Current History, A Monthly Magazine

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"Slowly, men; slowly. Halt at the brown stretch of field."

Panting, we lie there. "Rifles in position! Take aim! Fire!"

As soon as a few shots have been fired, there ensues a pause in the
firing over there. We make good use of it. Then, "Down on your bellies
again!"

I cannot go further.

"Go ahead without me, boys. Greet my people for me. God with you.
You've fought well. Damn you, fellow, run, I tell you! Down on your
faces! Take breath. Fire!"

When, long ago, I went to my confirmation lesson, the Superintendent
once said--ah, what a remarkable man that was!--"I would like only to
take a single look at my little garden. I'm a city child, and have
grown so fond of the flowers, this little bit of earth!"--Hui! hui!
there it whistles over our heads again. I greet Death. And my lips
touch the ridge of the field furrow.

Of dust thou art; to dust thou shalt return.

"Boys, you're not afraid? Eh?" And I try to laugh.

"The apes over there! They don't know how to shoot. Such clowns!
They'll hit the sky!"

Hui! hui! tack-a-tack-tacktack! Run on! The patent-leathered lackeys
can't hit us!

But there lies one of the other company. Dead.

"Don't run! Keep halting! Fire!"

From the village a hail of shrapnel. From the opposite side, the same.
But now nobody runs with lowered head. We are now used to the
benediction of bullets. Further on, further on!

Of the brigade there's not a trace. When the artillery had shot away
its ammunition, the order was given: "Retire, all!" It reached me, in
front there with the rifle lines, fully an hour later than the rest.

Scattered stragglers join me.

"Where is our Chief Lieutenant?"

"Wounded in the neck; only a glancing bullet. Has returned slowly on
an artillery horse. Midway among the shrapnels. Great fellow."

Nobody knows where the point of reunion is. I lead the rest of the
battalion after the other companies. Night is falling. Somewhere a
cavalry patrol tells us: They're to bivouac over there at the fort.

We march toward that. Bicycle men come to meet us. We hear from
them--no one believed that a single man of us could escape that
devil's caldron alive. My orderly (Bursche) comes riding to meet me.
His eyes are wet.

"My Captain! My Captain!"

I must press many hands. I warm myself at the bivouac fire. The
Quartermaster has brought me a half flask of champagne. There's red
wine for the men in the baggage division. It has already been mulled.
A plate of rice soup. The earth-crumb is still sticking to my lips. I
swallow it down with the first draught of foaming wine: "I greet thee,
Life! I greet thee, Earth!" And comrades come up and are glad to see
me, old monster, again.

Thank God, my company has suffered only few losses! When I order the
Sergeant Major to read the list, only a few are missing. But this one
or that one has been seen by some one of his comrades after the fight.
Well, then they are only scattered, and will find their way back by
and by. The battalion in these two days of fighting lost thirty-eight
dead and sixty-six wounded. That includes some light wounds from
glancing bullets.

It all lies behind me like a confused dream. We are bivouacking in the
casemates of the fort. I awake several times in terror. Deep, deep
silence. Only the pacing to and fro of the sentinel on guard. To and
fro, to and fro. He is cold.

I creep deeper into the straw. Poor fellow, the sentinel. How soft
I've got it! So warm here! I have hot eyes and hot cheeks, but
ice-cold hands.

I pity all those who know life and death only from books. War is a
great teacher. We learn to love the earth. And thus our homeland
becomes so sacred to us.

Damp Humor of the Night Watch

From a field postcard written by a German soldier in the
Franco-Prussian war and sent home by one who recalled it
under similar circumstances in the present one.

I guard this shed,
But who guards me?
Around my head
But night I see.
This only comfort sweet is mine,
To soothe my graveyard cough:
"This town will pay a lovely fine
If some one picks me off."

War Correspondence

The Place of Tombs

By Perceval Gibbon.

[Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]

Zyrddow, Poland, Received in London Jan. 19.--There is a spot above
the river which must not be indicated too explicitly, but whose name
signifies in Russian the place of tombs. It is thus christened by the
troops who camp in a great forest which shadows the whole position. It
is a point at which the new German plan of thrusting toward the
railway instead of as hitherto toward the road has produced fighting
of more than Homeric quality.

