diff options
Diffstat (limited to '15194.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 15194.txt | 4556 |
1 files changed, 4556 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/15194.txt b/15194.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f47206a --- /dev/null +++ b/15194.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4556 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Out To Win, by Coningsby Dawson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Out To Win + The Story of America in France + +Author: Coningsby Dawson + +Release Date: February 27, 2005 [EBook #15194] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT TO WIN *** + + + + +Produced by Rick Niles, William Flis, and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +OUT TO WIN + +THE STORY OF AMERICA IN FRANCE + +BY + +CONINGSBY DAWSON + +AUTHOR OF "THE GLORY OF THE TRENCHES," "CARRY ON: LETTERS IN WARTIME," +ETC. + + +NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD +MCMXVIII + + +Copyright, 1918, BY JOHN LANE COMPANY + +Press of J.J. Little & Ives Company New York, U.S.A. + + + + +TO + +MY AMERICAN FRIENDS AND BROTHERS-IN-ARMS THIS FRANK APPRECIATION OF +THEIR EFFORT IN FRANCE IS DEDICATED + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + A PREFACE FOR FOOLS ONLY 9 + + "WE'VE GOT FOUR YEARS" 29 + + WAR AS A JOB 61 + + THE WAR OF COMPASSION 109 + + THE LAST WAR 196 + + + + +A PREFACE FOR FOOLS ONLY + + +I am not writing this preface for the conscious fool, but for his +self-deceived brother who considers himself a very wise person. My +hope is that some persons may recognise themselves and be provided +with food for thought. They will usually be people who have +contributed little to this war, except mean views and endless talk. +Had they shared the sacrifice of it, they would have developed within +themselves the faculty for a wider generosity. The extraordinary thing +about generosity is its eagerness to recognise itself in others. + +You find these untravelled critics and mischief-makers on both sides +of the Atlantic. In most cases they have no definite desire to work +harm, but they have inherited cantankerous prejudices which date back +to the American Revolution, and they lack the vision to perceive that +this war, despite its horror and tragedy, is the God-given chance of +centuries to re-unite the great Anglo-Saxon races of the world in +a truer bond of kindness and kinship. If we miss this chance we are +flinging in God's face His splendid recompense for our common heroism. + +It is an unfortunate fact that the merely foolish person constitutes +as grave a danger as the deliberate plotter. His words, if they are +acid enough, are quoted and re-quoted. They pass from mouth to mouth, +gaining in authority. By the time they reach the friendly country +at which they are directed, they have taken on the appearance of an +opinion representative of a nation. The Hun is well aware of the value +of gossip for the encouraging of divided counsels among his enemies. +He invents a slander, pins it to some racial grievance, confides it +to the fools among the Allies and leaves them to do the rest. Some +of them wander about in a merely private capacity, nagging without +knowledge, depositing poison, breeding doubts as to integrity, and +all the while pretending to maintain a mildly impartial and judicial +mental attitude. Their souls never rise from the ground. Their +brains are gangrenous with memories of cancelled malice. They suspect +hero-worship; it smacks to them of sentiment. They examine, but +never praise. Being incapable of sacrifice, they find something +meretriciously melodramatic about men and nations who are capable. Had +they lived nineteen hundred years ago, they would have haunted Calvary +to discover fraud. + +Then, there are others, by far more dangerous. These make their +appearance daily in the morning press, thrusting their pessimisms +across our breakfast tables, beleaguering our faith with ill-natured +judgements and querulous warnings. One of our London Dailies, for +instance, specializes in annoying America; it works as effectively to +breed distrust as if its policy were dictated from Berlin. + +I have just returned from a prolonged tour of America's activities in +France. Wherever I went I heard nothing but unstinted appreciation +of Great Britain's surpassing gallantry: "We never knew that you +Britishers were what you are; you never told us. We had to come over +here to find out." When that had been said I always waited, for I +guessed the qualifying statement that would follow: "There's only +one thing that makes us mad. Why the devil does your censor allow the +P---- to sneer at us every morning? Your army doesn't feel that way +towards us; at least, if it ever did, it doesn't now. Are there really +people in England who--?" + +At this point I would cut my questioner short: "There are men so +short-sighted in every country that, to warm their hands, they would +burn the crown of thorns. You have them in America. Such men are not +representative." + +The purpose of this book is to tell what America has done, is doing, +and, on the strength of her splendid and accomplished facts, to plead +for a closer friendship between my two countries. As an Englishman who +has lived in the States for ten years and is serving with the +Canadian Forces, I feel that I have a sympathetic understanding of +the affections and aloofnesses of both nations; as a member of both +families I claim the domestic right of indulging in a little plain +speaking to each in turn. + +In my appeal I leave the fighting men out of the question. Death is +a universal teacher of charity. At the end of the war the men who +survive will acknowledge no kinship save the kinship of courage. To +have answered the call of duty and to have played the man, will make +a closer bond than having been born of the same mother. At a New York +theatre last October I met some French officers who had fought on the +right of the Canadian Corps frontage at the Somme. We got to talking, +commenced remembering, missed the entire performance and parted as old +friends. In France I stayed with an American-Irish Division. They were +for the most part American citizens in the second generation: few of +them had been to Ireland. As frequently happens, they were more Irish +than the Irish. They had learned from their parents the abuses which +had driven them to emigrate, but had no knowledge of the reciprocal +provocations which had caused the abuses. Consequently, when they +sailed on their troop-ships for France they were anti-British almost +to a man--many of them were theoretically Sinn Feiners. They were +coming to fight for France and for Lafayette, who had helped to lick +Britain--but not for the British. By the time I met them they were +marvellously changed. They were going into the line almost any day +and--this was what had worked the change--they had been trained for +their ordeal by British N.C.O.'s and officers. They had swamped their +hatred and inherited bitterness in admiration. Their highest hope +was that they might do as well as the British. "They're men if you +like," they said. In the imminence of death, their feeling for these +old-timers, who had faced death so often, amounted to hero-worship. It +was good to hear them deriding the caricature of the typical Briton, +which had served in their mental galleries as an exact likeness for +so many years. It was proof to me that men who have endured the same +hell in a common cause will be nearer in spirit, when the war is +ended, than they are to their own civilian populations. For in all +belligerent countries there are two armies fighting--the military +and the civilian; either can let the other down. If the civilian army +loses its _morale_, its vision, its unselfishness, and allows itself +to be out-bluffed by the civilian army of Germany, it as surely +betrays its soldiers as if it joined forces with the Hun. We execute +soldiers for cowardice; it's a pity that the same law does not govern +the civilian army. There would be a rapid revision in the tone of +more than one English and American newspaper. A soldier is shot +for cowardice because his example is contagious. What can be more +contagious than a panic statement or a doubt daily reiterated? Already +there are many of us who have a kindlier feeling and certainly +more respect for a Boche who fights gamely, than for a Britisher +or American who bickers and sulks in comfort. Only one doubt as +to ultimate victory ever assails the Western Front: that it may be +attacked in the rear by the premature peace negotiations of the +civil populations it defends. Should that ever happen, the Western +Front would cease to be a mixture of French, Americans, Canadians, +Australians, British and Belgians; it would become a nation by itself, +pledged to fight on till the ideals for which it set out to fight are +definitely established. + +We get rather tired of reading speeches in which civilians presume +that the making of peace is in their hands. The making may be, but the +acceptance is in ours. I do not mean that we love war for war's sake. +We love it rather less than the civilian does. When an honourable +peace has been confirmed, there will be no stauncher pacifist than +the soldier; but we reserve our pacifism till the war is won. We +shall be the last people in Europe to get war-weary. We started with +a vision--the achieving of justice; we shall not grow weary till that +vision has become a reality. When one has faced up to an ultimate +self-denial, giving becomes a habit. One becomes eager to be allowed +to give all--to keep none of life's small change. The fury of an +ideal enfevers us. We become fanatical to outdo our own best record +in self-surrender. Many of us, if we are alive when peace is declared, +will feel an uneasy reproach that perhaps we did not give enough. + +This being the spirit of our soldiers, it is easy to understand their +contempt for those civilians who go on strike, prate of weariness, +scream their terror when a few Hun planes sail over London, devote +columns in their papers to pin-prick tragedies of food-shortage, and +cloud the growing generosity between England and America by cavilling +criticisms and mean reflections. Their contempt is not that of the +fighter for the man of peace; but the scorn of the man who is doing +his duty for the shirker. + +A Tommy is reading a paper in a muddy trench. Suddenly he scowls, +laughs rather fiercely and calls to his pal, jerking his head as a +sign to him to hurry. "'Ere Bill, listen to wot this 'ere cry-baby +says. 'E thinks we're losin' the bloomin' war 'cause 'e didn't get an +egg for breakfast. Losin' the war! A lot 'e knows abart it. A blinkin' +lot 'e's done either to win or lose it. Yus, I don't think! Thank +Gawd, we've none of 'is sort up front." + +To men who have gazed for months with the eyes of visionaries on +sudden death, it comes as a shock to discover that back there, where +life is so sweetly certain, fear still strides unabashed. They had +thought that fear was dead--stifled by heroism. They had believed that +personal littleness had given way before the magnanimity of martyrdom. + +In this plea, then, for a firmer Anglo-American friendship I address +the civilian populations of both countries. The fate of such a +friendship is in their hands. In the Eden of national destinies God +is walking; yet there are those who bray their ancient grievances so +loudly that they all but drown the sound of His footsteps. + +Being an Englishman it will be more courteous to commence with the +fools of my own flesh and blood. Let me paint a contrast. + +Last October I sailed back from New York with a company of American +officers; they consisted in the main of trained airmen, Navy experts +and engineers. Before my departure the extraordinary sternness of +America, her keenness to rival her allies in self-denial, her willing +mobilisation of all her resources, had confirmed my optimism gained in +the trenches, that the Allies must win; the mere thought of compromise +was impossible and blasphemous. This optimism was enhanced on the +voyage by the conduct of the officers who were my companions. They +carried their spirit of dedication to an excess that was almost +irksome. They refused to play cards. They were determined not +to relax. Every minute they could snatch was spent in studying +text-books. Their country had come into the war so late that they +resented any moment lost from making themselves proficient. When +expostulated with they explained themselves by saying, "When we've +done our bit it will be time to amuse ourselves." They were dull +company, but, in a time of war, inspiring. All their talk was of when +they reached England. Their enthusiasm for the Britisher was such +that they expected to be swept into a rarer atmosphere by the closer +contact with heroism. + +We had an Englishman with us--obviously a consumptive. He typified for +them the doggedness of British pluck. He had been through the entire +song and dance of the Mexican Revolution; a dozen times he had been +lined up against a wall to be shot. From Mexico he had escaped to New +York, hoping to be accepted by the British military authorities. Not +unnaturally he had been rejected. The purpose of his voyage to the Old +Country was to try his luck with the Navy. He held his certificate as +a highly qualified marine engineer. No one could persuade him that +he was not wanted. "I could last six months," he said, "it would be +something. Heaps of chaps don't last as long." + +This man, a crock in every sense, hurrying back to help his country, +symbolised for every American aboard the unconquerable courage of +Great Britain. If you hadn't the full measure of years to give, give +what was left, even though it were but six months. I may add that +in England his services were accepted. His persistence refused to be +disregarded. When red-tape stopped his progress, he used back-stairs +strategy. No one could bar him from his chance of serving. + +In believing that he represented the Empire at its best, my Americans +were not mistaken. There are thousands fighting to-day who share his +example. One is an ex-champion sculler of Oxford; even in those days +he was blind as a bat. His subsequent performance is consistent with +his record; we always knew that he had guts. At the start of the war, +he tried to enlist and was turned down on the score of eyesight. He +tried four times with no better result. The fifth time he presented +himself he was fool-proof; he had learnt the eyesight tests by heart. +He went out a year ago as a "one pip artist"--a second lieutenant. +Within ten months he had become a captain and was acting +lieutenant-colonel of his battalion, all the other officers having +been killed or wounded. At Cambrai he did such gallant work that he +was personally congratulated by the general of his division. These +American officers had heard such stories; they regarded England with a +kind of worship. As men who hoped to be brave but were untested, they +found something mystic and well-nigh incredible in such utter courage. +The consumptive racing across the Atlantic that he might do something +for England before death took him, made this spirit real to them. + +We travelled to London as a party and there for a time we held +together. The night before several set out for France, we had a +farewell gathering. The consumptive, who had just obtained his +commission, was in particularly high feather; he brought with him a +friend, a civilian official in the Foreign Office. Please picture the +group: all men who had come from distant parts of the world to do one +job; men in the army, navy, and flying service; every one in uniform +except the stranger. + +Talk developed along the line of our absolute certainty as to complete +and final victory. The civilian stranger commenced to raise his voice +in dissent. We disputed his statements. He then set to work to run +through the entire argument of pessimism: America was too far away to +be effective; Russia was collapsing; France was exhausted; England had +reached the zenith of her endeavour; Italy was not united in purpose. +On every front he saw a black cloud rising and took a dyspeptic's +delight in describing it as a little blacker than he saw it. There was +an apostolic zeal about the man's dreary earnestness. He spoke with +that air of authority which is not uncommon with civilian Government +officials. The Americans stared rather than listened; this was not +the mystic and utter courage which they had expected to find well-nigh +incredible. Their own passion far out-topped it. + +The argument reached a sudden climax. There were wounded officers +present. One of them said, "You wouldn't speak that way if you had the +foggiest conception of the kind of chaps we have in the trenches." + +"It makes no difference what kind they are," the pessimist replied +intolerantly. "I'm asking you to face facts. Because you've succeeded +in an attack, you soldiers seem to think that the war is