Kitabı oku: «With Joffre at Verdun: A Story of the Western Front», sayfa 8
CHAPTER IX
A Terrific Bombardment
There is no need to tell how Henri and Jules, now converted into poilus, joined the troops in their billets behind the lines at Verdun; how they went to a school of instruction, where they were coached in the minute and delicate, if not peculiar, art of bombing; how they learnt, in fact, to conduct trench warfare, and prepared for closer contact with the enemy. Nor need we tell how presently they were drafted into the city of Verdun, where it lies beside the River Meuse in a sleepy hollow facing the heights beyond, which lay between it and the Germans. After a residence there in billets, they crossed the river, and, mounting those heights, gained at length the communication-trenches which gave access to the French positions in the neighbourhood of Hautmont.
"And how do you like it?" the Sergeant in command of the platoon to which they were attached asked them as the dawn broke on the following morning, and every man in the trench stood to his arms in case of an attack by the enemy. "See you, Jules, and you too, Henri," – for let us explain that our two young heroes were not entirely unknown to their comrades, that is unknown by name or by reputation; indeed, the regiment to which they were now attached had, like many another regiment, read of their exciting escape from Ruhleben, gloried in the event and in the spirit it showed, and were ready to welcome them heartily – "you two, Henri and Jules, here is a loophole for each of you. You see the parapet of the trench is strengthened with logs cut from the forest, and if you are careful not to poke your heads up above the parapet you have little to fear from enemy bullets. Look away down below you; the ground slopes gradually, and there is nothing to obstruct your fire but the stumps of trees which were cut down months ago. Now, look still farther, and I will tell you something of the position: there, to the left of you, is Brabant, just round the corner of the hill, though you can't quite see it, and to the left of that again, the river, with the village of Forges just across the water, and Bethincourt and the Mort Homme Hill close to it. Now look to your right. There's Gremilly lying near the railway, and farther along still, beyond Ormes, is Cincery, and south of it Etain, while immediately beyond are the heights of Douaumont, with Vaux closely adjacent."
Peering through their loopholes, Jules and Henri spent a useful and interesting half-hour in watching the scene before them. They were standing in a trench dug across the gentle slope of a hill which at one time, in those days of peace preceding the war, had been thickly clad with fir-trees – a slope now denuded altogether, and presenting only innumerable stumps, standing up like so many sentinels, while those nearer to the trenches had barbed wire stretched between them, making a metal mesh which would require most strenuous efforts to break. Not a soul was to be seen in front of them; not a figure flitted through the woods in the direction of the Germans' position, while as for the Boche, there was not one in evidence, though during that half-hour they detected the line which indicated the enemy trenches, and heard more than once the snap of a rifle.
"And it is ever thus, Henri and Jules," the Sergeant told them. "We stand to arms in the early morning, just as now, waiting for the attack which, it is whispered, will be made upon us, and which never comes. Indeed, to me it seems that the Germans have for days past given up all idea of an advance in this direction; and sometimes not even a rifle is fired, while the cannon is never heard."
If no one was to be seen in front of the French fire-trenches; or in front of the cunning pits where machine-guns were hidden, there was yet ample movement, and plenty of people, close at hand to drive ennui from the minds of Henri and his comrade. There were soldiers everywhere along the trench – merry fellows, who sat about the fire – for in this month of February the early mornings were very chilly – who smoked their pipes and laughed and chatted, and who watched as breakfast was made ready. There were men carefully attending to trench-mortars, others polishing their rifles, and yet others again who had crept by deep tunnels to the cunning positions in front and were busily attending their machine-guns; and behind, along the communication-trenches, in the support and reserve trenches, in a hundred and more dug-outs, there were more poilus with officers amongst them, hearty, confident individuals, living a curious existence, which had now lasted so many months that it seemed to have been their life from the very commencement. Farther beyond still, it was impossible to see, for Henri and Jules had their duties and might not leave the regiment; yet in hundreds of hollows there was hidden the deadly French soixante-quinze – the 75-millimetre quick-firing gun, which from the commencement of this gigantic conflict has controlled and beaten German guns of a similar calibre. Yet again, behind them, were other bigger guns, splendidly dug in and hidden cleverly with straw-thatched roofs, many of them no doubt once filling the embrasures of Douaumont and other forts which in times of yore had gained for Verdun the reputation of impregnability. Yet German leviathan guns had proved that they could now smash Douaumont or any other fortress to pieces within a few hours, whereas in the old times it had been a matter of days, when even the artillery was sufficiently powerful. Modern invention, high explosives, and scientific artillery had altered modes of defence, and the fort at Douaumont and the forts elsewhere encircling the sleepy town of Verdun were now but shells of masonry, mere billets for soldiers, while the guns were ranged out in the open.
