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Page 60
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 professors
waited in a silence of rage and shame. They would fain have hurled
themselves, unarmed, upon the gleaming line of soldiers that walled the
quadrangle, 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 said
in a high-pitched voice: "Gentlemen of the University, I trust you have
carefully read the proclamation of Field Marshal von Kluck. Be sure that
any disorder during the execution of hostages that is now to take place
will bring swift and terrible punishment upon the city and citizens of
New Haven. Gentlemen, I salute you."
He turned to the guard of soldiers. "_Gehen!_"
"_Fertig! Hup!_" cried a stocky little Bavarian sergeant, and the grim
procession started.
At the four corners of the public green were companies of German soldiers
with machine-guns trained upon dense crowds of citizens who had gathered
for this gruesome ceremony, high-spirited New Englanders whose faith and
courage were now to be crushed out of them, according to von Kluck, by
this stern example.
Down Chapel Street with muffled drums came the unflinching group of
American patriots, marching between double lines of cavalry and led by a
military band. At Osborn Hall they turned to the right and moved slowly
along College Street to the Battell Chapel, where they turned again and
advanced diagonally across the green, the band playing Beethoven's
funeral march.
In the centre of the dense throng, at a point between Trinity Church and
the old Centre Church, a firing squad of bearded Westphalians was making
ready for the last swift act of vengeance, when, suddenly, in the
direction of Elm Street near the Graduates' Club, there came a tumult of
shouts and voices with a violent pushing and struggling in the crowd. A
messenger on a motorcycle was trying to force his way to the commanding
officer.
"Stop! Stop!" he shouted. "I've got a telegram for the general. Let me
through! I _will_ get through!"
And at last, torn and breathless, the lad did get through and delivered
his message. It was a telegram from Field Marshal von Kluck, which read:
"Have just received a despatch from General Leonard Wood, stating that
his Imperial Highness the Crown Prince and Field Marshal von Hindenburg,
with their military staffs, have been made prisoners by an American army
north of the Susquehanna, and giving warning that if retaliatory measures
are taken against American citizens, his Imperial Highness will, within
twenty-four hours, be stood up before the statue of his Imperial ancestor
Frederick the Great, in the War College at Washington, and shot to death
by a firing squad from the Pennsylvania National Guard. In consequence of
this I hereby countermand all previous orders for the execution of
American hostages. (Signed) VON KLUCK."
Like lightning this wonderful news spread through the crowd, and in the
delirious joy that followed there was much disorder which the Germans
scarcely tried to suppress. They were stunned by the catastrophe. The
Crown Prince a prisoner! Von Hindenburg a prisoner! By what miracle of
strategy had General Wood achieved this brilliant coup?
Here were the facts, as I subsequently learned. So confident of complete
success was the American commander, that by twelve o'clock on the day of
battle he had diverted half of his forces, about 30,000 men, in a rapid
movement to the north, his purpose being to cross the Susquehanna higher
up and envelop the rear guard of the enemy, with their artillery and
commanding generals, in an overwhelming night attack. Hour after hour
through the night of October 14th a flotilla of ferry-boats, cargo-boats,
tugs, lighters, river craft of all sorts, assembled days before, had
ferried the American army across the Susquehanna as George Washington
ferried his army across the Delaware a hundred and fifty years before.
All night the Americans pressed forward in a forced march, and by
daybreak the Crown Prince and his 3,000 men were caught beyond hope of
rescue, hemmed in between the Susquehanna River and the projecting arms
of Chesapeake Bay. The surprise was complete, the disaster irretrievable,
and at seven o'clock on the morning of October 15th the heir to the
German throne and six of his generals, including Field Marshal von
Hindenburg, surrendered to the Americans the last of their forces with
all their flags and artillery and an immense quantity of supplies and
ammunition.
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