Part 3
Every estaminet, every restaurant and the “terrasse” before it with the little round white tables, was crowded, as well as the twisted streets and the frequent “place,” with these soldiers in their faded blue, which, at a distance, seems to melt before your eyes. They hung from the windows, they gossiped at the pump, they mused on the bridges, and they were lined up in the fields just outside the towns, practicing arm exercise, one, two, three, four. Officers also strolled about, three and four in a party. Even in the villages, those old gray villages consisting of one long crooked street, widening to a “place” in the centre and embracing several “farms,” there were often many soldiers home on leave, smoking in front of their houses or playing with their children.
On the other hand, we passed through many more of these villages without seeing a man. The women sat out of doors sewing, and the children swarmed. It is the bourgeoisie which has reduced the birth rate in France. The aristocracy and the poor have large families. Ever since my arrival I have heard almost daily of working class families of anywhere from five to sixteen children. In the great valleys through which we passed these children played bareheaded, but in the Vosges, where it rains most of the time, all the little boys wore military caps.
I also saw a large number of soldiers in the peaceful fields beside the noisy roads, and was told they had been sent by the authorities to help with the harvesting. I shall always be glad that I have seen “with my own eyes” something of the immense number (and I saw but one small section of the zone) of men that France still has at her disposal, and has not yet been able to use. And, as I have said before, they are nearly all big fellows. It is only the men of the south, of the Midi, that are small, and by no means all of those.
An amusing story came from Bulgaria while I was in Paris, and was sent by Joseph Reinach to Figaro. The Crown Prince of Germany invited the two older sons of the Bulgarian King to visit his headquarters before Verdun and be present at its downfall. The young men accepted the invitation, remained a month, then, very much bored, excused themselves and went home. “What impressed you the most?” their father asked. They replied simultaneously: “The resistance of the French.”
The fields devoid of soldiers were a picturesque sight with the women in blue print frocks and white sunbonnets. Old and young, they were hard at work harvesting, and the children played among the stacks. In some of the hotels where we stopped either overnight or for luncheon we saw officers and their families, who had joined them here to save two or more precious days of their short leave. And there was more than one bride and bridegroom. Strange honeymoon, within sound of the guns that promised a quick disunion. The faces of the older wives looked philosophically happy, but those of the young women were drawn and pale. Life was beginning in tragedy; and no doubt twenty years hence they will be as torn with anxiety for their absent sons.
It was in a large and handsome hotel in Nancy (the less said about the average hotel in the war zone the better) where we spent the first night of our journey that I saw so many of these couples and reunited families; as it was as admirably run as in times of peace, I should like to give its name, but forbear lest it incur the just wrath of the enemy.
Nancy is little over five miles from the front, so that the roar of the guns may be heard plainly. It is bombarded by cannons now and again, but I missed one of these delicate attentions by two days. The “caves” are indicated by the double cross of the House of Lorraine, for Taubes are among the daily commonplaces in Nancy.
Major C., our Lieutenant and I were at dinner in the dining-room about eight o’clock (Madame Lyon had gone to bed), when the iron shutters were hastily lowered and the maître d’hôtel came to our table and said solemnly: “It is my duty to tell you that there is a taube over the city and to ask you to go to the cellars.” “Are you going?” I asked my companions. “Certainly not.” they replied simultaneously and without raising their eyes from their excellent meal. I concluded that the bright restaurant with two men to protect me was infinitely preferable to a dark, damp, rat-infested cellar and sat tight. In a moment we heard a fusillade; the guns were searching out the invader. But whether the taube dropped a bomb or not no one remembered to inquire!
The next morning at six, Madame Lyon, hearing a noise, opened her window and looked out. A group of people were staring upward, and following their gaze she saw a taube surrounded by five French airplanes, which finally drove it off. I, alas! missed this thrilling sight, for although I was awake I was listening so intently to the guns at the front, only nine kilometres away, that I heard nothing else.
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=STONE VICTIMS OF “THE MARNE”=
PARIS, August 15.
In Nancy we met Miss Polk and Miss Ethel Crocker of California, who are associated with Princess Poniatowska (also a Californian and sister of Mrs. William Crocker, but who has lived in France for many years) in a projected work of reconstruction. It is her aim to raise a large amount of money in her native State and rebuild a certain number of the wrecked towns and villages in the war zone. This is a truly great idea, and will redound to the glory of California, which, with the entire West, lags far behind New York and other Eastern States in practical sympathy for the sufferers of this war; but all the same I hope they will let the ruins alone and build the new towns beside them. In the first place, these ruins should be a source of revenue to France from tourists after the war is over, amounting to many millions of francs (Arras by moonlight is said to be the most beautiful sight on earth), and, in the second place, a certain type of smug American, who, without experience or imagination, has refused to believe in the attendant horrors of war, should be encouraged to visit these deliberately wrecked towns and hear at first hand far worse stories than even Lord Bryce has printed. This is the type that always asks; “Now, did you ever meet anybody who really has seen these things, or did somebody hear it from somebody else?” &c. Well, let these self-righteous citizens, who have grown fat on the European war, take a motor trip through the ruined district a year hence and spend an hour or two with the survivors.
