Don Martin diary entry for Monday, February 18, 1918:
Air raid again – 9:15 to 12:15 p.m.
Breakfast in Savoy. Went
to office and wrote “Sidelights” etc. Learned that bomb last night struck St.
Pancras hotel and railway station and killed 20 or 30 persons. Newspapers print
very little, giving no names or addresses. Went to hotel and read an hour; then
had dinner at Simpson’s and went to Fleet Street. As expected heard the sirens
at 9:15. Got a taxi and came to the
Savoy. Looked around the streets for awhile but saw nothing. Sat around the
lobby with big crowd till “all clear” given after midnight. Then visited till 1
with a Mr. Larned and a Mr. Fitzgerald of Detroit who were on the Tuscania.
Heard no bombs but plenty of barrage gunfire. The raids are by no means
pleasant. Got a letter from Cooper saying everything fine [at the New York Herald].
Weather
fine but a little raw.
Don Martin wrote and cabled to New York a story about the air war, which was published in the New York
Herald on Tuesday, February 19, 1918.
BRITISH WILL CARRY AIR WAR TO GERMAN CITIES; LONDON BOMBED
AGAIN
Officials
Avoid Word “Reprisals,” but Raids Will Follow Attacks on England
[Special to the Herald]
Herald
Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Monday
London is prepared for a continued series
of air raids, and Germany may expect precisely the same kind of attacks.
“Reprisals” is a word not officially used
in Great Britain. However, let it be set down here on the very highest
authority that if the Germans believe they can bomb London every moonlight
night, killing women, children and cripples unable to find shelter, and then
trust to the Christian spirit of England to prevent reprisals, they may look
for a violent awakening from their barbarous slumber.
It is concluded generally that the bombing
of cities containing military bases, supplies, troops and munitions will be one
of the big features of the war from this time on. It will veritably be a war in
the air, and may, perhaps, have a vital effect in hastening the end of
hostilities. Improvements in aircraft have been almost magical since the war
began, and the world may well prepare for astonishing things.
For every raid on London or other
unfortified city there will be raids on German cities. No one expects the
English fliers to go to Berlin just now. A return trip to the German capital
under present conditions would be too uncertain, but it may be said that the
Germans are not the ones who are making wondrous strides in the perfection of
aircraft.
Murder of Children Stirs
Britons
There are many German cities within easy
reach. They contain factories, railway stations, supply bases and stocks of
munitions vital to the Central Powers. Every effort will be made to avert
injury to the civilian population, but the towns or cities will be bombed just
the same.
It required a long time for the stolid
Briton to get his spirits up. But let there be no mistake; it is up now, and
from this time on--in fact, the decision was reached some time ago--the air
raid casualty lists will not all come from England.
After the first big raids were made on
London and scores of little children were murdered, there was a demand from the
practical Briton for a campaign based on the old code of “An eye for an eye and
a tooth for a tooth.” Instantly a sentimental campaign against such a move was
started in London. It was picked up by the churches of America, and the
authorities concluded that rather than fight fire with fire London should
remain passive while the Hun bombs fell upon the defenseless population. This
sentimental campaign has long been silenced. The long list of casualties among
babies, mothers and children just able to toddle has completely stilled the
clamor against drastic action. With philosophical patience London bore the
wanton attacks, but it has now demanded that the government use a more
effective weapon of defence than preachments against the inhuman practices of
the enemy.
Will Ignore “Silly
Agitations.”
There is still no official talk of
reprisals. The matter merely has been left in the hands of the practical men of
the military, who henceforth are not to be hampered by what some of the
authorities describe as the “silly agitations at home.” Therefore the terror
which the Hun continually reports he had struck to the heart of Great Britain
will find a counterpart in the cities of Germany. Recent reports of the bombing
of German cities, coming as they have on the very heels of attacks on London, or
simultaneously with the raids on coast towns, presumably have awakened the
authorities o f the German government to the fact that the patience and
magnanimity of England have been exhausted.
It cannot be said that England has been
excited by the recent raids. But she has become vindictive and angry because of
the determination of the Huns to kill, no matter whom. For instance, in the
first raid of the year—on January 28—out of forty-seven persons officially
reported killed thirty-three were women and children. Of 169 injured
seventy-six were women and children.
