RUNNING THE BLOCKADE
From my journal written during an attack of influenza at the Gare
Maritime in Calais:
Last night I left England on the first boat to cross the Channel after
the blockade. I left London at midnight, with the usual formality of
being searched by Scotland Yard detectives. The train was empty and
very cold.
"At half-past two in the morning we reached Folkestone. I was quite
alone, and as I stood shivering on the quay waiting to have my papers
examined a cold wind from the harbour and a thin spray of rain made
the situation wretched. At last I confronted the inspector, and was
told that under the new regulations I should have had my Red Cross
card viséed in Paris. It was given back to me with a shrug, but my
passport was stamped.
"There were four men round the table. My papers and I were inspected
by each of the four in turn. At last I was through. But to my disgust
I found I was not to be allowed on the Calais boat. There was one
going to Boulogne and carrying passengers, but Calais was closed up
tight, except to troops and officers.
"I looked at the Boulogne boat. It was well lighted and cheerful.
Those few people who had come down from London on the train were
already settling themselves for the crossing. They were on their way
to Paris and peace.
"I did not want Paris and certainly I did not want peace. I had
telegraphed to Dunkirk and expected a military car to meet me at
Calais. Once across, I knew I could neither telegraph nor telephone to
Dunkirk, all lines of communication being closed to the public. I felt
that I might be going to be ill. I would not be ill in Boulogne.
"At the end of the quay, dark and sinister, loomed the Calais boat. I
had one moment of indecision. Then I picked up my suitcase and started
toward it in the rain. Luckily the gangway was out. I boarded the boat
with as much assurance as I could muster, and was at once accosted by
the chief officer.
"I produced my papers. Some of them were very impressive. There were
letters from the French Ambassador in London, Monsieur Cambon, to
leading French generals. There was a letter to Sir John French and
another letter expediting me through the customs, but unluckily the
customs at Boulogne.
"They left him cold. I threw myself on his mercy. He apologised, but
continued firm. The Boulogne boat drew in its gangway. I mentioned
this, and that, so to speak, I had burned my Boulogne gangway behind
me. I said I had just had an interview with Mr. Winston Churchill, and
that I felt sure the First Lord of the Admiralty would not approve of
my standing there arguing when I was threatened with influenza. He
acted as though he had never heard of the First Lord.
"At last he was called away. So I went into a deck cabin, and closed
and bolted the door. I remember that, and that I put a life preserver
over my feet, in case of a submarine, and my fur coat over the rest of
me, because of a chill. And that is all I do remember, until this
morning in a grey, rainy dawn I opened the door to find that we were
entering the harbour of Calais. If the officers of the boat were
surprised to see me emerge they concealed it. No doubt they knew that
with Calais under military law I could hardly slip through the fingers
of the police.
"This morning I have a mild attack of what the English call 'flu.' I
am still at the hotel in Calais. I have breakfasted to the extent of
hot coffee, have taken three different kinds of influenza remedies,
and am now waiting and aching, but at least I am in France.
"If the car from Dunkirk does not come for me to-day I shall be
deported to-night.
"Two torpedo boats are coaling in the harbor. They have two large
white letters which answer for their names. One is the BE; the other
is the ER. As they lie side by side these tall white letters spell
B-E-E-R.
"I have heard an amusing thing: that the English have built duplicates
of all their great battleships, building them of wood, guns and all,
over the hulls of other vessels; and that the Germans have done the
same thing! What would happen if one of the 'dummy' fleets met the
other? Would it be a battle of expletives? Would the German consonant
triumph over the English aspirate, and both ships go down in a sea of
language?
"The idea is, of course, to delude submarines into the belief that
they are sinking battleships, while the real dreadnoughts are
somewhere else--pure strategy, but amusing, except for the crews of
these sham war flotillas."
* * * * *
The French Ambassador in London had given me letters to the various
generals commanding the divisions of the French Army.
It was realised that America knew very little of what the French were
doing in this great war. We knew, of course, that they were holding a
tremendous battle line and that they were fighting bravely. Rumours we
had heard of the great destruction done by the French seventy-five
millimetre gun, and the names of numerous towns had become familiar to
us in print, even when we could not pronounce them. The Paris
omnibuses had gone to the front. Paris fashions were late in coming to
us, and showed a military trend. For the first time the average
American knew approximately where and what Alsace-Lorraine is, and
that Paris has forts as well as shops and hotels.
But what else did we know of France and its part in the war? What does
America generally know of France, outside of Paris? Very little. Since
my return, almost the only question I have been asked about France is:
"Is Paris greatly changed?"
Yet America owes much to her great sister republic; much encouragement
in the arts, in literature, in research. For France has always
extended a kindly hand and a splendid welcome to gifted and artistic
Americans. But her encouragement neither begins nor ends there.
