To End All Wars_ A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 - Adam Hochschild [74]
Although the generals had not yet grasped it, these multiple lines instantly rendered obsolete the time-honored attacker's goal: the breakthrough. In more old-fashioned combat, once a fortress had been taken, soldiers on foot or horseback could quickly stream many miles beyond it, because the enemy didn't have the months or years needed to build another. But now, if pushed out of one set of trenches, the enemy could simply take refuge in the next one and fight on—or could unroll dense coils of barbed wire in a matter of minutes and dig a rudimentary new trench in a few hours.
Despite machine guns and barbed wire, in these first few months the war sometimes still had a courtliness carried over from earlier times, when people observed a strict distinction between soldiers and civilians. At one point, for example, German troops captured an Englishman—but when they discovered he was a London Times correspondent and not a soldier, they let him go. Other civilians also won special treatment, among them Millicent, the Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, one of several aristocratic women who led or sponsored private medical teams in the war zone. When the Belgian city where she was nursing wounded troops was overrun by the Germans, it turned out that both the local German commander and his aide-de-camp were noblemen whom she had met before the war. The Duchess called at their headquarters, presented her card, and, among other demands, asked for transport to Mons so she and her nurses could care for wounded British prisoners there. The Germans dutifully complied, supplying a car and driver.
Many soldiers on both sides found combat thrilling. Julian Grenfell, the eldest son of Lord Desborough, had boxed, rowed, and won steeplechases while at Oxford. A keen shot, he recorded a successful day's bag of "105 partridges" in his "game book" in early October 1914. He took the book to France with him, and the very next entries, following raids on German trenches, are for November 16, "One Pomeranian," and November 17, "Two Pomeranians." "It is all the best fun," he wrote home. "I have never felt so well, or so happy, or enjoyed anything so much.... The fighting-excitement vitalizes everything, every sign and word and action." A piece of shrapnel would end his life six months later.
By late November, as winter blizzards started, both sides were mainly concentrating on keeping warm. Of the original British Expeditionary Force, one-third were now dead and many more seriously wounded. Before the end of 1914, 90,000 British soldiers would become casualties. Trainloads of maimed men flooded London, where they were rushed into the care of nurses in white, flowing, nun-like headdresses. Banners saying "Quiet for the Wounded" hung outside the city's hospitals, and nearby streets were covered with straw to muffle the sound of horses' hoofs.
For his headquarters, Sir John French had taken over a lawyer's house in Saint-Omer, a village in France some 20 miles inland from the English Channel. Parked outside could be seen a row of automobiles whose chauffeurs wore civilian black double-breasted uniforms and caps, for many well-to-do officers had brought their own cars and drivers to France. One young aide-de-camp, as dutiful about saluting superiors as any other junior officer, was the Prince of Wales, who, two decades later, before abdicating, would reign briefly as King Edward VIII. A steady stream of VIP visitors arrived from London, and one of French's aides was soon ordered to request that headquarters be given a larger entertainment allowance. The King came to award medals, look in on his son, and be assured by French that the war would be over by Christmas. Winston Churchill appeared—there were no nearby sea battles for him to observe as First Lord of the Admiralty, so he wanted to savor some combat on land. So did the venerable Field Marshal Lord Roberts, whose great desire was to visit Indian troops