Babies Killed in Mothers’
Arms
I have heard prominent Britons say that if
the German bombs destroyed munitions establishments or other places essential
to the proper conduct of the war there would be no outcry. But a careful study
of the complete record of the bombing raids to date—and I have made note of
where every bomb has been dropped—shows conclusively that the German fliers
shoot across the city, dropping their deadly missiles indiscriminately. They
have not yet touched a single place the destruction of which would benefit the
enemy, but have landed their bombs on the homes and gathering places of the
defenseless population of the poorer quarters.
There were many phases of the first 1918
raid which enraged London as no previous attack had. An aged rector was killed
after he had gone out in the neighborhood and assisted elderly women and
children into what he assumed was a safe refuge. His body was found in the
wreckage the day after the raid. Beside it were bodies of the persons he had
aided. He was loved by the entire section in which he lived and had been the
hero of several previous raids.
Two hundred persons gathered in a building
registered as shelter and a bomb crashed through the roof and straight through
the four stories to the basement. The newspapers did not tell the stories of
the sufferings of the people here because they were too terrible to tell. But
the torn bodies of many women with children in their arms were taken from the
ruins. A little public house—saloon—of eminently respectable character was
ground to pieces. Six men were killed. Close to a hotel well known to Americans
a bomb fell, gouging a huge chunk, five stories deep, from a building which
fortunately was unoccupied. I was in the hotel at the time and saw a scene
which one does not care to see a second time.
No Military Works Damaged
Details of the raids are published in
fairly complete detail in the London newspapers, though the exact locations of
the places hit are not given. The methods used by the police to warn every one
of impending attacks and the speed and skill of the firemen and hospital
authorities after the bombs have done their deadly work cannot be praised too
highly. The reports quoted in London from the German newspapers would indicate
that the Germans actually believe they have wiped London partly off the map,
but the truth is they have done nothing more than destroy a few ramshackle
structures and kill people who could be of no vital use either as friends or
foes. Not one building of importance has been touched. In fact, the genuinely
important structures have been so padded with superstructures and bags that
there may be said to be no danger of serious consequences so far as national
interests are concerned.
But there is no gainsaying the fact that
London is tired of the raids. The theatres run while the raids are on, and
crowds in the restaurants applaud the orchestras and singers, but a five or six
hour raid starting at eight or nine o’clock in the evening causes no end of
inconvenience. This disarrangement the London people are perfectly willing to
bear, but if more active work by British fliers can reduce the number of
attacks, the British capital will not protest against this added activity, even
though it may be construed as reprisals.
Time for Reprisals
An idea of the changed spirit of England
may be gleaned from a speech made the other day by John Horace, Pensions
Minister.
“Eighteen months ago,” he said, “a squadron
of British and French aeroplanes bombed Karlsruhe. What a whining was sent up
about this attack upon ‘My beloved Karlsruhe.” You can only cure the brute of
his brutish deeds by some of his own methods. We have been too sapheaded and
soft-hearted, and it is time the Hun was given some of his own medicine. I hope
Lord Rothermere is going to let them have it. The speech of Count Hertling
showed that the military party of Germany has not been taught its lesson. ‘No
more air raids on unfortified towns and they won’t do it to us,’ the people of
Mannheim are whining. That is clear proof that if we had adopted that programme
earlier it would have been much better for ourselves.”
Germans along the border cities are
alarmed greatly by the raids already made by British and French fliers.
Information coming from secret channels indicates this beyond question. But the
newspapers getting over the border into France and thence to England show even
more clearly that the civilians of some of the German cities are frightened at
the possibility of reprisals. The Zeitung, of Danzig, professes to be horrified
at the raid some time ago on Mannheim. It intimates that the Britons are
barbarous inasmuch as “they attack unfortified towns and kill civilians, while
our attacks are aimed only at military objectives; for example, the London
docks, the harbor works, and so forth. Nothing of the kind can be said of the
enemy’s air attacks on Germany.”
Don Martin began his Sidelights with a story about a soldiers' superstition. Dated
Feb 18 and mailed, it was published in the New York Herald on Sunday, March 10, 1918.
