then sud- 
 denly, at a signal, they all lay down on the 
 ground, and behind them a section of rapid 
 fire German guns got into action and simply 
 laid 900 French Chasseurs dead on the 
 ground. The " prisoners " then retreated. 
 One great feature of the French tem- 
 perament is this : having seen about 4200 
 wounded, I have never noticed the slightest 
 indication or suggestion of a desire that one 
 wounded man be moved or taken care of be- 
 fore another. One man who was lying within 
 an inch or two of another — they were all like 
 sardines on the ground — uttered a groan 
 and I went over and gave him a drink. His 
 stomach was practically shot away and he 
 was in great pain. But not by even the rais- 
 ing of an eyelash did he indicate a wish to be 
 treated befor.e the youngster who lay near 
 him, who simply had his hand injured. 
 60 
 

 
u 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Others lay for half an hour soaking their 
 stretchers with blood, but never a whimper, 
 never a word from them; all were silent in 
 their suffering. And they had been through 
 a great trial. I must give you an idea of 
 how long it takes a man who has been 
 wounded to get to a hospital. 
 
 He is wounded on the field, say, at twelve 
 o'clock. He is brought in by the stretcher 
 bearers at 12 :30 to the third line. He waits 
 his turn, about fifteen minutes ; then he is 
 taken to a poste de secours; then put into the 
 ambulance about fifteen minutes later; then 
 driven to a field hospital, a trip which takes 
 from half to three-quarters of an hour. 
 Then he waits from fifteen minutes to one 
 hour for his turn ; is carried into the hospital 
 and again waits his turn, not less than fifteen 
 minutes; then is transferred into another 
 ambulance for a trip of several kilometers 
 to a base hospital — traffic frightfully con- 
 gested, time allowed from half to three-quar- 
 61 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 ters of an hour. In other words, during an 
 attack of this nature a man was lucky if he 
 reached a base hospital within three and a 
 half hours after he was wounded. 
 
 Now the German wounded began to come 
 in, all boys of from seventeen to twenty. I 
 must have seen about 150 of them and I saw 
 not one who looked over twenty. I talked 
 with a number of them in French and in Eng- 
 lish. They were brought in with the French 
 wounded, in the same ambulances, and there 
 was no discrimination in the treatment of the 
 French and of the Germans. 
 
 A boy of seventeen who was shot in the 
 head told me he had not tasted food or drink 
 for four days; had not even had any water. 
 I got him some. He had no shoes or stock- 
 ings or underwear, just his coat and breeches, 
 which were soaked through with rain, mud 
 and blood. A French stretcher bearer out- 
 fitted him. 
 
 He said the French artillery was terrible; 
 62 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 he could not get away from it. It was 
 everywhere. Their roads had been and were 
 being shelled so that no food could be brought 
 up to the soldiers and he was glad when he 
 was wounded and taken by the French. 
 
 I asked him how he happened to get over 
 with us, and he replied that the last thing he 
 saw was four stretcher bearers carrying a 
 German, when a shell burst and killed all five 
 of them.' He then decided it was safer over 
 on the French lines and he had crawled over. 
 This was the first time he had ever been under 
 fire. 
 
 The French treat these wounded Germans, 
 who have killed their fathers and brothers 
 and left French mothers and sisters and 
 widows roofless, just as they treat their own 
 wounded. Just as gently they carry them 
 and cover them with blankets and give them 
 food and warm drink; while we are told the 
 Boches starve, mutilate, inoculate with dis- 
 ease, torture for information, the gallant 
 63 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Frenchmen thej capture. What a lesson the 
 Christ has taught these French people ! 
 
 At this time I had no special duty. I was 
 there to help in any capacity possible. The 
 road was now filled with assis (men who 
 have been wounded, but still can walk), with 
 fractured arms, wounded heads and hands or 
 other comparatively slight wounds ; hundreds 
 of them, a stream of humanity, dripping with 
 blood, seeking aid. And not a single mur- 
 mur, not a single complaint. Many I helped 
 into the hospital, through the driving rain 
 and mud, whose feet were frozen or numb 
 from the wet and cold. It seemed so curious, 
 in a way, to go up to one of these fellows, a 
 black Algerian, covered with mud, who had 
 fallen or slipped down and help him up 
 and have him put his arm over your shoul- 
 der, while you assisted him to go where there 
 was succor, though at the moment one only 
 thought of him as one of your own. 
 64 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 A young South African came up the road 
 with a bandage around his head and a 
 spot of red over his right eye about the size 
 of a silver dollar. He was a very fine type. 
 He stopped and asked me for a cigarette. 
 He said that along the whole battle front 
 the Germans were retreating precipitately 
 over the Oise-Aisne canal; that the French 
 had captured the fortified village of Pinon to 
 the left ,of and far above the Fort of Mal- 
 maison; that the whole forest of Pinon was 
 now in French hands; that the Boches were 
 in full retreat. 
 
 It was now 1 a. m., October 25. Many 
 Senegalese walked in with frozen feet to sit 
 around the tiny stove. The rain now turned 
 into sleet. The wind was cold and they do 
 not stand cold well — nor do I. The stove 
 was only about ten inches in diameter, and 
 the odor arising from overheated boots, 
 unwashed bodies, mud soaked clothes and 
 65 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 dried blood was almost unbearable. Despite 
 that we crowded around the stove. It was 
 at least warm. 
 
 My South African acquaintance said: 
 " I went over the top at ten o'clock this 
 morning. It was very hard going, as the 
 mud was too slippery to afford a footing, 
 but we managed to get out and at them, 
 using mitrailleuses, hand grenades and 
 knives, and we put them on the run. Our 
 tir de barrage had simply slaughtered 
 them." 
 
 Carrier pigeons now came back and 
 brought the news that the French had cap- 
 tured the high tower of Pinon, which was two 
 and a half miles from their starting point, 
 together with about 5,000 prisoners and 
 seventy-five cannon. 
 
 We were now moved nearer the front with 
 
 two posfe de secours. Near one called 
 
 Bascule, about half a mile from the 
 
 third line, we found a great number of dead 
 
 66 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 piled up in the road — horses and men. 
 Some of the bodies had to be pulled off the 
 road in order to make it clear for traffic. 
 Besides the bodies, that were lying stretched 
 in different positions, some with their heads 
 shot off, some with their chests torn and 
 ripped open, I saw two mounds of dead 
 Chasseurs at Ferme Hemeret, about fifteen 
 or twenty in each mound, one body piled 
 on top 6f the other. 
 
