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WITH
THE FRENCH
IN FRANCE AND
SALONIKA
BY
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
AUTHOR OF "WITH THE ALLIES"
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
Published April, 1916
BOOKS BY RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
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[Illustration: General Sarrail, commanding the Allied armies in Greece,
making his first landing in Salonika.]
TO THE MEMORY
OF
JUSTUS MILES FORMAN
PREFACE
This book was written during the three last months of 1915 and the first
month of this year in the form of letters from France, Greece, Serbia,
and England. The writer visited ten of the twelve sectors of the French
front, seeing most of them from the first trench, and was also on the
French-British front in the Balkans. Outside of Paris the French cities
visited were Verdun, Amiens, St. Die, Arras, Chalons, Nancy, and Rheims.
What he saw served to strengthen his admiration for the French army and,
as individuals and as a nation, for the French people, and to increase
his confidence in the ultimate success of their arms.
This success he believes would come sooner were all the fighting
concentrated in Europe. To scatter the forces of the Allies in
expeditions overseas, he submits, only weakens the main attack and the
final victory. At the present moment, outside of her armies for defense
in England and for offense in Flanders, Great Britain is supporting
armies in Egypt, German East Africa, Salonika, and Mesopotamia. No one
who has seen in actual being one of these vast expeditions, any one of
which in the past would have commanded the interest of the entire world,
can appreciate how seriously they cripple the main offensive. Each robs
it of hundreds of thousands of men needed in the trenches, of the
transports required to carry those men, of war-ships to convoy them, of
hospital ships to mend them, of medical men, medical stores, aeroplanes,
motor-trucks, ambulances, machine-guns, field-guns, siege-guns, and
millions upon millions of rounds of ammunition.
Transports that from neutral ports should be carrying bully beef, grain,
and munitions, are lying idle at a rent per day of many hundreds of
thousands of pounds, in the harbors of Moudros, Salonika, Aden,
Alexandria, in the Persian Gulf, and scattered along both coasts of
Africa. They are guarded by war-ships withdrawn from duty in the Channel
and North Sea. What, in lives lost, these expeditions have cost both
France and Great Britain, we know; what they have cost in millions of
money, it would be impossible even to guess.
For these excursions far afield it is not the military who are
responsible. There is the highest authority for believing neither
General Joffre nor Lord Kitchener approves of them. They are efforts
launched for political effect by loyal and well-meaning, but possibly
mistaken, members of the two governments. By them these expeditions were
sent forth to seize some place in the sun already held by Germany, to
prevent other places falling into her hands, or in the hope of turning
some neutral power into an ally. It was merely dancing to Germany's
music. It postponed and weakened the main attack. This war should be
fought in France. If it is, Germany will be utterly defeated; she cannot
long survive such another failure as Verdun, or even should she
eventually occupy Verdun could she survive such a victory. When she
no longer is a military threat all she possessed before the war,
and whatever territory she has taken since she began the war, will
automatically revert to the Allies. It then will be time enough to
restore to Belgium, Serbia, Poland, and other rightful owners the
possessions of which Germany has robbed them. If you surprise a burglar,
his pockets stuffed with the family jewels, would you first attempt to
recover the jewels, or to subdue the burglar? Before retrieving your
possessions would it not be better strategy to wait until the burglar
is down and out, and the police are adjusting the handcuffs?
In the first chapter of this book is reprinted a letter I wrote from
Paris to the papers of the Wheeler Syndicate, stating that in no part
of Europe was our country popular. It was a hint given from one American
speaking in confidence to another, and as from one friend to another.
It was not so received. To my suggestion that in Europe we are losing
friends, the answer invariably was: "We should worry!" That is not a
good answer. With a nation it surely should be as with the individuals
who compose it. If, when an individual is told he has lost the good
opinion of his friends, he sings, "I don't care, I don't care!" he
exhibits only bad manners.