It was in France that American statesmen received the support that
enabled them to rear the new republic on strong and sturdy
foundations. It is curious to think of that France of Louis the
Sixteenth, with its every tradition opposed to the democracy for which
America was contending, sending the very flower of her chivalry to
assist the new republic. It is amazing to remember that when France
was in a deplorable condition financially it was yet found possible to
lend America six million dollars, and to exempt us from the payment of
interest for a year.
And the friendship of France was of the people, not alone of the king,
for it survived the downfall of the monarchy and the rise of the
French Republic. When Benjamin Franklin died the National Assembly at
Paris went into three days' mourning for "the great American."
As a matter of fact, France's help to America precipitated her own
great crisis. The Declaration of Independence was the spark that set
her ablaze. If the king was right in America he was utterly wrong at
home. Lafayette went back from America convinced that "resistance is
the most sacred of duties."
The French adopted the American belief that liberty is the object of
government, and liberty of the individual--that very belief which
France is standing for to-day as opposed to the nationalism of
Germany. The Frenchman believes, like the American, that pressure
should be from within out, not from without in. In other words, his
own conscience, and not the arbitrary ruling of an arbitrary
government, is his dictator. To reconcile liberty and democracy, then,
has been France's problem, as it has been that of America. She has
faced the same problems against a handicap that America has not
had--the handicap of a discontented nobility. And by sheer force and
determination France has won.
It has been said that the French in their Revolution were not reckless
innovators. They were confiding followers. And the star they followed
was the same star which, multiplied by the number of states, is the
American flag to-day--Liberty.
Because of the many ties between the two countries, I had urged on the
French Ambassador the necessity of letting America know a little more
intimately what was being done by the French in this war. Since that
time a certain relaxation has taken place along all the Allied lines.
Correspondents have been taken out on day excursions and have cabled
to America what they saw. But at the time I visited the French Army of
the North there had been no one there.
Those Americans who had seen the French soldier in times of peace had
not been greatly impressed. His curious, bent-kneed, slouching step,
so carefully taught him--so different from the stately progress of the
British, for instance, but so effective in covering ground--his loose
trousers and huge pack, all conspire against the _ensemble_ effect of
French soldiers on the march.
I have seen British regiments at ease, British soldiers at rest and in
their billets. Always they are smart, always they are military. A
French regiment at ease ceases to be a part of a great machine. It
shows, perhaps, more humanity. The men let their muscles sag a bit.
They talk, laugh, sing if they are happy. They lie about in every
attitude of complete relaxation. But at the word they fall in again.
They take up the slack, as it were, and move on again in that
remarkable _pas de flexion_ that is so oddly tireless. It is a
difference of method; probably the best thing for men who are Gallic,
temperamental. A more lethargic army is better governed probably by
rule of thumb.
I had crossed the Channel again to see the French and English lines.
On my previous visit, which had lasted for several weeks, I had seen
the Belgian Army at the front and the French Army in billets and on
reserve. This time I was to see the French Army in action.
The first step to that end, getting out of Calais, proved simple
enough. The car came from Dunkirk, and brought passes. I took more
influenza medicine, dressed and packed my bag. There was some little
regret mingled with my farewell to the hotel at the Gare Maritime. I
had had there a private bath, with a porcelain tub. More than that,
the tub had been made in my home city. It was, I knew, my last glimpse
of a porcelain tub, probably of any tub, for some time. There were
bath towels also. I wondered if I would ever see a bath towel again. I
left a cake of soap in that bathroom. I can picture its next occupant
walking in, calm and deliberate, and then his eye suddenly falling on
a cake of soap. I can picture his stare, his incredulity. I can see
him rushing to the corridor and ringing the fire bell and calling the
other guests and the strangers without the gates, and the boot boy in
an apron, to come and see that cake of soap.
But not the management. They would take it away.
The car which came for me had been at the front all night. It was
filled inside and out with mud, so that it was necessary to cover the
seat before I got in. Of all the cars I have ever travelled in, this
was the most wrecked. Hardly a foot of the metal body was unbroken by
shell or bullet hole. The wind shield had been torn away. Tatters of
curtain streamed out in the wind. The mud guards were bent and
twisted. Even in that region of wrecked cars people turned to look at
it.
Calais was very gay that Sunday afternoon. The sun was out. At the end
of the drawbridge a soldier was exercising a captured German horse.
Officers in scarlet and gold, in pale blue, in green and red, in all
the picturesqueness of a Sunday back from the front, were decked for
the public eye. They walked in groups or singly. There were no women
with them. Their wives and sweethearts were far away. A Sunday in
Calais, indifferent food at a hotel, a saunter in the sunlight, and
then--Monday and war again, with the bright colours replaced by sombre
ones, with mud and evil odours and wretchedness.
