An Associated Press correspondent added this further bit of eyewitness
testimony under date of March 27:
"The French refugees of the better class departing from the zones of
actual operations are coming out clad in all their finery, which
represents the styles of four or five years ago. Then there are sturdy
peasants with wooden shoes and clumsily constructed clothes, riding in
vehicles drawn by horses or donkeys or in carts pushed by men, and some
are even in wheelbarrows. Upon these queer transports are stacked
strange assortments of personal belongings.
"There is deep pathos in all this, but none struck the correspondent
more forcibly than the appearance of a tiny girl who trudged in her
wooden shoes along a hard, dusty road, her eyes fastened anxiously upon
a dirty rag doll perched precariously at the top of household effects
which were being pushed along by an old man. This child was perhaps
representative of all the refugees--she was coming away with her most
cherished possession, her baby doll, and was prepared to guard it at all
costs; her aching feet were as nothing, so long as the doll was safe.
"These refugees are from the towns within the Somme battlefield and
adjoining it. All these villages have been emptied of their inhabitants.
So far as possible everything which might be of use to the Germans has
been removed. In particular, large numbers of cattle have been taken
away by the owners, who patiently drive the beasts on ahead of them
along the roads.
"There are few tears or hysterical outbreaks among the refugees, most of
whom are of the peasant class. They know they must go, and they seem to
be trusting implicitly in the British, but the misery in their eyes as
they turn from all they love to a world they do not know is touching.
Aged women clinging to the hands of little grandchildren, men stooped
with years, youths and maidens--all fall into a picture such as only a
catastrophe can produce."
Fifty members of the American Friends' unit of the Red Cross were in the
region of the great battle, at Ham, Liancourt, Esmery-Hallon,
Golancourt, and Gruny on the Somme and Aisne. These devoted workers,
with the aid of many Red Cross trucks that were rushed to them, helped
thousands of refugees to safety.
The French Government had several hundred tractor plows at work on the
stricken lands. The American relief units also had a few tractor plows
and other agricultural materials, all of which had to be abandoned to
the enemy. All members of relief units were reported safe.