Chapter 25

I stayed there all day. In the evening the soldiers of the 101st took me into the woods, where there were several French wounded and a German Captain, wounded the evening before. He was suffering too, poor wretch. About midnight the French soldiers came to seek those who were transportable. They left only my comrade, myself and the German Captain. There were other wounded further along, and we heard their cries. It was dreary.

These wounded men passed two whole days there without help. On the third day the Germans arrived and the narrator gave himself up for lost. But the German Captain, with whom the Frenchmen had divided their food and drink, begged that they be cared for. Ultimately they were taken to the German camp and their wounds attended to. But in a few minutes the camp became the centre of a violent attack, and again it looked as if the last day of the wounded prisoners had come.

Suddenly the Germans ran away and left everything. An hour later, when the firing ceased, they returned, carried away the wounded of both nationalities on stretchers, crowded about twenty-five of them into one wagon (the narrator's broken leg was not stretched out, and he suffered,) and all the way the wagon gave forth the odor of death. All day they rode without a bite to eat. At 1 o'clock at night they reached the village of Cuvergnon, where their wounds were well attended to. The following day the Germans departed without saying a word, but the villagers cared for the wounded, both friends and enemies, and in time the American automobiles carried them to Neuilly.

It is a paradise [added the wounded man.] Now we are saved. But what things I have seen! I have seen an officer with his brain hanging here, over his eye. And black corpses, and bloated horses! The saddest time is the night. One hears cries: "Help!" There are some who call their mothers. No one answers.

All these recitals of soldiers are stamped with the red badge of courage. A priest serving as an Adjutant was superintending the digging of trenches close to the firing line on the Aisne. He had to expose himself for a space of three feet in going from one trench to another. In that instant a Mauser bullet struck him under the left eye, traversed the nostril, the top of the palate, the cheek bone and came out under the right ear. He felt the bullet only where it came out, but soon he fell, covered with blood and believed he was wounded to death. Then his courage returned, and he crawled into the trench. Comrades carried him to the ambulance at Ambleny, with bullets and "saucepans" raining about them from every direction. In time he was transferred to the American Hospital at Neuilly. "I'm only a little disfigured and condemned to liquids," he told his friend the abbé. "In a few weeks I shall be cured and will return to the front."

Abbé Klein tells the curious story of a Zouave and his faithful dog. In one of the zigzag corridors connecting the trenches near Arras the man was terribly wounded by a shell that killed all his companions and left him three-quarters buried in the earth. With only the dead around him, he "felt himself going to discouragement," to use the author's mild phrase, when his dog, which had never left him since the beginning of the war, arrived and began showing every sign of distress and affection. The wounded man told the author:

It is not true that he dug me out, but he roused my courage. I commenced to free my arms, my head, the rest of my body. Seeing this, he began scratching-with all his might around me, and then caressed me, licking my wounds. The lower part of my right leg was torn off, the left wounded in the calf, a piece of shell in the back, two fingers cut off, and the right arm burned. I dragged myself bleeding to the trench, where I waited an hour for the litter carriers. They brought me to the ambulance post at Roclincourt, where my foot was taken off, shoe and all; it hung only by a tendon. From there I was carried on a stretcher to Anzin, then in a carriage to another ambulance post, where they carved me some more.... My dog was present at the first operation. An hour after my departure he escaped and came to me at Anzin.

But when the Zouave was sent to Neuilly the two friends had to separate. At the railway station he begged to take his dog along, and told his story; but the field officer, touched though he was, could not take it upon himself to send a dog on a military train. The distress of both man and beast was so evident that more than one nurse had tears in her eyes as the train pulled out.

They tried to pet the dog, dubbed him Tue-Boches, offered him dog delicacies of all sorts, but in vain. He refused all food and remained for two days "sad to death." Then some one went to the American Hospital, told how the dog had saved the Zouave, and the upshot of it was that the faithful animal, duly combed and passed through the disinfecting room, was admitted to the hospital and recovered his master and his appetite. But at last accounts his master was still very weak, and "in the short visit which the dog is allowed to make each day, he knows perfectly, after a tender and discreet good morning, how to hold himself very wisely at the foot of the bed, his eyes fixed upon his patient."

Thanks to modern science, the cases of tetanus are few in this war, but there are many deaths from gangrene, because, with no truce for the removal of the wounded, so many lie for days before receiving medical aid. Abbé Klein tells of one Breton boy, as gentle a soul as his sister--"my little Breton," he always calls him, affectionately--and comments again and again upon the boy's patient courage amid sufferings that could have but one end. The infection spread in spite of all that science could do, and even amputation could not save him. At last he ceased to live, "like a poor little bird," as his French attendant, herself a mother with three boys in the army, said with tears.