The other reply made to the warning was personal abuse. That also is
the wrong answer. To kill the messenger of ill tidings is an ancient
prerogative; but it leads nowhere. If it is true that we are losing our
friends we should try to find out whose fault it is that we lost them,
and our wish should be to bring our friends back.
Men of different countries of Europe repeatedly told me that all of a
century must elapse before America can recover the prestige she has lost
since this war began. My answer was that it was unintelligent to judge
ninety million people by the acts, or lack of action, of one man, and
that to recover our lost prestige will take us no longer than is
required to get rid of that man. As soon as we elect a new President and
a new Congress, who are not necessarily looking for trouble, but who
will not crawl under the bed to avoid it, our lost prestige will return.
In the meantime, that France and her Allies succeed should be the hope
and prayer of every American. The fight they are waging is for the
things the real, unhyphenated American is supposed to hold most high and
most dear. Incidentally, they are fighting his fight, for their success
will later save him, unprepared as he is to defend himself, from a
humiliating and terrible thrashing. And every word and act of his now
that helps the Allies is a blow against frightfulness, against
despotism, and in behalf of a broader civilization, a nobler freedom,
and a much more pleasant world in which to live.
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
April 11, 1916.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. PRESIDENT POINCARE THANKS AMERICA 3
II. THE MUD TRENCHES OF ARTOIS 35
III. THE ZIGZAG FRONT OF CHAMPAGNE 55
IV. FROM PARIS TO THE PIRAEUS 79
V. WHY KING CONSTANTINE IS NEUTRAL 97
VI. WITH THE ALLIES IN SALONIKA 111
VII. Two Boys Against an Army 152
VIII. THE FRENCH-BRITISH FRONT IN SERBIA 165
IX. VERDUN AND ST. MIHIEL 188
X. WAR IN THE VOSGES 210
XI. HINTS FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO HELP 223
XII. LONDON, A YEAR LATER 245
ILLUSTRATIONS
General Sarrail, commanding the Allied armies in
Greece, making his first landing in Salonika
_Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
President Poincare on a visit to the front 18
"Of another house the roof only remained, from under
it the rest of the building had been shot away" 48
The stone roof over this glass chandelier in the Arras
cathedral was destroyed by shells, and the chandelier
not touched 50
General Franchet d'Esperay 70
King Constantine of Greece and commander-in-chief of
her armies 102
"In Salonika the water-front belongs to everybody" 122
"On one side of the quay, a moving-picture palace,
... on the other a boat unloading fish" 124
Outside the Citadel, which is mediaeval, Salonika is
modern and Turkish 126
"The quay supplied every spy--German, Bulgarian,
Turk, or Austrian--with an uninterrupted view" 139
"Hills bare of trees, from which the snow that ran
down their slopes had turned the road into a sea
of mud" 154
American war correspondents at the French front in
Serbia 160
Headquarters of the French commander in Gravec,
Serbia 172
After the retreat from Serbia 176
The ruined village of Gerbeviller, destroyed after their
retreat by the Germans 190
"Through these woods ran a toy railroad" 192
A first-line trench outside of Verdun 200
A valley in Argonne showing a forest destroyed by
shells 208
War in the forest 216
A poster inviting the proprietors of restaurants and
hotels and their guests to welcome the soldiers who
have permission to visit Paris, especially those
who come from the districts invaded by the Germans 228
All over France, on Christmas Day and the day after,
money was collected to send comforts and things
good to eat to the men at the front 232
A poster advertising the fund to bring from the trenches
"permissionaires," those soldiers who obtain permission
to return home for six days 236
"Very interestin'. You ought to frame it" 252
"They have women policemen now" 262
WITH THE FRENCH
IN FRANCE AND SALONIKA
CHAPTER I
PRESIDENT POINCARE THANKS AMERICA
PARIS, October, 1915.
While still six hundred miles from the French coast the passengers on
the _Chicago_ of the French line entered what was supposed to be the war
zone.
In those same waters, just as though the reputation of the Bay of Biscay
was not sufficiently scandalous, two ships of the line had been
torpedoed.
