The capture by the British of Linselles along the Lys placed the Germans in the salient in a highly precarious position as the Allies pressed forward, and it was inevitable that they must soon retire to save themselves.

Outside Courtrai the infantry made an advance of about three miles. Here they were forced to crush stubborn enemy attacks, the Germans having received orders to hold on to the last. Very few of their machine gunners who tried to hold up the Allied advance managed to escape.

From the Thielt positions, where the French cavalry, owing to the hardness of the ground and roads, were able to operate freely and consequently worry the Germans, the Holland border was less than twenty miles. It was through this gap that the Germans throughout the whole Belgian coast system must retire if they were to save themselves, provided that the Allies continued to advance. Every yard of ground gained by the Allies in this area lessened the Germans' chances of escape by narrowing the gap through which they must go.

The Allied offensive in Flanders did not spend itself for nearly three days, the German retreat becoming more and more disorderly so that at some points it was a veritable rout. The entire Belgian front from the south was in constant movement. From Ostend and that section of the Belgian coast the Germans fled precipitately. British naval forces and Belgian aviators entered Ostend on October 17, 1918, where they were received with cheers and tears of joy by the inhabitants.

The Allied infantry made rapid progress on October 17-18, 1918, while the Germans were hurrying eastward through the passage between Bruges and the Holland border. There was only one good road that they could take and consequently this was crowded with transports and by troops in flight continually harassed by the Belgian guns. The whole of the German army under General von Arnim, comprising seventeen divisions, was in retreat from the north to the region of Lille. King Albert of Belgium and Queen Elizabeth entered Ostend in the afternoon of October 17, 1918.

CHAPTER V

THE GERMANS RETREAT ON ALL FRONTS—BRITISH CAPTURE VALENCIENNES—THE ARMISTICE—THE WAR OVER

The Allies continued to be masters of the situation on the Flanders front. October 17-18, 1918, Zeebrugge, the only submarine base on the coast remaining to the Germans after they were driven out of Ostend, and Blankenberghe, a port four miles to the southwest, were occupied. The French gained possession of Thielt and advanced a mile east of the town. Southeast of Douai the British occupied a number of villages. Roubaix and Tourcoing were entered in the afternoon of October 18, 1918. Southeast of Cambrai, on the Bohain-Le Cateau front, where Anglo-American forces were operating, over 4,000 prisoners were taken in the space of twenty-four hours. From the Oise River eastward to the Argonne Forest French troops made important advances and gained fifteen villages, many of which had been heavily fortified by the enemy.

All that remained now of the important German conquests in France was the somewhat narrow frontier tract between Valenciennes and Metz. Here were two small salients around which there was intense fighting that continued almost without cessation October 17-18, 1918.

The Americans and General Gouraud's troops on the east were hammering at the strong German positions on the Grand Pré heights, a northern extension of the Argonne Forest. Here the Germans had some of their best troops stationed, who held on with grim determination, for a break through between the Aisne and the Meuse would cut off their retreat into Luxemburg and force them back to the forest of the Ardennes. The other salient between Le Cateau and Rethel was so fraught with danger to the troops holding it that early in the morning of October 18, 1918, the Germans began to abandon their positions under pressure of the advancing French troops.

On the west of the Oise General von Hutier was fighting desperately to hold back the advance of General Debeney toward Guise. The French stormed Petit Verey and Marchavenne, and continuing to push on captured Mennevret in the morning of October 18, 1918.

The Germans were favored by two important obstacles, the group of hills east of Berneville and the mass of Andigny Forest lying before Wassigny. They might attempt to make a stand on the Oise near Guise and along the Oise-Sambre Canal, but their forces had been so badly cut up by the French that their plight had become increasingly desperate. In less than a day they had lost more than 5,500 men and a vast amount of military supplies.

The British army, operating in conjunction with the Belgians, attacked on October 20, 1918, to the north and advanced past Courtrai. The recovery of Ghent had now become inevitable if the push could be maintained. For the Allied guns were pounding the Germans on all sides, while their cavalry patrols, leading the infantry, pressed on closer and closer to the city.

Meanwhile the British Third Army pushed its way eastward to the south of Valenciennes, endangering all the German forces northward to Flanders and southward to the Oise Canal behind which the enemy had begun to retreat before British and Americans. This thrust upset the German plan of trying to hold the line east of the Scheldt.

The British Third Army encountered the heaviest fighting in carrying out this operation, for the Germans realized the importance of delaying here their advance. Smashing all resistance the British gained the high ground to the east of the line from which they were advancing in the face of a torrential hail of machine-gun bullets. The destructive gun nests were rapidly cleaned up, and the German losses were very heavy. Fighting was especially bloody in the region of St. Python, where the enemy fought behind barricades. South of Le Cateau the British and Americans continued to make steady progress. American patrols pushing out from the Mazinghien area had now reached the banks of the Oise Canal. In this region German guns were constantly active and all villages around were heavily shelled. It was necessary to remove the civilians from some of these towns to places of safety. The Germans entirely disregarded their presence.

Every hour now France and Belgium were recovering precious soil and cities, and thousands of their people were being liberated from German bondage. Especially grateful to the Belgians was the recovery of the ancient city of Bruges which Belgians and British won on October 20, 1918, though German rear guards were in the neighborhood. War had not changed greatly the grand old city built in the middle ages, or injured the beauty of its quaint architecture. The inhabitants massed before the Hôtel de Ville were celebrating their liberation from the Germans' yoke. Everyone had a flag or banner—British, Belgian, or French—and the British troops were received with the wildest enthusiasm and hailed as saviors.

