The Note-Book of an Attaché: Seven Months in the War Zone

Throughout Germany there was universal complaint and criticism of the methods of treating the German subjects who, at the beginning of the war, had been interned in France. I was constantly obliged to hear accounts of how many people had been crowded into one building, how at first only straw was provided for bedding, and how scarce and poor was the food which was furnished. The censure was primarily for the French nation, but the comments conveyed no sense of obligation to our Embassy staff, who had worked so untiringly to alleviate these conditions, which, moreover, resulted from no mal-intent on the part of the French, but were simply the inevitable consequences of the sudden oncoming of war. Every national resource of the French Republic was devoted to quick mobilization, upon which the fate of the nation hung, and until that operation had been accomplished, little time or thought could be devoted to alien citizens.

On entering Hungary I braced myself to endure the same hostile attitude. To my intense surprise I was everywhere welcomed with great cordiality and received as a sincere friend and protector of the Hungarian people who had been interned in France. The great families of Hungary sent me invitations to visit them on their estates, they threw open their most exclusive clubs, offered me opportunities to view the fighting on the Russian front, and treated me like one of themselves. Of expressions of appreciation and gratitude there was no limit, and they greatly over-emphasized my services. Not only were the nobles thus demonstratively grateful, but in nearly every village and town to which I went I found inhabitants who had returned from internment in France to relate how helpful Monsieur Wood at the American Embassy had been to them. Often I remembered neither the individuals nor the incidents they so gratefully dwelt upon, but the general atmosphere of friendliness thus created was like springtime after frost.

In Germany, even after establishing my identity, I have by citizens or German Secret Service men been the object of grossly insulting remarks. In Hungary no one even asked what was my personal bias on the present war, but everyone remembered only the services which the Embassy of neutral America had in France rendered to any Hungarian subject who needed assistance. If the other nations of the Dual Alliance possessed the generosity and courtesy of the Hungarians, people outside the war would find it easier to be neutral in sentiment as well as in deed.

CHAPTER XII

Vienna, Tuesday, January 12th. Last night and today twenty-three long trains of German regular troops have passed through the Ivanka station on their way east. They were apparently going to the Roumanian frontier. A train will hold two battalions of infantry, two thousand men, or a battery of artillery with full equipment. These trains would, therefore, represent something like thirty thousand men, and more were all the time coming. My car, in which I was en route from Budapest to Vienna, stopped at one station just opposite one of these military trains, which I thus had time to study. It contained a battery of German artillery and was a very long one, consisting of flat cars, freight cars, and one or more passenger coaches for the officers. The guns of the battery, with all the limbers and caissons, were placed on flat-cars, while some of the freight cars were used for equipment and ammunition and others for the soldiers. The doors of these latter were open and were boarded up to a height of eighteen inches to keep floor draughts off the men lying within. The cars were filled with clean straw, sprigs of which trailed out of the doorways. The soldiers, like all German soldiers that I have seen, were fat, healthy, happy, and cheerful, singing, waving hands and handkerchiefs to the responsive crowds on the platforms, and laughing and joking. They looked for all the world like big puppies hanging out of a box filled with straw. They were young men of Germany’s best troops and had that certain bearing of confidence and efficiency which marks veterans. Their faces, albeit smooth and healthy, were not the faces of boys, although some of them were still boys in years.

The guns and caissons at the first uncritical glance looked like junk, but a second look revealed the error. Their metal work was battered and their paint chipped off, but the wheels and running-gear and the long gray barrels were clean and spick and span.

The efficiency, rapidity of fire, and elasticity of cannon have so improved in the past decade that a battery of four guns now requires one hundred and eighty men, six or seven officers, and two hundred horses to manage it. What with mathematical instruments to direct fire, instrument wagons, field forges, spare parts, and twelve or sixteen caissons, every horse and man belonging to the battery is necessary when a stiff action is going on. The guns shoot six thousand yards and the four can between them fire eighty shots a minute. Each of the shells weighs about eighteen pounds, costs up to twenty dollars to manufacture, and is freighted with almost unbelievable possibilities of death and destruction. When using shrapnel a single battery can during any sixty seconds fire thirty-five thousand well-directed bullets against advancing infantry. A battalion of infantry in charging will average about two hundred yards a minute—and during that minute a single battery can fire against it thirty-five bullets for every man in the battalion.

The field guns of all nations shoot approximately the same shell, three inches in diameter. These guns are so small and light in appearance that it is difficult to realize their power until one has seen its effects. Their barrels are perhaps six feet long and from five to seven inches in exterior diameter. A light but very complicated running-gear supports them. This rests upon two wagon-wheels quite ordinary in appearance. The whole is painted smoke-gray and looks quite toy-like and harmless.

I had lunch with Mr. Penfield today at his official residence and it was an extremely interesting event. The building is said to be the finest ambassadorial residence in the world of any nationality. I can easily believe it. In the very heart of Vienna the house has behind it a garden of some two acres with many fine hothouses. Seven gardeners are required. On the other side, the Embassy faces on a large public garden and thus every one of the sixty big windows which the mansion possesses faces on one garden or the other. The house is adorned with Meissoniers, Van Dykes, Chinese rugs, and other things of a like value. The house was shown to me from top to bottom by Mr. Penfield.

At present there is great excitement in Vienna over the fall of Count Berchtold, the Prime Minister, announced publicly this morning.

I am to leave for Berlin, London, and Paris, and then home as soon as possible.

Vienna, Friday, January 15th. I am doing my best to see Vienna so thoroughly in an architectural and artistic way that I shall not find it necessary to return for purposes of study.

At the Jockey Club last night I played bridge with Mr. O’Shaughnessy, Attaché Cardeza, and His Serene Highness, Prince Lichtenstein, the fortunate possessor of the Lichtenstein Galleries in Vienna. I am to visit his collection on Sunday morning with the Countess Colloredo.

