I
“Thank Heaven we are in a sane country at last!” was my thought when,
after struggling as best we could through terror-stricken France, my
companion and I crossed the Belgian frontier early in August 1914.
Such was the impression made by the calm confidence of a people
already meeting the German forces at the point where their
inadequately fortified boundaries had been treacherously attacked. The
impression may have been partly due to contrast with some days amid
the wild confusion and panic of Paris, where, almost devoid of funds
(since all letters of credit were valueless), we had existed, with
several other stranded travellers, on the charity, or rather faith,
of a prominent hotel proprietor. During that never-to-be-forgotten
sojourn in the famous capital, we had witnessed something resembling
the frenzied excitement of revolution days. The entire population,
expecting a repetition of the horrors of 1870, was in a fever of
alarm; distraction and tumult reigned on every side. Streets rang
night and day with the hysterical cries of newsvendors announcing
some unlooked-for lightning flash through the cloud of storm rapidly
spreading darkness over the world; echoed to the ceaseless tramp
of troops hurrying to the front, and with the shrieks and howls of
applause raised by half-maddened crowds thronging the thoroughfares.
Lightning alone can symbolize the rapid shocks that reached us, almost
hourly, during those first days. But, as these events are well known,
and their recital not an object of this account, they may be left to
the more able hands now, doubtless, engaged in presenting them as each
writer deems advantageous to his own nation.
Paris, representing the dazed and horrified condition of the whole
war-stricken country, indeed appeared mad at that time. “_C’est la
guerre!_” was the explanation of every eccentric act; every scarcity;
every failure to carry on business. All classes were in the streets,
gesticulating, arguing, or shouting wildly to the hastily-mustered
troops marching, gay and confident, toward a hell of horrors no
one then could even picture. “_C’est la guerre!_” came with dogged
bitterness from the lips of mothers, in whose eyes still lingered
the tears through which they had smiled farewell to sons they would
never see again—from the man behind the counter who absent-mindedly
regretted that he had not some article asked for, until it was pointed
out to him, in his stock, by a persistent client.
To the French “_La Guerre_” meant the pitiless monster of Bismarck’s
time, whose awful shadow still darkened the minds which could remember
Germany’s last subtly-planned and opportune onslaught. Although later
on, as all the world knows, France faced the situation with admirable
courage and a wonderful spirit of self-sacrifice and determination,
at that time her people appeared distraught by a calamity too little
provided against, and too appallingly suggestive of disaster to be
contemplated with the calm and faith quickly developed after the great
Marne victory.
That first awful period of consternation eloquently revealed how
little France had premeditated conflict with her neighbour, and makes
the ever-glorious and miraculous resistance of her and England’s
armies, against Germany’s superior forces and perfected equipment,
stand out as the one astounding marvel of the war.
When my companion and I were startled, while on a holiday expedition
in the French Alps, by the tocsin’s ominous tolling, we were as dazed
as were all others in the quiet Alpine hamlet so abruptly shaken from
its world-ignoring calm.
To us, descending from the eternal peace of snow-clad peaks, knowing
nothing of the menace that so rapidly rushed the mightiest of nations
into conflict such as the world has never before known, the scene of
despair awakened by that summons was inexpressibly affecting. We had
left the village in all the joy and prosperity of its gladdest season,
and returned to find its streets thronged with weeping and frenzied
women, neglected children, and pale-faced men, too stunned for speech.
It was as though some inexplicable cataclysm had struck the place,
turning a sane community mad; for at first the significance of that
slowly tolling bell was not clear to us. The appalling truth, however,
became quickly known, and we, with other aliens, were obliged, if
not provided with a _permis de séjour_, to leave the locality within
twelve hours and fly from France.
The journey to Paris of twenty-eight hours, side-tracked and shut
up as we were in a suffocatingly overcrowded carriage, without food
or water, was an experience not likely to be forgotten by anyone
who suffered it. It served as a preface to war; a preface which,
save for the lack of bloodshed, contained all the moral miseries
of battle—struggle, menace, suffering, and even the proximity of
death, for several children and women nearly perished of thirst and
suffocation.
