The Note-Book Of An Attach - free ebook by Eric Fisher Wood

The Note Book Of An Attaché

Seven Months in the War Zone With Illustrations from Photographs Publishers New York Published by Arrangements with The Century Company...

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A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York Published by Arrangements with The Century Company Copyright, 1915, by THE CENTURY CO. Published, June, 1915...

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FOREWORD

When the war-storm suddenly loomed over Europe at the end of July, 1914, I was quietly studying architecture in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at Paris. When Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 24th, the atmosphere of the city became so surcharged with excitement that to persist in study was difficult. Within a week I myself had been swept into the vortex of rushing events, from which I did not emerge until seven months later. I became Attaché at the American Embassy in Paris under the regi

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AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY

Paris, Tuesday, August 4th. I presented myself at the American Embassy today and offered my services to Mr. Herrick. They were promptly accepted. I was put to work with such suddenness that no time was spent in determining my official status. I cannot say whether I am a doorman or an Attaché. At present the duties of the two seem to be identical. Now, as in 1870, the German Embassy in leaving France turned over its affairs and the interests of German subjects remaining in France to the American

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THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS

Saturday, August 29th. Paris feels the oppression of war more and more each day. There have been so many “morts pour la patrie” that everywhere there are families who have been stricken by the loss of a member. This leaven of sorrow gives to the population as a whole a somber tone. Perfectly frightful stories of German barbarities are circulating. They are almost unbelievable, but seem to have some confirmation. Many of the wounded Frenchmen when returning from the front bring trophies of battle

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WITH THE BRITISH ARMY. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE

Paris, Sunday, September 6th. Since the French Government left Paris we have been totally ignorant of all that is going on outside of the city walls. For the past few days everything has been hazy rumor. During all last week we expected the Germans to march into Paris any day; for their headquarters were at Compiègne, their heavy advance at Senlis and Coulomiers, and their cavalry at Pontoise and Chantilly. With the Germans only fifteen miles from the gates of Paris, the newspapers make no defin

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THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE

Friday, September 11th. It still continues to rain much of the time. Today it developed into a drenching, pelting, soaking downpour, which continued all day long. Colonel Allen, Captain Parker, and I had luncheon at the Grand Hotel. Hall arrived with the machine at two o’clock. He had packed into it, or tied to it, an immense stock of canned goods, biscuits, and bread, an incredible amount of gasoline, with a heavy overcoat and small satchel for each one of us, until the car looked more like a c

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ANALYSIS OF THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE

Monday, September 14th. The equipment of the German soldier is in every detail a marvel of perfection. This impresses me more than any other single element of the war excepting only the bravery of the French, and the imperturbable sang froid of the English. A striking example of this perfection is the spiked helmet. Contrary to appearance, it is not heavy, weighing indeed scarcely more than a derby hat. Everyone who picks one up for the first time exclaims in astonishment, “How light it is!” The

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THE BATTLE OF THE AISNE

Paris, Monday, October 12th. In writing about the German, Austrian, and Hungarian subjects of whom we have had charge, I have spoken of them en masse . In reality there have been many cases in whom I have been personally interested and to whose safety I have given much time. Their history alone would fill a book. One of these is the case of the Countess X., member of an old and powerful Hungarian family. The Count, her husband, was desperately ill in Paris when the war broke out and he was kept

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THE AMERICAN AMBULANCE

Paris, Thursday, October 15th. For the present the jottings in my diary grow farther and farther apart, as events worth recording have during the past weeks occurred with less and less frequency. The volume of Embassy work in the department of Germans, Austrians, and Hungarians has of late been steadily decreasing. Since the end of September our work has chiefly consisted of routine diplomatic correspondence relating to prisoners of war. Mr. Herrick’s efforts have recently been successful in obt