ended. You +base your arguments all the time on your little local knowledge of +your own particular front." + +The discussion ceased abruptly. Every one sprang up. Voices strove +together in advising this "facer of facts" to get into khaki and +to go to where he could obtain precisely the same kind of little +local knowledge--perhaps, a few wounds as well. His presence was +dishonourable--contaminating. We filed out and left him sitting humped +in a chair, looking puzzled and pathetic, murmuring, "But I thought I +was among friends." + +My last clear-cut recollection is of a chubby young American +Naval Airman standing over him, with clenched fists, passionately +instructing him in the spiritual geography of America. That's one +type of fool; the type who specialises in catastrophe; the type who in +eternally facing up to facts, takes no account of that magic quality, +courage, which can make one man more terrible than an army; the type +who is so profoundly well-informed, about externals, that he ignores +the mightiness of soul that can remould externals to spiritual +purposes. Were I a German, the spectacle of that solitary consumptive +leaving the climate which meant life to him and hastening home to give +just six months of service to his country, would be more menacing than +the loss of an entire corps frontage. + +And there's the type who can't forget; he suffers from a fundamental +lack of generosity. The Englishman of this type can't refrain from +quoting such phrases as, "Too proud to fight," whenever opportunity +offers. His American counterpart insists that he is not fighting for +Great Britain, but for the French. He makes himself offensive by +silly talk about sister republics, implying that all other forms of +Government are essentially tyrannic. He never loses an opportunity +to mention Lafayette, assuming that one French man is worth ten +Britishers. A very gross falsehood is frequently on the lips of this +sort of man; he doesn't know where he picked it up and has never +troubled to test its accuracy. I can tell him where it originated; at +Berlin in the bureau for Hun propaganda. Every time he utters it he is +helping the enemy. This falsehood is to the effect that Great Britain +has conserved her man-power; that in the early days she let Frenchmen +do the fighting and that now she is marking time till Americans are +ready to die in her stead. This statement is so stupendously untrue +that it goes unheeded by those who know the empty homes of England or +have witnessed the gallantry of our piled-up dead. + +Then there's the jealous fool--the fool who in England will see no +reason why this book should have been published. His line of argument +will be, "We've been in this war for more than three years. We've done +everything that America is doing; because she's new to the game, we're +doing it much better. We don't want any one to appreciate us, so why +go praising her?" Precisely. Why be decent? Why seek out affections? +Why be polite or kindly? Why not be automatons? I suppose the answer +is, "Because we happen to be men, and are privileged temporarily to be +playing in the role of heroes. The heroic spirit rather educates one +to hold out the hand of friendship to new arrivals of the same sort." + +There is one type of fool, exclusively American, whose stupidity +arises from love and tenderness. Very often she is a woman. She +has been responsible for the arrival in France of a number of +narrow-minded and well-intentioned persons; their errand is to +investigate vice-conditions in the U.S. Army. This suspicion of the +women at home concerning the conduct of their men in the field, is +directly traceable to reports of the debasing influences of war set in +circulation by the anti-militarists. I want to say emphatically that +cleaner, more earnest, better protected troops than those from the +United States are not to be found in Europe. Both in Great Britain and +on the Continent their puritanism has created a deep impression. By +their idealism they have made their power felt; they are men with a +vision in their eyes, who have travelled three thousand miles to keep +a rendezvous with death. That those for whom they are prepared to die +should suspect them is a degrading disloyalty. That trackers should +be sent after them from home to pick up clues to their unworthiness +is sheerly damnable. To disparage the heroism of other nations is +bad enough; to distrust the heroes of your own flesh and blood, +attributing to them lower than civilian moral standards, is to be +guilty of the meanest treachery and ingratitude. + +Here, then, are some of the sample fools to whom this preface is +addressed. The list could be indefinitely lengthened. "The fool hath +said in his heart, 'There is no God'." He says it in many ways and +takes a long while in saying it; but the denying of God is usually the +beginning and the end of his conversation. He denies the vision of +God in his fellow-men and fellow-nations, even when the spikes of the +cross are visibly tearing wounds in their feet and hands. + +Life has swung back to a primitive decision since the war commenced. +The decision is the same for both men and nations. They can choose the +world or achieve their own souls. They can cast mercenary lots for +the raiment of a crucified righteousness or take up their martyrdom +as disciples. Those men and nations who have been disciples together +can scarcely fail to remain friends when the tragedy is ended. What +the fool says in his heart at this present is not of any lasting +importance. There will always be those who mock, offering vinegar in +the hour of agony and taunting, "If thou be what thou sayest...." But +in the comradeship of the twilit walk to Emmaus neither the fool nor +the mocker are remembered. + + + + +OUT TO WIN + + + + +I + +"WE'VE GOT FOUR YEARS" + + +The American Troops have set words to one of their bugle calls. These +words are indicative of their spirit--of the calculated determination +with which they have faced up to their adventure: an adventure +unparalleled for magnitude in the history of their nation. + +They fall in in two ranks. They tell off from the right in fours. +"Move to the right in fours. Quick March," comes the order. The +bugles strike up. The men swing into column formation, heads erect +and picking up the step. To the song of the bugles they chant words as +they march. "We've got four years to do this job. We've got four years +to do this job." + +That is the spirit of America. Her soldiers give her four years, but +to judge from the scale of her preparations she might be planning for +thirty. + +America is out to win. I write this opening sentence in Paris where I +am temporarily absent from my battery, that I may record the story of +America's efforts in France. My purpose is to prove with facts that +America is in the war to her last dollar, her last man, and for just +as long as Germany remains unrepentant. Her strength is unexpended, +her spirit is un-war-weary. She has a greater efficient man-power +for her population than any nation that has yet entered the arena +of hostilities. Her resources are continental rather than national; +it is as though a new and undivided Europe had sprung to arms in +moral horror against Germany. She has this to add fierceness to her +soul--the reproach that she came in too late. That reproach is being +wiped out rapidly by the scarlet of self-imposed sacrifice. She did +come in late--for that very reason she will be the last of Germany's +adversaries to withdraw. + +She did not want to come in at all. Many of her hundred million +population emigrated to her shores out of hatred of militarism and to +escape from just such a hell as is now raging in Europe. At first it +seemed a far cry from Flanders to San Francisco. Philanthropy could +stretch that far, but not the risking of human lives. Moreover, the +American nation is not racially a unit; it is bound together by +its ideal quest for peaceful and democratic institutions. It was a +difficult task for any government to convince so remote a people that +their destiny was being made molten in the furnace of the Western +Front; when once that truth was fully apprehended the diverse souls +of America leapt up as one soul and declared for war. In so doing the +people of the United States forewent the freedom from fear that they +had gained by their journey across the Atlantic; they turned back in +their tracks to smite again with renewed strength and redoubled hate +the old brutal Fee-Fo-Fum of despotism, from whose clutches they +thought they had escaped. + +America's is the case of The Terrible Meek; for two and a half years +she lulled Germany and astonished the Allies by her abnormal patience. +The most terrifying warriors of history have been peace-loving nations +hounded into hostility by outraged ideals. Certainly no nation was +ever more peace-loving than the American. To the boy of the Middle +West the fury of kings must have read like a fairy-tale. The appeal to +armed force was a method of compelling righteousness which his entire +training had taught him to view with contempt as obsolete. Yet never +has any nation mobilised its resources more efficiently, on so titanic +a scale, in so brief a space of time to re-establish justice with +armed force. The outraged ideal which achieved this miracle was the +denial by the Hun of the right of every man to personal liberty and +happiness. + +Few people guessed that America would fling her weight so utterly into +the winning of the Allied cause. Those who knew her best thought it +scarcely possible. Germany, who believed she knew her, thought it +least of all. German statesmen argued that America had too much to +lose by such a decision--too little to gain; the task of transporting +men and materials across three thousand miles of ocean seemed +insuperable; the differing traditions of her population would make it +impossible for her to concentrate her will in so unusual a direction. +Basing their arguments on a knowledge of the deep-seated selfishness +of human nature, Hun statesmen were of the fixed opinion that no +amount of insult would compel America to take up the sword. + +Two and a half years before, those same statesmen made the same +mistake with regard to Great Britain and her Dominions. The British +were a race of shop-keepers; no matter how chivalrous the call, +nothing would persuade them to jeopardise their money-bags. If they +did for once leap across their counters to become Sir Galahads, then +the Dominions would seize that opportunity to secure their own base +safety and to fling the Mother Country out of doors. The British gave +these students of selfishness a surprise from which their military +machine has never recovered, when the "Old Contemptibles" held up the +advance of the Hun legions and won for Europe a breathing-space. The +Dominions gave them a second lesson in magnanimity when Canada's lads +built a wall with their bodies to block the drive at Ypres. America +refuted them for the third time, when she proved her love of +world-liberty greater than her affection for the dollar, bugling +across the Atlantic her shrill challenge to mailed bestiality. Germany +has made the grave mistake of estimating human nature at its lowest +worth as she sees it reflected in her own face. In every case, in +her judgment of the two great Anglo-Saxon races, she has been at +fault through over-emphasising their capacity for baseness and +under-estimating their capacity to respond to an ideal. It was an +ideal that led the Pilgrim Fathers westward; after more than two +hundred years it is an ideal which pilots their sons home again, +racing through danger zones in their steel-built greyhounds that they +may lay down their lives in France. + +In view of the monumental stupidity of her diplomacy Germany has found +it necessary to invent explanations. The form these have taken as +regards America has been the attributing of fresh low motives. Her +object at first was to prove to the world at large how very little +difference America's participation in hostilities would make. When +America tacitly negatived this theory by the energy with which she +raised billions and mobilised her industries, Hun propagandists, by +an ingenious casuistry, spread abroad the opinion that these mighty +preparations were a colossal bluff which would redound to Germany's +advantage. They said that President Wilson had bided his time so that +his country might strut as a belligerent for only the last six months, +and so obtain a voice in the peace negotiations. He did not intend +that America should fight, and was only getting his armies ready that +they might enforce peace when the Allies were exhausted and already +counting on Americans manning their trenches. Inasmuch as his country +would neither have sacrificed nor died, he would be willing to give +Germany better terms; therefore America's apparent joining of the +Allies was a camouflage which would turn out an advantage to Germany. +This lie, with variations, has spread beyond the Rhine and gained +currency in certain of the neutral nations. + +Four days after President Wilson's declaration of war the Canadians +captured Vimy Ridge. As the Hun prisoners came running like scared +rabbits through the shell-fire, we used to question them as to +conditions on their side of the line. Almost the first question that +was asked was, "What do you think about the United States?" By far the +most frequent reply was, "We have submarines; the United States will +make no difference." The answer was so often in the same formula that +it was evident the men had been schooled in the opinion. It was only +the rare man of education who said, "It is bad--very bad; the worst +mistake we have made." + +We, in the front-line, were very far from appreciating America's +decision at its full value. For a year we had had the upper-hand of +the Hun. To use the language of the trenches, we knew that we could go +across No Man's Land and "beat him up" any time we liked. To tell the +truth, many of us felt a little jealous that when, after two years of +punishment, we had at last become top-dog, we should be called upon +to share the glory of victory with soldiers of the eleventh hour. We +believed that we were entirely capable of finishing the job without +further aid. My own feeling, as an Englishman living in New York, was +merely one of relief--that now, when war was ended, I should be able +to return to friends of whom I need not be ashamed. To what extent +America's earnestness has changed that sentiment is shown by the +expressed desire of every Canadian, that if Americans are anywhere on +the Western Front, they ought to be next to us in the line. "They are +of our blood," we say; "they will carry on our record." Only those +who have had the honour to serve with the Canadian Corps and know its +dogged adhesion to heroic traditions, can estimate the value of this +compliment. + +I should say that in the eyes of the combatant, after President +Wilson, Mr. Ford has done more than any other one man to interpret the +spirit of his nation; our altered attitude towards him typifies our +altered attitude towards America. Mr. Ford, the impassioned pacifist, +sailing to Europe in his ark of peace, staggered our amazement. +Mr. Ford, still the impassioned pacifist, whose aeroplane engines +will help to bomb the Hun's conscience into wakefulness, staggers +our amazement but commands our admiration. We do not attempt to +understand or reconcile his two extremes of conduct, but as fighters +we appreciate the courage of soul that made him "about turn" to +search for his ideal in a painful direction when the old friendly +direction had failed. Here again it is significant that both with +regard to individuals and nations, Germany's sternest foes are +war-haters--war-haters to such an extent that their principles at +times have almost shipwrecked their careers. In England our example is +Lloyd George. Throughout the Anglo-Saxon world the slumbering spirit +of Cromwell's Ironsides has sprung to life, reminding the British +Empire and the United States of their common ancestry. After a hundred +and forty years of drifting apart, we stand side by side like our +forefathers, the fighting pacifists at Naseby; like them, having +failed to make men good with words, we will hew them into virtue with +the sword. + +At the end of June I went back to Blighty wounded. One of my most +vivid recollections of the time that followed is an early morning +in July; it must have been among the first of the days that I was +allowed out of hospital. London was green and leafy. The tracks of +the tramways shone like silver in the sunlight. There was a spirit of +release and immense good humour abroad. My course followed the river +on the south side, all a-dance with wind and little waves. As I +crossed the bridge at Westminster I became aware of an atmosphere +of expectation. Subconsciously I must have been noticing it for some +time. Along Whitehall the pavements were lined with people, craning +their