January 27, 1918 - Don Martin writes about air raids and expected German attack

Don Martin diary entry for Sunday, January 27, 1918: 
Got up before 10. Had breakfast in the hotel. Took bus out to Richmond, through Hammersmith. Beautiful day and I enjoyed it. Walked around a while and took a bus back. Stopped in Lyon’s Corner House and had some lunch. Then to my room and wrote for about 2 ½ hours. Wrote a story about President Wilson as Man of the Hour – world’s big figure. Also wrote a very long letter to Mother, telling her about almost everything. Dinner at Simpson’s and then to Fleet St. for an hour. Came to hotel about 11:30 to read and go to bed. 

Moonlight nights and everyone expecting air raids. Germany’s peace answer gets cool reception everywhere. Speaks like a conqueror.

Weather delightful.

      It was a four-page letter written at the Savoy Hotel to his mother on Sunday evening, dated January 27, 1918. Here is an excerpt about the war and especially about the expected London air raids:

Mother:

      ... There is no use going to France yet. In fact it is almost impossible for anyone to get where he can see anything of the fighting. I probably shall take a trip over there after a while—maybe when the spring campaign starts. It is expected that there will be some terrible fighting there on the Western front as soon as spring has come. If Germany loses heavily it may mean the end of the war. If she has successes it will mean only that the war will be prolonged until American troops can get on the scene. 

       ... there are always about a half million soldiers in London. Some are on leave from the front and a good many are on duty here or passing through the city. Fully half the men to be seen any time in any restaurant, high or medium class are men in uniform. On the streets one sees hundreds of them everywhere. I have probably seen fifteen or twenty who are blind and a hundred or more with a leg off and I couldn’t begin to tell how many wearing crutches. They are all young men too. Still no one seems downcast. People here are taking it all in a most philosophical way, just as if it is a job that somebody must do. That is precisely what it is, by the way, and United States is the one who must do it. 

       ... It looks to most people as if the war will end sometime in 1919 although there are plenty who think it will last two years after that. The submarines are the terrible thing. If the Allies could only overcome them they could win a military decision in France but as things are now there are not enough ships to transport the American soldiers and Germany of course knows it and hoped to smash the Allies before our men can get to France. Of course a few hundred thousand men would help but anything short of a million as things go now doesn’t count for so much.

There has been no air raid since I arrived in London. One has been looked for every night now for a week because it is moonlight. Twice during that time a warning has been sent from the coast but neither time did the Germans get as far as London. No one except the authorities ever knows just how far they got, or why they didn’t get farther. People have plenty of time to get under cover. The trouble is the people in the outlying sections have no safe cover to go to. No small private house is substantial enough to resist a bomb. One would go straight through it. ... Any old fashioned four or five-story brick building would probably be wrecked if a bomb landed on it. The larger buildings of steel and concrete and a great many such buildings are to be found in the business parts of London would be safe enough. 

... When enemy planes appear off the coast of France, on their way toward England, word is sent to England. It is passed straight to London. Then the police go through every street whistling and giving other signals which mean, and everyone understands, “Take Cover.” There is a half hour or more in which people may find places of safety, I am told, and by the time the airplanes appear over the city the streets are deserted except for the police and such daring people as want to see the excitement. The airmen fly over together and look very much like a flock of geese. English fliers immediately start after them and big guns mounted on buildings all over the city begin firing at them. I am told it is a thrilling spectacle. Usually two or three Germans are killed and their airplanes smash on the city. Bombs drop in various parts of the city and succeed in killing people who were in the street. Generally it is women or children. 

...  Last night every one expected a raid. It was a clear moonlight night and no low-lying clouds. The raids are much more serious than people generally believe. They are the one thing which people more or less talk and think about all the time.

With love

                Don

     Don Martin wrote a story on Sunday, January 27, which was published in the New York Herald on Monday, January 28, about the rearrangement of Allied forces on the western front and the expectations of a large German attack. 

FRENCH TAKE COAST SECTOR; 

BRITISH EXTEND LINE SOUTH OF ST. QUENTIN

[Special Cable to the Herald]

Herald Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Sunday

     Both French and British official reports last week show that there has been a partial rearrangement of the western front, possibly to meet the expected German drive and also to accommodate the American forces which General Pershing has reported to be partly in action. The French now occupy the extreme northern end of the line on the Belgian coast while the British have extended their front south of St. Quentin.