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GERMANY AND BERLIN

Berne, Saturday, November 28th. Donait and I left Paris at nine last evening for Lyons, Culoz, and Geneva with dispatches for Berlin. For many reasons we are particularly anxious to see Germany and Austria in war time, and look forward keenly to the experience which we face. We arrived in Geneva at noon. We were very tired, for our train and compartment were overcrowded and we had to sit up all night. The responsibility of the sack of official papers which we carried, and on which one of us had

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CARRYING DISPATCHES FROM BERLIN TO LONDON

Thursday, December 10th. Soon after the train left Berlin this morning I judged that I was being shadowed. When it pulled out of the station there were four people, including myself, in the six-place compartment, the two middle seats being vacant, one on my left as I sat next the window and the other diagonally facing me. Soon after the train was well started two men came in and occupied these seats. This in itself was suspicious, since people do not seek seats while a train is in motion. Both m

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VIENNA

Vienna, Saturday, December 19th. I remained in Berlin only one day and started this morning for Vienna with dispatches, arriving late in the evening after an uneventful fourteen-hour journey. Sunday, December 20th. I presented myself at the American Embassy this morning, delivered my dispatches, and had a conference with Mr. Grant-Smith, the First Secretary. At luncheon I met Colonel Biddle, an officer in the Engineer Corps of the United States Army, who has recently arrived in Austria in order

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HUNGARY

Budapest, Tuesday, December 29th. I left Vienna at nine o’clock this morning and reached Budapest at two. I had tea with Mrs. Gerard, who is in Budapest visiting her sister, Countess Sigray. I called at the home of Count Albert Apponyi to leave my card and letters of introduction. I dined with Mrs. Gerard and the Count and Countess Sigray. The great Hungarian plain, bounded by the Carpathians on the east and by the Danube and the Save on the south has been inhabited by the Hungarian people for m

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A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP

Vienna, Tuesday, January 12th. Last night and today twenty-three long trains of German regular troops have passed through the Ivanka station on their way east. They were apparently going to the Roumanian frontier. A train will hold two battalions of infantry, two thousand men, or a battery of artillery with full equipment. These trains would, therefore, represent something like thirty thousand men, and more were all the time coming. My car, in which I was en route from Budapest to Vienna, stoppe

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CONCLUSION

It would be a sin of omission for me to neglect to sound again that oft-repeated warning against the dangers of military unpreparedness, which has been so vainly sounded since the birth of our nation by every American, great or small, who has known or seen anything of actual war conditions. Is it idle to hope that the warnings to be deduced from the current histories of other nations will be heeded by a nation which has ever disregarded the lessons of its own history? MISCELLANEOUS MILITARY OBSE

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CASUALTIES

The total losses of the various belligerents in killed, wounded, and captured for the first six months of the war, from August 1st to February 1st, are as follows: The approximate ratio of deaths to total casualties is as follows: (The large proportion of French deaths was due: First, to the fact that in the early part of the war most actions were German victories, and the Germans could not care for French wounded as well as they did for their own; Secondly to lack of sanitary skill on the part

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MEDICAL CORPS

The battle practice in the French army in handling wounded is as follows: When a man is wounded he is carried to a dressing station in some partly protected neighborhood within the battle area. He is generally taken there by the stretcher-bearers attached to his company. After field dressing, he is removed to a field hospital one to three miles toward the rear. The means of transportation are varied, and made to suit the particular battle conditions, the principal means being stretcher-bearers,

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AËROPLANES

The German aëroplanes are generally conceded to be the most effective in the war, and the Germans seem to possess more of them than any other nation. None of their machines are slow and their fastest ones are faster than any in the other armies. Aëroplanes have been singularly ineffective in attacking as their shooting is extremely bad. They usually miss their target by at least two hundred yards, and, so far as my personal knowledge goes, the only damage that they have ever done has been when t

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ARTILLERY

I have at all times been tremendously impressed with the dominant importance in this war of artillery. My personal observations lead me to estimate that the percentage of casualties from artillery wounds has been nearly 50% of the total. There are very distinct differences in the methods of the French and German field artilleries. The French field artillery is always used in indirect fire and the positions are usually a long distance behind the infantry—from fifteen to twenty-five hundred yards.