It is, of course, legitimate to bombard any town during a battle, if care is taken to spare great monuments, but not deliberately to set fire to it, house by house, when retreating in fury after having missed victory by a hair. When traveling through stark fire ruins of whole towns like Sermaize and Gerbéviller, to say nothing of countless villages, and cities half destroyed, like Révigny and certain sections of Nancy, it was natural to remember the prophetic words of Heine about his own country: “Christianity has in a certain degree softened this brutal martial ardor of the Germans, but it has not been able to destroy it, and when the Cross, that talisman which keeps it enchained is broken, then the ferocity of the ancient combatants will break forth anew. Then—and, alas, this day also will come—the old war gods will arise from their mythical tombs and wipe the dust of centuries from their eyes. Thor will rise and with his gigantic hammer will demolish the Gothic cathedrals.”
They would not let me go to Arras, as, although deserted, it is under constant bombardment, while Nancy these days only gets an occasional attention from the big guns, and nobody minds taubes. So far, therefore, although Sermaize and the others are impressive and shocking enough, the most interesting and beautiful ruin I saw, in spite of its sadness, was the little town of Gerbéviller, between Nancy and Remiramont. Situated on a steep hillside, its irregular streets leaving the ridge to dip and rise again, and two years ago one of the prettiest and most thriving of the smaller towns of Lorraine, it is now a mass of broken walls against the sky, already mellowed by time and creepers.
The automobile was obliged to make its way slowly between the débris that lined either side of the narrow streets, and I noticed that families had set up housekeeping once more in the cellars, and even opened shops. Before the war it had a population of about 2,000 (although, as is often the case, large enough for double the number of actual inhabitants). All the men who were not mobilized or did not take flight at the approach of the enemy were shot upon that terrible retreat; but I saw a few smoking philosophically in the shade of the walls before their shops. The business here as elsewhere, however, is carried on mainly by the women. One old woman seemed to be doing well with post cards, although, as outsiders are few, no doubt her main support is derived from the soldiers on march. Here lives the heroic Soeur Julie, decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor, for saving her hospice in the face of Prussian fury. But her story must be told elsewhere. About eight hundred people have returned to Gerbéviller (it was a relief to hear that most of the young girls escaped before the invasion) and are living either in the cellars or the few houses surrounding the hospital saved by Soeur Julie. There is ample room in all directions for their new homes without sacrificing one of the most picturesque and significant ruins of the war.
I think it was at Sermaize that after driving through a number of streets as completely wrecked as Gerbéviller, we came suddenly upon a terrace of houses quite intact. We inquired the meaning of this odd forebearance and learned that these mansions had been the property of Germans, who had been warned before the outbreak of the war and fled. Naturally their homes were spared by their loyal countrymen. Germany not only knew who owned every square inch of ground in France, but where every work of art great and small was installed. One woman who lived in an unpretentious flat in Paris showed me her one rare possession, an ancient silver censer, which was on the German list when they advanced upon Paris. If the French Army surrendered and they spared the city, they purposed to loot it, and their spies had been for years locating every object worth seizing.
Even before the German case became utterly hopeless it seems to me they must have felt very sad at times while looking back over the past and recalling the many objects of desire they just failed to grasp. Outside of Nancy one may see a high hill where one fine morning in September, 1914, the German Emperor and his Staff sat their horses, clad in long white mantles and glittering helmets, a truly superb sight, waiting for the news that the French Army was in full retreat and the hour had come for their triumphal entry through the historic gates of Nancy. But General Castlenau, as all the world knows, reversed this theatrical dénouement, and they made off in hot haste for Strasburg.
