Part 2
I am sending by express a few baskets made by them as they lie crippled on their hospital cots. The little money I paid for them will buy them tobacco, chocolate, post-cards and pencils. I should be glad if you will give these baskets to your friends who have so kindly sent us things. They are of no value, but they will show our appreciation of all you have done. There are also some rings made out of the aluminum which forms the point of the German shells. The men have picked them up on the battlefields and in the trenches—these bits, so full of interest and personal strife—and have made them into rough rings, but carrying a pathetic interest of their own.
The first of the "Grands Blesses Prisonniers en Allemagne" have arrived. They came via Switzerland to Lyons, and from there have been distributed through the country and seashore places. Nineteen came to Dinard, very severely injured—blind, many one-legged, and some badly disfigured, but so rejoiced, poor chaps, to find themselves once more in France. Some have been in Germany since September. They say they were kindly treated in the hospitals, but had precious little to eat. Their looks show it, being quite emaciated. Being also accustomed to little food, their capacity for digesting has also decreased—much to their regret; but, no doubt, that misfortune will correct itself now they are back in the "land of plenty."
It appears that when the train drew up in the Lyons Gare, they saw hundreds of enthusiastic compatriots cheering and waving flags and handkerchiefs, flowers everywhere, and heard the "Clarions de France," some broke down and cried like children. They had borne the privations and sufferings consequent to imprisonment for ten long months, but when they heard those sweet, clear notes, and saw the "tricolor" once more (Ils Avaient le Coeur Gros) they just gave way; that is, the weaker ones did.
At the mother-house of the Little Sisters of the Poor, at St. Bern, one hundred and twenty-five are installed in that quiet convent, in the midst of the rich fields, and the green and peaceful woods of Brittany, with those good little sisters to wait upon them and nurse them; with fine milk, butter and eggs, chickens and fresh vegetables to eat, they will soon recover and they can hardly express their feelings, poor fellows, but just sit smiling and cheery in the sun. Mere boys, many of them—thin-cheeked, fresh-colored, bright-eyed, but crippled for life. Older men, fathers of families, bronzed and calm, thankful to be in France, with the thought of soon returning to their wives and children. May they there regain their health and strength. To these brave ones, we all, Americans and French alike, owe an immense debt of gratitude, for, but for them and their like, we would be facing now a very different outlook.
What impresses one above all is their modesty, patience and patriotism. Whether they are doctors or lawyers, peasants or little artisans, they all show the same soul-stirring love for France, they count their sufferings as nothing compared to the welfare of the nation.
The life of the last ten years which we knew and loved so well, has vanished like the snows of yester-year. Where the tango was danced are now long rows of hospital cots. The music of the Hungarian band has given place to the silence of the ambulance corridors. Crippled men are sitting on the casino verandas where fashionable women in former years strolled in idleness and elegance. Horrid odors of iodoform and chloroform assail one, instead of the perfume of the flowers. The gay young girls of other days, who laughed and flirted and danced in these airy halls, are now demure Red Cross nurses, in severe white linen gowns, the Red Cross embroidered on their white veils; a vivid testimony to their real nature and pitying compassion for the helpless.
What a few awful months of this World's War seems to us over here. You in America, who continue to live as much as usual, can really have but little conception. To you that pageant and tragedy of war is as "A Tale that is Told"—very horrible, perhaps, but of necessity it cannot affect you intimately. You can know little of the heartrending day-by-day experience and hourly ordeals demanded of those men and women of France.
