Part 7

The Germans had come on flushed with success and egotism, destroying French property, looting, and dissipating. Their spirit was the spirit they found in the French wine cellars, and as for soul, as civilized people understand the word, they had none. They were an army of tired, conquering brutes. Their morale was low because of their great success and all that had accompanied it of feasts and slaughter. The morale of the French was never higher. Every day and every hour they had been compelled to retreat, giving up, giving up all that they loved even better than life itself to these brutes, until the brain of the French army said on the evening of September 5, 1914, "You have gone so far in order that you may now stand successfully." And in the morning at dawn, it was not only the bodies of the French soldiers that hurled themselves against the invaders, but the souls of French men, the soul of France; and all along the line from Verdun to Meaux, under the gallant leadership of Manoury, Foch, Sarrail, Castelnau, and others, the French armies held. If they had not held--not only held but attacked--all of future history would be different.

General Foch, commander in chief at the Second Battle of the Marne, inspired his troops in this first battle to supernatural bravery. He knew they must not yield, so with his right broken, his left shattered, he attacked with his center. It was that or retreat. His message to the commander-in-chief, General Joffre, will never be forgotten.

"My left has been forced back, my right is routed. I shall attack with the center."

The Germans could not put their souls into the battles as the French soldiers did, and besides, the Germans were weakened by feasting and dissipation. With the Huns it was the right of might; with the Allies it was the might of right, and in the end the second always defeats the first.

Some one has well said:

"It is the law of good to protect and to build up. It is the law of evil to destroy. It is in the very nature of good to lead men aright. It is in the very nature of evil to lead men astray. Goodness makes for wisdom. Badness is continually exercising poor judgment.

"Germany and Austria have made colossal mistakes in this war because of their colossal violation of truth and justice. In brutally wronging Serbia, they lost the friendship and support of Italy. In perpetrating the monstrous crime against Belgium, they brought against them the whole might of the British Empire. In breaking international law with their reckless submarine warfare, they caused the United States to enter the war on the side of the Allies."

It is said that the army of the German Crown Prince retreated before the impetuous attack of the French and, because of this retreat, all the other German armies were obliged to do likewise. It is more probable, however, that the general retreat was due to General Joffre's strategy. The Germans under General von Kluck were within about twenty miles of Paris, near Meaux on the Marne, when suddenly they were struck in the flank and rear by about twenty thousand fresh troops brought out unexpectedly from Paris in motor trucks, taxis, limousines, and all kinds of pleasure cars. Now the Germans, who had caused the retreat of the French and British armies upon Paris by continually outflanking the British, were in their turn outflanked and compelled to retreat, and Paris was saved.

An English writer has said that although the Germans were outflanked only in the west, yet the blow passed from one end of the German line to the other, from Meaux to Verdun, just as the blow from the buffer of the engine, when it is coupled to the train, passes from one truck to another to the very end of the train.

The Germans in the next few days retreated from the Marne to the Aisne, where they entrenched. Paris and France and Europe and the only world worth living in were saved. The French government moved back to Paris.

Hall Caine in "Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days" says: "The soul of France did not fail her. It heard the second approach of that monstrous Prussian horde, which, like a broad, irresistible tide, sweeping across one half of Europe, came down, down, down from Mons until the thunder of its guns could again be heard on the boulevards. And then came the great miracle! Just as the sea itself can rise no higher when it has reached the top of the flood, so the mighty army of Germany had to stop its advance thirty kilometres north of Paris; and when it stirred again, it had to go back. And back and back it went before the armies of France, Britain, and Belgium, until it reached a point at which it could dig itself into the earth and hide in a long, serpentine trench stretching from the Alps to the sea.

"Only then did the spirit of France draw breath for a moment, and the next flash as of lightning showed her offering thanks and making supplications before the white statue of Jeanne d'Arc in the apse of the great cathedral of Notre Dame, sacred to innumerable memories. On the Feast of St. Michael, ten thousand of the women of Paris were kneeling under the dark vault, and on the broad space in the front of the majestic façade, praying for victory. It was a great and grandiose scene, recalling the days when faith was strong and purer. Old and young, rich and poor, every woman with some soul that was dear to her in that inferno at the front--the Motherhood of France was there to ask God for the triumph of the right.

"And in the spirit of that prayer the soul of France still lives."