As the Paris banks were also closed to foreign credit, we arrived
there to find no means of increasing our funds in hand—only sufficient
to cover the journey back to Brussels (our place of residence),
whither, after a much-needed night of repose, we expected to continue
our journey the following morning. But “_La Guerre_” willed otherwise!
All trains being monopolized for the transfer of troops, we, with
several American millionaires and other foreigners, were forced to
exist on trust, for a period that appeared indefinite, within the
palatial walls of the Grand Hotel.
Looking down from the safe enclosure of windows upon the dark tides
of passion and sorrow surging in the streets, it was comical, as
well as perplexing, to hear the discourse of these pampered darlings
of Fortune who, as yet, had no vaguest idea of war’s true meaning,
and seemed to look upon the surrounding agitation as little more
than a characteristic of excitable France. There was no definite
anxiety shown as to the possible consequences of the outbreak.
Its world-encircling terrors could only be foreseen by those who
understood the length and breadth of Germany’s ambitions. To the
Americans present it meant only a brief European conflict, to which
they and their country were in no way related and from which they were
anxious to fly with all possible speed. Some remarks there uttered
in facetious ignorance of the moment’s real gravity recur to me now
in strange contrast to the heartfelt intensity of America’s later
sympathy, and her slowly accumulating resentment toward the Powers
that made war more a shame to humanity than ever before in history.
“If this imprisonment goes on much longer, I really don’t know what I
shall do!” exclaimed the wife of a wealthy New York banker one day
as we sat in the sumptuous hotel drawing-room listening to the outer
roar; “I have only three francs and twenty centimes between me and
death!”
This tragic announcement, from a woman noted for her opulence, was
spoken with a mock gravity that called forth general laughter.
“Well, _I_ have just seventy-five centimes!” retorted another equally
wealthy dame. “If you will advance me one-fifty, I shall give you a
hundred per cent interest when we reach the land of liberty!”
“If we ever _do_ reach it!” was the joking reply. “No, dear lady, it
is far too dubious! I imagine we are here to stay until the Germans
are beaten!”
“Good gracious! don’t suggest such a thing!” exclaimed another. “That
would be _too_ appalling!”
“Oh, it will not be so long! If England comes in, we shall see the end
of war in a few weeks!”
“England! Don’t lay your hopes there—England will never come in!”
“She certainly will,” ejaculated the first speaker. “My husband says
if Belgium is violated, England will certainly have a hand in the
wicked business.”
“Germany is not likely to be so rash as to violate Belgium’s
neutrality,” remarked a man present; “but if she does, God help
France!”
“_And_ England!” muttered another.
“Well, all I know,” asserted one of the women, “is that Mr. F.—and
being a diplomat, he ought to know!—told me this morning it would be
folly for England to become embroiled. She isn’t prepared, and she has
no army.”
“She has a navy!”
“What use would a navy be against an inland country?” scornfully
retorted one of the women; then, as though weary of the folly of her
sex, turned to a man who had not yet spoken and asked: “What do _you_
think?”
He shrugged and replied rather disconsolately: “My dear lady, the
whole affair is too far beyond my comprehension for me to form any
opinion about it. Civilization has been dealt a blow that leaves
feeble intellects, like mine, too dazed to think!”
“But do you think England will come in?” persisted his questioner.
“She may and she may not,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “I fail to
see what she can accomplish, in her present condition, if she does.”
“Oh, she could be of great use!” exclaimed the banker’s wife. “She
could patrol us across the briny deep, and that is all I care about
at present! Dear me! if only our cars had not been requisitioned,
we might all have been on the sea by now! I do think it rather an
imposition to take what belongs to neutrals!”
“They probably never asked to whom the cars belonged,” returned the
man. “At a time like this, when every moment lost counts against them,
every vehicle for transporting troops is too urgently needed.”
“Oh, I suppose so!” the woman sighed, “but I just wish I had not left
mine in Paris. They might have had it and welcome, if they had allowed
me to get out first!”
“I can’t understand why _one_ train for foreigners can’t be run
through to Calais,” complained another. “There is no _system_—that is
the trouble!”
