The Conquest of America

C >> Cleveland Moffett >> The Conquest of America

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As I think it over, I feel sure that if those other five submarines had
been ready with the K-2, we might have had another story to tell.
Possibly the slowness of the Brooklyn Navy Yard--which is notorious, I
understand--may have spoiled the one chance that America had to resist
this invasion.

The next day the five tardy submarines arrived; but conditions were
now less favourable, since the invaders had had time to prepare their
defence against this under-water peril. As we flew over East Hampton on
the following afternoon, we were surprised to see five fully inflated
air-ships of the nonrigid Parseval type floating in the blue sky, like
grim sentinels guarding the German fleet. Down through the sun-lit ocean
they could see the shadowy underwater craft lurking in the depths, and
they carried high explosives to destroy them.

"How about our aeroplanes?" grumbled Palmer.

"Look!" I answered, pointing toward the Shinnecock Hills, where some tiny
specks appeared like soaring eagles. "They're coming!"

The American aeroplanes, at least, were on time, and as they swept nearer
we counted ten of them, and our spirits rose; for ten swift aeroplanes
armed with explosive bombs can make a lot of trouble for slower and
clumsier aircraft.

But alas for our hopes! The invaders were prepared also, and, before the
American fliers had come within striking distance, they found themselves
opposed by a score of military hydroplanes that rose presently, with a
great whirring of propellers, from the decks of the German battle-ships.
Had the Americans been able to concentrate here their entire force of
fifty aeroplanes, the result might have been different; but the fifty had
been divided along the Atlantic coast--ten aeroplanes and five submarines
being assigned to each harbour that was to be defended.

Now came the battle. And for hours, until night fell, we watched a
strange and terrible conflict between these forces of air and water. With
admirable skill and daring the American aeronauts manoeuvred for
positions above the Parsevals, whence they could drop bombs; and so swift
and successful were they that two of the enemy's air-ships were destroyed
before the German aeroplanes really came into the action. After that it
went badly for the American fliers, which were shot down, one by one,
until only three of the ten remained. Then these three, seeing
destruction inevitable, signalled for a last united effort, and, all
together, flew at full speed straight for the great yellow gas-bag of the
biggest Parseval and for certain death. As they tore into the flimsy
air-ship there came a blinding flash, an explosion that shook the hills,
and that brave deed was done.

There remained two Parsevals to aid the enemy's fleet in its fight
against American submarines, and I wish I might describe this fight in
more detail. We saw a German transport torpedoed by the B-1; we saw
two submarines sunk by rapid-fire guns of the destroyers; we saw a
battle-cruiser crippled by the glancing blow of a torpedo; and we saw the
K-1 blown to pieces by bombs from the air-ships. Two American submarines
were still fighting, and of these one, after narrowly missing a
dreadnought, sent a troop-ship to the bottom, and was itself rammed and
sunk by a destroyer, the sea being spread with oil. The last submarine
took to flight, it seems, because her supply of torpedoes was exhausted.
And this left the invaders free to begin their landing operations.

During four wonderful days (the Germans were favoured by light northeast
breezes) Palmer and I hovered over these East Hampton shores, watching
the enemy construct their landing platforms of brick and timbers from
dynamited houses, watching the black transports as they disgorged from
lighters upon the gleaming sand dunes their swarms of soldiers, their
thousands of horses, their artillery, their food supplies. There seemed
no limit to what these mighty vessels could carry.

We agreed that the great 50,000-ton _Imperator_ alone brought at least
fifteen thousand men with all that they needed. And I counted twenty
other huge transports; so my conservative estimate, cabled to the paper
by way of Canada,--for the direct cables were cut,--was that in this
invading expedition Germany had successfully landed on the shores of Long
Island one hundred and fifty thousand fully equipped fighting-men. It
seemed incredible that the great United States, with its vast wealth and
resources, could be thus easily invaded; and I recalled with a pang what
a miserable showing England had made in 1915 from similar unpreparedness.

[Illustration: AS THE GERMAN LANDING OPERATIONS PROCEEDED, THE NEWS OF
THE INVASION SPREAD OVER THE WHOLE REGION WITH THE SPEED OF ELECTRICITY.
THE ENEMY WAS COMING! THE ENEMY WAS HERE. WHAT WAS TO BE DONE?]

