Gray Tide In The East

by Andrew J. Heller

  “How about a gadget that throws burning fuel fifty yards through the air, sticks to skin and clothing like glue, and can’t be put out with water?” Stilwell asked.

  Swing responded, his eyes widening. “Burned to death with liquid fire? Christ, that’s horrible! Don’t they have enough nasty ways to kill each other yet?”

  “Maybe not,” the attaché said grimly. “There are rumors that their chemists are also developing some kind of asphyxiating gas, which will burn the lungs out of anybody who breathes it.”

  The journalist considered the effects of deadly clouds of gas descending on unsuspecting soldiers, briefly picturing men writhing in the mud, coughing and suffocating in their own blood. He swallowed.

  “Ok,” he said at last. “I agree it’s important, but I’m just a reporter, Joe. What do you want me to do for you, write a feature article for the Sunday edition about the Kaiser’s secret weapons?” he inquired ironically.

  “My orders are to set up an intelligence network here,” Stilwell explained. “I know you have contacts in Germany who would never deal directly with an American officer. We need to learn more about these weapons, their state of operational readiness for use in the field, and anything else you can get.” Seeing his friend’s expression, Stilwell paused.

  “Listen, Ray, I know this isn’t your job,” he continued. “I won’t blame you if you say ‘no.’ Just let me say my piece, and I’ll never bring it up again.”

  Swing nodded. “Go ahead.”

  “The German Empire is a real world power, with the best army in the world and maybe the second-best navy. They have the best chemists, the best metallurgists, the best technology in the world. The people are hard workers, smart, productive and well educated. Their leaders are aggressive, and they are not afraid to use their military power to get what they want, not afraid to start a war for it.” Stilwell paused again, looking at Swing for his reaction.

  “I agree with everything you said, but…” Swing began.

  “If Germany wins this war, don’t you think there’s a pretty good chance that we, the United States, will have to take them on somewhere down the road?” Stilwell asked. “Don’t forget that we almost had a war with them back in ‘98 over the Philippines.”

  Stilwell was referring to a run-in between Commodore George Dewey and a squadron of German cruisers under Rear Admiral Otto von Diederichs off the Philippines just after Dewey had annihilated the Spanish Asiatic Fleet in the Battle of Manila Bay. The German squadron began maneuvering as if intending to claim the islands, taking advantage of destruction of the Spanish fleet. In that instance, with the powerful British Asiatic Fleet quietly supporting the Americans, the outgunned Diederichs had prudently chosen to withdraw.

  Stilwell continued grimly, “Now add these Greek fire gadgets and poisonous gas, and a few other things we don’t know about yet. Ray, our country isn’t ready for a war with Germany. I don’t know when we will be. We need every bit of information we can get, so that if we do go at it with them (and it’s when we do, not if, for my money), we won’t be caught with our pants down. It isn’t hard to see how important that is, is it?”

  Stilwell hoisted his beer and finished what remained in the stein in one long swallow. Swing absently regarded his companion’s bobbing Adam’s apple as the last drops of the Pratergarten wheat beer vanished down the military attaché’s gullet.

  “Well, I’ve done my patriotic duty, trying to enlist you,” he said at last, nudging a few spots of foam from his upper lip with a knuckle, “and I won’t say that I blame you the least bit for turning me down. Once this war really gets going, you’re going to be busier than a one-armed paperhanger with the hives. Did your credentials to travel with the German Army ever come through?” He changed the subject, as if the question of the spy network was now settled and forgotten.

  Swing did not respond immediately. He looked down at the heavy beer mug in his hand for a few seconds, and then said slowly, “I think I may have changed my answer about helping you out. The more I think about it, the less I like the idea of a triumphant German Empire,” Swing said. “I have the impression that the more they get, the more they will demand: territory here in Europe, colonies overseas, trade privileges in the Far East, and who knows what next? I agree with you: there is going be a showdown with the German Empire someday, maybe not too far in the future, and I don’t want us to be on the losing side. I’ve seen the way they treat non-Germans unlucky enough to fall under the rule of the Empire, and I don’t want that for the U.S.A.”