Throughout the night of October 20-21, 1918, and during the day the Allied troops were everywhere driving the Germans eastward. In Belgium they were now within three miles of Eecloo and along the whole forty-mile stretch between Courtrai and the Dutch border British, French, and Belgians were hustling the enemy backward and closing in around Ghent. In the center the British were on the west bank of the Scheldt, north of Tournai, before which the Germans were making a determined stand with countless machine guns. Frontally the British held positions near Valenciennes, and to the northwest had penetrated the great Viccigne-Raismes Forest. Northwest of Lille they were driving on toward Le Quesnoy and fighting every foot of the way.

The great battle had now entered into the second phase. The first was the wiping out of the Lille salient, when the Germans were driven out of western Belgium. This accomplished, the Allies on the north started a sweeping movement on October 20-21, 1918, pivoting on a point east of Courtrai, the purpose of which was to clear the Germans from their front in northern Belgium and at the same time threaten their right flank.

In the center of the fighting area the British were pushing forward toward the west bank of the Scheldt. The Germans took advantage of the width of the stream and its marshy borders, where they found some protection from the Allied pressure. They were hiding in shallow trenches; their artillery in the rear, sadly depleted in numbers, afforded them very little help. In their hurried flight the Germans had little time in which to remove their artillery and vast stores of ammunition. They destroyed some material, but a great deal fell into the hands of the Allies, especially guns. These were promptly turned toward the east, and shells made in Germany were hurled at their former owners as they fled in panicky retreat.

October 21-22, 1918, on the twenty-five-mile front from Pont-à-Chin northwest of Tournai to Thiant, southwest of Valenciennes, British troops engaged along the western bank of the Scheldt won ground at many points. South of Tournai they captured the villages of Hollain and Bruyelle and drove into the western suburbs of Valenciennes.

In northern Belgium troops under King Albert gained the Lys Canal on the whole of their front and had pushed across the stream. The Second British Army, advancing on a front of about a mile between the Lys and the Scheldt under heavy artillery and machine-gun fire established a bridgehead on the river to the east of Pecq.

The Third and Fourth British Armies began a new drive on October 23, 1918, to the south of Valenciennes, smashing through strong German defenses to a depth of three miles and capturing many important villages, several thousand prisoners and numerous guns. This attack resulted in the driving of a wedge into German positions at a point considered the most vital of the lines which the Germans were holding. The enemy fought courageously, the gunners holding out to the last.

The British First Army to the north continued to harass the foe by continued attacks, and gained positions well to the northeast of Valenciennes whose fall was imminent. The British were now only three miles from Le Quesnoy and still forging ahead toward the town. Catillon was carried early in the fighting, and later the British occupied Ors. Before retreating, the Germans destroyed all the bridges over the canal between these places.

The heaviest fighting in this battle was in Leveque Wood, where the Germans had cunningly hidden machine-gun nests that were difficult to overcome. But the wood was cleared after a time and the British pressed on to the great Mormal Forest on the edge of which the Germans were concentrating troops to make a stand.

The British continued to make gains on the following day south of Valenciennes, capturing several villages and strong points. On the north the Germans were cleared from the Raismes Forest. Advances were made along the whole front between the Sambre Canal and the Scheldt (about seventeen miles), and the forward pressure continued without relaxation, though the Germans attempted by counterattacks to gain time. Since the fighting began on the previous day over 7,000 prisoners and 100 guns were captured by the British.

In order to check the advance on Valenciennes the Germans broke down the banks and opened the sluice gates northeast and southwest of the city and flooded vast stretches of country. The British, however, continued to drive ahead, and fighting their way into the city from the west, there were spirited fights in the streets between patrols. During the night of October 23-24, 1918, artillery duels increased on the battle front south of the city.

The British gunners wrought fearful damage in the traffic-crowded roads to the rear of the German line. The advance of the British in the moonlight, protected by flocks of night bombing airplanes, offered a strange and moving dramatic spectacle. At Pomereuil they were held up for a time by a heavy concentration of machine guns. Waiting until the advance had made progress north and south of them, they swept around on both sides of the gun nests. They found the German machine gunners occupying positions around a triangular space that had been cleared. The British, ignoring the invitation to enter the clearing, passed the gunners and captured Pomereuil Wood behind the triangle, and thus surrounded the enemy. Then they stormed and carried the position.

Continuing their attacks upon the German lines south of Valenciennes, the British on October 25, 1918, advancing on a front of between six and seven miles, reached the Le Quesnoy-Valenciennes railway, capturing several villages on the way. Simultaneously with this operation the French armies, striking on the Serre and Aisne Rivers over a front of about forty miles, advanced their lines at all points, capturing villages and positions and taking over 3,000 prisoners. East of Courtrai, in the direction of the Scheldt, the British and French troops made further progress, wresting a number of villages and positions from the enemy.

The climax of the French attack was General Guillemat's drive east of Laon against the Hunding position, the elaborately prepared line protecting the German center. Here was a quadruple trench system backed by concrete shelters, five lines of barbed wire each twenty feet deep, and the ground between planted with antitank mines, yet the indomitable French soldiers broke through it on a ten-mile front between St. Quentin-le-Petit and Herpy, and held their ground against deluges of gas and high-explosive shells.

On the center of the great offensive General Mangin's army took Mortiers, on the south bank of the Serre, and gained a bridgehead north of the river.

Farther north the British continued to press forward toward Valenciennes, and on their right General Plumer's troops under command of King Albert continued to cooperate in the drive against the German line on the Scheldt.

