VIVE LA FRANCE ET AL BELGE!
We had only been about ten weeks in France when we were moved out of the
trenches and placed in Ypres in billets. Some of us were actually billeted
in the city itself, and others of us had a domicil in the environs.
Ypres, or Wipers, as Tommy Atkins called it, was then considered a "hot"
spot. The Germans say no one ever comes back from Ypres without a hole in
him. Tommy says, when he curses, "Oh, go to ----; you can't last any longer
than a snow ball in Ypres!"
At this time Ypres was not yet destroyed by the enemy. I have seen many
cities of the world. I have seen the beauties of Westminster Abbey, the Law
Courts; I have seen the tropical wonders of the West Indies; I have seen
the marvels of the Canadian Rockies, but I have never seen greater beauty
of architecture and form than in the city of Ypres. There was the Cloth
Hall, La Salle des Draperies with its massive pillars, its delicate
traceries, its Gothic windows and its air of age-long gray-toned serenity.
There was Ypres Cathedral! A place of silence that breathed of Heaven
itself. There was its superb bell tower, and its peal of silver-tongued
chimes. There were wonderful Old World houses, quaint steps and turns and
alleys. It was a city of delight, a city that charmed and awed by its
impressive grandeur.
Now the city was massed with refugees from the ravaged parts of Belgium. In
peace times possibly the population would have numbered thirty-five to
forty thousand, at this time it seemed that sixty thousand souls were
crowded into the city limits. Every house, every _estaminet_, every barn,
every stable was filled to its capacity with folk who had fled in despair
before the cloven hoof of the advancing Hun.
Glance at the map on page 142 and judge of the condition of a city
practically surrounded on all sides by the enemy. Three miles away to the
left, three miles away to the right, and a matter of only ten miles away
from the immediate front of the city. For months the Germans had shelled
the town every day. Not with a continued violence, but with a continued,
systematic irritation which played havoc with the strongest nerves. Not a
day passed that two or three women, or half a dozen children or babies did
not pay the toll to the war god's lust of blood.
But still the people remained in the city. There was no alternative.
Conditions behind Ypres were just the same, and all the way back to Calais.
Every town and every village, every hamlet and every farm had its quota of
refugees. Here they stayed and waited grimly for the day of liberation.
One day I walked out from Ypres a few miles. I came to the village of
Vlamentinge. I went into an _estaminet_ and called for some refreshment.
From among the crowd of soldiers gathered there a civilian Belgian made his
way over to me. He was crippled or he would not have been in civilian
clothes.
"Hello, old boy!" he said to me in perfect English. "How are you?"
I replied, but must have looked my astonishment at his knowledge of my
language, for he went on to explain.
"I got over from the States just the week war broke out. I worked in North
Dakota, and had saved up and planned to come over and marry my sweetheart,
who waited in Brussels for me. I have not seen her. She must be lost in the
passing of the enemy. I have gathered a very little money, enough to start
on the small farm which is my inheritance. Come and see it--come and have
dinner with me."
I accepted his invitation, and we walked over together. The Belgian spoke
all the way of his fine property and good farm. All the while there was a
twinkle in his eye, and at last I asked him what size was his great farm.
"Ten acres," said he, and laughed at my amazement at so small a holding.
We reached the house, which proved to be a three-roomed shack. In a little,
dinner was served and we went in to sit down. Not only the owner and
myself, but fifteen others sat down to a meal of weak soup and war bread.
The other guests at the table were fourteen old women and one young girl.
They sat in a steady brooding silence. I asked the Belgian if they
understood English. They did not, and so I questioned him.
"Very big family this you've got," I remarked. I knew what they were, but
just wanted to draw him out.
"Oh, they're not my family."
"Only visitors?" I queried.
"Darned good visitors," said he, "they've been here since the second week
of August, 1914."
"Refugees--" I commented.
"Yes, refugees, not one with a home. Not one who has not lost her husband,
her son or her grandson. Not one who has not lost every bit of small
property, but her clothes as well. You think that I am doing something to
help? Well, that is not much. I'm lucky with the few I have. There's my old
neighbor over yonder on the hill. He owns five acres and has a two-roomed
shack and he keeps eleven."
