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Title: A Visit to Three Fronts

 

Author: Arthur Conan Doyle

 

Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9874]

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A VISIT TO THREE FRONTS

 

June 1916

 

BY

 

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

 

AUTHOR OF

 

‘THE GREAT BOER WAR’

PREFACE

In the course of May 1916, the Italian authorities expressed a desire

that some independent observer from Great Britain should visit their

lines and report his impressions. It was at the time when our brave and

capable allies had sustained a set-back in the Trentino owing to a

sudden concentration of the Austrians, supported by very heavy

artillery. I was asked to undertake this mission. In order to carry it

out properly, I stipulated that I should be allowed to visit the

British lines first, so that I might have some standard of comparison.

The War Office kindly assented to my request. Later I obtained

permission to pay a visit to the French front as well. Thus it was my

great good fortune, at the very crisis of the war, to visit the battle

line of each of the three great Western allies. I only wish that it had

been within my power to complete my experiences in this seat of war by

seeing the gallant little Belgian army which has done so remarkably

well upon the extreme left wing of the hosts of freedom.

 

My experiences and impressions are here set down, and may have some

small effect in counteracting those mischievous misunderstandings and

mutual belittlements which are eagerly fomented by our cunning enemy.

 

Arthur Conan Doyle.

 

Crowborough,

 

July 1916.

 

CONTENTS

 

A GLIMPSE OF THE BRITISH ARMY.

 

A GLIMPSE OF THE ITALIAN ARMY.

 

A GLIMPSE OF THE FRENCH LINE.

 

A GLIMPSE OF THE BRITISH ARMY

 

I

 

It is not an easy matter to write from the front. You know that there

are several courteous but inexorable gentlemen who may have a word in

the matter, and their presence ‘imparts but small ease to the style.’

But above all you have the twin censors of your own conscience and

common sense, which assure you that, if all other readers fail you, you

will certainly find a most attentive one in the neighbourhood of the

Haupt-Quartier. An instructive story is still told of how a certain

well-meaning traveller recorded his satisfaction with the appearance of

the big guns at the retiring and peaceful village of Jamais, and how

three days later, by an interesting coincidence, the village of Jamais

passed suddenly off the map and dematerialised into brickdust and

splinters.

 

I have been with soldiers on the warpath before, but never have I had a

day so crammed with experiences and impressions as yesterday. Some of

them at least I can faintly convey to the reader, and if they ever

reach the eye of that gentleman at the Haupt-Quartier they will give

him little joy. For the crowning impression of all is the enormous

imperturbable confidence of the Army and its extraordinary efficiency

in organisation, administration, material, and personnel. I met in one

day a sample of many types, an Army commander, a corps commander, two

divisional commanders, staff officers of many grades, and, above all, I

met repeatedly the two very great men whom Britain has produced, the

private soldier and the regimental officer. Everywhere and on every

face one read the same spirit of cheerful bravery. Even the half-mad

cranks whose absurd consciences prevent them from barring the way to

the devil seemed to me to be turning into men under the prevailing

influence. I saw a batch of them, neurotic and largely be-spectacled,

but working with a will by the roadside. They will volunteer for the

trenches yet.

 

*

 

If there are pessimists among us they are not to be found among the men

who are doing the work. There is no foolish bravado, no under-rating of

a dour opponent, but there is a quick, alert, confident attention to

the job in hand which is an inspiration to the observer. These brave

lads are guarding Britain in the present. See to it that Britain guards

them in the future! We have a bad record in this matter. It must be

changed. They are the wards of the nation, both officers and men.

Socialism has never had an attraction for me, but I should be a

Socialist to-morrow if I thought that to ease a tax on wealth these men

should ever suffer for the time or health that they gave to the public

cause.

 

‘Get out of the car. Don’t let it stay here. It may be hit.’ These

words from a staff officer give you the first idea that things are

going to happen. Up to then you might have been driving through the

black country in the Walsall district with the population of Aldershot

let loose upon its dingy roads. ‘Put on this shrapnel helmet. That hat

of yours would infuriate the Boche’—this was an unkind allusion to the

only uniform which I have a right to wear. ‘Take this gas helmet. You

won’t need it, but it is a standing order. Now come on!’

