household gods that lie among the ruins are objects familiar to us, and
the sight of them wrings our hearts even more. There is a child's
cradle, a humble piano of antiquated design, which has fallen upside
down from an upper story, and still conjures up the thought of old
sonatas played of an evening in the family circle.
And I remember to have seen, lying in the filth of a gutter, a
photograph reverently "enlarged" and framed, the portrait of a charming
old grandmother, with her hair in curl-papers. She must have been long
at rest in some burial vault, and doubtless the desecrated portrait was
the last earthly likeness of her that still survived.
The noise of the cannon comes nearer as we move on through these streets
in their death-agony, where, during a whole summer of desolation,
grasses and wild flowers have had time to spring up.
In the midst of the town stands a cathedral, a little older than that of
Rheims and very famous in the history of France. The Germans, to be
sure, delighted in making it their target, always under the same
pretext, with a stupid attempt at cleverness, that there was an
observation post at the top of the towers. A priest in a cassock
bordered with red, who has never fled from the shells, opens the door
for us and accompanies us.
It is a very startling surprise to find on entering that the interior of
the church is white throughout with the glaring whiteness of a perfectly
new building. In spite of the breaches which the barbarians have made in
the walls from top to bottom, it does not, at first sight, resemble a
ruin, but rather a building in course of construction, a work which is
still proceeding. It is, moreover, a miracle of strength and grace, a
masterpiece of our Gothic Art in the matchless purity of its first
bloom.
The priest explains to us the reason for this disconcerting whiteness.
Before the coming of the barbarians, the long task was scarcely
completed of exposing the under-surface of each stone in turn, so that
the joints might be more carefully repaired with cement; thus the grey
hue with which the church had been encrusted by the smoke of incense,
burnt there for so many centuries, had resolved itself into dust. It was
perhaps rather sacrilegious, this scraping away of the surface, but I
believe it helps to a better appreciation of the architectural beauties.
Indeed, under that unvarying shade of cinder-grey which we are
accustomed to find in our old churches, the slender pillars, the
delicate groining of the vaults, seem, as it were, made all in one, and
it might be imagined that no skill had been necessary to cause them
thus to soar upwards. Here, on the contrary, it is incomprehensible,
disconcerting almost, to see how these myriads and myriads of little
stones, so distinct each from the other in their renovated setting,
remain thus suspended, forming a ceiling at such a height above our
heads. Far better than in churches blurred with smoky grey is revealed
the patient, miraculous labour of those artists of old, who, without the
help of our iron-work or our modern contrivances, succeeded in bestowing
stability upon things so fragile and ethereal.
Within the basilica, as without, prevails an anguished silence,
punctuated slowly by the noise of cannon shots. And on the episcopal
throne this device remains legible, which, in the midst of such ruin,
has the force of an ironic anathema launched against the barbarians,
_pax et justitia_.
Walking among the scattered _debris_, I pick my way as carefully as
possible to avoid stepping on precious fragments of stained-glass
windows; it is pleasanter not to hear underfoot the little tinkle of
breaking glass. All the shades of light of the summer evening, seldom
seen in such sanctuaries, stream in through gaping rents, or through
beautiful thirteenth-century windows, now but hollow frameworks. And the
double row of columns vanishes in perspective in the luminous white
atmosphere like a forest of gigantic white reeds planted in line.
Emerging from the cathedral, in one of the deserted streets, we come
upon a wall covered with printed placards, which the shells seem to have
been at special pains to tear. These placards were placed side by side
as close together as possible, the margins of each encroaching upon
those of its neighbours, as if jealous of the space the others occupied
and all with an appearance of wishing to cover up and to devour one
another. In spite of the shrapnel which has riddled them so effectively,
some passages are still legible, doubtless those that were considered
essential, printed as they were in much larger letters so that they
might better strike the eye.
"Treason! Scandalous bluff!" shouts one of the posters.
"Infamous slander! Base lie!" replies the other, in enormous, arresting
letters.