Captain Briggs is at the front with Colonel Biddle but is expected to return soon and I am awaiting his arrival before departing for Berlin.

Sunday, January 17th. I suppose it is useless to say that all the reports in the Allied press about revolutions, despair, and cholera in Austria-Hungary are absolutely false.

Monday, January 18th. I now plan to leave for Berlin on Wednesday and hope, unless I strike something of very great importance in Belgium, to reach London about January 31st.

Wednesday, January 20th. A party of neutral diplomats who last week went by train into the country for a picnic were arrested on their return to the railroad station at Vienna, beaten up, and insulted by police and soldiers in spite of their identification papers. The affair went to such lengths that several of the diplomats came out of the fracas with bruised faces and torn clothes. The whole party were detained for nearly an hour before they were finally set at liberty. Among the distinguished members of the party were: M. Chafford, the Swiss Minister, M. Bekfris, the Swedish Minister, M. Lelerche, the Norwegian Chargé d’Affaires, M. Carpion, the Roumanian Chargé d’Affaires, MM. Guignous and Segesser, Swiss Secretaries.

Several ladies were with the party, which numbered a dozen in all. The affair was started and led by a colonel in the army who resented the fact that the diplomats were conversing in French, a language they were forced to employ since they were of many different nationalities. The crowd at the railroad station where the “incident” took place was not hostile and did nothing except stand by in idle curiosity. Up to the present time the only action taken by the Austrian Government has been to send regrets, not apologies, to the various diplomats. The colonel who was responsible for the assault offered his resignation, which was promptly refused. I know of no such disgraceful incident ever having taken place in France or Great Britain.

Captain Briggs returned from the front this morning.

Berlin, Thursday, January 21st. I arrived in Berlin last night after an uneventful journey. I went to the theatre this evening with Charles Russell. We walked around through the lobby during the intermission and among other things saw a young man, perhaps nineteen, very blond, with the nicest, simplest, most straightforward face, the face of a quiet, retiring boy, who would grow up into a thinking man. He was with his mother. He was in civilian clothes, but in his lapel he wore the broad ribbon—black with two white bars—of the Iron Cross. Somewhere, sometime in these recent months, this quiet lad had performed coolly some feat of great personal valor. The look of unsuppressible pride upon his mother’s face, as she walked on his arm, was wonderful to behold.

Sunday, January 24th. I am to leave early Wednesday morning for London or The Hague, I do not yet know which. From either one it is probable that I shall be sent to Brussels.

Tuesday, January 26th. I visited the prison camp at Döberitz today. In a military automobile I was conducted there with much ceremony by Captain Freiherr von G——, Iron Cross and Red Eagle, of the Imperial Guard. He is on leave convalescing from a wound in the knee which he received at Ypres. I was expressly told that I might describe what I saw and repeat what I heard as many times and as much in detail as I chose, so that I have no hesitation in giving my impressions without reserve, even though it was by courtesy of the German Government that I made the trip.

The camp was distant one hour’s fast run from Berlin and was situated on a flat plain which had very little natural or artificial drainage. The cold mud was everywhere from three to four inches deep. On this plain and closely surrounded by heavy barbed-wire entanglements were some seventy or eighty rude wooden sheds arranged in four rows with a broad avenue down the center. Here were kept some nine thousand prisoners of war, of whom four thousand were British and four thousand Russian. By careful and repeated pacing I estimated that the sheds were about one hundred by thirty feet. Each one had six unopenable windows on a side. In each such house were quartered one hundred and twenty-five men. When certain partitioned areas have been subtracted this means a space of about six by three feet per man. Each house was heated by one stove and was very hot and stuffy, being, except for the door, hermetically sealed.

None of the prisoners had overcoats, personal belongings, or blankets. They slept on straw ticks measuring approximately seven feet by thirty inches. That they all suffered from lice and other vermin was perfectly evident. The whole camp was closely surrounded by barbed wire, and the main avenue was commanded by three field-guns placed outside at one end in a little barbed-wire fort. The whole was apparently under the charge of a Captain of Landsturm and the guards were men of the Landsturm. The prisoners looked thin, peaked, unhappy and sickly, and many had boils. They have absolutely nothing to do—they exist. They are fed three times a day—6 a.m., 12 noon, and 4 p.m. For “lunch” and “dinner” and also Sunday breakfast, they receive about one pint of a thick soup. I tasted some of this and thought it was concocted chiefly of barley and potatoes. I was told that there was meat in it but could find no evidence of any. For breakfast the prisoners receive black bread with a slice of either cheese or sausage and either tea or coffee. The diet is evidently insufficient. I should say that it was calculated with German accuracy to just keep body and soul together. I was taken through many of the houses and although no actual prohibition to talk was given it was virtually impossible to speak with the prisoners, as I was always hurriedly rushed along from one place to another. In order to make a pretence of conversation, one of the two captains who escorted me would sometimes say to a prisoner, “What nationality are you?” “Scotch, sir.” “What regiment?” “Argyle-Highlanders, sir.” “Ah, so!” and we would then hurry along again. We were in the camp an hour and a half, and during that time I succeeded in asking three short well-chosen questions of intelligent-looking British non-commissioned officers.

I saw the four o’clock feeding. It reminded me of nothing except seeing animals fed at the Zoo. In the kitchen I saw the British soldiers receive their afternoon meal. A line of five great cauldrons of hot soup extended down the room, each one being about four feet high and four feet in diameter. The prisoners entered through a vestibule at one end of the building, where they passed between two German sentinels to whom each delivered up a metal check before being allowed to pass inside. There is a roll-call in the sheds before every meal and each man is then handed a check which later entitles him to receive his ration. Each prisoner possesses and keeps constantly with him one iron bowl and one large spoon. When they are permitted to enter the kitchen the prisoners rush to whatever cauldron is least busy. There a cook, armed with a long-handled measure holding about a pint, ladles out one measureful of soup into each man’s bowl and this constitutes the entire repast. The Captain of Landsturm in explaining to me about the metal checks said indignantly, “Why, if we did not have this system of checks, they would all come back three and four times!” by which remark he showed the typical German lack of anything approaching tact or diplomacy.