So, in preparation for what the captain tactfully called an "accident,"
we rehearsed abandoning ship.
It was like the fire-drills in our public schools. It seemed a most
sensible precaution, and one that in times of peace, as well as of war,
might with advantage be enforced on all passenger-ships.
In his proclamation Commandant Mace of the _Chicago_ borrowed an idea
from the New York Fire Department. It was the warning Commissioner
Adamson prints on theatre programmes, and which casts a gloom over
patrons of the drama by instructing them to look for the nearest
fire-escape.
Each passenger on the _Chicago_ was assigned to a life-boat. He was
advised to find out how from any part of the ship at which he might be
caught he could soonest reach it.
Women and children were to assemble on the boat deck by the boat to
which they were assigned. After they had been lowered to the water, the
men--who, meanwhile, were to be segregated on the deck below them--would
descend by rope ladders.
Entrance to a boat was by ticket only. The tickets were six inches
square and bore a number. If you lost your ticket you lost your life.
Each of the more imaginative passengers insured his life by fastening
the ticket to his clothes with a safety-pin.
Two days from land there was a full-dress rehearsal, and for the first
time we met those with whom we were expected to put to sea in an open
boat.
Apparently those in each boat were selected by lot. As one young doctor
in the ambulance service put it: "The society in my boat is not at all
congenial."
The only other persons originally in my boat were Red Cross nurses of
the Post unit and infants. In trampling upon them to safety I foresaw no
difficulty.
But at the dress rehearsal the purser added six dark and
dangerous-looking Spaniards. It developed later that by profession they
were bull-fighters. Any man who is not afraid of a bull is entitled to
respect. But being cast adrift with six did not appeal.
One could not help wondering what would happen if we ran out of
provisions and the bull-fighters grew hungry. I tore up my ticket and
planned to swim.
Some of the passengers took the rehearsal to heart, and, all night,
fully dressed, especially as to boots, tramped the deck. As the
promenade-deck is directly over the cabins, not only they did not sleep
but neither did any one else.
The next day they began to see periscopes. For this they were not
greatly to be blamed. The sea approach to Bordeaux is flagged with black
buoys supporting iron masts that support the lights, and in the rain and
fog they look very much like periscopes.
But after the passengers had been thrilled by the sight of twenty of
them, they became so bored with false alarms that had a real submarine
appeared they were in a mood to invite the captain on board and give him
a drink.
While we still were anxiously keeping watch, a sail appeared upon the
horizon. Even the strongest glasses could make nothing of it. A young,
very young Frenchman ran to the bridge and called to the officers:
"Gentlemen, will you please tell me what boat it is that I see?"
Had he asked the same question of an American captain while that officer
was on the bridge, the captain would have turned his back. An English
captain would have put him in irons.
But the French captain called down to him: "She is pilot-boat No. 28.
The pilot's name is Jean Baptiste. He has a wife and four children in
Bordeaux, and others in Brest and Havre. He is fifty years old and has a
red nose and a wart on his chin. Is there anything else you would like
to know?"
At daybreak, as the ship swept up the Gironde to Bordeaux, we had our
first view of the enemy.
We had passed the vineyards and those chateaux the names of which every
wine-card in every part of the world helps to keep famous and familiar,
and had reached the outskirts of the city. Here the banks are close
together, so close that one almost can hail those on shore; but there
was a heavy rain and the mist played tricks.
When I saw a man in a black overcoat with the brass buttons wider apart
across the chest than at the belt line, like those of our traffic police
in summer-time, I thought it was a trick of the mist. Because the
uniform that, by a nice adjustment of buttons, tries to broaden the
shoulders and decrease the waist, is not being worn much in France. Not
if a French sharpshooter sees it first.
But the man in the overcoat was not carrying a rifle on his shoulder.
He was carrying a bag of cement, and from the hull of the barge others
appeared, each with a bag upon his shoulder. There was no mistaking
them. Nor their little round caps, high boots, and field uniforms of
gray-green.
