WITH THE TURKISH ARMY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3212, 6 October 1915, Page 73

WITH THE TURKISH ARMY.

(By Arthur Ruhr, in Collier’s Weekly.)

Wo climbed into the covered waggon and started for the south front. We drove down to the sea and along the beach road through Maidos bombarded several weeks before cross country from the /Egean, and nothing now but bare, burned walls—on to Kilid Bahr, Jammed with camels and oxcarts and soldiers, and then on toward the end of the peninsula.

We were now bevond the NarroAVS and the Dardanelles. I’d the left, a bit farther out, Avere the waters in which the Irresistible and Bou\’et were sunk, and even hoav, off the point, 10 or 12 miles away, hung the smoke of sister ships. We drove past the big guns of the forts, past field guns covering the shore, past masked batteries and searchlights. Beside us, along the shore road, mule trains and oxcarts and camel trains were toiling along in the blaze and dust with provisions and ammunition fox the front. Once we Eed four soldiers carrying a comrade, y wounded, on a stretcher padded AA’ith leaves. After an hour or so of bumping we turned into a transverse valley as leA’el almost as if it had been made for a parade ground. High hills protected it north and south; a little stream ran down the centre —it might haAe been made for a storage base and camp. More brush-coA’ered tents and arbours Avere strung along the hillside, one aboA’e the other sometimes, in half a dozen terraces. We drove into the valley, got out, and followed the orderly to a brnsh-C0A r ered arbor, closed on eA'ery side but one, out of which came a Avell-set-up, bronzed, brighteyed man of 50 or thereabout who Avelcomed us like long-lost friends. It was Shukrl Bey, colonel commanding the division here. We were the first correspondents avHo had pushed thus far, and as novel to him apparently as he was charming to us. He invited us into the little arbor; coffee Avas brought and then tea, and, speaking German to Buydam and French to me, he talked of the Avar in general and the operations at the end of the peninsula with the greatest good humour and apparent confidence in the ultimate result.

Our talk' was continually punctuated by the rumble of the big guns over the plateau to the south. “That’s ours.” . . . “That’s theirs,” he would explain ; and presently, with a young aide-de-camp as guide, we climbed out of the valley and started down the plateau toward Sedd til Bahr.

The Allies’ foothold here was much wider than that at Ari Burnu. In the general landing operations of April 25 and 26 one force was sent ashore in a large collier, from which, after she was beached, the men poured across anchored lighters to the shore—the English and French established themselves in Sedd ul Bahr itself and along the cliffs on either side. This position was strengthened during the weeks of fighting which followed until they appeared to be pretty firmly fixed on the end of the peninsula, with a front running clean across it in a general northwest line several kilometres in from the point. Tire valley we had just left was about seven miles from Sedd ul Bahr and the plateau across which we we walking led, on the right, up to a ridge from which one could look down on the whole battlefield, or, to the left, straight down into the battle itself. The sun was getting down in the west by this time, down the road from camp men were carrying kettles of soup and rice pilau to their comrades in the trenches, and from the end of the plateau came the continuous thundering and the crack, . . crack . . . crack! of infantry fire. The road was strewn with fragments of shells from previous bombardments, and our solicitous young lieutenant, fearing we might draw fire, pulled us behind a bush for a minute or two, whenever the aero plane, flying back and forth in the west, seemed to be squinting at us. The enemy could see so little, he said, that whenever they saw anything at all they fired 20 shots at it on principle. For two miles, perhaps, we walked, until from the inno-cent-looking chaparral behind us there was a roar, and a shell wailed away over our heads out into the distance. We could see the end of the peninsula, where the coast curves round from Eski Hissarlik toward Sedd ul Bahr, and two of the enemy’s cruisers steaming slowly back and forth under the cliffs, firing, presumably, as they steamed. Now they were hidden under the shore, now they came in view, and opposite Eski Hissarlik swung round and steamed west again. In front of us, just over the edge of the plateau which there began to slope downward, were the trenches of the Turks’ left wing, now under bombardment. The ridge just hid the shells as they struck, but we could see the smoke from each, now a tall black column, like the “Jack John sons” of the west, now a yellowish cloud that hung long afterward like a fog—and with it the continuous rattle of infantry fire. Several flyers were creeping about far up against the blue, looking for lust such hidden batteries as that which :ept harking behind us, and out in front and to the right came the low hr—i-um —m ! of heavy guns. Fighting like this had been going on for weeks, the ships having the advantage of their big guns by day, the Turks recovering themselves, apparently, at night. They were on their own ground—a succession of ridges, one behind the other —and they Could not always see, but generally looked down on, an enemy who could not, generally, see them. And the enemy's men, supplies, perhaps even his water —for this la a dry country at all times, but after June there are almost no rains—must com/j from his ships. If submarines were in the Marmora, so, too, were they off the Dardanelles, and if the Turks were losing transports the English were losing battleships. The situation holds too many possibilities to make prophecy safe. I merely record the fact that on the afternoon of