Superstition
Keeps Many Thousands in Trenches, Afraid
to Leave
Omen
Has It That First Time a Soldier “Goes Over the Top”, After Returning for a
Furlough, He Need Not Expect to Return
[Special to the Herald]
Herald
Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Feb. 18
A more superstitious lot of men than
the soldiers fighting for civilization on the western front would be
exceedingly hard to find. The professional baseball player has “nothing on” the
allied soldiers.
There isn’t a soldier among the
millions who won’t balk at lighting the third cigarette with the same match.
The boys smile at their own “childishness” or whatever one wishes to all it,
but nevertheless, they say they will “Light another match, even if matches are
scarce.”
But there is another superstition which
is taken far more seriously. The soldier who “goes over the top” the first time
after he has had leave does not expect to return. Any British, French or
American soldier will give you the names of many of his friends who were killed
the “first time over’ after coming from a furlough.
And so it happens that, notwithstanding
the hardship of the life at the front and the keen appetite the enlisted man
has for a few days tranquility and security, tens of thousands of soldiers
decline to accept leaves. They don’t like this “over the top” when they return.
Before they have had leave they don’t mind; that is, they don’t exactly mind,
but it is indeed with many misgivings and unquestionably a weak heart that they
go over when they come back from their time back from the lines.
There is another phase to this
superstition which has deeply engraven itself upon the minds of the soldiers.
If a soldier “trades leave” with another he, the man who proposed the trade, is
marked for death the first time he “goes over.”
I was talking recently with an
Australian who has been at the front since the first battle of Ypres. He says
that he has known fourteen Australians who were killed after they traded
leaves.
In the midst of constant death it is
perhaps the most natural thing in the world that there should be superstitions
among the soldiers. There are some things more sacred than others about which
the boys hesitate to talk. If a letter from a soldier’s mother arrives on the
day a raiding party is sent out the members of the party—particularly the man
who received the letter—are liable to be captured. Strange deduction this, but
the men have plenty of time for sombre thinking and retrospection.
I know a man from Queensland,
Australia, who has constantly in his pocket a sixpence which was given to him
in Australia by a young lady. It has a hole in it. He says he knows it is his
keeper. “I wouldn’t lose it for all the money in England,” he says.
*
* *
Norman O. Hacker, a mere youth from
Winnipeg, Canada, came to London recently for a four days leave from the front.
He had spent four Christmas days in the first line trenches. When he goes back
to Manitoba he will have material enough to entertain and enlighten the
Canadians for many years regarding the world war. He was five feet six when he
left home to join the army. He is now five feet ten, and though but just out of
his teens is a strapping man. He has been “over the top” twelve times and has
been injured but once, and then only slightly. He is one of twenty men left out
of his company and one of 200 out of 12,000 who fought at the second battle of
Ypres. He was at Ypres, Vimy, Lens and Passchendaele.
“The only particular incident I
remember with more or less uneasiness” he said to me the other day, “occurred at
Ypres when I was taking five Germans back as prisoners. I had no rifle but
carried bombs. One of the Germans decided to take a chance at escaping. He
jumped aside quickly and picked up a rifle from the ground. He was just about
to aim it at me when I threw a bomb and hit him. The five were all together
and, of course, he was responsible for what happened to the others. I didn’t
look back to see what had happened to them. I knew they wouldn’t escape
anyhow.”
Young Hacker is uncommunicative, like
most of the soldiers who have seen most of the fighting.
“For a half hour before going over the
top,” he continued, a man is pretty nervous. I have never known it to fail. I
certainly was. You get a half hour’s or an hour’s notice, and some of the boys
do some praying I imagine. It’s a hard experience for the first few rods in No
Man’s Land, but after that your nerve comes back and you’re ready for
anything.”
*
* *
Lloyd Sefton, a captain in the Canadian
army, is soon to return to his home. He looks the picture of health, but three
inches of his spine are missing and, despite his repeated request to be
permitted to return to the line, he is being returned to Canada. He has had a
remarkable record.
“The thing that struck me hardest
during the entire war,” he said the other day “was the death of Stu
McCue—Stuart McCue, the champion intercollegiate high jumper of Canada. A finer
fellow never lived and a more heroic man never died. I was laying a barrage on
the enemy when Stu started out with 198 of his men to go over the top. It was a
tough job. I knew it and so did Stu. He had a stick with him. He shook hands
with me and said, ‘So long, old boy. I’ll be back—maybe—but if I’m not there’ll
be some casualties over there.’ In the face of machine gun fire Stu started ahead.