On the whole forty-mile front of the offensive which the French began on October 25, 1918, great gains of territory were made. The Germans lost Crecy-sur-Serre in the center, and were forced to abandon a good part of the Hunding position. In two days Generals Debeney and Guillemat captured more than 6,000 prisoners, twenty cannon, and hundreds of machine guns. On October 27, 1918, General Debeney had pushed on to the outskirts of Guise. The Germans on this date launched three fierce attacks against three different points on the British front southeast of Valenciennes, all of which ended for them in disaster and heavy losses.

The British forward movement south of Valenciennes slowed down on October 28, 1918, but the French between the Oise and the Serre drove the Germans back two miles at the apex of their attack in the region of Bois-les-Pargny. On the Aisne front west of Château Porcien they drove forward to the north of Herpy.

In Belgium the Allies' positions became daily more favorable, while the difficulties of the Germans increased proportionately. The Allies were now within five miles of Ghent, and it was only owing to the delay in bringing up artillery that the city had not already fallen. In the hope of destroying the Allies' lines of communication with Bruges the Germans kept Stroobrigge under continuous fire. Maideghem and Aldeghem were also subjected to incessant artillery attacks.

The retirement of General Ludendorff, formerly chief of staff and really generalissimo of the German armies at this time, was an event of the highest importance. As the persistent advocate of war to the bitter end, and which he had never failed to assert would result in the defeat of Germany's enemies, his throwing up the sponge at a time of crisis in his country's destiny could only mean one of two things: he had all the effective power of the empire against him, or he foresaw the triumph of the Allies and was eager to seek cover before the German armies were forced to surrender.

On the last day of the month the Allies wrested from the Germans a big slice of territory in Belgium between Deynze on the north and Avelghem on the south on a battle front of about fifteen miles. The attack in which Belgian, French, British, and American troops were engaged, was launched before 6 o'clock in the morning, and by noon the British had broken their way through to a depth of 400 yards while on their left their allies were encountering strong opposition, but winning high ground between the Lys and Scheldt Rivers. Many towns and hamlets were liberated during this drive, including Pergwyk, Tierghein, Anseghem and Winterken. The front of this attack was about twelve miles, and German positions were penetrated to a depth of three and four miles.

The Allies resumed the offensive on this battle front on the following day and won an advance of more than five miles, which brought them to the Scheldt from Berchem to Gavere, ten miles south of Ghent. South of Valenciennes an advance of two miles resulted in the capture of Alnoy and Preseau. This forward drive carried the British to the southern edge of the flooded territory around Valenciennes. They captured during the advance between 3,000 and 4,000 prisoners.

The city of Valenciennes which the Germans had held so long and so tenaciously was captured by the British in the morning of November 2, 1918. The Canadian troops under General Currie encountered strong resistance from the enemy in the outskirts, and after a hard struggle crushed all resistance and entered the city. Other British contingents pressing on beyond Valenciennes occupied St. Saulve to the northeast on the road to Mons. West of Landrécies in the Mormal Forest region the British advanced their lines and took a number of prisoners.

The Germans by opening the Scheldt sluice gates had flooded the northern side of the city, and their only way of escape was to the southeast, where they had concentrated all their available forces. These fought with stubborn energy, but they failed to more than delay for a time the advance of the Canadians and English, who were supported by an immense concentration of artillery. The enemy's counterattacks were made with the help of tanks, but they all broke down, and the British captured the tanks and thousands of prisoners. Valenciennes, though in British hands on November 2, 1918, was still an uncomfortable place for the inhabitants, who were in a confused state of mind twixt joy and fear. There was joy that they had been liberated and fear because of the shells that were falling around them and passing over the houses. The way from Douai to Valenciennes was a scene of ruin and desolation as the British and Canadians had fought their way through the villages along these roads, and most of the houses were smashed by German shells.

An interesting souvenir left by the Germans in Valenciennes was a poster on the walls which the inhabitants of the city could now afford to laugh at. This was an order for the mobilization of all the men between the ages of 15 and 35, who must present themselves to the German commandant in order to be evacuated through the German lines. In case any disregarded this order severe penalties were to be exacted. This order was dated October 31, 1918, and the day of mobilization was to take place on November 1, 1918, the day before the British entered the city. Twenty thousand people were expelled by force on October 3, 1918, and driven in the direction of Mons. Only about 5,000 remained in the city and these were employed by the Germans in city work, such as maintaining the fire and water supplies, cleaning the streets, washing, and in various menial offices. Among those in the city when the British took possession were many who after the expulsion on October 3, 1918, were too feeble to continue the march and had dropped out, encumbering the German line of retreat. There were others who had escaped from their German captors, and also a number of young men who had hidden themselves and lived in cellars for days.

During the last week of the German occupation only one regiment was allowed in the city and this was chiefly to pillage, as the troops defending the place were holding positions outside. Many houses were looted, especially on the night before the British stormed the outskirts.

The German officers were especially eager for souvenirs which took the form of valuable paintings cut from the frames, and which they found in houses of the better class. The German Government had been hard, and there were fines for the slightest infraction of rules, which increased in severity as the enemy needed money. Trivial offenses at first were punished by a hundred marks fine, but in the last days of German occupation it was raised to two thousand marks.

While the British were driving forward on the Valenciennes front the American army was winning laurels north of Verdun, where they smashed the Freya Line and put the Germans to rout. The advance on this difficult front was intended to cut the German line of communications. This was achieved.

