Part 12 (1/2)
”With the woolly side out and the skinny side in, Sure, We'll wallop the Gerrys, said Brian O'Lynn.”
Hearty bursts of laughter and cheers arose from both trenches at the conclusion of the song. It seemed as if the combatants gladly availed themselves of the chance opportunity of becoming united again in the common brotherhood of man, even for but a fleeting moment, by the spirit of good-humour and hilarity.
Lieutenant Denis Oliver Barnett, a young English officer of a different battalion of the same Leinster Regiment (whose letters from the Front have been published as a memorial by his parents), tells of a more curious incident still, which likewise led to a brief cessation of hostilities. Two privates in his company had a quarrel in the trenches, and nothing would do them but to fight it out on No Man's Land. The Germans were most appreciative and accommodating. Not only did they not molest the pugilists, but they cheered them, and actually fired the contents of their rifles in the air by way of a salute. The European War was, in fact, suspended in this particular section of the lines while two Irishmen settled their own little differences by a contest of fists.
”Who will now say that the Germans are not sportsmen?” was the comment of the young English officer. There is, however, another and perhaps a shrewder view of the episode. It was taken, I have been told, by a sergeant of the company. ”Yerra, come down out of that, ye pair of born fools,” he called out to the fighters. ”If ye had only a glimmer of sense ye'd see, so ye would, that 'tis playing the Gerrys' game ye are. Sure, there's nothing they'd like better than to see us all knocking blazes out of each other.” But as regards the moral pointed by the officer, there must be, of course, many ”sportsmen” among the millions of German soldiers; though the opinion widely prevailing in the British Army is that they are more often treacherous fighters.
Indeed, to their dirty practices is mainly to be ascribed the bitter personal animosity that occasionally mark the relations between the combatants, when the fighting becomes most b.l.o.o.d.y and desperate, and--as happens at times in all wars--no quarter is given to those who allow none.
In the wars of old between England and France, both sides were animated by a very fine sense of chivalry. Barere, one of the chief popular orators during the worst excesses of the French Revolution, induced the Convention to declare that no quarter was to be given to the English. ”Soldiers of Liberty,” he cried, ”when victory places Englishmen at your mercy, strike!” But the French troops absolutely refused to act upon the savage decree. The principle upon which both French and English acted during the Peninsular War was that of doing as little harm to one another as possible consistently with the winning of victory. Between the rank and file friendly feelings may be said, without any incongruity, to have existed. They were able, of their own accord, to come to certain understandings that tended to mitigate, to some extent, the hards.h.i.+ps and even the dangers to which they were both alike exposed. One was that sentries at the outposts must not be fired on or surprised. Often no more than a s.p.a.ce of twenty yards separated them, and when the order to advance was given to either Army the sentries of the other were warned to retire. Once a French sentry helped a British sentry to replace his knapsack so that he might more quickly fall back before the firing began. A remarkable instance of signalling between the opposing forces is mentioned by General Sir Charles Napier in his _History of the Peninsular War_.
Wellington sent a detachment of riflemen to drive away some French troops occupying the top of a hill near Bayonne, and as they approached the enemy he ordered them to fire. ”But,” says Napier, ”with a loud voice one of those soldiers replied, 'No firing,' and holding up the b.u.t.t of his rifle tapped it in a peculiar way.” This was a signal to the French and was understood by them--probably as a result of a mutual arrangement--to mean, ”We must have the hill for a short time.” ”The French, who, though they could not maintain, would not relinquish the post without a fight if they had been fired upon, quietly retired,” Napier writes; ”and this signal would never have been made if the post had been one capable of a permanent defence, so well do veterans understand war and its proprieties.”
Throughout that long campaign the British and French recognised each other as worthy foemen, and they were both solicitous to maintain unstained the honour and dignity of arms. As the opposing forces lay resting before Lisbon for months, the advanced posts got so closely into touch that much friendly intercourse took place between them.