Nearly four years later the Germans, with greatly increased forces in France, due to the collapse of Russia, were again upon the Marne and only about forty miles from Paris. French and English and Americans were opposing them upon a line shaped like a great letter U, extending south with Rheims at the top on the east, and Soissons at the top on the west. The Marne River was at the curve at the bottom, and there most of the Americans were stationed.

On July 15, 1918, the Germans began the offensive which was to result, as they hoped, in the capture of Paris. They attacked on the Marne and between the Marne and Rheims. At the end of the fourth day, they had advanced about six miles, crossing the Marne and pushing back the American troops. The Americans fought bravely and soon regained the ground they had lost, although the French generals suggested that they should not attempt to retake it. The American commander, however, sent word to the French general, who was his superior officer, saying that he did not feel able to follow the suggestion, for the American flag had been compelled to retire. None of his soldiers, he said, would understand this being allowed as long as they were able to attack. "We are going to counter-attack," he added. They did so, and regained all the ground lost.

It is clear now that the French generals knew the counter-attack was unnecessary, and knew why. West of the line from Soissons to the Marne is a great forest, and back of this General Foch, commander in chief of all the allied armies, had been for several days gathering guns, ammunition, tanks, and troops ready to strike the flank of the Germans, when they should attack between Rheims and the Marne and attempt to cross the Marne, as he knew they would in their desire to take Paris. A terrible tempest passed over the region just before the Allied attack, preventing the Germans from observing the advancing tanks and troops. An English writer has said, "The storm which had covered the noise of the final preparation of a number of tanks which led the assault, was over. Not a sound was heard in the forest, though it was teeming with men and horses. Then suddenly the appointed moment came when day broke. There was a roar from all the guns, the whole front broke into activity as men and tanks dashed forward. I suppose there has been nothing more dramatic in the whole war than this scene on which the general looked down from the top of a high perch in the forest on that quiet July morning!"

The Allies struck so unexpectedly that they captured hundreds of guns and thousands of prisoners, and obliged the Germans to fall back across the Marne, losing all the territory they had gained and much more. The danger to Paris was again turned aside by the military genius of General Foch and the bravery of the troops under his command.

It was the first great battle in which the Americans took part. They showed themselves equal to the best of the Allies, and better than the Germans. A London paper called the American counter-attack one of the historical incidents of the whole war. All Europe, except Hunland, rang with praises of the American troops.

* * * * *

In the history of the World War, most of the great land battles will be named from rivers, the Marne, the Yser, the Somme, the Aisne, the Ailette, the Ancre, the Bug, the Dneister, the Dunajec and the Piave. A battle of the Rhine will probably be fought before German territory can be invaded to any great extent.

THE QUEEN'S FLOWER

On July 25, 1918, nearly every person in Washington, the capital of the United States, was asked to buy a bunch of forget-me-nots; and nearly every one responded, so that almost $7000 worth was sold in about an hour. In many other cities sales were held, and for many years to come such sales will be held all over the civilized world, for the forget-me-not is the Queen's flower, chosen by Elizabeth, Queen of Belgium, to be sold on her birthday, July 25, to raise money for the children of Belgium. She is a lover of flowers as are all the people of her country. Many parts of Belgium were before the war, like Holland, devoted to raising flowers for bulbs and seeds. It is said that the garden at the Belgian Royal Palace was the most beautiful garden in the world.

For many years it has been the Queen's custom to name a flower to be sold on her birthday for the benefit of some good cause. In 1910 she named the La France rose to be sold for the benefit of sufferers from tuberculosis in Belgium. Nearly $100,000 was raised on this one day.

The war has not done away with the beautiful custom, and on the Queen's birthday in 1918, she named a flower to be sold to raise money to help care for the children of Belgium. She chose the forget-me-not, for the Queen can never forget the terrible sacrifice her country was called upon to make, nor the brutal manner in which the Huns used their power.

Those who have carefully studied the facts have concluded that the Huns coolly and deliberately planned to destroy Belgium as a country and a people, not only during the war but forever. It was to carry out this plan that the villages and cities were burned or bombarded until they were nothing but heaps of stone and ashes; that much of the machinery was either destroyed or carried into Germany; that the Belgian boys and men were herded together and deported into Germany to work as slaves; and that the Belgian babies were neglected, starved, and murdered. If only the old and feeble were left at the end of the war, there could be no Belgium to compete with Germany, and Germany desired this whether she should win or lose.

America has done much to relieve the suffering of the Belgian people. Germany saw to it, however, that the babies and very young children were neglected as far as possible, with the exception of healthy Belgian boy babies, and many of these she snatched from their parents and carried into Germany to be raised as Huns. It has been said that no horror of the war equaled the horror of what Germany did to Belgian childhood.

