Part 21

“And the ‘Razzle Dazzle’ carried out her own idea of attack. She banged head-on into the ‘mill.’ She went right through a wide doorway, making splinters of the door; she knocked against concrete pillars, supports and walls, smashing everything in her way and bowled out of the other side just as the roof crashed in and apparently crushed and smothered all the artillery men beneath it.

“On the way through, the big, powerful old girl bucked and rocked and reared until we men and the black cat inside her were thrown again and again into a jumble, the cat scratching us like a devil in her frenzy of fear.

“Closed up in the tank as we were, we could hear the roar and crash of the falling ‘mill,’ and from my observation port-hole I could observe that it was most complete. The place had been reduced to a mere heap. Not a shot came out of it at us.

SHE DEFIES CONTROL

“But still the ‘Razzle Dazzle’ was having her own way. Her motorist was signaling me that he had no control of her. This was cheerful intelligence because right ahead was a huge shell crater. She might slide into it and climb up the other side and out. I hoped so. But she didn’t. She hit the bottom of the pit, tried to push her way up and out, fell back, panted, pushed up again, fell back and then just stuck at the bottom of the well, throbbing and moaning and maybe penitent for her recklessness.

“Penitence wasn’t to do her any good. It wasn’t five minutes later when the Germans had the range of her and began smashing us with big shells. I ordered my men to abandon her and led them in a rush out of the crater and into small shell holes until the storm of fire was past.

“When it was, ‘Razzle Dazzle’ was a wreck. She was cracked, distorted and shapeless. But the runaway engine was still plainly to be heard throbbing. Finally a last big shell sailed into the doughty tank and there was a loud bang and a flare. Her oil reservoir shot up in an enormous blaze.

“‘Razzle Dazzle’ was no more. But she had accounted for the ‘refinery.’ And our infantry had done the rest. The German position was ours.

“I was all enthusiasm for fighting ‘tanks.’ But my superiors squelched it. For when I asked for command of a sister of ‘Razzle Dazzle’ next day, a cold-eyed aide said to me:

“‘One tank, worth ten thousand pounds, is as much as any bally young officer may expect to be given to destroy during his lifetime. Good afternoon.’”

THE PAINTER SOLDIER

Though Exempt by Age the Love Art Deepened Bade Him Fight for France

Elsewhere in this volume is told how an American poet, Alan Seeger, gave his life for France. Here is the story of a French painter who, freely offering his life, gave what was even more precious to him than life. You may know the name Lemordant, and you may know the work signed by that name; if not, what pleasanter introduction to both than some words by Mary Fanton Roberts in the _Touchstone_? She says:

“Perhaps all unconsciously, this heroic French artist-soldier has found the truth about democracy, and he tells it to us with lightning strokes and splendid color. In all of his pictures he is a painter of the simple people: of the workmen, the peasants, the sailors, the fishermen, and women. And he paints them working joyously with strength and exhilaration and interest. He paints them running in the meadows and dancing on the shore and laughing into each other’s faces. He paints them as great workmen, great lovers. They seem, these men and women, in their bright-colored clothes and their vivid faces, as much a part of the essential beauty of life as white clouds racing over the blue sky on a windy day, as the amethyst water through which the women splash bringing in the nets; they are as genuine as the yellow shore where the brilliant fishing-boats lie, as the poppies in the field, and the tulips in the home-gardens.”

WOULD NOT REMAIN BEHIND

He was 37 years old when the war began, an age that entitled him to remain behind in the Home Defense Corps, but he chose to go to the front. Mr. Charles LeGoffic relates, in the _Touchstone_, the war experiences of painter Lemordant, the experiences of a veritable hero, hero exceptional. His first engagement of consequence was at Charleroi, where he was wounded and where he won a lieutenant’s commission.

One night during the battle of the Marne, on the outskirts of the forest of Guebarre, his attention was attracted by some suspicious movements on the right. He crawled out, revolver in hand, followed by four men of his section, to investigate.

“He was not mistaken; at that spot, between two companies, our line showed a slight opening, a ‘break’ which the Germans were trying to enter. Lemordant sent one of his men to alarm the nearest company, and was making a half-circle toward his own company when a huge Boche ruffian appeared in the darkness and fired at him pointblank. The bullet shaved his cheek; other bullets whistled about. The little troop had been winded, and there was only one way to get out of it, that was to reply by a general fire that would give the impression of an attack in force. The enemy would perhaps be impressed by it, and in any event this volley would put companies out on the alert. In fact, on both sides the firing became general, even the artillery took part in it; a seventy-seven burst near Lemordant, wounded him in his right side and threw him into the air with his full equipment. The wound was not serious, but Lemordant fell in such a way as to dislocate his hip-bones and to tear his muscles. Fainting, he was carried away to a field-hospital, where he remained until the ninth. The enemy was now in full retreat. On the eighth we had crossed Le Petit Morin, on the ninth we lay at Montmirail and at Champaubert, on the battlefields of the Napoleonic epic, and the birth of victory came to the armies of the Republic in the same cradle where the Imperial star had shed its last rays.