French officers frequently asked for such little luxuries as cigars, coffee and stationery to be brought to them from Lisbon, which was held by the British, and their requests were always readily complied with. At the battle of Talavera, on July 28, 1809, the possession of a hill was fiercely contested all day. The weather was so intensely hot that the combatants were parched with thirst. At noon there was an almost entire cessation of artillery and rifle fire, as if an informal truce had been suddenly come to, by a flash of intuition, and with one accord French and British rushed down to the rivulet at the foot of the hill to moisten their burning throats. ”The men crowded on each side of the water's edge,” says Napier. ”They threw aside their caps and muskets, and chatted to each other in broken French and still more fragmentary English across the stream. Flasks were exchanged; hands shaken. Then the bugle and the rolling drum called the men back to their colours, and the fight awoke once more.”
Such amenities between combatants are very ancient--the Greeks and Trojans used to exchange presents and courtesies, in the intervals of fighting--and the early stages of this war seemed to afford a promise that they would be revived. The fraternising of the British and Germans at their first Christmas under arms, in 1914, will, perhaps, always be accounted as the most curious episode of the war. It was quite unauthorised by the higher command. The men themselves, under the influence of the great Christian festival, brought about a suspension of hostilities at several points of the lines, and they availed themselves of the opportunity to satisfy their natural curiosity to see something more of each other than they could see through the smoke of battle with deadly weapons in their hands and hatred in their eyes. Each side had taken prisoners; but prisoners are ”out of it,” and therefore reduced to the level of non-combatants. The foeman in being appears in a very different light. He has the power to strike. You may have to kill him or you may be killed by him. So the British and the Germans, impelled in the main by a common feeling of inquisitiveness, met together, unarmed, in No Man's Land. There was some amicable conversation where they could make themselves understood to each other, which happened when a German was found who could speak a little English. Cigarettes and tunic-b.u.t.tons were freely exchanged.
But, for the most part, British and Germans stood, with arms folded across their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and stared at each other with a kind of dread fascination.
It never happened again. How could it possibly be repeated? The introduction of the barbaric elements of ”frightfulness,” hitherto confined to savage tribes at war, the use of such devilish inventions as poison gas and liquid fire, are due to the malignant minds of the German high command, and for them the German soldiers cannot be held accountable. But the native lowness of morality shown by so many of the German rank and file, their apparent insensitiveness to ordinary humane instincts, the well-authenticated stories of their filthy and cruel conduct in the occupied districts, inevitably tended to harden and embitter their adversaries against them too. Of the instances of their treachery to Irish soldiers which have been brought to my notice, I will mention only two. One arose out of the ”truce” of Christmas Day, 1914, despite the goodwill of the occasion. The victim, Sergeant Timothy O'Toole, Leinster Regiment, first mentions that he took part in a game of football with the Germans, and then proceeds--
”I was returning to my own trench unaccompanied about 12.15 p.m.
When I reached within fifteen paces I was sniped by a Hunnish swine, the bullet entering my back, penetrating my intestines.
Following the example of Our Lord, I instantly forgave him, concluding he was only a black sheep, characteristic of any army or community, but I was labouring under a delusion. Within five minutes of being hit, I had quite a number around me, including officers and clergymen. I was so mortally wounded that the 'Padre' administered the last rite of the Church on the spot.
Four stretcher bearers came out for me. I noticed the white band and Red Cross on their arms. Immediately I was lifted up on the stretcher. Though I was semi-unconscious I remember the bullets beating the ground like hailstone on a March day. I was wounded again, this time the bullet going through the lower part of my back. Here two of my bearers got hit, Privates Melia and Peters.
The former died in hospital immediately after. Naturally the two bearers instantly dropped the stretcher. I fell violently to the ground--nice medicine for a man wounded in the abdomen.”
”Thank Providence, I am still living,” Sergeant O'Toole adds, ”but a living victim of German atrocity and barbarism.” In the other case a very gallant young officer of the Dublin Fusiliers, Lieutenant Louis G. Doran, lost his life on the Somme, October 23, 1916, through the guile and falsehood of German soldiers. The circ.u.mstances are told in a letter written by Captain Louis C. Byrne to the father of Lieutenant Doran, Mr. Charles J. Doran of Blackrock, co. Dublin--
”Believe me, Mr. Doran, I sympathise fully with you in your loss because I was your son's company commander and by his death I have lost one of the best officers in my company. We attacked a certain position and we had just got to it when some Germans put up their hands to surrender. Your son went out to take their surrender and they shot him through the heart and he died at once. My other three officers were also knocked out, and only myself and thirty-six men returned to headquarters after the battle. Still, we took the position owing to gallantry of men like your son. He died a n.o.ble and heroic death--no man could possibly wish for a better one. He told me he had just had a brother wounded, so your loss is double and words cannot express my sympathy with you. Your son was buried with the men in the position we took. It was impossible to bring his body down owing to heavy fire. I think it is what he would have liked best.”