May 27 I stood on the plateau above Sedd ul Bahr, and perhaps five or six miles from it in an air line, and still found myself a regrettable distance from the English and French front.

The sun was shining level down the road as we returned to camp, and soldiers were still tramping peacefully up to the front with their kettles of food. Meanwhile the colonel had prepared a little exhibition lor us. Six or eight soldiers stood in line, each Avith a dish and spoon, and in the dish a sample of the food for that night. We started at the top and tasted each—soup, mutton, stowed green beans, new baked oread, steAved plums, and a particularly appetising pilau, made out of boiled whole wheat and raisins. Evei-y----thing was good, and the beaming colonel declared that the first thing in war was to keep your soldiers well fed. We dined with him in his tent—soup and several meat courses and cherry compote, and at the end various kinds of nnts, including the cracked hazelnuts, commoner In Turkey than bananas and peanuts _at home. He hoped to come to America some day, and thought avo must soon develop the military strength to back our desires for peace unless there were to be continual wars. New York’s climate, the cost of fruit in Germany, and other peaceful subjects Avere touched on, and the colonel said that it Avas an honour to ha\ r e us Avith him—ours we brilliantly responded, —and n pleasant change from the constant talk and thought of aa t ar. He had been six years in the field now, what with the Italian and Balkan campaigns, and that was a good deal of war at a stretch.

After excusing ourselves, though the amiable Turk said that he was in no hurry, we were led to a sort of tent de luxe, lined in scarlet with snaky decorations in white, and when the young aide discovered that we had no beds he sent out, and in a moment had not only cots and blankets, bat mattresses and sheets and pillows and pillowcases. He asked if we had fathers and mothers alive at home, and brothers and sisters and wives, and if we too had been soldiers. It surprised and puzzled him that wo had not and that our army was so small. He was only 22 and a lieutenant, and he had a brother and father also in the army. With a great air of mystery he and his orderly dug a bottle of cognac out from his camp chest, and after we had drunk each other’s good health he gave us his card with his name in Turkish and French. He brought a table and put on it a night candle in a saucer of water, a carafe of drinking water, and gave me a pair of slippers —in short, did for us in that brush-covered camp in the Gallipoli hills everything that could be done for a guest in one’s own house. You can scarcely know what this meant without having known the difficulties of mere existence once you leave Constantinople and get into the war zone, and Shukri Bey and Liutenant Ahmed Akif will be remembered by at least two Americans • when anyone talks of the terrible Turk.

I awoke shortly after daylight, thinking I heard an aeroplane strumming in the distance, and was drowsily wondering whether or not it was fancy when a crash echoed up the valley. We both hurried out. It was sunup, a delicious morning, and far up' against the southern sky the little speck was sailing back towards the west. There was a flash of silver just under the flyer—it was an English biplane,—and & moment later another crash further away. Neither did any damage. A few minutes later we were looking at the remains of the bomb and propeller-like wings, whose whirling, as it falls, opens a valve that causes it to explode on striking its mark. Until it had fallen a certain number of meters, mere striking the ground would not explode it—a device to protect the airman in case of accident to his machine or if he is forced to make a quick landing. In the fresh, still morning, with the camp just waking up and the curious Turkish currycombs clinking away over by the tethered horses, our aerial visitor added only a pleasant excitement to this life in the open, and we went on with our dressing with great satisfaction, little dreaming how soon we were to look at one of those little flying specks quite differently.