Queen Elizabeth realized the danger and did everything in her power to protect and help the babies of Belgium. Although she is by birth a German princess, she wishes never to forget and that the world may never forget the great wrong done her country. In naming the forget-me-not she meant that Belgium's wrong should never be forgotten, and that the children of Belgium should not be forgotten.

The flower is to be sold for the benefit of Belgian children at all times and in all countries, for the Queen has said she will never name another.

The little blue forget-me-not will be sold all over the civilized world, that means except in Hunland, and wherever it is sold Belgium's story will be remembered. All that is sweet and beautiful and pure is connecting itself in the minds and hearts of men with Belgium in her sacrifice and suffering; and as long as history is recorded and remembered, the word "Belgium" will awaken these feelings in those who read. This is a part of her reward, just as the opposite is a part of the punishment of the Hun.

AT SCHOOL NEAR THE LINES

The boys and girls in America have listened with great interest and sympathy to the many stories of children in devastated France, left fatherless, homeless, perhaps motherless, with no games or sport, indeed with no desire to play games or sports of any kind. For them, there seemed to be only the awful roar and thunder of the cannon, which might at any moment send down a bursting shell upon their heads. The clothes they wore and the food they ate were theirs only as they were given to them, and so often given by strangers.

In America the school children worked, earned, saved, and sent their gifts to those thousands of destitute children, and with their gifts sent letters of love and interest to their little French cousins across the seas.

Many of the letters were written in quiet, sunny schoolrooms, thousands of miles from the noise of battle. But many a letter thus written reached the hands of a child who sat huddled beside his teacher in a damp, dark cellar that took the place of the pleasant little schoolhouse he had known.

But in those cellars and hidden places, the children studied and learned as best they might, in order some day to be strong, bright men and women for their beloved France, when the days of battle should be over and victory should have been won for them to keep.

The gladness of the children when they received the letters will probably never be fully known. Perhaps it seemed to some of them like that morning on which they marched away from the school building for the last time. The shells had begun to burst near them, as they sat in the morning session. Quickly they put aside their work, and listened quietly while the master timed the interval between the bursting of the shells. At his order, they had formed in line for marching, and at the moment the third or fourth shell fell, they marched out of the school away into a cellar seventy paces off. There, sheltered by the strong, stout walls, they listened to the next shell bursting as it fell straight down into the schoolhouse, where by a few moments' delay, they would all have perished or been severely injured.

So, while they heard the cannon roaring, they were happy to know that their friends in America thought of them and were helping them. No one will ever realize just how much it meant to the French people to know that America was their friend, or the great joy they felt when the American soldiers marched in to take their places in the fight for France and the freedom of the world.

Odette Gastinel, a thirteen-year-old girl of the Lycée Victor Duruy, one of the schoolrooms near the front, has written of the coming of the Americans. Throughout the United States her little essay has been read, and great men and women have marveled at its beauty of thought and wording, and have called it a little masterpiece.

In the first paragraph, she tells of the great distance between the millions of men (the Germans and the Allies) although separated only by a narrow stream; and in the second, she speaks of the closeness of sympathy between France and America,--though America lies three thousand miles over the sea.

It was only a little river, almost a brook; it was called the Yser. One could talk from one side to the other without raising one's voice, and the birds could fly over it with one sweep of their wings. And on the two banks there were millions of men, the one turned toward the other, eye to eye. But the distance which separated them was greater than the spaces between the stars in the sky; it was the distance which separates right from injustice.

The ocean is so vast that the sea gulls do not dare to cross it. During seven days and seven nights the great steamships of America, going at full speed, drive through the deep waters before the lighthouses of France come into view; but from one side to the other, hearts are touching.

It is no wonder that the great American, General Pershing, stopped, in all the tumult and business of war, to write to people in America:

A PLACE IN THE SUN

The history of Rome about 1500 years ago tells us of "the wild and terrifying hordes" of Huns, with ideas little above those of plunder and wanton destruction, led by Attila whose "purpose was to pillage and increase his power." They came near setting civilization back for hundreds of years, but were finally subdued. When we remember these facts, we do not wonder that the Germans are called, and probably always will be called, Huns; but another explanation is the true one.