The lady to whom Lieutenant Doran was engaged to be married kindly sent me a few extracts from his letters which convey something of his care and thought for his men. ”Those I have seen from the men,” she says, ”amplify this from their own experience in ways which he would never dream of mentioning, he was always so modest about all he did.”
”I'm going to tell you what I would really love to get now and again,”
Lieutenant Doran wrote in one letter. ”You see, we officers are never very hard up for grub, and I would much prefer to receive something for my men, who get very little in the way of luxuries or dainties. As you know, a platoon is split into four sections, and anything that I could divide into four parts amongst them would be most acceptable.
For instance, four small tins of b.u.t.ter would be a great luxury, or a big cake--anything that gives them a change.” In another he said: ”As you say, there are always hungry soldiers to be found, and I often wish some of the presents I receive would only come together, as one cake is a useless thing among forty hungry men. The poor fellows have fairly rough fare as a rule, and sometimes not even much of that. One wonders how it is they keep so cheerful.” The men, in turn, were most devoted to Lieutenant Doran. They would do anything to prevent a hair of his head being hurt.
Generally speaking, feeling in the British Army is, however, extraordinarily devoid of that vindictiveness which springs from a deep sense of personal injury, and evokes, in turn, a desire for revenge which, were it shown, would, however lamentable, be not unnatural in many circ.u.mstances of this war. The Germans, in the ma.s.s, are regarded as having been dehumanised and transformed into a process of ruthless destruction. In any case, they are the enemy. As such, there is a satisfaction--nay, a positive delight--in sweeping them out of existence. That is war. But the rage for killing them is impersonal. Against the German soldier individually it may be said that, on the whole, there is no rancour. In fact, the British soldiers have a curiously detached and generous way of regarding their country's enemies. When the German soldier is taken prisoner, or picked up wounded, the British soldier is disposed, as a hundred thousand instances show, to treat him as a ”pal”--to divide his food and share his cigarettes with him as he pa.s.ses to the base.
It is very noticeable how all the war correspondents, in their accounts of the taking of the village of Guinchy on the Somme by the Irish Division, dwelt on the chivalrous way in which the Irish treated their vanquished foes. Once the spirit of combativeness is aroused in the Irish soldiers they hate the enemy like the black death to which they strive to consign them. But when the fury of battle has died down in victory there are none so soft and kindly to the beaten enemy.
Surrender should always, of course, disarm hostility. No true soldier would decline to lower his bayonet when a foeman acknowledges defeat and places his life in his keeping. That is, after a fair and gallant fight on the part of the foeman. It was because the Germans at Guinchy were vindictive in combat, and despicable when overthrown, that the Irish acted with rare magnanimity in accepting their submission and sparing their lives.
In that engagement the Irish made a characteristically headlong dash for the enemy positions. Rifle and machine-gun fire was poured into them by the Germans up to the very last moment--until, in fact, they had reached the trenches; and then, as they were about to jump in and bayonet and club their bloodthirsty foemen, they found them on their knees, with hands uplifted. The Irish were enraged at the sight. To think that men who had been so merciless should beg for mercy when their opponents were on top of them! Were their comrades slain only a moment since to go unavenged? These thoughts pa.s.sed rapidly through the minds of the Irish. As swiftly came the decision, worthy of high-souled men. An enemy on his knees is to them inviolable, not to be hurt or injured, however mean and low he may have proved himself to be. So the Irish bayonet, at the very b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Germans, was turned aside; that was the right and proper thing to do, and it would not call for notice but that it s.h.i.+nes with the light of chivalry in comparison with the black meanness and treachery of the Germans.
In the gladiatorial fights for the entertainment of the people in ancient Rome the defeated combatant was expected to expose his throat to the sword of the victor, and any shrinking on his part caused the arena to ring with the angry shouts of the thousands of spectators: ”Receive the steel.” The way of the Irish at Guinchy was different, and perhaps the renunciation of their revenge was not the least magnificent act of a glorious day.