 Some lay as if in slumber; the faces of 
 others were contorted by the great agony 
 they had passed though ; others were in most 
 grotesque positions. One had fallen astride 
 of four other comrades and with his helmet 
 on looked for all the world as if he was 
 playing horse. 
 
 One could see a long line of men winding 
 their way from the front to this place, and 
 each two carried one who had given his life 
 that France might gain this great and glor- 
 ious victory. This procession of the dead 
 67 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 wound its way toward us silently and slowly 
 from as far as one could see. 
 
 The poste at Ferme Hemeret lies in a very 
 beautiful valley. To the right is a grotto 
 which is simply extraordinary for its size. 
 To the left the chateau with its barns and 
 stables nestled against the hill, while through 
 the valley a gentle stream winds its way 
 from the hills above, the water, once clear 
 and dancing in the sunlight, now murky with 
 blood of many peoples. 
 
 The glorious chateau had not one stone 
 left upon the other. Back of the piles of 
 rubbish were our 155s, blazing away their 
 message of death to the Boches. In front, 
 on the other side of the road, were the 75s 
 doing the same work. The trees were 
 scorched and the grass was seared from Ger- 
 man shells. 
 
 I called it in my imagination the Valley of 
 Desolation, and as I went along the road and 
 thought of the happiness which had once 
 68 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 been there, and the sadness and sorrows which 
 had entered in, I seemed to forget for the 
 moment where I was, till a Boche shell struck 
 on the bank just above me, throwing dirt over 
 my headi I then knew well and ran into the 
 abri (dugout). 
 
 The bombardment had been so terrific that 
 the Fort of Malmaison, which had been held 
 for two years, was literally razed to the 
 ground^ Over 3300 dead bodies were found 
 smashed and torn by the artillery a long 
 time before the advance began. Most of 
 them were pitched forward on their heads, 
 owing to the terrible concussion from above, 
 and the great majority had deep head 
 wounds. After the Senegalese, Zouaves and 
 Chasseurs went over they sent hurriedly 
 across the River Styx 8,000 more. 
 
 The detail of the method of attack is in- 
 tensely interesting. The Allied line stretches 
 from the coast to Switzerland. Of this the 
 French hold about two-thirds and the English 
 69 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 about one-third. A commentary on the 
 French soldier is that the English have 
 double the number of troops on their line 
 that the French have in relative distance. 
 The English are now extending their line. 
 
 The method of the French attack in detail 
 is as follows: The attacking divison is 
 brought up to within four or five kilometers 
 of the third line, where it rests and prepares 
 for the attack. Its ammunition and artil- 
 lery wagons are going all night, bringing up 
 artillery and ammunition. This takes a pe- 
 riod of from one month to two months. 
 
 About a week before the attack — which 
 was on October 23, at the Chemin des Dames 
 — two holding divisions are sent up to the 
 lines and they replace the division which has 
 been there. They occupy the first and sec- 
 ond line trenches. They are composed of 
 what one would call " regular " soldiers. 
 
 The third line is then occupied by the at- 
 tacking troops, made up of the Moroccans, 
 70 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Algerians, Chasseurs and Zouaves. These 
 colonial troops do not like barrage fire and 
 they are therefore not put up to the front 
 line until the night before they go over the 
 top. They are men particularly high strung 
 and temperamental, and are supposed to be 
 really only good for attacking; but no sol- 
 diers are better in this capacity. 
 
 After the two holding divisons and the 
 colonial troops are in the first three lines 
 their ammunition and guns are also brought 
 up closer to the lines. This takes about an- 
 other week. Of course every one is pitched 
 to the highest key and there was practically 
 no sleep before this last attack, since there 
 was a constant tir de barrage from the 
 French guns, and when one lay down in the 
 dugouts the earth simply throbbed with the 
 reverberation. 
 
 On the night of October 23 the first hold- 
 ing and second holding divisions came back 
 and occupied trenches two and three and the 
 71 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 attacking colonial troops went up during the 
 night and occupied the first line trench. In 
 the morning they are given a teaspoonful of 
 brandy, some bread and coffee, and as dawn 
 comes they pull down the gates and go out 
 over the top into the faces of the enemy rapid 
 fire guns, hand grenades and shrapnel. 
 
 *' Going over the top " has been written 
 and talked so much about by those who have 
 seen an attack from the front of the Hotel 
 Ritz that I am sure the detail of it cannot 
 fail to be of intense interest. Along the 
 whole French front we have wire entangle- 
 ments. These consist of posts driven into 
 the ground in pairs in the shape of an X, 
 and innumerable strands of barbed wire 
 stretched from the top of one pair of posts to 
 the bottom of the next and back and forth 
 across the space between the posts until there 
 is almost a solid barricade of wire. 
 
 At intervals of about forty or fifty yards, 
 sometimes less, are what we call the gates. 
 72 
 
Observer near Malmaison, Chemin des Dames, 
 to right is firing 
 
 Soldier 
 
Just before firing a small gun from the second-line trench, 
 Chemin des Dames 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 These are made of iron, with wire stretched 
 across them at exactly the same height as the 
 ordinary wire, but they are fastened to the 
 solid posts by a single strand of wire. The 
 gates are changed every night along the 
 whole French front, so that in attacking the 
 Boches cannot tell exactly where the gates 
 are and where to train their rapid fire guns. 
 As every single gate is changed every single 
 night you can see that in itself it is a big j ob. 
 
 An incident of this: A man who was in 
 charge of changing the gates in a certain 
 sector went out about October 19, but did 
 not come back for about three hours. It was 
 thought that he took a long while for the 
 work, so the next night when he went out to 
 change his gates they sent several men out 
 about half an hour after he had gone. Not 
 finding him, they moved the gates and put in 
 the solid wire. 
 
 About two hours after that they heard a 
 rustling in the wire and put up a star shell. 
 73 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Seeing him in the wire, some one hit him with 
 a hand grenade, tearing open his shoulder. 
 Then he was dragged in again. 
 
 It appears that for the two years he had 
 been on duty changing the gates he had made 
 a practice of going over directly to the Ger- 
 man lines, telling the Germans where the 
 French artillery was and about how much 
 infantry was present, and about when they 
 expected to attack ; giving them, in fact, all 
 the information that he had. He confessed 
 this, hoping they would spare his life. When 
 he got through some one cut his throat with 
 an Algerian knife and his body was cast 
 aside. Five more were caught doing this. 
 
