about eight o’clock (Madame Lyon had gone to bed), when the iron
shutters were hastily lowered and the maître d’hôtel came to our table
and said solemnly: “It is my duty to tell you that there is a taube over
the city and to ask you to go to the cellars.” “Are you going?” I asked
my companions. “Certainly not.” they replied simultaneously and without
raising their eyes from their excellent meal. I concluded that the
bright restaurant with two men to protect me was infinitely preferable
to a dark, damp, rat-infested cellar and sat tight. In a moment we heard
a fusillade; the guns were searching out the invader. But whether the
taube dropped a bomb or not no one remembered to inquire!
The next morning at six, Madame Lyon, hearing a noise, opened her
window and looked out. A group of people were staring upward, and
following their gaze she saw a taube surrounded by five French
airplanes, which finally drove it off. I, alas! missed this thrilling
sight, for although I was awake I was listening so intently to the guns
at the front, only nine kilometres away, that I heard nothing else.
* * * * *
=STONE VICTIMS OF “THE MARNE”=
PARIS, August 15.
In Nancy we met Miss Polk and Miss Ethel Crocker of California, who
are associated with Princess Poniatowska (also a Californian and sister
of Mrs. William Crocker, but who has lived in France for many years) in
a projected work of reconstruction. It is her aim to raise a large
amount of money in her native State and rebuild a certain number of the
wrecked towns and villages in the war zone. This is a truly great idea,
and will redound to the glory of California, which, with the entire
West, lags far behind New York and other Eastern States in practical
sympathy for the sufferers of this war; but all the same I hope they
will let the ruins alone and build the new towns beside them. In the
first place, these ruins should be a source of revenue to France from
tourists after the war is over, amounting to many millions of francs
(Arras by moonlight is said to be the most beautiful sight on earth),
and, in the second place, a certain type of smug American, who, without
experience or imagination, has refused to believe in the attendant
horrors of war, should be encouraged to visit these deliberately wrecked
towns and hear at first hand far worse stories than even Lord Bryce has
printed. This is the type that always asks; “Now, did you ever meet
anybody who really has seen these things, or did somebody hear it from
somebody else?” &c. Well, let these self-righteous citizens, who have
grown fat on the European war, take a motor trip through the ruined
district a year hence and spend an hour or two with the survivors.
It is, of course, legitimate to bombard any town during a battle,
if care is taken to spare great monuments, but not deliberately to set
fire to it, house by house, when retreating in fury after having missed
victory by a hair. When traveling through stark fire ruins of whole
towns like Sermaize and Gerbéviller, to say nothing of countless
villages, and cities half destroyed, like Révigny and certain sections
of Nancy, it was natural to remember the prophetic words of Heine about
his own country: “Christianity has in a certain degree softened this
brutal martial ardor of the Germans, but it has not been able to destroy
it, and when the Cross, that talisman which keeps it enchained is
broken, then the ferocity of the ancient combatants will break forth
anew. Then—and, alas, this day also will come—the old war gods will
arise from their mythical tombs and wipe the dust of centuries from
their eyes. Thor will rise and with his gigantic hammer will demolish
the Gothic cathedrals.”
They would not let me go to Arras, as, although deserted, it is
under constant bombardment, while Nancy these days only gets an
occasional attention from the big guns, and nobody minds taubes. So far,
therefore, although Sermaize and the others are impressive and shocking
enough, the most interesting and beautiful ruin I saw, in spite of its
sadness, was the little town of Gerbéviller, between Nancy and
Remiramont. Situated on a steep hillside, its irregular streets leaving
the ridge to dip and rise again, and two years ago one of the prettiest
and most thriving of the smaller towns of Lorraine, it is now a mass of
broken walls against the sky, already mellowed by time and creepers.