What on earth can all this mean?
Ah yes, it is a manifestation of all the pettiness of our last little
election contests which has remained placarded here, pilloried as it
were, still legible in spite of the rains of two summers and the snows
of one winter. It is surprising how these absurdities have survived,
simply on scraps of paper pasted on the walls of houses. As a rule no
wayfarer looks at such things as he passes them, for in our day they
have become too contemptible for a smile or a shrug of the shoulders.
But on this wall, where the shells have ironically treated them as they
deserved, piercing them with a thousand holes, they suddenly assume, I
know not why, an air irresistibly and indescribably comic; we owe them a
moment of relaxation and hearty laughter--it is doubtless the only time
in their miserable little existence that they have at least served some
purpose.
To-day who indeed remembers the scurrilities of the past? They who wrote
them and who perhaps even now are brothers-in-arms, fighting side by
side, would be the first to laugh at them. I will not say that later on,
when the barbarians have at last gone away, party spirit will not again,
here and there, attempt to raise its head. But none the less in this
great war it has received a blow from which it will never recover.
Whatever the future may hold for us, nothing can alter the fact that
once in France, from end to end of our battle front and during long
months, there were these interlacing networks of little tunnels called
trenches. And these trenches, which seemed at first sight nothing but
horrible pits of sordid misery and suffering, will actually have been
the grandest of our temples, where we all came together to be purified
and to communicate, as it were, at the same holy table.
As for our trenches, they begin close at hand, too close alas! to the
martyred town; there they are, in the midst of the mall, and we make our
way thither through these desolate streets where there is no one to be
seen.
Everyone knows that almost all our provincial towns have their mall, a
shady avenue of trees often centuries old; this one was reputed to be
among the finest in France. But it is indeed too risky to venture
there, for death is ever prowling about and we can only cross it
furtively by these tortuous tunnels, hastily excavated, which are called
communication trenches.
First of all we are shown a comprehensive view of the mall through a
loophole in a thick wall. Its melancholy is even more poignant than that
of the streets, because this was once a favourite spot where formerly
the good people of the town used to resort for relaxation and quiet
gaiety. It stretches away out of sight between its two rows of elms. It
is empty, to be sure, empty and silent. A funereal growth of grass
carpets its long alleys with verdure, as if it were given up to the
peace of a lasting abandonment, and in this exquisite evening hour the
setting sun traces there row upon row of golden lines, reaching away
into the distance among the lengthening shadows of the trees. It might
be deemed empty indeed, the mall of this martyred town, where at this
moment nothing stirs, nothing is heard. But here and there it is
furrowed with upturned earth, resembling, on a large scale, those heaps
that rats and moles throw up in the fields. Now we can guess the meaning
of this, for we are well acquainted with the system of clandestine
passages used in modern warfare. From these ominous little excavations
we conclude at once that, contrary to expectations, this place of
mournful silence is populated by a terrible race of men concealed
beneath its green grass; that eager eyes survey it from all sides, that
hidden cannon cover it, that it needs but an imperceptible signal to
cause a furious manifestation of life to burst forth there out of the
ground, with fire and blood and shouts and all the clamour of death.
And now by means of a narrow, carefully hidden descent we penetrate
into those paths termed communication trenches, which will bring us
close, quite close, to the barbarians, so close that we shall almost
hear them breathe. A walk along those trenches is a somewhat unpleasant
experience and seems interminable. The atmosphere is hot and heavy; you
labour under the impression that people are pressing upon you too
closely, and that your shoulders will rub against the earthen walls; and
then at every ten or twelve paces there are little bends, intentionally
abrupt, which force you to turn in your own ground; you are conscious of
having walked ten times the distance and of having advanced scarcely at
all. How great is the temptation to scale the parapet which borders the
trench in order to reach the open air, or merely to put one's head above
it to see at least in which direction the path tends. But to do so
would be certain death. And indeed there is something torturing in this
sense of imprisonment within this long labyrinth, and in the knowledge
that in order to escape from it alive there is no help for it, but to
retrace one's steps along that vague succession of little turnings,
strangling and obstructing.