It was strange that the first persons we should see since we left the
wharf at the foot of Fifteenth Street, North River, the first we should
see in France, should not be French people, but German soldiers.
Bordeaux had the good taste to burn down when the architect who designed
the Place de la Concorde, in Paris, and the buildings facing it was
still alive; and after his designs, or those of his pupils, Bordeaux was
rebuilt. So wherever you look you see the best in what is old and the
smartest in what is modern.
Certainly when to that city President Poincare and his cabinet moved the
government, they gave it a resting-place that was both dignified and
charming. To walk the streets and wharfs is a continual delight. One is
never bored. It is like reading a book in which there are no dull pages.
Everywhere are the splendid buildings of Louis XV, statues, parks,
monuments, churches, great arches that once were the outer gates, and
many miles of quays redolent, not of the sea, but of the wine to which
the city gives her name.
But to-day to walk the streets of Bordeaux saddens as well as delights.
There are so many wounded. There are so many women and children all in
black. It is a relief when you learn that the wounded are from different
parts of France, that they have been sent to Bordeaux to recuperate and
are greatly in excess of the proportion of wounded you would find in
other cities.
But the women and children in black are not convalescents. Their wounds
heal slowly, or not at all.
At the wharfs a white ship with gigantic American flags painted on her
sides and with an American flag at the stern was unloading horses. They
were for the French artillery and cavalry, but they were so glad to be
free of the ship that their future state did not distress them.
Instead, they kicked joyously, scattering the sentries, who were
jet-black Turcos. As one of them would run from a plunging horse, the
others laughed at him with that contagious laugh of the darky that is
the same all the world over, whether he hails from Mobile or Tangiers,
and he would return sheepishly, with eyes rolling, protesting the horse
was a "boche."
Officers, who looked as though in times of peace they might be gentlemen
jockeys, were receiving the remounts and identifying the brands on the
hoof and shoulder that had been made by their agents in America.
If the veterinary passed the horse, he was again marked, this time with
regimental numbers, on the hoof with a branding-iron, and on the flanks
with white paint. In ten days he will be given a set of shoes, and in a
month he will be under fire.
Colonel Count Rene de Montjou, who has been a year in America buying
remounts, and who returned on the _Chicago_, discovered that one of the
horses was a "substitut," and a very bad "substitut" he was. His teeth
had been filed, but the French officers saw that he was all of eighteen
years old.
The young American who, in the interests of the contractor, was checking
off the horses, refused to be shocked. Out of the corner of his thin
lips he whispered confidentially:
"Suppose he is a ringer," he protested; "suppose he is eighteen years
old, what's the use of their making a holler? What's it matter how old
he is, if all they're going to do with him is to get him shot?"
That night at the station, as we waited for the express to Paris, many
recruits were starting for the front. There seemed to be thousands of
them, all new; new sky-blue uniforms, new soup-tureen helmets, new
shoes.
They were splendidly young and vigorous looking, and to the tale that
France now is forced to call out only old men and boys they gave the
lie. With many of them, to say farewell, came friends and family. There
was one group that was all comedy, a handsome young man under thirty,
his mother and a young girl who might have been his wife or sister.
They had brought him food for the journey; chocolate, a long loaf, tins
of sardines, a bottle of wine; and the fun was in trying to find any
pocket, bag, or haversack not already filled. They were all laughing,
the little, fat mother rather mechanically, when the whistle blew.
It was one of those shrill, long-drawn whistles without which in Europe
no train can start. It had a peevish, infantile sound, like the squeak
of a nursery toy. But it was as ominous as though some one had fired a
siege-gun.
The soldiers raced for the cars, and the one in front of me, suddenly
grown grave, stooped and kissed the fat, little mother.
She was still laughing; but at his embrace and at the meaning of it, at
the thought that the son, who to her was always a baby, might never
again embrace her, she tore herself from him sobbing and fled--fled
blindly as though to escape from her grief.
Other women, their eyes filled with sudden tears, made way, and with
their fingers pressed to their lips turned to watch her.
