Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1613 page)

I naturally heard a good deal about our Generalissimo, besides what I actually saw. I think that he had some of the traits of Wellington, though since the war he has concerned himself with the fortunes of his comrades-in-arms a great deal more than the Iron Duke seems ever to have troubled himself to do. But in other things the parallel is close. Haig is not a game-playing man, though fond of horse exercise. Neither was the Duke. Both were abstemious with wine and tobacco. Both were reserved, reticent and had no magnetic connection with those under them. Neither Haig nor the Duke were human figures to the soldiers, nor were they often if ever seen by them, and yet in each case there was the same confidence in their judgment. Haig was a very serious man, he seldom joked and did not meet a joke half way, so that his mess was the dullest in France. I have known a staff officer apply for an exchange so weary was he of this oppressive atmosphere. All this could equally have been said of the Duke. But these are trivialities compared to the great main fact that each brought rare qualities to the service of their country at critical moments of the world’s history. There was only one other man who might have filled Haig’s place, and that man was the conqueror of Palestine.

Extraordinary are the contrasts of war. Within three hours of leaving the quiet atmosphere of the Head-quarters Château I was present at what in any other war would have been looked upon as a brisk engagement. As it was it would certainly figure in one of our desiccated reports as an activity of the artillery. The noise as we struck the line at this new point showed that the matter was serious, and indeed we had chosen the spot because it had been the storm centre of the last week. The method of approach chosen by our experienced guide was in itself a tribute to the gravity of the affair. As one comes from the settled order of Flanders into the actual scene of war, the first sign of it is one of the stationary, sausage-shaped balloons, a chain of which marks the ring in which the great wrestlers are locked. We passed under this, ascended a hill, and found ourselves in a garden where for a year no feet save those of wanderers like ourselves had stood. There was a wild, confused luxuriance of growth more beautiful to my eye than anything which the care of man can produce. One old shell-hole of vast diameter had filled itself with forget-me-nots, and appeared as a graceful basin of light blue flowers, held up as an atonement to Heaven for the brutalities of man. Through the tangled bushes we crept, then across a yard—” Please stoop and run as you pass this point “ — and finally to a small opening in a wall, whence the battle lay not so much before as beside us. For a moment we had a front seat at the great world-drama, God’s own problem play, working surely to its magnificent end. One felt a sort of shame to crouch here in comfort, a useless spectator, while brave men down yonder were facing that pelting shower of iron.

There was a large field on our left rear, and the German gunners had the idea that there was a concealed battery therein. They were systematically searching for it. A great shell exploded in the top corner, but got nothing more solid than a few tons of clay. You could read the mind of Gunner Fritz. “Try the lower corner! “said he, and up went the earth-cloud once again. “Perhaps it’s hid about the middle. I’ll try.” Earth again, and nothing more. “I believe I was right the first time after all,” said hopeful Fritz. So another shell came into the top corner. The field was full of pits as a Gruyère cheese, but Fritz got nothing by his perseverance. Perhaps there never was a battery there at all. One effect he obviously did attain. He made several other British batteries exceedingly angry. “Stop that tickling, Fritz! “was the burden of their cry. Where they were we could no more see than Fritz could, but their constant work was very clear along the German line. We appeared to be using more shrapnel and the Germans more high explosives, but that may have been just the chance of the day. The Vimy Ridge was on our right, and before us was the old French position, with the Labyrinth of terrible memories and the long hill of Lorette. When, the year before last, the French, in a three weeks’ battle, fought their way up that hill, it was an exhibition of sustained courage which even their military annals can seldom have beaten.

Next day we travelled through Acheux and hit the British line once more to the east of that place. Our official chauffeur had had his instructions, and so had other people, with the result that as we swung into the broad main street of a village — Mailly, I think, was the name — there was a tall young officer standing with his back turned. He swung round at the noise of the car, and it was my boy Kingsley with his usual jolly grin upon his weather-stained features. The long arm of G.H.Q. had stretched out and plucked him out of a trench, and there he was. We had an hour’s talk in a field, for there was nowhere else to go. He was hard and well and told me that all was nearly ready for a big push at the very part of the line where his battalion, the 1st Hampshires, was stationed. This was the first intimation of the great Somme battle, on the first day of which every officer of the Hampshires without exception was killed or wounded. I learned afterwards that before the battle for ten nights running Kingsley crept out to the German wire and stuck up crosses where he found the wire uncut, which were brown towards the enemy and white towards the British, as a guide to the gunners. He lay on his face sometimes with the machine guns firing just above him. For this service Colonel Palk thanked him warmly and said he should certainly have a decoration, but Palk and both majors were killed and no recommendations went forward. Two shrapnel bullets in the neck were all Kingsley got out of the battle, and two months on his back in a hospital. However, he was not a medal hunter and I never heard him complain, nor would he wear his wound badges until he was compelled.