The heat and oppressiveness of the atmosphere in these tunnels is
increased by the number of persons to be met there, men in horizon blue
overcoats, flattening themselves against the wall, whom, nevertheless,
the visitor brushes against as he passes. In some parts the trenches are
crowded like the galleries of an ant-hill, and if it suddenly became
necessary to take flight, what a scene would ensue of confusion and
crushing. To be sure the faces of these men are so smiling and at the
same time so resolute that the idea of their flight from any danger
whatsoever does not even enter the mind.
As the hour for their evening meal approaches they begin to set up their
little tables, here and there, in the safest corners, in shelters with
vaulted roofs. Obviously it is necessary to have supper early in order
to be able to see, for certainly no lamps will be lighted. At nightfall
it will be as dark here as in hell, and unless there is an alarm, an
attack with sudden and flashing lights, they will have to feel their way
about until to-morrow morning.
Here comes a cheerful procession of men carrying soup. The soup has been
rather long on the way through these winding paths, but it is still hot
and has a pleasant fragrance, and the messmates sit down, or get as near
to that attitude as they can. What a strangely assorted company, and yet
on what good terms they seem to be! To-day I have no time to linger, but
I remember lately sitting a long time and chatting at the end of a meal
in a trench in the Argonne. Of that company, seated side by side, one
was formerly a long-named conscientious objector, turned now into a
heroic sergeant, whose eyes will actually grow misty with tears at the
sight of one of our bullet-pierced flags borne along. Near him sat a
former _apache_, whose cheeks, once pale from nights spent in squalid
drinking-kens, were now bronzed by the open air, and he seemed at
present a decent little fellow; and finally, the gayest of them all was
a fine-looking soldier of about thirty, who no longer had time to shave
his long beard, but nevertheless preserved carefully a tonsure on the
top of his head. And the comrade, who every other day did his best to
conserve this tell-tale manner of hairdressing, was formerly a
root-and-branch anticlericalist, by profession a zinc-maker at
Belleville.
We continue our way, still without seeing anything, following blindly.
But we must be near the end of our journey, for we are told:
"Now you must walk without making a sound and speak softly," and a
little farther on, "Now you must not speak at all."
And when one of us raises his head too high a sharp report rings out
close to us, and a bullet whistles over our heads, misses its mark, and
is lost in the brushwood, whence it strips the leaves. Afterwards
silence falls again, more profound, stranger than ever.
The terminus is a vaulted redoubt, its walls composed partly of clay,
partly of sheet-iron. This blindage has been pierced with two or three
little holes, which can be very quickly opened or shut by rapidly
working mechanism, and it is through these holes alone that it is
possible for us to look out for a few seconds with some measure of
safety, without receiving suddenly a bullet in the head by way of the
eyes.
What, have we only come as far as this? After walking all this time we
have not reached even the end of the mall. In front of us still extend,
under the shade of the elms, straight and peaceful, its desolate
grass-grown walks. The sun has blotted out the golden lines it was
tracing a moment ago, and twilight will presently be over all, and there
is still no sound, not even the cries of birds calling one another home
to roost; it is like the immobility and silence of death.
Looking in a different direction through another opening in the
sheet-iron, on the other bank (the right bank), scarcely twenty yards
away from us, quite close to the edge of the little river, of which we
hold the left bank, we notice perfectly new earth-works, masked by the
kindly protection of branches, and there, as in the mall, silence
prevails, but it is the same silence, too obviously studied, suspicious,
full of dread. Then someone whispers in my ear:
"It is _They_ who are there."