necks, joking and jostling, each trying to better his place. +Trafalgar Square was jammed with a dense mass of humanity, through +which mounted police pushed their way solemnly, like beadles in a vast +unroofed cathedral. Then for the first time I noticed what I ought +to have noticed long before, that the Stars and Stripes were +exceptionally prevalent. Upon inquiry I was informed that this was the +day on which the first of the American troops were to march. I picked +up with a young officer or the Dublin Fusiliers and together we +forced our way down Pall Mall to the office of The Cecil Rhodes Oxford +Scholars' Foundation. From here we could watch the line of march from +Trafalgar Square to Marlborough House. While we waited, I scanned the +group-photographs on the walls, some of which contained portraits of +German Rhodes Scholars with whom I had been acquainted. I remembered +how they had always spent their vacations in England, assiduously +bicycling to the most unexpected places. In the light of later +developments I thought I knew the reason. + +Suddenly, far away bands struck up. We thronged the windows, leaning +out that we might miss nothing. Through the half mile of people +that stretched between us and the music a shudder of excitement was +running. Then came cheers--the deep-throated babel of men's voices and +the shrill staccato of women's. "They're coming," some one cried; then +I saw them. + +I forget which regiment lead. The Coldstreams were there, the Scotch +and Welsh Guards, the Irish Guards with their saffron kilts and green +ribbons floating from their bag-pipes. A British regimental band +marched ahead of each American regiment to do it honour. Down the +sunlit canyon of Pall Mall they swung to the tremendous cheering +of the crowd. Quite respectable citizens had climbed lamp-posts and +railings, and were waving their hats. I caught the words that were +being shouted, "Are we downhearted?" Then, in a fierce roar of denial, +"No!" It was a wonderful ovation--far more wonderful than might have +been expected from a people who had grown accustomed to the sight of +troops during the last three years. The genuineness of the welcome +was patent; it was the voice of England that was thundering along the +pavements. + +I was anxious to see the quality of the men which America had sent. +They drew near; then I saw them plainly. They were fine strapping +chaps, broad of shoulder and proudly independent. They were not +soldiers yet; they were civilians who had been rushed into khaki. +Their equipment was of every kind and sort and spoke eloquently of the +hurry in which they had been brought together. That meant much to us +in London-much more than if they had paraded with all the "spit and +polish" of the crack troops who led them. It meant to us that America +was doing her bit at the earliest date possible. + +The other day, here in France, I met an officer of one of those +battalions; he told me the Americans' side of the story. They were +expert railroad troops, picked out of civilian life and packed off +to England without any pretence at military training. When they +were informed that they were to be the leading feature in a London +procession, many of them even lacked uniforms. With true American +democracy of spirit, the officers stripped their rank-badges from +their spare tunics and lent them to the privates, who otherwise could +not have marched. + +"I'm satisfied," my friend said, "that there were Londoners so doggone +hoarse that night that they couldn't so much as whisper." + +What impressed the men most of all was the King's friendly greeting of +them at Buckingham Palace. There were few of them who had ever seen +a king before. "Friendly--that's the word! From the King downwards +they were all so friendly. It was more like a family party than a +procession; and on the return journey, when we marched at ease, old +ladies broke up our formations to kiss us. Nice and grandmotherly of +them we thought." + +This, as I say, I learnt later in France; at the time I only knew +that the advance-guard of millions was marching. As I watched them +my eyes grew misty. Troops who have already fought no longer stir +me; they have exchanged their dreams of glory for the reality of +sacrifice--they know to what they may look forward. But untried troops +have yet to be disillusioned; dreams of the pomp of war are still in +their eyes. They have not yet owned that they are merely going out to +die obscurely. + +That day made history. It was then that England first vividly realised +that America was actually standing shoulder to shoulder at her side. +In making history it obliterated almost a century and a half of +misunderstanding. I believe I am correct in saying that the last +foreign troops to march through London were the Hessians, who fought +against America in the Revolution, and that never before had foreign +volunteers marched through England save as conquerors. + +On my recovery I was sent home on sick leave and spent a month in New +York. No one who has not been there since America joined the Allies +can at all realise the change that has taken place. It is a change +of soul, which no statistics of armaments can photograph. America +has come into the war not only with her factories, her billions +and her man-power, but with her heart shining in her eyes. All her +spread-eagleism is gone. All her aggressive industrial ruthlessness +has vanished. With these has been lost her youthful contempt for older +civilisations, whom she was apt to regard as decaying because they +sent her emigrants. She has exchanged her prejudices for admiration +and her grievances for kindness. Her "Hats off" attitude to France, +England, Belgium and to every nation that has shed blood for the cause +which now is hers, was a thing which I had scarcely expected; it was +amazing. As an example of how this attitude is being interpreted +into action, school-histories throughout the United States are being +re-written, so that American children of the future may be trained in +friendship for Great Britain, whereas formerly stress was laid on the +hostilities of the eighteenth century which produced the separation. +As a further example, many American boys, who for various reasons were +not accepted by the military authorities in their own country, have +gone up to Canada to join. + +One such case is typical. Directly it became evident that America was +going into the war, one boy, with whom I am acquainted, made up his +mind to be prepared to join. He persuaded his father to allow him +to go to a Flying School to train as a pilot. Having obtained his +certificate, he presented himself for enlistment and was turned down +on the ground that he was lacking in a sense of equipoise. Being too +young for any other branch of the service, he persuaded his family to +allow him to try his luck in Canada. Somehow, by hook or by crook, he +had to get into the war. The Royal Flying Corps accepted him with the +proviso that he must take out his British naturalisation papers. +This changing of nationality was a most bitter pill for his family to +swallow. The boy had done his best to be a soldier; he was the eldest +son, and there they would willingly have had the matter rest. Moreover +they could compel the matter to rest there, for, being under age, he +could not change his nationality without his father's consent. It was +his last desperate argument that turned the decision in his favour, +"If it's a choice between my honour and my country, I choose my honour +every time." So now he's a Britisher, learning "spit and polish" and +expecting to bring down a Hun almost any day. + +One noticed in almost the smallest details how deeply America had +committed her conscience to her new undertaking. While in England +we grumble about a food-control which is absolutely necessary to our +preservation, America is voluntarily restricting herself not for her +own sake, but for the sake of the Allies. They say that they are +being "Hooverized," thus coining a new word out of Mr. Hoover's name. +Sometimes these Hooverish practices produce contrasts which are rather +quaint. I went to stay with a friend who had just completed as his +home an exact reproduction of a palace in Florence. Whoever went +short, there was little that he could not afford. At our meals I +noticed that I was the only person who was served with butter and +sugar, and enquired why. "It's all right for you," I was told; "you're +a soldier; but if we eat butter and sugar, some of the Allies who +really need them will have to go short." A small illustration, but one +that is typical of a national, sacrificial, underlying thought. + +Later I met with many instances of the various forms in which this +thought is taking shape. I was in America when the Liberty War Loan +was so amazingly over-subscribed. I saw buses, their roofs crowded +with bands and orators, doing the tour of street-corners. Every store +of any size, every railroad, every bank and financial corporation had +set for its employes and customers the ideal sum which it considered +that they personally ought to subscribe. This ideal sum was recorded +on the face of a clock, hung outside the building. As the gross +amount actually collected increased, the hands were seen to revolve. +Everything that eloquence and ingenuity could devise was done to +gather funds for the war. Big advertisers made a gift of their +newspaper space to the nation. There were certain public-spirited men +who took up blocks of war-bonds, making the request that no interest +should be paid. You went to a theatre; during the interval actors and +actresses sold war-certificates, harangued the audience and set the +example by their own purchases. + +When the Liberty War Loan had been raised, the Red Cross started its +great national drive, apportioning the necessary grand total among all +the cities from sea-board to sea-board, according to their wealth and +population. + +One heard endless stories of the variety of efforts being made. +America had committed her heart to the Allies with an abandon which it +is difficult to describe. Young society girls, who had been brought +up in luxury and protected from ugliness all their lives, were banding +themselves into units, supplying the money, hiring the experts, and +coming over themselves to France to look after refugees' babies. +Others were planning to do reconstruction work in the devastated +districts immediately behind the battle-line. I met a number of these +enthusiasts before they sailed; I have since seen them at work in +France. What struck me at the time was their rose-leaf frailness and +utter unsuitability for the task. I could guess the romantic visions +which tinted their souls to the colour of sacrifice; I also knew +what refugees and devastated districts look like. I feared that the +discrepancy between the dream and the reality would doom them to +disillusion. + +During the month that I was in America I visited several of the camps. +The first draft army had been called. The first call gave the country +seven million men from which to select. I was surprised to find that +in many camps, before military training could commence, schools in +English had to be started to ensure the men's proper understanding of +commands. This threw a new light on the difficulties Mr. Wilson had +had to face in coming into the war. + +The men of the draft army represent as many nationalities, dialects +and race-prejudices as there are in Europe. They are a Europe +expatriated. During their residence in America a great many of them +have lived in communities where their own language is spoken, and +their own customs are maintained. Frequently they have their own +newspapers, which foster their national exclusiveness, and reflect the +hatreds and affections of the country from which they emigrated. These +conditions set up a barrier between them and current American opinion +which it was difficult for the authorities at Washington to cross. The +people who represented neutral European nations naturally were anxious +for the neutrality of America. The people who represented the Central +Powers naturally were against America siding with the Allies. The only +way of re-directing their sympathies was by means of education and +propaganda; this took time, especially when they were separated from +the truth by the stumbling block of language. For three years they +had to be persuaded that they were no longer Poles, Swedes, Germans, +Finns, Norwegians, but first and last Americans. I mention this here, +in connection with the teaching of the draft army English, because it +affords one of the most vivid and comprehensible reasons for America's +long delay. + +What brought America into the war? I have often been asked the +question; in answering it I always feel that I am giving only a +partial answer. On the one hand there is the record of her two and a +half years of procrastination, on the other the titanic upspringing +of her warrior-spirit, which happened almost in a day. How can one +reconcile the multitudinous pacific notes which issued from Washington +with the bugle-song to which the American boys march: "We've got four +years to do this job." The cleavage between the two attitudes is too +sharp for the comprehension of other nations. + +The first answer which I shall give is entirely sane and will be +accepted by the rankest cynic. America came into the war at the moment +she realised that her own national life was endangered. Her leaders +realised this months before her masses could be persuaded. The +political machinery of the United States is such that no Government +would dare to commence hostilities unless it was assured that its +decision was the decision of the entire nation. That the Government +might have this assurance, Mr. Wilson had to maintain peace long after +the intellect of America had declared for war, while he educated +the cosmopolitan citizenship of his country into a knowledge of Hun +designs. The result was that he created the appearance of having been +pushed into hostilities by the weight of public opinion. + +For many months the Secret Service agents of the States, aided by the +agents of other nations, were unravelling German plots and collecting +data of treachery so irrefutable that it had to be accepted. When all +was ready the first chapters of the story were divulged. They were +divulged almost in the form of a serial novel, so that the man who +read his paper to-day and said, "No doubt that isolated item is true, +but it doesn't incriminate the entire German nation," next day on +opening his paper, found further proof and was forced to retreat to +more ingenious excuses. One day he was informed of Germany's abuse of +neutral embassies and mail-bags; the next of the submarine bases in +Mexico, prepared as a threat against American shipping; the day after +that the whole infamous story of how Berlin had financed the Mexican +Revolution. Germany's efforts to provoke an American-Japanese war +leaked out, her attempts to spread disloyalty among German-Americans, +her conspiracies for setting fire to factories and powder-plants, +including the blowing up of bridges and the Welland Canal. Quietly, +circumstantially, without rancour, the details were published of +the criminal spider-web woven by the Dernburgs, Bernstorffs and Von +Papens, accredited creatures of the Kaiser, who with Machiavellian +smiles had professed friendship for those whom their hands itched to +slay and strangle. Gradually the camouflage of bovine geniality was +lifted from the face of Germany and the dripping fangs of the Blonde +Beast were displayed--the Minotaur countenance of one glutted +with human flesh, weary with rape and rapine, but still tragically +insatiable and lusting for the new sensation of hounding America to +destruction. + +I have not placed these revelations in their proper sequence; some +were made after war had been declared. They had the effect of changing +every decent American into a self-appointed detective. The weight +of evidence put Germany's perfidy beyond dispute; clues to new and +endless chains of machinations were discovered daily. The Hun had come +as a guest into America's house with only one intent--to do murder as +soon as the lights were out. + +The anger which these disclosures produced knew no bounds. Hun +apologists--the type of men who invariably believe that there is a +good deal to be said on both sides--quickly faded into patriots. There +had been those who had cried out for America's intervention from the +first day that Belgium's neutrality had been violated. Many of these, +losing patience, had either enlisted in Canada or were already in +France on some errand of mercy. Their cry had reached Washington at +first only as a whisper, very faint and distant. Little by little that +cry had swelled, till it became the nation's voice, angry, insistent, +not to be disregarded. The most convinced humanitarian, together with +the sincerest admirer of the old-fashioned kindly Hans, had to join in +that cry or brand himself a traitor by