|WHEN the history of the war is written at least three names of women
will be enshrined forever in the annals: Sister Julie, the fearless nun
of Gèrbéviller; that heroic woman who took the place of and acted as
mayor of Soissons when von Kluck's legions occupied and ravaged that
unfortunate little city; and Marcelle Semmer, a young girl of eighteen,
who showed such bravery and extraordinary fortitude in aid of France
as to win encomiums from both the British and French officers, who
recommended that she be decorated. She has just received both the ribbon
of the Legion of Honor, and the War Cross as reward.
M. L. L. Klotz, Deputy from the war-ravaged department of the Somme, has
told in glowing words the story of how at the outbreak of the war, these
noble women, left defenseless and at the mercy of the invaders, proudly
faced these savages and really defied them.
He told of Marcelle Semmer, a young orphan girl of eighteen, living in
the little village of Eclusier, near Frise on the river Somme, at the
beginning of the war.
This young girl who showed the most extraordinary bravery and fortitude
in the service of France, is perhaps but one of many others whose
stories may never be known to the world.
She was acting as bookkeeper and clerk in a factory, producing
phosphates, which had been founded by her father, an Alsatian refugee.
The invaders, driving back the Allies at Charleroi, captured the town,
taking many prisoners. The French fell back across a canal, near the
home of Marcelle Sem-mer, where there was a drawbridge. The heroic girl,
unmindful of her danger, succeeded in raising the drawbridge before the
enemy came up, and threw the lever into, the canal. Without this lever
the bridge could not be lowered again. The canal at this point was so
deep that the invading army could not ford it, and seeing the fleeing
figure of the girl, the soldiers fired volley after volley after her,
without once hitting her.
By this audacious act, Marcelle Semmer held back the advance of an
entire German army corps until the following day, for the Germans had
to await the arrival of their engineers before they were able to put
a temporary bridge in place, and this they made of boats, and pontoons
hastily constructed, thus consuming hours which were of great value in
enabling the hard-pressed French to escape from the hordes which far
outnumbered them.
In spite of the danger of detection, the young girl insisted upon
remaining in the village during its occupation by the Germans; happily
they did not recognize her as the girl who raised the drawbridge against
them or she would have been shot at once.
Near the factory where she worked was a shed covering a subterranean
passage leading to the phosphate mine. She succeeded in concealing the
entrance trap to this passage by means of some large tuns and bagging.
During the night she managed to conceal in this passage no less than
seventeen French soldiers who had been somehow left in the retreat from
the towns of Mons and Charleroi. Not only did she succeed in keeping
these men hidden, but she managed to secure for them both food and
peasant clothing, and aided them to get away to the French lines to
the south. Sixteen of these men succeeded in getting away, but one dark
night in a furious rainstorm while she was piloting the seventeenth to
a cross-country lane, she was detected by a sentry, who dragged both of
them before the German lieutenant.
In the examination before the Commandant at headquarters she defiantly
confessed to having aided the French soldiers to escape, crying out,
"Yes, I did it for France, and I shall do it again and again, if I am
able. Do with me what you will. I am an orphan, I have but one mother,
France! For her, my life!"
The Commandant promptly sentenced her to be shot. She was taken out
of the room into the courtyard, where they placed her against the wall
facing the firing squad, her arms tied behind her.
Suddenly French artillery opened upon the German lines at Eclusier.
Before the officer could give the word to fire upon the brave girl, a
shell fell in the courtyard, and in the confusion, wonderful to relate,
she escaped. While she had been assisting her fellow countrymen to
escape the French had crept up, and routed the invaders from their
position in the little town.
So Marcelle once more fled to the subterranean passage, and there
took up her quarters, rendering great service to the army, through her
knowledge of the surrounding country.
Between the lines of the opposing armies lay the river Somme, which
here in the vicinity of Eclusier and Frise spreads out into a pond with
marshy banks, and innumerable pitfalls and bogs. In these the soldiers
frequently lost their way, and here Marcelle found a way to help France
by her knowledge of the safe paths. Again and again she faced death;
finally she was captured while leading a squad of men across the bogs
to a trench at Frise. She was brought by the Germans to the village of
Frise, and there confined in the parish church, now, alas, a mass of
ruin. Once more her never departing good fortune was her salvation.
Almost before the door of her prison was fastened upon her, the French
artillery began a lively bombardment of Frise. One of the shells blew
a great hole in the wall of the little church, and out of this hole,
unperceived by her captors, Marcelle escaped, over the marshes and
through the tangled roads into the French lines.
Enabled to give most valuable information as to the numbers and guns
of the enemy, Marcelle's fame soon spread through the ranks. She was
mentioned in the dispatches, and received the Cross of the Legion
of Honor, and later, before the drawn up soldiers of the corps, she
received the War Cross.
She was so useful in this region of the Somme that she asked to be
allowed to remain at Frise to work for France, and so for a year and
a half, despite the turn of the war, she stayed on, taking care of the
wounded men, and protecting as far as possible women and children.
So beloved did she become that an English general ordered his soldiers
to salute her on passing, and to refrain from addressing her unless she
required it. Everywhere she went the soldiers both admired and honored
this young girl.
The loss of her brothers, who died fighting for France, and the strain
of her work told upon her health, and the doctors ordered her to Paris.
Here she asked to be allowed to work at the nurses' school and to aid
the wounded soldiers. To this the authorities assented, as she was thus
enabled to earn a livelihood, for all that she had was lost at Eclusier
when the mill was destroyed. In the great hall of the Sorbonne at Paris,
a short time ago Deputy Klotz (of the Somme) eulogizing this young girl,
suddenly stretched out his arms in dramatic gesture, electrifying the
great audience with these words:
"This little heroine of Picardy, this admirable girl; this incarnation
of the qualities of the women of France; this girl of simple origin,
flawless dignity, of serious mind and gentle ways; this girl of
indomitable will power is here, ladies and gentlemen, here among you, in
this room!
"And I feel that I am the spokesman for every one of you when I
now extend to her the expression of our respect, our gratitude, our
admiration!"
The vast audience, every man and woman of them, leaped to their feet, in
enthusiasm, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the heroine.
Through the great Hall of the Sorbonne, where the most famous men of the
world had been honored by France, swept a storm of cheers; a reward more
splendid than the Cross of the Legion of Honor, than the War Cross, than
the salutes of the soldiers at the front, had come to Marcelle Semmer,
of Eclusier.