  Stilwell nodded. “Okay, good. I’ll get some leads for you and, by the way, there’s some money available for you and whoever you recruit.”

  He relaxed, easing back in his seat. “What’s your take on the latest Kraut troop movements? Last week, every troop train in the country was headed west, and now they’re all coming back again. You don’t suppose Kaiser Willy realized that the war was a mistake and has called the whole thing off, do you?” he asked sardonically.

  Swing smiled. “That doesn’t seem very likely,” he said. “For some reason… who knows why?... it looks like Moltke has scotched the invasion of Belgium and is shipping most of his right wing east to fight the Russians.”

  The German plan, beginning the campaign in the West by invading her tiny neighbor in violation of the Treaty of London, had been an open secret for years. The Germans had threatened the Belgians, even to the extent of the German ambassador personally warning (threatening, really) King Albert that he would be wise to order his army not to resist in the event of a German invasion.

  “Could it be that somebody upstairs in the German government had a rush of brains to the head, and saw that violating Belgium was about the only sure way of bringing the British into the war against them?” Swing speculated.

  “If so, it would be just about the first sign of brains in the Chancellery since the Kaiser ‘dropped the pilot’…” Stilwell said. The Kaiser had dismissed the Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, the architect of the German Empire under Wilhelm I, the current Kaiser’s grandfather in 1890. “…and that was almost twenty-five years ago.”

  Swing did not venture to disagree with this assessment. German foreign policy had been notoriously erratic under the guidance of Bismarck’s successors. It was widely believed that the Kaiser himself was responsible for most, if not all of the thumb-fingered diplomatic moves over the last quarter-century that had given the German Empire an international reputation as a loose cannon and the Kaiser one as a dangerous warmonger.

  Swing’s opinion from what he had read was that Wilhelm II was not a stupid man, nor an evil one. He was just impulsive.

  “It may just be another one of Wilhelm’s brainstorms,” Swing hazarded. “A pretty good one for Germany, too, if you ask me.”

  Stilwell said nothing, merely grunting to indicate his agreement as he raised his hand to signal the hefty bierkellnerin, this time raising two fingers.

  “I have time for one more before I have to go back to work for the great statesman and diplomat from New York, Ambassador...” again he pronounced the word with sarcastic precision, ”...James W. Gerard. Another beer might make him almost bearable,” he concluded.

  Chapter Four: NEAR NANCY, AUGUST 21, 1914

  “The whole Fifteenth Corps is running away, General.” Major Jean Hughes of the Second Army staff had been sent out by HQ to get a firsthand report on the fighting in the mountains east of Morhange, where the French offensive had been held up by German resistance. He was now reporting over the telephone to the Army Commander, General deCastlenau, describing sights that he had never thought he would see. “If I have ever seen beaten men in my life, then I am looking at them now.”

  The offensive in Lorraine, the northern half of Plan XVII, had started promisingly four days earlier. The Second Army’s thrust through the Vosges Mountains toward the initial objective, the rail junction at the town of Morhange, had advanced ahead of schedule, brushing aside light German opposition. Some of the more
exuberant French commanders claimed that the boches were already beaten and would offer no resistance this side of the Rhine, and perhaps not even on the far side.

  Hughes, examining the reports at Second Army HQ, was dubious about these claims. The signs of a defeated enemy, masses of prisoners and captured guns, were nowhere to be found. Hughes and his Intelligence Section colleagues believed that the Germans were simply drawing the invaders into the mountains to fight it out on ground of their own choosing. Hughes predicted that the Germans would stand and fight in the wooded slopes of the mountains east of Morhange.