Some few weeks ago I attended a class for "first aid" to the injured, whose matron was rather a formidable Frenchwoman, laden with years and honors. As I went in, a friendly Red Cross nurse murmured: "The poor Marquise had just received a telegram two hours ago announcing the death of both her sons; but, you know, her husband was killed in September, and she has given her boys to France. She does not wish it mentioned—do not refer to it." As I looked at that wrinkled but composed countenance, so stern and so calm, as I listened to her instructions, given in a quiet voice, it was quite evident that the old French proverb still holds good, "Bon sang ne peut mentir." There she was, an old, stricken mother, looking drearily into the future. Her two dear sons killed on the same day on the field of honor, her home forever desolate. But she came down, nevertheless, to show us how to bandage the wounded men, to teach us patience, endurance and control under all circumstances. At night she returns to her lonely hearth to mourn these brave boys. But did she not need our sympathy? To us, watching this superb example, she seemed to embody the spirit of courage, which admits of no defeat. The valiant heart rising above the wreck of happiness and home to do its duty to "La Patrie."
Only a short distance separates us from the battlefields, where the manhood of France and England are daily laying down their lives in defense of their countries. God grant that no such sacrifice may ever be demanded of America. To us who have remained in France, life has become a very solemn reality; as we go forth in sober garb and spirit to do what we can for these suffering hundreds, wounded men and boys, lonely young widows, stricken parents, we realize intensely that life in Europe has utterly changed. The old order of things has passed away. What will replace it? Who can tell?
Letter Written to Dr. Livingston Seaman, British War Relief in New York, July, 1915.
TO A DYING BOY
Poor little soldier, lying there weak and wounded, Why were you horn to live so brief a day? Is your young manhood hut to serve as target For the grim guns of war to injure or to slay? So young to die. On lip and cheek and forehead Still flame youth's brilliant colors, white and red, And your clear eyes so full of hope and courage, Must we tomorrow count you with the dead?
All life before you; glad and useful hours Lay shining in your path unsullied, clear, Youth's dreams fulfilled in manhood's ampler duties, A wife, a home, and all that we hold dear Vanished. In one short hour's tragic action, Swept from the world of man and manly ways. Naught but a memory in your mother's bosom, Shall soon recall your transient, earthly days.
In vain our aid. Our utmost skill and patience Cannot re-string the loosened silver cord. The golden bowl is broken at the fountain, And your lone soul must hence to meet it's God, Lonely, yet clad in beauty pure and holy, For of your best you gave, unstinted, glad, That at your country's call all selfish thought and purpose Faded away—you gave your life, dear lad!
Dinard, 1915
THE SUBSTITUTE MOTHER
(A Story of France)
In the old house, heavily garlanded with ivy and climbing roses, at the end of the village, lived the old maid. Through vistas of thick foliage, the broken sky-line of tiled roofs appeared. In the west, the church tower showed dark against the sunset skies.
Here she had lived in seclusion these many years. Her pigeons feeding on the green lawn. Her rose garden, fragrant and sunny, facing the Eastern hills. Her peulailler (poultry yard), her dogs, her cats, filled the long hours of her austere life.
In solitude she ate her well-cooked meals. By the stone fireside (in other years the center of family life and gaiety) she sat in the evenings reading her Figaro, with her knitting in the recesses of the Louis XVI "tricoteuse" close at hand in case the print became blurred, which so often happened of late. Meditating, her pure thoughts far from the world and its stormy passions, her judgment became, perhaps, too severe; her charity a trifle too customary and censorious. All her actions were the result of axioms and precepts laid down years ago by long-dead parents. To her the past shone with a glorious light of Humanity and Youth, full of kindly people and cheerful pleasures and gay days. The present, so solitary and sad, had crept upon her unperceived, to find her with wrinkling brow and graying hair, more and more lonely.
Every morning at early mass she looked with noncomprehension into the faces of the elderly women—her comtemporaries—mothers these many years. Long ago they loved and married, leaving "la Mademoiselle" to her patrician seclusion up at the "great house." Lusty youths and strong, fresh-faced girls clustered about these contemporaries; sweet-faced young women, holding babies against their rounded breasts; boys touched their caps in awe as she left the church; girls smiled, blushing and demure; children sucked their thumbs and bobbed courtesies; but to none was she vital or important. To them the world was full of busy pleasures and activities, of warm summer days and young joys; to her, bending over her endless tapestry-work in the silence of the old manor, the world seemed trite indeed. Her home was so orderly, so clean, so proper, so remote from life. No muddy footprints on the wax floors, no child's toys forgotten in the corner, no cap or jacket thrown carelessly on disturbed furniture. Her apartments were sweet with lavender and roses, but tobacco smoke was a stranger to their antique propriety.
