10 September, 1914
THE CROSSING of the RIVER MARNE
Dr Martin, who had seen active service in The Boer War in 1901, was in 1914 attached to a Field Ambulance of the 5th Division. This account shows his experiences on the day when the British army crossed the Marne. He had an unequalled opportunity of watching the historic advance.
Coulommiers looked to be clear of Germans. It had been occupied some days previously, and now the British had it. The French inhabitants were in Paris. The narrow old streets looked very cheerful and inviting when I passed through, for our Army Service men had several fires merrily blazing at the side of the pavé, and the smell of frying bacon and roasting coffee beans was inviting and appetizing. Signs of the German occupation were everywhere apparent. Round the ashes of their fires in the side streets and square were the charred remains of old and valuable furniture – a carved leg of an old chair, a piece of the frame of a big mirror, a bit of a door and so on. I think the German soldier enjoyed the novel sensation of cooking his food over burning cabinets and tables and chairs made in the times of the Louis of France. Our men were extremely careful to avoid damage to French property, and made their fires of chopped wood logs. Tommy has good feelings and is always a gentleman, and he genuinely pitied the French in their despoiled towns.
My orders were to report to the Principal Medical Officer of the 5th Division of the Second Corps. The headquarters of General Smith-Dorrien, the Commander of the Second Corps, was a little cluster of houses by the roadside, and when we arrived the whole staff were standing by the road, while the grooms stood near holding their horses. Smith-Dorrien, with another staff officer, was poring over a map and indicating some spot on it with his finger.
The Principal Medical Officer, Colonel Porter of the Army Medical Staff, was just coming out of a cottage and I walked up, saluted, and reported my arrival. The Colonel gave me a cheery greeting, asked if I had breakfasted, and, noticing the South African War ribbon on my tunic, said that as I had seen service before I would soon be quite at home.
I was then ordered to report to the officer commanding a section of the 15th Field Ambulance, which was situated about 500 yards further down the road. I reported to a major of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who told me that he was waiting to evacuate some wounded to Coulommiers before moving up to rejoin the headquarters of the ambulance which was advancing with 15 Infantry Brigade. There were sixteen wounded British in a small farmhouse beside the road. They were lying on straw on the floor and the wounds of all of them had been dressed. When I entered they were drinking milk supplied by the old farmer and his wife.
Men of the 18th Field Ambulance, 6th Division, seen here halted for a midday rest at Hartennes, south of Soissons, during the retreat from Mons.
This old farmhouse had been occupied by the Germans two days previously, and the old farmer brought me through the house to show what the Huns had done. His two wooden bedsteads had been smashed; his wife’s clothes had been taken out of a chest of drawers and torn up, and the chest had been battered with an axe; the windows were broken and two legs of the kitchen table had been chopped off; an old family clock lay battered in a corner and an ancient sporting gun was broken in two. The farmer showed me one of his wife’s old bonnets which had been thrown into the fire by those lovely Germans and partially burned. Fancy burning an old woman’s bonnet! Two German soldiers got into the hen coup and stuck all the birds with their bayonets. A fine Normandy dog lay dead at the garden gate, shot by a German non-commissioned officer because the poor beast barked at him.
The old-fashioned furniture and adornments of the house had been destroyed. All the pictures were broken except two – one of these was a framed picture of Pope Leo XIII, and the other was one representing the Crucifixion. We guessed that the German troops must have been Bavarians, who are mostly Catholic.
I have described this wrecked home in some detail as it was typical of hundreds of others that I have seen in France. It all seemed so stupid, so senseless, so paltry and mean. Imagine the pointlessness of burning an old lady’s bonnet and smashing an old clock that had been in the family's possession for three generations, and had ticked the minutes to the farmer’s folk and whose face had been looked at by those long since dead. The old farmer was in tears and miserable. He said that the German soldiers had been very drunk and had brought a lot of bottles of champagne with them, round which they spent a very hilarious night. One of the men had a very fine voice and sang a German drinking song, while the others hiccupped the chorus. There were certainly a lot of empty champagne bottles scattered about, and I do not think the old farmer’s beverage would have soared above vin rouge, so the bottles must have been German loot.
About eleven o'clock, while we were still waiting for returning empty supply wagons to take off our wounded, when we heard that some German prisoners were being marched in. This caused some excitement, and, speaking for myself, I was consumed with curiosity to see some specimens of this great German army and observe what manner of men they were. Under a strong guard of cavalry three hundred prisoners with about ten officers were marched into a field close to our farmhouse. It was laughable to see our old farmer. He rushed up the road, his eyes blazing with excitement and joy. He just stood gazing at his country’s enemies with an expression of malicious pleasure and delight.