An hour later I met another member of my household, for my Secretary, Major Wood of the 5th Sussex Territorials, was Town Major of Beauquesne, where I found him at the convenient hour of lunch. He had done nearly two years of hard active service, which was pretty good for a civilian of fifty, and had led his company at Festubert and other engagements. He was now using his excellent powers of organization and administration in making Beauquesne a well-ordered village, as later he made Doullens a well-ordered town. I expect that the British administration will remain as a wonderful legend of sanitation and cleanliness in many of these French towns of the North-East.

After inspecting Major Wood’s work I went on to Amiens with him and he packed me into the train to Paris, the first part of my task thoroughly done so far as time would permit. I came away with a deep sense of the difficult task which lay before the Army, but with an equally deep one of the ability of those men to do all that soldiers can be called upon to perform. But I saw no end to the war.

I had two days in Paris — a very dead and alive Paris, such a Paris as has seldom or never been seen before, with darkened streets and the shops nearly all closed. I stayed at the Hotel Crillon, where were a few Russian and British officers. It was extraordinary the difference which the public made between the two. A British officer was disregarded, while a Russian General — I took a walk with one — was looked upon with an adulation which was quite comic. Men came up and made a low obeisance before him. And yet it was our Army, our purse, our factories, above all our Navy, which were saving the situation both for France and Russia, to whom we were bound by no alliance. There was certainly not much sign of appreciation or gratitude. It is a very singular thing how the whole world alternately leans upon and depreciates the British Empire.

CHAPTER XXIX. EXPERIENCES ON THE ITALIAN FRON
T

The Polite Front — Udine — Under Fire — Carnic Alps — Italia Irredenta — Trentino — The Voice of the Holy Roman Empire.

TWO days later I found myself, after an uneventful journey, at Padua on my way to the Italian front. The Italian front seemed to have politely come back to meet me, for I was awakened in the night by a tremendous dropping of bombs, with the rattle of anti-aircraft guns. I thought I was as safe in bed as anywhere, and so it proved. Little damage was done, but Padua and the other Italian cities were having a bad time, and it was a one-sided arrangement, since the Italians can do nothing without injuring their own kith and kin across the border. This dropping of explosives on the chance of hitting one soldier among fifty victims was surely the most monstrous development of the whole war, and was altogether German in its origin. If international law cannot now stamp it out, the next war will send the people flying to the caves and calling upon the mountains to cover them, even as was foretold.

I arrived at last at Udine, the capital of the Friulian Province, where were the Italian Head-quarters — a funny little town with a huge mound in the centre, which looked too big to be artificial, but was said to have been thrown up by Attila. My recommendation was to the British Mission, which was headed by Brig.- General Delme-Radcliffe, who received me with hospitality, a bluff, short-spoken and masterful British soldier. The Mission owned a white house on the edge of the town. On the second floor under a window which proved to be that of my bedroom there was a long dark smear upon the whitewashed wall. “That’s the stomach of a baker,” said the soldier-servant with a grin. I thought it was a joke on his part, but it was literally true, for a bomb a few days before had blown the man to bits as he passed the house, and had plastered bits of him on the stonework. The ceiling of my bedroom was full of holes from that or some other explosion.

There was some tendency at this time to cavil at the Italians and to wonder why they did not make more impression upon the Austrians. As a matter of fact they were faced by the same barbed wire and machine-gun problem which had held up every one else. I soon saw, when I was allowed next morning to get to the front, that the conditions were very like those of Flanders in a more genial climate and in all ways less aggravated. I had been handed over to the Italian Intelligence people, who were represented by a charmingly affable nobleman, Colonel the Marquis Barbariche, and Colonel Claricetti. These two introduced me at once to General Porro, chief of the Staff, a brown, wrinkled, walnut-faced warrior, who showed me some plans and did what he could to be helpful.

It was about a seven miles drive from Udine before we reached the nearest point of the trenches. From a mound an extraordinary view could be got of the Austrian position, the general curve of both Unes being marked, as in Flanders, by the sausage balloons which float behind them. The Isonzo, which had been so bravely carried by the Italians, lay in front of me, a clear blue river, as broad as the Thames at Hampton Court. In a hollow to my left were the roofs of Gorizia, the town which the Italians were endeavouring to take. A long desolate ridge, the Carso, extended to the south of the town, and stretched down nearly to the sea. The crest was held by the Austrians, and the Italian trenches had been pushed within
50 yards
of them. A lively bombardment was going on from either side, but so far as the infantry went there was none of that constant malignant petty warfare with which we were familiar in Flanders. I was anxious to see the Italian trenches, in order to compare them with our British methods, but save for the support and communication trenches I was courteously but firmly warned off.

Having got this general view of the position, I was anxious in the afternoon to visit Monfalcone, which is the small dockyard captured from the Austrians on the Adriatic. My kind Italian officer guides did not recommend the trip, as it was part of their great hospitality to shield their guest from any part of that danger which they were always ready to incur themselves. The only road to Monfalcone ran close to the Austrian position at the village of Ronchi, and afterwards kept parallel to it for some miles. I was told that it was only on odd days that the Austrian guns were active in this particular section, so determined to trust to luck that this might not be one of them. It proved, however, to be one of the worst on record, and we were not destined to see the dockyard to which we started.

The civilian cuts a ridiculous figure when he enlarges upon small adventures which may come his way — adventures which the soldier endures in silence as part of his everyday life. On this occasion, however, the episode was all our own, and had a sporting flavour in it which made it dramatic. I know now the feeling of tense expectation with which the driven grouse whirrs onwards towards the butt. I have been behind the butt before now, and it is only poetic justice that I should see the matter from the other point of view. As we approached Ronchi we could see shrapnel breaking over the road in front of us, but we had not yet realised that it was precisely for vehicles that the Austrians were waiting, and that they had the range marked down to a yard. We went down the road all out at a steady
50 miles
an hour. The village was near, and it seemed that we had got past the place of danger. We had, in fact, just reached it. At this moment there was a noise as if the whole four tyres had gone simultaneously, a most terrific bang in our very ears, merging into a second sound like a reverberating blow upon an enormous gong. As I glanced up I saw three clouds immediately above my head, two of them white and the other of a rusty red. The air was full of flying metal, and the road, as we were told afterwards by an observer, was all churned up by it. The metal base of one of the shells was found plumb in the middle of the road just where our motor had been. It was our pace that saved us. The motor was an open one, and the three shells burst, according to one of my Italian companions, who was himself an artillery officer, about
10 metres
above our heads. They threw forward, however, and we travelling at so great a pace, shot from under. Before they could get in another we had swung round the curve and under the lee of a house. The good Colonel wrung my hand in silence. They were both distressed, these good soldiers, under the impression that they had led me into danger. As a matter of fact it was I who owed them an apology, since they had enough risks in the way of business without taking others in order to gratify the whim of a visitor.

Our difficulties were by no means over. We found an ambulance lorry and a little group of infantry huddled under the same shelter, with the expression of people who had been caught in the rain. The road beyond was under heavy fire as well as that by which we had come. Had the Ostro-Boches dropped a high explosive upon us they would have had a good mixed bag. But apparently they were only out for fancy shooting and disdained a sitter. Presently there came a lull and the lorry moved on, but we soon heard a burst of firing which showed that they were after it. My companions had decided that it was out of the question for us to finish our excursion. We waited for some time, therefore, and were able finally to make our retreat on foot, being joined later by the car. So ended my visit to Monfalcone, the place I did not reach. I hear that two 10,000-ton steamers were left on the stocks there by the Austrians, but were disabled before they retired. Their cabin basins and other fittings were adorning the Italian dug-outs.

My second day was devoted to a view of the Italian mountain warfare in the Carnic Alps. Besides the two great fronts, one of defence (Trentino) and one of offence (Isonzo), there were very many smaller valleys which had to be guarded. The total frontier line is over
400 miles
, and it had all to be held against raids if not invasions. It was a most picturesque business. Far up in the Roccolana Valley I found the Alpini outposts, backed by artillery which had been brought into the most wonderful positions. They had taken 8-inch guns where a tourist could hardly take his knapsack. Neither side could ever make serious progress, but there were continual duels, gun against gun, or Alpini against Jaeger. In a little wayside house was the brigade Head-quarters, and here I was entertained to lunch. It was a scene that I shall remember. They drank to England. I raised my glass to
Italia irredenta
— might it soon be redenta. They all sprang to their feet and the circle of dark faces flashed into flame. They keep their souls and emotions, these people. I trust that ours may not become atrophied by self-suppression.