Saddest of all are the bereaved wives and mothers. The reader will find many of them in the good Chaplain's book, and they will bring the war closer than anything else. Sometimes they stand mute under the blow, looking on the dead face without a sound, and then dropping unconscious to the floor. Sometimes they cry wild things to heaven. The Chaplain's work in either case is not easy, and some of his most touching pages depict such scenes.

There was a boy of twenty years, who was slowly but surely dying of gangrene. Let the abbé tell the end of the story:

At 9 o'clock the parents arrive. Frightened at first by the change, they are reassured to see that he is suffering so little, and soon leave him, as they think, to rest. When they return at 10, suddenly called, their child is dead. Their grief is terrible. The father still masters himself, but the mother utters cries. They are led to the chapel, while some one comes to look for me. The poor woman, who was wandering about stamping and wringing her hands, rushes to me and cries, no, it is not possible that her son is dead, a child like that, so healthy, so beautiful, so lovable; she wishes me to reassure her, to say it is as she says. Before my silence and the tears that come to my eyes her groans redouble, and nothing can calm her: "But what will become of us? We had only him."

Nothing quiets her. My words of Christian hope have no more effect than what the father tries to say to her. For a moment she listens to my account of the poor boy's words of faith, of the communion yesterday, of his prayer this morning. But soon she falls back into her distraction, and I suggest to the husband that he try to occupy her mind, to make a diversion of some kind; the more so, I add, as I must leave to attend a burial. She hears this word: "I don't want him to be taken from me. You are not going to bury him at once!" I explain softly that no one is thinking of such a thing; that on the contrary I am going to take her to those who will let her see her boy. We go then to the office, and I hurry away to commence the funeral of another.

I learn on my return that they have seen their son, such as death has made him, and that on hearing the cries of the mother, three other women, already agitated by the visit to their own wounded and by the funeral preparations, have fallen in a faint.

One day last Fall President Poincaré, accompanied by M. Viviani and General Gallieni, was received at the American Hospital by Mr. Herrick, the American Ambassador, and by the members of the Hospital Committee. Abbé Klein has words of praise not only for Mr. Herrick, but also for his predecessor, Mr. Bacon, and for his successor, Mr. Sharp. His admiration for the devoted American women who are serving as nurses in the hospital is expressed frequently in his pages. He says the labors of the American nurses and those of the French nurses complement each other admirably. Of the founding and maintenance of the hospital at Neuilly, he says:

The resources are provided wholly by the charity of Americans. From the beginning of the war the administrative council of their Paris hospital took the initiative in the movement. The American colony in France, almost unaided, gave the half-million francs that was subscribed the first month. New York and other cities of the United States followed their lead, and, in spite of the financial crisis that grips there as elsewhere, one may be sure that the funds will not be wanting. America has its Red Cross, which, justly enough, aids the wounded of all nations; but, among the belligerents, it has chosen to distinguish the compatriots of Lafayette and Rochambeau; our field hospital is the witness of their faithful gratitude. France will not forget.

Later the abbé recorded in his diary that the 500 beds would soon be filled, but added that the generous activity of the Americans would not end there. They would establish branch hospitals. Large sums had been placed at the disposal of the committee to found an "ambulance" in Belgium and another in France as near the front as prudence permitted. Toward the end of January he recorded the gift of $200,000 from Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, and its use by the committee to establish an affiliated hospital at the College of Juilly, in the Department of Seine-et-Marne. He added that still other branches were about to be founded with American funds.

Abbé Klein writes out of a full and sincere heart, whether as a priest, a patriot, or a man who loves his fellowmen; and, without seeking it, he writes as a master of phrase. His new book probably will soon be translated and published in the United States.

A TROOPER'S SOLILOQUY

By O.C.A. CHILD

'Tis very peaceful by our place the now! Aye, Mary's home from school--the little toad-- And Jeck is likely bringing in the cow, Away from pasture, down the hillside road.

Now Nancy, I'll be bound, is brewing tea! She's humming at her work the way she will, And, happen so, she maybe thinks of me And wishes she'd another cup to fill.

'Tis very queer to sit here on this nag And swing this bit o' blade within my hand-- To keep my eye upon that German flag And wonder will they run or will they stand;

To watch their Uhlans forming up below, And feel a queersome way that's like to fear; To hope to God that I won't make a show, And that my throat is not too dry to cheer;

To close my eyes a breath and say "God bless And keep all safe at home, and aid us win," Then straighten as the bugle sounds "Right, Dress...." Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! We're going in!

American Unfriendliness

By Maximilian Harden

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, April, 1915.]

Maximilian Harden, author of the article of which the following is a translation, is the widely known German journalist and publicist who has been termed "the German George Bernard Shaw." The article was published in the second February number of Die Zukunft.

