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THE FATHERLAND
That same day English spies cut the telegraph and telephone
lines from Western New York in a hundred isolated places. That
night trains and automobiles began to roll across the bridges over
the Niagara-every car armored, many of them mounting guns and
machine-guns. The next morning the citizens of Rochester saw
the faces of foreign soldiery; not white men, but yellow and brown
men. Citizens fired, in a number of places in and about Rochester,
on soldiers who had detrained to guard the tracks and to take
possession of engines, cars and stores in the railroad yards; tliere-
after every train that went through poured a steady fusillade from
rifles and machine-guns on both sides, and occasionally a light shell
was tossed playfully at a prominent steeple, a public building or a
big factory. Late in the afternoon as the last trains went through,
fires were deliberately started by the soldiers in various places, and
under the urgencc of strong winds these got such a start that the
efforts of the fire department and the citizens were unavailing. The
great city of 300,000 people, with its many manufactures and its
lovely homes, was destroyed.
The New York Central trains at this time had been equipped with
wireless instruments, and train movements were controlled by wire-
less from the various division headquarters. The enemy had not
neglected to destroy the wireless plants as they went along, but the
0Dcrator on one of the many trains which they intercepted at last
Hashed the news East and lVest. The first result was that just
l’C)'0,nd Syracuse that afternoon the invaders found several trains
wrecked across the tracks, and the tracks torn up for a great dis-
tance. The troops were in excellent condition for marching, how-.
ever, and at once set out along the line of the Erie Canal and the
tracks of the VVest Shore and New York Central. Several com-
Danies were rushed ahead lover a trolley line, and reached C3n3St0t3
before dark. They were fired on during the night, and in the morn-
ing started fires in several streets away from the transportation
lines; then, being joined by other companies rolling in on the
trolley lines, they pushed forward.
The XVest Shore tracks had been found intact a few miles beyond
the first break, and two or three trains were captured. 3l’mCd with
machine-guns, and a regiment was rushed forward on the morning
of the 6th, which reached another break in the tracks on the edge of
Utica about the time that the companies going forward by tT0lleY
arrived. Several hundred citizens had armed themselves from the
Remington factory and awaited the invaders behind b31’FiC3de5-
An engagement of great intensity took place, and the.Hi'ndus‘and
13175 Paid heavily for an attempt to clear the barricades by a direct
chafgs: but finally they were able to bring m3Chi“e‘3““5 f0 be"
in an enhlading fire, and the defenders melted away. Utica was
"01 Put togthe torch because of the munitions works.
The main invading forces meanwhile were advancing by motor-
C31‘. afoot and on horse, over the longer road of the Canal. B)’
evening of the 6th both the New York Central and ivest Shore
tracks had been repaired, and the rear guard, ‘who had passed
through Syracuse during the night before, and consisted of.a division
05 Canadians, took up the advance by rail. On the morning of the
7th they entered both Rome and Utica, and with the reglmems “‘
motor-cars, became the advance guard-
This method of advance was,’ of course, so rapid and ‘so
Drecarious that it could neither have been attempted "07 camed
out against a land armed and Prepared. 0’-agaimt 3" adequatei
enemy in the field. But here, on this long path across the breadth
of the stage of New York, through a district unsurpassed in the
country in populousness and wealth, the invaders had nothing to.do,
nothillg to think of, but to advance at the greatest “"3"-d ,P055‘Me'
There was no one to stop, no one to hinder. Companies could be
thrown thirty miles in advance, divergent roads could be taken, ap-
parent chaos could rule, communications could . be‘ abandoned:
Wefything done so long as a rapid advance was maintained. ‘Wire-
less apparatus kept every part and division in full touch with the
headquarters-train of. General Saito, the Japanese C".mm3“d", of
this army. Vvhere unorganized opposition developed, rifle, m3Chm“-'
Elm, field-gun and torch were quickly available. .