There were some British sailors and numerous marines among the prisoners. These, according to the Germans, came from Antwerp. They had reached that city just as the Germans entered and had been captured without ever having left their train. They were sent on in the same train to German prisons and their total war experience consisted in one continued non-change journey from Ostend to the Döberitz prison-camp. The Germans said that there was at times ill feeling between English and Russians.

The method of punishment in the camp was called “tying up” for one or two hours. I was unable to get details but gathered that this consisted in suspension by some part of the hands. This, however, may have been a wrong conclusion. I was told that the men received letters from home, about fifty a day arriving at the camp, and are also allowed to receive money. Yesterday was a record day, a big mail arriving with some 7000 marks. They may spend the money at the camp store, which I examined; tobacco, sausages, and insecticide seemed to be the chief articles in stock.

A bath-house has recently been provided in which it is possible to take cold showers. The English shave with potato knives borrowed from the kitchen. The men wash in the open, apparently in the same bowls from which they eat. Water is very sparingly served out to them.

The two German officers who acted as my guides tried to impress upon me that the camp was a model one and that everything was done for the prisoners which they had a right to expect. It seemed to me very much less desirable than the prison for French soldiers which I had previously inspected at Zossen. Some specific things which the French possessed and the British lacked were overcoats, bunks, ample food, work, recreation, blankets, and the opportunity for exercise, and it should be remembered in extenuation of German prison camps in general—if extenuation is deemed necessary—that besides interned civilians, Germany has now nearly seven hundred thousand prisoners of war to house and feed.

February 14th. After brief visits to Holland, France, and England I last night boarded the steamship Lusitania at Liverpool and sailed for that land of skyscrapers, electric signs, and telephones—the land which has been called “opulent, aggressive, and unprepared.”

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

The approximate ratio of deaths to total casualties is as follows:

(The large proportion of French deaths was due:

First, to the fact that in the early part of the war most actions were German victories, and the Germans could not care for French wounded as well as they did for their own;

Secondly to lack of sanitary skill on the part of the French in taking care of their wounded.)

(The low rate of mortality among the British is due to the great number of motor ambulances which they possess, to the smallness of their army, to the efficiency with which they care for their wounded, and to the short distance which separates their forces from their home country.)

The numbers of prisoners held on February 1st:

MEDICAL CORPS

The battle practice in the French army in handling wounded is as follows:

When a man is wounded he is carried to a dressing station in some partly protected neighborhood within the battle area. He is generally taken there by the stretcher-bearers attached to his company. After field dressing, he is removed to a field hospital one to three miles toward the rear. The means of transportation are varied, and made to suit the particular battle conditions, the principal means being stretcher-bearers, motor ambulances, and horse ambulances. In case of heavy casualties, all the men who can possibly stagger are obliged to go to the rear by themselves and are sent in small parties so that they may assist one another en route.

The field hospitals are nearly always established in village churches with overflow into neighboring houses in case of heavy casualties. All the furniture is removed from the church and the floor is covered thick with straw, upon which the wounded are laid out in long rows. The altar is made the pharmacist’s headquarters, the vestry is converted into an operating room, and a Red Cross flag is hung from the tower or steeple. These field hospitals are generally well within the zone of artillery fire, and are frequently struck by shells.

The men are evacuated from the field hospital to a base hospital in motor ambulances or by a combination of motor ambulances and railway trains. Theoretically, this should be done within a day or two with all cases except the very gravest. In practice, the men frequently lie in field hospitals for weeks before the opportunity of evacuation is found. The base hospitals are in cities or large towns, and serve as clearing-houses. They are well out of the military zone, being from five to fifteen miles behind the zone of artillery fire. I will give a definite example. In October, I saw the front at Albert. There were dressing stations just behind the battle-line. There was a field hospital at Hénencourt. From Hénencourt the wounded were evacuated upon Amiens, which contained the base hospitals for a front extending from a point north of Sus St. Léger to the neighborhood of Guerbigny. Here the railway station had been converted into a receiving center to which all the wounded were brought for examination and classification. Those who could bear travel were immediately placed upon trains and shipped to the south of France. There were four other hospitals in Amiens, and all cases considered too grave for transportation to the south were sent to one of these. They were divided and classified so that cases of a kind were grouped together, each hospital and the various floors of each hospital having a different class of patient. Some of the classifications were: head cases, amputation cases, gangrene cases, cases in which the patient could not refrain from screaming, either because of delirium or for other reasons. It is on leaving the base hospital that wounded are first classified as to nationality.

For the railway transportation of the wounded, luggage vans are used. I estimate the interior length of a French luggage-van or freight-car to be about twenty-five feet, the doors being placed, as in America, in the middle of each side. Wooden racks are built to the right and left of the door in the ends of the car. These racks are arranged to hold two layers of three stretchers each, so that each end of the freight car contains six lying cases. The men who are able to sit or stand and the orderlies in charge are placed in the aisle between the doors, a space about six feet wide between the stretcher handles. On their way to the south of France these trains stop about every twenty-four hours, the first stop being Aubervilliers, a station some two miles outside the gates of Paris. Here a large storage warehouse has been converted into a hospital. Food and water are distributed to the train on its arrival, the dead taken out, and the delirious or very grave cases are removed to the Paris hospitals. The others are allowed twelve hours’ rest before continuing on the next stage of their journey.