We slept at Remiramont the second night, after a moist trip through the Vosges, a mildly pretty range of mountains, so far as we were permitted to penetrate. They are formidable enough closer to the front. Before the American ambulance men conquered them with their little Fords, the wounded were carried out on mule back and generally died. Remiramont is a headquarters for supplies, and we saw a number of officers but few poilus. Major C., knowing that I wanted to go to Thann, a town in that little strip of Alsace retaken in the first days of the war, spent the morning at the military headquarters, where he had friends (he is one of five American officers in France by order of the United States Government), waiting for the return of the General. As it was raining the rest of us spent the time gossiping in the little hotel parlor or strolling under the arcades of the principal streets. When Major C. returned and said that the General, refusing to take the responsibility, had telephoned to the Grand Quartier Générale I knew it was all up. They had said positively that I could not go to any town under constant bombardment, and a military mind once made up is like a steel mask with the key lost.
There is but one way by which a woman can get into any of these bombarded towns, Rheims, Thann, Verdun. After she is in the war zone, if she happens to know one of the Generals there, knows him quite well, so that he feels a certain degree of friendship for her, and if he happens to be in a very good humor, and if the bombardment at that moment happens to be weak or non-existent, as it was when I was at Châlons and Bar-le-Duc, then he will put her in an automobile and whizz her through the famous target. She will hardly have time to experience the expected thrill before she is out again, but at least she can say she has been there.
I, alas, did not know any General, and although Lord Northcliffe had written me that I should have a letter to General Joffre whenever I applied to his Paris office for it, I had not felt like bothering the hero of the war with one more American, particularly as he had been written to death. Nor had I been in France long enough to form ties of friendship with any of the others; therefore I had entered the war zone resigned to a route which, after all, few women were allowed to traverse.
But Major C. was hopeful, and very much crestfallen when word came that he might go to Thann if he liked, but I must remain in Remiramont. Of course, he was too gallant to go without us, even if it had not been his duty barely to let me out of his sight, but he hardly would speak for two hours. Nothing annoys an American man, a real American of the good old stock, more than to fail in the endeavor to get something for a woman that she especially desires and he has pledged himself to obtain. Our charming Lieutenant was almost equally annoyed when I called his attention to this fact, and said that no one hated to disappoint a woman as much as a Frenchman did, but that if he appeared philosophical it was because he had never had any hope. Major C., undaunted, made another attempt at Bar-le-Duc to induce the military authorities there to let us go to a little town named Dugny, within four miles of Verdun, but with the same result. They were on the point of consenting when they decided it was safer (for themselves) to telephone General Joffre, and when I heard that I left the car with Mme. Lyon and went in search of something to eat.
Nothing would have induced me to enter that hotel again, and after my description Mme. Lyon was equally reluctant, although the men were not daunted in the least. So we went to a bakeshop and bought bread and cheese and cakes, and after some persuasion she consented to sit in one of the chairs, sacred to customers, outside the Hotel du Commerce. The French, with all their mental suppleness and activity, are intensely conservative. No one was permitted to sit at those tables but customers; it would not be allowed. And who, I inquired, is there to stop us? Those two boys waiting on some fifty officers, or that girl at the desk who would not move while there was an officer inside the hotel to look at? But it wasn’t done. Americans had too little respect—I replied by sitting down and eating a cup cake, and finally she, it being hot, followed suit. No one disturbed us, and in any case it would have been a simple matter to secure the table with a cup of coffee. However—conservatism knits a nation together.
A newspaper gamin of eight, who looked five, had such an engaging little visage that I gave him a penny. His taller companion looked so wistful that I gave him one also. In five minutes I was encircled by at least eight newsboys, all looking at me with ingratiating smiles or deprecating eyes. Not one of them begged. They were far too independent, but they had all the charm of their race and knew how to get what they wanted without sacrificing their pride. I was struck with their dissimilarity in everything else. No two of these little gamin faces were alike, and I recalled that I had made the same observation when traveling in the trains with the officers. There is really no type in France. It is a race of individuals.
It was shortly after we left Bar-le-Duc that Major C., consoled by my assurance that I really had not cared in the least to go to either Thann or Dugny, and was delighted at the prospect of reaching Paris that night (this was not true, but never mind), told us an amusing story of one of his former visits to the front. He was very close indeed and the bombardment was incessant. Nevertheless, he was given a dinner party at headquarters, which, owing to the exigencies of the moment, were in a certain large cellar. The vaulted roof which makes these stone “caves” such safe resorts was hung with Chinese lanterns in his honor, all the high officers available were present, and it was one of the gayest functions he ever attended. This did not surprise him, but the dinner did. It was exquisite. He had tasted nothing like it in France. It was not the viands that were remarkable, for naturally, in this small outpost, viands were limited. It was the treatment that reminded him of certain stories whose style disguised the paucity of ideas. Finally, after he had produced his contribution to the feast, a box of superfine Havanas, he asked to have the phenomenon explained. He was devoured with curiosity, for he had dined at headquarters before, and many of them. “Oh,” said his host, “that is easily explained. We have here the chef of Prince von Bulow, whose table, as you may have heard, was famous. The man is an Alsatian, and French at heart. Shortly after the outbreak of the war he managed to escape through the lines and asked permission to enlist. We accepted his services, and—there you are!”