 74^ 
 
PART V 
 
 IT is now the night of the 23d of October. 
 The Moroccans are in the front line 
 trench, with the Chasseurs and Zouaves and 
 Senegalese. They have had their brandy, 
 their coffee. A faint shadow of dawn is com- 
 ing over the trenches from the east. The 
 signal is about to be given. The great guns 
 are simply blotting out the German trenches 
 and the Fort of Malmaison, dealing death 
 and destruction, and the small 75s are play- 
 ing a curtain of fire into the front line trench 
 of the Germans. 
 
 A cable with a hook at the end is used for 
 pulling down the iron gates. It was sug- 
 gested that after the Senegalese had pulled 
 down the gates and had gone out and over and 
 through them, the Zouaves, who came along 
 75 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 behind, should pick up these same cables and 
 carry them over to the German wire entangle- 
 ments and attach them to the posts and 
 wire. The other end of the cables, it was 
 proposed, should be attached to tractors in 
 the rear which would draw in the cables and 
 thus pull down the Germans wire barriers 
 handily. 
 
 It is about 4 :30 in the morning. 
 
 The signal is given; they throw out the 
 cables all along the line and attach them to 
 the iron gates. Another signal, the gates 
 all come down and with fiendish yells the wild 
 Senegalese rush out over the top, through 
 the gates and toward the German front line 
 trench with their knives in the air. 
 
 Many are mown down, but the others keep 
 going, wave after wave, toward the German 
 trenches. So enthusiastic are they and so 
 protected do they feel themselves by the mar- 
 velous French artillery, which plays a perfect 
 stream of shells as from a hose in front of 
 76 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 them, that many of them vault over the 
 German wire into the first German trench, 
 cutting, slashing their way through. 
 
 Back of them come the Chasseurs, carry- 
 ing the cables which had been used for the 
 gates. These they attach to the German 
 wire. At a given signal the tractors start 
 their engines which begin to wind up the 
 cables, and they pull the whole German wire 
 barrier down. This brings forth the great- 
 est excitement and enthusiasm, as the Chas- 
 seurs and Zouaves are on top of the Germans 
 long before the Boches have any idea they 
 could be there. In consequence there is 
 nothing but hand to hand fighting. 
 
 The Germans retreated from the first line, 
 second line and third line, and finally gave 
 up the Port of Malmaison and retreated 
 over the Oise-Aisne Canal, some five kilo- 
 meters from the front French line. They re- 
 treated in disorder, one might say an absolute 
 rout. And it was not because they did 
 77 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 not know and were not cognizant of the 
 coming attack, for besides the spies who 
 had told them, there were a great many 
 other means by which they knew almost 
 the hour that the attack was to begin, 
 and they had been preparing for it for a 
 month. They simply could not stand the 
 terrific onslaught. 
 
 The Chasseurs with their bayonets, liquid 
 grenades and hand grenades worked terrific 
 havoc with the Boches. The French artillery 
 was simply playing a sheet of fire on their ar- 
 tillery. Seven hundred of their big guns had 
 been destroyed and 300 of their smaller guns. 
 
 The roads back of their lines were simply 
 churned with the French artillery, so that no 
 food had been brought up to them for five 
 days and the wounded could not be taken 
 away, but lay where they were for the reason 
 that no ambulances could come up and most 
 of the stretcher-bearers had been killed. For 
 miles, from the twenty-third to the twenty- 
 78 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 sixth of October, there was nothing but a sea 
 of blood and mud and foul stench, and the 
 horrors of the situation were increased by the 
 ceaseless belching of the French artillery and 
 the cries of the Boches whose throats were 
 being slit and whose heads were being nearly 
 cut off by the Senegalese with their terrific 
 knives. 
 
 On and on the Germans retreated, further 
 and further back over the Ailette River, giv- 
 ing up the forest of Pinon, and at last, after 
 having held for two years with the cream of 
 the German army this the nearest point to 
 Paris, they found themselves totally routed 
 and defeated, and this wonderful French 
 division found itself in possession of the en- 
 tire Aisne plateau, the Fort of Malmaison 
 and within six kilometers of the city of Laon, 
 which they will take soon. The Boches lost 
 entire control of the whole of the Chemin des 
 Dames. 
 
 When one considers the thousands and 
 79 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 thousands of lives that have been lost over the 
 Chemin des Dames one can only say, " Well, 
 wouldn't you know the Ladies' Way would be 
 hardest fought over ! " Incidentally, years 
 and years ago there were two young men 
 very much in love with two lovely ladies. 
 The parents of the ladies objected to the 
 youths, who were rather dashing and gay, 
 and refused to let them come over the regular 
 road to see their sweethearts. Whereupon 
 the youths, being rich and in love, had the 
 Chemin des Dames, the Ladies' Way, built 
 for their special use in order that they might 
 go and see the young ladies. So much for 
 the Chemin des Dames. 
 
 On October S8 the prisoners came in in 
 droves and were at once put to work on the 
 roads, though there is some sort of under- 
 standing that a prisoner is not to be taken 
 within so many kilometers of the firing line ; 
 that is, he is not to be in danger. The 
 French, of course, follow this agreement out 
 80 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 practically to the letter, except that it is dif- 
 ficult sometimes to draw the line of where 
 danger is. It may be at the front line, it 
 may be where the roads are in bad shape at 
 the third line, or it may be five miles back on 
 account of shrapnel. Therefore in handling 
 prisoners one has to use one's judgment as to 
 where the safest place is to put them at work 
 on the roads. An instance of this : 
 
 A yoxHig French lieutenant that I knew 
 had gone over the top to rout the Senegalese 
 out of shell holes in no man's land, a duty 
 which has already been described. He was 
 out two days and two nights and finally came 
 back to the dugout with a very untidy looking 
 bandage around his head. " Where did you 
 get that ? " he was asked. 
 
 " Well, it 's the damndest luck. Here I 
 have been out two days and two nights under 
 direct rapid gun fire and hand grenades and 
 not a scratch, and just as I was walking back 
 here, my job finished, and was standing 
 81 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 within an eighth of a mile of the dugout roll- 
 ing a cigarette, a piece of shrapnel comes 
 along and cuts my head open." 
 
 So you are only under fire when you are 
 hit; at least that's the way I figure it out. 
 We bandaged his head and the surgeon said 
 he would be all right in two or three weeks. 
 Such is the luck of being under fire. 
 