The trains are usually made up of from 30 to 50 vans, and each train carries from 500 to 800 wounded. No particular effort seems to be made to isolate gangrene cases from the others, and the wounded invariably remain in the uniforms in which they fought until they reach the home hospital in the south of France. Their dressings, until they reach these home hospitals, are superficial ones. I have seen numerous cases with grave wounds, such as shattered thighs, which have remained in this condition for four and five weeks before finally being undressed and washed at the home hospital.

The whole system of handling the wounded seems to be theoretically well conceived. In practice among the French it worked thus poorly during the early months of the war. The wounded suffered from lack of food, water, attention, and bathing, and the resulting number of mortalities and amputations was exceedingly high. The effect on the morale of those who recovered is very serious, and is in singular contrast to the eagerness to return to the front often shown by British and German convalescents. The care given to the wounded by these two nations is very excellent indeed.

The same stretcher is used throughout the French army, and its universal use is compulsory on all organizations, whether volunteer or regular. It is not unusual for a grave case to be picked up on the battlefield and placed upon a stretcher and to travel on it all the way to the south of France without once being removed. The company stretcher-bearers turn him over to the dressing station with the stretcher upon which they have borne him. Since these stretchers are identical in size and construction they fit all ambulances and all railway equipments. They may be said to be current, like money, and whenever one organization turns over a grave case to the succeeding organization, the stretcher goes with the case, and an empty one is received in return. The number at any one point is thus maintained at a constant figure, and there is a general tendency for battered and infected stretchers to gravitate toward the south of France, and for new stretchers to gravitate toward the front.

There has been much typhoid in the armies in France, and it is on the increase. The wounded men develop it more often than any other class. Inoculation against typhoid is theoretically compulsory in the French army. I have no personal knowledge as to the thoroughness or effectiveness of inoculation in practice.

Lockjaw seems to develop late. Most of the cases occur after the men have reached the south of France. The new French anti-lockjaw inoculation of Doctor Doyen has produced most remarkable results. I have heard, on reliable authority, that with it 80% of the cases treated make a complete recovery. Three of my personal friends have had lockjaw and recovered. This is, in part, due to the fact that in all the hospitals the diagnosis is quick and sure, and the serum always in stock. The injection is made into the spinal cord at the small of the back. The patient is kept on his back on a slightly sloping table, his feet being at the higher end, while his head is allowed to hang unsupported over the end of the table.

A considerable proportion of the French and British troops in France, the Russian, Austrian, and Hungarian troops in the eastern fields, and the prisoners in Germany suffer from lice. Fleas seem to be a comparative rarity in the zones of operation.

The physique and condition of the French troops have greatly improved since the beginning of the war. War conditions seem to have caused a marked change. Many of the men have gained twenty and even thirty pounds, and the younger men have grown inches in height.

The French have well-defined regulations in the matter of sanitation, but these rules are not generally well-observed or strictly enforced. In the French trenches, however, where discipline is best, this matter is very well regulated. The Germans are particularly orderly in this regard. I have never observed that the French mark wells or water supplies in any manner.

I have no observations to offer on the subject of cremation of refuse, but have seen several attempts at cremation of bodies in the French army, all of which were glaring failures.

AËROPLANES

The German aëroplanes are generally conceded to be the most effective in the war, and the Germans seem to possess more of them than any other nation. None of their machines are slow and their fastest ones are faster than any in the other armies. Aëroplanes have been singularly ineffective in attacking as their shooting is extremely bad. They usually miss their target by at least two hundred yards, and, so far as my personal knowledge goes, the only damage that they have ever done has been when they have had a whole city to shoot at. Something like forty bombs were thrown on Paris while I was in that city, and although some thirty or forty non-combatants were killed or wounded, a target of any military importance was hit on only one occasion, when a bomb was dropped through the roof of the Gare St. Lazare. In the field, the principal targets aimed at by the aëroplanes are supply and ammunition convoys. The method is for the aëroplane to fly above the road and to drop a bomb as it passes over the convoy. It then makes a circle and repeats the operation. I know personally of some fifty bombs thus dropped, not one of which struck anywhere near the target. The effect of the bombs is of small consequence and damage is seldom done except to the people who happen to be standing in the immediate neighborhood.

The crater of the bombs thrown by German aëroplanes, when striking macadam or similar surfaces, is about fifteen inches in diameter and four inches deep. I have seen three such craters. The shrapnel bullets from the exploding bombs fly with a killing force to a distance of about fifty yards, and at the latter range the lowest bullets fly at a height of about twelve or fifteen feet. These bombs weigh about fourteen pounds.

Aëroplanes have proved to be almost invulnerable in war. They are extremely difficult to hit, because one must calculate for three dimensions and for the speed of the aëroplane; when hit they seldom suffer serious damage. I know of a case where first and last nearly 200 bullets passed through a machine without its ever being put out of action. Indeed, it seems impossible to bring down an aëroplane except by a freak shot. The gasoline tank is high and narrow and is protected by a thin metal plate underneath, while struts and steering wires are usually double. Wounding the aviator does not usually bring down a machine, because he is sitting and is strapped in, and on calm days needs to employ only a slight muscular effort to steer. Moreover, there are usually two officers in an aëroplane and the systems of double control enable the aëroplane to return to its base even if one of them is killed outright.

Anti-aircraft guns are not greatly feared by aviators, and they consider it merely an extraordinary piece of bad luck to be hit by one. The aviators fear most of all the fire of large bodies of infantry, and in flying over a regiment at an altitude of 1000 yards they realize that they run serious risk of being brought down.

Rifle bullets are effective against aëroplanes up to a height of about 5000 feet. Observers fly just above this altitude, at about 5500 feet, since they wish to fly as low as possible and yet be reasonably safe. Aviators have told me that this height is so well recognized that they nearly always encounter other observers in the same plane.