What a busy scene it was behind the fire-trenches in which Henri and Jules were now standing. In a hundred cunning little nooks, in corners which one hardly expected to come upon, there were field-kitchens, where a fire might be kindled without attracting the enemy or his artillery-fire, and where soup – beloved of the poilu– might be prepared for those on duty.
"Mon ami, it's a good thing to have warmth both without and within," said, the Sergeant who had already befriended our two heroes, beating his hands together to promote the circulation, and blowing upon his fingertips, for it was a chilly day this late February, 1916. "A man who is cold faces the enemy and the dangers attendant upon this sort of business with a courage which is perhaps a trifle damped, while if he be hungry also, and cold within, then indeed he is at a disadvantage. Come, a bowl of soup! Our cook is a specialist in its manufacture, and, myself, I think that the fellow is good enough to be chef even at the Astoria in Paris. You know the Astoria, my Jules?"
Jules treated the Sergeant to one of those amiable smiles of his. Did he know the Astoria Hotel? That aristocratic establishment in Paris. Were there many aristocratic parts of that famous city of which he was ignorant? It made Henri snigger indeed, remembering those days, now it seemed so long ago, when he and Jules had been among the elegants of the city. Yet, if these two young soldiers had known what luxury meant, and what it was to lead a life of gaiety, they were none the less good soldiers of France, destined to prove themselves, indeed, as noble as any of those comrades about them. Seated there on the fire-bench, where a man could stand and level his rifle in the direction of the enemy, they and the Sergeant sipped their bowls of soup with relish, dipping a crust of bread into it, and wanting nothing better. The outdoor life, their unusual surroundings – which had not yet become so familiar to them as to go without observation – the keen February air, the sense of danger impending, lent zest to appetites already healthy.
"I'd as soon dine like this as anywhere," said Henri, as he tipped his bowl up and his head back at the same time, and imbibed the steaming beverage. "Just fancy sitting down to a five- or six-course meal, as a fellow was accustomed to do in the days before this war commenced. A five-course meal, Jules! Fancy what we'd have said to such a thing in Ruhleben, where the meals were hardly recognizable."
Jules at that moment was engaged in finishing a huge crust of bread, and, holding the remains of it up between fingers and thumb, and balancing his bowl of soup neatly in the other hand, was in the act of drinking from it, when a distant thud, a screaming sound, and then a terrific concussion close at hand sent his bowl flying, and the young soldier himself rolling from the bank upon which he had been seated. As for Henri, when Jules caught a view of what was left of that young fellow it was to discover his friend half buried in earth, a huge log lying right across his body, and the Sergeant, tumbled, inert and lifeless it seemed, over the log. Then willing hands came to their rescue, and within a moment or two all three were again seated on the bank, the Sergeant holding his head between his hands, still dizzy after that explosion, while Henri was carelessly brushing the dirt from his clothing.
"A near squeak, mon ami," laughed one of the poilus, as he assisted Henri in his task; "that is the first shell that has come near us for days past, and I shouldn't mind if it were the last of them. Understand, my comrade, that shell-fire is not all very pleasant, and there are times when a man must sit in the fire-trench, crouching at the bottom, whilst they rain all round him, some bursting in the trench and shattering the traverses, some thumping pits behind or in front big enough for a platoon to camp in, and others blowing in the parapets, and smothering the fellows behind them. Rifle-fire is nothing to it – a mere pastime – for then, if a man keeps his head well down, there is but little danger."