The Russians, who never misjudge the value of ground, were established
here in well-made trenches, with the shelter of the forest at their
backs for reserves and supports. Upon this iron front the Germans
spent themselves in fruitless attacks, incurring crippling losses. It
was only after repeated and disastrous failure of these tactics that
they began a different method of approach.

Here, as everywhere else, they have a large amount of artillery, and
under incessant shell fire they proceeded to sap their way toward the
Russian trenches. Incidentally they expended shells enough to last an
army through the whole of a small war, and where formerly six acres of
trees projected from the main forest there are now no trees at all.

The parapet of their trench is only thirty-five paces from the Russian
parapet, and the men crouching behind their shelter can hear the
voices of their enemies. None dare lift head or hand to even the
loopholes on the breastworks, since the worst shot in the world can
send bullet after bullet through any loophole at that distance. The
Russians are able to throw hand grenades, with which their trenches
are supplied, clear into the German trenches, while the German
shelling has had to cease since their own men are in equal danger from
any shell aimed at the Russian trenches.

I rode down through the forest in an effort to reach one of the
trenches two nights ago, passing from the pale shine of the snow upon
the bare fields to sheer darkness. I found the staff established in a
spacious dugout some 400 yards behind the actual first line. Here, as
always, was a straw-padded, candle-lit interior, with an orderly
waiting, with telephone to ear, and all those rough-and-ready
contrivances by which men live who have death forever at their elbow.
Here, too, their faces disguised by weeks of beard and grimed with the
smirch of war, were burly Russian officers, those adequate and quietly
confident men who are the strength and inspiration of the Russian
Army.

In all the gloom, where all life was balanced on a hair, one thing was
steadfast and cordial, and that was the unshaken assurance of these
cheerful, expert fighting men in their power to hold the Germans and
presently to resume the offensive, to which each one of them looks
forward, and advance at last toward the frontier of Germany. None
underestimates the enemy. They criticise him in a spirit of absolute
professional impartiality, admiring quite frankly the organization and
courage of the German infantry, but condemning the artillery and
pooh-poohing the cavalry.

Yesterday morning the Germans renewed their bombardment of the
positions at Radziwillow, where the fine Russian trench is practically
impregnable, and has already cost them huge losses in their attempts
to assault it.

I had an illustration of their lack of system in artillery fire while
returning along the rear of this position. Their shells sailed up
across the woods to the south of the railway, bursting on an empty
stretch of fields about a thousand yards away, and turned seven or
eight hundred acres of virgin snow into an inferno of smoke and torn
earth, but no single shell fell nearer than a thousand yards to any
living soul.

During the last day or two I have seen a change in the nature of the
fighting on this front. The German procedure has no longer its old
character of desperate decision but has become more desultory and
their pressure flickers up and down the line as though in a panic of
effort to find some point at which the defense is weak.

I learned here from prisoners that the Germans lately have been
celebrating victories. Berlin and other cities are said to be gay with
flags, and Gen. von Hindenburg has been acclaimed as a national hero.
I can only keep my eyes on the small portion of the long front limited
by Socahczew on the north and Msczonow on the south, but in regard to
this region I can offer my personal testimony that at no point have
the Germans gained anything in the nature of a success nor made any
attack which has not been immensely more costly in lives to them than
to the Russians.

Shelled Tsing-tao With Wireless Aid

By Jefferson Jones,

Staff Correspondent of The Minneapolis Journal and Japan Advertiser.

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Jan. 24, 1915.]

Tokio, Dec. 15.--Far out in the Yellow Sea busy gunners on a Japanese
battleship aimed a 12-inch gun at one of the German forts in
Tsing-tao. Opening the breech, they removed the smoking cartridge
case, put in another loaded one, and waited to learn whether the
projectile had scattered death among the enemy or exploded harmlessly
in soft earth. They were five or six miles from their target.

The gunners gazed toward the battleship's wireless masts. Presently
came a sputter and crackle of electric sparks. An officer appeared in
the turret and said, perhaps, "Very good. Put some more in the same
place," or, "That one was fifty feet to the right or sixty feet too
high." He had received a wireless message from the shore telling
exactly where the shell had struck, probably for the first time since
naval warfare began.

At the rear of the Japanese lines, where a naval lookout had been
erected, I saw several marines focusing horned telescopes on the
besieged forts. As soon as a shell landed one of the men would
telephone the exact location to the naval wireless station at Sesheco,
which relayed the message to the warships.