Aëroplanes, flying at a height of 5500 feet, can observe the movement or presence of large bodies of troops and the flashes of artillery. They cannot observe very much else at that height. They seem to be able to descend suddenly for a short time to a very low altitude when it is necessary and, in a large percentage of cases, to escape. British aëroplanes have made reconnoissances at an altitude of only one hundred yards.

Aëroplanes have made surprises in war nearly impossible, since in modern warfare it would be necessary to shift at least a division to produce any effect, and the movement of such a number of men would certainly be visible to aëroplanes during the daytime. If such a movement were performed at night, the presence of the division in a new spot would almost certainly be detected by the aëroplanes in the morning. The possession of a large and efficient aëroplane corps reduces the surprises of war very nearly to nil, and proportionately increases the importance of preparedness and of tactics.

The German aviators (and in fact all German observers, such as infantry and cavalry patrols) make it a principle to avoid, if possible, any combat; this is, of course, interpreted as cowardice by the Allies, who seem eager for a fight on any terms. There is a distinct reluctance among aviators for engaging in aërial duels. As one French aviator said to me: “You are both killed and that does no one any good.” This reluctance is fairly universal, except with British flyers.

The German aëroplanes signal their observations by means of a code expressed in smoke balls. I never was able to obtain any theory as to how this code works. This method of communication seems to be very effective, as German shells sometimes arrive with singular accuracy and immediateness. It is commonly reported that Germans also signal with a suspended disc, but I have no personal knowledge of this system. The French had no definite means of signaling from the air in the early months of the war, and I believe this is still the case. They make their observation and return to their base to report, usually taking notes while aloft on maps and in note-books. I have no personal knowledge of the British methods. The Austrian system of signaling is by means of evolutions of the aëroplanes themselves. When they observe a target they fly over it, and when directly above make a sudden dip. They are observed during their evolutions with instruments, so that the exact angle and hypothenuse at the moment of this dip is known. They then make a circuit and come up from the rear and again fly over the objective. As they reach a point where they can see the target or objective their artillery opens fire and is corrected by the graphic evolutions of the aëroplane. If the shells drop too far to the left, the aëroplane turns to the right and the distance in profile that it travels before straightening out is the correction. They say, “Shoot short” by dipping and “Shoot farther” by rising.

I have no knowledge of aëroplanes being used at night, although they sometimes return from daylight operations after night has fallen and make their landing with the assistance of beacons. It is commonly reported both by Germans and French that the steel darts used by the French aviators are the most effective offensive weapon so far used by aëroplanes. I have no personal knowledge on this subject. I have been several times informed upon reliable authority that the French have no particular instruments of precision for use in the dropping of bombs.

At the commencement of hostilities the French aviators feared their own armies much more than they did the Germans, because the French had neglected to familiarize their troops with the designs of hostile aircraft.

It was proved to be nearly impossible to force a fight with your enemy’s aëroplane, even if he is far within your own territory. If your own aëroplanes are on the ground it takes them entirely too long to get to his altitude, and if he wishes to stay in the same neighborhood he himself keeps going higher as your aëroplanes mount toward him. There seems to be no difficulty encountered in avoiding aëroplanes already in the air, since they are usually visible at great distances.

Anti-aircraft guns are generally mounted on automobile trucks, and are usually of small calibre. I have never seen any German aëroplanes other than monoplanes; these I have seen on ten or more occasions.

I saw no aëroplanes which carried other arms than rifles and automatic pistols.

In practice I have nowhere observed machine-guns mounted on aëroplanes, although they are much advertised and talked about.

I have frequently heard, upon what I consider reliable authority, that the Germans use captive balloons for observations.

ARTILLERY

I have at all times been tremendously impressed with the dominant importance in this war of artillery. My personal observations lead me to estimate that the percentage of casualties from artillery wounds has been nearly 50% of the total.

There are very distinct differences in the methods of the French and German field artilleries. The French field artillery is always used in indirect fire and the positions are usually a long distance behind the infantry—from fifteen to twenty-five hundred yards. The emplacements are often in deep wooded valleys. Too close proximity to the infantry is avoided.

In contrast to this, the German field artillery is nearly always very close to the infantry and is frequently in position for direct fire. In the most typical German arrangement the infantry trenches are on the front face of a hill along the “military crest” with the artillery two or three hundred yards behind over the natural crest. One often sees German field guns in such a position that it is difficult to say whether they are in “direct” or “indirect” fire.

In battles where there are no rapid retreats and rapid advances it seems to be the custom for batteries to be silent for one or two days while the battery commander, by means of observers, aëroplanes, and spies, endeavors to locate an objective. The point to be made is that the main forces of artillery do not seem to fire very continuously. Oftentimes in the middle of a very tense battle where heavy forces are opposed to each other there will be periods of half an hour or even longer when no firing whatsoever is to be heard. The importance of observers has become tremendous. On some occasions it seems as though the main object of an army were to get a single man into a location from which he can accurately observe the enemy’s position, and as if until this is accomplished the whole battle is at a standstill. Both sides try continuously in all sorts of original ways to get information. The German tendency is toward the use of spies, while the French more often employ daring volunteer observers who sacrifice their lives in order successfully to direct fire for even five or ten minutes. Aëroplanes are used for the same purpose by all nations, but with less and less success as the war progresses, because hostile infantry and artillery are better and better hidden. It has now become almost impossible for an aëroplane to locate hostile artillery except by the flashes. Battery positions are either placed in forests, or artificial woods are built around them. It is almost axiomatic that artillery shall give no signs of life while an enemy’s aëroplane is above, and as the result of this, one well-recognized method of temporarily silencing an enemy’s battery is to keep an aëroplane flying over its neighborhood. Volunteer observers are frequently disguised and sent forward to hunt for a place from which they can observe the hostile trenches of artillery and thus direct and correct the fire of their own batteries. Observers who thus volunteer to go forward are virtually always decorated and made officers, if, by some fortunate chance, they both succeed and survive. The French artillery officers take advantage of every “assist”; for instance, I saw a case where a shell made a groove on the reverse side of a hill and glanced off. The shell exploded, but its fuse was recovered by the French, the setting of the fuse determined, and by means of this and the direction of the groove made in the hill the German battery was located. The French reported that they had destroyed the battery. One of their aëroplanes was sent up before firing was begun and later observed the battery’s efforts to escape.

