York, where he left his wife and family. He sailed on the
_Rochambeau_ with many of his countrymen, coming, like himself, to
join the colors. M. Granger tells me that he saw near Lisieux a train of
German prisoners, mostly cavalrymen, some of whom had been wounded by
lance thrusts. They seemed resigned to their fate, without enthusiasm,
and on the whole rather pleased at the prospect of being confined and
fed in France, instead of remaining at the front. They said that they
had no idea that England and Belgium were fighting against them, until
they crossed swords with the Belgian cavalry, which they at first
supposed were French.
_Tuesday, August 25._
This is the twenty-third day of the war. Another warm, sunny day, with
northwesterly breezes. Thermometer at five P.M. 24 degrees centigrade.
Better news from the front this morning. The great battle that has been
raging for three days from Mons to Virton, during which the French and
British attacks were repulsed, has been resumed, and renewed German
attacks have been checked. Considerable anxiety as to the result
nevertheless prevails. My concierge, Baptiste, for instance, shakes his
head in a mournful way and says: "Ah! Monsieur, there is already
terrible loss of life. My brother-in-law, who left Luxemburg three weeks
ago to join his reserve regiment in France, is without a cent in the
world, and what will become of his wife and two little children--the
Lord only knows! Their little farmhouse, with all their belongings, has
been burned, and nothing is left."
I breakfasted to-day at the restaurant Champeaux, Place de la Bourse.
Two agents-de-change (official members of the Paris Stock Exchange) took
very gloomy views of the situation. It seems, however, that the French
rentes maintain their quotation of seventy-five francs. Mr. Elmer
Roberts of the Associated Press and Mr. Hart O. Berg sat at our table.
Both thought that the war would be much longer than at first expected
and would depend upon how long Germany could exist, owing to the
impossibility of obtaining food from abroad. "Eight months," said Mr.
Berg.
After lunch I went with Roberts to see the departure of the first
contingent of American volunteers from the Gare Saint-Lazare. These
youths are a tall, stalwart lot, marching with a sort of cowboy swing.
They were not in uniform, but wore flannel shirts, broad-brimmed felt
hats, and khaki trousers. They carried a big American flag surmounted
with a huge bouquet of roses, and alongside this a large French flag.
They were loudly cheered as they were entrained for Rouen, where they
will be drilled into effective shape.
I met Mrs. Edith Wharton, who remains in Paris, and is doing good work
with her _ouvroir_, or sewing-circle, which, with Mrs. Thorne, she
has organized in the Rue Vaneau. This _ouvroir_ is to supply work
to unmarried French women and widows. Among those who have liberally
subscribed to this are Mrs. William Jay, Mrs. Elbert H. Gary, Mrs. Beach
Grant, and Mrs. Griswold Gray.
I went in the afternoon to see Madame Waddington at her _ouvroir_,
156 Boulevard Haussmann. Madame Waddington makes an appeal by cable to
the _New York Tribune_, calling upon all American women and men to
aid her indigent French sewing-women, who are employed in making
garments for the sick and wounded, for which they receive one and a half
francs (thirty cents) and one meal, for a day's work. Madame Waddington
wore a gray linen gown, with a red cross, and was working away very
merrily, distributing materials to the women. She told me that her son
had joined the colors as a sergeant in an infantry reservist regiment
and was at the front.
M. Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian writer and philosopher, is living at
his quaint Abbaye de Sainte-Wandrille, on the Seine near Caudebec. The
author of _La Vie des Abeilles_ has been helping the peasants
gather the wheat harvest.
[Photograph: Photo by Paul Thompson. A party of American volunteers
crossing the Place de l'Opéra in Paris on their way to enlist.]
After three weeks, during which relief funds have been advanced to
Americans at the Embassy, the demands for money continue to be as heavy
as ever. Paris is a human clearing-house, into which new arrivals are
now coming every day from Switzerland and elsewhere. Although many
tourists have been helped and started on their way for the United
States, new ones take their places before they are fairly out of the
way.
Thus, although the Embassy hoped that it had succeeded in getting the
persons in most urgent need off to America on the _Espagne_, the
departure of that vessel has caused no let-up in the demand for funds,
and some individuals who have already been helped once are now coming
back for further assistance.