As soon as our barrage stopped our men began to drop. I had a glass on Stu. He
began to limp. He went on just the same. I tried to get his attention to tell
him to come back. He looked around and waved his hand as if to say, ‘Never
mind, old chap’ I’m going to stick it through.’ He limped worse and worse. Now
he was dragging his leg after him and was going on pretty slowly. His men were
falling all around him. He almost dragged himself toward the enemy trench and
he was within fifty yards of it when a whizz bang got him. The company was
wiped out almost. They were all brave boys, but any one will tell you that a
better soldier or a braver chap than Stu McCue never wore a uniform.”
*
* *
From all accounts the young Prince of Wales is what Americans would
call “a regular fellow.” He likes to associate with men who know the world from
the outside and is never so happy as when free of the restraint of court life.
Here is the latest story brought from the front concerning him. A young officer
of the British army was on duty in the danger zone on the Italian front one night when he met
another officer who was plodding along, apparently oblivious to the perils
everywhere about.
“What’s
the matter with you—crazy?” asked the first officer.
“No,
not that I know of. I’m delivering a message for the brigade commander.”
“Well,
you better crawl on your belly or they’ll get you—this is the worst spot on the
front.”
About
this time the first officer looked more closely and recognized the second
officer as the future King of England. His manner changed.
“I
beg you pardon,” he said quickly, I didn’t know you were the Prince of Wales.
“Oh,
that’s all right,” replied the future King, “don’t mind me; nobody else does.”
*
* *
A
member of royalty recently fell in with a genuine English humorist, and she is
threatening to reward him. She was going through a hospital, when she came to a
young man of most happy disposition. He was convalescent. She chatted with him
for some time. When she went on her rounds she left a valuable package with
him, saying, as she placed it beside his chair, “Will you please keep you eye
on it?” When she returned the chair was vacant. The package was where she had
left it, and on it was a glass eye with a note saying, “I did as you
requested.”
*
* *
Lieutenant
Charles Vernon Crossley, a heroic commander of a mine sweeper, recently met his
death in a manner which recalled the end of “Steeple Jack” McCormick, of
America, who, after climbing steeples and chimneys all over the world, fell
fourteen feet from the mast of a sailboat and was killed. Lieutenant Crossley
had gone through a hundred thrilling experiences and bouts with death, but he
died the most peaceful death imaginable. He turned over in his sleep and
suffocated quietly while his face was buried in a soft pillow.
*
* *(
A
most remarkable story of two brothers has been told recently in England. The
brothers were Walter and Thomas Maggs. Here is their record:--
Both were educated at the Printers’
Orphanage.
Both
worked for the same firm, one as printer, the other as compositor.
Both
has good voices, and they always sang duets.
Both
were married on the same day, their respective brides were sisters.
Both
lived in Brixton, their flats adjoining.
Both
joined the London regiment, and they went to the front together.
Both
got leave after twenty-one months’ fighting, and they came home together last
December.
Both
returned on December 29, and on January 19 both were killed by the same shell.
And
now their widows are working side by side.
*
* *
The
true pagan spirit of the Hun is revealed now and then in editorials in
newspapers in out of the way places. Herr Max Lochner, in the Gouzenheimer
Zeitung, show himself to be a true disciple of Von Tirpitz in the following
utterance recently found in his newspaper:--
“We
shall conclude no peace of any kind with our Western enemies until we have
obtained a guarantee that all the costs of this criminal war will be paid by
that lousy brood of liars, the British.
“To
us, nothing matters, neither death nor hunger, so long as we know that our vile
enemies of the islands of deceit and hatred will go to their well merited
perdition. We, however, shall cling fast to the iron mines of Briey, to
Wallonia, to Flanders, to the German provinces of the Baltic and to the area
surrounding Warsaw.
“Nor
is this all. Rumania, too, we shall have, and the rest of them. We are not
satiated; our hatred must have more food to nurture itself on. Wherever once
the German language has been spoken there we shall fix our standard, there we
shall remain masters for evermore.”