 There are nineteen modes of communica- 
 tion between the French aviators and the 
 French artillery. In sending messages from 
 the attacking front line troops to the Gen- 
 eral Staff dugout pigeons are generally used. 
 These are carried by Senegalese with notes 
 attached to them and all with certain marks 
 on their legs. They are sent back a few 
 minutes after the attack is started, telling at 
 once that the outlook is favorable and that 
 the Boches are retreating, or that it is un- 
 favorable and they need more troops, or that 
 they do not need any help, or to bring up 
 82 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 more troops, as they are going to take the 
 next trench, &c. 
 
 These blessed birds are nearly a sure mode 
 of communication. They are seldom hit, 
 they fly with tremendous rapidity, they go at 
 once on their errand and they do not stop 
 to read a dime novel. They are swift and 
 sure. 
 
 Pigeons are also released from the air- 
 planes which are making observations. One 
 of the best means of communication in a 
 rapid attack — it was used at the Chemin des 
 Dames — between the aviator and the artil- 
 lery, is simply a strip of white cloth, which 
 is laid on the ground where it can be ob- 
 served by the aviator. The messages are 
 sent by folding and unfolding the cloth 
 rapidly. The signal repeated twice might 
 direct the aviator to fly over a certain area ; 
 once, to return; three times, that he was in 
 the right position. This, of course, is a very 
 83 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 ^ood mode of communication, as it cannot 
 possibly be seen by the enemy. The other 
 modes of communication I do not feel myself 
 at liberty to speak of. 
 
 When the French reached Malmaison they 
 found an enormous quantity of German hel- 
 mets, not only of those of the dead who had 
 been crushed by the bombardment, but oth- 
 ers evidently left behind by Boches who had 
 simply fled. While this was the explanation 
 of their presence in many instances, yet the 
 engineers discovered that in a great many of 
 the helmets were time bombs. Most of them 
 were extinct, though a few went off and 
 killed perhaps half a dozen French soldiers. 
 This is a very good method of placing 
 bombs, as a helmet thrown over in the mud 
 is n't usually an object of suspicion. 
 
 So extraordinarily rapid was the French 
 
 advance that up at Malmaison in one of the 
 
 dugouts, which the Boches had deserted only 
 
 about five hours before, there was one man 
 
 84 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 who had been killed by a piece of shrapnel 
 leaning over a table, gripping a telephone 
 instrument. They had literally to break his 
 fingers to get the instrument, which I have* 
 He was evidently telephoning when killed. 
 
 The wounded were now being brought 
 back, French and Boche, and there was prac- 
 tically no road left, it had been so torn up 
 by shells ; on both sides and in the road 
 were dead men and horses. The advance of 
 the gallant French was so rapid that they 
 did not have time to bury their dead. 
 
 October 28 was rainy, dark and cold, and I 
 was assisting young Mr. Bibb, who had 
 never driven at the front before, over this 
 road from the trenches. What occurred on 
 one trip was afterward told by a wounded 
 Frenchman who understood the situation, 
 and who spoke English. He said : 
 
 " It was so dark, the mud so deep and the 
 road so full of shell holes that Mr. Gibson 
 walked slowly in front of the car guiding 
 85 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 its direction. One had to feel one's way. 
 He cleared the road as we proceeded. 
 Finally he shouted above the screeching of 
 breaking shrapnel shells : 
 
 " ' We will have to wait a few minutes. 
 The road is blocked above. We are in a bad 
 place, the Boches are shelling like hell, but 
 keep your engine running and your shirt on 
 and I will get you out all right.' 
 
 " He started up the road with shrapnel 
 bursting ahead of him. Suddenly he went 
 down in the mud, but was soon on his feet 
 again and disappeared in the darkness. It 
 was not until some time after that I was 
 told he was struck by shrapnel fire, a 
 piece denting his helmet and knocking him 
 down. He made no report of it, 
 
 " Fifteen minutes went by and it looked as 
 if he had ' got his ' when he appeared floun- 
 dering through the mud, blood and slime and 
 called out cheerily: 
 
 " ' It 's all right, it 's clear, come along 
 86 
 
BATTERINiG^ THE BOCHE 
 
 behind me and you will soon be in good hands, 
 mon vieuxJ' 
 
 *' In half an hour we were at the hospital." 
 
 It was a privilege to have been with Earl 
 Bibb; though only a youngster, he was cool 
 and calm under the heaviest enemy shell fire 
 it has been my misfortune to ever witness. 
 
 On the morning of the twenty-ninth of Oc- 
 tober the Boches sent over in the neighbor- 
 hood of sixty-four airplanes, including a 
 number of small, fast flying 'planes, and 
 about twenty-five battle 'planes. To the left 
 of Fort Malmaison and near a battery of 
 75s was a small mound on which was camou- 
 flaged with tiny branches of trees an anti- 
 aircraft gun. I went up there during the 
 morjiing. 
 
 As the Boches were sending over so many 
 'planes it was necessary that the anti-aircraft 
 guns be kept in active operation. An anti- 
 aircraft gun is a very simple machine. The 
 shells are fed in by one man and pulled 
 87 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 through by another, and one kneels on the 
 ground and sights at the airplanes that come 
 over. It is curious how the god of war takes 
 hold of one in many different ways. I felt 
 no more qualm in calmly firing this gun at a 
 human being whom I could see circling in the 
 air above me than if I were shooting quail in 
 South Carolina. 
 
 The Germans kept constantly dropping 
 small air bombs, but they did not come near 
 enough to bother us very much, the closest 
 being about a hundred yards away. I went 
 over and picked it up and brought it home 
 with me. It did not even go off. 
 
 The moral effect of the anti-aircraft gun 
 is splendid. Seldom does one hit an aviator 
 or even the machine, but the rattle and sharp 
 crack of the gun keeps the aviator from com- 
 ing down too low, from taking many pictures 
 and from exposing himself to the fire more 
 than he can help. It is a great, great pro- 
 tection, and there are thousands of them from 
 88 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 the front line all the way back to Paris. 
 
 It was not long after this that the division 
 at the first line was replaced by another 
 division and we went en repos at a lovely little 
 village near Soissons, where the work of re- 
 fitting the division began. The day before I 
 went to Paris was one of the happiest days 
 in my life, when, absolutely unexpectedly, I 
 was given the Cross of War with the two 
 citations, one referring to the fighting at 
 St. Quentin and one to the recent attack at 
 iJie Chemin des Dames. 
 
 Having seen over 4000 French wounded 
 and talked with a great many hundreds of 
 soldiers and several officers, I know first hand 
 and directly the feeling of the French. It 
 is while they are tired of the struggle, 
 when an attack comes along they advance 
 and hold what they gain. They have sacri- 
 ficed the best blood of their country and they 
 are sacrificing it to-day. The women have 
 made great sacrifices in their turn and the 
 89 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 spirit of the French soldier is now becoming 
 that of the conqueror, no longer, as at first, 
 that of the man only doing his best to save 
 his home. 
 