The fourth day of the siege was the most severe of the whole siege of
Tsing-tao. Gen. Johoji on the extreme left, with Gen. Barnardiston of
the British expeditionary force, was pressing the intrenched Germans
near Moltke Fort. Early in the morning Gen. Johoji had sent a
detachment against the triangular pumping station fort, as it was
deemed wise not to turn the siege guns on the place, because the fort
might be destroyed and the supply of water be cut off in the city
when the troops entered. The detachment approached the fort without
any resistance from the Germans, and, surrounding it, discovered that
there was a small garrison, which had barred itself inside. The
Japanese commanded the men to surrender, threatening to dynamite the
place. The steel door was opened and twenty-three Germans walked out.

The capture of this fort was the key for the final attack of the
Japanese, as it left the central fort and redoubts exposed to fire.

Late in the afternoon the fire became extremely heavy. The Germans
seemed to be making sharp resistance to the Japanese, lest they
advance within the quarter-mile zone of the redoubt walls. The
Japanese infantry, however, were sapping away, and as dusk settled
over the field we saw the bright flash of bursting shrapnel from the
German forts. It was the first shrapnel sent out by the Germans during
the siege.

Ten, twelve, fifteen, and sometimes even twenty shrapnel shells could
be counted bursting at one time, all in a straight line, over the
Japanese front line, and then the big German searchlights would flash
about the field. They would fall on fifteen or twenty Japanese sappers
on the top of their trenches placing sandbags, and then the flash
would disappear.

Thursday, Nov. 5, seemed only a repetition of what we had seen the day
before. All night long the firing kept up, and it was evident that the
German garrison at Tsing-tao was making stubborn and gallant
resistance.

That night the Japanese forces advanced 200 yards under a heavy
shrapnel fire from the Germans. A snowstorm, followed by rain, had
filled the trenches with water a foot deep, and it was in these that
the Japanese and British forces found themselves during the closing
days of the siege.

Friday, Nov. 6, was a bitter morning. A forty-mile gale was blowing
off the Yellow Sea, and with the thermometer at 2 below zero it was
not any too comfortable, even for those of us who were fortunate
enough to get near a charcoal burner.

Toward midnight Gen. Yamada, whose men were intrenched in front of
Forts 2 and 3, sent out a detachment to learn the condition of the
German garrison opposing him. The men approached the redoubt walls of
the forts, climbed ten feet to the bottom, and found themselves face
to face with wire entanglements twenty yards wide and running the
length of the wall. No Germans were seen. Reinforcements were called
for while the scouts were cutting the entanglements. At 1 A.M., Nov.
7, Gen. Yamada with more than 300 men was behind the redoubt walls of
Fort 3.

In the meantime, heavily protected on all sides by planks and
sandbags, a detachment of 200 Germans with machine guns was watching
the approach of Gen. Barnardiston's men, who had been stationed to the
right of Gen. Yamada. The Germans were unaware that the Japanese had
gained the wall, when suddenly a sentry heard Japanese voices. The
signal was given and the Germans rushed from their sandbag houses into
the shadow of the wall, hoping to reach their comrades, stationed 500
yards back along the casement walls. Some, perhaps, reached their
destination, but the majority of the men were shot down by the
Japanese infantry.

The capture of Forts 2 and 3 by Gen. Yamada was quickly reported to
Gen. Horiuchi, and within an hour his men had captured Forts 4 and 5
with very little resistance. Gen. Johoji, on the extreme left, with
Gen. Barnardiston of the British force, also advanced with the news of
the capture of the positions, but the Germans put up a stubborn
resistance, and it was not until 6:30 A.M. that the attackers gained
the coast fort and Fort 1.

With the capture of the redoubt fortifications there still remained
the mountainous forts, Iltis, Bismarck, and Moltke, a quarter of a
mile back toward Tsing-tao. With detachments of engineers and
infantrymen, Gens. Horiuchi and Yamada ordered the general attack. The
men rushed from their trenches for the base of the forts. It was to
be a hand-to-hand bayonet attack.

But two guns on the Iltis fort had already been silenced, the four big
28-centimeter mortars on the same fort were useless for use at the
base of Iltis, while the other guns had been so placed and sandbagged
at the rear of the fort that they could not be quickly brought forward
and utilized for work along the steep slopes leading to the forts.
Rifles and machine guns were resorted to.