"And how long do you expect them to stay?"
"Why, laddie," said he. "Stay--how should I know? I was talking to an
officer the other day and he told me he believed the first ten years of
this war would be the worst. They are free and welcome to stay all that
time, and longer if need be. They are my people. They are Belgians. We have
not much. My savings are going rapidly, but we have set a few potatoes"--he
waved his hand over to where four of the old women were hoeing the ground.
"We get bread and a little soup; we have enough to wear for now. We shall
manage."
That is only one instance in my own personal experience. Every place was
the same. The people who could, sheltered those that had lost all. It was a
case of share and share alike. If one man had a crust and his neighbor
none, why then each had half a crust without questions.
It is for Belgium. It is to-day, in the midst of war and pillage and
outrage, that man is learning the brotherhood of man. In peace times no man
would have imagined the possibility of sharing his home and income, no
matter how great it might have been, with fifteen other persons. The
fifteen unfortunates would have been left to the tender mercies of a
precarious and grudging charity. To-day, charity is dead in its old
accepted sense of doling out a few pence to the needy; to-day, charity is
imbued with the spirit of Him who, to the few said, "I was hungered and you
gave me meat."
To-day, it is not necessary to go to Ypres, to Namur, to Liége, to Verdun,
or to any of the bombarded cities of Belgium and France to see the ruin
that has been wrought by war among the people. It is the populace who
suffer, even in greater degree than do the fighting men. They must give way
in every instance before the irresistible barrier of martial law. It is the
old men, the women, the children, the babies and the physically imperfect
who must bear the brunt of dreadfulness.
Go to any of the cities of France, a hundred or more miles from the firing
line. Go to Rouen, to Paris, to the smaller inland towns, to St. Omer, to
Aubreville, and there is war.
The streets and boulevards, which a few years since were gay with a
laughing crowd of joyous-hearted men and women, youths and maidens, to-day
are gloomy, with the shadow of sorrow and death on them. On a conservative
estimate it will be found that in all the towns and cities of France, one
in three women will be dressed in black.
The French woman carries through life the tradition of the veil. She is
christened, and over her baby face there lies a white veil. She is
confirmed, and a veil drapes her childish head. She is married, and a
trailing lace veil half conceals her happy smiles. She mourns, and a heavy
veil of black crape covers her from head to foot.
We of the Canadians learned to know the wonderful emotion of the French. As
we marched along the streets we would see a Frenchwoman approaching us. She
recognized the strange uniform of an Ally and her eyes would sparkle, and
perchance she'd greet us with a fluttering handkerchief. The shadow of a
smile would cross her face; she was glad to see us; she wanted to welcome
us. And then she would remember, remember that she had lost her man--her
husband, her son, her sweetheart. He had been just as we, strong and
virile. He had gone forth to a victory that now he was never to see on
earth. His had been the supreme sacrifice. She would pass us, and the tears
would come to her eyes, and we'd salute those tears--for France.
[Illustration: Over the top]
And the men, what of them? There are no men. You will see old men, shaken
and weak; possibly they have experienced the German as he was in 1870, and
they know. You will see boys, eager strong boys, who impatiently await the
call to arms. You will see young men who now look old. You will see them
blind, and led about by a younger brother or sister. You will see the
permanently crippled and those that wait for death, a slow and lingering
death from the Hun's poisonous gases.
[Illustration: With the best of luck]
It is no uncommon sight to see the peasantry of France and Belgium, the old
and young women, the children and the very old men, working in their fields
and on their tiny farms, less than a mile from the trenches. It is their
home. It is France or it is Belgium, and love of country and that which is
theirs is stronger than fear of death. Some one of them may be blown to
pieces as he works; it makes no difference. They do not leave as long as it
is possible to remain, or as long as the Allied armies will permit them to
stay.