When in 1900, a German army was embarking at Bremerhaven for China to help other nations to put down the Boxer rebellion, the German Kaiser, William II, in addressing his troops said: "When you come upon the enemy, no quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken. As the Huns under their King Attila, a thousand years ago, made a name for themselves which is still mighty in tradition and story, so may the name of German in China be kept alive through you in such a wise that no Chinese will ever again attempt to look askance at a German."

The United States helped put down the Boxer rebellion, and with other nations was paid an indemnity by China. By vote of Congress, the United States returned the money to China. Germany acted very differently, for but three years before, she had seized from China the land about Kiaochau Bay and the port of Tsingchau, as reparation for the murder of two German missionaries. Although Germany had strongly fortified this territory, Japan besieged it and regained it in November, 1914.

In speaking in 1901 of Germany's then new possession in China, the Kaiser said: "In spite of the fact that we have no such fleet as we should have, we have conquered for ourselves a place in the sun. It will now be my duty to see to it that this place in the sun shall remain our undisputed possession, in order that the sun's rays may fall fruitfully upon our activity and trade in foreign parts." The German Crown Prince, in an introduction to a book published in 1913, said: "It is only by relying on our good German sword that we can hope to conquer the place in the sun which rightly belongs to us and which no one will yield to us voluntarily. Till the world comes to an end, the ultimate decision must rest with the sword."

These statements make clear to us how the modern Huns would win the place in the sun which they have been taught to believe rightly belongs to them.

It is possible that the Kaiser took his idea of "a place in the sun" from a wonderful old copper engraving by the greatest of all German artists, Albrecht Dürer. The engraving was made in 1513 and represents a German knight in full armor mounted upon a fine war horse, riding into a dark and narrow defile between cliffs, to reach a beautiful castle standing in the sun on a hill beyond. A narrow path runs down from the castle, which the knight can reach only by passing through the gloomy and dangerous defile between the rocks. If he would reach his desired place in the sun, he must be afraid of nothing, even though human skulls and lizards are under his horse's feet and death and the devil travel by his side. His horse and his dog are evidently afraid, but the knight himself shows no fear as he rides forward with his "good German sword" at his side and his long spear over his shoulder. A recent German writer has said about this picture, "Every German heart will comprehend the knight who persists in spite of death and the devil in the course on which he has entered. Such a man of resolute action is not tormented by subtle doubts."

So has Germany in the World War tried to ride through the valley of death and destruction, with death and the devil always by her side, to reach a coveted place in the sun. That such a place can be attained only by force is the terribly wrong ideal that has been taught to the German people, to the children in the schools, to the adults in public meetings and in the public press, until at last they have come to believe it, and are willing to ride through the world accompanied by death and the devil if they may thus gain "a place in the sun."

They are, as a German poet, Felix Dahn, wrote, the kith and kin of Thor, the god of might, who conquered all lands with his thundering hammer; and it is their destiny to conquer the world by "the good German sword."

This is the ideal that the Allies are fighting against. What is the ideal they are fighting for? It may also be illustrated by a picture, but this time by a word picture written by a man long familiar with Dürer's wonderful engraving. For years he had a copy of the engraving hung above his desk. As he studied it, he finally saw himself a knight riding on through the world; and he saw riding with him, not death and the devil, but two other knights. One of the knights was hideous to look upon, and rode just behind him; and one was wonderfully beautiful and strong, and rode just ahead of him. And all three rode at full speed forever and ever, the knight, who was the man himself, in the middle, always striving to outrun the knight who was behind him, and to overtake the one before him. Finally he put the thought in verse, for it seemed to him to represent the life of every human being who was free to live out his life as he would wish.

THE QUEST

A knight fared on through a beautiful world On a mission to him unknown; At his left and a little behind there rode The self of his deeds alone.

At his right and a length before sped on-- Him none but the knight might see-- A braver heart and a purer soul, The self that he longed to be.

And ever the three rode on through the world With him at the left behind; Till never the knight would look at him, Feeble and foul and blind.

Desperately on they drave, these three, With him at the right before, While the knight rode furiously after him And thought of the world no more.

Forever on he must ride on his quest And peace can be his no more, Till the one at his left he has dropped from sight And o'ertaken the one before.

Thus ages ago the three fared on, And on they fare to-day, With him at the left a little behind, The right still leading the way.

This knight seeks not a place in the sun but a change in himself, to become a better, a braver, a truer knight. Then, wherever he may be, he will find his place in the sun; and that nation whose people seek to grow wiser and better and nobler will always find "the sun's rays falling fruitfully" upon them.