The automobile was obliged to make its way slowly between the
débris that lined either side of the narrow streets, and I noticed that
families had set up housekeeping once more in the cellars, and even
opened shops. Before the war it had a population of about 2,000
(although, as is often the case, large enough for double the number of
actual inhabitants). All the men who were not mobilized or did not take
flight at the approach of the enemy were shot upon that terrible
retreat; but I saw a few smoking philosophically in the shade of the
walls before their shops. The business here as elsewhere, however, is
carried on mainly by the women. One old woman seemed to be doing well
with post cards, although, as outsiders are few, no doubt her main
support is derived from the soldiers on march. Here lives the heroic
Soeur Julie, decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor, for saving
her hospice in the face of Prussian fury. But her story must be told
elsewhere. About eight hundred people have returned to Gerbéviller (it
was a relief to hear that most of the young girls escaped before the
invasion) and are living either in the cellars or the few houses
surrounding the hospital saved by Soeur Julie. There is ample room in
all directions for their new homes without sacrificing one of the most
picturesque and significant ruins of the war.
I think it was at Sermaize that after driving through a number of
streets as completely wrecked as Gerbéviller, we came suddenly upon a
terrace of houses quite intact. We inquired the meaning of this odd
forebearance and learned that these mansions had been the property of
Germans, who had been warned before the outbreak of the war and fled.
Naturally their homes were spared by their loyal countrymen. Germany not
only knew who owned every square inch of ground in France, but where
every work of art great and small was installed. One woman who lived in
an unpretentious flat in Paris showed me her one rare possession, an
ancient silver censer, which was on the German list when they advanced
upon Paris. If the French Army surrendered and they spared the city,
they purposed to loot it, and their spies had been for years locating
every object worth seizing.
Even before the German case became utterly hopeless it seems to me
they must have felt very sad at times while looking back over the past
and recalling the many objects of desire they just failed to grasp.
Outside of Nancy one may see a high hill where one fine morning in
September, 1914, the German Emperor and his Staff sat their horses, clad
in long white mantles and glittering helmets, a truly superb sight,
waiting for the news that the French Army was in full retreat and the
hour had come for their triumphal entry through the historic gates of
Nancy. But General Castlenau, as all the world knows, reversed this
theatrical dénouement, and they made off in hot haste for Strasburg.
We slept at Remiramont the second night, after a moist trip through
the Vosges, a mildly pretty range of mountains, so far as we were
permitted to penetrate. They are formidable enough closer to the front.
Before the American ambulance men conquered them with their little
Fords, the wounded were carried out on mule back and generally died.
Remiramont is a headquarters for supplies, and we saw a number of
officers but few poilus. Major C., knowing that I wanted to go to Thann,
a town in that little strip of Alsace retaken in the first days of the
war, spent the morning at the military headquarters, where he had
friends (he is one of five American officers in France by order of the
United States Government), waiting for the return of the General. As it
was raining the rest of us spent the time gossiping in the little hotel
parlor or strolling under the arcades of the principal streets. When
Major C. returned and said that the General, refusing to take the
responsibility, had telephoned to the Grand Quartier Générale I knew it
was all up. They had said positively that I could not go to any town
under constant bombardment, and a military mind once made up is like a
steel mask with the key lost.
There is but one way by which a woman can get into any of these
bombarded towns, Rheims, Thann, Verdun. After she is in the war zone, if
she happens to know one of the Generals there, knows him quite well, so
that he feels a certain degree of friendship for her, and if he happens
to be in a very good humor, and if the bombardment at that moment
happens to be weak or non-existent, as it was when I was at Châlons and
Bar-le-Duc, then he will put her in an automobile and whizz her through
the famous target. She will hardly have time to experience the expected
thrill before she is out again, but at least she can say she has been
there.
I, alas, did not know any General, and although Lord Northcliffe
had written me that I should have a letter to General Joffre whenever I
applied to his Paris office for it, I had not felt like bothering the
hero of the war with one more American, particularly as he had been
written to death. Nor had I been in France long enough to form ties of
friendship with any of the others; therefore I had entered the war zone
resigned to a route which, after all, few women were allowed to
traverse.
But Major C. was hopeful, and very much crestfallen when word came
that he might go to Thann if he liked, but I must remain in Remiramont.
