What Do You Know About War?

              WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WAR?



War as it is being fought today in a wholesale way




If you want to know what the life of a soldier is today; how he lives and fights; what he thinks, you should hear Arthur G. Empey.



Figure


If you want to know how it feels to be in a bayonet charge; how it feels to 
go out
 in a poison gas attack; how you can cut silently through barbed wire, you should hear this American who has been through it all.




Personal experiences and minute details of the big war are told by this American who for nearly two years was in the thick of the fighting as machine gunner and bomber of the Royal Fusileers.
 


In these times of danger everyone should hear 
Arthur G. EMPEY
 IN HIS LECTURE 
Over the Top with the Best of Luck




For Terms and Dates, Address J. B. POND LYCEUM BUREAU Metropolitan Life Building New York City




Over the Top with the Best of Luck



To those of us who have been far away from the war in Europe, this phrase means little or nothing, and in our not knowing what it means we show how little we really know about war as it is being waged today.  We have read reports of war correspondents—reports that are written around made-up stories that the man in the trenches is too often likely to tell correspondents—but we know after all very little of what the ordinary soldier feels and does.  Moreover, we know very little of what he has to learn before he can even be an ordinary soldier and he has to be an ordinary soldier some time before it is his turn to be sent over the top 
with the best of luck.
  That 
best of luck
 too often means 
never to return.


Figure

Mr. Empey in the gas helmet he wore through two attacks and which he uses in his lecture.



It has remained for Arthur G. Empey to bring to us here in America a vivid picture of what war is.  And few men have had so generous an acquaintance with it.  When the Lusitania was sunk he spoke so much of what he would do to the Germans, that he finally decided he would have to go and fight to make good.  So, in October, 1915, he went to England and succeeded in enlisting, although an American, in the Royal Fusileers.  It wasn't the first time he had seen military duty, for he had served six years in our own army and nine years in our National Guard.  He soon found he knew little of war as it is waged today, and when he finally got to the firing line, he found he didn't know anything.


Figure

Are we downhearted?  No!



Learning the Tricks of the Trade



He started in learning as fast as he could and as he now tells of trench life, you begin to realize there is more to learn about war than shooting a gun.  If you had to slip out in the middle of the night on a surprise attack, would you know in advance how to cut barbed wire, tight as a piano string, without having it sound a tell-tale whang?  Would you think of blacking your face so that your white skin wouldn't show, and so you could also tell friend from foe?  These are but a few of the things Empey had to learn, and of which he tells in his lecture.




Arthur G. Empey had what he calls 
the bad habit of volunteering
 and before long he found himself in serious trouble.  Three times he was wounded in action, each time he 
went out
 and each time was picked up in the dreaded 
no man's land,
 on one occasion after laying in a shell crater for thirty-six hours.  He went through two poison gas attacks, and in one of them his gas helmet failed and he succumbed.  While laying unconscious in the mud for five hours, the trench was captured and occupied by the Germans, but was later recapt- ured by the English.  It was one of these wounds that finally incapacitated Mr. Empey and because of it he is no longer at the front.




A Member of the Suicide Club



When he was fighting—from October, 1915, to February, 1917—he saw all there was to see.  He had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant, and had he been an Englishman, would have won a commission in addition to his medal for gallantry.  He served as bomber and machine gunner—one of those men who are said to belong to the 
suicide club.
  He was through many of the biggest battles and fought until disabled in the great battle of the Somme.




Perhaps Empey has not seen more fighting than many of his comrades, but the reason he has jumped into the front rank of all war lecturers is because he knows what his audience has waited to hear, and he knows how to tell it!  When he tells of the sudden quickness of a gas attack and how the soldier must be ever ready with his helmet, he not only tells you about it, but—quick as a flash—he stands there before you with his gas helmet on, donned as quickly as in battle.  He acts the stories out for you, he shows you HOW it is done.  But above all, he never lets the horror of it all overwhelm you.  
Tommy Atkins
 is a happy boy in spite of danger, and Mr. Empey knows how to enliven his stories of war as war itself is enlivened, by recounting the humorous, often ludicrous, things that are continually happening.




A Wonderful Preparedness Talk



You will see by the letters over page that Mr. Empey has not only offered his services to his country in time of peril, but that his knowledge is valued.  His lecture now can do more than almost anything else to give Americans a quick knowledge of what to do in time of war.  It is an unequalled lesson in preparedness, and any one who hears it will know many of the tricks of modern fighting that have only been learned by others by months of ghastly experimenting.  National Guard organizations, Preparedness Leagues, and other patriotic associations should arrange to have Mr. Empey lecture under their auspices.  In his lecture you learn:


HOW TO EXAMINE AN APPARENTLY EMPTY ENEMY TRENCH WITHOUT RISK OF BEING CAUGHT IN A TRAP.


HOW TO MAKE BOMBS OUT OF YOUR MESS TINS.


