Morning dawns at last; its pale rays dim the blinding brightness of the
electric lights. It brings with it a breeze which raises the dust on the
platforms and blows about the straw that litters the station.
The wounded wake up, stiff and cold. The dressings are hastily done by
young unskilled German nurses, who have just arrived and are only at the
beginning of their profession. Nervous, agitated and worn out by their
journey, they look whiter than their new aprons. Their hands tremble as
they hold the basin or apply the cotton wool to our bare wounds.
From a pail from which rise clouds of steam a priest ladles out coffee,
which he distributes to all. He is followed by a sister whose duty it is
to offer a “Butterbrot” to each of the wounded. This done and breakfast
swallowed, we are entrained. It is seven o’clock, that is to say, five
minutes past six in France, for the Germans--whose love for clocks is
well known--change all the clocks of the towns that they have just taken
to Berlin time. It is their way of setting up their standard!
On the platforms the authorities bustle about; their faces are purple
from the excesses of the night before, their eyes are half open and
their walk is unsteady. After an hour we start.
A few turns of the wheel and we shall have left France.
In the third-class carriage where I have been placed are two other
Frenchmen. Many of our comrades have been crowded together on straw in
waggons, and are under the guard of an armed German sentinel. We are
lucky--we are alone and we have seats.
Scarcely have we left the station when one of my companions draws forth
a bottle of champagne from under his cloak. He has taken it from the
Germans, who the evening before were dead drunk in the hotel where they
were being looked after. The cork pops! This bottle at least the Boches
shall not have, and we drink to our speedy return to France. The wine
takes effect; a few minutes later I go off into a sound sleep.
I wake up worn out, and, thanks to the help of my companions, am able to
sit up on the seat.
Under the burning September sun Belgium flies quickly past me; it is a
Belgium inert and dead, where the vast plains are deserted and where the
tools lie abandoned in the midst of the fields, speaking of the fright
of the people who have fled before invasion and murder.
Along the side of the railway a military bakehouse has been erected by
the Germans; it is a veritable ant-hill, scores of chimneys are sending
out smoke. Farther on rise up the three burnt walls of a deserted
station; the fourth has fallen in, enabling us to see the interior, with
the beams carbonised, the furniture broken and burnt. Will any one be
alive after the war to relate the crimes committed in that house? A
freshly dug mound of earth surmounted by a wooden cross and a helmet
breaks the monotony of the Belgian plain! New houses will replace those
that have been destroyed, the grass will grow again, children will take
the place of those who are dead, time will heal our troubles, our grief
will be less intense, but, facing the centuries, this grave will remain
witness of the barbarity of the Teuton, who has deliberately spilt the
blood of his own people and that of other nations to satisfy the
indescribable passion of a single man, of a monster dazzled by the pride
of his sceptre. This tomb, like so many others, will perpetuate the
great lessons and solemn warnings of this war, and to the warrior eager
for blood, to the pacifist obstinate and blind, to the ambitious who
dream of conquest, to the easy-tempered inclined to forget, to those who
for love of lucre or other passion might be persuaded to make overtures
to the enemy, it will cry out “Remember!”
We pass villages burnt to the ground. Truly misfortune has fallen on
this region.
The soldiers of the “landwehr” who are in possession of the stations,
the look-outs, the guardhouses, already begin to be impatient; and the
absence of news weighs heavily on them; they envy those who are marching
yonder on the roads of wealthy “Frankreich” where good wine flows in
abundance. They greet their comrades with friendly signs as they pass by
in trains decorated with green branches and flowers on their way “nach
Paris.” It is for those who come from their beloved fatherland that they
have written in large letters, black, red and green, on the white walls
near the points and on the approaches to the stations: “Nachrichten
Bitte” (News, if you please). Let them not forget the old men, who stay
behind to guard the railways and the people; let them not forget to
throw out their old newspapers telling of the advance in giant strides
of the vast armies of the conquering Kaiser.
Numerous trains rush onward towards France; at the windows men in
uniform salute their wounded comrades as they pass, shake their fists at
us and disappear, carried on to the combat by a throbbing engine. So
they come in their thousands and by thousands invade our country. Trains
carrying before their funnels the flag of the Red Cross, and on their
coaches the distinctive marks of sanitary transports, are also caught up
in this giddy whirlpool which hurries troops from east to west. They are
crowded with armed men, helmeted, ready for the fight; the trucks carry
heavy naval guns. That train has nothing to fear; it is protected by the
Conventions of Geneva.