—Uncomplaining Fatalists.—

We breakfasted with the colonel in his arbor on bread and ripe olives and tea, and walked with him round the camp, through a hospital, and into an old farmhouse yard where the gunsmiths were going over stacks of captured guns and the damaged rifles of the wounded, while the bees left behind in some clumsy old box hives buzzed away as of yore. Wiser than men, the colonel observed. There were English Enfields and French rifles of the early nineties, and a mitrailleuse to which the Turks had fitted a new wooden base. There were rifles with smashed barrels, with stocks bored through by bullets (clean-cut holes that must have gone on through the men who held them—live men like ourselves); ouick choking instants of terror the ghosts of which we were poking and peering into there in the warm sunshine ! . . .

We said good-bye to the colonel, for onr passes took us but to the valley, and he had stretched a point in sending us down the plateau the evening before. , . . The boat we went by was the same little side-wheeler we had come down on, crowded with wounded now, mud-stained, blood-stained, just as they had come from the trenches across the water, with no place to lie but the bare deck. The stifling hold was packed with them ; they curled up about the engine-room gratings —for It was cold that night—yet there was no complaint. A tired sigh now and then, a moan of weariness, and the soldier wrapped his army overcoat a little closer gbcut him, cutled up like a dog on a doormat, and left the rest to fate. A big, round, yellow moon climbed up out of Asia and poured its silver down on them and 00 the black lulls and water, still as some Inland 3ak«i; The side-wheeler tied up af- Akbash for the night, and It was not until the middle

of next morning that it was decided that she should cross and leave her wounded at Lapsaki instead of going on up to Constantinople. We lugged opr baggage off and hunted up our old friend, the Ham-burg-American captain, to see what might he done till some other craft appeared. Finally we went aboard a sort of enlarged tug which might be going up that afternoon or evening. It was about midday. The sun blazing down on the crowded flat; on boxes, sacks, stevedores wrapped up in all the variegated rags of the East shuffling in and out of the ships; on gangs digging, piling lumber, boiling water, cooking soup; officers in brown uniforms and brown lamb’s-wool caps ; on horses, ox teams, and a vast herd of sheep, which had just poured out of a transport and spread over the plain, when from the hill came two shots of warning.

The gangs scattered like water bugs Avben a stone is throAvn into the Avater. They ran for the hill, dropped into trenches; to the beach and threAV themselves flat on the sand ; into the water—all, as they ran, looking up over their shoulders to where, far overhead, whirred steadily nearer that tiny, terrible haAvk. A hidden battery roared and —pop —a little puff o? cotton floated in the skA - under the approaching flyer. Another and another — all the nervous little batteries in the Hills round about Avere coming to our rescue. The bird man, • safely above them, -drew on Avithout flinching. We had looked up at aeroplanes many times before and watched the pretty chase of the shrapnel, and Ave leaned out from under the awning to keep the thing in A-ieAv. “Look,” I said to Suydnm; “she’s coming right over us!” And then, all at once, there was a crash, a concussion that hit the ear like a Idloav, a geyser of smoke and dust and stones out on the flat in front of ns. Through the smoke I saAV a horse Avith its pack undone and flopping under its belly, trotting round Avith the Avild aimlessness of horses in the bull ring after they have been gored. Men were running, and, in a tangle of waggons, half a dozen oxen, on the ground, aa ere giving a feAV spasmodic kicks. Men streaked up from the engine-room and across the Avharf —after all, the Avharf Avonld be the thing he’d try for—and I found myself out on the flat with them just as there came another crash, but this time over bA - the Bai’barossa across the bay. Black smoke Avas pouring from the Turkish cruiser as she got under way, and, with the shrapnel puffs chasing hopelessly after, the flyer EAVung to the southAvard and out of sight. —The Two Airmen.—