his silence. + +America came into the war, as every country came, because her life was +threatened. She is not fighting for France, Great Britain, Belgium, +Serbia; she is fighting to save herself. I am glad to make this +point because I have heard camouflaged Pro-Germans and thoughtless +mischief-makers discriminating between the Allies. "We are not +fighting for Great Britain," they say, "but for plucky France." When I +was in New York last October a firm stand was being made against these +discriminators; some of them even found themselves in the hands of the +Secret Service men. The feeling was growing that not to be Pro-British +was not to be Pro-Ally, and that not to be Pro-Ally was to be +anti-American. This talk of fighting for somebody else is all lofty +twaddle. America is fighting for America. While the statement is +perfectly true, Americans have a right to resent it. + +In September, 1914, I crossed to Holland and was immensely disgusted +at the interpretation of Great Britain's action which I found current +there. I had supposed that Holland would be full of admiration; I +found that she was nothing of the sort. We Britishers, in those early +days, believed that we were magnanimous big brothers who could have +kept out of the bloodshed, but preferred to die rather than see the +smaller nations bullied. Men certainly did not join Kitchener's mob +because they believed that England's life was threatened. I don't +believe that any strong emotion of patriotism animated Canada in her +early efforts. The individual Briton donned the khaki because he was +determined to see fair play, and was damned if he would stand by a +spectator while women and children were being butchered in Belgium. +He felt that he had to do something to stop it. If he didn't, the same +thing would happen in Holland, then in Denmark, then in Norway. There +was no end to it. When a mad dog starts running the best thing to do +is to shoot it. + +But the Hollanders didn't agree with me at all. "You're fighting for +yourselves," they said. "You're not fighting to save us from being +invaded; you're not fighting to prevent the Hun from conquering +France; you're not fighting to liberate Belgium. You're fighting +because you know that if you let France be crushed, it will be your +turn next." + +Quite true--and absolutely unjust. The Hollander, whose households +we were guarding, chose to interpret our motive at its most ignoble +worth. Our men were receiving in their bodies the wounds which would +have been inflicted on Holland, had we elected to stand out. In the +light of subsequent events, all the world acknowledges that we +were and are fighting for our own households; but it is a glorious +certainty that scarcely a Britisher who died in those early days had +the least realisation of the fact. It was the chivalrous vision of +a generous Crusade that led our chaps from their firesides to the +trampled horror that is Flanders. They said farewell to their habitual +affections, and went out singing to their marriage with death. + +I suppose there has been no war that could not be interpreted +ultimately as a war of self-interest. The statesmen who make wars +always carefully reckon the probabilities of loss or gain; but the +lads who kiss their sweethearts good-bye require reasons more vital +than those of pounds, shillings and pence. Few men lay down their +lives from self-interested motives. Courage is a spiritual quality +which requires a spiritual inducement. Men do not set a price on their +chance of being blown to bits by shells. Even patriotism is too vague +to be a sufficient incentive. The justice of the cause to be fought +for helps; it must be proportionate to the magnitude of the sacrifice +demanded. But always an ideal is necessary--an ideal of liberty, +indignation and mercy. If this is true of the men who go out to die, +it is even more true of the women who send them, + + "Where there're no children left to pull + The few scared, ragged flowers-- + All that was ours, and, God, how beautiful! + All, all that was once ours, + Lies faceless, mouthless, mire to mire, + So lost to all sweet semblance of desire + That we, in those fields seeking desperately + One face long-lost to love, one face that lies + Only upon the breast of Memory, + Would never find it--even the very blood + Is stamped into the horror of the mud-- + Something that mad men trample under-foot + In the narrow trench--for these things are not men-- + Things shapeless, sodden, mute + Beneath the monstrous limber of the guns; + Those things that loved us once... + Those that were ours, but never ours again." + +For two and a half years the American press specialized on the terror +aspect of the European hell. Every sensational, exceptional fact was +not only chronicled, but widely circulated. The bodily and mental +havoc that can be wrought by shell fire was exaggerated out of all +proportion to reality. Photographs, almost criminal in type, were +published to illustrate the brutal expression of men who had taken +part in bayonet charges. Lies were spread broadcast by supposedly +reputable persons, stating how soldiers had to be maddened with +drugs or alcohol before they would go over the top. Much of what was +recorded was calculated to stagger the imagination and intimidate the +heart. The reason for this was that the supposed eye-witnesses rarely +saw what they recorded. They had usually never been within ten miles +of the front, for only combatants are allowed in the line. They +brought civilian minds, undisciplined to the conquest of fear, to +their task; they never for one instant guessed the truly spiritual +exaltation which gives wings to the soul of the man who fights in a +just cause. Squalor, depravity, brutalisation, death--moral, mental +and physical deformity were the rewards which the American public +learned the fighting man gained in the trenches. They heard very +little of the capacity for heroism, the eagerness for sacrifice, the +gallant self-effacement which having honor for a companion taught. +And yet, despite this frantic portrayal of terror, America decided +for war. Her National Guard and Volunteers rolled up in millions, +clamouring to cross the three thousand miles of water that they might +place their lives in jeopardy. They were no more urged by motives of +self-interest than were the men who enlisted in Kitchener's mob. It +wasn't the threat to their national security that brought them; it +was the lure of an ideal--the fine white knightliness of men whose +compassion had been tormented and whose manhood had been challenged. +When one says that America came into the war to save herself it is +only true of her statesmen; it is no more true of her masses than it +was true of the masses of Great Britain. + +So far, in my explanation as to why America came into the war, I have +been scarcely more generous in the attributing of magnanimous motives +than my Hollander. To all intents and purposes I have said, "America +is fighting because she knows that if the Allies are over-weakened or +crushed, it will be her turn next." In discussing the matter with +me, one of our Generals said, "I really don't see that it matters a +tuppenny cuss why she's fighting, so long as she helps us to lick +the Hun and does it quickly." But it does matter. The reasons for her +having taken up arms make all the difference to our respect for her. +Here, then, are the reasons which I attribute: enthusiasm for the +ideals of the Allies; admiration for the persistency of their heroism; +compassionate determination to borrow some of the wounds which +otherwise would be inflicted upon nations which have already suffered. +A small band of pioneers in mercy are directly responsible for +this change of attitude in two and a half years from opportunistic +neutrality to a reckless welcoming of martyrdom. + +At the opening of hostilities in 1914, America divided herself into +two camps--the Pro-Allies and the others. "The others" consisted of +people of all shades of opinion and conviction: the anti-British, +anti-French, the pro-German, the anti-war and the merely neutral, some +of whom set feverishly to work to make a tradesman's advantage out of +Europe's misfortune. A great traffic sprang up in the manufacture of +war materials. Almost all of these went to the Allies, owing to the +fact that Britain controlled the seas. Whether they would not have +been sold just as readily to Germany, had that been possible, is a +matter open to question. In any case, the camp of "The Others" was +overwhelmingly in the majority. + +One by one, and in little protesting bands, the friends of the Allies +slipped overseas bound on self-imposed, sacrificial quests. They went +like knight-errants to the rescue; while others suffered, their own +ease was intolerable. The women, whom they left, formed themselves +into groups for the manufacture of the munitions of mercy. There were +men like Alan Seeger, who chanced to be in Europe when war broke out; +many of these joined up with the nearest fighting units. "I have +a rendezvous with death," were Alan Seeger's last words as he fell +mortally wounded between the French and German trenches. His voice +was the voice of thousands who had pledged themselves to keep that +rendezvous in the company of Britishers, Belgians and Frenchmen, long +before their country had dreamt of committing herself. Some of these +friends of the Allies chose the Ford Ambulance, others positions in +the Commission for the Relief of Belgium, and yet others the more +forceful sympathy of the bayonet as a means of expressing their wrath. +Soon, through the heart of France, with the tricolor and the Stars and +Stripes flying at either end, "le train Americaine" was seen hurrying, +carrying its scarlet burden. This sight could hardly be called neutral +unless a similar sight could be seen in Germany. It could not. +The Commission for the Relief of Belgium was actually anything +but neutral; to minister to the results of brutality is tacitly to +condemn. + +At Neuilly-sur-Seine the American Ambulance Hospital sprang up. +It undertook the most grievous cases, making a specialty of facial +mutilations. American girls performed the nursing of these pitiful +human wrecks. Increasingly the crusader spirit was finding a gallant +response in the hearts of America's girlhood. By the time that +President Wilson flung his challenge, eighty-six war relief +organizations were operating in France. In very many cases these +organizations only represented a hundredth part of the actual +personnel working; the other ninety-nine hundredths were in the +States, rolling bandages, shredding oakum, slitting linen, making +dressings. Long before April, 1917, American college boys had won a +name by their devotion in forcing their ambulances over shell torn +roads on every part of the French Front, but, perhaps, with peculiar +heroism at Verdun. Already the American Flying Squadron has earned +a veteran's reputation for its daring. The report of the sacrificial +courage of these pioneers had travelled to every State in the Union; +their example had stirred, shamed and educated the nation. It is to +these knight-errants--very many of them boys and girls in years--to +the Mrs. Whartons, the Alan Seegers, the Hoovers and the Thaws that I +attribute America's eager acceptance of Calvary, when at last it +was offered to her by her Statesmen. From an anguished horror to +be repelled, war had become a spiritual Eldorado in whose heart lay +hidden the treasure-trove of national honor. + +The individual American soldier is inspired by just as altruistic +motives as his brother-Britisher. Compassion, indignation, love of +justice, the determination to see right conquer are his incentives. +You can make a man a conscript, drill him, dress him in uniform, but +you cannot force him to face up to four years to do his job unless the +ideals were there beforehand. I have seen American troop-ships come +into the dock with ten thousand men singing, + + "Good-bye, Liza, + I'm going to smash the Kaiser." + +I have been present when packed audiences have gone mad in reiterating +the American equivalent for _Tipperary_, with its brave promise, + + "We'll be over, + We're coming over, + And we won't be back till it's over, over there." + +But nothing I have heard so well expresses the cold anger of the +American fighting-man as these words which they chant to their +bugle-march, "We've got four years to do this job." + + + + +II + +WAR AS A JOB + + +I have been so fortunate as to be able to watch three separate nations +facing up to the splendour of Armageddon--England, France, America. +The spirit of each was different. I arrived in England from abroad the +week after war had been declared. There was a new vitality in the +air, a suppressed excitement, a spirit of youth and--it sounds +ridiculous--of opportunity. The England I had left had been wont to +go about with a puckered forehead; she was a victim of +self-disparagement. She was like a mother who had borne too many +children and was at her wits' end to know how to feed or manage them. +They were getting beyond her control. Since the Boer War there had +been a growing tendency in the Press to under-rate all English effort +and to over-praise to England's discredit the superior pushfulness +of other nations. This melancholy nagging which had for its constant +text, "Wake up, John Bull," had produced the hallucination that there +was something vitally the matter with the Mother Country. No one +seemed to have diagnosed her complaint, but those of us who grew weary +of being told that we were behind the times, took prolonged trips to +more cheery quarters of the globe. It is the Englishman's privilege to +run himself down; he usually does it with his tongue in his cheek. But +for the ten years preceding the outbreak of hostilities, the prophets +of Fleet Street certainly carried their privilege beyond a joke. +Pessimism was no longer an amusing pose; it was becoming a habit. + +One week of the iron tonic of war had changed all that. The atmosphere +was as different as the lowlands from the Alps; it was an atmosphere +of devil-may-care assurance and adventurous manhood. Every one had the +summer look of a boat-race crowd when the Leander is to be pulled off +at Henley. In comparing the new England with the old, I should have +said that every one now had the comfortable certainty that he was +wanted--that he had a future and something to live for. But it wasn't +the something to live for that accounted for this gay alertness; it +was the sure foreknowledge of each least important man that he had +something worth dying for at last. + +A strange and magnificent way of answering misfortune's challenge--an +Elizabethan way, the knack of which we believed we had lost! "Business +as usual" was written across our doorways. It sounded callous and +unheeding, but at night the lads who had written it there, tiptoed out +and stole across the Channel, scarcely whispering for fear they should +break our hearts by their going. + +Death may be regarded as a funeral or as a Columbus expedition to +worlds unknown--it may be seized upon as an opportunity for weeping +or for a display of courage. From the first day in her choice England +never hesitated; like a boy set free from school, she dashed out to +meet her danger with laughter. Her high spirits have never failed her. +Her cavalry charge with hunting-calls upon their lips. Her Tommies go +over the top humming music-hall ditties. The Hun is still "jolly old +Fritz." The slaughter is still "a nice little war." Death is still +"the early door." The mud-soaked "old Bills" of the trenches, +cheerfully ignoring vermin, rain and shell fire, continue to wind up +their epistles with, "Hoping this finds you in the pink, as it leaves +me at present." They are always in the pink for epistolary purposes, +whatever the strafing or the weather. That's England; at all costs, +she has to be a sportsman. I wonder she doesn't write on the crosses +above her dead, "_Yours in the pink:_ _a British soldier, killed in +action_." England is in the pink for the duration of the war. + +The Frenchman cannot understand us, and I don't blame him. Our high +spirits impress him as untimely and indecent. War for him is not +a sport. How could it be, with his homesteads ravaged, his cities +flattened, his women violated, his populations prisoners in occupied +territories? For him war is a martyrdom which he embraces with a +fierce gladness. His spirit is well illustrated by an incident that +happened the other day in Paris. A descendant of Racine, a well-known +figure at the opera, was travelling in the Metro when he spotted a +poilu with a string of ten medals on his breast. The old aristocrat +went over to the soldier and apologised for speaking to him. "But," he +said, "I have never seen any poilu with so many decorations. You must +be of the very bravest." + +"That is nothing," the man replied sombrely; "before they kill me I +shall have won many more. This I earned in revenge for my wife, who +was brutally