They wandered about, smoking eternal cigarettes and watching the
harbour, where ships were coaling, and where, as my car waited, the
drawbridge opened to allow a great Norwegian merchantman to pass. The
blockade was only two days old, but already this Norwegian boat had
her name painted in letters ten feet high along each side of her hull,
flanked on both sides by the Norwegian flag, also painted. Her crew,
leaning over the side, surveyed the quay curiously. So this was
war--this petulant horse with its soldier rider, these gay uniforms!
It had been hoped that neutral shipping would, by thus indicating
clearly its nationality, escape the attacks of submarines. That very
ship was sunk three days later in the North Sea.
Convalescent soldiers limped about on crutches; babies were wheeled in
perambulators in the sun; a group of young aviators in black leather
costumes watched a French biplane flying low. English naval officers
from the coaling boats took shore leave and walked along with the free
English stride.
There were no guns; everything was gaiety and brightness. But for the
limping soldiers, my own battered machine, and the ominous grey ships
in the harbour, it might have been a carnival.
In spite of the appearance of the machine it went northeast at an
incredible pace, its dried mud flying off like missiles, through those
French villages, which are so tidy because there is nothing to waste;
where there is just enough and no more--no extra paper, no extra
string, or food, or tin cans, or any of the litter that goes to make
the disorder of a wasteful American town; where paper and string and
tin cans and old boots serve their original purpose and then, in the
course of time, become flower-pots or rag carpets or soup meat, or
heaven knows what; and where, having fulfilled this second destiny,
they go on being useful in feeding chickens, or repairing roads, or
fertilising fields.
For the first time on this journey I encountered difficulty with the
sentries. My Red Cross card had lost its potency. A new rule had gone
out that even a staff car might not carry a woman. Things looked very
serious for a time. But at last we got through.
There were many aviators out that bright day, going to the front,
returning, or merely flying about taking the air. Women walked along
the roads wearing bright-coloured silk aprons. Here and there the
sentries had stretched great chains across the road, against which the
car brought up sharply. And then at last Dunkirk again, and the royal
apartment, and a soft bed, and--influenza.
Two days later I started for the French lines. I packed a small bag,
got out a fresh notebook, and, having received the proper passes, the
start was made early in the morning. An officer was to take me to the
headquarters of the French Army of the North. From there I was to
proceed to British headquarters.
My previous excursions from Dunkirk had all been made east and
southeast. This new route was south. As far as the town of Bergues we
followed the route by which I had gone to Ypres. Bergues, a little
fortified town, has been at times owned by the French, English,
Spanish and Dutch.
It is odd, remembering the new alignment of the nations, to see
erected in the public square a monument celebrating the victory of the
French over the English in 1793, a victory which had compelled the
British to raise the siege of Dunkirk.
South of Bergues there was no sign of war. The peasants rode along the
road in their high, two-wheeled carts with bare iron hoops over the
top, hoops over which canvas is spread in wet weather.
There were trees again; windmills with their great wings turning
peacefully; walled gardens and wayside shrines; holly climbing over
privet hedges; and rows of pollard willows, their early buds a reddish
brown; and tall Lombardy poplars, yellow-green with spring.
The road stretched straight ahead, a silver line. Nothing could have
been more peaceful, more unwar-like. Peasants trudged along with heavy
milk cans hanging from wooden neck yokes, chickens flew squawking from
the onslaught of the car. There were sheep here and there.
"It is forbidden to take or kill a sheep--except in self-defence!"
said the officer.
And then suddenly we turned into a small town and came on hundreds of
French omnibuses, requisitioned from all parts of France and painted a
dingy grey.
Out of the town again. The road rose now to Cassel, with its three
windmills in a row on the top of a hill. We drove under an arch of
trees, their trunks covered with moss. On each side of the highway
peasants were ploughing in the mud--old peasants, bent to the plough,
or very young boys, who eyed us without curiosity.
Still south. But now there were motor ambulances and an occasional
long line of motor lorries. At one place in a village we came on a
great three-ton lorry, driven and manned by English Tommies. They knew
no French and were completely lost in a foreign land. But they were
beautifully calm. They sat on the driving seat and smoked pipes and
derided each other, as in turn they struggled to make their difficulty
known.
"Bailleul," said the Tommies over and over, but they pronounced it
"Berlue," and the villagers only laughed.
The officer in the car explained.
"'Berlue,'" he said, "is--what do you Americans say--dotty? They are
telling the villagers they want to go crazy!"
So he got out and explained. Also he found out their road for them and
sent them off, rather sheepish, but laughing.
"I never get over the surprises of this war," said the officer when he
returned. "Think of those boys, with not a word of French, taking that
lorry from the coast to the English lines! They'll get there too. They
always do."
As we left the flat land toward the coast the country grew more and
more beautiful. It rolled gently and there were many trees.
The white houses with their low thatched roofs, which ended in a
bordering of red tiles, looked prosperous. But there were soldiers
again. We were approaching the war zone.