The young soldier kissed the wife, or sister, or sweetheart, or whatever
she was, sketchily on one ear and shoved her after the fleeing figure.
"Guardez mama!" he said.
It is the tragedy that will never grow less, and never grow old.
One who left Paris in October, 1914, and returned in October, 1915,
finds her calm, confident; her social temperature only a little below
normal.
A year ago the gray-green tidal wave of the German armies that
threatened to engulf Paris had just been checked. With the thunder of
their advance Paris was still shaken. The withdrawal of men to the
front, and of women and children to Bordeaux and the coast, had left the
city uninhabited. The streets were as deserted as the Atlantic City
board walk in January. For miles one moved between closed shops. Along
the Aisne the lines had not been dug in, and hourly from the front
ambulances, carrying the wounded and French and British officers
unwashed from the trenches, in mud-covered, bullet-scarred cars, raced
down the echoing boulevards. In the few restaurants open, you met men
who that morning had left the firing-line, and who after dejeuner, and
the purchase of soap, cigarettes, and underclothes, by sunset would be
back on the job. In those days Paris was inside the "fire-lines." War
was in the air; you smelled it, saw it, heard it.
To-day a man from Mars visiting Paris might remain here a week, and not
know that this country is waging the greatest war in history. When you
walk the crowded streets it is impossible to believe that within forty
miles of you millions of men are facing each other in a death grip. This
is so, first, because a great wall of silence has been built between
Paris and the front, and, second, because the spirit of France is too
alive, too resilient, occupied with too many interests, to allow any one
thing, even war, to obsess it. The people of France have accepted the
war as they accept the rigors of winter. They may not like the sleet and
snow of winter, but they are not going to let the winter beat them. In
consequence, the shop windows are again dressed in their best, the
kiosks announce comedies, _revues_, operas; in the gardens of the
Luxembourg the beds are brilliant with autumn flowers, and the old
gentlemen have resumed their games of croquet, the Champs-Elysees swarms
with baby-carriages, and at the aperitif hour on the sidewalks there are
no empty chairs. At many of the restaurants it is impossible to obtain a
table.
It is not the Paris of the days before the war. It is not "gay Paris."
But it is a Paris going about her "business as usual." This spirit of
the people awakens only the most sincere admiration. It shows great
calmness, great courage, and a confidence that, for the enemy of France,
must be disquieting. Work for the wounded and for the families of those
killed in action and who have been left without support continues. Only
now, after a year of bitter experience, it is no longer hysterical. It
has been systematized, made more efficient. It is no longer the work of
amateurs, but of those who by daily practise have become experts.
In Paris the signs of war are not nearly as much in evidence as the
activities of peace. There are many soldiers; but, in Paris, you always
saw soldiers. The only difference is that now they wear bandages, or
advance on crutches. And, as opposed to these evidences of the great
conflict going on only forty miles distant, are the flower markets
around the Madeleine, the crowds of women in front of the jewels, furs,
and manteaux in the Rue de la Paix.
It is not that France is indifferent to the war. But that she has faith
in her armies, in her generals. She can afford to wait. She drove the
enemy from Paris; she is teaching French in Alsace; in time, when
Joffre is ready, she will drive the enemy across her borders. In her
faith in Joffre, she opens her shops, markets, schools, theatres. It is
not callousness she shows, but that courage and confidence that are the
forerunners of success.
But the year of war has brought certain changes. The search-lights have
disappeared. It was found that to the enemy in the air they were less of
a menace than a guide. So the great shafts of light that with majesty
used to sweep the skies or cut a path into the clouds have disappeared.
And nearly all other lights have disappeared. Those who drive motor-cars
claim the pedestrians are careless; the pedestrians protest that the
drivers of motor-cars are reckless. In any case, to cross a street at
night is an adventure.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Underwood and Underwood._
President Poincare on a visit to the front.]