Thud! In the distance another gun sounded. Thud! Thud! Thud! Sharp reports followed almost instantly, and found their direction, it seemed, from a thousand different points hidden by the forest country in front of the trenches directly north of the city.
Had Henri and Jules been elsewhere than in those trenches now assailed by the German artillery, had they, for instance, been in the neighbourhood of the fortress of Douaumont, or even on some more elevated position – if one were discoverable – they would have watched a sight on this 19th day of February which would have appalled them, and yet would have held them enthralled – so full of interest was it. Let us but sketch the view to be obtained from such a point.
From the heights of the Meuse, beyond and on which lay the French positions, crossing the River Meuse in the neighbourhood of Brabant, one looked down to a huge plain some hundreds of feet lower, the land falling abruptly in many parts, and the rolling hills traversed here and there by ravines, which gave easier access to the heights above than was to be found elsewhere. Everywhere woods were to be seen, woods of evergreen firs clothing the country thickly about the foot of the heights, and sweeping, to some extent, out into the plain beyond; woods, indeed, which masked the position of the enemy, which made it practically impossible to say how many troops were there, and whether the Germans had, as reports stated, made preparations for an attack on the Verdun salient.
A glance at the map will perhaps make the position even clearer, for there it will be seen that the French line, running from the west from the River Aisne, passed close to Varennes – which was in the hands of the enemy – struck north at Avocourt, skirting the foot of hilly ground, and so continuing to Malancourt. From there the trench-line ran due east to Forges, just north of the brook of that name, and, crossing the River Meuse a little north of the point where the brook Forges falls into the river, ran north and east via Brabant, and along the line already indicated, sweeping from Etain and St. Jean – its most easterly point – due south till it reached the neighbourhood of Fresnes, and then curving towards the west and south, where it again approached the river. St. Jean, the most easterly point of the line, may be said to have formed almost the apex of the salient made by the French trenches encircling Verdun, and the city of that name may be said for the purpose of our description to have filled a point along a line drawn across the base of the salient. Perhaps thirty miles in length, this line, represented by the River Meuse, presented numerous roads and crossings by means of which French troops could be marched to any point of the salient, and presented also at Brabant, to the north of it, and at its southernmost point, positions of much importance. Let us suppose for a moment that an overwhelming enemy force was disposed in the neighbourhood of Brabant, and another at the southernmost point of the base of the Verdun salient – where the French trenches again ran adjacent to the river – a blow driving in the French defences both north and south at the self-same moment would shorten that base to which we have referred, and would, as it were, narrow the neck of the salient dangerously; it would have the effect, indeed, of tying up the force of men holding the apex of the salient, and of limiting their means of retreat if that were necessary, and the power of reinforcing them rapidly from Verdun. It may be, indeed, that this plan was in the minds of the Germans when, on the 19th of the month in question, they commenced that bombardment the first shot of which had proved so nearly disastrous to Henri and his comrades, and which, commencing at that moment, played on the whole Verdun salient for two days and nights. Then on the 21st they opened their campaign against the city of Verdun and the Verdun salient with a mighty blow against the northern trenches, close to Brabant, where the French lines crossed the river, and in the course of a few hours opened the eyes of the French command – which, though well aware of an impending attack, was perhaps not fully informed as to the scale and significance of the German preparations. Indeed, in those first few hours of the bombardment of the northern sector of the salient, there was repeated on this Western Front the phalanx concentration which Von Mackensen had used against the Russians during the previous summer, when thousands of guns, arrayed against a comparatively narrow area, burst and blazed a way through it, or, more accurately perhaps, smashed the Russian trenches, and, unopposed by their artillery – for, as we have stated already, the Russians were wofully short of guns and ammunition – slew the unfortunate troops of the Tsar holding those trenches, forced their supports and reserves to fall back, and, having gained a certain depth of territory, moved forward and repeated the process again and again, thus compelling continual retirement.