The Japanese, as they charged up the slope, were mowed down by the
machine guns, but on they came from all sides--17,000 men against
3,800. The German garrison could not hold out, and the white flag was
hoisted from Fort C, close to Gov. Gen. Meyer Waldeck's residence. The
surrender came at 7:05 A.M.

THE BROKEN ROSE

(TO KING ALBERT)

By ANNIE VIVANTI CHARTRES.

[From King Albert's Book.]

Shy, youthful, silent--and misunderstood,
In the white glare of Kinghood thou didst stand.
The sceptre in thy hand
Seemed but a flower the Fates had tossed to thee,
And thou wert called, perchance half scornfully,
Albert the Good.

Today thou standest on a blackened grave,
Thy broken sword still lifted to the skies.
Thy pure and fearless eyes
Gaze into Death's grim visage unappalled
And by the storm-swept nations thou art called
Albert the Brave.

Tossed on a blood-red sea of rage and hate
The frenzied world rolls forward to its doom.
But high above the gloom
Flashes the fulgent beacon of thy fame,
The nations thou hast saved exalt thy name--
Albert the Great!

* * * * *

Albert the good, the brave, the great, thy land
Lies at thy feet, a crushed and morient rose
Trampled and desecrated by thy foes.
One day a greater Belgium will be born,
But what of this dead Belgium wracked and torn?
What of this rose flung out upon the sand?

Behold! Afar where sky and waters meet
A white-robed Figure walketh on the sea
(Peace goes before Him and her face is sweet.)
As once He trod the waves of Galilee
He comes again--the tumult sinks to rest,
The stormy waters shine beneath His feet.

He sees the dead rose lying in the sand,
He lifts the dead rose in His holy hand
And lays it at His breast.

O broken rose of Belgium, thou art blest!

The Emden at Penang

Pen Picture by a Times Correspondent of the Havoc She Wrought

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES Correspondent in Penang.]

Penang, Straits Settlements, Oct. 29.--The German cruiser Emden called
here yesterday and departed, leaving death and destruction behind her.
You will doubtless have learned long before this story of her visit,
carried by the slow mails of the Far East, is read in the United
States some account of the Emden's raid, but the cable can hardly
carry a detailed picture of the destruction wrought in a brief hour or
so yesterday in this busy harbor, and it seems worth while to describe
for you how this sudden vision of war burst on Penang.

For those who do not know, the City of Penang lies on the western
coast of the Malay Peninsula, just below the Siamese border. It is the
shipping point of the Federated Malay States, where 65 per cent. of
the world's tin is produced, as well as a great amount of rubber and
copra. With a population of 246,000, it is growing by leaps and bounds
and gives every indication of soon becoming one of the largest ports
in the Far East.

The thing that makes this city a point of importance in the present
war is the fact that it is the last port of call for ships going from
China and Japan to Colombo and Europe. As a result, it has been made
more or less of a naval base by the English Government. Large stores
of Admiralty coal have been collected and all vessels have been
commanded to stop here for orders before crossing the Bay of Bengal.

It was probably with the idea of crippling this base, from which her
pursuers were radiating, that the Emden made her raid here. Had she
found it temporarily undefended she could at one blow seriously have
embarrassed the English cruisers patrolling these waters and at the
same time cause a terrific loss to English commerce by sinking the
many merchantmen at anchor in the harbor.

It was early on Wednesday morning that the Emden, with a dummy fourth
funnel and flying the British ensign, in some inexplicable fashion
sneaked past the French torpedo boat Mosquet, which was on patrol duty
outside, and entered the outer harbor of Penang. Across the channel
leading to the inner harbor lay the Russian cruiser Jemtchug. Inside
were the French torpedo boats Fronde and Pistolet and the torpedo boat
destroyer D'Iberville. The torpedo boats lay beside the long
Government wharf, while the D'Iberville rode at anchor between two
tramp steamers.

At full speed the Emden steamed straight for the Jemtchug and the
inner harbor. In the semi-darkness of the early morning the Russian
took her for the British cruiser Yarmouth, which had been in and out
two or three times during the previous week and did not even "query"
her. Suddenly, when less than 400 yards away, the Emden emptied her
bow guns into the Jemtchug and came on at a terrific pace, with all
the guns she could bring to bear in action. When she had come within
250 yards she changed her course slightly, and as she passed the
Jemtchug poured two broadsides into her, as well as a torpedo, which
entered the engine room but did comparatively little damage.