On the left of the Americans the French Fourth Army was in hot pursuit of the Germans who were fleeing across the Argonne Forest. The French smashed the enemy's rear guards, who attempted to delay the advance, and made important progress along the whole line of attack. On the left Semuy was taken and the French lines were carried as far as the southern bank of the Ardennes Canal. To the south Bois Vandy and the village of Balay were cleared of Germans, who fought desperately but were unable to delay for more than a few hours the irresistible advance of the French troops. On the right Longwe and Primat were occupied. North of the last-named place the French pushed on past Chêne Pâté and despite that formidable obstacle, the Argonne Forest, continued to pursue the Germans, whose retreat was so hurried that they left large quantities of material on the field which they had not found time to destroy. In the course of this advance the French captured over 1,400 prisoners.

South and east of Valenciennes, where the Germans had established positions, the British on November 2-3, 1918, were fighting their way forward, driving back the enemy rear guards and taking prisoners.

Field Marshal Haig's troops won another notable victory on November 4, 1918, when attacking on a thirty-mile front between the Scheldt and the Oise-Sambre Canal, with the French cooperating on the right, a drive was made into enemy positions and over 10,000 Germans and 200 guns were captured. The British drive, in which troops of the First, Third, and Fourth Armies participated, resulted in the capture of Landrécies south of the Mormal Forest, Catillon, and a considerable number of smaller towns, and advanced the British lines more than three miles to the east of the Oise-Sambre Canal. North of this stream, in the great Mormal Forest, the British won strongly fortified positions and advanced to the center of the wood.

To the south the Fifth French Army under General Debeney, linking up with the British, forced the passage of the canal and made an advance to a depth of two miles beyond it, driving the Germans from a number of villages of great strategic importance. In this advance the French bagged 30,000 prisoners and a large number of cannon.

King Albert's army in Belgium continued to gain victories and to press the German retreat. He had completed the work of forcing the enemy across the Terneuzen Canal, which runs northward from Ghent and is close to the suburbs of the city on two sides. South of Ghent the west bank of the Scheldt was now in the hands of the Allies.

British and French armies in Belgium continued to crush and overrun the German positions. In the morning of November 5, 1918, the British forced their way through the greater part of the Mormal Forest, the infantry being east of a line through Locquignol and Les Grandes Pâtures. They had overcome the formidable defenses on the western fringe of the forest and had now confronting them only hastily improvised machine-gun posts. The French continued to drive the Germans before them between the Sambre Canal and the Argonne Forest, clearing the enemy out of wide stretches of territory and carrying their line forward more than six miles. The towns of Guise and Marie were captured during this advance and 4,000 Germans and 60 guns.

On November 6, 1918, a German delegation left Berlin for the western front to conclude an armistice with Marshal Foch, representing the Allied armies. The negotiations led to a cessation of hostilities on November 11, 1918.

The victorious sweep of the Allies continued undiminished from the Scheldt to the Meuse, where the Germans were being driven back along the whole front. On November 6, 1918, the British, advancing east of the Mormal Forest, occupied a number of villages and the important railway junction at Aulnoye. The French armies made a bound of from five to seven miles along the whole front. Vervins, Rethel, and Montcornet, all important places, were occupied and the advance continued.

Crossing the Belgian border north and east of Hirson, French cavalry occupied a number of villages and the important fortress of Hirson, advancing their line nine miles at some points. Along the entire thirty-mile front from the junction of the French and British armies to the Meuse east of Mézières, now strongly invested, the French pushed on with irresistible ardor. The water barriers of the Thon and the Aure were forced, and the plateaus to the north occupied. On the British front the same story of victory was repeated. Field Marshal Haig's troops completed the capture of Tournai, and Antoing, to the south of that Belgian city, was occupied. On November 9, 1918, the British had driven forward to the outskirts of Renaix, twelve miles northeast of Tournai. The Second and Fifth Armies meanwhile had gained the east bank of the Scheldt throughout their entire front. These operations took place north of the Mons-Condé Canal, along the line of which the British were advancing on Mons. South of the Belgian frontier they took the important town of Maubeuge, and pressed on toward the Belgian frontier on both sides of the Sambre, meeting with only feeble resistance from the disorganized enemy.

The remaining inhabitants of Tournai, which the British entered on November 8, 1918, received their liberators with wild demonstrations of joy such as only a people were capable of who had lived for years under the tyrannic rule of the Germans. For three weeks before the British captured the town the inhabitants had been living in cellars in hourly fear that the furious gunfire would smash the buildings above their heads and that they would be buried in the ruins. There was also the dread that asphyxiating gas would creep into their hiding places and destroy them with its fumes. A month before British occupation the Germans had carried away all the able-bodied men in the place, numbering more than 10,000, leaving their women-folk to weep for them. For a week previous to the British entry Tournai was under bombardment day and night. Then forty-eight hours before the Germans were driven out more terrible sounds were heard by the frightened people hiding in the cellars, explosions that shook every building as by an earthquake. The Germans were blowing up the bridges over the Scheldt Canal, and their retreat from Tournai had begun.

Though German delegates were on their way to the French front to arrange for an armistice, the Allies continued to fight and advance with the same irresistible ardor as if there had been no question of a cessation of hostilities. In southern Belgium the British continued to carry their lines forward, reaching on November 10, 1918, the Franco-Belgian frontier south of the Sambre. North of the Mons-Condé Canal they pressed on beyond the Scheldt, capturing Leuze, while British cavalry advanced to Ath, which lies sixteen miles east of Tournai.

Farther to the north the British captured Renaix and carried their line to a point four miles to the east of that place.