“Lemordant refused to be sent to a base hospital. He was not yet strong. He could scarcely walk, the two wooden splints which they had placed over his pelvis came out of position at each sudden movement; but the splendid conscience of a leader of men had awakened in this idealist, this dreamer who but yesterday was so highly prejudiced against the military profession. He knew that in war-time an officer only holds his men by his own example and moral authority.”

AN OFFICER’S OBLIGATION

“‘An officer,’ he said to me, ‘literally must give all his existence, all his life-blood to his country; he must not spare a drop; less than any other is he allowed to invoke the relief of the “slightly wounded,” which permits him to go to some luxurious hospital in the Côte d’Azur and there appeal to the tender hearts of the Sisters of Charity. Wounded, sick, limping, he must be able to say to his soldiers who are complaining, “But do I not march, too?” Then they will follow him.’

“On the morning of October 4, 1914, the 41st attacked near Monchy-le-Preux.... All went well at first. From time to time, whenever the ground was uneven, they rushed forward; a few unlucky ones are dropped out on the way. With the rest, Lemordant, although himself wounded in the hand, reached the enemy trench and carried it.

“A second bullet at this moment grazes his right temple; a third, a little while after, wounds him on the top of his skull. It is now broad day, but it is northern weather, gray, cheerless, dark, uncertain. In the four great stages of his military life this painter soldier knew different climates; he has run the tone-scale from the burning blue of Charleroi to the bottomless night of Craonnelle, with the clear starlit heaven of the Marne between.

“Is it of that he thinks, if it be that, in such a moment, he can think of anything except the safety of his men?

“Confused movement on the plain—on his right frantic silhouettes which stand bolt upright, whirl about, collapse; another section of his company engaged on the same side is caught on the flank by machine guns set up in a sort of blockhouse behind a mound, in front of a pile of ruined huts. Without hesitating, with the firmness of decision which never abandons him in the most critical circumstances, Lemordant gets his men together, rallies the fugitives, and throws himself on the blockhouse—the battery of machine guns is put out of action. But Lemordant, climbing the slope, receives a bullet pointblank which goes through his right knee.

“It is his fourth wound of the day, and his men wish to carry him off; he refuses, feeling that his presence is more necessary than ever. In spite of the pain he merely had his leg set in splints, then, fortifying the positions on the side toward the enemy, he sends a runner to Major Bernard to keep him in touch with his advance and to call for supports. The man is killed on the way. Another meets the same fate, and in the interim the German counter-attack breaks loose.

“It is launched by a whole company, and it is terrifying to see this gray wave rolling over the plain, rising, sinking, rising again, and growing at each rush which brings it nearer the mound. Lemordant, by rigid demand, compels his men not to fire, to control their nerves. The charge gets within twenty meters of the mound, where it gathers itself up to come over in a single mass with the cry ‘_Vorwärts!_’

“‘... Rapid fire—fire at will!’ roars Lemordant.

“The charge vacillates, stops. Our men leap out of the trench to charge in turn. Lemordant, though wounded in the hand, in the forehead, on the head, and in the knee, charges with them, supported by a young soldier of his section. Chance brings him face to face with the _Oberst-leutnant_, who commands the counter-attack and whom he seizes by the throat; just then a fifth bullet strikes him over the right eye, breaking the frontal bone. It seems to him that his head has burst and that his eyes have spurted out into space. He falls heavily. It is all over!”

WHY THE NIGHT SO LONG

“How was he finally saved? He does not know yet. Wounded within the enemy’s lines, left for dead, he lay there four full days without care and for forty-eight hours he was unconscious. When he came to himself it was difficult to collect his thoughts. He did not know where he was. Around him was total darkness, and it did not pass away. He heard the groans, the death-rattle of the dying, the voices of the wounded who called to him. He dragged himself in their direction and asked them questions. Why did the night last so long? They answered that it was broad daylight—and he understood.

“‘... I had thought of everything,’ he said to me. ‘Of death, of the most horrible wounds, but not of that!

“‘... But as long as that too was necessary!’

“Yet his martyrdom was not finished, and the worst of all perhaps remains. How shall I tell of that fearful suffering in wretched lazarettos, in the dung-heaps where the Germans laid our wounded in the villages behind the front! Most of them stayed there forever. He, with greater vitality, was carried to Cambrai, and from there stage by stage was transported to a hospital in Bavaria.