Something else that has disappeared is the British soldier. A year ago
he swarmed, now he is almost entirely absent. Outside of the hospital
corps, a British officer in Paris is an object of interest. In their
place are many Belgians, almost too many Belgians. Their new khaki
uniforms are unsoiled. Unlike the French soldiers you see, few are
wounded. The answer probably is that as they cannot return to their own
country, they must make their home in that of their ally. And the front
they defend so valiantly is not so extended that there is room for all.
Meanwhile, as they wait for their turn in the trenches, they fill the
boulevards and cafes.
This is not true of the French officers. The few you see are
convalescents, or on leave. It is not as it was last October, when Paris
was part of the war zone. Up to a few days ago, until after seven in
the evening, when the work of the day was supposed to be finished, an
officer was not permitted to sit idle in a cafe. And now when you see
one you may be sure he is recovering from a wound, or is on the General
Staff, and for a few hours has been released from duty.
[Illustration: Reproduction of placard warning France against spies.]
It is very different from a year ago when every officer was fresh from
the trenches--and, fresh is not quite the word, either--and he would
talk freely to an eager, sympathetic group of the battle of the night
before. Now the wall of silence stretches around Paris. By posters it is
even enforced upon you. Before the late minister of war gave up his
portfolio, by placards he warned all when in public places to be careful
of what they said. "Taisez-vous! Mefiez-vous. Les oreilles ennemies vous
ecoutent." "Be silent. Be distrustful. The ears of the enemies are
listening." This warning against spies was placed in tramways,
railroad-trains, cafes. A cartoonist refused to take the good advice
seriously. His picture shows one of the women conductors in a street-car
asking a passenger where he is going. The passenger points to the
warning. "Silence," he says, "some one may be listening."
There are other changes. A year ago gold was king. To imagine any
time or place when it is not is difficult. But to-day an American
twenty-dollar bill gives you a higher rate of exchange than an American
gold double-eagle. A thousand dollars in bills in Paris is worth thirty
dollars more to you than a thousand dollars in gold. And to carry it
does not make you think you are concealing a forty-five Colt. The
decrease in value is due to the fact that you cannot take gold out of
the country. That is true of every country in Europe, and of any kind of
gold. At the border it is taken from you and in exchange you must accept
bills. So, any one in Paris, wishing to travel, had best turn over his
gold to the Bank of France. He will receive not only a good rate of
exchange but also an engraved certificate testifying that he has
contributed to the national defense.
Another curious vagary of the war that obtains now is the sudden
disappearance of the copper sou or what ranks with our penny. Why it is
scarce no one seems to know. The generally accepted explanation is that
the copper has flown to the trenches where millions of men are dealing
in small sums. But whatever the reason, the fact remains. In the stores
you receive change in postage-stamps, and, on the underground railroad,
where the people have refused to accept stamps in lieu of coppers, there
are incipient riots. One night at a restaurant I was given change in
stamps and tried to get even with the house by unloading them as his tip
on the waiter. He protested eloquently. "Letters I never write," he
explained. "To write letters makes me ennui. And yet if I wrote for a
hundred years I could not use all the stamps my patrons have forced upon
me."
These differences the year has brought about are not lasting, and are
unimportant. The change that is important, and which threatens to last a
long time, is the difference in the sentiment of the French people
toward Americans.
Before the war we were not unduly flattering ourselves if we said the
attitude of the French toward the United States was friendly. There
were reasons why they should regard us at least with tolerance. We were
very good customers. From different parts of France we imported wines
and silks. In Paris we spent, some of us spent, millions on jewels and
clothes. In automobiles and on Cook's tours every summer Americans
scattered money from Brittany to Marseilles. They were the natural prey
of Parisian hotel-keepers, restaurants, milliners, and dressmakers. We
were a sister republic, the two countries swapped statues of their
great men--we had not forgotten Lafayette, France honored Paul Jones. A
year ago, in the comic papers, between John Bull and Uncle Sam, it was
not Uncle Sam who got the worst of it. Then the war came and with it,
in the feeling toward ourselves, a complete change. A year ago we were
almost one of the Allies, much more popular than Italians, more
sympathetic than the English. To-day we are regarded, not with
hostility, but with amazed contempt.