The Russian cruiser was taken completely by surprise and was badly
crippled before she realized what was happening. The fact that her
Captain was spending the night ashore and that there was no one on
board who seemed capable of acting energetically completed the
demoralization. She was defeated before the battle began. However, her
men finally manned the light guns and brought them into action.

In the meantime the Emden was well inside the inner harbor and among
the shipping. She saw the French torpedo boats there, and apparently
realized at once that unless she could get out before they joined in
the action her fate was sealed. At such close quarters (the range was
never more than 450 yards) their torpedoes would have proved deadly.
Accordingly, she turned sharply and made for the Jemtchug once more.

All the time she had been in the harbor the Russian had been
bombarding her with shrapnel, but, owing to the notoriously bad
marksmanship prevalent in the Czar's navy, had succeeded for the most
part only in peppering every merchant ship within range. As the Emden
neared the Jemtchug again both ships were actually spitting fire. The
range was practically point-blank. Less than 150 yards away the Emden
passed the Russian, and as she did so torpedoed her amidships,
striking the magazine. There was a tremendous detonation, paling into
insignificance by its volume all the previous din; a heavy black
column of smoke arose and the Jemtchug sank in less than ten seconds,
while the Emden steamed behind the point to safety.

No sooner had she done so, however, than she sighted the torpedo boat
Mosquet, which had heard the firing and was coming in at top speed.
The Emden immediately opened up on her, thereby causing her to turn
around in an endeavor to escape. It was too late. After a running
fight of twenty minutes the Mosquet seemed to be hit by three shells
simultaneously and sank very rapidly. The German had got a second
victim.

It was here that the chivalrous bravery of the Emden's Captain, which
has been many times in evidence throughout her meteoric career, was
again shown. If the French boats were coming out, every moment was of
priceless value to him. Nevertheless, utterly disregarding this, he
stopped, lowered boats, and picked up the survivors from the Mosquet
before steaming on his way.

The English here now say of him, admiringly, "He played the game."

Meantime, boats of all descriptions had started toward the place where
the Russian cruiser had last been seen. The water was covered with
debris of all sorts, to which the survivors were clinging. They
presented a horrible sight when they were landed on Victoria Pier,
which the ambulance corps of the Sikh garrison turned into a temporary
hospital. Almost all of them had wounds of one sort or another. Many
were covered with them. Their blood-stained and, for the most part,
naked bodies were enough to send shivers through even the most
cold-blooded person. It was a sight I shall not forget for many a day.
Out of a crew of 334 men 142 were picked up wounded. Only 94 were
found practically untouched. Ninety-eight were "missing." It is not
yet known how many of the crew of the 78 of the Mosquet were rescued
by the Emden.

So much of the story I am able to write from personal observation and
investigation. Here, however, is an account of what occurred from an
officer who saw it all from closer range and more intimate conditions,
for he was on the French torpedo boat destroyer Pistolet. I tell his
story exactly as he told it to me:

"The Captain of the Pistolet had invited Capt. T. and myself to have a
game of bridge whist on board. His ship was lying alongside the
Government wharf, just inside the inner harbor. The game proved a most
interesting one and time flew by unnoticed. Finally, just before 1
A.M., it came to a close, but, owing to the fact that our going home
at that hour of the morning would mean a rikisha ride of over two
miles, the Captain stretched a point and invited us to remain on
board, which we did. Little did we know what our decision was to mean
to us.

"At 5:25 the next morning, just as day was breaking, I was awakened by
a deafening crash, followed by two others in rapid succession. Without
waiting for more, I pulled my ducks over my pajamas and hurried on
deck. Right before us, at the entrance to the inner harbor, lay the
Russian cruiser Jemtchug. Steaming toward her at full speed came the
German cruiser Emden, her bow guns belching forth vast clouds of
smoke, through which the flash of the guns could just be
distinguished. She was less than half a mile away. After what seemed
to me an interminable delay, the surprised Jemtchug started to reply
with her small guns, and the din grew greater and greater.

"As the Emden came on she swerved slightly out of her course and
steamed down the far side of the channel, thus bringing her broadside
guns to bear on the Jemtchug, which by this time was literally
spitting fire. The range now was less than 300 yards, and the
execution being done must have been terrible. We noticed, however,
that the greater number of the Russian shells were 'carrying over.'

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