murdered. And this and this and this for my daughters who +were ravished. And these others--they are for my sons who are now no +more." + +"My friend, if you will let me, I should like to embrace you." And +there, in the sight of all the passengers, the old habitue of the +opera and the common soldier kissed each other. The one satisfaction +that the French blind have is in counting the number of Boche they +have slaughtered. "In that raid ten of us killed fifty," one will say; +"the memory makes me very happy." + +Curiously enough the outrage that makes the Frenchman most revengeful +is not the murder of his family or the defilement of his women, but +the wilful killing of his land and orchards. The land gave birth to +all his flesh and blood; when his farm is laid waste wilfully, it +is as though the mother of all his generations was violated. This +accounts for the indomitable way in which the peasants insist on +staying on in their houses under shell-fire, refusing to depart till +they are forcibly turned out. + +We in England, still less in America, have never approached the +loathing which is felt for the Boche in France. Men spit as they utter +his name, as though the very word was foul in the mouth. + +In the face of all that they have suffered, I do not wonder that the +French misunderstand the easy good-humour with which we English go +out to die. In their eyes and with the continual throbbing of +their wounds, this war is an occasion for neither good-humour nor +sportsmanship, but for the wrath of a Hebrew Jehovah, which only blows +can appease or make articulate. If every weapon were taken from their +hands and all their young men were dead, with naked fists those who +were left would smite--smite and smite. It is fitting that they should +feel this way, seeing themselves as they do perpetually frescoed +against the sky-line of sacrifice; but I am glad that our English boys +can laugh while they die. + +In trying to explain the change I found in England after war had +commenced, I mentioned Henley and the boat-race crowds. I don't think +it was a change; it was only a bringing to the surface of something +that had been there always. Some years ago I was at Henley when the +Belgians carried off the Leander Cup from the most crack crew that +England could bring together. Evening after evening through the +Regatta week the fear had been growing that we should lose, yet none +of that fear was reflected in our attitude towards our Belgian guests. +Each evening as they came up the last stretch of river, leading by +lengths and knocking another contestant out, the spectators cheered +them madly. Their method of rowing smashed all our traditions; it +wasn't correct form; it wasn't anything. It ought to have made one +angry. But these chaps were game; they were winning. "Let's play +fair," said the river; so they cheered them. On the last night when +they beat Leander, looking fresh as paint, leading by a length and +taking the championship out of England, you would never have guessed +by the flicker of an eyelash that it wasn't the most happy conclusion +of a good week's sport for every oarsman present. + +It's the same spirit essentially that England is showing to-day. She +cheers the winner. She trusts in her strength for another day. She +insists on playing fair. She considers it bad manners to lose one's +temper. She despises to hate back. She has carried this spirit so far +that if you enter the college chapels of Oxford to-day, you will find +inscribed on memorial tablets to the fallen not only the names of +Britishers, but also the names of German Rhodes Scholars, who died +fighting for their country against the men who were once their +friends. Generosity, justice, disdain of animosity-these virtues were +learnt on the playing-fields and race-courses. England knows their +value; she treats war as a sport because so she will fight better. For +her that approach to adversity is normal. + +With us war is a sport. With the French it is a martyrdom. But with +the Americans it is a job. "We've got four years to do this job. We've +got four years to do this job," as the American soldiers chant. I +think in these three attitudes towards war as a martyrdom, as sport +and as a job, you get reflected the three gradations of distance +by which each nation is divided from the trenches. France had her +tribulation thrust upon her. She was attacked; she had no option. +England, separated by the Channel, could have restrained the weight +of her strength, biding her time. She had her moment of choice, but +rushed to the rescue the moment the first Hun bayonet gleamed across +the Belgian threshold. America, fortified by the Atlantic, could not +believe that her peace was in any way assailed. The idea seemed +too madly far-fetched. At first she refused to realise that this +apportioning of a continent three thousand miles distant from Germany +was anything but a pipe-dream of diplomats in their dotage. It was +inconceivable that it could be the practical and achievable cunning of +military bullies and strategists. The truth dawned too slowly for her +to display any vivid burst of anger. "It isn't true," she said. And +then, "It seems incredible." And lastly, "What infernal impertinence!" + +It was the infernal impertinence of Germany's schemes for +transatlantic plunder that roused the average American. It awoke in +him a terrible, calm anger--a feeling that some one must be punished. +It was as though he broke off suddenly in what he was doing and +commenced rolling up his shirt-sleeves. There was a grim, surprised +determination about his quietness, which had not been seen in any +other belligerent nation. France became consciously and tragically +heroic when war commenced. England became unwontedly cheerful because +life was moving on grander levels. In America there was no outward +change. The old habit of feverish industry still persisted, but was +intensified and applied in unselfish directions. + +What has impressed me most in my tour of the American activities +in France is the businesslike relentlessness of the preparations. +Everything is being done on a titanic scale and everything is being +done to last. The ports, the railroads, the plants that are being +constructed will still be standing a hundred years from now. There's +no "Home for Christmas" optimism about America's method of making war. +One would think she was expecting to be still fighting when all the +present generation is dead. She is investing billions of dollars in +what can only be regarded as permanent improvements. The handsomeness +of her spirit is illustrated by the fact that she has no understanding +with the French for reimbursement. + +In sharp contrast with this handsomeness of spirit is the iciness of +her purpose as regards the Boche. I heard no hatred of the individual +German--only the deep conviction that Prussianism must be crushed at +all costs. The American does not speak of "Poor old Fritz" as we do +on our British Front. He's too logical to be sorry for his enemy. +His attitude is too sternly impersonal for him to be moved by any +emotions, whether of detestation or charity, as regards the Hun. All +he knows is that a Frankenstein machinery has been set in motion for +the destruction of the world; to counteract it he is creating another +piece of machinery. He has set about his job in just the same spirit +that he set about overcoming the difficulties of the Panama Canal. +He has been used to overcoming the obstinacies of Nature; the human +obstinacies of his new task intrigue him. I believe that, just as +in peace times big business was his romance and the wealth which +he gained from it was often incidental, so in France the job +as a job impels him, quite apart from its heroic object. After +all, smashing the Pan-Germanic Combine is only another form of +trust-busting--trust-busting with aeroplanes and guns instead of with +law and ledgers. + +There is something almost terrifying to me about this quiet +collectedness--this Pierpont Morgan touch of sphinxlike aloofness +from either malice or mercy. Just as America once said, "Business +is business" and formed her world-combines, collaring monopolies and +allowing the individual to survive only by virtue of belonging to +the fittest, so now she is saying, "War is war"--something to be +accomplished with as little regard to landscapes as blasting a +railroad across a continent. + +For the first time in the history of this war Germany is "up against" +a nation which is going to fight her in her own spirit, borrowing +her own methods. This statement needs explaining; its truth was first +brought to my attention at American General Headquarters. The French +attitude towards the war is utterly personal; it is bayonet to +bayonet. It depends on the unflinching courage of every individual +French man and woman. The English attitude is that of the +knight-errant, seeking high adventures and welcoming death in a noble +cause. But the German attitude disregards the individual and knows +nothing of gallantry. It lacks utterly the spiritual elation which +made the strength of the French at Verdun and of the English at Mons. +The German attitude is that of a soulless organisation, invented for +one purpose--profitable conquest. War for the Hun is not a final and +dreaded atonement for the restoring of justice to the world; it is +a business undertaking which, as he is fond of telling us, has never +failed to yield him good interest on his capital. I have seen a +good deal of the capital he has invested in the battlefields he has +lost--men smashed to pulp, bruised by shells out of resemblance to +anything human, the breeding place of flies and pestilence, no +longer the homes of loyalties and affections. I cannot conceive what +percentage of returns can be said to compensate for the agony expended +on such indecent Golgothas. However, the Hun has assured us that it +pays him; he flatters himself that he is a first-class business man. + +But so does the American, and he knows the game from more points of +view. For years he has patterned his schools and colleges on German +educational methods. What applies to his civilian centres of learning +applies to his military as well. German text-books gave the basis for +all American military thought. American officers have been trained in +German strategy just as thoroughly as if they had lived in Potsdam. +At the start of the war many of them were in the field with the German +armies as observers. They are able to synchronise their thoughts with +the thoughts of their German enemies and at the same time to take +advantage of all that the Allies can teach them. + +"War is a business," the Germans have said. The Americans, with an +ideal shining in their eyes, have replied, "Very well. We didn't want +to fight you; but now that you have forced us, we will fight you on +your own terms. We will make war on you as a business, for we are +businessmen. We will crush you coldly, dispassionately, without +rancour, without mercy till we have proved to you that war is not +profitable business, but hell." + +The American, as I have met him in France, has not changed one iota +from the man that he was in New York or Chicago. He has transplanted +himself untheatrically to the scenes of battlefields and set himself +undisturbedly to the task of dying. There is an amazing normality +about him. You find him in towns, ancient with chateaux and wonderful +with age; he is absolutely himself, keenly efficient and irreverently +modern. Everywhere, from the Bay of Biscay to the Swiss border, from +the Mediterranean to the English Channel, you see the lean figure and +the slouch hat of the U.S.A. soldier. He is invariably well-conducted, +almost always alone and usually gravely absorbed in himself. The +excessive gravity of the American in khaki has astonished the men of +the other armies who feel that, life being uncertain, it is well to +make as genial a use of it as possible while it lasts. The soldier +from the U.S.A. seems to stand always restless, alert, alone, +listening--waiting for the call to come. He doesn't sink into the +landscape the way other troops have done. His impatience picks him +out--the impatience of a man in France solely for one purpose. I have +seen him thus a thousand times, standing at street-corners, in the +crowd but not of it, remarkable to every one but himself. Every man +and officer I have spoken to has just one thing to say about what is +happening inside him, "Let them take off my khaki and send me back +to America, or else hurry me into the trenches. I came here to get +started on this job; the waiting makes me tired." + +"Let me get into the trenches," that was the cry of the American +soldier that I heard on every hand. Having witnessed his eagerness, +cleanness and intensity, I ask no more questions as to how he will +acquit himself. + +I have presented him as an extremely practical person, but no American +that I ever met was solely practical. If you watch him closely you +will always find that he is doing practical things for an idealistic +end. The American who accumulates a fortune to himself, whether it be +through corralling railroads, controlling industries, developing mines +or establishing a chain of dry-goods stores, doesn't do it for the +money only, but because he finds in business the poetry of creating, +manipulating, evolving--the exhilaration and adventure of swaying +power. And so there came a day when I caught my American soldier +dreaming and off his guard. + +All day I had been motoring through high uplands. It was a part of +France with which I was totally unfamiliar. A thin mist was drifting +across the country, getting lost in valleys where it piled up into +fleecy mounds, getting caught in tree-tops where it fluttered like +tattered banners. Every now and then, with the suddenness of our +approach, we would startle an aged shepherd, muffled and pensive as +an Arab, strolling slowly across moorlands, followed closely by the +sentinel goats which led his flock. The day had been strangely mystic. +Time seemed a mood. I had ceased to trouble about where I was going; +that I knew my ultimate destination was sufficient. The way that led +to it, which I had never seen before, should never see again perhaps, +and through which I travelled at the rate of an express, seemed a +fairy non-existent Hollow Land. Landscapes grew blurred with the speed +of our passage. They loomed up on us like waves, stayed with us for a +second and vanished. The staff-officer, who was my conductor, drowsed +on his seat beside the driver. He had wearied himself in the morning, +taking me now here to see an American Division putting on a manoeuvre, +now there to where the artillery were practising, then to another +valley where machine-guns tapped like thousands of busy typewriters +working on death's manuscript. After that had come bayonet charges +against dummies, rifle-ranges and trench-digging--all the industrious +pretence at slaughter which prefaces the astounding actuality. We +were far away from all that now; the brown figures had melted into the +brownness of the hills. There might have been no war. Perhaps there +wasn't. Never was there a world more grey and quiet. I grew sleepy. +My head nodded. I opened my eyes, pulled myself together and again +nodded. The roar of the engine was soothing. The rush of wind lay +heavy against my eye-lids. It seemed odd that I should be here and +not in the trenches. When I was in the line I had often made up life's +deficiencies by imagining, imagining.... Perhaps I was really in +the line now. I wouldn't wake up to find out. That would come +presently--it always had. + +We were slowing down. I opened my eyes lazily. No, we weren't +stopping--only going through a village. What a quaint grey village +it was--worth looking at if I wasn't so tired. I was on the point +of drowsing off again when I caught sight of a word written on a +sign-board, _Domremy_. My brain cleared. I sat up with a jerk. It was +magic that I should find myself here without warning--at Domremy, the +Bethlehem of warrior-woman's mercy. I had dreamed from boyhood of this +place as a legend--a memory of white chivalry to be found on no map, +a record of beauty as utterly submerged as the lost land of Lyonesse. +Hauntingly the words came back, "Who is this that cometh from Domremy? +Who is she in bloody coronation robes from Rheims? Who is she that +cometh with blackened flesh from walking in the furnaces of Rouen? +This is she, the shepherd girl...." All about me on the little hills +were the woodlands through which she must have led her sheep and +wandered with her heavenly visions. + +We had come to a bend in the village street. Where the road took a +turn stood an aged church; nestling beside it in a little garden was +a grey, semi-fortified mediaeval dwelling. The garden was surrounded by +high spiked railings, planted on a low stone wall. Sitting on the wall +beside the entrance was an American soldier. He had a small French +child on either knee--one arm about each of them; thus embarrassed +he was doing his patient best to roll a Bull Durham cigarette. The +children were vividly interested; they laughed up into the soldier's +face. One of them was a boy, the other a girl. The long golden curls +of the girl brushed against the soldier's cheek. The three heads bent +together, almost touching. The scene was timelessly human, despite the +modernity of the khaki. Joan of Arc might have been that little girl. + +I stopped the driver, got out and approached the group. The soldier +jumped to attention and saluted. In answer to my question, he said, +"Yes, this is where she lived. That's her house--that grey cottage +with scarcely any windows. Bastien le Page could never have seen it; +it isn't a bit like his picture in the Metropolitan Gallery." + +He spoke in a curiously intimate way as if he had known Joan of Arc +and had spoken with her there--as if she had only just departed. +It was odd to reflect that America had still lain hidden behind the +Atlantic when Joan walked the world. + +We entered the gate into the garden, the American soldier, the +children and I together. The little girl, with that wistful confidence +that all French children show for men in khaki, slipped her grubby +little paw into my hand. I expect Joan was often grubby like that. + +Brown winter leaves strewed the path. The grass was bleached and dead. +At our approach an old sheep-dog rattled his chain and looked out of +his kennel. He was shaggy and matted with years. His bark was so +weak that it broke in the middle. He was a Rip Van Winkle of a +sheep-dog--the kind of dog you would picture in a fairy-tale. One +couldn't help feeling that he had accompanied the shepherd girl and +had kept the flock from straying while she spoke with her visions. +All those centuries ago he had seen her ride away--ride away to save +France--and she had not come back. All through the centuries he had +waited; at every footstep on the path he had come hopefully out from +his kennel, wagging his tail and barking ever more weakly. He would +not believe that she was dead. And it was difficult to believe it in +that ancient quiet. If ever France needed her, it was now. + +Across my memory flashed the words of a dreamer, prophetic in the +light of recent events, "Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of +thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. +Call her, King of France, but she will not hear thee. Cite her by the +apparitors to come and receive a robe of honour, but she will not be +found. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, +shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up her +all for her country, thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaf +five centuries." + +Quite illogically it seemed to me that January evening that this +American soldier was the symbol of the power that had come in her +stead. + +The barking of the dog had awakened a bowed old Mother Hubbard lady. +She opened the door of her diminutive castle and peered across the +threshold, jingling her keys. + +Would we come in? Ah, Monsieur from America was there! He was always +there when he was not training, playing with the children and rolling +cigarettes. And Monsieur, the English officer, perhaps he did not +know that she was descended from Joan's family. Oh, yes, there was no +mistake about it; that was why she had been made custodian. She must +light the lamp. There! That was better. There was not much to see, but +if we would follow.... + +We stepped down into a flagged room like a cellar--cold, ascetic +and bare. There was a big open fire-place, with a chimney hooded by +massive masonry and blackened by the fires of immemorial winters. This +was where Joan's parents had lived. She had probably been born here. +The picture that formed in my mind was not of Joan, but that other +woman unknown to history--her mother, who after Joan had left the +village and rumours of her battles and banquets drifted back, must +have sat there staring into the blazing logs, her peasant's hands +folded in her lap, brooding, wondering, hoping, fearing--fearing as +the mothers of soldiers have throughout the ages. + +And this was Joan's brother's room--a cheerless place of hewn stone. +What kind of a man could he have been? What were his reflections as +he went about his farm-work and thought of his sister at the head of +armies? Was he merely a lout or something worse--the prototype of +our Conscientious Objector: a coward who disguised his cowardice with +moral scruples? + +And this was Joan's room--a cell, with a narrow slit at the end +through which one gained a glimpse of the church. Before this slit she +had often knelt while the angels drifted from the belfry like doves +to peer in on her. The place was sacred. How many nights had she spent +here with girlish folded hands, her face ecstatic, the cold eating +into her tender body? I see her blue for lack of charity, forgotten, +unloved, neglected--the symbol of misunderstanding and loneliness. +They told her she was mad. She was a laughing stock in the village. +The world could find nothing better for her to do than driving sheep +through the bitter woodlands; but God found time to send his angels. +Yes, she was mad--mad as Christ was in Galilee--mad enough to save +others when she could not save herself. How nearly the sacrifice of +this most child-like of women parallels the sacrifice of the most +God-like of men! Both were born in a shepherd community; both forewent +the humanity of love and parenthood; both gave up their lives that the +world might be better; both were royally apparelled in mockery; both +followed their visions; for each the price of following was death. +She, too, was despised and rejected; as a sheep before her shearers is +dumb, so she opened not her mouth. + +That is all there is to see at Domremy; three starveling, stone-paved +rooms, a crumbling church, a garden full of dead leaves, an old +dog growing mangy in his kennel and the wind-swept cathedral of the +woodlands. The soul of France was born there in the humble body of a +peasant-girl; yes, and more than the soul of France--the gallantry of +all womanhood. God must be fond of His peasants; I think they will be +His aristocracy in Heaven. + +The old lady led us out of the house. There was one more thing she +wished to show us. The sunset light was still in the tree-tops, +but her eyes were dim; she thought that night had already gathered. +Holding her lamp above her head, she pointed to a statue in a niche +above the doorway. It had been placed there by order of the King of +France after Joan was dead. But it wasn't so much the statue that she +wanted us to look at; it was the mutilations that were upon it. She +was filled with a great trembling of indignation. "Yes, gaze your fill +upon it, Messieurs," she said; "it was _les Boches_ did that. They +were here in 1870. To others she may be a saint, but to _them_--Bah!" +and she spat, "a woman is less than a woman always." + +When we turned to go she was still cursing _les Boches_ beneath her +breath, tremblingly holding up the lamp above her head that she might +forget nothing of their defilement. The old dog rattled his chain as +we passed; he knew us now and did not trouble to come out. The dead +leaves whispered beneath our tread. + +At the gate we halted. I turned to my American soldier. "How long +before you go into the line?" + +He was carrying the little French girl in his arms. As he glanced +up to answer, his face caught the sunset. "Soon now. The sooner, the +better. She ...," and I knew he meant no living woman. "This place ... +I don't know how to express it. But everything here makes you want +to fight,--makes you ashamed of standing idle. If she could do +that--well, I guess that I...." + +He made no attempt to fill his eloquent silences; and so I left. As +the car gathered speed, plunging into the pastoral solitudes, I looked +back. The last sight I had of Domremy was a grey little garden, made +sacred by the centuries, and an American soldier standing with a +French child in his arms, her golden hair lying thickly against his +neck. + +On the surface the American is unemotionally practical, but at heart +he is a dreamer, first, last and always. If the Americans have merited +any criticism in France, it is owing to the vastness of their plans; +the tremendous dream of their preparations postpones the beginning of +the reality. Their mistake, if they have made a mistake, is an error +of generosity. They are building with a view to flinging millions +into the line when thousands a little earlier would be of superlative +advantage. They had the choice of dribbling their men over in small +contingents or of waiting till they could put a fighting-force into +the field so overwhelming in equipment and numbers that its weight +would be decisive. They were urged to learn wisdom from England's +example and not to waste their strength by putting men into the +trenches in a hurry before they were properly trained. England was +compelled to adopt this chivalrous folly by the crying need of France. +It looked in the Spring of 1917, before Russia had broken down or the +pressure on the Italian front had become so menacing, as though the +Allies could afford to ask America to conduct her war on the lines +of big business. America jumped at the chance--big business being the +task to which her national genius was best suited. If her Allies could +hold on long enough, she would build her fleet and appear with an army +of millions that would bring the war to a rapid end. Her role was to +be that of the toreador in the European bull-fight. + +But big business takes time and usually loses money at the start. +In the light of recent developments, we would rather have the +bird-in-the-hand of 300,000 Americans actually fighting than the +promise of a host a year from now. People at home in America realised +this in January. They were so afraid that their Allies might feel +disappointed. They were so keen to achieve tangible results in the war +that they grew impatient with the long delay. They weren't interested +in seeing other nations going over the top--the same nations who had +been over so many times; they wanted to see their sons and brothers at +once given the opportunity to share the wounds and the danger. Their +attitude was Spartan and splendid; they demanded a curtailment of +their respite that they might find themselves afloat on the crimson +tide. The cry of the civilians in America was identical with that of +their men in France. "Let them take off our khaki or else hurry us +into the trenches. We want to get started. This waiting makes us +tired." + +And the civilians in America had earned a right to make their demand. +Industrially, financially, philanthropically, from every point of view +they had sacrificed and played the game, both by the Allies and +their army. When they, as civilians, had been so willing to wear +the stigmata of sacrifice, they were jealous lest their fighting men +should be baulked of their chance of making those sacrifices appear +worth while. + +There have been many accusations in the States with regard to +the supposed breakdown of their military organization in +France--accusations inspired by generosity towards the Allies. From +what I have seen, and I have been given liberal opportunities to see +everything, I do not think that those accusations are justified. As +a combatant of another nation, I have my standards of comparison by +which to judge and I frankly state that I was amazed with the progress +that had been made. It is a progress based on a huge scale and +therefore less impressive to the layman than if the scale had been +less ambitious. What I saw were the foundations of an organisation +which can be expanded to handle a fighting-machine which staggers +the imagination. What the layman expects to see are Hun trophies and +Americans coming out of the line on stretchers. He will see all that, +if he waits long enough, for the American military hospitals in France +are being erected to accommodate 200,000 wounded. + +Unfounded optimisms, which under no possible circumstances could ever +have been realised, are responsible for the disappointment felt in +America. Inasmuch as these optimisms were widely accepted in England +and France, civilian America's disappointment will be shared by +the Allies, unless some hint of the truth is told as to what may be +expected and what great preparations are under construction. It was +generally believed that by the spring of 1918 America would have +half a million men in the trenches and as many more behind the lines, +training to become reinforcements. People who spoke this way could +never have seen a hundred thousand men or have stopped to consider +what transport would be required to maintain them at a distance of +more than three thousand miles from their base. It was also believed +that by the April of 1918, one year after the declaring of war, +America would have manufactured ten thousand planes, standardised all +their parts, trained the requisite number of observers and pilots, +and would have them flying over the Hun lines. Such beliefs were pure +moonshine, incapable of accomplishment; but there are facts to be told +which are highly honourable. + +So far I have tried to give a glimpse of America's fighting spirit in +facing up to her job; now, in as far as it is allowed, I want to give +a sketch of her supreme earnestness as proved by what she has already +achieved in France. The earnestness of her civilians should require +no further proof than the readiness with which they accepted national +conscription within a few hours of entering the war--a revolutionising +departure which it took England two years of fighting even to +contemplate, and which can hardly be said to be in full operation yet, +so long as conscientious objectors are allowed to air their so-called +consciences. In America the conscientious objector is not regarded; he +is listened to as only one of two things--a deserter or a traitor. The +earnestness of America's fighting man requires no proving; his only +grievance is that he is not in the trenches. Yet so long as the weight +of America is not felt to be turning the balance dramatically in our +favour, the earnestness of America will be open to challenge both by +Americans and by the Allies. What I saw in France in the early months +of this year has filled me with unbounded optimism. I feel the elated +certainty, as never before even in the moment of the most successful +attack, that the Hun's fate is sealed. What is more, I have grounds +for believing that he knows it--knows that the collapse of Russia will +profit him nothing because he cannot withstand the avalanche of men +from America. Already he hears them, as I have seen them, training in +their camps from the Pacific to the Atlantic, racing across the +Ocean in their grey transports, marching along the dusty roads of two +continents, a procession locust-like in multitude, stretching half +about the world, marching and singing indomitably, "We've got four +years to do this job." From behind the Rhine he has caught their +singing; it grows ever nearer, stronger. It will take time for that +avalanche to pyramid on the Western Front; but when it has piled up, +it will rush forward, fall on him and crush him. He knows something +else, which fills him with a still more dire sense of calamity--that +because America's honour has been jeopardised, of all the nations +now fighting she will be the last to lay down her arms. She has given +herself four years to do her job; when her job is ended, it will be +with Prussianism as it was with Jezebel, "They that went to bury her +found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her +hands. And her carcase was as dung upon the face of the field, so that +men should not say, 'This is Jezebel.'" + +As an example of what America is accomplishing, I will take a sample +port in France. It was of tenth-rate importance, little more than +a harbour for coastwise vessels and ocean-going tramps when the +Americans took it over; by the time they have finished, it will be +among the first ports of Europe. It is only one of several that they +are at present enlarging and constructing. The work already completed +has been done in the main under the direction of the engineers who +marched through London in the July of last year. I visited the port in +January, so some idea can be gained of how much has been achieved in a +handful of months. + +The original French town still has the aspect of a prosperous +fishing-village. There are two main streets with shops on them; there +is one out-of-date hotel; there are a few modern dwellings facing +the sea. For the rest, the town consists of cottages, alleys and +open spaces where the nets were once spread to dry. To-day in a vast +circle, as far as eye can reach, a city of huts has grown up. In those +huts live men of many nations, Americans, French, German prisoners, +negroes. They are all engaged in the stupendous task of construction. +The capacity