HOW TO MAKE A NIGHT ATTACK WITHOUT EXPOSING YOURSELF UNDULY.


HOW TO CHANGE A GAS HELMET IN THE MIDDLE OF A GAS ATTACK


HOW SOLDIERS TODAY ARM THEMSELVES ON A TRENCH CLEARING EXPEDITION.


HOW TO CUT BARBED WIRE WITHOUT BETRAYING WHAT YOU ARE DOING.


HOW TO TELL WHETHER THE ARTILLERYMEN OPPOSITE YOU ARE NEW RECRUITS OR EXPERIENCED MEN.





These are but a few of the many practical hints with which his lecture is filled.  It is a course in military training in itself.


Figure
ARTHUR G. EMPEY, No. 5203




Some of the Letters Mr. Empey has Received



Notice how each engagement has created a demand for others The chain method is a sure proof of success




Your letter received and tender of service appreciated.  It will be placed on file and made of record in order that your offer may be taken advantage of in case of emergency.  I was particularly interested in your talk last night.




Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood, U. S. Army.




Good for you!  I shall certainly call on you if the need arises.  We would especially need instruction in bomb throwing and machinegun work, by men who had actually been in the trenches.




Theodore Roosevelt.




Just a line to let you know how much the Highland Club members enjoyed your 
war talk
 of last evening.  Any number of members approached me the next day and thanked me for having secured your services, insomuch as the facts which you gave them were just what they wanted.




Most of the lectures or talks concerning the war these days, are by newspaper correspondents, who have not had the actual experiences, which you have had.




W. Lee Gwynne, Highland Club, Summit, N. J.




How about a return engagment [sic engagement]for the Montclair Club? Can you give us a date early in April?  If so, I will try and see you or get you on the phone and talk over the matter with you.  The men are crazy to hear you further.




(Signed) John W. Allen, Montclair Club, Montclair, N. J.




I wish to thank you for coming and talking to the Club.  If it had not been midnight, and if you had not then talked more than three hours, you would not have been permitted to stop.  Among those who heard you, the opinion was unanimous that your remarkable narrative was all too short.




(Signed) Walter L. McDermott, Carteret Club, Jersey City.




Just a word to thank you in writing for the very pleasant and exciting evening at Englewood last Saturday night.  I wish you would write me a list of your engagements in New York and vicinity, as I am constantly asked by any number of my friends where you can be heard to talk.




Reg. Halladay, Englewood Club, Englewood, N. J.




No American should miss the opportunity of hearing the thrilling lecture of Arthur Guy Empey.  It is the most interesting talk I have ever heard on any subject.




(Signed) Eugene W. Leake, Former U. S. Congressman of New Jersey.




Your talk last evening, in Worcester has created a desire to have you come on again and talk informally to the members of the Worcester Country Club.




Parker Trowbridge, Worcester Country Club, Worcester, Mass.




I greatly enjoyed hearing you talk at the home of Mr. Leake and would like very much, if possible, to arrange to have you talk to the students in this school.




J. G. MacVicar, Headmaster, Montclair Academy, Montclair, N. J.




I had the privilege of hearing you at the Montclair Club two or three weeks ago and am looking forward to hearing you again.  You are doing a very valuable work for you are driving home to your audiences the necessity of real military preparation for this country.




Felix A. Jenkins, D. K. E. Club, New York City.




You gave us a fine talk last night and I am sure everyone was delighted.




(Signed) Philip Gordell Yale Alumni Ass'n. of Montclair.




Some Places he has Appeared

FigureArthur G. Empey wearing a Prussian Helmet he captured

Yale Club, New York.


St. Nicholas Club, New York City.


St. Thomas Club, at


University Club, New York City.


Country Club. Syracuse, N. Y.


Worcester Club, Worcester, Mass.


Utica Club, Utica, N. Y.


Montclair Club, Montclair, N. J. (2)


Tapkaow Club, Morristown, N. J.


Morristown Club, Morristown, N. J.


Union Club, Newark, N. J.


Short Hills Club, Short Hills, N. J.


N. Y. State Electrical Railroad Association, New York City.


Highland Club, Summit, N. J.


University Club, Brooklyn, N. Y.


Meissen Club, New York City.


Caldwell Club, Caldwell, N. J.


Jersey City Club, Jersey City, N. J.


Carteret Club, Jersey City, N. J.


Rotary Club, Brooklyn, N. Y.


Park Club, Plainfield, N. J.


Yale Alumni Ass'n., Montclair, N. J.


Commonwealth Club, Upper Montclair, N. J.


Yale University, New Haven, Conn.


D. K. E. Club, New York City.


North End Club, Newark, N. J.


Downtown Club, Newark, N. J.


2nd N. J. Regiment, Trenton, N. J.


Englewood Motor Battery Rifle Club, Englewood, N. J.


Columbia Guards, Newark, N. J.




The above engagements were all secured without any other advertising than the personal interest developed by the lectures themselves.


Figure

The identification tag that is ever with you