Officers were galloping about yelling orders ; over in the dust Avhere the bomb had struck a man was saAving furiously aAvay at the throats of the oxen (there Avere seven of them, and there Avonld be plenty of beef in camp that night at any rate) ; there Avas a dead horse, two badly Avounded men, and a hundred feet away a man lying on his face, hatless, just as he had been bloAvn there; dead, or as good as dead. It appeared that tAVO flyers had come from opposite directions and most of the crowd had seen but the one, while the other dropped the bomb. It had struck just outside the busiest part of the camp, aimed very likely at the stores piled there. It had made a hole only sft or 6ft wide and 3ft or 4ft deep, hut it had bloAvn everything in the neighbourhood out from it, as the captain had said. Holes yon coui-d put your fist in Avere torn in the flanks of the oxen and the tyres of some of the waggons, 60ft or 70ft aAvay, had been cut through like Avax. With a curious sense that the bottom had somehow fallen out of things—eA r en the blue above Avas treacherous—and that one of those things which only happen to other people not only could, hut was going to, happen to ns right here and nOAv, Ave watched the men go back to work and the afternoon at ore on. We even went for a SAvim. The Rude Bomb ThroAver.— At cA-ery unexpected noise one looked upward, and Avhen about 5 o’clock the crowd scattered again, I will confess that I watched that little speck buzzing nearer, on a line that avouU bring him straight ahead, with an interest considerably less casual than any I had bestowed on these birds before. There we Avere, confined in our little amphitheatre; there was that diabolical bird peering doAvn at us, and in another minute, somewhere in that space, would come that earth-shaking explosion—a mingling of crash and Avhonff ! There AA r as no escaping it, no dodging it, nothing to get under but empty air. I had decided that the beach, about 100 yards away from the wharves, Avas the safest place, and hurried there; but the speck overhead, as if anticipating me, seemed to be aiming for the precise spot. It is difficult under such circumstances to sit tight, reasoning calmly that, after all, the chances of the bomb’s not landing exactly there are a good many to one —yon demand at least the ostrich-like satisfaction of having something overhead. So Ave scurried OA'er to the left to get out from under what seemed his line of flight, Avhen AAdiat should he do but begin to turn ! This was really rubbing it in a bit. To fly across as he had that morning Avas one thing, hut to pen one up in a nice little pocket in the hills, and then on a radium of three or four thousand yards circle round OA r er one’s head —anything yet devised by the human nightmare was crude and immature to this.

Was it No, behind, but it was traA'elling at 50 or 60 miles an hour, and the bomb would carry foiuvard —just enough probably to bring it over; and, if over, still the bomb Avonld be scA 7 eral seconds in falling—it might bo right on top of ns noAv! Should we run backward or forward ? Here was a place, in betAveen some grain bags. But the grain bags were open towards the wharf, and the wharf was Avhat he was aiming at, and a plank bloAvn through you No, the trench was the thing, hut Quick, he Is overhead.

