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AN EXCURSION TO THE FRONT AT LILLE 309
learnt by now the woes of billeting ? Nobody could possibly
think that the Germans were on the point of preparing for a
retreat, a rumour which had spread mysteriously among the
population. No drooping spirits or depression, the precursors
of a pending catastrophe, could be discerned among the
troops billeted in Bapaume. No, their mood was such as it
always is and such as it must be in an army marching with
an irresistible iron will to victory and thinking of nothing,
speaking of nothing, believing in nothing but victory all along
the line—victory even if the whole world were to be ransacked
for fresh legions to bring against it on this front where the
enemy is either shot down or taken prisoner and carried off
to Döberitz or other internment camps in Germany.
It is this will to win which permeates the entire German
army and makes such a deep impression on the stranger.
Enviable, admirable, happy is the people which united marches
on under its country’s standards when its hour of fate has
struck. The dead would cry out from their lonely graves by
the roadsides did not the living carry the fight to a glorious
conclusion ; but their sleep is untroubled, for they sank into
it with the firm knowledge that those coming after would give
their lives and all that they held dear with the same steadfast
determination for the sake of home and country and future.
No era has ever witnessed such national greatness as that
attained by the German nation at the present day. It is an
uplifting experience to have seen the Germans in their sublime
struggle, and one which can never be forgotten by those who
have been with them in this time.
The mood and spirit of the German army finds expression
in song. The officers sing in their messes, the soldiers on their
marches, on their baggage wagons, in their bivouacs. In the
trenches alone there must be silence. Perhaps the French
soldiers, too, sing, but as to the Russians, their wistful airs have
doubtless died away in the soldiers’ throats during the long
weary marches backwards and forwards across the Polish
plains.
After breakfast in the mess on October 30th we entered the
Duke’s car to proceed to the field of battle between Lille and
Armentieres. We were four all told, the Duke’s chauffeur at
the wheel, the Hereditary Prince of Hohenzollern by his side,
looking after the hooter, the Duke and I. It had been raining
and the by-roads were in a horrible state, whilst the great main
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