Namur! Here they take out the wounded who cannot stand a longer journey.
A young lieutenant, an effeminate dandy, who, apparently, has not yet
heard the whistling of bullets, or the sound of a bursting shell, has
our carriage pointed out to him. He approaches and orders a soldier to
open the door. He has just been shaved, his moustache is cut in such a
way as to show his sensual lips, his carefully manicured hands are
loaded with rings, his tunic fits him like a glove, his collar is high
and cramping. He takes pleasure in causing his new gaiters to creak; he
stands as stiff as a poker in order to make the most of all his inches.
He mounts the step and in a high falsetto voice and mocking tone begins
to speak to us. We growl out a reply; it does not seem to satisfy him.
But one could not expect wounded Frenchmen to behave like trained dogs
before a German officer, as the Boche soldiers do.
However, it is not curiosity only that has brought him; he has a mission
to accomplish, so sharply, jerkily and with a pronounced German accent,
he brings forth a sentence, which he must have been preparing a long
time, even before our train was signalled: “You use explosive bullets!”
I fire up then and answer: “It’s false.” But he thrusts in my face a
packet of cartridges labelled: “Ammunition for practice” (“Get out,
idiot,” I murmur), and peremptorily he continues: “You lie, you use
explosive bullets; but we shall bring Paris to ruins!” I shrug my
shoulders and he goes off stiff and haughty, and as proud of himself as
if by his sole energy he had taken a whole transport of able-bodied
soldiers prisoners. He has insulted the wounded and defenceless; he has
thought it a fine thing to probe an open wound. He seems to be
satisfied. Poor cad! have you succeeded yet in destroying Paris?
After a long wait the train starts again. The Belgian peasants, with
bent shoulders and a frightened air, watch us pass, without making a
movement, without speaking a word; you might think they were rooted to
the ground. How different they are from those who, a month ago, welcomed
us so heartily. Poor Belgium! The iron foot of Germany has passed there
and terror reigns. Any demonstration must have been severely forbidden.
The train goes ever onward. Night comes. We have had nothing to eat
except a bit of bread and raw bacon that some German soldiers have
thrown into our compartment by mistake, as they passed our convoy. We
were lucky, for afterwards I met comrades who had had absolutely nothing
between their lips during the fifty-five hours of our journey.
We are carried onwards. It seems as if a veil surrounds me, and even in
my waking moments I am still in a dream. The train stops, starts again,
jolts as terribly; it increases our sufferings, jerks off our bandages.
On the platforms we hear raucous voices. We shudder at the noise of the
piercing whistle of an engine, rushing full speed ahead, which cuts
through space and shakes us on its passage. Then numbness seizes us,
weariness of mind and body. Sleep overtakes us now and then and it is
difficult to distinguish between our sleeping and waking moments. It is
only after the sun’s rays have transformed our compartment into a
veritable furnace, and the heat and the flies have made sleep
impossible, that we shake off the torpor into which we were plunged.
We throw off our coats. It is now afternoon and there are signs of our
approach to a large station. The train slows down, passes the points,
makes a winding curve and stops.
Herbesthal! I grind my teeth with rage and powerlessness. It seems as if
a great door had been shut on me, separating me for ever from those I
love. Herbesthal! it is the threshold of our prison. This name grates on
my ears like the grinding of heavy bolts on the doors of a dungeon.
Herbesthal! it is the ruin of our dreams of a providential release.
Brutal, positive, overpowering reality forces itself upon us, in spite
of our hopes. Herbesthal! it is the ugly doctrine of facts, which comes
to curb smiling fancies, dear to the hearts of the French. It is the
boundary which separates the Republic of liberty of spirit, goodness and
inspiration from the realm of brute force, of willing slavery, of
servitude of intellects, of crimes ordered by an authority before whom
all tremble. Herbesthal! The threshold is crossed, we are in Germany!
Prisoners.
Only the end of the war will give us back our liberty, and we dare not
wish that end near, for the triumph of the invader is still before our
eyes.
