Part 4

I will confess that I wandered in upon that preliminary meeting quite by mistake, being under the impression that I had been invited merely to have a cup of tea and some lively conversation, and that when I found a committee was in process of formation I would have escaped if I could. I had gone to France to write about the work of its women in the war and in the hope of doing something for that great country in my own way, but with the firm intention of not being drawn into any organization. Possibly no one ever lived who hates sitting at a committee table as I do. However, escape was impossible then or later; and, by degrees, I became infected with their own enthusiasm. After my visits to military hospitals in the war zone I promised Mme. d’Andigné willingly enough that I would do what I could to put the thing through in this country.

No oeuvre since the beginning of the war has been more important than this. When a man has lost a quart or so of blood, after an exhausting period in the trenches, or has undergone a severe operation, the nerves of his stomach are in a supersensitive condition. But in military hospitals the dietary kitchen contains nothing but milk and eggs. Many people have a violent antipathy for both. Personally, I would lie down and die before I would drink a glass of milk, and a recent illness made me appreciate the fact that all the doctors in the world could not have saved me if I had had no convalescent diet offered me but milk and eggs.

Military discipline is inexorable. There are many hundreds of these hospitals in the war zone, and there must be one rule for all. Thousands can drink milk and eat eggs whether they like them or not, and no exceptions may be made for those who would rather die of inanition than touch either. A delicately built man in a trench receives no favor; he must do his part or be dismissed as a Réformé Numero II., and in the hospital a man must take the same chances. At the date of this writing France is still expending two billion francs a month, and to impose a further tax in behalf of an advanced dietary kitchen would possibly lead to a misunderstanding with a large stolid class more than likely to confuse “delicacies” with “luxuries.”

The French are the most economical of races, and the peasantry and bourgeoisie have a fundamental antipathy to the word luxury. The lower classes particularly have been too long accustomed to living on the smallest possible amount and putting the rest into the family stocking to sympathize with capricious appetites. Other nations are not altogether dissimilar in this respect, and in all previous wars groups of ladies have supplied military convalescents with the delicacies which save so many lives and hasten recovery. But this war is on too vast a scale. Beneficent ladies take care of the hospitals in Paris and the provincial cities, but in that great district known as La Zone des Armées, crowded with hospitals, but where so many of the towns are half in ruins and largely evacuated by the inhabitants, where few if any of the shops are open, it becomes a problem at times to find an orange to satisfy the last craving of a dying man. No one who has not been in those gray barren towns and villages of the war zone can imagine how sad a tarrying place they are for wounded men too ill to be sent to Paris.

But if the military machine was forced to appear callous, individually it recognized the necessity for a supplementary kitchen, if many of its best men were to be saved to France. Last Spring the Service de Santé (Health Department of the Ministry of War) asked Mme. d’Haussonville to form a great oeuvre by whose means all the hospitals in the military zone could be supplied by voluntary subscription with the necessary delicacies. When one reads the list of these articles demanded one may see plainly enough that they are delicacies, not luxuries—chicken or beef broth, cocoa, farina for gruel, sugar, biscuit, rice, canned fruits, jellies, preserves, oranges, sardines and ham. Condensed milk, as it is in some cases more digestible than the primitive, is also a welcome article.

No one knew better than Mme. Haussonville the mournful necessity for these simple articles of diet, for she goes periodically into the war zone on tours of hospital inspection. In many places a million francs would not buy one of these things, although the nurses in chief (Infirmière Majors) often sally out in desperation and try to buy out of their own purses something that a sick man craves. One told me that she had only two days before tried in vain to buy a few lumps of sugar in Bar-le-Duc, a town of over 17,000 inhabitants before the war and noted for its preserves. But sugar is scarce in France and very dear.

It was in July that I visited the beautiful hospital, Savonières, near Bar-le-Duc, and it had just received a consignment from Le Bienêtre du Blessé. Mme. Faure, the Infirmière Major, told me that nothing had ever been more welcome, and that the spirits of the men had gone up with a rush. Above all things the French convalescent craves preserves, under the impression, no doubt, that it is his weary palate alone that longs to be tickled, but as a matter of fact his system craves the stimulation and energizing qualities of the sugar.