 I have also talked with a number of Ger- 
 man wounded prisoners within the last ten 
 weeks and have seen several thousand pris- 
 oners. The morale of the German is not 
 what it was. He started out to be a con- 
 queror ; now he is willing to do the best that 
 he can to get out of it. He is simply hang- 
 ing on. 
 
 The Boche soldier knows that he is never 
 going to Paris and he knows and realizes that 
 he was once within ten miles of it and now he 
 is eighty miles away from it, having been 
 driven back and back, so that the spirit of 
 the conqueror is dead. It is simply the spirit 
 of tenacity that is animating the German 
 army ; while the spirit of the French, who is 
 the conqueror now, is growing stronger and 
 stronger. 
 
 90 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Briefly, the ambition of the German soldier 
 to-day and of Germany to-day is to survive. 
 In the beginning it was to conquer. It is not 
 possible that the German army will hold out 
 another winter. 
 
 During the past three months the French 
 have made the greatest advances since the 
 beginning of the war. They went out at 
 Verdun eleven weeks ago, took Hill 304 and 
 drove tl^e Germans back seven miles, making 
 Verdun as safe as New York. At Chemin 
 des Dames, from where I have just come, the 
 Germans lost a complement of 50,000 men 
 and an advance of ten kilometers on a fifteen 
 kilometer front that was taken and held, and 
 is held to-day, at the nearest point to Paris. 
 This is the actual situation in the French 
 and German armies. 
 
 On arriving in Paris I found that the 
 
 Americans themselves were very prone to 
 
 criticise the Americans and each man wanted 
 
 to have a higher commission than his neigh- 
 
 91 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 bor. This same situation exists in America, 
 and only the death of soldiers and officers 
 will bring about a rational attitude in this 
 regard. 
 
 It is certain that there is too much criti- 
 cism of the American by the American. We 
 cannot all be generals, we cannot all have the 
 privilege of shedding some or all of our blood 
 for our country, but we can all do our part, 
 and each part is as essential as any of the 
 others. The girl who gives coffee to the 
 soldier at the way station is doing her part, 
 just as the man is in the trenches; it makes 
 no difference what ones does if one does one's 
 duty by oneself. 
 
 It matters not if you be a soldier, farmer, 
 officer, ambulance man, surgeon, diplomat, 
 clerk. Senator, Representative, Jackie, ad- 
 miral, stoker, wireless operator, mine layer, 
 factory worker, trench digger. General, bal- 
 loon observer, Y. M. C. A. worker, submarine 
 pUot, engineer, gas man, grenade thrower or 
 92 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 aviator, you are an integral part of a great 
 human chain, and through the tears and 
 blood that are to flow if you are an Ameri- 
 can, you will strive to be of this chain its 
 strongest link. 
 
PART VI 
 
 THE writer has never been a student of 
 economic conditions of nations, but has 
 always been a close observer of men, and 
 from the standpoint of the individual and 
 collective soldier this war will not last 
 a day beyond 1919. This deduction is not 
 made because Italy will have no flour, 
 London will be destroyed by air-craft, the 
 United States cannot transport more men, or 
 because Germany is broken by lack of food 
 and internal dissensions, but it is based upon 
 a first-hand knowledge of a certain number 
 of the German army whom the writer has 
 talked to personally under conditions which 
 brought out the truth from the Hun and 
 under which he was unable to camouflage 
 his feelings. 
 
 94< 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 We concede that the German emperor is 
 no fool, and we realize that, while he made 
 the greatest blunder that has occurred in 
 any war at the Battle of the Marne, — a pos- 
 sible exception being Napoleon's effort to 
 cut through Wellington's line on that fatal 
 Sunday, — he deserves all the credit that is 
 due his military acumen. We also know 
 that the greater his intelligence, the more he 
 must realize that every day, nay, everj^ hour, 
 that the war continues means a more de- 
 graded and distasteful peace for the German 
 autocracy. He knows full well to-night that 
 his army on the western front is a defeated 
 army ; that three years ago he had ^the great- 
 est military organization in the world; that 
 he had prepared to strike this blow for 
 twenty-five years, and that he struck France 
 as a brute would strike a gentle little girl; 
 that he took the world unawares ; that he 
 rushed through Belgium leaving a trail of 
 tears and blood ; that he entered France and 
 95 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 destroyed that country and her people to 
 the gates of Paris, that he even ordered 
 dinner for himself at the " Cafe de Paris " 
 in Paris. 
 
 But the spirit of France was not unlike 
 the spirit of Christ. This child of faith and 
 truth and right arose with the finger-marks 
 of the beast upon her throat, her feet bleed- 
 ing with many miles of retreat, her cheeks 
 furrowed with the tears of her anguish, her 
 breasts slashed by the merciless, lustful in- 
 vader. She arose as if the hand of some 
 unseen power had given her strength. She 
 grappled with the demon, and he who had 
 allowed his horses and guns and men to walk 
 and be dragged over the bodies of babies, 
 the conquering soldier of the world, found 
 himself in a death-grip with this totally 
 changed adversary. As the grip of France 
 tightened upon the throat of the heinous 
 Hun, the moral courage of the German 
 soldier waned, and he who was to dine in 
 96 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Paris the next day is still dining in Ber- 
 lin. The soldier who was sent to pave the 
 way through rivers of blood, in order that 
 the emperor might taste of French cooking, 
 is not at the gates of Paris to-night, but is 
 between eighty and one hundred miles from 
 them. Why? Because the French army is 
 superior to the German army, because the 
 French army has proven that it is superior. 
 
 When the Austrians suggested the use of 
 great guns to the Germans, the latter pooh- 
 poohed the idea, but a curious commentary 
 on the Battle of the Mame is that the very 
 guns which prevented the German army from 
 being cut to pieces and entirely annihilated 
 and destroyed, being immobile, hindered the 
 Germans from taking Paris. In addition, 
 the guns which in a measure prevented the 
 kaiser from taking Paris, in turn saved the 
 German army. 
 
 The writer has talked with a number of 
 men who were in the Battle of the Marne. 
 97 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 It is ancient history, so will I only refer to 
 it briefly and perhaps throw an intimate 
 side-light which came to me first-hand. I 
 quote from memory what was told me by 
 Lieutenant de Rose of the French army. 
 