_Japan and the United States are being wooed. Ever since the Western powers' hope of speedy decisive blows on the part of Russia have shriveled up, they would like to lure the Japanese Army, two to four hundred thousand men, to the Continent. What was scoffed at as a whim of Pinchon and Clemenceau now is unveiled as a yearning of those at the head of the Governments._

_The sentimental wish to see Germany's collapse completed by the activities of the allied European powers now ventures only shyly into the light of day. The ultimate wearing down of the German Army assures us of victory; but a speedy termination of the war under which the whole hemisphere suffers would be preferable. The Trans-Siberian Railway could bring the Japanese to Poland and East Prussia. The greatness of the expenditures therefor cannot frighten him who knows what tremendous sums each week of the war costs the Allies. Where it is a question of our life, of the existence of all free lands, every consideration must vanish. Public opinion desires an agreement with the Government of the Mikado._

These sentences I found in the Temps. England will not apply the brakes. Mr. Winston Churchill, to be sure, lauds the care-free fortune of his fatherland, which even after Trafalgar, he says, did not command the seas as freely as today; but in his inmost heart even this "savior of Calais" does not cheat himself concerning the fact that it is a matter of life and death. In order not to succumb in such a conflict, England will sacrifice its prosperous comfort and the lordly pride of the white man just as willingly as it would, if necessary, Gibraltar and Egypt, (which might be within the reach of German armies in the Spring.)

Will Japan follow the luring cry? Any price will be paid for it. What is Indo-China to the Frenchmen, whose immense colonial empire is exploited by strangers, if thereby they can purchase the bliss of no longer being "the victims of 1870"? And the yellow race that co-operated on Europe's soil in the most momentous decision of all history would live in splendor such as had never before been seen, and could keep China, the confused, reeling republic, for at least a generation in its guardianship.

The land of the Stars and Stripes is only being asked to give its neutrality the color of good-will. It is, for the time being, unlikely that the United States would stand beside our opponents with army and navy, as has been urgently counseled by Mr. Roosevelt, (who received the honorary doctor's title in Berlin and as a private citizen reviewed a brigade drill at the Kaiser's side.) Nevertheless, experience warns us to be prepared for every change of weather, from the distant West, as well as the distant East, (and to guard ourselves alike against abuse and against flattery.)

The sentiment of the Americans is unfriendly to us. In spite of Princes' travels, Fritz monuments, exchanges of professors, Kiel Week, and cable compliments? Yes, in spite of all that. We can't change it. And should avoid impetuous wooing.

The missionaries of the Foreign Office brought along with them in trunks and bundles across the sea the prettiest eagerness; but in many cases they selected useless and in some cases even injurious methods. Lectures, pamphlets, defensive writings--the number of the defenders and the abundance of their implements and talk only nursed suspicion. Whatever could be done for the explanation of the German conduct was done by Germania's active children, who know the country and the people.

The American business man never likes to climb mountains of paper. He has grown up in a different emotional zone, accustomed to a different standard of values than the Middle European. To feel his way into foreign points of view, finally to become, in ordinary daily relations, a psychologist, that will be one of the chief duties of the German of tomorrow. He may no longer demand that the stranger shall be like him; no longer denounce essential differences of temperament as a sin. The North American, among whose ancestors are Britons and Spaniards, Celts and Dutchmen, South Frenchmen and Low Germans, does not easily understand the Englishman, despite the common language; calls him surly, stiff, cold; charges him with selfishness and presumption, and has never, as a glance backward will show, shirked battle with him for great issues. For the most part, to be sure, it remains the scolding of relatives, who wish to tug at and tousel each other, not to murder each other.

Only before the comrade of Japan did the brow of Jonathan wrinkle more deeply. But every Briton swore that his kinsman would bar the yellow man's way to Hawaii, California, and the Philippines, and put him in the fields of Asia only as a terror to the Russians or a scarecrow to the Germans. A doubt remained, nevertheless; and we missed the chance of a strong insurance against Japanese encroachment. Stroked caressingly yesterday and boxed ears today:

Over there the dollar alone rules, and all diplomacy is a pestilential swamp; decency is an infrequent guest, with scorn grinning ever over its shoulder; the entrepreneur is a rogue, the official a purchasable puppet, the lady a cold-cream-covered lady-peacock.

The stubborn idealism, the cheerful ability of the American, his joy in giving, his achievements in and for art, science, culture--all that was scarcely noticed. Such a caricature could not be erased by compliments.

Before Mr. Roosevelt bared his set of stallion's teeth (Hengstgebiss) to the Berliners, he had spoken cheerfully to Admirals Dewey and Beresford concerning the possibilities of a war of the Star-Spangled Banner against Germany. And gentler fellow-countrymen of the billboard man said:

You're amazing. Yourselves devilishly greedy for profits, yet you scoff at us because we go chasing after business. You fetch heaps of money across the sea, and then turn up your sublimely snuffing noses as if it stinks.