“Melancholy journey! If he saw nothing, at least in the railway-stations he heard the yells of the mobs which crowded on the passage of the French wounded to gloat over their sufferings. Eventually his condition improved a little; his eyes, one pushed out of its socket, the other driven back in his head by the breaking of his frontal bone, had been put back in place; he began to see, he could even draw a few lines and make out large characters. But the idea of escape mastered him; two unsuccessful efforts had sent him to the guardhouse; on the third he was ordered to a reprisal camp; his departure was fixed for the next day. Calm and serene as ever, he wished before going to finish the series of addresses on the history of painting which he had undertaken for his fellow prisoners. In the course of the conference Lemordant wished to run over his notes; he could no longer make them out! A halo danced in front of him, obscuring everything! He had such a sense of anguish that he had to stop. But by a concentration of the will he mastered himself and improvised the rest of his address in a voice in which there was only the slightest trembling. At the end of the address the battalion chief leaped to the platform and took Lemordant in his arms.”

FOR THE LAST LOOK

“‘... What has happened to you?’ Then when he learned: ‘Ah, my poor friend, surely in your condition they can not send you to a reprisal camp; courage, you shall go to France!’

“The commander of the guardhouse himself, feeling a sense of pity when he learned what had happened, offered to telephone to the camp commander and ask for a cancellation of the order. Lemordant refused; he wished to owe nothing to the destroyers of his country. He started for the reprisal camp. But there his blindness classified him almost immediately among the severely wounded who were listed for exchange. Switzerland received him for a time. At last arrived the moment when he could cross the French frontier.

“He had waited for that moment with a sort of religious ecstasy. Blind, wounded in the back and side, with a broken knee, and a high fever, he hoped for a miracle, but expected one only from himself, from the power of his own will. He had asked the Red Cross nurses who had charge of him to tell him the moment when the train crossed the frontier. He would see it—see at least something belonging to it, no matter what—a hedge, a length of rail, a pebble, a tuft of grass. They did what he asked, took him to the door of the compartment, and there he exerted all his strength, all his will-power. It was not to be!

“The frontier was left behind; he fell back fainting—totally blind!”

EDITH CAVELL—MARTYR-HEROINE

The English Nurse Whose Tragic Heroism and Secret Execution Made Germany’s Defeat More Certain

The penitence of generations cannot suffice to erase from the world’s judgment of German character the black stigma of the infamies perpetrated in Belgium. The implacable, brutal wantonness with which they were committed makes those crimes unforgettable. Ever conspicuous among them will be the conscienceless execution of Edith Cavell, the ministering angel, the merciful nurse murdered by military order,—with the subsequent deliberate approval of Imperial Germany. A military technicality was invoked in the attempted justification of the execution of this brave and devoted woman, who was secretly tried, by a German court-martial, on the charge of having aided English, French and German soldiers to escape from Belgium, and hurriedly done to death. The savagery of the event, which occurred in Brussels, Oct. 12, 1915, sent a wave of horror and resentment throughout the civilized world equaled only by the universal indignation aroused by the sinking of the _Lusitania_.

Miss Cavell was the daughter of an English clergyman, the Rev. Frederick Cavell, for forty years vicar of Swardeston, Norfolk. In 1896 she entered the London Hospital to qualify as a trained nurse and later became staff nurse. In 1900 she went to Brussels on the invitation of Dr. Depage, a distinguished physician who had established in a suburb of Brussels a training school for Belgian nurses. Miss Cavell entered into the work so enthusiastically and furthered the plans of Dr. Depage with such success that the institution, whose influence was felt throughout Belgium, became the center of a large nursing organization of scientifically trained nurses. She had won the confidence of Dr. Depage so entirely that when, on the outbreak of the war, he was called to military service, she was left to continue the work in Brussels. All who came in contact with her agree that she was a woman of fine character and a capable leader, worthy of a high place in the list of great nurses of whom Florence Nightingale was the first.

When the Germans occupied Brussels in 1914 Miss Cavell was permitted to remain in the service to which she was so single-heartedly devoted, and it is a memorable fact, the more honorable to her for the ingratitude that rewarded her benevolent disinterestedness, that she and her assistants nursed with equal care and fidelity the wounded German soldiers and the Belgian victims of war. Her mission was one of beneficence to the maimed, the sick and the unfortunate, a humanitarian work that discriminated against none whose needs demanded her sympathy and aid.

HER DUTY TO HER COUNTRY

In the retreat of the French and British armies in late summer of 1914 a number of English and French soldiers cut off from their companies hid themselves in the woods, in trenches and in deserted houses, hoping to escape capture. Many were caught, and some of them were summarily shot. Others were sheltered and protected by farmers who provided them with civilian clothes and gave them employment until they could find means of escape into Holland. Similarly Belgian soldiers were given the chance to evade the Germans; but those who were captured were, in many instances if not usually, shot. It was because of this severity in the treatment of captured men that Miss Cavell the more readily yielded to her natural inclinations to aid the unfortunate who sought her help. That was her statement to the military court before which she was arraigned. She was asked why she had helped English soldiers to escape; she replied firmly that it was because she believed that if she had not done so the Germans would have shot them and that she thought she only did her duty to her country in trying to save men’s lives. Her prominence and her fame as nurse and comforter to the wounded attracted the soldiers to her as a sympathetic woman disposed to help, and it is not denied that she did help many. The Germans charged that she had assisted one hundred and thirty to get out of Belgium.

