My Year of the War - Including an Account of Experiences with the Troops in France and - the Record of a Visit to the Grand Fleet Which is Here Given for the - First Time in its Complete Form

Frederick Palmer

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• Publié par: urmou
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 35
• Langue: English

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War, by Frederick Palmer
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Title: My Year of the War Including an Account of
Experiences with the Troops in France and the
Record of a Visit to the Grand Fleet Which is Here
Given for the First Time in its Complete Form
Author: Frederick Palmer
Release Date: April 13, 2004 [EBook #12013]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK MY YEAR OF THE WAR ***
Produced by A. LangleyMy Year Of The War
Including An Account Of Experiences
With The Troops In France, And The
Record Of A Visit To The Grand
Fleet, Which Is Here Given
For The First Time In
Its Complete Form
By Frederick Palmer
(Accredited American Correspondent at the British
Front)
Contents
To The Reader
I. "Le Brave Belge!"
II. Mons And Paris
III. Paris Waits
IV. On The Heels Of Von Kluck
V. And Calais Waits
VI. In Germany
VII. How The Kaiser Leads
VIII. In Belgium Under The Germans
IX. Christmas In Belgium
X. The Future Of Belgium
XI. Winter In Lorraine
XII. Smiles Among Ruins
XIII. A Road Of War I Know
XIV. Trenches In WinterXV. In Neuve Chapelle
XVI. Nearer The Germans
XVII. With The Guns
XVIII. Archibald The Archer
XIX. Trenches In Summer
XX. A School In Bombing
XXI. My Best Day At The Front
XXII. More Best Day
XXIII. Winning And Losing
XXIV. The Maple Leaf Folk
XXV. Many Pictures
XXVI. Finding The Grand Fleet
XXVII. On A Destroyer
XXVIII. Ships That Have Fought
XXIX. On The Inflexible
XXX. On The Fleet Flagship
XXXI. Simply Hard Work
XXII. Hunting The Submarine
XXXIII. The Fleet Puts To Sea
XXIV. British Problems
To the Reader
In 'The Last Shot', which appeared only a few
months before the
Great War began, drawing from my experience in
many wars, I
attempted to describe the character of a conflict
between two greatEuropean land-powers, such as France and
Germany.
"You were wrong in some ways," a friend writes to
me, "but in other ways it is almost as if you had
written a play and they were following your script
and stage business."
Wrong as to the duration of the struggle and its
bitterness and the atrocious disregard of treaties
and the laws of war by one side; right about the
part which artillery would play; right in suggesting
the stalemate of intrenchments when vast masses
of troops occupied the length of a frontier. Had the
Germans not gone through Belgium and attacked
on the shorter line of the Franco-German
boundary, the parallel of fact with that of prediction
would have been more complete. As for the ideal
of 'The Last Shot', we must await the outcome to
see how far it shall be fulfilled by a lasting peace.
Then my friend asks, "How does it make you feel?"
Not as a prophet; only as an eager observer, who
finds that imagination pales beside reality. If
sometimes an incident seemed a page out of my
novel, I was reminded how much better I might
have done that page from life; and from life I am
writing now.
I have seen too much of the war and yet not
enough to assume the pose of a military expert;
which is easy when seated in a chair at home
before maps and news dispatches, but becomes
fantastic after one has lived at the front. One waitson more information before he forms conclusions
about campaigns. He is certain only that the Marne
was a decisive battle for civilization; that if England
had not gone into the war the Germanic Powers
would have won in three months.
No words can exaggerate the heroism and
sacrifice of the French or the importance of the
part which the British have played, which we shall
not realize till the war is over. In England no
newspapers were suppressed; casualty lists were
published; she gave publicity to dissensions and
mistakes which others concealed, in keeping with
her ancient birthright of free institutions which work
out conclusions through discussion rather than
take them ready-made from any ruler or leader.
Whatever value this book has is the reflection of
personal observation and the thoughts which have
occurred to me when I have walked around my
experiences and measured them and found what
was worth while and what was not. Such as they
are, they are real.
Most vital of all in sheer expression of military
power was the visit to
the British Grand Fleet; most humanly appealing,
the time spent in
Belgium under German rule; most dramatic, the
French victory on the
Marne; most precious, my long stay at the British
front.
A traveller's view I had of Germany in the earlyperiod of the war; but I was never with the German
army, which made Americans particularly welcome
for obvious reasons. Between right and wrong one
cannot be a neutral. In foregoing the diversion of
shaking hands and passing the time of day on the
Germanic fronts, I escaped any bargain with my
conscience by accepting the hospitality of those
warring for a cause and in a manner obnoxious to
me. I was among friends, living the life of one army
and seeing war in all its aspects from day to day,
instead of having tourist glimpses.
Chapters which deal with the British army in France
and with the British fleet have been submitted to
the censor. Though the censor may delete military
secrets, he may not prompt opinions. Whatever
notes of praise and of affection which you may
read between the lines or in them spring from the
mind and heart. Undemonstratively, cheerily as
they would go for a walk, with something of old-
fashioned chivalry, the British went to death.
Their national weaknesses and strength, revealed
under external differences by association, are
more akin to ours than we shall realize until we
face our own inevitable crisis. Though one's
ancestors had been in America for nearly three
centuries, he was continually finding how much of
custom, of law, of habit, and of instinct he had in
common with them; and how Americans who were
not of British blood also shared these as an applied
inheritance that has been the most formative
element in the American crucible.My grateful acknowledgments are due to the
American press associations who considered me
worthy to be the accredited American
correspondent at the British front, and to Collier's
and Everybody's; and may an author who has not
had the opportunity to read proofs request the
reader's indulgence.
FREDERICK PALMER. British Headquarters,
France.
My Year Of The War
I
"Le Brave Belge!"
The rush from Monterey, in Mexico, when a
telegram said that general European war was
inevitable; the run and jump on board the Lusitania
at New York the night that war was declared by
England against Germany; the Atlantic passage on
the liner of ineffaceable memory, a suspense
broken by fragments of war news by wireless; the
arrival in England before the war was a week old;
the journey to Belgium in the hope of reaching the
scene of action!—as I write, all seem to have theperspective of history, so final are the processes of
war, so swift their execution, and so eager is
everyone for each day's developments. As one
grows older the years seem shorter; but the first
year of the Great War is the longest year most of
us have ever known.
Le brave Belge! One must be honest about him.
The man who lets his heart run away with his
judgment does his mind an injustice. A fellow-
countryman who was in London and fresh from
home in the eighth month of the war, asked me for
my views of the relative efficiency of the different
armies engaged.
"Do you mean that I am to speak without regard to
personal sympathies?" I asked.
"Certainly," he replied.
When he had my opinion he exclaimed:
"You have mentioned them all except the Belgian
army. I thought it was the best of all."
"Is that what they think at home?" I asked.
"Yes, of course."
"The Atlantic is broad," I suggested.
This man of affairs, an exponent of the efficiency
of business, was a sentimentalist when it came to
war, as Anglo-Saxons usually are. The side which
they favour—that is the efficient side. When Iventured to suggest that the Belgian army, in a
professional sense, was hardly to be considered as
an army, it was clear that he had ceased to
associate my experience with any real knowledge.
In business he was one who saw his rivals, their
abilities, the organization of their concerns, and
their resources of competition with a clear eye. He
could say of his best personal friend: "I like him,
but he has a poor head for affairs." Yet he was the
type who, if he had been a trained soldier, would
have been a business man of war who would have
wanted a sharp, ready sword in a well-trained hand
and to leave nothing to chance in a battle for the
right. In Germany, where some of the best brains
of th