This most regrettable change was first brought about by President
Wilson's letter calling upon Americans to be neutral. The French could
not understand it. From their point of view it was an unnecessary
affront. It was as unexpected as the cut direct from a friend; as
unwarranted, as gratuitous, as a slap in the face. The millions that
poured in from America for the Red Cross, the services of Americans in
hospitals, were accepted as the offerings of individuals, not as
representing the sentiment of the American people. That sentiment, the
French still insist in believing, found expression in the letter that
called upon all Americans to be neutral, something which to a Frenchman
is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring.
We lost caste in other ways. We supplied France with munitions, but,
as a purchasing agent for the government put it to me, we are not
losing much money by it, and, until the French Government protested,
and the protest was printed all over the United States, some of our
manufacturers supplied articles that were worthless. Doctor Charles W.
Cowan, an American who in winter lives in Paris and Nice and spends his
summers in America, showed me the half section of a shoe of which he
said sixty thousand pairs had been ordered, until it was found that part
of each shoe was made of brown paper. Certainly part of the shoe he
showed me was made of brown paper.
When an entire people, men, women, and children, are fighting for
their national existence, and their individual home and life, to have
such evidences of Yankee smartness foisted upon them does not make
for friendship. It inspired contempt. This unpleasant sentiment was
strengthened by our failure to demand satisfaction for the lives lost on
the _Lusitania_, while at the same time our losses in dollars seemed to
distress us so deeply. But more harmful and more unfortunate than any
other word or act was the statement of President Wilson that we might be
"too proud to fight." This struck the French not only as proclaiming us
a cowardly nation, but as assuming superiority over the man who not only
would fight, but who was fighting. And as at that moment several million
Frenchmen were fighting, it was natural that they should laugh. Every
nation in Europe laughed. In an Italian cartoon Uncle Sam is shown, hat
in hand, offering a "note" to the German Emperor and in another shooting
Haitians.
The legend reads: "He is too proud to fight the Kaiser, but not
too proud to kill niggers." In London, "Too Proud to Fight" is
in the music-halls the line surest of raising a laugh, and the
recruiting-stations show pictures of fat men, effeminates, degenerates,
and cripples labelled: "These Are Too Proud to Fight! Are You?"
The change of sentiment toward us in France is shown in many ways.
To retail them would not help matters. But as one hears of them from
Americans who, since the war began, have been working in the hospitals,
on distributing committees, in the banking-houses, and as diplomats and
consuls, that our country is most unpopular is only too evident.
It is the greater pity because the real feeling of our people toward
France in this war is one of enthusiastic admiration. Of all the Allies,
Americans probably hold for the French the most hearty good-feeling,
affection, and good-will. Through the government at Washington this
feeling has been ill-expressed, if not entirely concealed. It is
unfortunate. Mr. Kipling, whose manners are his own, has given as a
toast: "Damn all neutrals." The French are more polite. But when this
war is over we may find that in twelve months we have lost friends of
many years. That over all the world we have lost them.
That does not mean that for the help Americans have given France and
her Allies, the Allies are ungrateful. That the French certainly are
not ungrateful I was given assurance by no less an authority than the
President of the republic. His assurance was conveyed to the American
people in a message of thanks. It is also a message of good-will.
It recognizes and appreciates the sympathy shown to France in her
present fight for liberty and civilization by those Americans who
remember that when we fought for our liberty France was not neutral, but
sent us Lafayette and Rochambeau, ships and soldiers. It is a message
of thanks from President Poincare to those Americans who found it less
easy to be neutral than to be grateful.
It was my good fortune to be presented by Paul Benazet, a close personal
friend of the President, and both an officer of the army and a deputy.
As a deputy before the war he helped largely in passing the bills that
called for three years of military service and for heavier artillery. As
an officer he won the Legion of Honor and the Cross of War. Besides
being a brilliant writer, M. Benazet is also an accomplished linguist,
and as President Poincare does not express himself readily in English,
and as my French is better suited to restaurants than palaces, he acted
as our interpreter.