The bench, the bags, the ditch, all the •way rovmd tka camp, and Suydam gallop-

ing after—was ever anything more inglorious? Somewhere in the middle of it a hideous whiffling wail came down the sky — Trrou . . . trrou . . . trou I —and then a crash! The bomb had hit the Avater just off the end of the pier. I kept on running. There was another Trrou . . . trrou 1 another geyser of water, and the bird had flown on. Back to Stamhoul. — I was on the edge of the camp by this time, and that strange afternoon ended when one of a gang of ditch-diggers, swathed in bright coloured rags, addressed me —a Groek-Turk from the island of Marmora, who, climbing out of the trench in which he and his gang had been hiding, announced that he had lived in New York for five years, in Fortieth street, and worked for the Morgan Line, and begged that I get him out of this nerve-racking place and where he belonged—somewhere on board ship. There were crowds like him—Greeks, Armenians, Turks, —not wanted as soldiers, but impressed for this sort of work. They were unloading firewood long after dark that night, when our boat at last got under way. We paused till sunup at Lupsaki, crept close to shore through the Marmora, and once through floating wreckage —boards and a galvanised iron gasoline tank left by a submarine, —and after dark with lights out, as we skirted round the corner of Stamboul. SOME FAMOUS MARCHES. STIRRING FEATS OF ENDURANCE RECALLED. The recent forced march to Windhoek, the capital of what was lately German South-west Africa, by the gallant Union Forces commanded by General Botha, has been described as one which ranks for strategy and indomitable perseverance among the greatest in the world’s history. The British army has many exploits of this kind to its credit, and South Africa has been the scene of not a few of the record “tramps.” The latest one has shown the Colonial Tommy Atkins at his best. Hard as nails, and able to exist for days on the minimum of food, and depending on water as lie finds it, he has proved worthy of the confidence placed in him by a great leader. A man of tireless energy himself. General Botha expected much, and got it. The country traversed was for the most part barren, destitute, and waterless. Where waterholes had been marked the troops, on arriving, found that they had been destroyed by the enemy, and where it was impossible to destroy them the water was polluted and poisoned. Mines had also been sown with fiendish ingenuity on the road. Added to these obstacles the troops suffered from the tremendous heat, and the trail seemed unending. But they won through, and the result will be realised when the history of the war comes to be written. A short account of other marches which have “made history” may therefore he of interest. —Rounding Up Cronje:— In the last Boer war many remarkable marches were performed. Although in the nature of things more prominence has been given to the doings of the British troops, there is no reason to doubt that the Boer burghers, now our gallant comrades in arms, also performed notable feats of the same description. When Cronje—that “elusive Pimpernel” of the campaign—was being rounded up by Lord Roberts, the man who put the proverbial “spoke in his wheel” was Sir John French. Wherever French had gone he had done well, but his crowning glory was his march from Kimberley to head off Cronje’s retreat. His troops, which had taken part in the relief of Kimberley, arrived there dead beat on Thursday, February 15, 1900. On the following morning they were out at 3 o’clock, and put in an exhausting day. That same evening French received an order to start instantly from Kimberley and endeavour to cut Cronje’s army off.' He did not hesitate for a moment, but. taking every man whose horse was able to carry him, he set out upon that never-to-be-forgotten adventure. The column rede throughout the whole night. Horses dropped down and died from sheer exhaustion, but still the heroic march went on over the shadowy veldt under the brilliant stars. By chance —or calculation, as you will—they headed straight for the one drift which was still open to Cronje. Their arrival was timely As they approached the kopjes which commanded the drift the advance guard of the enemv hove in sight. Notwithstanding the fact that thev had marched 30 miles, French’s men were full of fight, and, throwing themselves forward, they seized the position before the eyes of the enemy. Cronje was at last cornered. The “slim“ old general who had dodged the flower of the British army for so long was forced to admit defeat, and 10 days later he surrendered to Lord Roberts at Paardeberg. —Kabul to Kandahar.— The name of the late Lord Roberts was always associated with one outstanding event in the Avar in Afghanistan. Popularly, he Avas, knoAvn as the man Avho marched from Kabul to Kandahar. The incident happened after the shocking massacre of Major Cavagnari and the inmates of the British Residency at Kabul in 1879. FolloAving that distressing tragedy, Roberts Avas appointed to take charge of a column on a mission of A'engeance. The difficulties in the way Avere tremendous, and, added to that, his transport arrangements Avere wretched. The number of horses at his disposal Avas insufficient to overtake the work, and often the same horses had to travel portions of the road tAvice —going forward with so much of the equipment, and returning, for the remainder. HoweA T er, the fine spirit of the men overcame everything, and after a decisive defeat of the enemy’s troops, British officers took over the administration of the city of Kabul. The British army then retired to Slierpur, Avhere they rested for the winter.

But the spirit of the Afghans had not been subdued, and while there news reached Roberts that hordes of the natives had gathered with the intention of annihilating his army. He took decisive action at once, and after a series of brilliant victories British rule became once more supreme at Kabul. Then like a thunderclap came the intelligence that General Burrows's brigade had been defeated at Maiwand, and siege established at Kandahar. The garrison was weak, and help was urgently needed, Roberts instantly offered to lead a forcs to their relief. Receiving the necessary permission, he immediately set about forming his column, and on August 9 10 da}'s after the news of the disaster reached him—he set out on his famous march to Kandahar.