MISS CAVELL A PRISONER

Suspicion having been directed against her,—how is not clearly known—she was subjected to espionage and in consequence she was arrested August 15, 1915, and thrown into prison at St. Giles. This did not cause her any apprehension as she anticipated no more than a short imprisonment. She did not imagine, in fact, no one dreamed that the German authorities would with premeditation shoot a woman for pitying and showing mercy to the helpless.

Mr. Brand Whitlock, the American Minister to Belgium, who at that time represented (and until the United States entered the war continued to represent) British interests in Belgium, felt an intense sympathy with Miss Cavell and at once took up the matter of securing for her a fair and proper trial. He wrote a letter to Baron von der Lancken, the German Civil Governor of Belgium, stating that he had been urged by telegraph to take charge of the defense and requested that Mr. de Leval, councilor for the American Embassy, be allowed to see and confer with Miss Cavell. This letter was not answered. Mr. Whitlock again wrote more urgently. None too promptly the German Civil Governor finally made reply, refusing to permit anyone to see Miss Cavell as the Department of the Governor General “as a matter of principle does not allow an accused person to have any interviews whatever,” stating also that Miss Cavell had confessed her guilt and that her defense would be conducted by Mr. Braun.

THE GERMAN WAY

For some reason not ascertained, Braun could not undertake the defense, and it was turned over to Mr. Kirschen, a Rumanian, practising law in Brussels. Mr. de Leval thereupon wrote to Mr. Kirschen, as he stated in his narrative later:

“I put myself in communication with Mr. Kirschen, who told me that Miss Cavell was prosecuted for having helped soldiers to cross the frontier. I asked him whether he had seen Miss Cavell and whether she had made any statement to him, and to my surprise found that the lawyers defending prisoners before the German Military Court were not allowed to see their clients before the trial, and were not shown any document of the prosecution. This, Mr. Kirschen said, was in accordance with the German military rules. He added that the hearing of the trial of such cases was carried out very carefully, and that in his opinion, although it was not possible to see the client before the trial, in fact the trial itself developed so carefully and so slowly, that it was generally possible to have a fair knowledge of all the facts and to present a good defense for the prisoner. This would especially be the case for Miss Cavell, because the trial would be rather long, as she was prosecuted with thirty-four other prisoners.

“I informed Mr. Kirschen of my intention to be present at the trial so as to watch the case. He immediately dissuaded me from taking such attitude, which he said would cause a great prejudice to the prisoner, because the German judges would resent it and feel it almost as an affront if I was appearing to exercise a kind of supervision on the trial. He thought that if the Germans would admit my presence, which was very doubtful, it would in any case cause prejudice to Miss Cavell.

“Mr. Kirschen assured me over and over again that the Military Court of Brussels was always perfectly fair, and that there was not the slightest danger of any miscarriage of justice. He promised that he would keep me posted on all the developments which the case would take and would report to me the exact charges that were brought against Miss Cavell and the facts concerning her that would be disclosed at the trial, so as to allow me to judge by myself about the merits of the case. He insisted that, of course, he would do all that was humanly possible to defend Miss Cavell to the best of his ability.”

The trial began Thursday, Oct. 7. Some opinion of the value of Mr. Kirschen’s assurance made “over and over again that the military court of Brussels was always perfectly fair,” etc., may be formed from the facts that Miss Cavell was not allowed to have a defender of her friends’ choosing, that she had no record of the evidence, oral or documentary, to study in preparation for her defense, that she was kept in solitary confinement for over nine weeks without opportunity to consult even with her legal advisers, during which time she was subjected to repeated cross examinations, and statements said to have been made by her confessing guilt were transmitted by the German authorities to the lawyer who subsequently was to defend her.

The trial was conducted in German, a language she did not understand and which had to be interpreted to her. As a commentator said, “It obviously was impossible to place any adequate scheme of defense with a lawyer whom she saw for the first time when the trial began, a lawyer who had had no opportunity of studying the documents of the prosecution. That Mr. Kirschen did the best he could under the conditions is possible, though his subsequent conduct did not give assurance of the devotion and profound interest to be expected of a conscientious lawyer charged with an obligation that appealed at once to his humanity and his chivalry.”

SENTENCED TO DEATH

The fullest account of the trial was that given in M. de Leval’s report to Mr. Whitlock. It was as follows: