IV The Man with the Bayonet
Some military writers have declared that with the increasing range of rifle and artillery fire the day of the bayonet is over. Battles, they say, must now be fought with the combatants miles apart. Bayonets are as obsolete as spears and battle axes. Evidently this theory had the full support of the German General Staff, whose military wisdom was in some quarters believed to be infallible—before the war.
As events have proved, however, there has been no more rude awakening for the German soldiery than the efficacy of the bayonet in the hands of Tommy Atkins. In spite of the employment of gigantic siege guns and their enormous superiority in strength, though not in handling, of artillery, the Germans have failed to keep the Allies at the theoretical safe distance. They have been forced to accept hand-to-hand fighting, and in every encounter at close quarters there has never been a moment’s doubt as to the result. They have shriveled up in the presence of the bayonet, and fled in disorder at the first glimpse of naked steel. It is not that the Germans lack courage. “They are brave enough,” our soldiers admit with perfect frankness, “but the bayonet terrifies them, and they cry out in agony at the sight of it.”
Admittedly, it requires more than ordinary courage to face a bayonet charge, just as it calls for a high order of valor to use that deadly weapon. Instances are given of young soldiers experiencing a sinking sensation, a feeling of collapse, at the order “Fix Bayonets!” their hands trembling violently over the task. But when the bugle sounds the charge, and the wild dash at the enemy’s lines has begun, with the skirl of the pipes to stir up the blood, the nerves stiffen and the hands grip the rifle with grim determination. “It was his life or mine,” said a young Highlander describing his first battle, “and I ran the bayonet through him.” There is no time for sentiment, and there can be no thought of chivalry. Just get the ugly business over and done with as quickly as possible. One soldier tells what a sense of horror swept over him when his bayonet stuck in his victim, and he had to use all his strength to wrench it out of the body in time to tackle the next man.
Many men describe the effects of the British bayonet charges and the way the Germans—Uhlans, Guards, and artillerymen—recoil from them. “If you go near them with the bayonet they squeal like pigs,” “they beg for mercy on their knees,” “the way they cringe before the bayonet is pitiful”—such are examples of the hundreds of references to this method of attack.
Private Whittaker, Coldstream Guards, gives a vivid account of the fighting around Compiègne. “The Germans rushed at us,” he writes, “like a crowd streaming from a Cup-tie at the Crystal Palace. You could not miss them. Our bullets plowed into them, but still on they came. I was well entrenched, and my rifle got so hot I could hardly hold it. I was wondering if I should have enough bullets, when a pal shouted, ‘Up Guards and at ‘em.’ The next second he was rolled over with a nasty knock on the shoulder. When we really did get orders to get at them we made no mistakes, I can tell you. They cringed at the bayonets. Those on the left wing tried to get round us. We yelled like demons, and racing as hard as we could for quite 500 yards we cut up nearly every man who did not run away.”
One of the most graphic pictures of the war is that of attack in the night related by a sergeant of the Worcester Regiment, who was wounded in the fierce battle of the Aisne. He was on picket duty when the attack opened. “It was a little after midnight,” he said “when the men ahead suddenly fell back to report strange sounds and movements along the front. The report had just been made when we heard a rustling in the bushes near us. We challenged and, receiving no reply, fired into the darkness. Immediately the enemy rushed upon us, but the sleeping camp had been awakened by the firing, and our men quickly stood to arms. As the heavy German guns began to thunder and the searchlights to play on our position we gathered that a whole Army corps was about to be engaged and, falling back upon the camp, we found our men ready. No sooner had we reached the trenches than there rose out of the darkness in front of us a long line of white faces. The Germans were upon us. ‘Fire!’ came the order, and we sent a volley into them. They wavered, and dark patches in their ranks showed that part of the white line had been blotted out. But on they came again, the gaps filled up from behind. At a hundred yards’ range, the first line dropped to fix bayonets, the second opened fire, and others followed. We kept on firing and we saw their men go down in heaps, but finally they swarmed forward with the bayonet and threw all their weight of numbers upon us. We gave them one terrible volley, but nothing could have stopped the ferocious impetus of their attack. For one terrible moment our ranks bent under the dead weight, but the Germans, too, wavered, and in that moment we gave them the bayonet, and hurled them back in disorder. It was then I got a bayonet thrust, but as I fell I heard our boys cheering and I knew we had finished them for the night.”
This is one of the few accounts that tell of the Germans using the bayonet on the offensive, and their experience of the businesslike way in which Tommy Atkins manipulates this weapon has given them a wholesome dread of such encounters. Private G. Bridgeman, 4th Royal Fusiliers, tells of the glee with which his regiment received the order to advance with the bayonet. “We were being knocked over in dozens by the artillery and couldn’t get our own back,” he writes,C “and I can tell you we were like a lot of schoolboys at a treat when we got the order to fix bayonets, for we knew we should fix them then. We had about 200 yards to cover before we got near them, and then we let them have it in the neck. It put us in mind of tossing hay, only we had human bodies. I was separated from my neighbors and was on my own when I was attacked by three Germans. I had a lively time and was nearly done when a comrade came to my rescue. I had already made sure of two, but the third would have finished me. I already had about three inches of steel in my side when my chum finished him.”
The charge of the Coldstream Guards at Le Cateau is another bayonet exploit that ought to be recorded. “It was getting dark when we found that the Kaiser’s crush was coming through the forest to cut off our force,” a sergeant relates, “but we got them everywhere, not a single man getting through. About 200 of us drove them down one street, and didn’t the devils squeal. We came upon a mass of them in the main thoroughfare, but they soon lost heart and we actually climbed over their dead and wounded which were heaped up, to get at the others.” “What a sight it was, and how our fellows yelled!” says another Coldstreamer, describing the same exploit.
Tommy Atkins has long been known for his accurate artillery and rifle fire, but the bayonet is his favorite arm in battle. Through all our wars it has proved a deciding, if not indeed the decisive, factor in the campaign. Once it has been stained in service he fondles it as, next to his pipe, his best friend. And it is the same with the Frenchman. He calls his bayonet his “little Rosalie,” and lays its ruddy edges against his cheek with a caress.