 " The big Austrian guns paved the way 
 through Belgium to Verdun. Realizing that 
 Verdun was no more able to withstand 
 the Austrian guns than the Belgian forts, 
 we rushed out our big guns far in advance 
 of Verdun, so that when the Germans came 
 there they were unable to shell Verdun as 
 they had anticipated. Consequently, being 
 held at Verdun, they attacked on the right 
 flank, presuming that our line there was very 
 weak. But fortunately we had a great part 
 of the Sixth Army on our left flank, so 
 that when they attacked there they were 
 flanked by the Sixth Army and the English. 
 They then began to draw reinforcements 
 from the center to help their right flank, 
 until their line became thinned at this pivotal 
 98 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 point. It was then that the genius of Gen- 
 eral Foch showed itself, for he ordered us 
 to cut through the German center. This 
 we did, dividing the entire attacking German 
 army. It was then that the Grermans had 
 to withdraw and re-form, and when they re- 
 treated precipitately they found themselves 
 running back to- their own big guns, which 
 they were unable to bring up. They rested 
 thems€;lves beside tiiese guns, dug a hole in 
 the ground, and started trench-warfare." 
 
 From that moment on the western front 
 the German army ceased to be a conquering 
 army, and each step that the French soldier 
 has driven back the Boche soldier the morale 
 of the German soldier has weakened and the 
 strength and determination of the French 
 soldier to win a complete victory over his 
 adversary has increased. 
 
 It is my desire to show in a short, lucid, 
 and conclusive way the simple and direct 
 reasons why the war, from the German point 
 99 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 of view, must cease in a short time. To 
 reiterate. We must take a premise that the 
 kaiser is an astute man. He therefore 
 realizes that his army on the western front is 
 in a precarious position; that it has made 
 no advance since 1916, and that it has been 
 driven back mile after mile. The emperor 
 knows that during the last year at Chemin 
 des Dames, October 23, 1917, where I was 
 myself, three months previous to this he had 
 withdrawn from the eastern front three hun- 
 dred thousand of the cream of the German 
 army and placed them at this the nearest 
 point to Paris ; he knows that the French 
 army drove this much -vaunted corps back 
 ten miles, from October S3 to October S8. 
 He knows that his great and glorious army 
 was absolutely routed ; that he lost a comple- 
 ment of fifty thousand men in five days ; that 
 the whole plateau of the Aisne and the 
 Chemin des Dames and the fortress of Mal- 
 maison, which he had said were impregnable 
 100 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 and which he had held for two solid years, 
 were irretrievably lost, and that this won- 
 derful machine of his was simply cut to 
 pieces. He knows that the week previous to 
 this, at Verdun, the French went out and 
 took Hill No. 304, driving another of his 
 marvellous divisions back seven miles and de- 
 stroying a complement of thousands of 
 Boches. He knows that the wounded, the 
 men on leave who have been returning to the 
 cities of Germany, have been saying to their 
 fathers, mothers, sisters, wives, and brothers, 
 "By God, we can't stand this any longer! 
 Every time the French attack they advance. 
 Their artillery is simply hell and we can't 
 stand it." 
 
 Many German prisoners have letters from 
 their fathers and wives and sisters, all of 
 them expressing a horror of the war contin- 
 uing longer, and in some instances they touch 
 upon their dire necessity and great priva- 
 tions. 
 
 101 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 The Kaiser knows that this is the direct 
 reason for the civil uprisings, for the social- 
 istic uprisings, for the labor uprisings 
 throughout Germany. He knows that if you 
 have a conquering army, you have a civiKan 
 population which is peaceful, happy, and ex- 
 ultant; and he knows that with a defeated 
 army, which he has now on the western front, 
 an army which to-night is being harassed 
 and injured by an army scarcely five months 
 old, the American army, the great American 
 artillery, he knows that this is the forerunner 
 of a peace which he must shortly make. 
 Why is it, with German propaganda ram- 
 pant in France, with scoundrels like Caillaux 
 unhung, with the streets of Paris strewn with 
 German gold, that the civilian population 
 of France does not rise as they are do- 
 ing in Germany at the present time ? France 
 has changed three cabinets. Is there any 
 one so dull of vision, so halt and lame of un- 
 derstanding, that he cannot visualize the 
 102 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 Machiavellian hand of the seditious Ger- 
 man? Why is it that there are not to-day, 
 as there have been in the past, uprisings 
 throughout France? It is because the 
 French army is now a conquering army. 
 The German emperor knows that, and you 
 may rest assured that if to-night this much- 
 vaunted German army should drive the 
 French back eight or ten miles into their 
 own country you would hear rumblings of a 
 revolution along the boulevards of Paris, in 
 the streets of Soissons and Nancy, through- 
 out the country lanes of Neuilly St. Front, 
 and in all those picturesque and beautiful 
 villages nestling in the valleys of France. 
 Again we must grant the intelligence of 
 the emperor. 
 
 What are the facts that present them- 
 selves to the kaiser's view to-night? The 
 German army, the German people, have lost 
 a great number in killed and in wounded. 
 Out of two thousand prisoners whom I saw 
 103 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 at Chemin des Dames in October, I did n't 
 see one who looked as if he had ever used a 
 razor on his face. They were conscripted 
 striplings, forced by this military fist to be 
 fodder for that wonderful French artillery, 
 for those unsatiated guns which are hungry 
 to rend and tear apart and devour the en- 
 trails of the Grerman. He knows that the 
 French people, the English, Italian, Ru- 
 manian, and Russian peoples, all save the 
 Japanese, have lost many men in killed and 
 wounded, and as he sits in contemplation, 
 fearful of the inevitable end which he cannot 
 fail to see, as he sits to-night looking into 
 the fire and sees passing before him the 
 youth of his country, babies one might 
 say, taken from their mothers' apron- 
 strings and scarcely able to hold a gun; as 
 he sees this procession of pale-faced, under- 
 fed youths marching through the flame, sud- 
 denly a log drops, the flames leap high iii 
 the air and a picture present? itself in the 
 104 
 
3 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 bounding, leaping tongues of fire, a vision 
 which throws into his heart, not the fear of 
 God, but the fear of man, the American man. 
 I have taken newspapers from many pris- 
 oners and wounded, Frankfort and Berhn 
 papers, but never have I seen a mention of 
 the Americans or the American army. And 
 it is this ignorance, this darkness in which 
 he has kept his army concerning the Amer- 
 icans, that is going to tend more to his down- 
 fall and the downfall of his army than any 
 other one factor. As he sits watching the 
 blazing tongues, he sees not four or ^ye mil- 
 lion boys and old men, but he sees an Amer- 
 ican army of ten million young men, fresh 
 men, daring men, courageous men, an army 
 of the cleanest, finest youth of the entire 
 civilized or uncivilized world. He sees men 
 with fine boots, warm stockings, good under- 
 clothing, heavy overcoats, and the finest 
 rapid-fire guns and the greatest artillery in 
 the world, men with plenty of food in their 
 105 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 stomachs, with the finest physicians, medi- 
 cines, and ambulances that money can buy; 
 and back of this great army of exultant, 
 daring, magnificent youth, men between the 
 ages of twenty-one and thirty-one, he sees 
 the hand of one hundred and ten million peo- 
 ple of America. He sees the wealth of the 
 greatest, richest country in the world stand- 
 ing as a background to this new, consecrated 
 army. 
 