One of the negro song and dance artists, who was given some money a
couple of weeks ago and who was supposed to have left on the
_Espagne_, presented himself and asked for further funds after that
vessel steamed. When asked how it happened that he did not go, as
arranged, he replied: "'Deed, Ah overslept mahself."
"Considering that the boat train left at six o'clock in the evening,"
remarked Major Cosby, who has charge of the administration of the relief
fund, "he would seem to be a good sleeper."
In the case of all persons who are helped, the stipulation is made that
they must take the earliest possible means of transport to America. The
Government has no intention of financing tourists who desire to visit
Europe at this time. The sole object of the relief fund is to get them
back to the United States as soon as possible.
In addition to the ordinary relief fund, one hundred and seventy
thousand francs have been paid out at the Embassy this week by cable
orders against funds already deposited with the Department of State.
This is a purely business transaction, the Government having already
received the full amount of the payment made, but it has been a source
of much relief to many travelers.
_Wednesday, August 26_.
Twenty-fourth day of the war. Dull, cheerless weather, with a Scotch
drizzle in the afternoon and heavy rain in the evening. Southwesterly
wind. Temperature at five P.M. 20 degrees centigrade.
The great battle on the Sambre and Meuse continues with frightful
slaughter on both sides. The allies have been partially forced back but
resist with dogged determination.
Mrs. Hermann Duryea, a family relative of mine, and whose husband's
horse "Durbar" won the English Derby this spring, has come to Paris for
a few days from their country place near Argentan in Normandy, and is
stopping at her apartment in the Avenue Gabriel. Mrs. Duryea's
chauffeur, who is a young Frenchman, says that Belgian chauffeurs have
reached Normandy from the north, telling harrowing tales of the
brutality and cruelty of the Germans, and announcing that the "German
cavalry and armored motor-cars would soon prevent people from leaving
Paris." Mrs. Duryea, who is an exceedingly cool-headed, plucky woman,
came to me for advice. I told her that there was no probability at
present of communication from Paris to the westward being interfered
with. She sent some of her servants home to the United States and made
arrangements to rejoin her husband at Bazoches-en-Houlme, near Argentan.
The château has, through the generosity of the Duryeas, been turned into
a Red Cross hospital.
President Poincaré has taken a leaf from Great Britain, and Premier René
Viviani has reconstructed a new Cabinet with eminent men, representing
all political parties, making a government of national defence. Since
the outbreak of the war, the Cabinet has been taking advice from
statesmen such as MM. Millerand, Delcassé, Briand, and Ribot. These men
now form part of the Ministry, the formation of which was announced to a
group of journalists at 11.30 this evening at the Ministry of War, when
we assembled there for the usual nightly _communiqué_. The new
Cabinet is made up as follows: Prime Minister (without Portfolio), M.
René Viviani; Vice-President of Council and Minister of Justice, M.
Aristide Briand; Interior, M. Malvy; Foreign Affairs, M. Delcassé; War,
M. Millerand; Navy, M. Augagneur; Finance, M. Ribot; Agriculture, M.
Fernand David; Public Works, M. Marcel Sembat; Labor, M.
Bienvenu-Martin; Commerce, M. Thomson; Public Instruction, M. Albert
Sarraut; Colonies, M. G. Doumergue; Minister without Portfolio, M. Jules
Guesde.
M. Etienne Alexandre Millerand is an illustrious member of the Paris
Bar, who has been several times a cabinet minister. As head of the War
Department, two years ago, he did more than any living Frenchman towards
the reconstitution of true _esprit militaire_ in the French army.
He prepared the way for the three years' service, and reorganized the
forces of the nation that had grown rusty during the decade that
preceded the alarm caused by the German Emperor at Agadir. It is quite
probable that M. Millerand will prove to be the Lazare Carnot--"The
Organizer of Victory"--of the present war. With M. Théophile Delcassé as
Minister of Foreign Affairs, French diplomacy cannot be in better hands.
In calling upon M. Jules Guesde, socialist deputy for Lille, and upon M.
Marcel Sembat, a red-hot socialist--both unified socialists and trusted
friends of the late Jean Jaurès, the Government is assured of the hearty
support of the extreme "revolutionary" parties.