While the British were sweeping on in southern Belgium the French were engaged in repulsing strong attacks launched against them as they crossed the Meuse. Numerous villages along the whole line were freed from the enemy. Here, as at other places, the haste of the German retreat was emphasized by the abandonment of vast stores of war material, cannon, and even railroad trains, which fell into the hands of the French.

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon of November 10, 1918, General Gouraud made his official entry into Sedan; a thrilling hour for the French as they recalled the German triumph here in the war of 1870.

Slowly, but surely, French territory occupied by the enemy along the Belgian frontier was diminishing in size. The French troops everywhere were now within a short day's march of the border line, and but for the congested roads encumbered with traffic, and by the booty which the Germans left behind, the liberation of French soil could have been completed in less than a day's advance.

Though it was known among the troops of the Allies as well as by the Germans that an armistice might be declared at any moment, there were no changes in the attitude of the combatants. The Germans fought when they had to, sullenly and determinedly, but most of their efforts were concentrated in making all haste they could to reach the border. To the last they showed a savage spirit, and nowhere more so than at Mézières, where throughout the morning of November 10, 1918, their batteries deluged the city with high explosives and poison gas. There 20,000 civilians—men, women, and children—were shut in, with no hope of escape. Incendiary shells fired a hospital, and it was necessary to evacuate the wounded to the cellars near by, where the panic-stricken inhabitants were crouching. There was some protection from shells in the cellars, but none against the heavy fumes of poison gas with which the Germans proceeded to flood the city. There were no gas masks and no chemicals that would enable the people to improvise protective head coverings.

The British captured Mons during the night of November 10-11, 1918, after a stiff fight outside the town. For the British the war ended at Mons as it had begun there. Since early morning their troops knew that the armistice had been signed, and that hostilities would cease at 11 o'clock. All the way to Mons British forces were on the march with bands playing, and nearly every man carried on his rifle a little flag of France or Belgium.

Ghent was the last Belgian town which was rescued from the Germans before the armistice. They held the canal in front of it by machine-gun fire until 2 o'clock in the morning of November 11, 1918, when they made a hurried retreat.

A dozen Belgian soldiers, led by a young lieutenant, were the first to enter the city, and a few minutes later the streets were thronged with people wild with joy, who embraced the troops and each other, shouting and cheering. After four years of oppressive German rule Ghent of historic memories was free.

Hostilities ceased on all the battle fronts at 11 a. m. on November 11, 1918. The machine guns and great cannon that had rattled and thundered for fifty months were silent. On the front lines, when the last shot was fired, the British, Americans, and Belgians gave free vent to their feelings of joy that the war was over, the victory won. The soldiers of France were less demonstrative and seemed unable at first to realize that the long-drawn agony was ended; but though they did not express themselves in wild cheering, every face was aglow with pride and happiness. Back of the lines, among the ruined villages, there were more evidences of the gladness that filled every war-weary heart, and while church bells rung out a joyous peal the songs of victory, which had cheered the poilus through the long conflict, resounded again with a deeper feeling and more triumphant note.

According to the terms of the armistice the Germans yielded over to Allied occupation "the countries on the left bank of the Rhine," together with surrender to Allied control of the crossings of the Rhine at Mayence, Coblenz, and Cologne, including bridgeheads of thirty-kilometer radius on the eastern bank of the river and the establishment of a neutral zone on that bank from thirty to forty kilometers in breadth and running from the frontier of Holland to the Swiss frontier.

On November 17, 1918, the Allied armies of occupation began the march to the Rhine. The American army, consisting of six divisions under General Dickman, was the first to start, moving in a northeasterly direction on a front of fifty miles from Mouzon on the Meuse to beyond Fresnes. At Montmédy, the first important place reached by the Americans, they were received with wild acclamation by the inhabitants and the Stars and Stripes waved from the Hôtel de Ville. At Longwy and Briey, the great industrial centers, it was the same story. Lorraine and Luxemburg were crossed and Coblenz was reached on December 12, 1918, where headquarters of the army of occupation were established.

On the same date the British Second and Fourth Army under Generals Plumer and Rawlinson began their advance to Cologne. In conjunction with their allies, a French army under General Mangin set out for Mayence, while General Pétain, now a marshal of France, entered Metz. Throughout Belgium and France the armies of the Allies received the most enthusiastic reception in which there was no discordant note. It was only when they crossed the border and entered Germany that they met with veiled hostility. There were crowds and bands, but no enthusiasm. But, if this was lacking, there were no aggressive manifestations of hatred toward the invaders of the Fatherland. A sense of joy and relief that the war was over vanquished for the time at least every other feeling.

PART II—RUSSIA

CHAPTER VI

COUNTERING THE GERMANS IN FALLEN RUSSIA

With the complete surrender of Bolshevist Russia to the Germans, through the notorious Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, there was presented to the Allies the problem of supporting those elements in the country still disposed to resist the Teutonic invasion. Military intervention, by way of Siberia, with the active assistance of the Japanese, was proposed, but met with the determined opposition of President Wilson, whose strong democratic principles deterred him from interfering with the internal affairs of Russia under any pretext whatever. Subsequently he modified his views on this point, being largely influenced by the Czecho-Slovak movement, one of the most remarkable and picturesque features of the entire war.

