CHAPTER XIX
GENERAL WOOD SCORES ANOTHER BRILLIANT SUCCESS AGAINST THE CROWN PRINCE
On the evening of October 14, 1921, Field Marshal von Kluck awaited finalnews of the battle of the Susquehanna while enjoying an excellent mealwith his staff in the carved and gilded dining-room of the old S. B.Chittenden mansion on Brooklyn Heights, headquarters of the army ofoccupation. All the earlier despatches through the afternoon had beenfavourable and, as the company finished their _Kartoffelsuppe_, von Kluckhad risen, amidst _hochs_ of applause, and read a telegram from hisImperial master, the Crown Prince, who, with Field Marshal vonHindenburg, was directing the battle from Perryville on the Northernbank, announcing that the German army had crossed the river and drivenback Leonard Wood's forces for five miles and occupied a vast network ofAmerican trenches.
The officers lingered over their _preisselbeeren compote_ and_kaffeekuchen_ and, presently, the commander rose again, holding atelegram just delivered by a red-faced lieutenant whose cheek was slashedwith scars.
"Comrades, the great moment has come--I feel it. Our victory at theSusquehanna means the end of American resistance, the capture ofBaltimore, Washington and the whole Atlantic seaboard. Let us drink tothe Fatherland and our place in the sun."
Up on their feet came the fire-eating company, with lifted glasses andthe gleam of conquerors in their eyes.
"_Hoch! Hoch!_" they cried and waited, fiercely joyful, while von Kluckopened the despatch. His shaggy brows contracted ominously as he scannedtwo yellow sheets crowded with closely written German script.
"_Gott in Himmel!_" he shouted, and threw the telegram on the table.
The blow had fallen, the incredible truth was there before them. Not onlyhad the redoubtable von Hindenburg, idol of a nation, hero of countlessRussian victories, suffered crushing defeat, but his proud battalions hadbeen almost annihilated. In the whole history of warfare there had neverbeen so complete a disaster to so powerful an army.
"Burned to death! Our brave soldiers! Was there ever so barbarous acrime?" raved the Field Marshal. "But the American people will pay forthis, yes, ten times over. We still have two armies on their soil and afleet ready to transport from Germany another army of half a million. Wehold their greatest cities, their leading citizens at our mercy, and theyshall have none. Burned in oil! _Mein Gott!_ We will show them."
"Excellency," questioned the others anxiously, "what of his ImperialHighness the Crown Prince?"
"Safe, thank God, and von Hindenburg is safe. They did not cross thecursed river. They stayed on the Northern bank with the artillery andthree thousand men."
I learned later that these three thousand of the German rear guard,together with seven thousand that escaped from the fire zone and weremade prisoners, were all that remained alive of the 120,000 Germans thathad crossed the Susquehanna that fatal morning with flying eagles.
Orders were immediately given by von Kluck that retaliatory steps betaken to strike terror into the hearts of the American people, and thewires throughout New England were kept humming that night withinstructions to the commanding officers of German forces of occupation inBoston, Hartford, New Haven, Portland, Springfield, Worcester, Newport,Fall River, Stamford; also in Newark, Jersey City, Trenton andPhiladelphia, calling upon them to issue proclamations that, inpunishment of an act of barbarous massacre committed by General Wood andthe American army, it was hereby ordered that one-half of the hostagespreviously taken by the Germans in each of these cities (the same to bechosen by lot) should be led forth at noon on October 15th and publiclyexecuted.
At half-past eleven, October 15th, on the Yale University campus, therewas a scene of excitement beyond words, although dumb in its tragicexpression, when William Howard Taft, who was one of the hostages drawnfor execution, finished his farewell address to the students.
"I call on you, my dear friends," he cried with an inspired light in hiseyes, "to follow the example of our glorious ancestors, to put asideselfishness and all base motives and rise to your supreme duty asAmerican citizens. Defend this dear land! Save this nation! And, if it benecessary to die, let us die gladly for our country and our children, asthose great patriots who fought under Washington and Lincoln were glad todie for us."
With a noble gesture he turned to the guard of waiting German soldiers.He was ready.
