THE ART AND ETIQUETTE OF TAKING TOWNS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue VII, 17 February 1900, Page 291

THE ART AND ETIQUETTE OF TAKING TOWNS.

H. SUTHERLAND EDWARDS.

By

The British public has been a good deal occupied of late with questions of bombardment, investment and siege, and with the customs observed by civilised nations in connection with the taking of towns by these and other means. Laws on the subject do not exist. But usages do, and it may be interesting at the present moment to consider what these usages are. One may look upon them as established by the practice of the Germans in the war of 1870-71. During that great contest between two of the foremost military nations of Europe the weaker side laid siege to no place whatever. The stronger side, on the other hand, attacked fortified Lowns in every possible manner. Tn some few instances, too, it bombarded unfortified towns, but only when they remained occupied by troops which refused to retire at the approach of the enemy. Why enter and attack them in the streets when it was so much easier to drive them out by shell fire from a distance? The French sometimes made a fuss on these occasions, protesting that it was contrary to non-existent “laws of war” to bombard open towns. The immunity, however, of the open town disappears when it is held by hostile forces.

The Germans made one attempt, and one only to take a town by escalade. They attacked in this manner, at the very beginning of the campaign, the fortified town of Toul, which commands the railway to Paris. But the men who attempted to scale the walls were shot down as soon as they showed themselves, and the attempt had to be abandoned. Later on, when siege artillery had been brought up, Toul was taken, like all the besieged towns, except Metz and Paris, by “simple bombardment,” with the exception of Belfort, which remained untaken to the last. If in the Franco-German war no town was taken by escalade, it is equally true that no town was taken by assault. It has been said that escalade was attempted at Toul, but failed. At Strasburg all preparations for an assault had been made. But the town, which had suffered terribly from bombardment, surrendered on a final summons being sent in. The three parallel trenches in front of the weakest side of the fortress had been dug and armed, together with the half parallel in advance of the third. A practicable breach had been made by a cannonade which would have sufficed to batter down the walls of Jericho, and the assault could at once been delivered when the white flag was shown. Here, in a very strange manner, a genuine “law of war” comes in. By the military code of France, as it existed in 1870, every commandant of a fortress who surrendered without meeting an assault, or two assaults, if the first had been successfully repelled, rendered himself liable to punishment by death. Strasburg was the only besieged place at which there was any question of assault. But all over France commandants had rendered themselves guilty of surrendering without encountering an assault which their assailants had no intention whatever of making, and formal condemnation was passed upon them by the military tribunals which assembled in France

after the war to judge the unsuccessful generals, and throw upon them Individually the responsibility of the national defeat.

It has been assumed in some quarters, without the slightest reason, that it is customary in cases of bombardment to give notice beforehand, so that the women and children may be placed in positions of supposed safety, or even sent out of the town. Formerly, indeed, it was held by many authorities that the civilian quarters of a fortified town, as distinguished from the citadel, ought -not to be exposed to bombardment, but that the fire of the besiegers should be directed against the the military quarter alone. In that case, however, the civil inhabitants of a besieged town might be in favour of a prolonged resistance, whereas, themselves exposed to a crushing fire, they generally do their utmost to bring about a surrender. There have been examples indeed of an insurrection in a bombarded town by the inhabitants against the defending garrison. Thus, the bombarders have always a chance of getting the bombarded population on their side.

As for letting the women and children out of the bombarded town, there has never been any rule or even custom on the subject. If the fortified place is to be reduced by “simple bombardment” they may be let out without much injury to the interests of the besiegers. A certain number of women and children were let out of Strasburg during the siege. But not a child would have been allowed to leave Metz, because the surrender of that place was being brought about through famine and not by bombardment, the outlying forts around Metz rendering the “simple bombardment” process impossible. During the siege of Metz a Scotch baronet of humane

propensities asked permission to introduce into the beleaguered city a cart load of provisions. The Prussian general to whom the request was made lost his temper, became violent, and at last, exclaimed that some 200,000 of the King’s best troops were being kept around Metz in order to starve the place into submission and that the refreshments offered for the solace of the already half famished inhabitants must be taken elsewhere.

General Joubert has been recently accused of disregarding the amenities of the horrible and outrageous thing called “civilised warfare” by opening a bombardment without announcing beforehand the hour at which he proposed to commence operations. He was, of course, at liberty to do as he thought fit in the matter. It has been held, indeed, that to keep in suspense a population threatened with bombardment is to adopt an effective and highly economical means of terrifying them through their imagination. They wonder when the dreaded shell fire is to begin. Their nerve system gets affected. There is a great saving in shells, which, for siege purposes, cost on the average about £BO a-piece, and in some degree the psychological moment is hastened which precedes surrender.