As already stated in previous installments of this work, the Czecho-Slovaks were Slavic soldiers of the Austrian armies who had been taken prisoners by the Russians, and who, after the fall of the Czar, volunteered to fight against the Central Powers with the Allies because of their desire to obtain independence for Bohemia and Slovakia, parts of the dominions of the Austrian empire. They look a leading part in the offensive which Kerensky attempted against the Teutons, and which failed so disastrously on account of the broken morale of the Russians. When the Bolsheviki seized the reins of government, the Czecho-Slovaks refused to lay down their arms and asked that they might be permitted to retire from Russia by way of Vladivostok, whence they hoped to be transported to France and allowed to take their place with the Allies on the western front. To this arrangement the Bolsheviki agreed, and the Czecho-Slovaks began at once embarking on trains over the Trans-Siberian Railroad. But before even the first contingents had safely reached Vladivostok, friction broke out between them and the Bolsheviki, which presently took on the aspect of an armed conflict, with remarkably successful results for the Czecho-Slovaks, who gained almost complete possession of the railroad and large areas of Siberia.

The Bolsheviki maintained that Allied intrigues had caused the Czecho-Slovaks to turn on them, while the Allied representatives laid the blame to German pressure applied to the Soviet Government. Captain Vladimir Hurban, an officer of the Czecho-Slovak Army, who came to Washington to report to Prof. Masaryk, President of the National Council of the Czecho-Slovaks, supplies details which are not only of vivid interest in themselves, but assist in fixing the responsibility for the bloodshed which resulted in such advantages to the Allied cause.

"When the Bolshevist Soviet Government signed the peace treaty in the beginning of March, 1918," says Captain Hurban, in his personal narrative, "our army of about 50,000 was in Ukrainia, near Kiev.... The Germans advanced against us in overwhelming numbers and there was danger that we would be surrounded.... The Bolshevist Red Guards had seized the locomotives and were fleeing east in panic. Under these circumstances Emperor Charles sent us a special envoy with the promise that if we would disarm we should be amnestied and our land should receive autonomy. We refused to negotiate with the Austrian emperor.

"As we could not hold a front, we began to retreat to the eastward.... When we arrived at Bachmac the Germans were there waiting for us. There began a battle lasting four days, in which they were badly defeated and which enabled us to get our trains through. The commander of the German detachment offered us a forty-eight hour truce, which we accepted, for our duty was to leave Ukrainia. The truce was canceled by the German chief commander, Linsingen, but too late; our trains had already got away. We lost altogether about 600 men in dead, wounded, and missing, while we buried 2,000 Germans in one day.

"In this manner we escaped from Ukrainia. Our relations with the Bolsheviki were still good. We refrained from meddling in Russian internal affairs, and we tried to come to an agreement with the Bolshevist Government with respect to our departure, or passage through Russia. But already signs were visible that the Bolsheviki, either under German influence or because we then represented the only real power in Russia, would try to put obstacles in our way. It would have sufficed to order one of our regiments—our army was then, in March, near Moscow—to take Moscow, and in half a day there would have been no Bolshevist Government; for then we were well armed, having taken from the front everything we could carry, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Germans.... To prove indisputably our loyalty we turned over to the Bolsheviki everything, all our arms, with the exception of a few rifles (ten rifles to each 100 men). The equipment we turned over to the Bolsheviki, including arms, horses, automobiles, aeroplanes, etc., was worth more than a million rubles, and it was legally in our possession, for we took it away from the Germans, to whom it had been abandoned by the fleeing Bolsheviki. This transfer of the equipment was, of course, preceded by an agreement made between us and the Moscow Government by which we were guaranteed unmolested passage through Siberia, to which the Government pledged to give its unconditional support....

"Under such circumstances we began our pilgrimage east. I was in the first train—there were then eighty trains of us—which was to prepare the way. We were determined to leave Russia without a conflict. Notwithstanding that we kept our word, that we surrendered all arms except the few necessary, our progress was hindered, and unending negotiations had to be repeated in every seat of a local soviet. We were threatened by machine guns, cannon, but we patiently stood it all, though the Bolsheviki Red Guard could have been disbanded by a few of our volunteers. After fifty-seven days of such tiresome travel our first train arrived at Vladivostok, where we were enthusiastically received by the Allied units stationed there.

"When the Germans saw that we, notwithstanding all their intrigues, were nearing Vladivostok, they exercised a direct pressure on Lenine and Trotzky; for the things that were committed by the Soviets cannot any further be explained away on the grounds of ignorance. The trains were stopped at different stations, so that they were finally stopped at a distance of fifty miles from each other. Provoking incidents of all kinds were the order of the day. The arming of the German and Magyar prisoners was begun on a large scale. One of the orders of Tchitcherin, Bolshevist foreign minister, reads: 'Dispatch all German and Magyar prisoners out of Siberia; stop the Czecho-Slovaks.' Three members of our National Council, who were sent to Moscow for an explanation of the stopping of our trains, were arrested. At the same time our trains were attacked at different stations by Soviet troops, formed mostly of German and Magyar prisoners.

"I will recall the Irkutsk incident. Our train, with about 400 men, armed with ten rifles and twenty hand grenades, was surrounded by a few thousand Red Guards, armed with machine guns and cannon. Their commander gave our men ten minutes in which to surrender their arms, or be shot. According to their habit, our leaders began negotiations: Suddenly there was heard the German command, 'schiessen!' and the Red Guards began firing at the train. Our men jumped off the train, and in five minutes all the machine guns were in their possession, the Russian Bolsheviki disarmed, and all the Magyars and Germans done away with. The Siberian Government, which resides in Irkutsk and which, as it appeared later, ordered this attack, can thank only the intervention of the American and French consuls that it was not destroyed by our embittered volunteers.

"To what extreme our loyalty was carried is shown by the fact that, although perfidiously attacked, and although we disarmed the Red Guard in Irkutsk, we still began new negotiations, with the result that we surrendered all our arms, on the condition that all German and Magyar prisoners would be disarmed and disbanded, and that we would be allowed to proceed unmolested."