Yonder on the left, under some trees at no great distance, is the
terrace of a café decked with flags and filled with a crowd of most
excited people. They are wild with joy, and make a deafening noise;
then, suddenly, as with one movement, they spring up and stand
motionless and silent, with heads bared. An orchestra hidden among the
trees has sounded the first notes of the German anthem. Corpulent men
stand with a stiffness at attention which seems suited neither to their
age nor their size; they hold their cigars in their hands and leave
their beer to get flat without regret. Stout women in light dresses,
which seem too tight for them, stand beside them; they are red with
excitement; the children remain motionless in an attitude almost
religious. It is a veritable uproar, where the shrill notes of the fifes
and the low interrupted roll of the drum impress on these grey citizens
the staggering successes of their arms. They experience a joy beyond all
bounds in staining their starched white shirt fronts with beer and
cigar-ash in an inn where everybody is crowded together. There they have
come to comment on the news of the day, enforcing their remarks by blows
which make the tables tremble. They are still visibly excited by the
burning words of patriotism in the sermons preached by their
ministers--men in the pay of the bloody Emperor. These words still ring
in their ears telling them of the destiny of the all-powerful German
race, a race elected, chosen by their god before all to be the salvation
of the world. They are intoxicated by their own excitement, the music,
the beer and the sun, and listen in a religious frenzy to the music
which places them above other nations--“Deutschland über alles.” At the
end of each stanza, tired with so long repressing the feelings that burn
in their hearts, they break forth into uncontrolled cheering, and shout
themselves hoarse bellowing out the admiration that they feel for
themselves. They wave little flags, sticks, hats, handkerchiefs,
beer-mugs; it is pandemonium. With purple faces, eyes starting out of
their heads, swollen veins and wide-open mouths they shout, they
vociferate, without any regard for those who are so near them. They see
red, and in the sky at which they gaze, the apotheosis of the Teuton
race appears to them, sublime, emerging from a river of blood. Unwearied
the orchestra begins again, dominates the tumult of the crowd, that,
after a bar or two, has recovered its calm, like a mechanical toy wound
up anew and set in motion. In Germany there is order and respect for
music; they do not have two concerts going on at a time. Strains,
feverish, passionate, played with vigour, float on the air. Each
musician blows, beats, scrapes, strikes with all the power of a Boche,
as if he hoped that the sounds he gave forth, drowning the others, would
go ever to the field of battle and inspire with a force of “superman”
the unchained wild beasts whose mission it is to show to the astonished
world the power of Germany and the Kaiser.
And down there the battle of the Marne was beginning. These men, who by
their laws wish to purify and civilise the world, have not passed the
stage of cannibals and Red Skins, who dance round the stake to which
their captured enemy is bound.
This joy of delirious madness, this colossal display of all the passions
suitable to savages, this deafening cacophony, these frenzied shrieks
make me feel painfully the sadness of our state. The sight of this
unbridled crowd, that has no human feeling and so insults our defeat,
fills me with rage and despair, a feeling of powerlessness and an agony
[Illustration: _Page 30._]
that chokes me; tears rise to my eyes, it is with difficulty that I
stifle a sob. However, I make an effort to restrain my grief and stare
through the window with an air of indifference to what is going on,
braving the crowd. The German bourgeois shall not have the joy of
witnessing the weakness of a Frenchman.
Alternately the music sounds and shouts burst forth. These people are
tireless. Like automata they go on playing, blowing, striking, shouting
at regular intervals; they begin and they leave off at the signal of the
conductor’s baton. The Boche cannot rejoice on his own account; for his
happiness to be complete these demonstrations must be carried out to
order. His servile nature appears even in this manifestation of joy,
which with us is always spontaneous. This great organisation of
exultation reveals the Germans to me as they are--hearts of savages in
automatic bodies.
The fête, however, is not yet over. The programme is not yet finished.
The French prisoners have had their reception; it is now the turn of the
Germans.
A train of soldiers of the Marine infantry has just come into the
station. Every one’s attention is fixed on them. All applaud them.