 

We cross a meadow and enter a trench. Here and there it comes to the

surface again where there is dead ground. At one such point an old

church stands, with an unexploded shell sticking out of the wall. A

century hence folk will journey to see that shell. Then on again

through an endless cutting. It is slippery clay below. I have no nails

in my boots, an iron pot on my head, and the sun above me. I will

remember that walk. Ten telephone wires run down the side. Here and

there large thistles and other plants grow from the clay walls, so

immobile have been our lines. Occasionally there are patches of

untidiness. ‘Shells,’ says the officer laconically. There is a racket

of guns before us and behind, especially behind, but danger seems

remote with all these Bairnfather groups of cheerful Tommies at work

around us. I pass one group of grimy, tattered boys. A glance at their

shoulders shows me that they are of a public school battalion. ‘I

thought you fellows were all officers now,’ I remarked. ‘No, sir, we

like it better so.’ ‘Well, it will be a great memory for you. We are

all in your debt.’

 

They salute, and we squeeze past them. They had the fresh, brown faces

of boy cricketers. But their comrades were men of a different type,

with hard, strong, rugged features, and the eyes of men who have seen

strange sights. These are veterans, men of Mons, and their young pals

of the public schools have something to live up to.

 

*

 

Up to this we have only had two clay walls to look at. But now our

interminable and tropical walk is lightened by the sight of a British

aeroplane sailing overhead. Numerous shrapnel bursts are all round it,

but she floats on serenely, a thing of delicate beauty against the blue

background. Now another passes—and yet another. All morning we saw

them circling and swooping, and never a sign of a Boche. They tell me

it is nearly always so—that we hold the air, and that the Boche

intruder, save at early morning, is a rare bird. A visit to the line

would reassure Mr. Pemberton-Billing. ‘We have never met a British

aeroplane which was not ready to fight,’ said a captured German aviator

the other day. There is a fine stern courtesy between the airmen on

either side, each dropping notes into the other’s aerodromes to tell

the fate of missing officers. Had the whole war been fought by the

Germans as their airmen have conducted it (I do not speak of course of

the Zeppelin murderers), a peace would eventually have been more easily

arranged. As it is, if every frontier could be settled, it would be a

hard thing to stop until all that is associated with the words Cavell,

Zeppelin, Wittenberg, Lusitania, and Louvain has been brought to the

bar of the world’s Justice.

 

And now we are there—in what is surely the most wonderful spot in the

world, the front firing trench, the outer breakwater which holds back

the German tide. How strange that this monstrous oscillation of giant

forces, setting in from east to west, should find their equilibrium

here across this particular meadow of Flanders. ‘How far?’ I ask. ‘180

yards,’ says my guide. ‘Pop!’ remarks a third person just in front. ‘A

sniper,’ says my guide; ‘take a look through the periscope.’ I do so.

There is some rusty wire before me, then a field sloping slightly

upwards with knee-deep grass, then rusty wire again, and a red line of

broken earth. There is not a sign of movement, but sharp eyes are

always watching us, even as these crouching soldiers around me are

watching them. There are dead Germans in the grass before us. You need

not see them to know that they are there. A wounded soldier sits in a

corner nursing his leg. Here and there men pop out like rabbits from

dugouts and mine-shafts. Others sit on the fire-step or lean smoking

against the clay wall. Who would dream to look at their bold, careless

faces that this is a front line, and that at any moment it is possible

that a grey wave may submerge them? With all their careless bearing I

notice that every man has his gas helmet and his rifle within easy

reach.

 

A mile of front trenches and then we are on our way back down that

weary walk. Then I am whisked off upon a ten mile drive. There is a

pause for lunch at Corps Headquarters, and after it we are taken to a

medal presentation in a market square. Generals Munro, Haking and

Landon, famous fighting soldiers all three, are the British

representatives. Munro with a ruddy face, and brain above all bulldog

below;