It is _They_ who are there, as indeed we had surmised, for in many other
places we had already observed similar dreadful regions, close to our
own, steeped in a deceptive silence, characteristic of ultra-modern
warfare. Yes, it is _They_ who are there, still there, well entrenched
in the shelter of our own French soil, which does not even fall in upon
them and smother them. Sons of that vile race which has the taint of
lying in its blood, they have taught all the armies of the world the art
of making even inanimate objects lie, even the outward semblance of
things. Their trenches under their verdure disguise themselves as
innocent furrows; the houses that shelter their staffs assume the aspect
of deserted ruins. They are never to be seen, these hidden enemies; they
advance and invade like white ants or gnawing worms, and then at the
most unexpected moment of day or night, preceded by all varieties of
diabolical preparations that they have devised, burning liquids,
blinding gas, asphyxiating gas, they leap out from the ground like
beasts in a menagerie whose cages have been unfastened. How humiliating!
After prodigious efforts in mechanics and chemistry to revert to the
custom of the age of cave-dwellers; after fighting for more than a year
with lethal weapons perfected with infernal ingenuity for slaughter at
long range to be found thus, almost on top of one another for months at
a time, with straining nerves and every sense alert, and yet all hidden
away under cover, not daring to budge an inch!
How horrible! I believe they were actually whispering in those trenches
opposite. Like ourselves they speak in low voices; nevertheless the
German intonation is unmistakable. They are talking to one another,
those invisible beings. In the infinite silence that surrounds us, their
muffled whispers come to us, as it were, from below, from the bowels of
the earth. An abrupt command, doubtless uttered by one of their
officers, calls them to order, and they are suddenly silent. But we have
heard them, heard them close to us, and that murmur, proceeding, as it
were, from burrowing animals, falls more mournfully upon the ear than
any clamour of battle.
It is not that their voices were brutal; on the contrary, they sounded
almost musical, so much so that had we not known who the talkers were we
should not have felt that shudder of disgust pass through our flesh; we
should have been inclined, rather, to say to them:
"Come, a truce to this game of death! Are we not men and brothers? Come
out of your shelters and let us shake hands."
But it is only too well known that if their voices are human and their
faces too, more or less, it is not so with their souls. They lack the
vital moral senses, loyalty, honour, remorse, and that sentiment
especially, which is perhaps noblest of all and yet most elementary,
which even animals sometimes possess, the sentiment of pity.
I remember a phrase of Victor Hugo which formerly seemed to me
exaggerated and obscure; he said:
"Night, which in a wild beast takes the place of a soul."
To-day, thanks to the revelation of the German soul, I understand the
metaphor. What else can there be but impenetrable, rayless night in the
soul of their baleful Emperor and in the soul of their heir apparent,
his ferret face dwarfed by a black busby with the charming adornment of
a death's head? All their lives they have had no other thought than to
construct engines for slaughter, to invent explosives and poisons for
slaughter, to train soldiers for slaughter. For the sake of their
monstrous personal vanity they organised all the barbarism latent in the
depths of the German race; they organised (I repeat the word because
though it is not good French alas! it is essentially German), they
"organised," then, its indigenous ferocity; organised its grotesque
megalomania; organised its sheep-like submissiveness and imbecile
credulity. And afterwards they did not die of horror at the sight of
their own work! Can it be that they still dare to go on living, these
creatures of darkness? In the sight of so many tears, so many torments,
such vast ossuaries, that infamous pair continue peacefully sleeping,
eating, receiving homage, and doubtless they will pose for sculptors and
be immortalised in bronze or marble--all this when they ought to be
subjected to a refinement of old Chinese tortures. Oh, all this that I
say about them is not for the sake of uselessly stirring up the hatred
of the world; no, but I believe it to be my duty to do all that in me
lies to arrest that perilous forgetfulness which will once again shut
its eyes to their crimes. So much do I fear our light-hearted French
ways, our simple, confiding disposition. We are quite capable of
allowing the tentacles of the great devil-fish gradually to worm their
way again into our flesh. Who knows if our country will not soon be
swarming again with a vermin of countless spies, crafty parasites,
navvies working clandestinely at concrete platforms for German cannon
under the very floors of our dwellings. Oh, let us never forget that
this predatory race is incurably treacherous, thievish, murderous; that
no treaty of peace will ever bind it, and that until it is crushed,
until its head has been cut off--its terrible Gorgon head which is
Prussian Imperialism--it will always begin again.