Now, suddenly, all these quiet ways, these time-honored habits were destroyed. War broke over France and she, with countless of her countrywomen, donned the white linen gown embroidered with that cross-of-red emblem of so many sacrifices and devotions. The hastily-installed hospital became her only thought; all her energy, care, and patience must be brought to the aid of the broken men as her tribute to the defenders of France.
In the long whitewashed hall, on whose blank walls the crucifix hung alone, stood the double row of beds, where lay these valiant fellows. Young boys of eighteen and twenty, arms and legs in plaster or bound in bloodstained bandages; forced, poor chaps, to the sight of such horrors on the battlefields as to remove forever their youthful joyance of life. Older men, bearded and bronzed, talked to her of their family life; of their wives and children; of the little humdrum everyday experiences, so unknown to her, so commonplace and vital to them. Gone for her the tranquil days of yester-year, her collection of laces, her bibelets, her books, her revues—all her souvenirs of years of sedate living and tranquil seclusion.
Only the maps of the battlefields interested her now; the long, hard duties of the Red Cross nurse were more entrancing than her most delightful journeys in Italy, or her summers in Switzerland. Many things she saw, heard, and was obliged to do, she was often shocked and horrified, but courage, patience and skill were daily demanded of her. A great endurance necessary for such arduous work, and her compassion ever inspired renewed effort. Life and death were there in frightful reality before her eyes, so to the round-shouldered, gray-headed woman these great facts became the motive power of her life. She became the willing, compassionate servant of this army of cripples. What surprises she received! What human misery she witnessed! What confessions she heard! She must write a last message to a distant mother from her dying son. There a strong man, now a cripple, implored her to tell his wife of his misfortune; again an ignorant, faithful creature begged for news of his family. Since the war began, nearly two years ago, no word of them had reached him. To all these little duties she added the care of their injured bodies, the dressing of wounds, the feeding of the helpless.
To her, who so short a time ago lived in lonely luxury, to whom the world and life were as a closed book; to her, who last year was satisfied with her dogs and chickens, her cats and pigeons, who looked with a half-scornful, half-indignant commiseration on the vibrant life around her, had come a great illumination! From these big children, the rough "poilus," soldiers she nursed so tenderly, she learned instinctively! They opened their hearts to her, they showed her their anguish and suffering! They called her "La Petite Mère," turning to her in all hours for consolation and help. So when the "Demoiselle" went home after 12 hours' work for these wounded ones, her heart was filled with a great rejoicing; a warmth and satisfaction such as she had never known stole through her weary body; aching feet were forgotten, and to God she sent up a prayer of thankfulness that she had been allowed "to serve."
It was a lovely June evening. The night breeze, fragrant with new-mown hay and the perfume of sleeping field-flowers, stole through the open window, fluttering the "Veilleuse" as it cast its feeble light and shadow over the still form lying in the white sheet, so soon to become its shroud. The old "Demoiselle" sat there in pious thought, her eyes fixed on the boy she had nursed so many months, now so near to death; the boy whose soul had been washed clean by the Holy Sacrament and whose body was so soon to disappear from the world of men. Poor fellow, so far from all who loved him, his white features showed pinched and thin in the light of the crescent moon, looking over the black masses of trees into the desolate white room. From time to time his stiffening lips murmured "mother." He turned his head feebly from side to side seeking her, who, in a far-away province, knew nothing of her son's agony. The hours dragged on, the young moon disappeared behind the trees, the moribund moaned gently from time to time. A cooler breeze, fore-runner of morning freshness, swept through the wood. The "Demoiselle" still kept her vigil, changing her patient's pillow, holding a cup of water to his lips. Suddenly he gave an agonizing cry: "My mother! My mother! Where art thou? I cannot see! It is growing dark! Hold me, my mother, hold me!"