Of course, he was too gallant to go without us, even if it had not been
his duty barely to let me out of his sight, but he hardly would speak
for two hours. Nothing annoys an American man, a real American of the
good old stock, more than to fail in the endeavor to get something for a
woman that she especially desires and he has pledged himself to obtain.
Our charming Lieutenant was almost equally annoyed when I called his
attention to this fact, and said that no one hated to disappoint a woman
as much as a Frenchman did, but that if he appeared philosophical it was
because he had never had any hope. Major C., undaunted, made another
attempt at Bar-le-Duc to induce the military authorities there to let us
go to a little town named Dugny, within four miles of Verdun, but with
the same result. They were on the point of consenting when they decided
it was safer (for themselves) to telephone General Joffre, and when I
heard that I left the car with Mme. Lyon and went in search of something
to eat.
Nothing would have induced me to enter that hotel again, and after
my description Mme. Lyon was equally reluctant, although the men were
not daunted in the least. So we went to a bakeshop and bought bread and
cheese and cakes, and after some persuasion she consented to sit in one
of the chairs, sacred to customers, outside the Hotel du Commerce. The
French, with all their mental suppleness and activity, are intensely
conservative. No one was permitted to sit at those tables but customers;
it would not be allowed. And who, I inquired, is there to stop us? Those
two boys waiting on some fifty officers, or that girl at the desk who
would not move while there was an officer inside the hotel to look at?
But it wasn’t done. Americans had too little respect—I replied by
sitting down and eating a cup cake, and finally she, it being hot,
followed suit. No one disturbed us, and in any case it would have been a
simple matter to secure the table with a cup of coffee.
However—conservatism knits a nation together.
A newspaper gamin of eight, who looked five, had such an engaging
little visage that I gave him a penny. His taller companion looked so
wistful that I gave him one also. In five minutes I was encircled by at
least eight newsboys, all looking at me with ingratiating smiles or
deprecating eyes. Not one of them begged. They were far too independent,
but they had all the charm of their race and knew how to get what they
wanted without sacrificing their pride. I was struck with their
dissimilarity in everything else. No two of these little gamin faces
were alike, and I recalled that I had made the same observation when
traveling in the trains with the officers. There is really no type in
France. It is a race of individuals.
It was shortly after we left Bar-le-Duc that Major C., consoled by
my assurance that I really had not cared in the least to go to either
Thann or Dugny, and was delighted at the prospect of reaching Paris that
night (this was not true, but never mind), told us an amusing story of
one of his former visits to the front. He was very close indeed and the
bombardment was incessant. Nevertheless, he was given a dinner party at
headquarters, which, owing to the exigencies of the moment, were in a
certain large cellar. The vaulted roof which makes these stone “caves”
such safe resorts was hung with Chinese lanterns in his honor, all the
high officers available were present, and it was one of the gayest
functions he ever attended. This did not surprise him, but the dinner
did. It was exquisite. He had tasted nothing like it in France. It was
not the viands that were remarkable, for naturally, in this small
outpost, viands were limited. It was the treatment that reminded him of
certain stories whose style disguised the paucity of ideas. Finally,
after he had produced his contribution to the feast, a box of superfine
Havanas, he asked to have the phenomenon explained. He was devoured with
curiosity, for he had dined at headquarters before, and many of them.
“Oh,” said his host, “that is easily explained. We have here the chef of
Prince von Bulow, whose table, as you may have heard, was famous. The
man is an Alsatian, and French at heart. Shortly after the outbreak of
the war he managed to escape through the lines and asked permission to
enlist. We accepted his services, and—there you are!”
During the afternoon our Lieutenant invited us to stop at his house
in Epernay for tea, and here we were introduced to a singular incident.