Here then, on the 19th February, 1916 – a date which is destined to become historical – the Germans commenced on the Western Front, against the northern-most curve of the Verdun salient, a similar attack, an attack heralded by a storm of shells thrown from masses of artillery which had been collected for weeks past and hidden in the woods in that neighbourhood. There were guns dug in in every direction, guns which had been there, perhaps, since the commencement of the war; there were others artfully concealed in natural hollows; and there were yet again others, literally hundreds of them, parked close together in the woods and forests without other attempt at concealment – a huge mass of metal which, at a given signal, commenced to pound the French defences. Never before, without doubt, had such a storm of shell been cast on any one line of trenches; and continuing, as it did, for hours, ploughing the ground over a comparatively narrow stretch, it reduced everything within that selected area to a shapeless and tangled mass of wreckage. It was to be wondered at, indeed, that anything living could survive the ordeal. French trenches, stretching across the slope behind those meshes of laced barbed wire, were blotted out – were stamped out indeed – and soon became indistinguishable from the hundreds of cavities and craters and holes which marked the slopes across which they had run that morning. Fourteen-inch shells, seventeen-inch shells, and thousands of smaller missiles, ploughed through and rained over the line, and many a ponderous fellow found its way to the deep dug-outs and shelters which had long ago been prepared for such an eventuality. Smoke hid the sky on this 19th of February and the two days following, the smoke of bursting shells plunging upon the French positions, while the cannon which threw those shells were still hidden by the tangled woods clothing the ground occupied by the enemy. Yet, if the gallant poilus manning the French trenches were not in evidence, if, indeed, life was being stamped out of a number of them by this terrific avalanche of bursting metal, they were yet for all that not entirely unsupported, for already those guns behind the advance lines of our ally were thundering, while, overhead, fleets of aeroplanes were picking up the positions of German batteries, and were signalling back to those who had sent them.
Crouching in the depths of a dug-out, some thirty feet below the surface, a dug-out which shook and quivered as shells rained above it, Henri's comrades of the platoon smoked grimly, while that young fellow himself, once a Paris elegant, crouched in what was left of a fire-trench, now a mere shattered pit – and peered somewhat anxiously towards the open.
"And you are there still, mon ami?" called the Sergeant, when there was a five minutes' lull in the firing, "you find it warm perhaps, mon Henri? But you will hold to your post firmly – yes, you will do that, as will all our comrades."
His big, healthy, bearded face looked out from the narrow entrance of the stairs which gave access to the dug-out, and for a while he grinned, a friendly, encouraging grin, at our hero. Then those heavy thuds in the distance, and a loud burst close at hand, sent him diving back to shelter, leaving Henri alone, a pipe now gripped between his teeth, his rifle slung over one shoulder, standing his ground, gazing before him, waiting for the first sign of an enemy attack.
"It will come soon, yes, very soon," the Sergeant said, when another lull in the firing arrived. "They will go on blazing away, throwing tons of metal at us, till they think they have blotted us out of existence, and then – then you will see they will swarm to the attack, these Germans."
Yet that did not prove to be the case, for, as a matter of fact, the Germans, profiting by the lesson they had learned in Russia, and imagining that they could as easily – more easily, in fact – repeat their exploit on this Western Front, had set out to capture Verdun by the aid of their artillery alone, and had every confidence of smashing their way to the town with but little else, and with but little use of their infantry. Continuing their tempest of shells for many hours, till it seemed that not one French soldier could have survived the bombardment of that northern sector, they then sent forward their sappers and mere patrols to discover what damage had been wrought, and to take over the new position. Behind them, massed in amongst the trees, were German battalions, prepared to advance at once and dig in and secure what the guns had gained for them.
"Attention! The enemy are coming," Henri bellowed through the mouth of the stairway leading to that dug-out where his platoon was sheltering. "I can see them crossing the open."
"And the shell-fire, mon ami? It has ceased? No, surely not," came the voice of the Sergeant.
"Tiens! Halt a little, my friends," said the voice of an officer sheltering in an adjacent dug-out and coming at that moment to the exit from it, "one little moment, for shells still rain upon the position. Keep a careful watch, my gallant Henri, and warn us in due time."