     Nieuport, which the British held for three years, ever since Kitchener’s army reached the coast and blocked the German thrust toward Dunkirk and Calais, is now occupied by the French and was the scene of a spirited action last week. There is a small salient here in the direction of St. Pierre Chapelle, less than two miles wide at its base, and it was the apex of this salient that the Germans attacked across the frozen ground early on Wednesday morning.

The Raid That Failed

     An intense bombardment preceded the raid, which the French commander characterized as important. When the shelling stopped the Germans came on in great numbers and succeeded in entering part of the first line. The ground here is firmer that further south in Flanders, and the French had built up the shallow trenches with sand bags. A counter attack was at once begun and after some hot bayonet work over these defences the Germans were ejected. They hurriedly withdrew in disorder, leaving many dead behind. No prisoners were taken.

     Cannonading followed all day with desultory firing as far south a s Caeskerke, where the Belgians are established, about three miles from Dixmude, their line merging into the Ypres sector, seven miles further on, where the British take up the front. There is also a small force of Portuguese in this northern region which will be considerably increased by a new contingent landed in France last week. 

     With the British the chief action has been by aviators raining bombs on German cities in the region of Metz and attacking the enemy’s positions at Roulers and other points in Flanders. Night patrols have been frequent in France on both sides. The fighting when they meet is very sanguinary, but one hears little about them because so few men are engaged. The object is to get prisoners from whom information may be obtained regarding the adversary’s strength.

Drive on British Lines

     Whether the German attack at Nieuport was an attempt merely to feel out the Allies’ positions or a prelude to the big drive which everybody seems to expect, it is, of course, impossible to say. The latter alternative would indicate Dunkirk as the first objective, with Calais threatened. If such a preposterous programme could succeed the Germans would hold what they consider “trading facilities” to induce the Allies to make peace, just as their occupation of Riga and threat against Reval were thought sufficient to subdue Russia.

     Critics here generally predict that the drive will be made against the British front, if not along the Belgian coast, somewhere between Lille and Lens. Near Festubert the Germans hold their furthest westward position, which, however, is only a mile or so further west than Nieuport. A coastal advance would be open to attack from the sea, as Ostend was bombarded last Saturday.

     A thrust in Northern France would be free from this objection, besides having the strong support of Lille and Tournai, with the best railway communications in the occupied territory. Colonel Repington, who, as you doubtless know, has left the Times for the Morning Post, predicts a series of great attacks and calls for a million and a half men to meet them.

French Expect Drive

     French critics are more specific. They predict three big attacks—one of the British front, one in the Champagne and one in Alsace-Lorraine. Joseph Reinach, in the Paris Figaro, names Nancy as one of the chief objectives of the expected German offensive. This town, the chief city of Lorraine, is on the edge of the famous Briedy basin which supplies 36,000,000 tons of coal a year to Germany, nearly half of which comes from the part which was not annexed in 1871, but has been occupied by the Huns during the present war.

     From the heights of the Meuse southeast of Verdun the chimneys and blast furnaces of this region, less than twenty miles away, are plainly visible. At Pont-a-Mousson, fifteen miles north of Nancy, there are five blast furnaces. Nancy has 110,000 inhabitants, is on the Eastern railway from Strasbourg to Paris, and on the Rhine-Marne Canal, where the engagement took place on November 3, in which three Americans were killed and five captured. [small amount of text now scanned here]

Winter Delays Attack

     The French undoubtedly believe an offensive will be launched here, and it was even publically stated in the Paris Temps that the attack would begin on January 20. This is a month earlier than the start of the Verdun offensive, and the winter has been more severe than in 1916, blocking the roads with snow, which may account for the postponement, if, indeed, the Huns had any such offensive in mind.

     In any case both French and British are fully prepared to resist any attack from whatever quarter it may come. There is no doubt whatever that there has been a great concentration of German troops in Belgium, and it is estimated that they now outnumber the Allies in the west. Several hundred thousand men are said to have been brought from the Russian front. The Allies are able to hold their own against the new offensive, but it is doubtful whether they can do more than that. 

     The chief desire on both sides of the Channel is to end the war, but not with a German peace. Hence there is a great cry for American troops, not only in the press in London and Paris, but from public men. On the other hand, newspapers in Germany are urging an early offensive, because they know that when America is fully in action their cause is doomed.