While we were in the dining-room his maître d’hôtel entered and handed
him a slip of paper which, he informed him with that casualness born of
war, a Bosche had dropped that morning from a taube. It was dated
Berlin, July 26, and had been seventeen days on the way. As no one in
Epernay had the enterprise to send it to a Paris newspaper, I give it
here for the first time, although in brief; it was Teutonically
redundant:
Frenchmen! Your aviators, throwing bombs far from the
front, in Germany, have killed many civilians, men, women and
children. In Karlsruhe on June 22, 1916, there were forty-eight
deaths, among them thirty innocent children. Mulheim was
bombarded on June 22, Fribourg July 16, &c. In all these attacks
the number of victims was deplorable both in dead and wounded.
All of these towns are of no military value, as you can see by
looking at your map.
The German military authorities hesitated to believe that
the French Government and military authorities were capable of
such culpable and barbaric acts which have nothing in common
with the conduct of war. It was believed that your aviators had
made a mistake in execution of their mission.
Frenchmen! Your aviators did not make a mistake. We have
learned to-day that the raids were instigated by President
Poincaré whose ear has been open to the base counsels of the
English.
Here comes the familiar assertion that the Germans know how tired
the French are of war, and are but the miserable victims of diabolical
Albion. Then, in another burst of self-righteousness:
Germany wars against the armies of France, not against the
civil population, the women and children. She hopes that this
remonstrance will be sufficient to prevent any future attacks of
this barbarous nature. In case of the opposite she will feel
obliged to make reprisals in kind.
You know now, Frenchmen, that that slave of England, M.
Poincaré, will be responsible for blood shed by innocent
victims, and that it is the barbarity of the English which will
oblige us to bring destruction and death to your cities far from
the front.
Strange, muddled brains, victims of overtraining that have left
whole tracts completely atrophied. This document would be merely funny
were it not for the terrible problem which confronts the civilized world
in dealing with this abnormal species which has grown up in its midst
and can never be exterminated root and branch.
While we were laughing over the ultimatum, read aloud by our
Lieutenant, we heard a loud noise at the foot of the hill behind the
house, and went to the window. A military train was passing. It was
decorated with green boughs, and all the windows were filled with
soldiers, singing and waving their caps. They were on their way to the
Somme.
* * * * *
=LE BIENÊTRE DU BLESSÉ=
It was during the latter part of May that a number of ladies met at
the house of the Marquise de Talleyrand-Périgord in Paris to found an
oeuvre on the grand Countess d’Haussonville, President of the first
division of the Red Cross, presided, scale for the greater comfort of
convalescent officers and soldiers in the war zone, and of that original
group those who accepted official positions were the Marquise d’Andigné
(Madeline Goddard of Providence), Mme. de Talleyrand (Elizabeth Curtis
of New York), Countess de Roussy de Sales (American), Princess
Poniatowska (Elizabeth Sperry of California), Mme. Ernest Mallet, wife
of the President of the Bank of France; Mme. le General Pau and Mme.
Waddington, who, as all the world knows, was Mary King of New York.
Mme. d’Andigné, who has established a reputation for executive
ability and conscientious application to whatever she undertakes, was
elected President, and Mme. Poincaré became Honorary President.
On the council are thirty-nine names, French, French-American, and
American. Among the last are Mrs. Bliss of the American Embassy, Mrs.
Ridgley Carter, Mrs. Herman Harges, Mrs. Lawrence Slade, Mrs. William
Crocker, Miss Crocker, Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Lee Childe, Mrs. Potter, Mrs.
Harper, Mrs. Hyde and Mrs. Samuel Watson, wife of the American clergyman
in Paris. The French names are among the most distinguished in France,
and no list of any oeuvre was ever more carefully chosen both for its
effect on the public and for usefulness; coming as it did, late in the
day, it was felt to be under a certain handicap.