MM. Guesde and Sembat can certainly do the Government less harm _inside_
the Cabinet than they might do _outside_ of it. No better evidence that
all bitterness of political parties is now in the melting-pot can be
found than in the comment of the reactionary, ultra-Catholic, royalist
_Gaulois_, which says: "We are to-day all united in the bonds of
patriotism in face of the common enemy. We place absolute confidence in
the men who have assumed a task, the success of which means the salvation
of France and the triumph of civilization." M. Georges Clemençeau was
offered a place in the Cabinet, but declined to accept it.
The appointment of General Joseph Simon Galliéni as commander of the
army of Paris, and military governor, in succession to General Michel,
means that France is resolved to put Paris in a thoroughly efficient
state of defence, and to be ready for the worst possible emergencies.
General Michel is an admirable organizer and administrator, but he has
not had the vast military experience of General Galliéni, who is, by the
way, a warm friend and comrade of the former military governor. Moreover
General Michel will now serve under General Galliéni's orders.
[Photograph: Photo. Henri Munuel, Paris. General Joseph Simon Galliéni,
appointed Military Governor and Commander of the Army of Paris, August 26,
1914.]
General Galliéni, as a strategist, enjoys the same high reputation as
the commander-in-chief, General Joffre. He was born on April 24, 1849,
at Saint-Béat in the department of the Haute Garonne. He entered the
Saint-Cyr military academy in 1868, and was appointed a sub-lieutenant
in the Third Regiment of Marine Infantry two years later, and he fought
with his regiment through the war of 1870. Since then he has
distinguished himself in Tonkin, Senegal, and Madagascar. Everywhere he
has shown exceptional qualities, both as a soldier and administrator.
His brilliant career finally led to his appointment as a member of the
Higher Council of War, and, in acknowledgment of his great services, he
was maintained on the active list after passing the age limit. He is a
Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.
President Poincaré to-day confers further extraordinary powers upon
General Joffre, authorizing him to exercise the almost sovereign right
of promoting officers on the spot, just as Napoleon did, by simply
naming them to the posts where he thinks they may be most useful. Thus,
General Joffre can make a captain a colonel or a full-fledged
general-of-division, by word of mouth. This privilege was not even
granted by Napoleon to his marshals. These promotions are, however, only
provisional during the war, and when peace is made, must be ratified by
Parliament. This renders it possible to replace general officers, killed
or wounded, by officers selected on the battlefield, and above all
enables important commands to be filled by young officers, who give
proof of their qualities in face of the enemy.
An idea of the infinite tragedy of war was brought home to many
Parisians by a visit to the Cirque de Paris, where twenty-five hundred
Belgian refugees, men, women, and children, have been provided with at
least a temporary shelter.
The vast building, where so many famous boxing-matches have taken place,
is now completely transformed. The ring has been cut in two, and
hundreds of fauteuils have been placed in small groups so arranged as to
form substitutes for beds. The boxes have been reserved for the many
women with infants in arms.
Hardly were they installed, and hardly had the news spread in Paris of
their miserable plight, than hundreds of Parisians visited the Cirque de
Paris, all bringing gifts of food, drink, or clothing. It was a pathetic
and at the same time a cheering sight to watch the refugees hungrily
eating the midday meal which their French sympathizers had helped to
provide. These refugees, many of whom carry babies in arms, will
probably be sent into Normandy and Brittany to be cared for.
_Thursday, August 27._
Twenty-fifth day of the war. Rain, severe thunderstorm at noon,
northwesterly wind. Temperature at five P.M. 17 degrees centigrade.
The huge German army, making its desperate struggle to invade France at
many points from Maubeuge to the Vosges, is still held in check.
Meanwhile the hand of fate, in the shape of the gigantic "Russian
steam-roller," steadily advances in East Prussia. Cossacks have
penetrated to within two hundred miles of Berlin.
Minister of War Millerand has revived the daily meetings of heads of
departments at the War Office. To-day the defensive condition of Paris
was discussed. Work already in progress, under the supervision of
General Galliéni, is pushed forward rapidly and methodically, and
obstructions to artillery fire are being cleared away in the suburbs.