Their houses may be leveled, they may only find shelter in a half ruined
cellar. Often they may go hungry, but always there is a grim determination
to stick to their own, to till the ground which has kept them, which has
kept their parents and great-grandparents, and which they mean shall keep
their children when victory, which they know is inevitable, is complete.
They have a wonderful faith.
The casualties of the French army have never been made public. We do not
know them. It may be that they will never be told to a curious world.
France may have had her body crushed almost beyond endurance, but the
unspeakable Hun--the barbarian, the crusher of hope and love and
ideals--has not even made a dent on the wonderful spirit of France.
France is superb. In the parlance of the man in the street, we all "take
off our hats" to this valiant country.
I could tell of the most horrible things possible for human mind to
conceive. I have seen things that, put in type, would sicken the reader. I
do not want to tell of these things here, evidence of them can be had from
any official document or blue-book. And yet, in justice to Belgium, I must
tell some of the least dreadful of the things I have seen and only those
that have come to me through personal experience. I do not tell from
hearsay, and I tell the truth without exaggeration.
In common with thousands of other Canadian and Imperial soldiers I saw the
evacuation and destruction of Ypres. On the morning of April 21, 1915, we
marched along the Ypres-Menin road, which road was the key to Calais, to
Paris, to London and to New York. We marched along in the early hours of
the morning, just after dawn. To our left passed a continuous stream of
refugees. We looked toward them as we went by. We saluted as they passed,
but many of us had dimmed vision.
We had heard of German atrocities. We had seen an isolated case or two as
we marched from town to town and village to village. We had not paid a
great deal of attention to them, as we had considered such things the work
of some drunken German soldier who had run riot and defied the orders of
the officers. Though we had certainly seen one or more cases that had
impressed us very deeply. The case I cited earlier in this book never left
my thoughts. But here on the king's highway, we saw German atrocities on
exhibition for the first time. I say exhibition, and public exhibition,
because it was the first time we had seen atrocities in bulk--in
numbers--in hundreds.
Ypres had been destroyed in seven hours, after a continuous bombardment
from one thousand German guns. It was a city of the dead. The military
authorities of the Allies told the civilians they must leave. They had to
go, there was no alternative. The liberation they had hoped for was in
sight, but their road to it was of a roughness unspeakable.
There was the grandfather in that procession, and the
grandmother,--sometimes she was a crippled old body who could not walk.
Sometimes she was wheeled in a barrow surrounded by a few bundles of
household treasure. Sometimes a British wagon would pass piled high with
old women and sick, to whom the soldiers were giving a lift on their way.
There was the mother in that procession. Sometimes she would have a bundle,
sometimes she would have a basket with a few broken pieces of food. There
was a young child, the baby hardly able to toddle and clinging to the
mother's skirts. There was the young brother, the little fellow, whimpering
a little perhaps at the noise and confusion and terror which his tiny
brain could not grasp. There was the baby, the baby which used to be plump
and smiling and round and pinky white, now held convulsively by the mother
to her breast, its little form thin and worn because of lack of
nourishment.
There was no means of feeding these thousands of helpless ones. Their only
means of sustenance was from the charity of the British and French
soldiers, who shared rations with them.
And there was sister, the daughter--sister--sister. At sight of these young
girls--from thirteen up to twenty and over--we learned, if we had not
learned before, that this is a war in which every decent man must fight.
Some Americans and Canadians may not want to go overseas; they may be
opposed to fighting; they may think they are not needed. Let them once see
what we saw that April morning and nothing in the world could keep them at
home.
They dragged along with heads low, and eyes seeking the ground in a shame
not of their own making. I am conservative when I say that one in four of
the hundreds of young girls who walked along in that sad crowd had a baby,
or was about to have one.
And that was not the only horror of their situation. Many of them had one
or the other arm off at the elbow. They had not only been ruined, but
mutilated by their barbarous enemies.
That evening we camped just outside the city of Ypres. We rested all night,
and the next day we went into action. During the afternoon of April
twenty-second the Germans, for the first time in the history of warfare,
used poisonous gas. And they used it against us as we lay there ready to
protect the Ypres salient.