Attracted by a sort of fascination, these people invade the platforms;
at the sight of the naval uniforms, which seem something new to them,
there is an outburst of delight. A “Mädchen,” expressing by a gesture
the general admiration, throws them a bunch of flowers she was wearing
in her belt. It is the signal for a rain of flowers, which falls from
the terrace on to the eager soldiers. On the rails, on the platforms,
the men seize the presents offered by the German women. These women
admire them, these big fellows whose ferocity and brutality are known to
all. One can count on them to carry to Frenchwomen all the hatred these
heavy, servile Teutons feel. May the German soldiers, far away in that
detested France, treat the Frenchwomen as cruelly as they, the good, the
placid, the gentle German women, with their pale complexions, wish!
Flowers, chocolates, sandwiches, cigars, cigarettes continue to be
poured upon them. Impetuously the soldiers scramble up the banks,
catching hold of the grass, pushing each other roughly, and uttering
cries like wild animals when springing on their prey. Nothing holds them
back any longer. It is a heart-breaking sight where the boldness and
folly of the women rival the greed and brutality of the men. With an air
of disdainful pride and mocking smiles on their lips the officers look
at these men, whom to-morrow they will send to their death; at these
women, whom they despise; at the crowd of civilians, good enough only to
give them gold and their sons for the army of the Kaiser, who alone is
worth the whole humanity of the German army.
At last the inn seems to have been cleared of all eatables, drinkables
and tobacco. The soldiers begin to be tired of the game, they are
surfeited, their pockets are crammed with cigars. The girls have almost
broken their arms throwing gifts until, hot and untidy, they struggle
back into their jackets.
Little by little the people grow quiet. Without variation the orchestra,
a veritable instrument of torture, continues its everlasting grind,
soulless, imperturbable.
Then on the platform young girls and women appear carrying baskets and
escorted by well-dressed men. There sandwiches, fruits, chocolate,
tobacco, cigarettes, bottles of lemonade are piled up. Other women
follow with cups and enormous jugs of coffee, glasses and jugs of beer,
and large juicy plum tarts. The distribution is renewed; it is chiefly
intended for the wounded Germans who have stayed in the train. The
guards will not let the women approach the wounded French, who have no
right to kindly treatment. The women, moreover, cannot bear to hear the
name “Franzosen” pronounced. They turn their backs on them, filled with
disgust for their contemptible enemies.
In some places the soldiers give themselves up to shameful pillage,
emptying the baskets, and the young girls emerge, panting and
dishevelled, from a circle which has surrounded them. Disputes take
place among the Marines.
Absent-mindedly a “Yungfrau” approaches our compartment, a smile on her
lips, a pitying look in her eye, for she has not recognised in these
unfortunate men in their shirt sleeves the enemies of her race.
Suddenly, while one of us leans out of the window to seize the proffered
sandwich, she sees the belt of his red trousers. Taking a step
backwards, frightened, indignant, furious, with a voice full of hate,
she cries: “Franzosen.” Angrily she turns away; but a German soldier
standing on the platform with his arm in a sling has noticed the
incident; he has recognised one of my companions as his neighbour in
hospital. Passing by, he says in a friendly manner: “Guten Tag, Emile”
(Good day). He goes up to the young girl and expresses his indignation
in no unmeasured terms. She protests, turns red, becomes embarrassed,
then, obediently retracing her steps, holds out her basket, avoiding our
eyes. With his hands full, the German soldier distributes food and
dainties to us, while the young lady in dulcet but artful tones lightly
gives expression to feelings of humanity with a sincerity that makes us
smile. “We are all men, after all.” (That was also the declaration of
the German socialists before the war; we shall doubtless soon hear it
again.)
From that time forth this soldier did not forget to recommend us to the
care of the distributors, who dared not refuse for fear of hurting one
of their own wounded men. He himself came from time to time to see that
we wanted for nothing, and to leave us some of the food and cigarettes
he had received and did not know what to do with.
We were doubtless the only French of all the convoy who did not suffer
from hunger during the journey.
The day had been perfect for them. The Boches swam in a sea of
happiness! They are “Satt”--satiated with beer, cakes, sweets, saturated
with joy, excitement and the sounds of music; they are full of their
Germany and their Kaiser; they have seen their forces-of-war pass by,
and the weakness of their enemy has been established in a manner
evident to their eyes!
What a splendid day! “Gott sei Dank.”
* * * * *
Officers shout orders on the platform. The German soldiers take their
seats. _En route_ for Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, etc.... We are prisoners
in earnest!
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A FRENCH VICTORY]