I rambled this morning through the so-called German quarter of Paris
around the Rue d'Hauteville and between the main boulevards and the Rue
Lafayette. All the German and Austrian _teutons_ shops and places
of business are closed. The _brasseries_, where the best Munich or
Pilsener beer, with _wiener Schnitzel_ or _leber-knoedel
suppe_ could be obtained until the end of July, are invisible behind
signless iron shutters. The "intelligence section" of the German general
staff had for years obtained precious military information through the
enterprising, affable German commercial agents, restaurant keepers,
commission merchants, waiters, and hotel errand boys (_chasseurs_)
who thrived in this thrifty quarter.
A wounded sergeant of a Highland regiment, in talking yesterday with an
American friend of mine at Amiens station, bitterly denounced the German
practice of concealing their advance by driving along in front of them
numbers of refugee women and children. The Scottish sergeant said: "Our
battalion was badly cut up. We were using our machine guns to repel a
German advance. Suddenly we saw a lot of women and children coming along
the road towards us. Our officers ordered us to cease firing. The
refugees came pouring through our lines. Immediately behind them,
however, were the German riflemen, who suddenly opened fire on us at
short range with terrible effect. Had it not been for this dastardly
trick of shoving women and children ahead of them at the points of their
bayonets, we might have wiped out this German rifle battalion that
attacked us, but instead of that, we were driven back. Damn these
Germans!" With these words the Scottish sergeant, his right arm
shattered from shoulder to elbow, climbed into the train of British
wounded and was carried off towards Rouen.
A number of French wounded soldiers from the Northern Army arrived in
Paris during the night and were sent to the Military Hospital, Rue des
Récollets, to the Hospital of Saint-Louis, and to a hospital installed
in the College Rollin. Among them were a number slightly wounded, but
very few severely. Their spirit seems excellent, and all agree that few
were killed considering the number of wounded.
All promise to obey orders more closely when they are well and back in
the firing line, and not to be too rash. Rashness and too great anxiety
to get at the foe seem, indeed, to have been the cause of a great many
casualties.
_Friday, August 28._
Twenty-sixth day of the war. Bright, clear weather with northeasterly
breezes. Temperature at five P.M. 20 degrees centigrade.
I saw, in the Rue Franklin, M. Georges Clemençeau, the veteran
demolisher of cabinets, and former Prime Minister, who in his youthful
days was a mayor of the eighteenth arrondissement of Paris, the
turbulent Montmartre quarter. M. Clemençeau severely criticizes the new
Viviani Cabinet. "Viviani," said he, "asked me twice to form part of it.
I declined because, in addition to personal reasons, the Ministry did
not seem to me to realize the elements of power and action required by
this war. Having this opinion, it would not be fair either to Viviani or
to myself to enter into a combination where I should have to assume the
responsibility for acts that to my mind would not adequately meet the
emergency. Under the circumstances, there are only three ministers that
count for anything; those of war, foreign affairs, and finance." M.
Clemençeau said: "There must be something wrong with the mobilization
scheme, because when our troops were outnumbered at the front, there
were great quantities of young officers and men who for ten days had
been awaiting, at their various points of assembly, orders to join their
corps, and at the last moment were told to go home."
On the other hand, M. Millerand, Minister of War, has visited General
Joffre at the army headquarters and returned to Paris to-night "very
satisfied with the situation."
I took a spin in an automobile to-day to Versailles, and thence to Buc
with its red brick aerodrome tower, sheds, and long rows of hangars.
Here were groups of airmen in the rough, serviceable French sapper
uniform--loose-fitting blue coat, blue trousers with a double red
stripe, blue flannel scarf about their necks, as if they had all got
sore throats, and blue pointed forage caps. Here is Chevillard, that
wonderful gymnast of the air. There is Verrier, and here, driving a
sporting-looking car, is Carpentier, whose more familiar costume is a
pair of white slips and a pair of four-ounce gloves. For Carpentier has
been mobilized, too. Instead of making thousands of dollars this month
by his fight with Young Ahearn, and possibly other matches with
Bombardier Wells and Gunboat Smith, he, too, is on the pay list of the
army at next to nothing a day. He is attached to the flying center as a
chauffeur, and that car he is driving is his own, only he cannot take it
out without orders now.
[Photograph: Étienne Alexandre Millerand, Minister of War, August 27,
1914.]
Morning and evening they fly at Buc. They are constantly testing new
machines, and then, when they have tested them, they fly off to the army
on the eastern frontier, or to Amiens, perhaps. The other day a pilot
even flew to Antwerp right across the German lines over the heads of the
German army, but so high up that they never even guessed he was there.