Henri therefore once more stationed himself behind the battered edge of what had been once the parapet of a well-made trench, and peered through a broken loophole at the distant enemy. He could see scattered parties of men trailing across the open, emerging from the distant cover afforded by the trees, and marching steadily, without haste, it seemed, towards the French positions. Then, glancing to his left and to his right, he caught glimpses of other sentries like himself, solitary Frenchmen stationed in those battered fire-trenches to watch for the coming of the enemy – the thinnest of thin garrisons, indeed, placed there to guard the French lines from sudden attack, and to present as few men as possible to the devouring shells cast by the Germans. It was the policy, in fact, of the French commanders to expose their men just as little as was possible; to hold up the advance of enemy attacks with as few numbers as was consistent with safety; and in the event of massed attacks, where the pressure was enormous, to create havoc in the ranks of the enemy with their guns, their machine-guns, and their rifles – to kill Germans on every and any occasion, and then, if circumstances dictated such a move, to withdraw their slender garrisons to a line farther back, exchanging so many yards of territory willingly for the losses they had forced upon the Kaiser's soldiers. For this gigantic conflict in the West, this warfare devouring the nations of Europe, had, after the twentieth month of its outbreak, become more than ever a question of numbers. With teeming millions of soldiers at the commencement, Austria and Germany were able to fall upon their unprepared neighbours and almost to swamp their country; but the thin line of heroes who had dwelt in those trenches from the North Sea to the frontier of Switzerland had held the horde at bay, had kept it back until their comrades could rush to the rescue. Numbers were now far more equal; the toll of Germans taken by British and French and Belgians, and of Austrians and Germans by the Russians, had begun to tell upon the enemy effectives. Thanks to the mighty army which Britain had collected, the Allies were now greater in number than were the enemy, and, adopting a system devised by the French, were carefully saving their men, willingly giving ground if need be, if its tenure meant great losses, and always, both by day and night, taking every opportunity of killing Germans – yes, of killing Germans, of reducing the Kaiser's ranks, and of hastening the day when, with weakened numbers, Germany could no longer resist the onslaught of the armies of France and Britain and Belgium. Here, then, in front of Verdun, the French had but a mere handful in their first-line trenches – a mere handful – upon whom that torrent of shells was rained. Just a scattered, yet noble band, ready to hold up the assault which would most certainly follow.
Rifles cracked along the line while those sappers and patrols sent out by the enemy – who hardly believed life still possible in the shattered trenches – were shot down or driven back to cover. Henri then, peering over the trench, turned of a sudden and rushed to the entrance of the dug-out.
"Come!" he shouted. "Thousands of the enemy are coming from the shelter of the trees, and are massing in the open. It is an assault in force that we must resist."
Along that draggled line of trenches, which were almost blotted out of existence by now, and over which shells still rained in abundance, men whom the Germans imagined to have been killed long ago, to have been blown to pieces, popped out of the narrow entrances of dug-outs, clambered up the steep wooden steps from the caverns prepared in the earth, and, digging hard, made strenuous efforts to repair their trenches. Others sneaked along unsuspected galleries to holes far out in front of the line, where machine-guns were cunningly hidden; while, yet again, others plied to and fro along the communication-trenches, forcing their way past obstructions and falls of earth caused by the bombardment, hastening to procure more ammunition.
"It's an attack in force; hold your fire, mes enfants!" shouted the Commander of that section of the trenches in which Henri and Jules were stationed. "See them! Thousands of Boches coming from the trees and marching towards us. Hold them a little while, my comrades, and then we shall repay them for all that we have suffered. Hold, my friends, for though these trenches are now but furrows and holes in the ground, they yet give shelter enough for men who love their country and who would resist those who are advancing."
Shouts came along the line; men called across the battered traverses to one another; poilus sat at their machine-guns in those cunningly hidden pits, gripping the handles, their eyes riveted upon the sights and upon the enemy. Rifles were jerked into position, while men grabbed at packets of reserve ammunition, and, finding some convenient ledge, placed them close and handy.
"It will be a fight to the death, my Henri," called the Sergeant as cheerfully as ever, drawing at the stout pipe which he favoured – "a fight to the death; for not until we are wiped out shall Germans advance over this position."
Yes, it was to be a "fight to the death"; for the opening battle of the long series of tremendous conflicts which raged round Verdun for weeks later was to be amongst the most momentous and fiercest of them.