 Can you conceive that this man, this intel- 
 ligence, is going to permit this army to ex- 
 ist ; that he is going to see the three or four 
 or five hundred thousand troops we now have 
 in France grow to be the greatest army in the 
 world, with ten million young men in it ; that 
 he is going to allow this American army to 
 grow and increase by permitting the war to 
 continue a day longer than it is absolutely 
 necessary? He knows full well that if this 
 war goes on two, three, four, or five years 
 America will have the greatest army and 
 106 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 navy in the world, and that each hour he 
 permits this war to continue he is fostering 
 and helping the Americans to build up the 
 greatest military system in the world. No 
 one could be so mentally slothful as to believe 
 that he wishes such a thing to be consum- 
 mated. Besides being astute, his imperial 
 highness is a good charlatan, and there is 
 little question that by the deftness of his 
 brush l^e has been able to paint a picture to 
 his people which they have either believed 
 freely or been forced to accept. Does it 
 seem credible that he dare tell the world, 
 presumably a month before he is going to at- 
 tack, that there is to be a great German of- 
 fensive on the western front? The French, 
 English, American, and Italian newspapers 
 all print this " news " in headlines ; it is com- 
 mon property. If Judge Gary, the chair- 
 man of the United States Steel Corporation, 
 has decided that he wished to get control of 
 the Bethlehem Steel Company, would he 
 107 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 call up all the newspapers and Mr. Schwab, 
 and say : " To-morrow I am going to start 
 to get control of your company " ? 
 
 If a band of robbers were going to break 
 into J. P. Morgan & Co., can any one con- 
 ceive that they would call up the bank and 
 advise them of their intention, practically 
 stating the day and hour? 
 
 So can any one imagine if the kaiser was 
 going to make this offensive on the western 
 front, he would first tell everybody about it, 
 thereby precluding and absolutely injuring 
 any attack that he might see fit to make.f* 
 
 There will be no attack on the western 
 front by the Germans. The German army 
 does not want to attack; they have not at- 
 tacked for nearly a year. They have only 
 counter-attacked, and the reason for that 
 has been that when you run a man down into 
 a cellar and he can't get out, whether he is a 
 brave man or a coward, he will fight in the 
 108 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 corner for his life. That is the sole reason 
 for the Boche counter-attack. 
 
 The Russian situation, which to-day holds 
 the attention of the entire world, was known 
 to the most astute and clever diplomats 
 some four months ago, as it was also known 
 to the leading strategic generals in the vari- 
 ous armies. The kaiser as early as Septem- 
 ber movjed his chosen divisions from the east- 
 ern to the western front, particularly in 
 front of Verdun and along the Chemin des 
 Dames. This is not a conjecture or a guess 
 on my part, because I took my knife and cut 
 off buttons and shoulder-straps from many 
 German prisoners, showing the regiment of 
 the crown prince and other divisions of for- 
 mer note. 
 
 One Boche turned white with fear as I ap- 
 proached him with my knife. He said, " My 
 God, is he going to cut my throat? " Here 
 109 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 is an insight into German treatment of 
 French prisoners. 
 
 While the binoculars of public gaze have 
 been, and are turned upon Russia, the far- 
 seeing diplomat, using a periscope, is direct- 
 ing it upon Japan. Japan is our ally and 
 our friend. Japan owes much to America. 
 Those Americans who were present at 
 the treaty of Portsmouth, like myself, 
 realize this, as well as those whom Japan 
 sent to arrange a peace between Russia 
 and herself. It is difficult to believe that 
 when two men have been at each other's 
 throats they can suddenly become allies and 
 great friends. Since this is not true of the 
 individual, it is not true of a nation. Japan 
 has no love for Russia, nor has Russia any 
 affection for Japan. Therefore it is scarcely 
 credible that Japan will allow Germany to 
 feast and grow fat upon the Russian bear, 
 while she sits with hungry eyes looking at oil 
 and coal and mineral wealth being taken over 
 110 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 by the Hun. Japan has been our ally, but 
 she has been an amazingly placid one. Why 
 is it that Japan, of all the allied nations, has 
 lost scarcely one drop of her sacred blood, 
 when for three years and a half it has been 
 gushing from the arteries of the wo rid .^ 
 Japan is conceded to have extraordinarily 
 diplomatic strategists. Her wise men saw 
 that it was only a matter of time before Rus- 
 sia, with her internal dissensions, her social- 
 ists, anarchists, and her ignorant population, 
 would disintegrate before the Germans. She 
 realized that she must conserve herself to 
 protect and guard and police the East not 
 only for her own sake, but for the sake of the 
 civilized Allied world. Japan has known 
 full well the Hun desire in the Pacific and in 
 the East, and if she should allow matters to 
 so develop themselves in Russia according 
 to the ideas of the Germans, Japan knows 
 that her position there would be menaced and 
 that the utmost gravity and seriousness of 
 111 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 her internal interests would put her in a 
 position which she could not afford to ignore 
 and which she will not ignore. The Japanese 
 wish to throw an army into Siberia; they 
 wish the cooperation and acquiescence of the 
 President of the United States. There 
 seems to be no reason why the President of 
 the United States or the people of the United 
 States should accept any responsibility for 
 Japan's sending an army into Russia, any 
 more than Japan has accepted the responsi- 
 bility of our sending American troops to 
 France. Responsibility should and must 
 rest upon Japan, and it is only for the sake 
 of a worldwide morale that Japan at this mo- 
 ment makes such a request of the President 
 of the United States. I recall at Ports- 
 mouth an idea was then being promul- 
 gated for the invasion of Siberia, an inva- 
 sion that would have taken in territory 
 amounting to between twelve and eighteen 
 hundred miles by rail to the Pacific Coast, 
 112 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 and I believe that if it had not been for the 
 Treaty of Portsmouth, this would certainly 
 have been attempted. Two routes were 
 suggested at the time, one by way of Corea 
 across part of the Sea of Japan from 
 Shimoneseki to Funsan and so on by rail up 
 to Mukden, the trans-Siberian railway mak- 
 ing good time from Tsushima Strait to 
 Harbin; the other route was by Port Ar- 
 thur, with the trans-Siberian railroad at 
 Harbin. Though the last is the longest 
 route, we know that Japan has large stores 
 at Port Arthur, and this would be an ad- 
 vantage. Of course the shortest route is by 
 way of Corea. 
 