It was christened “Le Bienêtre du Blessé, Société Franco-Américaine
pour Nos Combattants” (The Comfort, or Well-being, of the Wounded;
French-American Society for Our Soldiers), and is to exist throughout
the war and for six months after fighting ceases. Men in high places,
according to custom, became its sponsors, the War Office gave it a
“barrack” out at the Entrepôt des Dons, where all the big oeuvres have
their storehouses and a central bureau. The Paris banking house of
Munroe & Co. accepted the office of Treasurer and receives all
donations. _The address of this firm in New York is 30 Pine Street, and
any one who is kind enough to answer this appeal with a donation will
please send it there._
I will confess that I wandered in upon that preliminary meeting
quite by mistake, being under the impression that I had been invited
merely to have a cup of tea and some lively conversation, and that when
I found a committee was in process of formation I would have escaped if
I could. I had gone to France to write about the work of its women in
the war and in the hope of doing something for that great country in my
own way, but with the firm intention of not being drawn into any
organization. Possibly no one ever lived who hates sitting at a
committee table as I do. However, escape was impossible then or later;
and, by degrees, I became infected with their own enthusiasm. After my
visits to military hospitals in the war zone I promised Mme. d’Andigné
willingly enough that I would do what I could to put the thing through
in this country.
No oeuvre since the beginning of the war has been more important
than this. When a man has lost a quart or so of blood, after an
exhausting period in the trenches, or has undergone a severe operation,
the nerves of his stomach are in a supersensitive condition. But in
military hospitals the dietary kitchen contains nothing but milk and
eggs. Many people have a violent antipathy for both. Personally, I would
lie down and die before I would drink a glass of milk, and a recent
illness made me appreciate the fact that all the doctors in the world
could not have saved me if I had had no convalescent diet offered me but
milk and eggs.
Military discipline is inexorable. There are many hundreds of these
hospitals in the war zone, and there must be one rule for all. Thousands
can drink milk and eat eggs whether they like them or not, and no
exceptions may be made for those who would rather die of inanition than
touch either. A delicately built man in a trench receives no favor; he
must do his part or be dismissed as a Réformé Numero II., and in the
hospital a man must take the same chances. At the date of this writing
France is still expending two billion francs a month, and to impose a
further tax in behalf of an advanced dietary kitchen would possibly lead
to a misunderstanding with a large stolid class more than likely to
confuse “delicacies” with “luxuries.”
The French are the most economical of races, and the peasantry and
bourgeoisie have a fundamental antipathy to the word luxury. The lower
classes particularly have been too long accustomed to living on the
smallest possible amount and putting the rest into the family stocking
to sympathize with capricious appetites. Other nations are not
altogether dissimilar in this respect, and in all previous wars groups
of ladies have supplied military convalescents with the delicacies which
save so many lives and hasten recovery. But this war is on too vast a
scale. Beneficent ladies take care of the hospitals in Paris and the
provincial cities, but in that great district known as La Zone des
Armées, crowded with hospitals, but where so many of the towns are half
in ruins and largely evacuated by the inhabitants, where few if any of
the shops are open, it becomes a problem at times to find an orange to
satisfy the last craving of a dying man. No one who has not been in
those gray barren towns and villages of the war zone can imagine how sad
a tarrying place they are for wounded men too ill to be sent to Paris.
But if the military machine was forced to appear callous,
individually it recognized the necessity for a supplementary kitchen, if
many of its best men were to be saved to France. Last Spring the Service
de Santé (Health Department of the Ministry of War) asked Mme.
d’Haussonville to form a great oeuvre by whose means all the hospitals
in the military zone could be supplied by voluntary subscription with
the necessary delicacies. When one reads the list of these articles
demanded one may see plainly enough that they are delicacies, not
luxuries—chicken or beef broth, cocoa, farina for gruel, sugar,
biscuit, rice, canned fruits, jellies, preserves, oranges, sardines and
ham. Condensed milk, as it is in some cases more digestible than the
primitive, is also a welcome article.
No one knew better than Mme. Haussonville the mournful necessity
for these simple articles of diet, for she goes periodically into the
war zone on tours of hospital inspection. In many places a million
francs would not buy one of these things, although the nurses in chief
(Infirmière Majors) often sally out in desperation and try to buy out of
their own purses something that a sick man craves. One told me that she
had only two days before tried in vain to buy a few lumps of sugar in
Bar-le-Duc, a town of over 17,000 inhabitants before the war and noted
for its preserves. But sugar is scarce in France and very dear.