I was struck with the appearance of these prisoners. They were very tired, absolutely done in, and marched along the road with a most bedraggled and weary step. Were these the men who had goose-stepped through Belgium's stately capital and had pushed the united armies of France and England before them in one of the most rapid marches in history?
They were utterly broken down with fatigue and their famished expression and wolfish eyes betokened the hardships they had recently undergone. When they were halted in the field they simply slumped to the ground in sheer exhaustion. On looking closer, however, one could see that they were fine soldiers: athletic well-built, lean, wiry fellows with shaven heads and prominent features, slim-waisted and broad-shouldered, clothed in smart, well-fitting bluish grey uniforms, well shod with good serviceable boots, each with a light waterbottle clipped to his belt and a haversack over the shoulder; certainly no fault could be found with them as specimens of muscular and active soldiery.
Officers, disdaining to show any signs of fatigue, sat by themselves smoking pipes and cigarettes. Bully beef and biscuits and buckets of water were brought to them for drink. They at once threw off their exhaustion and simply rushed the food. We realized that they had been marched to a standstill, and that the commissariat of that particular Army Corps must have broken down. This was a good sign.
Some empty motor supply wagons returning from the front were stopped. We packed plenty of straw on them and put our wounded British and Germans comfortably on top, and sent them all on to the hospital train at Coulommiers. Then our commanding officer gave the order to our ambulance drivers to harness up the horses and prepare to trek. We knew that our army was making a stand at last, and that the long retreat was over.
All the morning heavy firing was heard on our front towards the River Marne, and we were not sure what was happening. We knew that our cavalry was at work somewhere, for the captured Guard Jägers had been bagged by our cavalry, but more than that we did not know. However, we were soon on the road, and following Napoleon’s maxim to his generals – always to march towards the firing. The roads were terribly dusty, and the day was hot and sultry, and a blazing sun beat mercilessly down upon us. We all cursed our caps, and certainly the khaki cap supplied to our officers and men deserved a curse. It gave no protection to the back of the neck in summer, and in rainy weather it was soon soaked.
Marching on foot behind lumbering ambulance wagons on a dusty road and under a hot sun is no picnic. Eyes get full of dust, throats get parched, feet get hot, and the khaki uniform wraps round one like a sticky blanket. So for many miles we marched, and all the time the sound of the guns became more and more distinct and intense. We passed St. Ouen and by St. Cyr, and at 4.30 o'clock we seemed to be in the centre of the artillery thunder area. Great guns were screeching and roaring all round us, and some of the enemy’s shells were bursting to our left front near the road along which we were moving. We were then ordered to pull our wagons off the road and bivouac them under a clump of trees near at hand in order to conceal them from enemy aeroplanes, which were hovering high up in the blue.
The reason for at times to concealing a Field Ambulance is that when a column is on the march the Field Ambulance has a definite position in the column; generally it is behind the ammunition column. The ambulance wagons, with their big white tented covers and conspicuous red crosses, are often the most prominent features on the road. The enemy airman when he spots a Field Ambulance knows that there is at least a brigade consisting of four battalions and an ammunition column in front of it, and he can then direct his gunners to plant their shells in front of the ambulance and so get the ammunition column and the brigade. Hence the necessity for sometimes hiding the whereabouts of a Field Ambulance.
The main street of Braine after the Germans had been driven out and the wounded were being evacuated. The Germans were falling back to the River Aisne, with the French and British in hot pursuit.
After we had bivouacked, our section cook managed to light a fire in a hollow among a clump of trees, and soon brought us a much desired mess of fried mutton, good bread and marmalade, and a can of tea. We rushed this down as eagerly as the German prisoners had done the bully beef earlier in that morning.
In a battle one really sees very little and knows very little of what is going on, except in the near neighbourhood. The broad perspective, the great view of a battle, cannot be seen by one pair of eyes. This can only be understood and appreciated afterwards when facts and events are gathered together and dovetailed to form the battle story.
Army cooks producing a fine meal once the retreating has stopped. The Germans are back across the Marne and once more the field kitchens send up their savoury smells to tempt the hungry Tommy.
When I was sitting by the roadside on that September afternoon, amidst the crashing and shrieking of the guns, the bursting of the shells, the curious crackling of the rifles, and the snarling notes of the machine guns, I guessed that a battle was in progress and that we were blazing furiously at an enemy who was blazing furiously back at us. Beyond that, I did not know very much. During the night I learned a good deal more of the day’s events. But the whole story was not connected up till many days afterwards. I am quite sure that the people of London knew more about the Battle of the Marne from the war bulletins than I did, although I was in one of the humble units present in the actual fighting.