New York was ;,,g',,;te1y more defenseless a prey in 1920 than it
was in 1812, when an advance across the State would have been
3lmost impossibie, and when it was possible to improvise navies on
155
Erie and Champlain and prevent the enemy’s plans for invasion
from even taking shape.
From Utica on the invaders protected their lines and garrisoned
all important towns. With the garrisons came looting, indemnities.
and raids on near-by cities. By the evening of August 9th the ad-
vanced columns of armored trains and armored motor-cars were
well out of Amsterdam on the way to Schenectady.
When news of this movement reached Generals Jones and
Roosevelt, late on the afternoon of the 6th, their forces were under
. shrapnel-fire along their whole front, and cavalry and air-scouts
reported columns of the enemy steadily advancing. At dawn of the
7th the major part of the American forces crossed the Hudson and
advanced in a determined eFfort to crush the enemy, whose full
strength was as yet undiscoverable. The action was conducted with
the greatest tactical skill, but the folly of employing such an army
in such a way was soon apparent. Lacking field-guns, none too well
supplied with ammunition, utterly deficient in ammunition-trains,
commissariat, hospital-trains, skilled communication troops and aero-
planes, the various units, unequally disciplined but equally unused to
fire, soon lost morale, and could have been routed by a determined
onset. But it was not the purpose of the enemy to rout them at
this time. During the evening and night the bulk of the American
forces was withdrawn across the Hudson. The next morning it
was reported that enemy cavalry had crossed the river below Fort
Edward, and that heavy columns were moving down the Champlain
Canal. A reformation of the American forces was ordered, but an
attack by the enemy along the Glens Falls-Hudson Falls line de-
veloped in sufficient vigor to prevent this. Rumor spread among
the men that the enemy was in the rear, and spontaneous retreats
began all along the line, carrying the Generals along with them.
Some companies boarded trains, trolley cars and automobiles and
fied as far as Saratoga Springs that day. A battalion of Volunteers
was cut off along Snook Creek, above Gansevoort, and captured.
On the morning of the 9th General Roosevelt put himself at the
head of the 4,000 odd .cavalry of the army and attacked a mixed
column of the enemy near Gansevoort. The engagement hung in
the balance after an hour of skirmishing, and the enemy's shrapnel
had to be avoided by either retiring or advancing. Working around
to a position that covered a good road, with level fields on both sides,
Roosevelt ordered a charge. With a shout the great line rushed
forward at the gallop, Teddy at the head, courageous, magnetic,
magnificent. The enemy was dispersed and their flanking move-
ment broken; but on the field, among the six hundred killed and
wounded, lay Teddy, dead.
This courageous and sacrificial charge gave an opportunity for
the head of the column to make great progress in retreat that day,
under the skilled direction of General O'Ryan. They crossed the
river at Schuylerville and made their way down, the next day, nearly
to Mechanicsville. But the main forces, closely pressed by the
enemy, were, by the morning of the 10th, a frightened mob massed
between Saratoga, Ballstin and Pound Lakes, shaken by defeat,
weariness, hunger and the spectacle of their wounded suffering for
lack of hospital service. And the Japanese and’ Hindus were in
force at Schenectady. One hundred and seventy thousand men sur-
rounded the American army.
The story of the 11th and 12th of August is familiar to my
readers through the descriptions, accurate enough. cabled through
England at the time: the hopeless efforts of General Jones to form
a battle line, the brave but unavailing flank attack by O'Ryan along
the Anthony Kill, the fury with which the disorganized units
attacked the yellow and brown men when they first came in touch
with them, and the final bloody Sedan.
The story of the capture of Albany, and the wanton destruction
of the great New York State Capitol by rival artillerymen of
Hindu, Jap and Canadian batteries, striving to win bets placed on
their skill by their otiicers, is also known.
Fortunately, the officers in command of the Vvatervliet arsenal
had taken it upon themselves to load all they could of guns and
ammunition there on trains for New York City when they heard of
the advance from the West.
(The next iiistallnimt will picture the end of the great war
of 1920.)