This hospital is on a splendid estate leased by the Government shortly after the beginning of the war. More or less sheltered by trees from the indefatigable taube, eight or nine “barracks” have been erected, and down their long sides are rows of cots that look as comfortable as they are neat. As many of the patients as could be moved were lying on long chairs under the great oaks and lime trees. At the entrance to the park was a row of low buildings built for the ever-necessary “bureau,” chemist shop, surgical dressings stores, &c., all run with the method and precision characteristic of the French. It was a quiet and sylvan scene when I saw it, but when guns at the front are thundering, reminding these men that their comrades in arms are falling momentarily, or taubes are drumming overhead searching out the barracks, it seems to me that sustained optimism must be a difficult feat. If the delicacies always craved by the sick will raise the spirits of men who have been wounded and perhaps mutilated in the service of their country, and break the sad monotony of their lives, those in the enjoyment of health and freedom cannot work too hard to raise the necessary money. And let it never be forgotten by those whose slogan in giving, as in other things, is “America first,” that had it not been for the military genius of the French at the battle of the Marne there would be no such thing as freedom in the world to-day.

I saw nothing more interesting at these hospitals than the bathtubs for the wounded brought straight from the front. Even officers who have been in the trenches for several days are not clean, to say the least of it, and the first thing to do before the operation is to give them a bath. If they are grand blessés they must receive as little handling as possible. Consequently they are transferred from their own stretcher to one that covers the top of a very large bathtub full of warm water. This stretcher is lowered mechanically from the head down without jarring the wounded man. As soon as he is both clean and refreshed the stretcher is elevated and he is transferred to still another and wrapped in a sheet; then when dry he is carried to the operating table.

One of the many infirmières majors with whom I talked told me there was a second and imperative reason for a private kitchen. Military discipline closes every hospital kitchen in the war zone (both the grand régime and the petit régime) promptly at 6 P.M. and does not open it again until 7 the next morning. If a blessé is brought in after 6 there is not so much as a teaspoonful of milk to give him, and if, as sometimes happens, he is passed on to another hospital early in the morning, he leaves without having had sustenance of any sort. It is difficult for a non-military nation like ours to realize the dry conservative discipline of a nation that has been military for centuries, and has worked out an economy in money, food, time, and men to a point so fine that there is practically no waste.

Witness the immortal tactics of Joffre, who has destroyed the maximum of Germans with the minimum of Frenchmen. But, as I have said before, there has never been a war on such a scale as this, and it is the first time the authorities, always relying upon civilians to do their part, have been confronted with a new problem in the dietary kitchen.

Now, however, if the nurses have private supplies it is a simple matter to make a cup of broth or cocoa over a spirit lamp for a man brought in after 6 o’clock and faint from pain and loss of blood. It is done in five minutes and may save his life. In other respects I saw nothing to criticise in these military hospitals, although I am told that some of the smaller and newer ones are greatly in need of pillows, which seem to be scarce in France. But those I inspected were clean, airy, run like clock work, and the ordinary kitchen (grand régime), for those well on the road to recovery, was abundantly supplied. In one hospital outside of Remiramont I even saw a woman occupying a large room by herself. There are no doctors left in this small town and she had been brought to the military hospital for treatment. When I looked in at the door and saw her gray face surrounded by scattered gray hair I could not imagine for a moment what it was, so little did I expect to see a woman after having gone through some twenty wards filled with men; most of them, by the way, with their legs elevated in wooden frames—an invention, I was told, of Dr. Blake. I never saw any one look more ill. She had had thirteen children and now had a floating kidney. Several of her sons had fallen and more were in the trenches. I have often wondered if she survived.

The Hôpital Central is beautifully located in a high valley just outside of Bar-le-Duc and looks like a new mining town. It is laid out in streets and there must be thirty of the wooden barracks besides two pavilions—long structures of stucco painted white. They are fine targets for taubes and I can’t think why they are not painted brown. All of these buildings but one are in charge of Mme. d’Haussonville’s division of the Red Cross, Société Française de Secours aux Blessés Militaires; the exception is run by the second division, Société des Dames Françaises. These women, both of the noblesse and the haute bourgeoisie, give their services and work like slaves.

The infirmière major, Mlle. de Sézilles, and the médicin chef walked me through every one of those buildings except those devoted to infectious cases. The day was hot and I had walked miles already, but the doctor was inexorable. He had not wanted to show me the hospital, even although I had brought a personal letter to Mlle. de Sézilles, but had surrendered when I produced my letter from the Ministère de la Guerre in which the privilege of visiting the hospitals in the war zone was extended to me. So he determined I should have my fill.

