Looking upon the human carnage I have witnessed, from this distance and
in the little breathing space I have taken from service to make you
Americans know the Russians and their needs better, I testify that I
have seen thousands of heroic acts, but the bravest act happened on the
Russian front.
I saw two aviators go up to certain death. They were a Russian and a
Frenchman. Both were little men. They went up to meet twenty German
aeroplanes. It was suicidal. But they had been ordered to go--and
theirs was the spirit of the gallant six hundred. I stood near them as
they made ready to go. They said nothing. That is one of the lessons
you learn in war--not to waste time nor words.
They got their machines ready as a rider tests his saddle straps and
stirrups before starting for his morning gallop through the park.
A little pothering and fixing of the machinery and they had gone.
They went straight up and began blazing away at the German planes. I
watched and the cords of my heart tightened, for the German planes,
looking like great gray birds with wings wide spread, came closer
and closer. They surrounded them. They formed a solid double circle
about them. Then they began to fire. And I turned and covered my eyes
with my hands, for out of that solid, ominous group two dots detached
themselves and fell. A few seconds later what had been aeroplanes were
splintered wood and what had been men a broken mass covered by smoking
rags.
While this was the bravest act I saw in two and a half years on the
firing line, I readily recall the most pathetic. It was the second
line of men in the Russian trenches. They were unarmed soldiers. There
were no guns for them. They took their places there expecting that the
man in front might drop, and the second line man could pick up his gun
and take his place. The reports that some of the Russian soldiers have
desperately fought with switches I have no doubt is true.
I have seen many of the allies die. They all die bravely. At Dixmude
when the fusiliers arrived 8,000 and went out 4,000 there was
magnificent courage in death. The Frenchman dies calling upon his God.
The Englishman says nothing or feebly jests; just turns his face to the
wall and is still. The Russian is mystic and secretive. The Russian
lives behind a veil of reserve. You never fully know him. In the last
moments you know by his rapt look that his soul is in communion with
his God.
One of the deepest, unalterable truths of the war is the German power
of hatred. It is past measuring. An example occurred at Dixmude. When
we had been there three days we were driven out. I took my car filled
with the wounded across a bridge just in time. A second after we had
crossed there was a roar, then a crash. A shot had torn the bridge to
pieces. Three weeks later to our hospital was brought a wounded German.
"I know you," he said. "We nearly got you at the bridge at Dixmude."
"I remember," I said.
That man's eyes used to follow me in a strange way. Build no beautiful
theories of his national animosity disappearing, or being swallowed
up in his gratitude. There was no such thought in his mind. The eyes
said: "I wish I had killed you. But since I didn't I wish I might have
another chance."
This after I had driven away a group of zouaves who had taken
everything from him, including his iron cross, and who were debating
whether to toss him into the canal then or that night.
It is quite true that the Germans fire upon hospitals. Don't believe
any disclaimers of such acts. There have been many of them. The
aeroplanes were circling about and above a rough hospital we had
constructed and we had to leave it in a hurry. We told the patients of
their danger and hurried them into ambulances to take them to a safer
spot. One of the patients was a German. Both his arms had been shot
away. He was in great pain. I went to his cot and offered to help him.
"Lean on me," I said. But he turned upon me a baleful look.
"No," he said, staggering to his feet. His tormented body reeled as he
made his way to the door. "No," he repeated. "I will take no help from
the enemy."
It is true that a shell has burst at my feet. It has happened dozens
of times. That isn't alarming. If it burst a few feet away I should be
killed. Shells glance down and under the ground. That saves one if he
is near it. A shell bursting near one is a commonplace in war.
The shells have a disturbing way about them, more disturbing to
your plans than your equanimity. Shells prevented my having a nice
comfortable illness. In southern Russia one can get little to eat.
Coarse black bread is the chief food. It causes unpleasant disorders.
I, afflicted with one of them, arranged a table in the corner of
my tent. I placed remedies on the table, undressed and turned in,
intending to have a cozy illness of a few days. But as I lay there came
an angry buzzing. A shell hissed through, carrying away a corner of my
tent. That ended my illness. I had no more time to think of it.
The greatest peril I encountered was not from shells. I have said that
one becomes used to them. One of the greatest dangers I faced was on
a dark night drive along a precipice in the Caucasus. It was while
the plan to bring troops through Persia to Russia was expected to be
successful. I went ahead with some ambulances. It was necessary to
take two Russian officers across the mountain. I offered my services.
The road was an oddly twisting one. On one side was a high wall, on
the other a precipice whose depth no one calculated. But as I allowed
myself to look into it at twilight I could see no bottom to it. We
started on the all night drive at dusk. The precipice remained with us,
a foot away, most of the distance. Had my car skidded twelve inches the
story would have been different.
Then, too, I wandered once within the Turkish lines, mistaking them for
our own. But amidst a courteous silence I was allowed to discover my
mistake and escape without harm.
I think I owe my opportunity to do my bit, in the way I have, to the
fact that I arrived in Flanders a few hours before the fight and the
officers were too busy to send me back. I had seven automobiles,
and knew how to use them. I took them to Dixmude and offered the
automobiles and my services to the cause. I established headquarters
at Furnes, which is seven miles from Nieuport, eight from Dixmude and
twenty from Ypres. I drove along the Yser Canal to the parts of the
field that were under the heaviest fire, for there, I knew, my cars
and I would be most needed. For a year I worked for the relief of the
wounded of the French armies. Then I went to Russia, where I found the
need of help and the sacrifice of life because of lack of that help,
almost inconceivable. The French armies have 6,600 ambulances. The
Germans have 6,200. Russia, with a firing line of 6,000 miles has but
600 motor ambulances.
I established dressing stations in the mountains. Some of these were
10,000 feet above the sea level. There, on the canvas stretched between
two horses, the wounded were brought, or so they started. For many of
them died in the long journey, every step of which was torture to a
wounded man.
The most exciting experience I ever had was on the Galician border.
We could approach the battle line only along the Tranapol road, which
ran for fifteen miles directly under German guns. I was speeding along
it with an ambulance full of wounded soldiers when a shell struck the
roadside and exploded, tearing a great hole in the earth fifty feet
away. The concussion stopped us. Then we went on. I travel on my luck.
Some time, I suppose, I shall travel too far.
I have given all my fortune to the work. That is what we should
do--give not what we can afford, but all we have.