Then to the old maid came her great moment. Taking the poor, trembling form in her arms, she pillowed the rolling head on her bosom and pressing her lips to the dying boy's forehead she whispered: "I am here, my son! Do not fear. I, your mother, hold you. You are safe in my arms, my little one. Rest in peace."
The sun rose in glorious June splendor; the birds were singing their morning matins; the dewy flowers cast forth a ravishing fragrance—only in the sickroom was there silence, but also a holy peace, for the old maid—she who had never lied, who had scorned and reproved those who did so—had lied eagerly to comfort the passing spirit of a boy.
Dinard, June, 1915.
THE SONS OF FRANCE
1915
To you, in God's country, safe and sound, far removed from the conditions existing over here, a few notes of our daily existence may not come amiss.
First, let me quote the lines found on a dead boy in Champagne, his "Feuille de route" (diary), which shows eloquently how the little "piou-piou" feels these sorrowful days of 1914.
FEUILLE DE ROUTE
Diary of Albert Ledrean, volunteer for France in the war of 1914. Aged 18 years. In the 10th Regiment of Infantry. Fell on the field of honor, October 17th, 1914, in Champagne. (This diary was found on his body and sent home to his mother.):
"Auxonne, Cotes d' Or, September 15th, 1914—At last this long-wished-for moment has arrived. The great clock on the facade in our barracks marks 12:45, it is the hour for our departure; the clear notes of the bugles announce our colonel's approach; he appears, his fine horse curvetting and prancing, and our battalion stands rigidly at attention as he passes us on review. He draws his sword and gives orders to advance. The regimental music shrills loudly, our troopers with quick steps and alert bearing, start for the battlefields, which we have so long desired to see.
"We have decorated our rifles with huge bunches of flowers. On our route the people have strewn autumn leaves. More than one woman weeps as we go by, for our passing recalls so vividly to them, those poor women, their husbands, or brothers, or sons, who are fighting out yonder in the defense of the sacred soil of France. At the railway station a large crowd awaits, hands are shaken, adieux are made to those comrades who remain. We climb into the waiting train. Our colonel calls us to the windows and stirs our souls with a speech of patriotic feeling. He gives the accolade to our commander, and through him, to us all. The train starts, as the strains of the Marseillaise float in the air. From all our throats burst the cry, "Vive la France!" The regiment, massed near the station, salutes us, the bayonets glisten in the pale autumn sun and the drums and bugles sound gaily. We lean far out of the windows waving our kepis joyously to the crowd. The train moves faster and faster to our unknown destination. Who knows where? But what does it matter? It is for our country.
"Wednesday, September 28th—We were marched today to Dugny, by Verdun. Our adjutant ordered us to descend from our train at 8 a.m., and with enthusiasm we stepped through the clear morning air towards our destination. In traversing the village we met large Parisian autobuses heavily ladened with meat for the ravitallement of our troops; it was droll indeed to see the great vehicles with signs "Trocadero, Odeon, Porte Maillot, Louvre, Versailles, etc., in big letters here in the silence of the Champagne plains, so far from the crowded Paris streets, where before the war, they carried their human freight.
"We find the bridges destroyed everywhere, so to cross the streams we have much ado, the little makeshifts being very shaky and uncertain. We see many things of interest in our march. A captive balloon balancing in the blue air above a hill at the entrance of the village of Rangiere. We perceive the piteous results of the marmites of William, the Kaiser, vast holes of great circumference everywhere. Even as we arrived we heard the noise of two huge marmites which burst 500 metres from us. We saw a great black smoke, and dirt and earth springing into the air. Then our great cannons answered, our 75s joined the party, five minutes of cannonade and we no longer heard the shells of William.