During the afternoon our Lieutenant invited us to stop at his house in Epernay for tea, and here we were introduced to a singular incident. While we were in the dining-room his maître d’hôtel entered and handed him a slip of paper which, he informed him with that casualness born of war, a Bosche had dropped that morning from a taube. It was dated Berlin, July 26, and had been seventeen days on the way. As no one in Epernay had the enterprise to send it to a Paris newspaper, I give it here for the first time, although in brief; it was Teutonically redundant:
Frenchmen! Your aviators, throwing bombs far from the front, in Germany, have killed many civilians, men, women and children. In Karlsruhe on June 22, 1916, there were forty-eight deaths, among them thirty innocent children. Mulheim was bombarded on June 22, Fribourg July 16, &c. In all these attacks the number of victims was deplorable both in dead and wounded. All of these towns are of no military value, as you can see by looking at your map.
The German military authorities hesitated to believe that the French Government and military authorities were capable of such culpable and barbaric acts which have nothing in common with the conduct of war. It was believed that your aviators had made a mistake in execution of their mission.
Frenchmen! Your aviators did not make a mistake. We have learned to-day that the raids were instigated by President Poincaré whose ear has been open to the base counsels of the English.
Here comes the familiar assertion that the Germans know how tired the French are of war, and are but the miserable victims of diabolical Albion. Then, in another burst of self-righteousness:
Germany wars against the armies of France, not against the civil population, the women and children. She hopes that this remonstrance will be sufficient to prevent any future attacks of this barbarous nature. In case of the opposite she will feel obliged to make reprisals in kind.
You know now, Frenchmen, that that slave of England, M. Poincaré, will be responsible for blood shed by innocent victims, and that it is the barbarity of the English which will oblige us to bring destruction and death to your cities far from the front.
Strange, muddled brains, victims of overtraining that have left whole tracts completely atrophied. This document would be merely funny were it not for the terrible problem which confronts the civilized world in dealing with this abnormal species which has grown up in its midst and can never be exterminated root and branch.
While we were laughing over the ultimatum, read aloud by our Lieutenant, we heard a loud noise at the foot of the hill behind the house, and went to the window. A military train was passing. It was decorated with green boughs, and all the windows were filled with soldiers, singing and waving their caps. They were on their way to the Somme.
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=LE BIENÊTRE DU BLESSÉ=
It was during the latter part of May that a number of ladies met at the house of the Marquise de Talleyrand-Périgord in Paris to found an oeuvre on the grand Countess d’Haussonville, President of the first division of the Red Cross, presided, scale for the greater comfort of convalescent officers and soldiers in the war zone, and of that original group those who accepted official positions were the Marquise d’Andigné (Madeline Goddard of Providence), Mme. de Talleyrand (Elizabeth Curtis of New York), Countess de Roussy de Sales (American), Princess Poniatowska (Elizabeth Sperry of California), Mme. Ernest Mallet, wife of the President of the Bank of France; Mme. le General Pau and Mme. Waddington, who, as all the world knows, was Mary King of New York.
Mme. d’Andigné, who has established a reputation for executive ability and conscientious application to whatever she undertakes, was elected President, and Mme. Poincaré became Honorary President.
On the council are thirty-nine names, French, French-American, and American. Among the last are Mrs. Bliss of the American Embassy, Mrs. Ridgley Carter, Mrs. Herman Harges, Mrs. Lawrence Slade, Mrs. William Crocker, Miss Crocker, Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Lee Childe, Mrs. Potter, Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Hyde and Mrs. Samuel Watson, wife of the American clergyman in Paris. The French names are among the most distinguished in France, and no list of any oeuvre was ever more carefully chosen both for its effect on the public and for usefulness; coming as it did, late in the day, it was felt to be under a certain handicap.
It was christened “Le Bienêtre du Blessé, Société Franco-Américaine pour Nos Combattants” (The Comfort, or Well-being, of the Wounded; French-American Society for Our Soldiers), and is to exist throughout the war and for six months after fighting ceases. Men in high places, according to custom, became its sponsors, the War Office gave it a “barrack” out at the Entrepôt des Dons, where all the big oeuvres have their storehouses and a central bureau. The Paris banking house of Munroe & Co. accepted the office of Treasurer and receives all donations. _The address of this firm in New York is 30 Pine Street, and any one who is kind enough to answer this appeal with a donation will please send it there._