  The leading elements of the Second Army entered Morhange on the 18th, and rapidly occupied the undefended town. The soldiers rejoiced at the liberation of this corner of the Lost Province: they were the first French soldiers to set foot in the city since Germany had wrenched Lorraine and its sister province Alsace from France more than forty years earlier as part of the shameful peace treaty that ended the Franco-Prussian War. That war was referred to in France, when it was spoken of at all, as le debacle.

  The headlines in every newspaper from Calais to Marseille screamed “Revanche!” in thick, black letters. The accompanying articles assumed that the despised Huns were fleeing, and the liberation of Alsace and Lorraine was all but accomplished.

  On the morning of third day, the advance of the Second Army came to an abrupt halt in the wooded hills two kilometers east of Morhange. The commander of the 15th Corps, General Gerard, who on the previous day been certain that the Germans were routed, now reported that the enemy artillery fire had inflicted such heavy casualties on his corps that it would be incapable of offensive action for at least 48 hours. There were similar reports from other corps commanders, indicating stiff German resistance all along the Second Army front. DeCastlenau peremptorily ordered them to continue to attack until the German position was penetrated.

  By the afternoon, the Second Army’s assaults had been hurled back along the line. General deCastlenau decided he needed an eyewitness account from an officer he could trust. He recalled that Hughes had predicted that the boches would dig in east of Morhange, and ordered the Intelligence man up to the front to make a first-hand observation.

  The Major rode a staff car up to 15th Corps headquarters just outside Morhange to talk to General Gerard. The 15th Corps commanding officer complained that his assault columns were being blasted apart by German artillery almost as soon as they formed to launch an attack.

  “Their guns outrange ours, and they hold all the high ground. So, when I try to soften the boche up with a preliminary bombardment, the counter-battery fire just blows my 75s all to Hell, Major,” explained the General. “When we put in an attack without artillery preparation…” he gestured east. “I suggest you go up there to see for yourself. I am not saying that what General deCastlenau is asking is impossible, but… Go up and see. The 29th Division is putting in another attack.”

  Hughes left the agitated Gerard, and went up to an observation post of the 29th Division to watch the French attack through field glasses.

  As Gerard had said, the poilus were already under heavy shelling before they even reached the start line. Explosions ripped gaps in the French formations, leaving bodies scattered on the hillside. The attackers continued to dress their lines and fill in the gaps until they reached the jumping-off point, at the base of a steep, thickly wooded hill.

  Now the junior officers that led the assault jumped up, fiercely blowing their whistles and waving their men forward to the attack. Many of these brave, young officers were hit by German fire right away, as they were conspicuously out in front of their troops. Hughes noted that in the gloom of the forest, the French soldiers’ bright red trousers stood out remarkably well, and undoubtedly made tempting targets for the German riflemen and machine-gunners. The gray-clad Germans, on the other hand, were much harder to see.

  He watched as the men who charged up the steep slope with fixed bayonets were cut to pieces long before they could get into bayonet range. The Germans had set up machine-gun nests with interlocking fields of fire that covered every approach to the summit. Every fallen log, every pile of rocks seemed to have been converted into a strongpoint from which the deadly Maxim guns spit out streams of death. Here and there, whether by phenomenal courage, unusual skill or blind luck, a group of French soldiers were able to close with a German pillbox or machine-gun nest and take it out with hand grenades and rifle fire at point blank range, but for the most part, the attackers were simply scythed down before they could get near the enemy. In twenty minutes, the slope was littered with dead bodies and the attack had collapsed. The survivors retreated sullenly back down to the shallow trenches at the base of the hill where they had started, carrying or dragging their dead and wounded comrades with them.

  The French tactical scheme was a complete disaster, Hughes decided. He recalled the Ecole Superior de la Guerre lectures he had attended before the war by Colonel (now Brigadier General) Grandmaison on the power of the offensive, the so-called offensive a’ outrance. “The French soldier must triumph in battle because his superior elan will overcome the enemy’s will to fight. The moral is everything, the material nothing.”