When in the streets of our towns we meet those young men who are
disabled, mutilated, who walk along slowly in groups, supporting one
another, or those young men who are blinded and are led by the hand, and
all those women, bowed down, as it were, under their veils of crape, let
us reflect:
"This is their work. And the man who spent so long a time preparing all
this for us is their Kaiser--and he, if he be not crushed, will think of
nothing but how he may begin all over again to-morrow."
And outside railway stations where men are entrained for the front, we
may meet some young woman with a little child in her arms, restraining
the tears that stand in her brave, sorrowful eyes, who has come to say
good-bye to a soldier in field kit. At the sight of her let us say to
ourselves:
"This man, whose return is so passionately longed for, the Kaiser's
shrapnel doubtless awaits; to-morrow he may be hurled, nameless, among
thousands of others, into those charnel-houses in which Germany
delights, and which she will ask nothing better than to be allowed to
begin filling again."
Especially when we see passing by in their new blue uniforms the "young
class," our dearly loved sons, who march away so splendidly with pride
and joy in their boyish eyes, with bunches of roses at the ends of their
rifles, let us consider well our holy vengeance against the enemy who
are lying in wait for them yonder--and against the great Accursed,
whose soul is black as night.
From that roofed-over redoubt where we are at present, whose iron flaps
we have to raise if we would look out, the mall is still visible with
its green grass; the mall, lying there so peaceful in the dim light of
evening. The barbarians are no more to be heard; they have stopped
talking; they do not move or breathe; and only a sense of uneasy
sadness, I had almost said of discouraged sadness, remains, at the
thought that they are so near.
But in order to be restored to hope and cheerful confidence, it is
sufficient to turn back along the communication trenches, where the men
are just finishing their supper in the pleasant twilight. As soon as our
soldiers are far enough away from those others to talk freely and laugh
freely, there is suddenly a wave of healthy gaiety and of perfect and
reassuring confidence.
Here is the true fountain-head of our irresistible strength; from this
source we draw that marvellous energy which characterises our attacks
and will secure the final victory. Very striking at first sight in the
groups around these tables is the excellent understanding, a kind of
affectionate familiarity, that unites officers and men. For a long time
this spirit has existed in the Navy, where protracted exile from home
and dangers shared in the close association of life on board ship
necessarily draw men nearer together; but I do not think my comrades of
the land forces will be angry with me if I say that this familiarity, so
compatible with discipline, is a more recent development with them than
with us. One of the benefits conferred upon them by trench warfare is
the necessity of living thus nearer to their soldiers, and this gives
them an opportunity of winning their affection. At present they know
nearly all those comrades of theirs who are simple privates; they call
them by name and talk to them like friends. And so, when the solemn
moment comes for the attack, when, instead of driving them in front of
them with whips, after the fashion of the savages over there, they lead
them, after the manner of the French, it is hardly necessary for them to
turn round to see if everyone is following them.
Moreover, they are very sure that, if they fall, their humble comrades
will not fail to hasten to their side, and, at the risk of their own
lives, defend them, or carry them tenderly away.
Now it is to this superhuman war, and especially to the common existence
in the trenches, that we owe the ennobling influence of this concord,
those sublime acts of mutual devotion, at which we are tempted to bend
the knee. And in part is it not likewise owing to life in the trenches,
to long and more intimate conversations between officers and men, that
these gleams of beauty have penetrated into the minds of all, even of
those whose intelligence seemed in the last degree unimpressionable and
jaded. They know now, our soldiers, even the least of them, that France
has never been so worthy of admiration, and that its glory casts a light
upon them all. They know that a race is imperishable in which the hearts
of all awaken thus to life, and that Neutral Countries, even those whose
eyes seem blinded by the most impenetrable scales, will in the end see
clearly and bestow upon us the glorious name of liberators.