As narrated in a previous volume of this work, the Czecho-Slovaks were thus compelled to engage in military operations against the Bolsheviki, and in doing so obtained possession of large areas in Siberia, including large cities, where they were welcomed by the populations and dissolved the Soviets. On the other hand, however, many large units of them found themselves isolated and unable to proceed on their way to Vladivostok. It was to assist them to extricate themselves from these positions that the United States finally agreed to dispatch a limited military force to Russian territory. Late in July, 1918, an arrangement to this effect was made with Japan. And on August 3, 1918, an official announcement was issued at Washington, in part as follows:

"In the judgment of the Government of the United States—a judgment arrived at after repeated and very searching consideration of the whole situation—military intervention in Russia would be more likely to add to the present sad confusion there than to cure it, and would injure Russia, rather than help her out of her distress. Such military intervention as has been most frequently proposed, even supposing it to be efficacious in its immediate object of delivering an attack upon Germany from the east, would, in its judgment, be more likely to turn out to be merely a method of making use of Russia than to be a method of saving her. Her people, if they profited by it at all, would not profit by it in time to deliver them from their present desperate difficulties, and their substance would meantime be used to maintain foreign armies, not to reconstitute their own, or to feed their own men, women, and children. We are bending all our energies now to the purpose of winning on the western front, and it would, in the judgment of the Government of the United States, be most unwise to divide or dissipate our forces.

"As the Government of the United States sees the present circumstances, therefore, military action is admissible in Russia now only to render such protection and help as is possible to the Czecho-Slovaks against the armed Austrian and German prisoners who are attacking them, and to steady any efforts at self-government or self-defense in which the Russians themselves may be willing to accept assistance. Whether from Vladivostok or from Murmansk and Archangel, the only present object for which American troops will be employed will be to guard military stores which may subsequently be needed by Russian forces and to render such aid as may be acceptable to the Russians in the organization of their own self-defense.

"With such objects in view, the Government of the United States is now cooperating with the Governments of France and Great Britain in the neighborhood of Murmansk and Archangel. The United States and Japan are the only powers which are just now in a position to act in Siberia in sufficient force to accomplish even such modest objects as those that have been outlined. The Government of the United States has, therefore, proposed to the Government of Japan that each of the two governments send a force of a few thousand men to Vladivostok, with the purpose of cooperating as a single force in the occupation of Vladivostok and in safeguarding, as far as it may be, the country to the rear of the westward-moving Czecho-Slovaks, and the Japanese Government has consented.

"In taking this action the Government of the United States wishes to announce to the people of Russia, in the most public and solemn manner, that it contemplates no interference with the political sovereignty of Russia, no intervention in her internal affairs—not even in the local affairs of the limited areas which her military force may be obliged to occupy—and no impairment of her territorial integrity, either now or hereafter, but that what we are about to do has as its single and only object the rendering of such aid as shall be acceptable to the Russian people themselves in their endeavors to regain control of their own affairs, their own territory, and their own destiny."

The Japanese issued a similar declaration a few days later, also disclaiming any desire for territorial aggrandizement at the cost of Russia.

During the first week of August, 1918, about 7,000 American soldiers, most of them regulars from the Philippines, were landed at Vladivostok, the United States Government announcing, on August 7, 1918, that Major General William S. Graves, former assistant chief of the Army General Staff, would have command of the American expedition. The Japanese landed a similar force, under General Kikuzo Otani, president of the famous military technical school of Toyama Gakko, and who, on account of his senior rank, would assume command of the entire Allied force. The French and British landed smaller forces each, the former being native troops from Tonkin and the British being local garrisons from India.

Meanwhile the Czecho-Slovak Army in the interior of Russia continued its operations. On July 26, 1918, they reported the capture of Simbirsk, 600 miles east of Moscow; on the last day of the month they gained possession of a large railroad bridge at Syzram, in the Volga region, and on the following day they took the city of Ekaterinburg, where the czar had been executed by order of the Ural regional soviet. In western Siberia they ordered the mobilization of the classes from 1912 to 1920, at Omsk. It was also reported that they were being joined by thousands of Rumanians and Italians who had formerly been soldiers in the Austrian armies and had later been taken prisoners by the imperial Russian armies. By this time it was generally recognized that the original plan of the Czecho-Slovaks, to withdraw from Russia by way of Vladivostok, had been changed to one whereby they were to remain and form the nucleus about which the anti-Bolshevist elements in Russia and the Allies might reconstruct an eastern front against the German forces.

The Japanese, being the first to land at Vladivostok, were the first to advance into the interior, and they immediately took up their position along the Ussuri River, which forms the eastern boundary of Manchuria with Siberia. The Americans, as soon as they arrived, occupied the railway toward Nikolsk.

At this time, in the middle of August, 1918, the main forces of the enemy, Russian Bolsheviki and German and Magyar ex-prisoners, were located near Chita, in Transbaikalia, numbering about 50,000. Others occupied positions along the Amur and Ussuri Rivers, north of Vladivostok.

On August 24, 1918, the first serious fighting took place, when the Japanese, supported by their allies, drove the Red Guards fifteen miles north from the Ussuri. Here the enemy numbered about 8,000, consisting of infantry and some artillery. Four days later the Japanese occupied Krasnoyarsk and Blagovyeshchensk. On September 7, 1918, the Bolshevist naval base at Khabarovsk was taken by Japanese cavalry, the booty including seventeen gunboats, four other vessels, and 120 guns.