However, every foot of the way was interesting. Here men were brought to remain until they were well enough to return to the front or be transferred to Paris, the blind until their bodies were strong enough to give them courage for delicate operations or to face life once more. The men in bed were protected by netting from the loathsome flies which swarm in this district, and every counterpane was as white as the crisp gowns of the infirmières. The advanced convalescents in the pavilions were sitting in the corridors that traverse the front, reading or gazing at the charming scenery; if blind, merely sunning themselves. They alone, of all the maimed, look sad.

Mlle. de Sézilles showed me her barrack with great pride, and it certainly was an unexpected sight in a base hospital. Its corridors were set with palms and flowering shrubs, every window had its boxes, and there were pictures above the beds. Each ward, in fact, was a revelation of the taste or purse of its infirmière major. Some were austere, but in many an attempt had been made to relieve the barrenness of a military hospital ward, where the men must lie for weeks, or months, with little to do but stare at a glimpse of the hills, and during long silence unbroken by any sound but the raucous voice of war. There is no question that the wounded in the decorated wards looked more than commonly cheerful, for not only has the Frenchman a passion for beauty but he is the most grateful of all the wounded soldiers. And he would answer politely the most inane question if he were being disemboweled at the moment.

Mlle. de Sézilles showed me a cupboard stocked with the first consignment from Le Bienêtre du Blessé we had been able to send, and once more I heard how welcome it was. “It is good for the morale of the men, also,” she added. “The poor fellows, courageous as they are, and gay by temperament, are often depressed. There is nothing like appetizing food, both immediate and prospective, to raise the spirits of a convalescent. No medicine so hastens recovery, and they never looked forward to the pleasures of health as they do to a cup of broth or cocoa, or a slice of ham and a dish of preserves.” Then, like everybody else I met in France engaged in any sort of relief work, she spoke with the deepest gratitude of the practical sympathy of the Americans, of their enormous generosity. I told her that the Eastern States had borne the brunt so far, and that California had done well, but that I was waiting for the West to wake up.

Several Americans have asked me why the rich people of France do not run this oeuvre themselves. The answer is simple enough. There are no rich people left in France, not as we estimate riches, at all events. Between the moratorium, which has cut off their rents, the mobilization of their farm hands or workmen, taxes, the increased cost of living, and the constant demands to which they have responded since the first day of the war (I know one woman who runs three hospitals in the South of France out of her own pocket), they find themselves at the beginning of the third year with little to spare. Some have shut up the greater part of their beautiful apartments or hôtels, and live in the fewest possible rooms, on the smallest possible sum, giving away every penny they can squeeze out of their depleted incomes.

Take the case of one Frenchman, of the old noblesse, married to an American girl. She brought him a large dower, but he was wealthy and it was a love match. The French trenches run through his northern estate, and he will not be permitted to set foot on it before the end of the war unless his regiment happens to be ordered there. It is ruined in any case. His southern estate is intact, but he receives no rent from his tenants, and all his able-bodied men are at the front—or dead. To be sure the women and boys work in the fields, but so they did before the war, and there is no one to take the place of the absent men. Out of his invested capital he must pay high and ever higher taxes, he is asked every day in the week for a subscription, and I believe he runs a hospital. He would smile at hearing himself called a rich man to-day.

There are so many kind hearts and intelligent minds among the readers of a newspaper like the _Times_ that I have not attempted to be eloquent or to make a sentimental appeal. I have merely endeavored to make the case as clear as possible in the hope that all who can afford to give one dollar, or many thousands out of their new prosperity, will respond to the far subtler appeal of the distant soldier suffering in grateful silence for “The Eternal France.”

* * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

Mrs. Ridgley Carter is also spelt Mrs. Ridgely Carter [Ed. don’t know which is correct]

Mrs. Herman Harges is also spelt Mrs. Herman Harjes [Ed. don’t know which is correct]

p. 5 Quatier ==> Quartier (2 places)

p. 5 Général ==> Générale

p. 11 euphenism ==> euphemism

p. 11 miliary ==> military

p. 12 Remiremont ==> Remiramont

p. 13 uremitting ==> unremitting

p. 16 sde ==> side

p. 17 elsewhree ==> elsewhere

p. 20 Marquise de Talleyrand-Perigord ==> Marquise de Talleyrand-Périgord

p. 20 Mrs. Mrs. Herman Harges ==> Mrs. Herman Harges

p. 20 Franco-Americaine ==> Franco-Américaine

p. 21 volunatry ==> voluntary

p. 22 are no clean ==> are not clean

p. 22 mininum ==> minimum

p. 23 flowering shrugs ==> flowering shrubs