I was in Mons on the day of Armistice, and on the roads outside when I
heard the news that the Germans had surrendered to all our terms, and
that the “Cease Fire” would sound at eleven o’clock. It was a misty
morning, with sunlight glinting through the mist and sparkling in the
coppery leaves of autumn trees. There was no heavy bombardment in
progress round Mons--only now and then the sullen bark of a gun. The
roads were crowded with the usual transport of war--endless columns
of motor-lorries and horse-wagons, and mule-teams, crawling slowly
forward, and infantry battalions trudging alongside, with their heavy
packs. I stared into the faces of the marching men, expecting to
see joy in their eyes, wondering why they were not singing--because
to-day the guns would be silent and the fighting finished. Their packs
weighed heavy. The mud from passing lorries splashed them with great
gobs of filth. Under their steel hats the sweat ran down. They looked
dead-beat, and marched in a grim line of tired men. But I noticed
that the transport wagons were decorated with small flags, and these
bits of fluttering colour were stuck into the harness of gun-horses
and mules. From the other way came another tide of traffic--crowds of
civilians, who were middle-aged men and boys, and here and there women
pushing hand-carts, and straining forward with an eager, homing look.
The men and boys were carrying bundles, too heavy for many of them, so
that they were bent under their burdens. But each one had added the
last straw but one to his weight by fastening a flag to his bundle or
his cap. I spoke to some of them, and they told me that they were the
civilians from Lille, Valenciennes, and other towns, who had been taken
away by the Germans for forced labour behind the lines. Two days ago
the Germans had said, “We’ve no more use for you. Get back to your own
people. The war is over.”
They looked worn and haggard, like men who had been shipwrecked. Some
of the boys were weak, and sat down on the roadside with their bundles,
and could go no farther. Others trudged on gamely, with crooks which
they had cut from the hedges, and only stopped to cry “_Vivent les
Anglais!_” as our soldiers passed. I looked into many of their faces,
remembering the photograph of Edouard Chéri which had been given to
me by his mother. Perhaps he was somewhere in those troops of homing
exiles. But he might have been any one of those lanky boys in ragged
jackets and broken boots, and cloth caps pulled down over the ears.
Just outside Mons, at one minute to eleven o’clock, there was a little
desultory firing. Then, a bugle blew, somewhere in a distant field, one
long note. It was the “Cease Fire!” A cheer coming faintly over the
fields followed the bugle-call. Then there was no other sound where I
stood but the scrunching of wheels of gun-limbers and transport-wagons,
the squelch of mud in which horses and mules trudged, and the hard
breathing of tired men marching by under their packs. So, with a
curious lack of drama, the Great Adventure ended! That bugle had blown
the “Cease Fire!” of a strife which had filled the world with agony and
massacre; destroyed millions of men; broken millions of lives; ruined
many great cities and thousands of hamlets, and left a long wide belt
of country across Europe where no tree remained alive and all the
earth was ravaged; crowded the world with maimed men, blind men, mad
men, diseased men; flung Empires into anarchy, where hunger killed the
children and women had no milk to feed their babes; and bequeathed
to all fighting nations a heritage of debt beneath which many would
stagger and fall. It was the “Cease Fire!” of all that reign of death,
but sounded very faintly across the fields of France.
In Mons Canadian soldiers were being kissed by French girls. Women were
giving them wine in doorways, and these hard-bitten fellows, tough as
leather, reckless of all risk, plastered with mud which had worn into
their skins and souls, drank the wine and kissed the women, and lurched
laughing down the streets. There would be no strict discipline in Mons
that night. They had had enough of discipline in the dirty days. Let it
go on the night of Armistice! Already at midday some of these soldiers
were unable to walk except with an arm round a comrade’s neck, or round
the neck of strong peasant girls who screeched with laughter when they
side-slipped, or staggered. They had been through hell, those men. They
had lain in ditches, under frightful fire, among dead men, and bleeding
men. Who would grudge them their bit of fun on Armistice night? Who
would expect saintship of men who had been taught in the school of war,
taught to kill quick lest they be killed, to see the worst horrors of
the battlefield without going weak, to educate themselves out of the
refinements of peaceful life where Christian virtues are easy and not
meant for war?
“Come here, lassie. None of your French tricks for me. I’m
Canadian-born. It’s a kiss or a clout from me.”
The man grabbed the girl by the arm and drew her into a barn.
On the night of Armistice in Mons, where, at the beginning of the war,
the Old Contemptibles had first withstood the shock of German arms (I
saw their ghosts there in the market-place), there would be the devil
to pay--the devil of war, who plays on the passions of men, and sets
his trap for women’s souls. But I went away from Mons before nightfall,
and travelled back to Lille, in the little old car which had gone to
many strange places with me.
How quiet it was in the open countryside when darkness fell! The guns
were quiet at last, after four years and more of labour. There were no
fires in the sky, no ruddy glow of death. I listened to the silence
which followed the going down of the sun, and heard the rustling of the
russet leaves and the little sounds of night in peace, and it seemed as
though God gave a benediction to the wounded soul of the world. Other
sounds rose from the towns and fields in the deepening shadow-world of
the day of Armistice. They were sounds of human joy. Men were singing
somewhere on the roads, and their voices rang out gladly. Bugles were
playing. In villages from which the enemy had gone out that morning
round about Mons crowds of figures surged in the narrow streets, and
English laughter rose above the chatter of women and children.