“System!” echoed the man. “How can there be system, in regard to
strangers, when the country is shaken as by an earthquake? The
most powerful military strength in the world, enhanced by all the
devices and war-machinery perfected by half a century of study and
preparation, is rushing to overwhelm her unsuspecting and unready
forces! What is your discomfort, or mine, or that of any individual,
when compared to the almost inevitable ruin threatening France? We can
only wait and be patient. Our trials are as nothing in comparison to
what every native of this country is now suffering.”
This silenced complaints, and the very typical conversation took a
more serious tone. Not one of us really understood the full gravity
of the catastrophe. It was too sudden and inexplicable. The sentiments
prevailing in Paris, at that time, were scarcely wiser than ours;
save that former experience—the trials of a war still remembered by
many—added the anguish of apprehension to incredulous amazement. We,
meanwhile, were more annoyed than frightened, and looked on the whole
matter with egoistic intolerance, angry that our plans should be
disturbed by so stupid an affair as international discord!
But as days passed, bringing the astounding information that Belgium
was likely to be invaded,—bringing also England’s protest, followed
by her entrance into the fray,—even we neutrals began to feel the
far-reaching shadow of evil.
There appeared no vaguest chance of getting away from distraught
Paris; and, hope of this being gradually eclipsed by sympathy for
the harassed people, a number of us offered our services to one of
the many Red Cross associations rapidly forming in all quarters
of the city. Not knowing what better to do, we entered a long,
unventilated hall, crowded with fashionably-attired women, mostly—in
this particular organization—stranded Americans eager to be of
use, rather than pine in idleness for the comforts of unattainable
homes. A hard-faced, very self-important Frenchwoman from one of the
hospitals addressed us, and for two hours we perspired in the hall’s
breathless atmosphere, while our nerves were racked by her piercing
voice uttering a volley of technical terms which not one in ten of her
auditors understood. We inscribed our names as would-be helpers, and,
anticipating an early departure for the front, provided ourselves with
literature likely to prepare us more quickly than the Frenchwoman’s
rapid flow of unintelligible speech.
Meanwhile, living on charity was beginning to fret those among
us whose financial standing was less widely known than that of
others with millions behind them. The entering of the hotel’s
vast dining-room to partake of meals we could not pay for became
embarrassing. One evening, to avoid this, my companion and I decided
to procure edibles and have a Bohemian meal in our own rooms. With
this in view, we set forth in search of such refreshments as we could
afford. But the soldiers and their friends had been before us; and, as
commercial traffic was at a standstill, new stock was not procurable
to replace what they had exhausted.
If the city had been for months under siege it could scarcely have
been more difficult to obtain food. Every _pâtisserie_ had been sold
out; even the _délicatessen_ shops were void and the proprietors
offensively curt in reply to our amazed inquiries.
“Why?” cried one, glaring personal hatred upon us. “We are in war!
_Voilà pourquoi!_ What do you expect? Next week we shall be starving,
with _les Allemands_ at our door!”
At another shop we secured two slices of cold ham, a bottle of olives,
yielded grudgingly, and, at still another, some cream-cheese. Butter
was invisible, and our search for bread in vain, until, after walking
miles, we obtained two stale rolls, all that remained of yesterday’s
stock, with the usual remark: “_C’est la guerre!_ What would you?”
Looking back, this seems incredible at so early a date; but so it
was, and demonstrated to what a state of panic the people were
brought. They appeared to suspect a German in everyone whose accent
was foreign, and my own probably was accountable for the ungracious
treatment we received.
The following morning, much to the general delight and surprise, glad
tidings reached us from the U.S. Embassy—a train was to leave next
day for Brussels! Although forbidden to take other luggage than a
hand-satchel, we willingly left our large pieces at the hotel, and
took our departure—quite forgetting that our names were inscribed as
first-aid to the wounded! However, as ignorant paupers would hardly
have been of much use, we and other destitute foreigners who fled at
the first chance, were doubtless rather a good riddance than a loss.
The journey proved almost normally rapid and comfortable; and, once in
Belgium, where financial difficulties would be remedied, we hoped to
give what little help we could to those so bravely preparing to check
the menaced invasion.