of the harbour basin is being multiplied fifty times, the +berthing capacity trebled, the unloading facilities multiplied by ten. +A railroad yard is being laid which will contain 225 miles of track +and 870 switches. An immense locomotive-works is being erected for +the repairing and assembling of rolling-stock from America. It was +originally planned to bring over 960 standard locomotives and 30,000 +freight-cars from the States, all equipped with French couplers +and brakes so that they could become a permanent part of the French +railroad system. These figures have since been somewhat reduced by +the purchase of rolling-stock in Europe. Reservoirs are being built at +some distance from the town which will be able to supply six millions +gallons of purified water a day. In order to obtain the necessary +quantity of pipe, piping will be torn up from various of the +water-systems in America and brought across the Atlantic. As the +officer, who was my informant remarked, "Rather than see France go +short, some city in the States will have to haul water in carts." + +As proof of the efficiency with which materials from America are being +furnished, when the engineers arrived on the scene with 225 miles of +track to lay, they found 100 miles of rails and spikes already waiting +for them. Of the 870 switches required, 350 were already on hand. Of +the ties required, one-sixth were piled up for them to be going on +with. Not so bad for a nation quite new to the war-game and living +three thousand miles beyond the horizon! + +On further enquiry I learnt that six million cubic yards of filling +were necessary to raise the ground of the railroad yard to the proper +level. In order that the work may be hurried, dredges are being +brought across the Atlantic and, if necessary, harbour construction in +the States will be curtailed. + +I was interested in the personnel employed in this work. Here, as +elsewhere, I found that the engineering and organising brains of +America are largely in France. One colonel was head of the marble +industry in the States; another had been vice-president of the +Pennsylvania Railroad. Another man, holding a sergeant's rank was +general manager of the biggest fishing company. Another, a private +in the ranks, was chief engineer of the American Aluminum Company. A +major was general manager of The Southern Pacific. Another colonel was +formerly controller of the currency and afterwards president of the +Central Trust Company of Illinois. A captain was chief engineer and +built the aqueducts over the keys of the Florida East Coast Railroad. +As with us, you found men of the highest social and professional grade +serving in every rank of the American Army; one, a society man and +banker, was running a gang of negroes whose job it was to shovel sand +into cars. In peace times thirty thousand pounds a year could not +have bought him. What impressed me even more than the line of +communications itself was the quality of the men engaged on its +construction. As one of them said to me, "Any job that they give us +engineers to do over here is likely to be small in comparison with +the ones we've had to tackle in America." The man who said this had +previously done his share in the building of the Panama Canal. There +were others I met, men who had spanned rivers in Alaska, flung +rails across the Rockies, built dams in the arid regions, performed +engineering feats in China, Africa, Russia--in all parts of the world. +They were trained to be undaunted by the hugeness of any task; they'd +always beaten Nature in the long run. Their cheerful certainty that +America in France was more than up to her job maintained a constant +wave of enthusiasm. + +It may be asked why it is necessary in an old-established country +like France, to waste time in enlarging harbours before you can make +effective war. The answer is simple: France has not enough ports of +sufficient size to handle the tonnage that is necessary to support +the Allied armies within her borders. America's greatest problem is +tonnage. She has the men and the materials in prodigal quantities, but +they are all three thousand miles away. Before the men can be +brought over, she has to establish her means of transport and line +of communications, so as to make certain that she can feed and clothe +them when once she has got them into the front-line. There are two +ways of economising on tonnage. One is to purchase in Europe. In this +way, up to February, The Purchasing Board of the Americans had saved +ninety days of transatlantic traffic. The other way is to have modern +docks, well railroaded, so that vessels can be unloaded in the least +possible space of time and sent back for other cargoes. Hence it has +been sane economy on the part of America to put much of her early +energy into construction rather than into fighting. Nevertheless, it +has made her an easy butt for criticism both in the States and abroad, +since the only proof to the newspaper-reader that America is at war is +the amount of front-line that she is actually defending. + +I had heard much of what was going on at a certain place which was to +be the intermediate point in the American line of communications. I +had studied a blue-print map and had been amazed at its proportions. +I was told, and can well believe, that when completed it was to be the +biggest undertaking of its kind in the world. It was to be six and +a half miles long by about one mile broad. It was to have four and +a half million feet of covered storage and ten million feet of open +storage. It was to contain over two hundred miles of track in its +railroad yard and to house enough of the materials of war to keep a +million men fully equipped for thirty days. In addition to this it was +to have a plant, not for the repairing, but merely for the assembling +of aeroplanes, which would employ twenty thousand men. + +I arrived there at night. There was no town. One stepped from the +train into the open country. Far away in the distance there was a +glimmering of fires and the scarlet of sparks shooting up between +bare tree-tops. My first impression was of the fragrance of pines and, +after that, as I approached the huts, of a memory more definite and +elusively familiar. The swinging of lanterns helped to bring it back: +I was remembering lumber-camps in the Rocky Mountains. The box-stove +in the shack in which I slept that night and the roughly timbered +walls served to heighten the illusion that I was in America. Next +morning the illusion was completed. Here were men with mackinaws and +green elk boots; here were cook-houses in which the only difference +was that a soldier did the cooking instead of a Chinaman; and above +all, here were fir and pines growing out of a golden soil, with a +soft wind blowing overhead. And here, in an extraordinary way, the +democracy of a lumber-camp had been reproduced: every one from +the Colonel down was a worker; it was difficult, apart from their +efficiency, to tell their rank. + +Early in the morning I started out on a gasolene-speeder to make the +tour. At an astonishing rate, for the work had only been in hand three +months, the vast acreage was being tracked and covered with the sheds. +The sheds were not the kind I had been used to on my own front; they +were built out of anything that came handy, commenced with one sort of +material and finished with another. Sometimes the cross-pieces in the +roofs were still sweating, proving that it was only yesterday they +had been cut down in the nearby wood. There was no look of permanence +about anything. As the officer who conducted me said, "It's all run +up--a race against time." And then he added with a twinkle in his eye, +"But it's good enough to last four years." + +This was America in France in every sense of the word. One felt the +atmosphere of rush. In the buildings, which should have been left when +materials failed, but which had been carried to completion by pioneer +methods, one recognised the resourcefulness of the lumberman of the +West. Then came a touch of Eastern America, to me almost more replete +with memory and excitement. In a flash I was transferred from a camp +in France to the rock-hewn highway of Fifth Avenue, running through +groves of sky-scrapers, garnished with sunshine and echoing with +tripping footsteps. I could smell the asphalt soaked with gasolene +and the flowers worn by the passing girls. The whole movement and +quickness of the life I had lost flooded back on me. The sound I heard +was the fate _motif_ of the frantic opera of American endeavour. The +truly wonderful thing was that I should hear it here, in a woodland in +France--the rapid tapping of a steel-riveter at work. + +I learnt afterwards that I was not the only one to be carried away by +that music, as of a monstrous wood-pecker in an iron forest. The first +day the riveter was employed, the whole camp made excuses to come +and listen to it. They stood round it in groups, deafened and +thrilled--and a little homesick. What the bag-pipe is to the +Scotchman, the steel-riveter is to the American--the instrument which +best expresses his soul to a world which is different. + +I found that the riveter was being employed in the erection of an +immense steel and concrete refrigerating plant, which was to +have machinery for the production of its own ice and sufficient +meat-storage capacity to provide a million men for thirty days. The +water for the ice was being obtained from wells which had been already +sunk. There was only surface water there when the Americans first +struck camp. + +As another clear-cut example of what America is accomplishing in +France, I will take an aviation-camp. This camp is one of several, yet +it alone will be turning out from 350 to 400 airmen a month. The area +which it covers runs into miles. The Americans have their own ideas +of aerial fighting tactics, which they will teach here on an intensive +course and try out on the Hun from time to time. Some of their experts +have had the advantage of familiarising themselves with Hun aerial +equipment and strategy; they were on his side of the line at the start +of the war as neutral military observers. I liked the officer at +the head of this camp; I was particularly pleased with some of his +phrases. He was one of the first experts to fly with a Liberty engine. +Without giving any details away, he assured me impressively that it +was "an honest-to-God engine" and that his planes were equipped with +"an honest-to-God machine-gun," and that he looked forward with cheery +anticipation to the first encounter his chaps would have with "the +festive Hun." He was one of the few Americans I had met who spoke with +something of our scornful affection for the enemy. It indicated to me +his absolute certainty that he could beat him at the flying game. On +his lips the Hun was never the German or the Boche, but always "the +festive Hun." You can afford to speak kindly, almost pityingly of some +one you are going to vanquish. Hatred often indicates fear. Jocularity +is a victorious sign. + +When I was in America last October a great effort was being made to +produce an overwhelming quantity of aeroplanes. Factories, both large +and small, in every State were specializing on manufacturing certain +parts, the idea being that so time would be saved and efficiency +gained. These separate parts were to be collected and assembled at +various big government plants. The aim was to turn out planes as +rapidly as Ford Cars and to swamp the Hun with numbers. America is +unusually rich in the human as well as the mechanical material for +crushing the enemy in the air. In this service, as in all the others, +the only difficulty that prevents her from making her fighting +strength immediately felt is the difficulty of transportation. The +road of ships across the Atlantic has to be widened; the road of steel +from the French ports to the Front has to be tracked and multiplied in +its carrying capacity. These difficulties on land and water are +being rapidly overcome: by adding to the means of transportation; +by increasing the efficiency of the transport facilities already +existing; by lightening the tonnage to be shipped from the States by +buying everything that is procurable in Europe. In the early months +much of the available Atlantic tonnage was occupied with carrying the +materials of construction: rails, engines, concrete, lumber, and all +the thousand and one things that go to the housing of armies. This +accounts for America's delay in starting fighting. For three years +Europe had been ransacked; very much of what America would require had +to be brought. Such work does not make a dramatic impression on +other nations, especially when they are impatient. Its value as a +contribution towards defeating the Hun is all in the future. Only +victories win applause in these days. Nevertheless, such work had to +be done. To do it thoroughly, on a sufficiently large scale, in the +face of the certain criticism which the delay for thoroughness would +occasion, demanded bravery and patriotism on the part of those +in charge of affairs. By the time this book is published their +high-mindedness will have begun to be appreciated, for the results of +it will have begun to tell. The results will tell increasingly as the +war progresses. America is determined to have no Crimea scandals. The +contentment and good condition of her troops in France will be +largely owing to the organisation and care with which her line of +communications has been constructed. + +The purely business side of war is very dimly comprehended either by +the civilian or the combatant. The combatant, since he does whatever +dying is to be done, naturally looks down on the business man in +khaki. The civilian is inclined to think of war in terms of the mobile +warfare of other days, when armies were rarely more than some odd +thousands strong and were usually no more than expeditionary forces. +Such armies by reason of their rapid movements and the comparative +fewness of their numbers, were able to live on the countries through +which they marched. But our fighting forces of to-day are the manhood +of nations. The fronts which they occupy can scarcely boast a blade of +grass. The towns which lie behind them have been picked clean to the +very marrow. France herself, into which a military population of many +millions has been poured, was never at the best of times entirely +self-supporting. Whatever surplus of commodities the Allies possessed, +they had already shared long before the spring of 1917. When America +landed into the war, she found herself in the position of one who +arrives at an overcrowded inn late at night. Whatever of food or +accommodation the inn could afford had been already apportioned; +consequently, before America could put her first million men into the +trenches, she had to graft on to France a piece of the living tissue +of her own industrial system--whole cities of repair-shops, hospitals, +dwellings, store-houses, ice-plants, etc., together with the purely +business personnel that go with them. These cities, though initially +planned to maintain and furnish a minimum number of fighting men, +had to be capable of expansion so that they could ultimately support +millions. + +Here are some facts and statistics which illustrate the big business +of war as Americans have undertaken it. They have had to erect +cold storage-plants, with mechanical means for ice-manufacture, of +sufficient capacity to hold twenty-five million pounds of beef always +in readiness. + +They are at present constructing two salvage depots which, when +completed, will be the largest in the world. Here they will repair +and make fit for service again, shoes, harness, clothing, webbing, +tentage, rubber-boots, etc. Attached to these buildings there are +to be immense laundries which will undertake the washing for all +the American forces. In connection with the depots, there will be a +Salvage Corps, whose work is largely at the Front. The materials which +they collect will be sent back to the depots for sorting. Under the +American system every soldier, on coming out of the trenches, will +receive a complete new outfit, from the soles of his feet to the crown +of his head. "This," the General who informed me said tersely, "is our +way of solving the lice-problem." + +The Motor Transport also has its salvage depot. Knock-down buildings +and machinery have been brought over from the States, and upwards of +4,000 trained mechanics for a start. This depot is also responsible +for the repairs of all horse-drawn transport, except the artillery. +The Quartermaster General's Department alone will have 35,000 motor +propelled vehicles and a personnel of 160,000 men. + +Every effort is being made to employ labour-saving devices to +the fullest extent. The Supply Department expects to cut down its +personnel by two-thirds through the efficient use of machinery and +derricks. The order compelling all packages to be standardized in +different graded sizes, so that they can be forwarded