 While most of the unthinking men of the 
 world have whispered to themselves that 
 Japan has done but a small part toward 
 winning this war, the few who are far- 
 sighted realize that Japan foresaw this Rus- 
 sian situation, that instead of rushing her 
 troops into France she has held them in re- 
 113 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 serve for this purpose which is so imminent, 
 namely, the salvation of the East, the stop- 
 ping of the aggrandizement of the Hun, and 
 the great benefit to be derived thereby for the 
 Allies. There are those who distrust Japan, 
 those who are always j ingoing concerning the 
 " yellow peril," who attribute selfish motives 
 in Japan's attitude toward Russia. I can- 
 not see what difference that would make. 
 Better Japan's selfishness and aggrandize- 
 ment than Germany's. But that is not 
 the case. It is well known that the Jap- 
 anese Government has said that it does not 
 wish any permanent occupancy and that it is 
 not seeking any terrain aggrandizement that 
 in any way would affect Russia, and we know 
 that there have been many opportunities of- 
 fered to Japan whereby she could have taken 
 many selfish advantages of the situation and 
 has not done do. So that those who are 
 close students of the situation do not believe 
 that Japan at this moment will be inconsist- 
 114 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 ent. Japan asks the Government of the 
 United States for moral support. Japan 
 does not wish any American troops to aid 
 her ; in fact, it would be regarded by her own 
 people as a sign that Japan's motives were 
 distrustful. 
 
 The kaiser knows that he has been unable 
 with the so-called greatest military organiza- 
 tion in the world, during 1914, 1915, 1916, 
 and 1917, to defeat the English and French 
 on the western front. He knows that not 
 only has he been unable to conquer, but that 
 his army has been driven back, humiliated 
 and defeated. How can he therefore hope, 
 having been unable to defeat the French and 
 English? How can he be so imbued with his 
 own egotism as to suppose that he can win, 
 with the American army in addition and 
 Japan now for the first time taking an active 
 part in the war? How can he be so eaten 
 with conceit as to believe that his army, al- 
 115 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 ready defeated by France and England, can 
 withstand this new consecrated American 
 army? I have talked with the finest intelli- 
 gences in France — English, French, Colo- 
 nial — and since arriving in America I have 
 done likewise, and there is not one far- 
 sighted, clear-visioned man who does not say 
 that this emperor, self-styled the right arm 
 of God Almighty, is withered nearly to the 
 shoulder. 
 
 In conclusion the writer wishes to sum up 
 the situation as it presents itself to-day and 
 as it will present itself in the future. 
 
 First, the German army is no longer an 
 offensive army. 
 
 Second, the German civilian population is 
 in a spirit of great unrest, due mainly to 
 their lack of confidence in their army. 
 
 Third, the German army has only been 
 
 able to hold ground in the last year when 
 
 greatly outnumbering the French, though 
 
 they could not even do this at the Marne, as 
 
 116 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 they had nine hundred thousand profes- 
 sional soldiers against seven hundred thou- 
 sand French amateurs, and were decisively 
 cut to pieces and made to withdraw. 
 
 Fourth, the German army has lost its 
 morale. Any German prisoner will tell you, 
 as they have told me, that the German army 
 is broken and tired and wants to go home. 
 The Boche would rather be taken prisoner 
 than attack. 
 
 FiftK, the objective of the German army, 
 Paris, grows miles farther each month from 
 their grasp. 
 
 Sixth, Japan has now entered the conflict 
 with a great, warlike spirit. 
 
 Seventh, Germany will not be allowed by 
 Japan to feed upon Russian bear-meat. 
 The Japanese want it for themselves and the 
 Allies, head, hide and carcass. 
 
 Eighth, the Gierman army at last knows 
 and realizes that the American army is at- 
 tacking it, and it is beginning to under- 
 117 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 stand that which the world already knows — 
 that American artillery is second to none iii 
 the world. Also that the President of the 
 United States is determined to wage this war 
 to what he and the American people consider 
 a proper peace. 
 
 Ninth, each day that the German emperor 
 permits the war to continue increases Ameri- 
 can efficiency, at the same time inflicting 
 death and privation upon the German army 
 and the German people. 
 
 Tenth, the German emperor knows that the 
 fresh, strong, virile, well-clad, courageous 
 American army will destroy the worn out 
 Boche army, made up of old men and boys, 
 ill-cared for and tired of the struggle. It 
 will destroy it whenever and wherever it meets 
 it, and he knows that America is seeking en- 
 gagements hourly. 
 
 Eleventh, the English army has for the 
 first time greatly lengthened its line on the 
 front below St. Quentin. 
 118 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 This spring will see the greatest Allied 
 offensive since the war began. It will see 
 the German army driven back along the 
 whole front, with a loss of many hundred 
 thousand Boches. This, in turn, will have 
 its effect upon the civilian population in 
 Germany, the people who did not seek the 
 war and who do not wish it to continue 
 longer; who will not permit their husbands, 
 sons, and brothers to be further mutilated. 
 The women of Germany, who to-day are till- 
 ing the soil, scrubbing their floors, cooking, 
 nursing, and caring for their children, these 
 millions of women are crying out in anguish 
 of soul and body, " We have given you all, 
 oh! Kaiser, and you have failed, you have 
 failed! Now you must give us back our 
 men, before they are brought back legless, 
 armless, mutilated, to make the care of them 
 another added burden." 
 
 It is a voice even he who believes himself to 
 be a relative of the crucified Christ must 
 119 
 
BATTERING THE BOCHE 
 
 listen to and heed; it is the wail of a deter- 
 mined people crying out in their desolation, 
 poverty, deprivation, and anguish that they 
 will no longer be the human catspaw to 
 satiate the vanity of the emperor of Prussia, 
 the Messenger of Mars. 
 
 THE END 
 
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