Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Dec 1916)

★ ★ ★ "White Plains, were about to go thru the farce of “defending their country. ” The makeshift American Army was made up of a little over 500 regulars, infantry and coast artillery ; about 4,000 National Guardsmen ; 1,000 from the police force, who bravely volunteered, and approximately a thousand practically untrained recruits, consisting of business men who had spent a month in the military camps at Plattsburg and Fort Hamilton. Against this pitifully small, disorganized force of about 7,500 men was advancing a compact, highly trained body of veteran fighters, numbering 125,000 — three highly developed army corps, organized and equipped with the most modern and deadly field artillery, hundreds of machine-guns, thousands of rounds of MADE THEM LAUGH AT ME’ \ ▼ w ammunition, and an efficient flying squadron of twenty aeroplanes and two dirigibles. The American commander had set his stage for the last stand. His men had dug themselves in, but the time had been too short to construct anything more than shallow, improvised trenches in which, worn with anxiety and the unaccustomed fatigue of an all-night march, lay the caricature of an army, fondly supposed by the smug exponents of national complacency to be capable of defending the gateway (Thirty-five) and metropolis of the wealthiest country on the face of the globe. As the sky brightened into an opalescent dawn, several little black specks could be descried away up among the rose-tinted clouds. They rapidly grew more distinct. “Aeroplanes!” laconically exclaimed a lean-visaged captain of artillery. “They can see us ! Oh, it’s hellish ! They have found our range now, and we are as blind as bats,” blurted out a boyish-looking National Guardsman. And the chaplain of New York’s crack militia regiment quoted under his breath: “Whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet and taketh not warning; if the sword come and take him away, his blood be upon his own head.” The General, looking, as he knew, for the last time on his helpless little army, cursed, in the bitterness of his heart, those upon whose heads rested the blood of these brave men, so soon to be slaughtered. Three miles away things were happening. A rather dense thicket of woods ran parallel to the American entrenchments, and these woods were literally alive with the men in the drab uniforms and little, round steel caps. Carefully hidden among the foliage was a row of heavy -field-guns and howitzers. A drone, as of a swarm of hees, grew gradually louder, and two of the aeroplane scouts circled over the woods. One landed gracefully on an open stretch of ground, the other continued on towards the invading army’s headquarters in New York. The aviator made his report, the commander shrugged his shoulders contemptuously and turned to an artillery officer. “The scouts are now giving you the range,” he commanded bluntly — ‘ ‘ commence firing ! ’ ’ Slowly, methodically, the muzzles of the great guns were elevated. A shrill whistle sounded, and one of the sinister mouths spoke. The artillery officer did not watch where the shell struck. He scrutinized thru his glasses the hawk-like aeroplanes hovering over the American lines. Quickly the signal came: “Two points too high.” In unison the black muzzles were depressed a quarter of an inch. Another deep-throated roar, and the second shell, screaming its telltale message, flew in a high, wide arc, to burst full in the center of the shallow entrenchment. The aeroplanes signaled “Correct,” and in an instant the air was filled with the shriek of shrapnel, the moan of heavier shells