"We were then allowed a short rest after our fifteen-mile walk, before descending to the village, where we are now resting in a barn with some Chasseurs d'Afrique. They are good comrades, these Chasseurs, we make friends at once, and have much to say, each recounting his thoughts and ideas of this war.
"Thursday, September 29th—At 7 a. m., we left Rangiere to find our regiment. We met a Taube flying above our heads. Our batteries fired on it, we deploying to offer less of a target. Later it flew towards the German lines, and my company reached a little wood where we spent the night. The shells whistled over our heads all the time; it is not gay, that noise.
"Friday, September 30th—Our Battalion has 24 hours' rest. The shells and shrapnels from Germany shriek all day and all night. I asked if these were the big ones. A man laughed and said "No, mon ami, ce sont les enfants." (No, my friend, these are the baby ones.) It never stops, this cannonade and shooting.
"Wednesday, October 4th—We are since four days in the front line, in the trenches, like foxes in their holes. The French and German shells never stop howling over our heads. On all sides, noise! noise! noise!
"Friday, October 6th—We are of the reserve; we leave our trenches to rest back yonder. On the way I saw the graves of two French soldiers, two crosses of wood at their heads. Ah, how obscure, but how noble, these graves of two sons of France, fallen on the field of honor.
"Monday, October 9th—We are back in the trenches. A funny thing has happened. Our sergeant hung his flannel shirt on the parapet of the trench to dry. A German shell burst at 50 metres. He ran in terror to save his shirt. 'Ah!' he cried, 'that would be too much, the dirty Germans, after they have destroyed the Cathedral of Reims, they want to burn my only flannel shirt.'
"Tuesday, October 10th—Went to the trench at 6 o'clock. At 7 o'clock our batteries commenced their fire. Our '75' swept the earth for 80 metres in front of us, the enemies' cannonading ceased. Our '75' redoubled in speed; we could hear the boches howling with pain. Then the German marmites recommenced. We assisted at an artillery duel which lasted till noon. The rest of the day and night was quiet.
"Wednesday, October 11th—We left this morning at 6 a. m., for an unknown destination. At the entrance of the wood we ate our 'Soupe' and then started on our route. Adieu! woods of the Woevre, we have not been too unhappy in thy valleys and on thy hillsides, although for a month I have not undressed. In the trenches we had little straw and no warmth, rain and cold were our constant companions, but we shall still regret thee, for we may find much worse further on."
So he did... He found his death.
Extracts from a letter written to his family by a sublieutenant from the battlefield of Champagne, October 23rd, 1915:
"At 9 o'clock we were all assembled on the first line. Orders passed from mouth to mouth. Bayonets are fixed to our rifles, each looking to his equipment, paying attention to the last detail. Nothing must be lacking on this momentous day, longingly awaited since many months. We all shake hands, some even embrace, wishing each other good luck; some with eyes brilliant with impatience, await the longed-for signal; others, calmer perhaps, although equally eager, polish their muskets with their handkerchiefs. It is raining heavily and mud is everywhere, but all our spirits are high. 9:15—The hour has come! The artillery increases the range of its shells. The first wave of men hurl themselves out of the trenches. What a magnificent moment. A rain of shells falls round, blowing to atoms some of the first line of soldiers. All along our immense front the infantry springs from the trenches, the bands playing shrilly the 'Marseillaise.' The bugle and the drums sound the charge. A roar of voices answer. With fixed bayonets we rush towards the German trenches, while their mitrailleuses mow us down. Our way is strewn already with corpses and wounded. Blood lies in pools or soaks in streams into the broken soil. From time to time the survivors fling themselves on the ground to escape the gale of shells. Notwithstanding this hell-fire, or the sharpshooters, we press through the woods. The cannons! The cannons! We must save them!
"All of us understand that this is a great day of battle for us French. We must win. Without hesitation, we must sacrifice our life and blood. We must fight to our last breath."