  This philosophy was eventually officially adopted in the 1913 Field Regulations, containing the Eight Commandments of Offensive Warfare. The Regulations, which were intended to be a general guide for tactical training, were fruity with phrases like “offensive without hesitation”, “fierceness and tenacity”, and so on. Evidently, the Regulations did not take into account the effects of shrapnel and machine guns on men in the open field. Experience in combat was showing that, on the battlefield, elan was not proof against a 7.7 centimeter shell, and the offensive spirit could not deflect machine gun bullets.

  Actually, Grandmaison was not the true originator of this tactical approach; he was teaching a much abridged version of theories developed by Ferdinand Foch. The portion of Foch’s ideas that Grandmaison left out of his lectures was the most important part, in Hughes’ estimation: Foch’s emphasis on the importance of preparation, planning, security, what Foch termed sureté. The thought reminded Hughes that Foch was nearby, in command of the 20th Corps which was supposed to be attacking somewhere south of Morhange. He wondered if the 20th was having any better luck with their assignment than the 15th Corps was here. He returned to 15th Corps Headquarters to consult with General Gerard again.

  “You saw for yourself, then?” Gerard asked Hughes. “This has been going on for the last two days, and our casualties, especially among the junior officers and veteran non-coms have been so heavy that many of the units have lost cohesion. That is why I told General deCastlenau that I do not believe this Corps will be capable of offensive operations without substantial reinforcements, heavy artillery support and at least 48 hours to reorganize some of the worst-mangled units. In fact, in its current condition, I am far from certain that the Corps can hold this position in the event of a German counter-attack.”

  Major Hughes did not venture to argue the point. The Second Army was continuing to pressure the corps commanders, because General Joffre in Paris was putting the Second Army’s commander’s feet to the fire (and likely those of all of the other army commanders as well), demanding that they attack and break through the German positions. Major Hughes was sure that General deCastlenau was not interested in hearing excuses as to why the assignment could not be carried out, any more than General Joffre in GHQ wanted to hear why Second Army was not taking its assigned objectives. Both the Commander-in-Chief and the commanding general of the Second Army were ardent believers in the offensive a’ outrance. Hughes did not think there was the slightest chance the 15th Corps would be able to carry the German positions on their front, but Plan XVII required it to do so. The situation was a disaster waiting to happen.

  And sure enough, disaster, in the form of a heavy German counter-attack, struck the weakened and demoralized 15th Corps that very afternoon.

  Through his field glasses, Hughes looked upon a
scene out of a nightmare. French soldiers in their blue jackets and red pants ran towards him in a disorganized mob. Discarded packs littered the ground, and many of the men had also cast away their rifles and were unarmed. German shells landing among the fleeing poilus blasted some to bloody fragments as they ran to the rear. Some wounded men limped along with improvised crutches, while others were carried by their mates. Artillerymen frantically whipped the horses pulling the gun carriages, urging them on to greater speed. Hughes saw numerous dead soldiers lying crumpled on the ground, arms out-flung in bizarre attitudes of death. A few small groups here and there still had some fight left in them. They crouched behind some bit of cover, still firing their rifles in the direction of the enemy and standing their ground. But there were not enough of them. Most of the 15th Corps had seen enough fighting for today, and the Corps was melting away before his eyes.

  As he watched, he described what he saw on a field telephone to General deCastlenau himself, at Second Army Headquarters. The General asked Hughes a question. “The boche artillery was pounding them, General,” he replied. “As you know, their field pieces outrange our 75s. The artillery bombardment went on for about two hours, causing very heavy casualties, as the Corp’s position had no natural cover and the men were not dug in…” (because they were taught that the French soldier never digs in, he only attacks, Hughes thought) “…and then they were taken by a surprise attack in the flank from a forest… a moment please, General…” Hughes fumbled with a map, finally succeeding in unfolding it to the right section. “…the Forest of Bride and Koeking, about three kilometers east of here.”