The last day spent on the Italian front was in the Trentino. From Verona a motor drive of about twenty-five miles takes one up the valley of the Adige, and past a place of evil augury for the Austrians, the field of Rivoli. Finally, after a long drive of winding gradients, always beside the Adige, we reached Ala, where we interviewed the Commander of the sector, a man who has done splendid work during the recent fighting. “By all means you can see my front. But no motor car, please. It draws fire, and others may be hit besides you.” We proceeded on foot, therefore, along a valley which branched at the end into two passes. In both very active fighting had been going on, and as we came up the guns were baying merrily, waking up most extraordinary echoes in the hills. It was difficult to believe that it was not thunder. There was one terrible voice that broke out from time to time in the mountains — the angry voice of the Holy Roman Empire. When it came all other sounds died down into nothing. It was — so I was told — the master gun, the vast 42-centimetre giant which brought down the pride of Liège and Namur. The Austrians had brought one or more from Innsbruck. The Italians assure me, however, as we have ourselves discovered, that in trench work beyond a certain point the size of the guns makes little matter.

We passed a burst dug-out by the roadside where a tragedy had occurred recently, for eight medical officers were killed in it by a single shell. There was no particular danger in the valley, however, and the aimed fire was all going across us to the fighting lines in the two passes above us. That to the right, the Valley of Buello, has seen some of the worst of the fighting. These two passes form the Italian left wing which has held firm all through. So has the right wing. It is only the centre which has been pushed in by the concentrated fire.

When we arrived at the spot where the two valleys forked we were halted, and were not permitted to advance to the front trenches which lay upon the crests above us. There were about
1,000 yards
between the adversaries. I have seen types of some of the Bosnian and Croatian prisoners, men of poor physique and intelligence, but the Italians speak with chivalrous praise of the bravery of the Hungarians and of the Austrian Jaeger. Some of their proceedings disgusted them, however, and especially the fact that they used Russian prisoners to dig trenches under fire. There is no doubt of this, as some of the men were recaptured and were sent on to join their comrades in France. On the whole, however, it may be said that in the Austro-Italian war there was nothing which corresponded with the extreme bitterness of our Western conflict. The presence or absence of the Hun makes all the difference.

It was a moment of depression at the Trentino front, as there had been a set back. I may flatter myself when I think that even one solitary figure in a British uniform striding about among them was good at that particular time to their eyes. They read of allies, but they never saw any. If they had, we might have been spared the subsequent disaster at Caporetto. Certainly I was heartily welcomed there, and surrounded all the time by great mobs of soldiers, who imagined, I suppose, that I was some one of importance.

That night found me back at Verona, and next morning I was on my way to Paris with sheaves of notes about the Italian soldiers which would, I hoped, make the British public more sympathetic towards them. I was told afterwards by the Foreign Office that my mission had been an unmixed success.

I have one other association with the Italian front which I may include here. It is embalmed in the Annals of the Psychic Research Society. I have several times in my life awakened from sleep with some strong impressions of knowledge gained still lingering in my brain. In one case, for example, I got the strange name Nalderu so vividly that I wrote it down between two stretches of insensibility and found it on the outside of my cheque book next morning. A month later I started for Australia in the
S. S.
Nalderu
of which I had then never heard. In this particular Italian instance I got the word Piave, absolutely ringing in my head. I knew it as a river some
70 miles
to the rear of the Italian front and quite unconnected with the war. None the less the impression was so strong that I wrote the incident down and had it signed by two witnesses. Months passed and the Italian battle line was rolled back to the Piave, which became a familiar word. Some said it would go back further. I was sure it would not. I argued that if the abnormal forces, whatever they may be, had taken such pains to impress the matter upon me, it must needs be good news which they were conveying, since I had needed cheering at the time. Therefore I felt sure that some great victory and the turning point of the war would come on the Piave. So sure was I that I wrote to my friend Mr. Lacon Watson, who was on the Italian front, and the incident got into the Italian press. It could have nothing but a good effect upon their morale. Finally it is a matter of history how completely my impression was justified, and how the most shattering victory of the whole war was gained at that very spot.