To reach an understanding would have been difficult even in times of peace. The American is unwilling to be either stiff or subservient. He does not wish to be accounted of less value as a merchant than the officer or official; wishes to do what he likes and to call the President an ox outright if he pleases. Leave him as he is; and do not continually hurt the empire and its swarms of emigrant children by the attempt to force strangers into the shell of your will and your opinion.

Is it not possible that the American is analyzing the origin of the war in his own way? That he looks upon Belgium's fate with other eyes than the German? That he groans over "the army as an end in itself" and over "militarism"? That he does not understand us any quicker than the German Michel understands him? And that he puffs furiously when, after a long period of drought, the war, a European one, now spoils his trade?

Only for months at the worst, Sam; then it will spring up again in splendor such as has never been seen before. No matter how the dice fall for us, the chief winnings are going to you. The cost of the war (expense without increment, devastation, loss of business) amounts to a hundred thousand million marks or more for old Europa; she will be loaded down with loans and taxes. Even to the gaze of the victor, customers will sink away that were yesterday capable of buying and paying. Extraordinary risks cannot be undertaken for many a year on our soil. But everybody will drift over to you--Ministers of Finance, artists, inventors, and those who scent profits. You will merely have to free yourselves from dross (and from the trust thought that cannot be stifled) and to weed out the tares of demagogy; then you will be the effective lords of the world and will travel to Europe like a great Nürnberg that teaches people subsequently to feel how once upon a time it felt to operate in the Narrows.

The scope of your planning and of your accomplishment, the very rank luxuriance of your life, will be marveled at as a fairy wonder. We, victors and conquered and neutrals, will alike be confined by duty to austere simplicity of living. Your complaint is unfounded; only gird yourselves for a wee short time in patience. Whether the business deals which you grab in the wartime smell good or bad, we shall not now publicly investigate. If law and custom permit them, what do you care for alien heartache? If the statutes of international law prohibit them, the Governments must insure the effectiveness thereof. Scolding does not help. Until the battle has been fought out to the finish, until the book of its genesis has been exalted above every doubt, your opinion weighs as heavy as a little chicken's feather to us. Let writer and talker rave till they are exhausted--not a syllable yet in defense.

We do not feel hurt, (haven't spare time for it;) indeed, we are glad that you gave ten millions each month for Belgium, that you intend to help care for Poland, that you are opening the savings banks of your children. But, seriously, we beg you not to howl if American ships are damaged by the attack of German submarines. England wishes to shut off our imports of foodstuffs and raw materials, and we wish to shut off England's. You do not attempt to land on our coast; keep away also from that of Britain. You were warned early. What is now to take place is commanded by merciless necessity; must be.

And let no woeful cries, no threats, crowd into Germany's ears.

ENDOWED WITH A NOBLE FIRE OF BLOOD

By A. Kouprine

[From King Albert's Book.]

Not applause, not admiration, but the deep, eternal gratitude of the whole civilized world is now due to the self-denying Belgian people and their noble young sovereign. They first threw themselves before the savage beast, foaming with pride, maddened with blood. They thought not of their own safety, nor of the prosperity of their houses, nor of the fate of the high culture of their country, nor of the vast numbers and cruelty of the enemy. They have saved not only their fatherland, but all Europe--the cradle of intellect, taste, science, creative art, and beauty--they have saved from the fury of the barbarians trampling, in their insolence, the best roses in the holy garden of God. Compared with their modest heroism the deed of Leonidas and his Spartans, who fought in the Pass of Thermopylae, falls into the shade. And the hearts of all the noble and the good beat in accord with their great hearts....

No, never shall die or lose its power a people endowed with such a noble fire of blood, with such feelings that inspire it to confront bereavement, sorrow, sickness, wounds; to march as friends, hand in hand, adored King and simple cottager, man and woman, poor and rich, weak and strong, aristocrat and laborer. Salutation and humblest reverence to them!

Chronology of the War

Showing Progress of Campaigns on All Fronts and Collateral Events from Feb. 28, 1915, Up To and Including March 31, 1915

[Continued from the March Number]

CAMPAIGN IN EASTERN EUROPE

March 1--Two German army corps are defeated in struggle for Przasnysz; Germans bombard Ossowetz.

March 2--Russians win Dukla Pass; 10,000 Germans taken prisoner at Przasnysz; Russians reinforced on both flanks in Poland; Austrians meet reverse near Stanislau; Austrians make progress in the Carpathians; Russians shell Czernowitz.

March 3--Russians press forward from the Niemen and the Dniester; Austro-German army driven back in Galicia; Germans demolish two Ossowetz forts.

March 4--Russians are pressing four armies through the mountain passes into Hungary; they have checked a new Bukowina drive on the part of the Austrians.