The Washington herald., 1918-05-05

German divisions szc artiIIerymeh.
flowing IN streams TO the plains Of
Picardy.
But at night, the great Gotha bomb
ing machines. for sacs sbandoning
for legitimate military objectivss their
game Of terToriziRg the women and
children of London and Paris, osms
In hordes and scattered bombs a}ong
the railway and among the transport
At Chalons-sur-Marne. a great june
don where spent some time. ] found
q scene of ruin about the station:
smouldering piles Of stores, still burn
ing freight cars, twisted tracks and
yawning holes among the sidings. For
four nights, from Friday when the
great movement from the front be-
gan. Gothas had been bombing Chal-
ons. There were Is of them. military
policemen told me. the night before !
was there; civilians In the town were
killed. the station was knocked about:
but the flow OF trains have described
to the zone Of battle was not inter
rupted by the whole raid for more
than half an hour.
II was hard to believe. looking at
what the bombs had done; and the
story OF the heroism Of some Terri
torials who are too old for the firinE
line is worth telling. They knew.
every FrenchmAn knew by last Fri
day. what was at stake In the north,
how vital Il was that the fiow OF guns
from the south. and the steady stream
Of men. should not be checked for an
hour. In such a crisis. q few hours
may mean defeat or victory. And 80.
while the bombs were falling on the
tracks. the old men Of these labor
bsttalions, in their shabby corduroy
oyeralls and dirty. faded gray shirts.
looking like anything but soldiers.
toiled on through the night, keeping
the main tracks open.
The Gothas came in waves. No
sooner had a dozen machines, sweep
ing along the tracks a hundred feet or
So above the ground, their engines
sounding like q hundred threshinE
machines going at once. dropped their
bombs and made Of than a new group
arrived But the devoted French Ter
ritorials kept at work; some were
killed and injured. but were they not
under FIRE? TT was my baptism Of
ire," said an old man to me proudly,
''for I am too old for the trenches.
like the young ones II would not
surprise the oficer in charge Of those
men IL a few Croix de Guerre are dis
tributed among them; for repairing
railway tracks under fire. running
blazing cars with explosive contents
onto sidings. 10 not work for faint
hearts They kept the line open; all
night. amid the bombardments, the
long, dark trains pulled through Cha
Ions; and the scene at Chalons was
repeated, on a smaller scale, at many
other stations behind the front. Mean
while. Parisians and Londoners, peep-
ing up at the motionless clouds about
the full moon, said: ITS queer the
Gothas aren't raiding us tonight"
There are many things I saw ana
heard. behind the front in these last
few days, that ! would like to tell.
but may not yet The main impress
sion produced on my mind is an abso-
lutte confidence that whatever fiEhtinS
may come this summer, we are now
safe from disaster. under the protec-
ton OF the marvellous French stan.
with It's genius for war and orEaniza- .
ton. Many things the French have
done that our officers have not under
stood; many things about French
methods they have not perhaps liked;
but an army must be judged BY re-
suits. and the work of stripping an
active front OF guns and men and
transferring them elsewhere In a few
days, when thousands OF cannon and
hundreds OF thousands Of men must
be moved-I wish l dared say how
many cannon and how many men
has been done under terrible pres
sure by the French stan in a way
that has seemed TO me simply
miraculous.
| II was this work Of transport ana
Organization In the rear that made Il
possible for Fsyelle to form a defen-
sive flank along the Disc. massacre
with those is that came up in Iorries
the many German divisions that tried
to force the river. close up the river
roads from Noyon 10 Compiegne and
Paris
1t was still other divisions and guns
| moved in the same way that pressed
back and immobilized the Germans.
as. their thrust south at Paris
stopped. they flung themselves west
ward past LaSsiEny TO Montdidier,
seeking to take-Amiens and separate
the British arf the French; and.
finally. General Foch, by that time
in supreme command. was able. with
still other masses OF men and mate
rial brought up along the same rail-
ways and the same roads. TO stop the
enemy on the heights west Of Mont
didier and contain his rush.
This story has been about the
French. whom 1 have seen going into
action: I do not mean to imply that
the British, too. have not done mar
vels i'm the north; without the British
! stubbornness north Of Montdidier. be-
fore Albert and Arras. where ] hear
the Third army. under Gen. BynE.
has covered itself with glory. the mir
acle the French have wrought in the
south would be vain. But the break
was in British sector: the British
had planned to meet the attack. The
French had quite other plans: TO
them. the collapse Of the Fifth Brit
ish army came as a stunning surprise
Terrible as Sir Douglas Haig's prob
lens were. to move his reserve into
position did not involve the difficulties
that the French. with the Fash Of
genius that comes to them in moments
or supreme peril. saw. understood
and overcame almost overnight.
There il no better soldier in the
world than the Englishman: but after
the story Of the first week Of the Bat
tie Of Picardy comes TO be told in de-
tail. think all the allied peoples will
be glad and proud to serve in the field
under the supreme direction OF the in
comparable French star.
This Man Knows "a, 900 Crooks.
In the Au,er3c,n M.r,vt-n . ,,--f,,,-