As the German landing operations proceeded, the news of the invasion
spread over the whole region with the speed of electricity, and in every
town and village on Long Island angry and excited and terrified crowds
cursed and shouted and wept in the streets.

The enemy was coming!

The enemy was here!

What was to be done?

Should they resist?

And many valorous speeches in the spirit of '76 were made by farmers and
clerks and wild-eyed women. What was to be done?

In the peaceful town of East Hampton some sniping was done, and afterward
bitterly repented of, the occasion being the arrival of a company of
Uhlans with gleaming helmets, who galloped down the elm-lined main street
with requisitions for food and supplies.

Suddenly a shot was fired from Bert Osborne's livery stable, then another
from White's drug store, then several others, and one of the Uhlans
reeled in his saddle, slightly wounded. Whereupon, to avenge this attack
and teach Long Islanders to respect their masters, the German fleet was
ordered to shell the village.

Half an hour later George Edwards, who was beating up the coast in his
trim fishing schooner, after a two weeks' absence in Barnegat Bay (he
had heard nothing about the war with Germany), was astonished to see a
German soldier in formidable helmet silhouetted against the sky on the
eleventh tee of the Easthampton golf course, one of the three that rise
above the sand dunes along the surging ocean, wigwagging signals to the
warships off shore. And, presently, Edwards saw an ominous puff of white
smoke break out from one of the dreadnoughts and heard the boom of a
twelve-inch gun.

The first shell struck the stone tower of the Episcopal church and hurled
fragments of it against the vine-covered cottage next door, which had
been the home a hundred and twenty years before of John Howard Payne, the
original "home sweet home."

The second shell struck John Drew's summer home and set it on fire; the
third wrecked the Casino; the fourth destroyed Albert Herter's studio and
slightly injured Edward T. Cockcroft and Peter Finley Dunne, who were
playing tennis on the lawn. That night scarcely a dozen buildings in this
beautiful old town remained standing. And the dead numbered more than
three hundred, half of them being women and children.

CHAPTER III

GERMAN INVADERS DRIVE THE IRON INTO THE SOUL OF UNPREPARED AMERICA

The next week was one of deep humiliation for the American people. Our
great fleet and our great Canal, which had cost so many hundreds of
millions and were supposed to guarantee the safety of our coasts, had
failed us in this hour of peril.

Secretary Alger, in the Spanish War, never received half the punishment
that the press now heaped on the luckless officials of the War and the
Navy Departments.

The New York _Tribune_, in a scathing attack upon the administration,
said:

The blow has fallen and the United States is totally unprepared to meet
it. Why? Because the Democratic party, during its eight years' tenure of
office, has obstinately, stupidly and wickedly refused to do what was
necessary to make this country safe against invasion by a foreign power.
There has been a surfeit of talking, of explaining and of promising, but
of definite accomplishment very little, and to-day, in our extreme peril,
we find ourselves without an army or a navy that can cope with the
invaders and protect our shores and our homes.

Richard Harding Davis, in the _Evening Sun_, denounced unsparingly those
Senators and Congressmen who, in 1916, had voted against national
preparedness:

For our present helpless condition and all that results from it, let the
responsibility rest upon these Senators and Congressmen, who, for their
own selfish ends, have betrayed the country. They are as guilty of
treason as was ever Benedict Arnold. Were some of them hanged, the sight
of them with their toes dancing on air might inspire other Congressmen to
consider the safety of this country rather than their own re-election.

The New York _World_ published a memorable letter written by Samuel J.
Tilden in December, 1885, to Speaker Carlisle of the Forty-ninth Congress
on the subject of national defence and pointed out that Mr. Tilden was a
man of far vision, intellectually the foremost democrat of his day. In
this letter Mr. Tilden said:

The property exposed to destruction in the twelve seaports, Portland,
Portsmouth, Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans, Galveston and San Francisco, cannot be
less in value than five thousand millions of dollars.... While we may
afford to be deficient in the means of offence we cannot afford to be
defenceless. The notoriety of the fact that we have neglected the
ordinary precautions of defence invites want of consideration in our
diplomacy, injustice, arrogance and insult at the hands of foreign
nations.