Deeply moved, but helpless, the great audience of students and professorswaited in a silence of rage and shame. They would fain have hurledthemselves, unarmed, upon the gleaming line of soldiers that walled thequadrangle, but what would that have availed?
A Prussian colonel of infantry, with many decorations on his breast,stepped to the edge of the platform, glanced at his wrist-watch and saidin a high-pitched voice: "Gentlemen of the University, I trust you havecarefully read the proclamation of Field Marshal von Kluck. Be sure thatany disorder during the execution of hostages that is now to take placewill bring swift and terrible punishment upon the city and citizens ofNew Haven. Gentlemen, I salute you."
He turned to the guard of soldiers. "_Gehen!_"
"_Fertig! Hup!_" cried a stocky little Bavarian sergeant, and the grimprocession started.
At the four corners of the public green were companies of German soldierswith machine-guns trained upon dense crowds of citizens who had gatheredfor this gruesome ceremony, high-spirited New Englanders whose faith andcourage were now to be crushed out of them, according to von Kluck, bythis stern example.
Down Chapel Street with muffled drums came the unflinching group ofAmerican patriots, marching between double lines of cavalry and led by amilitary band. At Osborn Hall they turned to the right and moved slowlyalong College Street to the Battell Chapel, where they turned again andadvanced diagonally across the green, the band playing Beethoven'sfuneral march.
In the centre of the dense throng, at a point between Trinity Church andthe old Centre Church, a firing squad of bearded Westphalians was makingready for the last swift act of vengeance, when, suddenly, in thedirection of Elm Street near the Graduates' Club, there came a tumult ofshouts and voices with a violent pushing and struggling in the crowd. Amessenger on a motorcycle was trying to force his way to the commandingofficer.
"Stop! Stop!" he shouted. "I've got a telegram for the general. Let methrough! I _will_ get through!"
And at last, torn and breathless, the lad did get through and deliveredhis message. It was a telegram from Field Marshal von Kluck, which read:
"Have just received a despatch from General Leonard Wood, stating thathis Imperial Highness the Crown Prince and Field Marshal von Hindenburg,with their military staffs, have been made prisoners by an American armynorth of the Susquehanna, and giving warning that if retaliatory measuresare taken against American citizens, his Imperial Highness will, withintwenty-four hours, be stood up before the statue of his Imperial ancestorFrederick the Great, in the War College at Washington, and shot to deathby a firing squad from the Pennsylvania National Guard. In consequence ofthis I hereby countermand all previous orders for the execution ofAmerican hostages. (Signed) VON KLUCK."
Like lightning this wonderful news spread through the crowd, and in thedelirious joy that followed there was much disorder which the Germansscarcely tried to suppress. They were stunned by the catastrophe. TheCrown Prince a prisoner! Von Hindenburg a prisoner! By what miracle ofstrategy had General Wood achieved this brilliant coup?
Here were the facts, as I subsequently learned. So confident of completesuccess was the American commander, that by twelve o'clock on the day ofbattle he had diverted half of his forces, about 30,000 men, in a rapidmovement to the north, his purpose being to cross the Susquehanna higherup and envelop the rear guard of the enemy, with their artillery andcommanding generals, in an overwhelming night attack. Hour after hourthrough the night of October 14th a flotilla of ferry-boats, cargo-boats,tugs, lighters, river craft of all sorts, assembled days before, hadferried the American army across the Susquehanna as George Washingtonferried his army across the Delaware a hundred
and fifty years before.
All night the Americans pressed forward in a forced march, and bydaybreak the Crown Prince and his 3,000 men were caught beyond hope ofrescue, hemmed in between the Susquehanna River and the projecting armsof Chesapeake Bay. The surprise was complete, the disaster irretrievable,and at seven o'clock on the morning of October 15th the heir to theGerman throne and six of his generals, including Field Marshal vonHindenburg, surrendered to the Americans the last of their forces withall their flags and artillery and an immense quantity of supplies andammunition.