*
* *
Thomas
A. Maynard was arraigned in court for bigamy. It developed that he was married
first in 1889 and then in 1917. He was let go because he convinced the court
that he had entirely forgotten his first marriage. He was in the war from the
start, and contracted his second marriage on being released from a hospital. He
met a young woman and married her at once. When confronted with the
incontestable evidences of his first marriage by broke down and said he had
completely forgotten it. His case was described as a new form of “shell shock,”
and so sympathetic was the court crowd that it cheered the verdict that freed
him.
*
* *
Messrs.
F. Orlando and Owen Hillyer, of Hull, have set an example for other munition
manufacturers. They have given to the city of Hull, for a fund for disabled
soldiers, sailors and fisherman, $50,000—their total munition profits for a
year. They are trawler owners, but went into munition manufacture at the
outbreak of the war. They have kept some of their profits.
Don Martin wrote two more dispatches dated February 18 which were published March 10 in the New York Herald.
OKLAHOMA INDIANS WILL TAKE THE WAR PATH OVERSEA
[Special to the Herald]
Herald
Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Feb. 18
“Oklahoma will give a good account of
herself before the war is over,” said Colonel George Griffiths, of Oklahoma
City, when seen at the Savoy Hotel. He is a Colonel by courtesy and is not a
member of any military army. Thus he is privileged to discuss the war and
America’s part in it without risking sentence from the censor.
“To begin with, Oklahoma has a regiment
of full blooded Indians. They are about through with their training at Fort
Sill and some day, perhaps, they will be over here taking their place at the
front. Some of them are volunteers and some are in the draft army, but they are
all willing members of Uncle Sam’s contingent, and if they are anything like
their forefathers they will not falter when the word comes to go over the top.
“They are chiefly of the Osage tribe
and are fine, upstanding types of men. Many of them are well to do and all are
able to take care of themselves anywhere at any time.
“Speaking of the Indian, it is an
interesting thing for the world to think about—this what I’m about to tell you.
The Indians in America were noted for their savagery, their massacres and their
mercilessness. All true in a way. But here’s something for the Hun to give
consideration to. The worst Indian, the wildest Indian, the most unscrupulous
red man America ever produced would not violate a treaty, nor would he harm an
ill man. He would kill and he would attack in the night, but the home of the
ill was respected and a treaty was a thing regarded as sacred, even by these
men who were set down as the most savage types of all time.
“It follows, therefore, that an
American Indian is a gentleman alongside a German. This ought to be a happy
reflection for the Hun.”
The second dispatch dated
Feb 18 and published in the New York Herald on Sunday, March 10, 1918 was about theater happenings.
London Hears Grand Opera at Popular Prices
[Special to the Herald]
Herald
Bureau, No. 130 Fleet Street, London, Feb. 18
The final
representation of “Aladdin” will be given at Drury Lane next Wednesday, and the
following Monday Sir Thomas Beecham will present a season of grand opera at
popular pries, extending through the summer.
 |
| Drury Lane Theatre 1812 |
 |
| Drury Lane interior 1812 |
*
* *
J. L. Sachs
not only has the American success, “The Lilac Domino,” ready for
production at the Empire next Thursday, but in conjunction with Alfred Butt he
is preparing for the production of another American musical farce, “Going Up,”
by James Montgomery, author of “Nothing But the Truth.”
*
* *
Walter
Howard’s drama, “Seven Days Leave,” which is in its second year in London, has
made a record for the Lyceum and has the longest run for melodrama, with the
exception of “The Harbor Lights,” that London ever has known.
*
* *
Michael Orme,
who is Mrs. Alix Grein in private life, is engaged upon a romantic play,
“Cagliostro.” In the career of that impostor there is, of course, no end of
material for a thrilling drama. The leading part is intended for an American
actor.
*
* *
Israel
Zangwill’s new farcical comedy, “Too Much Money,” is to be produced in Glasgow
next week. Later in the spring it will be brought to London. Miss Lillah
McCarthy is leading woman.
*
* *
The
“Anzac Coves,” a Pierrot troupe, have come from the firing line to help cheer
up London. They have at their command a large and varied budget of songs,
together with topical sketches and burlesques, which they hand across the
footlights at the Court in the most diverting fashion.
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