To add to the general indignation, it transpired that the American
reserve fleet, consisting of ten predreadnoughts, was tied up in the
docks of Philadelphia, unable to move for lack of officers and men to
handle them. After frantic orders from Washington and the loss of
precious days, some two thousand members of the newly organised naval
reserve were rushed to Philadelphia; but eight thousand men were needed
to move this secondary fleet, and, even if the eight thousand had been
forthcoming, it would have been too late; for by this time a German
dreadnought was guarding the mouth of Delaware Bay, and these inferior
ships would never have braved its guns. So here were seventy-five million
dollars' worth of American fighting-ships rendered absolutely useless and
condemned to be idle during the whole war because of bad organisation.

Meantime, the Germans were marching along the Motor Parkway toward New
York City with an army of a hundred and fifty thousand, against which
General Wood, by incredible efforts, was able to oppose a badly
organised, inharmonious force of thirty thousand, including Federals and
militia that had never once drilled together in large manoeuvres. Of
Federal troops there was one regiment of infantry from Governor's Island,
and this was short of men. There were two infantry regiments from Forts
Niagara and Porter, in New York State. Also a regiment of colored cavalry
from Fort Ethan Allen, Vermont, a battalion of field artillery from Fort
Myer, Virginia, a battalion of engineers from Washington, D. C., a
battalion of coast artillery organised as siege artillery from Fort
Dupont, Delaware, a regiment of cavalry from Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia,
two regiments of infantry from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, one regiment of
field artillery from Fort Sheridan, Illinois, one regiment of horse
artillery from Fort Riley, Kansas, one regiment of infantry and one
regiment of mountain guns from Fort D. A. Russell, Wyoming.

I may add that at this time the United States army, in spite of many
efforts to increase its size, numbered fewer than 70,000 men; and so many
of these were tied up as Coast Artillery or absent in the Philippines,
Honolulu, and the Canal Zone, that only about 30,000 were available as
mobile forces for the national defence.

As these various bodies of troops arrived in New York City and marched
down Fifth Avenue with bands playing "Dixie" and colours flying, the
excitement of cheering multitudes passed all description, especially when
Theodore Roosevelt, in familiar slouch hat, appeared on a big black horse
at the head of a hastily recruited regiment of Rough Riders, many of them
veterans who had served under him in the Spanish War.

Governor Malone reviewed the troops from the steps of the new Court House
and the crowd went wild when the cadets from West Point marched past, in
splendid order. At first I shared the enthusiasm of the moment; but
suddenly I realised how pathetic it all was and Palmer seemed to see that
side of it, too, though naturally he and I avoided all discussion of the
future. In addition to such portions of the regular army as General Wood
could gather together, his forces were supplemented by infantry and
cavalry brigades of militia from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,
Connecticut, and Massachusetts, these troops being more or less
unprepared for battle, more or less lacking in the accessories of
battles, notably in field artillery and in artillery equipment of men and
horses. One of the aides on General Wood's staff told me that the
combined American forces went into action with only one hundred and fifty
pieces of artillery against four hundred pieces that the Germans brought.

"And the wicked part of it is," he added, "that there were two hundred
other pieces of artillery we might have used if we had had men and horses
to operate them; but--you can't make an artillery horse overnight."

"Nor a gun crew," said I.

CHAPTER IV

INVASION OF LONG ISLAND AND THE BATTLE OF BROOKLYN

To meet this desperate situation and the enemy's greatly superior forces,
General Wood decided not to advance against the Germans, but to intrench
his army across the western end of Long Island, with his left flank
resting on Fort Totten, near Bayside, and his nine-mile front extending
through Creedmore, Rosedale, and Valley Stream, where his right flank
would be guarded from sea attack by the big guns of Fort Hancock on Sandy
Hook, which would hold the German fleet at a distance.

Any military strategist will agree that this was the only course for the
American commander to pursue under the circumstances; but unfortunately
popular clamour will often have its way in republics, and in this case a
violent three days' gale--which arrived providentially, according to some
of the newspapers--gave an appearance of reason to the general demand.

This gale interfered seriously with the German landing operations,--in
fact, it wrecked one of their supply-ships,--and, in consequence, such
strong political pressure was brought to bear upon the President that
orders came from Washington to General Wood that he advance his army
against the invaders and drive them into the sea. The General made a few
remarks not for publication, and obeyed. As he told me afterward, it is
doubtful whether the result would have been different in any event.