On this sultry summer day our ambulance section was resting by the side of the dusty road that stretched to our rear towards Paris and on our front towards a lovely green valley, at the bottom of which meandered the River Marne. It wound its sinuous way from our far right to our near left. Directly before us, and on the distant side of the river, was a steep ridge, part of a low chain of uplands which rolled hazily away to the right and stopped abruptly in clear-cut lines in our front. The road beside which we sat dipped into the valley and crossed the river on a fine stone bridge and continued through the undulating country beyond to the north.
Small villages were scattered about – Méry to the right, Sacey at the bridgehead, and small clusters of houses and farms on the countryside over the river. Some squadrons of dismounted cavalrymen were standing by their horses in a meadow near the bank of the river. These horsemen had been busy earlier in the day, and had done some hard riding, cutting off stragglers from the retreating German Army Corps. Infantry were hidden from view in the depths of the valley. Batteries on our left were sending a plunging fire of shot and shell on to the ridge and dips beyond the river, and the road leading from the bridge. With a field-glass, moving dots, and what looked like wagons, could be made out on the road and the field alongside. It was on these moving dots that our guns played, and cloud-bursts of earth and dust showed that our gunners had the range beautifully.
General French passed us twice in his limousine car. General Smith-Dorrien passed twice – General Sir Charles Ferguson passed – all in motorcars travelling like mad. Gallopers with messages spurred up and down the road. Guns thundered into position, unlimbered and were quickly in action. Infantry marching rapidly passed down the road into the valley where a tornado of rifle-fire was going on. One could make out the distinct note from our own rifles and the muffled one from the more distant German Mausers. Two German shells burst short of the battery on our left and uncomfortably close to us. We were in an odd position for an ambulance – in front of our own battery, which was pelting shot into the Germans and which a German battery was trying to locate. When the enemy shells fell short they fell near us. Our position, however, was a dress circle box seat as a view-point, so we stopped where we were. It was not every day that one could look on at a real live battle.
This French château is in use as an Advanced Dressing Station. As wounded are being carried out to take them by ambulance to a Base Hospital, fresh straw is being taken in as floor covering.
Before dusk came on an aeroplane appeared over the ridge flying towards us, and was shot at by enemy anti aircraft guns. The shells burst all round it, but it flew through them all, and landed safely in our lines, likely with some valuable formation.
When the action was at its hottist and every gun was busy, a car raced up from the valley in a swirling cloud of dust. The brakes were jammed hard down opposite us, the side door opened. Out stepped a well-knit, muscular, lithe figure, looking physically fit, smart and cool in a well-made khaki uniform and red-banded cap. The face was a burnt-brick red, the moustache white, the eyes alert, wide open and ‘knowing’. A savage, obstinate, determined chin dominated the face. It was the chin of a strong, stubborn nature, the chin of a prize-fighter. This was Smith-Dorrien, the Commander of the Second Army Corps, and at this moment the Second Corps was at grips with the enemy.
With a few rapid strides he had reached the battery on our left, asked some question of the battery commander, and at once clapped field glasses to his eyes and gazed long and intently at a spot on the other side of the valley pointed out to him by the battery commander. Our party of officers, filled with curiosity, also got out field glasses and focussed in the same direction. Our shells could be seen bursting on a far ridge, and after a long stare we managed to make out what we thought were some guns, but we were not sure. A few more words to the battery commander, a careless salute, and Smith-Dorrien was back in his car, which rapidly turned and disappeared down the dusty road up which it had just come. As the car disappeared a tremendous rifle fire broke out all along the valley beyond the stream. It made one’s pulses beat with excitement. The Second Army Corp was fighting hard in the valley at our feet, and Smith-Dorrien was down in the valley with his men.
Former goods wagons converted to carry wounded being unloaded by men of the RAMC.
When the devil’s din was at its loudest, another powerful limousine coming from the rear pulled up opposite us. ‘Go on, go on,’ shouted a voice from the inside, and the car again sped on. Inside was Field Marshal Sir John French poring over a map held out with both hands over his knees.
His car also disappeared into the valley and we again surmised that there must be some big thing going on down below to draw a Field Marshal, Corps Commanders, and Divisional Generals.
An hour elapsed; all of the batteries except one had ceased firing. The cracking of rifles was still heavy but more distant; two cars were seen coming slowly out of the valley. In the front car were French and Smith-Dorrien. We augured that all was well, for the car was proceeding slowly, and the Field-Marshal was placidly smoking a cigar. Our augury was correct. We had forced the passage of the Marne, and were grimly in pursuit of the retreating foe.