The arrival of important visitors, M. Cambon, the former ambassador to
the United States, and the new prime minister, M. Briand, delayed our
reception, and while we waited we were escorted through the official
rooms of the Elysee. It was a half-hour of most fascinating interest,
not only because the vast salons were filled with what, in art, is most
beautiful, but because we were brought back to the ghosts of other days.
What we actually saw were the best of Gobelin tapestries, the best of
Sevres china, the best of mural paintings. We walked on silken carpets,
bearing the fleur-de-lis. We sat on sofas of embroidery as fine as an
engraving and as rich in color as a painting by Morland. The bright
autumn sunshine illuminated the ormulu brass of the First Empire, gilt
eagles, crowns, cupids, and the only letter of the alphabet that always
suggests one name.
Those which we brought back to the rooms in which once they lived,
planned, and plotted were the ghosts of Mme. de Pompadour, Louis XVI,
Murat, Napoleon I, and Napoleon III. We could imagine the first Emperor
standing with his hands clasped behind him in front of the marble
fireplace, his figure reflected in the full-length mirrors, his
features in gold looking down at him from the walls and ceilings. We
intruded even into the little room opening on the rose garden, where
for hours he would pace the floor.
But, perhaps, what was of greatest interest was the remarkable
adjustment of these surroundings, royal and imperial, to the simple and
dignified needs of a republic.
France is a military nation and at war, but the evidences of militarism
were entirely absent. Our own White House is not more empty of uniforms.
One got the impression that he was entering the house of a private
gentleman--a gentleman of great wealth and taste.
We passed at last through four rooms, in which were the secretaries of
the President, and as we passed, the majordomo spoke our names, and the
different gentlemen half rose and bowed. It was all so quiet, so calm,
so free from telephones and typewriters, that you felt that, by mistake,
you had been ushered into the library of a student or a Cabinet
minister.
Then in the fourth room was the President. Outside this room we were
presented to M. Sainsere, the personal secretary of the President, and
without further ceremony M. Benazet opened the door, and in the smallest
room of all, introduced me to M. Poincare. His portraits have rendered
his features familiar, but they do not give sufficiently the impression
I received of kindness, firmness, and dignity.
He returned to his desk and spoke in a low voice of peculiar charm. As
though the better to have the stranger understand, he spoke slowly,
selecting his words.
"I have a great admiration," he said, "for the effectiveness with which
Americans have shown their sympathy with France. They have sent doctors,
nurses, and volunteers to drive the ambulances to carry the wounded. I
have visited the hospitals at Neuilly and other places; they are
admirable.
"The one at Juilly was formerly a college, but with ingenuity they have
converted it into a hospital, most complete and most valuable. The
American colony in Paris has shown a friendship we greatly appreciate.
Your ambassador I have met several times. Our relations are most
pleasant, most sympathetic."
I asked if I might repeat what he had said. The President gave his
assent, and, after a pause, as though, now that he knew he would be
quoted, he wished to emphasize what he had said, continued:
"My wife, who distributes articles of comfort, sent to the wounded
and to families in need, tells me that Americans are among the most
generous contributors. Many articles come anonymously--money, clothing,
and comforts for the soldiers, and layettes for their babies. We
recognize and appreciate the manner in which, while preserving a strict
neutrality, your country men and women have shown their sympathy."
The President rose and on leaving I presented a letter from ex-President
Roosevelt. It was explained that this was the second letter for him I
had had from Colonel Roosevelt, but that when I was a prisoner with the
Germans, I had judged it wise to swallow the first one, and that I had
requested Colonel Roosevelt to write the second one on thin paper. The
President smiled and passed the letter critically between his thumb and
forefinger.
"This one," he said, "is quite digestible."
I carried away the impression of a kind and distinguished gentleman,
who, in the midst of the greatest crisis in history, could find time to
dictate a message of thanks to those he knew were neutrals only in name.