In throwing forward his forces, General Wood used the three lines of
railroad that cross Long Island from west to east; and on May 17 his
battleline reached from Patchogue through Holtsville to Port Jefferson.
Meantime, the Germans had advanced to a line that extended from East
Moriches to Manorville; and on May 18 the first clash came at daybreak in
a fierce cavalry engagement fought at Yaphank, in which the enemy were
driven back in confusion. It was first blood for the Americans.

This initial success, however, was soon changed to disaster. On May 19
the invaders advanced again, with strengthened lines, under the support
of the big guns of their fleet, which stood offshore and, guided by
aeroplane observers, rained explosive shells upon General Wood's right
flank with such accuracy that the Americans were forced to withdraw.
Whereupon the Germans, using the famous hook formation that served them
so well in their drive across northern France in the summer of 1914,
pressed forward relentlessly, the fleet supporting them in a deadly
flanking attack upon the American right wing.

On May 20 von Hindenburg established his headquarters at Forest Hills,
where, less than a year before, his gallant countryman, the great
Fraitzheim, had made an unsuccessful effort to wrest the Davis cup from
the American champion and ex-champion, Murray and McLoughlin.

But that was a year ago!

In the morning General Wood's forces continued to retreat, fighting with
dogged courage in a costly rear-guard action, and destroying railroads
and bridges as they went. The carnage wrought by the German six- and
eleven-inch explosive shells with delayed-action fuses was frightful
beyond anything I have ever known. Ten feet into the ground these
projectiles would bury themselves before exploding, and then--well, no
army could stand against them.

On May 22 General Wood was driven back to his original line of defences
from Fort Totten to Valley Stream, where he now prepared to make a last
stand to save Brooklyn, which stretched behind him with its peaceful
spires and its miles of comfortable homes. Here the Americans were safe
from the hideous pounding of the German fleet, and, although their losses
in five days amounted to more than six thousand men, these had been
replaced by reinforcements of militia from the West and South. There was
still hope, especially as the Germans, once they advanced beyond Westbury
and its famous polo fields, would come within range of the heavy mortars
of Fort Totten. and Fort Hamilton, which carried thirteen miles.

That night the German commander, General von Hindenburg, under a flag of
truce, called upon the Americans to surrender in order to save the
Borough of Brooklyn from destruction.

General Wood refused this demand; and on May 23, at dawn, under cover of
his heavy siege-guns, von Hindenburg threw forward his veterans in
terrific massed attack, striking simultaneously at three points with
three army divisions--one in a drive to the right toward Fort Totten, one
in a drive to the left toward Fort Hamilton, and one in a drive straight
ahead against General Wood's centre and the heart of Brooklyn.

All day the battle lasted--the battle of Brooklyn--with house-to-house
fighting and repeated bayonet charges. And at night the invaders,
outnumbering the American troops five to one, were everywhere victorious.
The defender's line broke first at Valley Stream, where the Germans, led
by the famous Black Hussars, flung themselves furiously with cold steel
upon the militiamen and put them to flight. By sundown the Uhlans were
galloping, unopposed, along the broad sweep of the Eastern Parkway and
parallel streets towards Prospect Park, where the high land offered an
admirable site for the German artillery, since it commanded Fort Hamilton
from the rear and the entire spread of Brooklyn and Manhattan.

It was now that Field Marshal von Hindenburg and his staff, speeding
along the Parkway in dark grey military automobiles, witnessed a famous
act of youthful heroism. As they swung across the Plaza to turn into
Flatbush Avenue von Hindenburg ordered his chauffeur to slow up so that
he might view the Memorial Arch and the MacMonnies statues of our Civil
War heroes, and at this moment a sharp burst of rifle fire sounded across
Prospect Park.

"What is that?" asked the commander, then he ordered a staff officer to
investigate.

It appears that on this fateful morning five thousand American High
School lads, from fifteen to eighteen years of age, members of the
Athletic League of New York Public Schools, who had been trained in these
schools to shoot accurately, had answered the call for volunteers and
rallied to the defence of their city. By trolley, subway and ferry they
came from all parts of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Harlem, Staten Island and the
Bronx, eager to show what their months of work with subtarget gun
machines, practice rods and gallery shooting, also their annual match on
the Peekskill Rifle Range, would now avail against the enemy. But when
they assembled on the Prospect Parade Ground, ready to do or die, they
found that the entire supply of rifles for their use was one hundred and
twenty-five! Seventy-five Krags, thirty Springfields and one hundred and
twenty Winchesters, 22-calibre muskets--toys fit for shooting squirrels,
and only a small supply of cartridges. The rifles available were issued
to such of the boys as had won their badges of sharpshooter and marksman,
two boys being assigned to each gun, so that if one was shot the other
could go on fighting.