Then they practise bomb-dropping, too, and they are always on the alert
for a possible Zeppelin raid on Paris. The other night a wireless
message reached the Eiffel Tower from the frontier that one had started.
It was midnight, and instantly the alarm was given at Buc. The airmen
sleep in the hangars there, and in five minutes they had their machines
wheeled out.
By the light of lanterns you could see mechanics running to and fro. The
airmen themselves were hurriedly putting on helmets and woollen gloves
and leather coats, for it is cold work hunting airships at midnight.
Their little armory of bombs was quickly overhauled, and the belt of the
machine gun that the man in the passenger's seat uses--the "syringe" as
they call it--was filled, and the engines were set running to see that
they were all right. But it was a false alarm after all, for, although a
close lookout was kept everywhere between Paris and the frontier for the
adventurous Zeppelin, and a hundred guns were craning up into the sky
ready for her if she hove in sight, she never came, and the tired airmen
turned in again to snatch a little sleep before morning parade.
Constantly airmen fly off to the front. Those who have been there say
that the supply trains and the whole service is working splendidly. They
have organized a new sport among the air-scouts. Every day, at the end
of the day's reconnoitring, the airmen count the bullet-holes in the
wings and body of their machines. The aeroplane that has the most is the
cock machine of the squadrilla--six in the squadrilla--and holds the
title until some one gets a bigger peppering and displaces him. They are
very jealous of this distinction, and the counting has to be very
carefully carried out by an impartial jury, for the cock aeroplane has
the honor of carrying the mascot of the squadrilla.
_Saturday, August 29._
Twenty-seventh day of the war. Sultry weather, with light northerly
breezes. Temperature at five P.M. 26 degrees centigrade.
"Hold tight!" Such is the watchword given by the French Government, and
French and British soldiers are holding tight for all they are worth
against the slowly advancing German armies. Heavy fighting all along the
lines from the Somme to the Vosges continues without a break. The
Prussian Guard Corps and the Tenth German Army Corps have been driven
back to Guise, in the department of the Aisne (one hundred and ninety
kilometers from Paris), but on the French left the Germans have fought
their way to La Fère (northwest of Laon, about one hundred and forty
kilometers from Paris). In the eastern theater of the war, Koenigsberg
has been invested by the Russians under Rennenkampf, who continue their
advance towards Berlin.
Paris begins to realize that the war is coming closer to them, by the
following official announcement:
DEFENCES OF PARIS
_The Military Governor of Paris, in view of the urgent military
requirements, has decided:
1. Within a delay of four full days, starting from August 30, all
proprietors, occupants, and tenants of all descriptions of houses and
buildings situated in the military zone of old and new forts must
evacuate and demolish the aforesaid houses and buildings.
2. In the event of these instructions not being fulfilled within the
prescribed delay, these houses and buildings will be immediately
demolished by military authority and the materials taken away.
The Military Governor of Paris, Commander of the Armies of Paris.
(Signed)
GALLIENI._
General Pau, the gallant one-armed general who commands the French Army
of the East, arrived in Paris at four o'clock this afternoon, but the
reason for his visit is naturally kept secret. He had a conference at
the Ministry of War with M. Millerand. He called for a few moments at
his residence in the Boulevard Raspail. General Pau's son, a
sub-lieutenant of infantry, is lying wounded at the hospital at Troyes.
General Pau had an informal conversation with President Poincaré at the
Elysée Palace, and leaves again for the front to-morrow morning.
Refugees from Belgium and northern France continue to pour into Paris.
But the authorities, having had time to organize, are sending them on
with very little delay to various places in the west and south of
France.
It is impossible to prevent these frightened people from taking refuge
in Paris, which they regard as a place of safety, and the only course
open is to send them on as soon as possible.
Among the financial victims of the war are a number of Chinese students
who have found their supplies of money from home suddenly cut off. A
body of about sixty went to the Chinese Legation in the Rue de Babylone
on Friday evening, and clamored for money.
The Minister, Mr. Liu Shih-shên, was out but, to the great disgust of
the staff, the students invaded the dining-room and kitchen and
commandeered the dinner which was being prepared for the Minister.