Twenty-one days later the column marched into Kandahar after a journey of 313 miles. In the first fortnight Roberta covered 225 miles, and allowed eight days for the remaining 88 miles on learning there was no immediate danger in the besieged city. During the last stages of the march Roberts was so ill with fever that he could scarcely sit his horse, and. latterly he had to be carried in a dhooly. Although he was faced with no opposition on the way, and there was no lack of food, the hardships inseparable from a rapid marcn were aggravated by the want of water and the extreme variations of the temperature. The march was considered n briliant achievement, but Roberts himself pointed out that it was less arduous than the march on Kabul in the previous autumn with such a force as he had. It. numbered, all told. 18.000 men. including camp followers, and 10.000 horses. On the dav following the arrival at Kandahar, Roberts and his army moved out against the enemy and inflicted a crushing defeat. The Relief of Lucknow.— Marching, fighting, and waiting for reinforcements by turns w;'3 the luck of General Havelock when he set out from Gawnpore to the relief of Lucknow. Hia was a work of supreme difficulty, and ■would have appalled a man of less courage and initiative. His army, which had been considerably reduced by sickness, consisting of 1500 men and 10 badly equipped guns, crossed the Ganges on July 25, 1857. For the next five days he was fighting and marching intermittently. Bui his forces were diminishing. Deciding to rest for a few days, he was latterly forced to fight an armed horde on August 4, and again on the 11th, defeating the enemy on each occasion. Fortune waa against him, however, and he had to return to Cawnpore for reinforcements', which were expected daily. Following this, Havelock engaged an army of rebels at Blithoor with 1300 men and defeated them.

It was wonderful work this brave man and his troops accomplished, gaining no less than 10 battles in 57 days. By that time his forces had been reduced to 700 men, and he had the knowledge that 35,000 rebel troops lay between him and his goal. The arrival of Sir James Outrarn with much needed reinforcements put new life into Havelock and his dauntless band. Although General Outrarn was the superior officer, he generously requested Havelock to retain command until Lucknow was reached, while he promised to act as a subordinate. This act. of Outrom’s quite reanimated the gallant little army, and on the 19th of September Havelock recrossed the Ganges with a larger force than he had yet had under him. . Fighting as he marched, he succeeded in reaching the outskirts of Lucknow on the 23rd, where his guns, thundering a salvo by way of a salute to the besieged city, were heard by the inmates of the .Residency. But Havelock’s entry into the town was by no means an accomplished fact. His'weary troops, exhausted by scanty food, heavy rains, and the want of covering, required rest befop© piercing the last barrier in the way. On the 25th, therefore, he resumed his march towards the Residency. This, as was expected, proved a difficult undertaking. He had to traverse roads intersected by trenches, climb pallisades, and pass houses which were miniature forts, and from which a perfect fusillade of shots emanated. In spite of all this he won his way to the Residency, where he was enthusiastically welcomed by the gallant defenders. Havelock’s losses were severe, more than 500 being killed, wounded, and missing. The casualty list included the names of General Neill (who had been his righthand man), killed by a cannon ball, and General Outrarn, slightly wounded. It is interesting to record that the lata Lord Roberts, then a young officer, took part in the rescue of Havelock and Outram. who were for two months shut up in Lucknow after the relief. He waa actually one of the first to greet them outside tiie Residency. During the events leading up to the rescue. Roberts was virtually in the saddle for 60 hours. The Advance on Moscow.—

When it became known that Napoleon had resolved on the invasion of Russia, it is said, his own friends were filled with, consternation. To all their entreaties ha turned a deaf ear, and nothing could make him sacrifice his ambition to maka Paris the capital of the world. On the 9th of May, 1812, Napoleon departed from Paris to superintend the war in person. His march through France and Germany was a continued triumph. From Dresden he marched through Poland, and thence on to the Vistula, the scene of present operations. The army consisted of something like 400,000 foot and 80,000 cavalry, not including thousands of waggons, containing provisions and ammunition, and the artillery recpiiring altogether 100,000 horses. As they went they robbed and plundered for the necessary provisions and fodder, leaving desolation in their wake.

It was strange, and showed the egotistical nature of the man, that the ideaof defeat never occurred to Napoleon, But in the beginning of the campaign

there was no evidence but that his way would be easy. Whenever the French met Russians the latter made way before them. The army, however, lost considerably through disease, desertion, and fatigue. On the 21st of July nearly a third of the army was missing. Men dropped, and were left behind to die where they lay, and for over a hundred miles the line of the army was marked by the dead bodies of men and horses.