"It was pitiful," said General George W. Wingate, President of the
League, who was directing their movements, "to see the grief of those
brave boys as they heard the German guns approaching and realised that
they had nothing to fight with. Five thousand trained riflemen and no
rifles!"

Nearer and nearer came the flanking force of the invading host and
presently it reached the outskirts of this beautiful park, which with
hill and lake and greensward covers five hundred acres in the heart of
Brooklyn. A few boys were deployed as skirmishers along the eastern edge
of the Park, but the mass occupied hastily dug trenches near the monument
to the Maryland troops on Lookout Hill and the brass tablet that
commemorate the battle of Long Island. At these historic points for half
an hour they made a stand against a Bavarian regiment that advanced
slowly under cover of artillery fire, not realising that they were
sweeping to death a crowd of almost unarmed schoolboys.

Even so the Americans did deadly execution until their ammunition was
practically exhausted. Then, seeing the situation hopeless, the head
coaches, Emanuel Haug, John A. C. Collins, Donald D. Smith and Paul
B. Mann, called for volunteers to hold the monument with the few remaining
cartridges, while the rest of the boys retreated. Hundreds clamoured for
this desperate honour, and finally the coaches selected seventy of those
who had qualified as sharpshooters to remain and face almost certain
death, among these being: Jack Condon of the Morris High School, J.
Vernet (Manual Training), Lynn Briggs (Erasmus), Isaac Smith (Curtis),
Charles Mason (Commercial), C. Anthony (Bryant), J. Rosenfeld
(Stuyvesant), V. Doran (Flushing), M. Marnash (Eastern District), F.
Scanlon (Bushwick), Winthrop F. Foskett (De Witt Clinton), and Richard
Humphries (Jamaica).

Such was the situation when Field Marshal von Hindenburg dashed up in his
motor car. Seventy young American patriots on top of Lookout Hill, with
their last rounds of toy ammunition, were holding back a German regiment
while their comrades fled for their lives. And surely they would have
been a martyred seventy, since the Bavarians were about to charge in full
force, had not von Hindenburg taken in the situation at a glance and
shouted:

"Halt! It is not fitting that a German regiment shall use its strength
against a handful of boys. Let them guard their monument! March on!"

Meantime, to the east and north of the city the battle raged and terror
spread among the populace. All eyes were fixed on New York as a haven of
refuge and, by the bridge, ferry and tunnel, hundreds of thousands made
their escape from Brooklyn.

The three great bridges stretching their giant black arms across the
river were literally packed with people--fathers, mothers, children, all
on foot, for the trolleys were hopelessly blocked. A man told me
afterwards that it took him seven hours to cross with his wife and their
two little girls.

Other swarms hovered about the tunnel entrances and stormed the
ferry-boats at their slips. Every raft in the harbour carried its load.
The Pennsylvania and Erie ferries from the other side of Manhattan, the
Staten Island boats, the Coney Island and other excursion steamers,
struggled through the press of sea traffic and I heard that three of
these vessels sank of their own weight. Here and there, hardly
discernible among the larger craft, were the small boats, life-boats,
canoes, anything and everything that would float, each bearing its little
group to a precarious safety on Manhattan Island.

Meantime, Fort Totten and Fort Hamilton had been taken from the rear by
overwhelming forces, and their mortars had been used to silence the guns
of Fort Schuyler and Fort Wadsworth. In this emergency, seeing the
situation hopeless, General Wood withdrew his forces in good order under
cover of a rear-guard action between the Uhlans and the United States
colored cavalry, and, hurrying before him the crowds of fleeing
civilians, marched his troops in three divisions across the Brooklyn
Bridge, leaving Brooklyn in flames behind him. Then facing inexorable
necessity, he ordered his engineers to blow up these three beautiful
spans that had cost hundreds of millions, and to flood the subways
between Brooklyn and Manhattan.

Seen through the darkness at the moment of its ruin the vast steel
structure of the Brooklyn Bridge, with its dim arches and filaments, was
like a thing of exquisite lace. In shreds it fell, a tangled, twisted,
tragically wrecked piece of magnificence.

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