The French batteries are usually so far behind the infantry that when they have come under heavy artillery fire there is no danger of capture. The custom with the French seems to be, in a case like this, for the personnel to run and take cover during the bombardment. I saw this happen twice, and I learned of numerous other cases. Cover underground is constructed for all the personnel of the batteries. One enters these subterranean quarters through entrances which look very much like enlarged woodchuck holes. With no artillery of any nationality did I see any gun entrenchment other than a slight mound of earth coming up to the bottom of the shield. All guns that I have seen were in a line, except in cases where there was some peculiar rising of terrain. I have several times seen a “group” together in one line, at intervals of about twenty yards. In practice, the French tend to extend the intervals to about twenty-five yards, while the Germans either decrease them to about fifteen yards, or have the guns quite isolated, seventy-five or one hundred yards apart.

Telephones are the only instruments of which I have observed the use in the immediate neighborhood of French batteries. The battery commander controls the fire by word of mouth.

The French 75-mm. gun is the only field-piece which under practical field conditions does not “jump.” This gives a tremendous advantage to the French artillery in such duels as frequently take place in battles where there is rapid movement. I have been on battlefields after action had finished and observed positions where two batteries had shot at each other, both being in “direct fire” position. The French pieces can fire at a rate of twenty-five shots a minute and in such duels seem to be able to fire accurately with nearly twice the rapidity of the Germans.

The most unpleasant experience that I ever underwent occurred one day when I was directly in front of and under a French battery and it suddenly and unexpectedly fired about forty rounds in thirty seconds over my head. These discharges produced a great psychological effect and were much more disconcerting than any arrival of enemy’s shells.

I have never observed any “short burst,” or shells bursting in guns. I should judge that this accident happens very rarely, with the French, at least.

At the beginning of the war, the French carried shells and shrapnel in about equal numbers. The shells explode with the time-fuse exactly as do shrapnel. From several sources I was told that they were loaded with the new explosive which had been introduced only about three months before the beginning of hostilities. As the war progresses the French tend to use more and more of these explosive shells, which are used against infantry in the same way as are shrapnel. The only difference seems to be that they are made to burst a little lower. Their effect is very terrible. A heavy bursting charge is employed, and although the fragments are small they fly with such force that they make fatal wounds and even cut into the wood of rifle stocks. I observed the body of one German whose back had been pierced with about forty small particles of a shell which had burst close to him. These particles were as evenly spread as the charge of a shotgun. German wounded and captured Germans have told me that this French shell-fire was so hellish that no man escaped except by a miracle. The French infantry have a great affection for their “75,” and their confidence is always very greatly increased by its presence. Their spirits immediately rise when they hear it behind them. The French field artillery seem to have no favorite range but readily fire at any range. On the one hand a gun is sometimes taken into the trenches, and on the other hand I once observed a battery begin firing at 5300 meters and go to 5600 meters. One frequently sees French batteries of two and three guns and groups of eight or nine guns, lost guns not having been promptly replaced. I once saw a battery of two guns, the other two having been completely destroyed by direct fire the previous week. The heaviest piece that I saw at the front with the French was a 6-in. howitzer. The Germans use all sizes up to 12-in. in field operations, the latter being of Austrian construction. I have never discovered any conclusive evidence that Germany possesses 42-centimeter guns.

In my observations, when infantry charge infantry in battle movement, the majority of the casualties are caused by artillery. I have several times observed fields of dead infantrymen killed in an advance against infantry, where 90% of the dead had been killed by shrapnel. In my experience the Germans never use anything except shrapnel against infantry in the open. Shrapnel wounds are very ugly, being big ragged holes which usually become infected.

On the battlefields I have observed, very few German shrapnel have failed to burst in the air. In one field about a half mile square, where shrapnel cases were strewn about [I counted about forty or fifty], I observed only four craters. The French often say that the German shrapnel burst too high.

The German field artillery frequently place their caissons at a distance of two hundred yards behind the guns, there being no limbers or caissons with the guns. The ammunition is brought up by hand, each man carrying six shells in baskets holding three each. The caissons are usually in less numbers than the guns, there being two caissons behind four guns, or one caisson behind two guns.

In examining abandoned German ammunition, I have found shells bearing all dates from 1903 to 1914.

On no occasion have I seen observation ladders used by the French field artillery. This is probably due to the fact that, in general, their artillery is at so great a distance behind the scene of operations.

Shells bigger than 3-in. when used in field operations seldom do any damage, but have a tremendous moral effect even on veteran troops. The disconcerting effect of heavy shells exploding in the ground is very widely recognized at the front. The fire of big howitzers is, as a rule, very inaccurate. When one of these shells hits a building or a paved street its effect is considerable; when they burst in soft ground they are not dangerous. Most of the battlefields of France are on muddy fields, in which the 6-in. shells make a crater about forty feet in circumference and five or six feet deep. Their effect is chiefly upward and casualties are so rare as to be considered freaks. Mud is, however, thrown over the whole neighborhood. The bursting of the 12-in. shells is a very impressive sight—I saw two burst. (My authority for their caliber was a major of French artillery with whom I was standing at the time.) They burst at a distance of about 600 yards from us, one in an open field and the other in a small French village. The concussion was very heavy and even at 600 yards was felt in the feet. In the first case the air was filled with flying mud to a height of several hundred feet and there was a cloud of greasy black smoke about as large as a city block. The resultant crater was about one hundred feet in circumference, the ground being particularly soft. The second shell produced the same sensations, made the same sort of crater, and destroyed four or five small French brick and stone houses.

