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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’
PREFACEIn 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;
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