The Ketreat. — Napoleon’s order to march was issued to the troops on the 18th, a month and four days after his triumphant entry into Moscow. “ Let us march upon Kaluga,” he said, “ and woe to those we meet on the way.” He was still boastful. The army which marched from Moscow consisted of 100,000 fighting men, with a number of sick, and a long procession of attendants and baggage-bearers, carrying booty and provisions. And now began the retreat, which will for ever be one of the most awful chapters in the annals of war. On the 26t.h the first battle on the homeward journey was fought. This engagement, although a victorious one for the French, showed Napoleon the desperate position he was in, and made him all the more anxious to hurry on the retreat. He decided to attempt to reach Smolensk before the winter set in, where he hoped to find everything the army stood in need of. But the way was by no means easy The weather became intensely cold, and the troops suffered severely starvation. Added to this were the attacks made upon them by the Russian Cossacks, who hovered about like birds of prey, ready to fall upon anj r who dropped behind. On the 6th of November what Napoleon had dreaded for so long came upon them. The clear blue sky disappeared, and the army became enveloped in blinding fog, snow, and sleet. Men and horses disappeared over chasms or were swallowed up in drifts and never seen again. There was no time to waste—no time to rescue them, and they were left to what was perhaps a merciful fate. Thus the troops toiled on. growing weaker and weaker. To give them fires, waggons were broken up and burned, and raw horse-flesh served to appease the hunger which assailed

On August 8 Smolensk w r as taken, after a half-hearted attempt to defend it by the Russians; but the victory counted for nothing, the latter setting fire to the town as they retreated. Dismayed by this, Napoleon determined to make for Moscow, 279 miles distant, which he expected to reach in 15 days. But he was doomed to another disappointment. The difficulties before him were of an appalling kind, and the troops endured tremendous suffering. A battle was fought on the wav, in which the French, although vie to no us, suffered tremendous losses. It was on the 14th of September _ that Napoleon’s army caught their first glimpse of Moscow’s lowers and steeples. Napoleon exclaimed : “ This at last is the famous city.” But his anxiety was betrayed by Ids next remark—“lt was high time.’’

That evening after dark Napoleon entered the city. But his triumph was shortlived. The Russians were at their old game, and soon shouts arose that the city was afire. The French endeavoured to subdue the flames during the next day, and at first met with some success, but on the fall of evening fresh conflagrations burst forth, and the army was forced to evacuate. For six days the city burned, and the damage was estimated at £50,000,000. All Napoleon’s endeavours to browbeat tlie Czar into suing for peace failed, and he was left with the alternative of wintering in the ruined city or retreating. His officers considered the first possible, but Napoleon, impetuous as usual, decided on the latter —his thoughts turning towards Paris. So on the 19th of October the army quitted Moscow.

Napoleon’s own division fared slightly better than the others, and on the 9th he reached Smolensk. Alas! for his hopes. The -city offered no means of mitigating his misfortunes. The provisions he expected to find there fell far short of the demand. There was no meat —only flour, rice, and spirits, and.that in limited quantities. Some died while the food was being served out, and others from sheer gluttony. The army was reorganised at Smolensk, when it was found that out of the 100.000 fighting men who left Moscow, only 36,000 remained. Two-thirds of the army in 25 davs. What a carnage! Little more need be told of the termination of this awful march of suffering. After leaving Smolensk the army met ruin and disaster at every turn. Pursued and harried bv the Russians, the forces became gradually less and less, until they reached the hanks of the Beresina. So desperate were the straits of the army that Napoleon was advised to leave his soldiers to their fate. This he would not do, however, and occupied himself in making preparations for crossing the river —the bridge having been destroved. Before his plans could he successfully carried out the Russian armies came upon him. Words cannot picture the scenes that followed. Two wooden bridges had been erected, but these proved quite inadequate to allow the passage of the troops across, and many perished by the sword or were drowned in the river. Those who escaped numbered about 20,000 armed men and 30,000 stragglers, including women and children, and for them there were still further terrors. On December 5 Nanoloon succumbed at last to the appeals of his officers. Accompanied by a small bodyguard, ho left the army to its fate. This act on his part was the signal for the outbreak of anarchy and insubordination, and the remnant became all hut savages. On December 12 25.000 men crossed the Niomen, all that remained of nearly half a million who crossed at the beginning of the campaign. Further suffering reduced the number, and it was a mere handful who saw again their beloved France. Tims the grand army which was to subdue Russia was annihilated, and its boast-

ful chief a fugitive. Napoleon reached Paris in secret a few days before Christmas, and although Europe was shocked at the disclosures, Franco easily forgot them in the distraction of new campaigns and victories.