The largest German howitzers which are in the field were, in my personal experience, used only to bombard towns and villages.

INFANTRY

My observations lead me to think that the most important qualifications for the infantry soldier are three, viz: to be able to dig, to be able to hide, and to be able to shoot. At the beginning of the war the French had paid very little attention to any of these things. Their men were dressed in a uniform so conspicuous that hiding was impossible. The only shooting that they had ever done was gallery shooting at a range of about forty yards and they were singularly poor even at this. Judging by practical results, they had very few theories and no practice in the matter of digging trenches. The trenches which they made in the early weeks of the war were straight grooves in the ground with the earth thrown up in a haphazard manner on either or both sides. Their early defeats were due to the unexpected invasion through Belgium, and to their unpreparedness in the three essentials mentioned above.

The German infantry also shoot poorly from an American standpoint, but do better than the French. Their uniform is the most nearly perfect of any of the armies in the war, and the Germans are virtually invisible at short range if they are not moving. Their helmet is easily the best headgear in the matter of invisibility. It sets tightly on the head, and owing to its shape virtually never casts a shadow. The Germans have been from the beginning very accomplished trench diggers and have had elaborate theories as to the construction of trenches and much practice in making them.

The British are the only troops in the war who shoot with any degree of excellence. Their shooting does not approach in accuracy that of our own army, but is so superior to the Germans that a British battalion of 1100 men usually has a firing effect equal to that of a German regiment of nearly 3000. On the gray-green backgrounds of Europe the British khaki is not conspicuous, but at the same time it is certainly visible. The British hat is the most conspicuous headgear in the war, since its rim casts a heavy black shadow, and its flat top shows white in sunlight. The heads of the British in the trenches stand out very distinctly.

In my experience the machine-gun is the most effective infantry weapon. Personally, I should interpret this not as praise for machine-guns, but as a criticism of the poor shooting of all the infantry engaged. The French have comparatively few machine-guns.

Since November, the French have had troops of all categories on the firing-line, and I should judge by this that since November, if not earlier, the French have had all their available men in service. Among my personal acquaintances in France, I know no man liable for service who has not been in the army from that date onward. The men who for physical reasons were earlier refused are now being quite generally accepted as volunteers and are put to office work or similar occupations. I have seen great numbers of wounded Territorials in France, and many Territorial prisoners in the prison camps in Germany. When I visited the prison camp at Zossen (near Berlin) where there are said to be 20,000 French prisoners, a large percentage (perhaps as much as 50 per cent.) of the prisoners I saw were Territorials.

The Germans have very well-developed and well-organized systems of relays for their men at the front. The infantry stay in the trenches for about a month at a time and are then given a vacation, usually being sent home to their garrison town. Their cavalry serve ten days at the front and are then sent a day’s march to the rear for a ten-days’ rest. Their artillerymen get no vacation, their lives being considered easy enough.

I saw no evidence of any well-organized system of vacations among either the French or British and I knew many isolated cases where personal friends of mine, both officers and enlisted men, have been at the front continuously since the beginning of the war. I am fairly certain that the British enlisted man has had no vacation since the beginning of the war, other than relaying near the front.

I would mention again, in order to emphasize the statement, that all my observations have led me to believe that the essentials of military preparedness are, first of all, a rapid mobilization, without this everything else is useless. By “rapid” I mean a mobilization of at least half a million men or upward in not more than ten days. After this in importance comes the ability to hide, to dig, and to shoot. To hide is impossible when wearing a uniform as conspicuous as the French, which might be called maximum, and has, I should estimate, been the cause of from three to four hundred thousand extra casualties.

The bayonet has been much used in this war and I have viewed personally a number of battlefields on which the action was decided with cold steel. It is my impression that European officers have maintained their faith in the bayonet as a weapon and some of them may even have become more than ever convinced of its worth. This is very distinctly the case with the French and the Austrians. The Germans are the only people whom I have observed to show any preference for shooting as against cutting when in close action. There is no doubt that the French commander’s idea is to win the ultimate decision with the bayonet. Europeans in general seem to prefer cutting and stabbing to shooting. For them, “fight” seems to mean stabbing somebody. Their psychology is directly opposed to ours, for I think most American soldiers prefer shooting to cutting. The Europeans do not seem to have the taste for shooting, or the ability or wish to shoot well. It is difficult or even impossible to teach many of them to shoot with any degree of effectiveness.

In spite of the degree to which the bayonet has been used in Europe and the number of actions which I have seen won by its use, I am strongly convinced that the bayonet is not a practical weapon, and that the only just grounds for its employment are to be found in psychological reasons. I have not actually seen bayonet combats but have studied the battlefields soon after the conflicts and have talked with troops who had taken part in them, both French wounded and German prisoners. I remember particularly the scenes of three bayonet fights on a considerable scale. The first took place near Fère Champenoise on September 8th; the second near Sézanne on September 9th; the third near Lassigny about October 15th. In each case the men had thrown all science to the wind and fought wildly and savagely hand to hand. They were probably less effective than a Philippine boloman. Most of the casualties had been bayoneted through the neck, face, and skull, the men having lunged savagely for the face just like a boxer who has lost his temper. In the first-mentioned place I saw a Frenchman and a German lying side by side, both dead, and each transfixed by the other’s bayonet, showing that they had rushed upon each other madly without the least thought of science or defense. It would seem to me that an infantryman with a short and handy rifle like our new Springfield could fill his magazine just before the enemy’s charge arrived and “stop” four or five men armed with bayonets or any other edged weapon. I see no more reason for opposing bayonet with bayonet than for opposing a bolo with a bolo. The same reasoning would apply to lances and sabers, which are universally carried and certainly have been used to some extent. It is an interesting fact that in fights between cavalry patrols, every such affair which came to my personal knowledge had been decided by shooting and by nothing else, although the teaching of the men is to close in and use the lance and saber. The Germans alone when in close action have shown a tendency to do more or less shooting. In the first mentioned of the above fights, the Germans were virtually all killed by bayonet wounds, whereas perhaps 50 per cent. of the French dead whom I examined showed gunshot wounds.

