"God's in his heaven, All's right with the world."--and--we are no
longer in the war zone. As soon as a few formalities are filled, and I
can get a carte d'identité, I shall be once more free to circulate. After
sixteen months of a situation but one step removed from being
interned, it will be good to be able to move about--even if I don't want
to.
To give you some idea how the men at the front welcome the news,
here is a letter which has just come,--written before Congress had
voted, but when everyone was sure of the final decision.
At the Front, April 4, 1917
Dear Madame:
It has been a long time since I sent you my news. The neglect has
not been my fault, but due to the exceptional circumstances of the
war.
At last we have advanced, and this time as real cavalry. We have
had the satisfaction of pursuing the Boches--keeping on their flying
heels until we drove them into St. Quentin. From the 18th to the 28th
of March the war became once more a battle in the open, which was
a great relief to the soldiers and permitted them to once more
demonstrate their real military qualities. I lived through a dozen days
filled to overflowing with emotions--sorrow, joy, enthusiasm. At last I
have really known what war is--with all its misery and all its beauty.
What joy it was for us of the cavalry to pass over the trenches and fly
across the plains in the pursuit of the Germans! The first few days
everything went off wonderfully. The Boches fled before us, not
daring to turn and face us. But our advance was so rapid, our
impetuosity such, that, long before they expected us, we overtook the
main body of the enemy. They were visibly amazed at being caught
before they could cross the canal at St. Quentin, as was their plan,
and they were obliged to turn and attempt to check our advance, in
order to gain sufficient time to permit their artillery to cross the canal
and escape complete disaster.
It was there that we fought, forcing them across the canal to entrench
themselves hastily in unprepared positions, from which, at the hour I
write, our wonderful infantry and our heavy artillery, in collaboration
with the British, are dislodging them.
Alas! The battles were costly, and many of our comrades paid with
their lives for our audacious advance. Be sure that we avenged them,
and cruel as are our losses they were not in vain. They are more than
compensated by the results of the sacrifice--the strip of our native soil
snatched from the enemy. They died like heroes, and for a noble
cause.
Since then we have been resting, but waiting impatiently to advance
and pursue them again, until we can finally push them over their own
frontier.
Today's paper brings us great and comforting news. At last, dear
madame! At last your marvellous country is going to march beside us
in this terrible war. With a full heart I present to you my heartiest
congratulations. At last Wilson understands, and the American
people--so noble, and always so generous--will no longer hesitate to
support us with all their resources. How wonderfully this is going to
aid us to obtain the decisive victory we must have, and perhaps to
shorten the war.
Here, in the army, the joy is tremendous at the idea that we have
behind us the support of a nation so great, and all our admiration, all
our gratitude goes out to your compatriots, to the citizens of the great
Republic, which is going to enter voluntarily into this Holy War, and so
bravely expose itself to its known horrors.
Bravo! et vivent les Etats-Unis!
My greetings to Amélie and Papa: a caress for Khaki and Didine, and
a pat for Dick.
Receive, madame, the assurance of my most respectful homage.
I am feeling today as if it were no matter that the winter had been so
hard; that we have no fuel but twigs; that the winter wheat was frozen;
that we have eaten part of our seed potatoes and that another part of
them was frost-bitten; that butter is a dollar a pound (and none to be
had, even at that price, for days at a time); that wood alcohol is sixty-
five cents a litre, and so on and so forth. I even feel that it is not
important that this war came, since it could not be escaped, and that
what alone is important is--that the major part of the peoples of the
world are standing upright on their feet, lifting their arms with a great
shout for Liberty, Justice, and Honor; that a war of brute force for
conquest has defeated itself, and set free those who were to have
been its victims. It is not, I know, today or tomorrow that it will all
end; it is not next year, or in many years, that poor Poland's three
mutilated parts can be joined and healed into harmony; and oh! how
long it is going to be before all the sorrow and hatred that Germany
has brought on the world can be either comforted or forgotten! But at
least we are sure now of the course the treatment is going to take--so
the sun shines and my heart is high, and I do believe that though joy
may lead nowhere, sorrow is never in vain.