One of the objects of the expedition was to establish communications with the Czecho-Slovaks far in the interior of the country, and this was quickly accomplished by an unexpected success on the part of the Allied forces. The isolated Czecho-Slovak army near Lake Baikal, under Colonel Gaida, had been endeavoring to advance toward Chita. General Semenov, the Russian anti-Bolshevist leader, with a force of Cossacks supported by Japanese, had been coming out of China and was also advancing toward Chita. A delayed dispatch from the American Consul at Irkutsk, dated August 13, 1918, brought word that the Bolsheviki army east of Lake Baikal had been destroyed and on September 4, 1918, telegraphic communication between Irkutsk and Vladivostok was reopened. On the same day it was announced that the Czecho-Slovaks and the Cossacks and Japanese under Semenov had joined hands at Chita and that that main stronghold was taken. This gave the Allied forces entire control of the railways in Siberia as far west as Samara, on the Volga River, a few hundred miles from Moscow.

During this period the anti-Bolshevist elements in Russia were cooperating with these efforts in their behalf. On August 5, 1918, the Russian embassy in Washington announced the formation of a new government in Siberia, whose chief purpose was to oust the Soviets and bring Russia back in line with the Allies against Germany.

"The United Siberian Government," said the statement in part, "states that it was elected on January 26, 1916, by the members of a regional Siberian Duma—representative assembly. The point where this government has temporarily transferred its center is Vladivostok, the other members of it remaining at Omsk. A message from those at Omsk has just been received, stating that, owing to the combined efforts of the Czecho-Slovaks and the military organizations of the Siberian Government itself, the following cities have been liberated from the Bolsheviki: Mariinsk, Novo Nicolayevsk, Tomsk, Narim, Tobolsk, Barnaul, Semipalatinsk, Karkarlinski, Atchinsk, and Krasnoyarsk.... The 'Temporary Government of Siberia' adds a public statement of its political aims, which are: the creation of a Russian army, well disciplined, in order to reestablish, in cooperation with the Allies, a battle front against Germany. Siberia, being an inseparable part of United Russia, the Temporary Government of Siberia believes it to be its first duty to safeguard, in the territory of Siberia, the interests of the whole of Russia, to recognize all the international treaties and agreements of Russia with friendly nations which were in force until October 25, 1917, the moment of the Bolshevist uprising...."

CHAPTER VII

ALLIED INTERVENTION IN THE NORTH OF RUSSIA

As recounted in the previous installment of this work, the Allies and the United States had already, in July, 1918, landed troops in the Murmansk Peninsula, in northern Russia, primarily to ward off a German invasion through Finland, secondly to guard those military supplies and stores which the imperialist Government had purchased in Great Britain and America, though they were still not paid for. These supplies were largely stored in Kola, and there was fear that the Germans, either directly, or through pressure applied to the Soviet Government in Moscow, might obtain possession of them.

The first Allied forces had been landed on July 15, 1918, and included some American marines. On the following day, in declaring the object of this act of intervention, Rear Admiral Kemp, of the British Navy, had announced that the Allied forces would advance southward "in accord with the local soviet authorities, and at the request of the local population for help."

On August 4, 1918, another force was landed at Archangel, on the south shore of the White Sea, and had taken control of the coast northward to Murmansk. Included in this force were some American troops and members of the Russian Officers League. An anti-Bolshevist revolution had already taken place in Archangel, and when the Allies landed they were greeted with much enthusiasm by the population.

Under the protection of the Allied forces in this region a Provisional Government of the Country of the North was at once organized, largely made up of Socialistic elements: Social Revolutionists and the Mensheviki, the minority party of the Social Democrats. The leaders were members of the Constituent Assembly which the Bolsheviki had dispersed in Petrograd on its attempt to hold its first session. The president of the new republic was Nicholas Tchaikovsky, the noted Russian revolutionist of early days and colleague of "Grandmother" Breshkovskaya. On August 7, 1918, Tchaikovsky's Government issued a proclamation of its purposes, in which, after denouncing the Bolsheviki as traitors to Russia, it was declared that the Government of the North Country desired to defend the country against German invasion, to reestablish the All-Russian Constituent Assembly, and to maintain law and order in the interests of all the people.

"The Government," continued the manifesto, "counts on the Russian, American, and British peoples, as well as those of other nations, for aid in combating famine and relieving the financial situation. It recognizes that intervention by the Allies in Russia's internal affairs is not directed against the interests of the people, and that the people will welcome the Allied troops who have come to fight against the common enemy...."

The Allied forces landed in Archangel, in cooperation with those already established on the Murmansk coast, and Russian White Guards and volunteers began to advance toward the south, in the direction of Vologda, with the purpose of joining hands with the extreme western wing of the Czecho-Slovaks, and thus establish a complete chain through Russia from the White Sea to the Pacific. On August 31, 1918, an attack was made on Obozerskaya, seventy-five miles south of Archangel, and taken.

On September 8, 1918, Tchaikovsky's Government was overthrown by elements opposed to it, though still in favor of Allied intervention, but four days later these counter-revolutionary forces were persuaded to retire from the field and permit Tchaikovsky to reestablish himself. On September 11, 1918, more American troops were landed to augment the Allied forces, these Americans being men picked for their special fitness for standing the rigors of a northern Russian winter. In the middle of September, 1918, the first really serious contact with the enemy took place and, as admitted by Pravda, the official organ of the Bolsheviki in Moscow, the Soviet forces were seriously defeated and driven southward. Many Bolshevist officers, said Pravda, had deserted to the enemy.