The French tactical unit is the battalion of 1000 men, divided into four companies, nominally of 250 men each but with an effective battle strength of slightly over 200. These companies are commanded by a captain with four or five lieutenants under him. Two of these lieutenants are regular officers and the other two or three are reserve officers. Each platoon is commanded by a lieutenant and a sergeant. An infantry brigade in the French army is made up of six battalions. In case of heavy casualties the number of battalions is reduced, the idea being to keep battalions as near normal strength as possible. Thus if the regiment loses 30 per cent. it is reduced from a regiment of three battalions to a regiment of two battalions, and if it loses 60 or 70 per cent. it is reduced to a regiment of one battalion.

The French, German, Russian, Austrian, and Hungarian infantry are all armed with long, heavy, and ill-balanced rifles carrying detachable bayonets. These rifles are very poorly sighted in comparison with our new Springfield. It would be very difficult or impossible to do good shooting with them, as measured from an American standpoint. In my personal experience there have been numberless cases where dispatch bearers, automobiles, scouts, pickets, and patrols were exposed at very short range to the fire of bodies of French or German troops without any casualties whatsoever occurring.

The one idea of the German infantry seems to be to shoot as much and as rapidly as possible. I have several times observed where German infantry have taken up a position in the open, and fired 120 rounds a man, more or less, as a matter of course.

I have nowhere observed the use of any semi-automatic rifles, nor of either silencers or special sights for sharpshooters.

TRENCHES AND CONCEALMENT

In October I was in the neighborhood of Lassigny and Roye where heavy fighting was and had been going on. There was a little village called Erches to the northwest of these places. Here were the French advance trenches. I was in this village during the height of operations and was told that we were then only 150 or 200 yards from the German trenches. Standing behind a house corner in this village of Erches, I could see nothing unusual in any direction. I could see no signs of French or German activity nor of life of any kind, although the French infantry trenches extended to our right and left and the Germans were directly in front of us. The landscape which spread away in all directions looked perfectly normal and unbroken except for a few shell craters. The only manifestations of activity were the distant rumbling of guns, and the shrapnel bursting over our heads. Although I stayed there for more than an hour, the only Frenchmen I saw were a few who joined me behind the house; they came from trenches hidden within it, or from an underground trench, the opening of which was behind the house. I recount this to accent the concealment of all troops in this war. Trenches are made to resemble the landscape in which they are placed. If they are in a brown mowed field, hay is scattered over all fresh earth, and if they are made in pasture land all the earth is carefully carried away or is spread out and sodded over.

CAVALRY

The Austrian cavalry unit is the division, which is accompanied by the horse artillery in considerable strength. They are not accompanied by cyclists or armored automobiles.

During the first six months of the war, at least, in the Austrian, Hungarian, British, and French armies no newspaper or war correspondents were allowed to view the actual operations on any condition whatsoever. No press representative saw any battle with the Austrian, Hungarian, British, or French armies, with one single exception which took place in France, when one day during September certain press representatives managed to see the bombardment along the Aisne. I make this statement with the full knowledge that many correspondents state they have seen battle actions. I have been able to investigate such statements on numerous occasions, and invariably found them to be fabrications, usually without even a foundation of truth. Reporters frequently left the intrenched camp at Paris, were arrested before traveling any great distance, and confined for days and weeks. They then returned to the city and told hair-raising stories of their experiences at the front.

The only war news published in France, England, Austria, and Hungary, is that of the official communiqués, which usually suppress all essentials, minimize or omit all reverses, and convert all drawn actions or slight gains into victories.

The Austrian and Hungarian horse artillery were in such close relation with the cavalry that their support was very good. In fact, the artillery get into position as quickly as the cavalry. The chief function which cavalry have performed successfully in this war has been that of reconnoissance. The French and German armies use aëroplanes and cavalry patrols as their principal means of reconnoissance; the latter scout in parties of from six to fifteen men commanded by an officer. The British do the same work with two motor-cycle riders. The transmission of dispatches by cavalry has become virtually nil in France because of the extensive use for this purpose of telephones, automobiles, and motor-cycles. It is very doubtful, however, if automobiles and motor-cycles could successfully be used for dispatch-bearing and reconnoissance in any country except France. On the Russian frontier the poorness and scarcity of roads make the use of automobiles difficult and the use of wheels and motor-cycles impossible. It would, therefore, seem that for reconnoissance and dispatch-bearing, cavalry will usually be the means employed.

Cavalry have to a certain extent been used as reserves. They were thus first used by the British. In recent months I have often seen large French cavalry reserves. At such times they are, in effect, mounted infantry, so that reinforcements may be transferred a greater distance in a shorter time. My personal observations have led me to believe that aside from their uses in reconnoissance, the principal value of cavalry is as mounted infantry held in reserve. When fighting, cavalry must dismount. Early in the war there were occasions when cavalry fought while mounted, and whether against artillery, infantry, or other cavalry, the chief result was the killing of nearly all the horses.

In the Austrian, Hungarian, and French armies many cavalry regiments have been converted into infantry. I do not think that this is chiefly due to lack of horses but to the fact that the opportunity for fighting while mounted no longer exists.