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INFANTRY

My observations lead me to think that the most important qualifications for the infantry soldier are three, viz: to be able to dig, to be able to hide, and to be able to shoot. At the beginning of the war the French had paid very little attention to any of these things. Their men were dressed in a uniform so conspicuous that hiding was impossible. The only shooting that they had ever done was gallery shooting at a range of about forty yards and they were singularly poor even at this. Judging by

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TRENCHES AND CONCEALMENT

In October I was in the neighborhood of Lassigny and Roye where heavy fighting was and had been going on. There was a little village called Erches to the northwest of these places. Here were the French advance trenches. I was in this village during the height of operations and was told that we were then only 150 or 200 yards from the German trenches. Standing behind a house corner in this village of Erches, I could see nothing unusual in any direction. I could see no signs of French or German ac

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CAVALRY

The Austrian cavalry unit is the division, which is accompanied by the horse artillery in considerable strength. They are not accompanied by cyclists or armored automobiles. During the first six months of the war, at least, in the Austrian, Hungarian, British, and French armies no newspaper or war correspondents were allowed to view the actual operations on any condition whatsoever. No press representative saw any battle with the Austrian, Hungarian, British, or French armies, with one single ex

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ENGINEERING

The only work which I observed to be done entirely and solely by engineers was the construction of bridges, of which they have had to build a great number. I was impressed by the fact that many of these bridges were quite original in conception. They are nearly always intelligent makeshifts which might truly be called inventions. At Pont-Ste.-Maxence, a bridge capable of supporting the heaviest traffic was constructed in a few hours. Big canal boats which were lying idle in the neighborhood were

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SUPPLIES

In the French army the reserve small arms ammunition is kept behind the battle-line just out of reach of shell-fire. There are ammunition train regiments just as there are infantry or cavalry regiments. Each such regiment is composed of eighty odd ammunition wagons and some forage wagons. Two regiments generally move together, thus forming an ammunition brigade. These wagons are parked parallel to the line of battle. Supply columns are always parked vertically to the line of battle. In the Battl

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MOTOR TRANSPORT

In the matter of motor transport, the practice with the French and British has become well defined. The best type of truck is one of medium weight, and of the best construction obtainable. It should be emphasized that medium-priced or inexpensive trucks are undesirable. It is very distinctly the opinion of French and British transport officers that it is better to have too few trucks, all of which are reliable, than to take “any old truck” and have it break down at critical moments during operat

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SIGNAL CORPS

The Germans use telephones very extensively and apparently in connection with all arms of the service. Their wires are very thin and are similar to small piano wires. I saw no copper wire used by them. The wire is strung on poles about nine feet high. These poles are very carefully made of wood and are only about an inch in diameter. Every second pole is guyed with a wire and braced with a pole. The poles are painted in black and white stripes to make them conspicuous and to prevent people from

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PHYSIQUE

The German soldiers and officers have a physique unapproached by any troops which I saw, except the Swiss. Their average height and weight is very much above all the others, except the Russians. The Russians are as large as the Germans but do not approach them in activity and quality. The French, although small and light, are wiry and have very good stamina, especially in the matter of marching. The Austrians are of medium size, most of them being stockily built. The Hungarians are of medium hei

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MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS

I found intelligent people in Germany very broad-minded about military matters. They were pretty well agreed that General Joffre is the only general produced so far by the war who would rank in history as a great captain, and while they maintained that the German officers as a class were superior to all others, they conceded that the best troops which have so far taken part in the war were the British regulars who represented England in the early weeks of the war and retreated from Charleroi thr

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AUTHOR’S NOTE

I have received a letter from Mr. Herrick in which he expresses the opinion that I was too severe on the diplomatic corps for leaving Paris when the Germans threatened the city and the French government moved to Bordeaux. He states that it was the duty of the diplomatic corps to go with the government and that it was according to diplomatic precedent. His own decision to remain in Paris was the result of a special permission from the United States government, authorizing him to use his own discr

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