By General Wood's orders the mass of German prisoners were moved toconcentration camps at Gettysburg, but the Crown Prince was taken toWashington, where he and his staff were confined with suitable honours inthe Hotel Bellevue, taken over by the government for this purpose. Here,during the subsequent fortnight, I had the honour of seeing theillustrious prisoner on several occasions. It seems that he remembered mepleasantly from the New England campaign and was glad to call upon myknowledge of American men and affairs for his own information.
"YOU KNOW, MARK TWAIN WAS A GREAT FRIEND OF MY FATHER'S,"SAID THE CROWN PRINCE, "I REMEMBER HOW MY FATHER LAUGHED, ONE EVENING ATTHE PALACE IN BERLIN, WHEN MARK TWAIN TOLD US THE STORY OF 'THE JUMPINGFROG.'"]
As to von Hindenburg's defeat (leaving aside the question of militaryethics which he denounced scathingly) the Crown Prince said this had beenaccomplished by a mere accident that could never occur again and thatcould not interfere with Germany's ultimate conquest of America.
"This will be a short-lived triumph," declared His Imperial Highness,when he received me in his quarters at the Bellevue, "and the Americanpeople will pay dearly for it. The world stands aghast at the horror ofthis barbarous act."
"America is fighting for her existence," said I.
"Let her fight with the methods of civilised warfare. Germany would scornto gain an advantage at the expense of her national honour."
"If Your Imperial Highness will allow me to speak of Belgium in 1914--" Ibegan, but he cut me short with an impatient gesture.
"Our course in Belgium was justified by special reasons--that is the calmverdict of history."
I refrained from arguing this point and was patient while the princeturned the conversation on his favourite theme, the inferiority of ademocratic to an autocratic form of government.
"I have been studying the lives of your presidents," he said,"and--really, how can one expect them to get good results with notraining for their work and only a few years in office? Take men likeJohnson, Tyler, Polk, Hayes, Buchanan, Pierce, Filmore, Harrison,McKinley. Mediocre figures, are they not? What do they stand for?"
"What does the average king or emperor stand for?" I ventured, whereuponHis Imperial Highness pointed proudly to the line of Hohenzollern rulers,and I had to admit that these were exceptional men.
"The big men of America go into commercial and industrial pursuits ratherthan into politics," I explained.
"Exactly," agreed the prince, "and the republic loses their services."
"No, the republic benefits by the general prosperity which they buildup," I insisted.
With this the Imperial prisoner discussed the American Committee ofTwenty-one and I was astonished to find what full knowledge he hadtouching their individual lives and achievements. He even knew thedetails of Asa G. Candler's soda water activities. And he told me severalamusing stories of Edison's boyhood.
"By the way," he said abruptly, "I suppose you know that Thomas A. Edisonis a prisoner in our hands?"
"So we concluded," said I. "Also Lemuel A. Widding."
"Also Lemuel A. Widding," the prince admitted. "You know why we took themprisoners? It was on account of Widding's invention. He thinks he hasfound a way to destroy our fleet and we do not want our fleet destroyed."
"Naturally not."
"You had a talk with Edison on the train last week. He knows all thedetails of Widding's invention?"
"Yes."
"And he believes it will do what the inventor claims? He believes it willdestroy our fleet? Did he tell you that?"
"He certainly did. He said he wouldn't give five cents for the Germanfleet after Widding's plan is put into operation."
"Ah!" reflected the Crown Prince.
"Would Your Imperial Highness allow me to ask a question?" I ventured.
His eyes met mine frankly. "Why, yes--certainly."
"I have no authority to ask this, but I suppose there might be anexchange of prisoners. Edison and Widding are important to Americaand--".
"You mean they might be exchanged for me?" his face grew stern. "I wouldnot hear of it. Those two Americans alone have the secret of this Widdinginvention, I am sure of that, and it is better for the Fatherland to getalong without a Crown Prince than without a fleet. No. We shall keep Mr.Edison and Mr. Widding prisoners."
He said this with all the dignity of his Hohenzollern ancestry; then herose to end the interview.
Conquest of America: A Romance of Disaster and Victory, U.S.A., 1921 A.D. Page 22