"Back from hell"

From the very beginning I had had an overwhelming desire to go to Belgium. Somehow that country has gripped the imagination of the world and mine as well. Neither did I think of...

Petain, the great French general, has given expression to one of the outstanding facts of the present war. He says, "The artillery conquers, the infantry occupies." This, in a f...

Multitudes of people without doubt would like to know what an attack is like, consequently I will try to describe one in the region of Verdun. After serving six hours' notice on...

In the course of my travels I happened to run across two Belgians, one of whom had a brother at Andenne. Upon learning that I was an American he became very friendly and confide...

In the French Army, now, I had a different standing than at first. Our unit in its entirety was taken over and we became _brancardiers_, or stretcher bearers, in the Second Army...

When the old _Chicago_ cut loose from her moorings in an Atlantic port it was a red letter day for me. She was a good sized craft, of the French Line, and was to carry a lot of...

When I returned to Brussels I applied at the German office for a pass to Holland. I was told to come back "Next Tuesday," which was five days hence! Meanwhile the Germans kept m...

On a certain Friday afternoon at M---- the day had been ominously quiet. Several of the boys had gone out for a little stroll and lunch before retiring, and a few were hanging a...

My fists are now clinched! I am fighting now. My experience as I have here given it, drives me to this inevitable conclusion. Germany, as she now is organized, cannot be tolerat...

One poor fellow whose feet were bare, attracted my attention. When I looked at him more carefully I noticed that he had no shirt and I asked him what had happened to him and wha...

Caring for men, not only those who are wounded, but for those who are sick or in trouble as well, the Red Cross is without a doubt the greatest relief organization in the world...

As we bumped into the dock at Havre I was given my first scare. I was taken in charge by a French soldier who wore a red and blue cap, a huge overcoat with the corners buttoned...

When it was apparent to the Germans that they were able to get no satisfaction from me and could not intimidate me into admitting that I was paid by the British Government, they...

Of course I did not know what was ahead of me, but I knew from the experiences which were back of me how I felt toward the Germans. I had gotten so that every time a German sold...

The salvage from a modern battle is a thing which I suppose few people ever stop to think about. Where hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of men have been engaged in shooting i...

One midnight after a certain engagement "somewhere in France" in which many men fell, I learned of an experience which burned its way into my soul, and I believe will stay there...

Two thousand years ago an invading monarch, Julius Caesar, in his _Commentaries_ said that the Belgians were the best fighting men that he had met; and the reason was that they...

The section which had been at Dunkirk and in Flanders had some interesting experiences. The larger part of the time the boys were put up in stables and slept on straw or in the...

I had a sort of habit, when I had time off from the work, or was "on my own," of sometimes going to the railroad stations of the different towns and more especially those of Par...

When Viellaur had given me my passport to Liége he had told me orally to come back by the same route I went. But it did not say so in the paper itself, and I ignored his instruc...

Consequently while I started back toward Brussels, that night under cover of darkness I soon wheeled around and made for the Holland border--alone--on foot. Part of the way I cr...

That rest was to come ere long--but not immediately. I had seen the tragedy and horror of modern warfare but I was still to undergo another heart-tearing ordeal. The boys of a c...

My first formal call when I got to Paris was upon Ambassador Sharp. This, however, was not until I had been in the city several days. I had become acquainted on the ship with a...

In a certain section of the country one could see from a prominent hill across some cities and onward to the edge of the German lines. The region has been much fought over and i...

Out there on the Western front a marvelous spirit seems to have possession of the people. I doubt if the world ever saw such a close and intimate communion of millions upon mill...

The word "souvenir" means a remembrance. The Huns have certainly left a number of things which will be remembrances of them for a long time to come. At one of the battles near S...

When the war first began the idea of serving France through ambulance work was conceived by a few large-visioned Americans. The plant of the fine new boys' school called the "Ly...

On leaving Mr. Whitlock I went down town and engaged a room at a little private hotel for the duration of my stay in Brussels. One day shortly afterwards, while I was sitting in...

flashes and occasionally heard the booming of the guns. I went into a little structure nearby prepared to wait as long as need be. While sitting there I got out my odd French st...

Often in the long, long hours of the midnight during that period I brooded over the situation. Frequently the wheels of my thought would turn swiftly, and cause me to reflect up...

The blackest aspect of the sin which Germany has committed in this war is not to be found in the ruined churches and the devastated homes. The vandalistic crime which asserted i...

Section "Y," to which I had been attached, was about this time transferred to a point much farther east and south. They were a jolly bunch of good fellows and always had a socia...

At Liége I felt the German espionage system. This city became world famous in a week's time when the Hun was pounding at the gates. It was the first the world knew of the war. T...

At the stations these days we found numbers of poilus who were "done in" by the German explosive bullets, many of them breathing their last. Poor devils, writhing in pain and ag...

I had become well acquainted with the lad and we had many an interesting talk together, he speaking in his inimitable French manner and I responding in my butchered-up attempt a...

The surgeons in France are doing most wonderful things and it must not be forgotten, that along with all the awful phases of the war, with all the pathos and the horror, there a...

In silent moments of rest between trips I occasionally would reflect, "If an ambulance could only talk, what tales it would tell!" No doubt, sometimes it would tell of the pleas...

The system of _camouflage_ which the French have worked out in this war, is something new also. The word has come to mean in America "dodging," "deception," "bunk," or anything...

In Paris I had met and talked with Arno Dosch Fleuro, an American reporter who had been with Richard Harding Davis at Louvain while it was burning. He had told me that when he w...

While I was in Brussels I stayed all the time at the same hotel, that of Madame Baily-Moremans, No. 26, Rue de Vieux Marché au Grains, down near the Bourse. Her maiden name had...

On my way to Brussels I had to pass through Antwerp. My pass allowed me to go to Brussels--and nowhere else. But as the train stopped at six o'clock in the evening at Antwerp, a...

At length I went to the German Pass office in Brussels. It was called the "_Pass-Zentrale_," up in the Rue Royale, only a block from the King's palace. I there applied for a pas...

At one time I was called upon to go to the city of A---- on a particular errand. While there I had a unique experience. I had gotten a permit allowing me to remain there over ni...

A diplomatic officer is a peculiar individual. I wish I were one--sometimes. I wouldn't have liked to be Brand Whitlock, however, when this war broke out. He had been living a q...