directly to +the Front before being broken, has already done much to expedite +transportation. The dimensions of the luggage of a modern army can +be dimly realized when it is stated that the American armies will +initially require twenty-four million square feet of covered and +forty-one million of unroofed storage--not to mention the barrack +space. + +Within the next few months they will require bakeries capable of +feeding one million and a quarter men. These bakeries are divided +into: the field bakeries, which are portable, and the mechanical +bakeries which are stationary and on the line of communications. One +of the latter had just been acquired and was described to me when I +was in the American area. It was planned throughout with a view to +labour-saving. It was so constructed that it could take the flour off +the cars and, with practically no handling, convert it into bread +at the rate of 750,000 lbs. a day. This struck me as a peculiarly +American contribution to big business methods; but on expressing this +opinion I was immediately corrected. This form of bakery was a British +invention, which has been in use for some time on our lines. The +Americans owed their possession of the bakery to the courtesy of the +British Government, who had postponed their own order and allowed the +Americans to fill theirs four months ahead of their contract. + +This is a sample of the kind of discovery that I was perpetually +making. Two out of three times when I thought I had run across a +characteristically American expression of efficiency, I was told that +it had been copied from the British. I learnt more about my own army's +business efficiency in studying it secondhand with the Americans, +than I had ever guessed existed in all the time that I had been an +inhabitant of the British Front. It is characteristic of us as a +people that we like to pretend that we muddle our way into success. +We advertise our mistakes and camouflage our virtues. We are almost +ashamed of gaining credit for anything that we have done well. There +is a fine dishonesty about this self-belittlement; but it is not +always wise. During these first few months of their being at war +the Americans have discovered England in almost as novel a sense as +Columbus did America. It was a joy to be with them and to watch their +surprise. The odd thing was that they had had to go to France to +find us out. Here they were, the picked business men of the world's +greatest industrial nation, frankly and admiringly hats off to British +"muddle-headed" methods. Not only were they hats off to the methods, +many of which they were copying, but they were also hats off to the +generous helpfulness of our Government and Military authorities in the +matter of advice, co-operation and supplies. From the private in the +ranks, who had been trained by British N.C.O.'s and Officers, to +the Generals at the head of departments, there was only one feeling +expressed for Great Britain--that of a new sincerity of friendship and +admiration. "John Bull and his brother Jonathan" had become more than +an empty phrase; it expressed a true and living relation. + +A similar spirit of appreciation had grown up towards the French--not +the emotional, histrionic, Lafayette appreciation with which the +American troops sailed from America, but an appreciation based on +sympathy and a knowledge of deeds and character. I think this spirit +was best illustrated at Christmas when all over France, wherever +American troops were billeted, the rank and file put their hands deep +into their pockets to give the refugee children of their district the +first real Christmas they had had since their country was invaded. +Officers were selected to go to Paris to do the purchasing of the +presents, and I know of at least one case in which the men's gift was +so generous that there was enough money left over to provide for the +children throughout the coming year. + +In France one hears none of that patronising criticism which used +to exist in America with regard to the older nations--none of those +arrogant assertions that "because we are younger we can do things +better." The bias of the American in France is all the other way; he +is near enough to the Judgment Day, which he is shortly to experience, +to be reverent in the presence of those who have stood its test. He is +in France to learn as well as to contribute. Between himself and his +brother soldiers of the British and French armies, there exists an +entirely manly and reciprocal respect. And it is reciprocal; both the +individual British and French fighting-man, now that they have seen +the American soldier, are clamorous to have him adjacent to their +line. The American has scarcely been blooded at this moment, and yet, +having seen him, they are both certain that he's not the pal to let +them down. + +The confidence that the American soldier has created among his +soldier-Allies was best expressed to me by a British officer: "The +British, French and Americans are the three great promise-keeping +nations. For the first time in history we're standing together. +We're promise-keepers banded together against the falsehood of +Germany--that's why. It isn't likely that we shall start to tell lies +to one another." + +Not likely! + + + + +III + +THE WAR OF COMPASSION + + +Officially America declared war on Germany in the spring of 1917; +actually she committed her heart to the allied cause in September, +1914, when the first shipment of the supplies of mercy arrived in +Paris from the American Red Cross. + +There are two ways of waging war: you can fight with artillery and +armed men; you can fight with ambulances and bandages. There's the war +of destruction and the war of compassion. The one defeats the enemy +directly with force; the other defeats him indirectly by maintaining +the morale of the men who are fighting and, what is equally important, +of the civilians behind the lines. Belgium would not be the utterly +defiant and unconquered nation that she is to-day, had it not been for +the mercy of Hoover and his disciples. Their voluntary presence +made the captured Belgian feel that he was earning the thanks of all +time--that the eyes of the world were upon him. They were neutrals, +but their mere presence condemned the cause that had brought them +there. Their compassion waged war against the Hun. The same is true of +the American Ambulance Units which followed the French Armies into the +fiercest of the carnage. They confirmed the poilu in his burning sense +of injustice. That they, who could have absented themselves, should +choose the damnation of destruction and dare the danger, convinced the +entire French nation of its own righteousness. And it was true of the +girls at the American hospitals who nursed the broken bodies which +their brothers had rescued. It was true of Miss Holt's _Lighthouse_ +for the training of blinded soldiers, which she established in Paris +within eight months of war's commencement. It was true of the American +Relief Clearing House in Paris which, up to January, 1917, had +received 291 shipments and had distributed eight million francs. By +the time America put on armour, the American Red Cross, as the army's +expert in the strategy of compassion, found that it had to take over +more than eighty-six separate organisations which had been operating +in France for the best part of two years. + +One cannot show pity with indignant hands and keep the mind neutral. +The Galilean test holds true, "He who is not for me is against me." +You cannot leave houses, lands, children, wife--everything that +counts--for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake without developing a +rudimentary aversion for the devil. All of which goes to prove that +America's heart was fighting for the Allies long before her ambassador +requested his passports from the Kaiser. + +The American Red Cross Commission landed in France on the 12th of +June, 1917, seven days ahead of the Expeditionary Force. It had +taken less than five days to organise. Its first act was to convey a +monetary gift to the French hospitals. The first actual American Red +Cross contribution was made in April to the Number Five British Base +Hospital. The first American soldiers in France were doctors and +nurses. The first American fighting done in France was done with the +weapons of pity. The chief function of the American Red Cross up +to the present has been to "carry on" and to bridge the gap of +unavoidable delays while the army is preparing. + +To prove that this "war of compassion" is no idle phrase, let me +illustrate with one dramatic instance. When the Italian line broke +under the pressure of Hun artillery and propaganda, the American Red +Cross sent representatives forward to inaugurate relief work for +the 700,000 refugees, who were pouring southward from the Friuti and +Veneto, homeless, hungry, possessing nothing but misfortune, spreading +despair and panic every step of the journey. Their bodies must be +cared for--that was evident; it would be easy for them to carry +disease throughout Italy. But the disease of their minds was an even +greater danger; if their demoralisation were not checked, it would +inevitably prove contagious. + +The first two representatives of the American Red Cross arrived in +Rome on November 5th, with a quarter of a million dollars at their +disposal. That night they had a soup-kitchen going and fed 400 people. +Their first day's work is the record of an amazing spurt of energy. In +that first day they sent money for relief to every American Consul in +the districts affected. They mobilised the American colony in Rome and +arranged by wire for similar organisations to be formed throughout +the length and breadth of Italy, wherever they could lay hands on an +American. On all principal junction points through which the refugees +would pass, soup-kitchens were installed and clothes were purchased +and ready to be distributed as the trains pulled into the stations. +They were badly needed, for the passengers had endured all the rigours +of the retreat with the soldiers. They had been under shell and +machine-gun fire. They had been bombed by aeroplanes. No horror of +warfare had been spared them. Their clothes were verminous with weeks +of wearing. They were packed like cattle. Babies born on the journey +were wrapped in newspapers. There were instances of officers taking +off their shirts that the little bodies should not go naked. A +telegram was at once despatched to Paris for food and clothes and +hospital supplies. Twenty-four cars came through within a week, +despite the unusual military traffic. This ends the list of what was +accomplished by two men in one day. + +The great thing was to make the demoralised Italians feel that America +was on the spot and helping them. The sending of troops could not have +reused their fighting spirit. They were sick of fighting. What they +needed was the assurance that the world was not wholly brutal--that +there was some one who was merciful, who did not condemn and who +was moved by their sorrow. This assurance the prompt action of the +American Red Cross gave. It restored in the affirmative with mercy, +precisely the quality which Hun fury and propaganda had destroyed with +lies. It restored to them their belief in the nobility of mankind, out +of which belief grows all true courage. + +As the work progressed, it branched out on a much larger scale, +embracing civilian, military and child-welfare activities. In the +month of November upward of half a million lire were placed in the +hands of American consuls for distribution. One million lire were +contributed for the benefit of soldiers' families. A permanent +headquarters was established with trained business men and men who had +had experience under Hoover in Belgium in charge of its departments. +Over 100 hospitals and two principal magazines of hospital stores +had been lost in the retreat. The American Red Cross made up this +deficiency by supplying the bedding for no less than 3,000 beds. +Five weeks after the first two representatives had reached Rome +three complete ambulance sections, each section being made up of 20 +ambulances, a staff car, a kitchen trailer and 33 men, were turned +over to the Italian Medical Service of the third Army. By the first +week in December the stream of refugees had practically stopped. Italy +had been made to realise that she was not fighting alone; her morale +had returned to her. This work, which had been initially undertaken +from purely altruistic motives, had proved to possess a value of the +highest military importance--an importance of the spirit utterly out +of proportion to the money and labour expended. Magnanimity arouses +magnanimity. In this case it revived the flame of Garibaldi which had +all but died. It achieved a strategic victory of the soul which no +amount of military assistance could have accomplished. The victory +of the American Red Cross on the Italian Front is all the more +significant since it was not until months later that Congress declared +war on Austria. + +The campaign which the American Red Cross is waging in every country +in which it operates, is frankly an "out to win" campaign. To win the +war is its one and only object. What the army does for the courage of +the body, the Red Cross does for the courage of the mind. It builds +up the hearts and hopes of people who in three and a half years have +grown numb. It restores the human touch to their lives and, with +it, the spiritual horizon. Its business, while the army is still +preparing, is to bring home to the Allies in every possible way the +fact that America, with her hundred and ten millions of population, is +in the war with them, eager to play the game, anxious to sacrifice as +they have sacrificed, to give her man-power and resources as they have +done, until justice has been established for every man and nation. + +It is necessary to lay stress on this programme since it differs +greatly from the popular conception of the functions of the Red Cross +in the battle area. It was on the field of Solferino in 1859, that +Henri Dunant went out before the fury had spent itself to tend the +wounded. It was here that he was fired with his great ambition to +found a non-combatant service, which should recognise no enemies and +be friends with every army. His ambition was realised when in 1864 the +Conference at Geneva chose the Swiss flag, reversed, as its emblem--a +red cross on a field of white--and laid the foundations for those +international understandings which have since formed for all +combatants, except the Hun in this present warfare, the protective law +for the sick and wounded. The original purpose of the Red Cross still +fills the imagination of the masses to the exclusion of all else that +it is doing. Directly the term "Red Cross" is mentioned the picture +that forms in most men's minds is of ambulances galloping through +the thick of battle-smoke and of devoted stretcher-bearers who brave +danger not to kill, but in order that they may save lives. + +This war has changed all that. To-day the Red Cross has to minister +to not the wounded of armies only, but to the wounded of nations. In +a country like France, with trenches dug the entire length of her +eastern frontier and vast territories from which the entire population +has been evacuated, the wounds of her armies are small in comparison +with the wounds, bodily and mental, of her civil population--wounds +which are the outcome of over three years of privation. When the civil +population of any country has lost its pluck, no matter how splendid +the spirit of its soldiers, its armies become paralysed. The civilians +can commence peace negotiations behind the backs of their men in the +trenches. They can insist on peace by refusing to send them ammunition +and supplies. As a matter of fact the morale of the soldiers varies +directly with the morale of the civilians for whom they fight. Behind +every soldier stand a woman and a group of children. Their safety is +his inspiration. If they are neglected, his sacrifice is belittled. +If they beg that he should lay down his arms, his determination is +weakened. It is therefore a vital necessity, quite apart from the +humanitarian aspect, that the wounds of the civilians of belligerent +countries should be cared for. If the civilians are allowed to become +disheartened and cowardly, the heroic ideal of their fighting-men is +jeopardised. This fact has been recognised by the Red Cross Societies +of all countries in the present war; a large part of their energies +has been devoted to social and relief work of a civil nature. Even +in their purely military departments, the comfort of the troops +claims quite as much attention as their medical treatment and +hospitalisation. As a matter of fact, the actual carrying of the +wounded out of the trenches to the comparative safety of the dressing +station is usually done by combatants. A man has to live continually +under shell-fire to acquire the immunity to fear which passes for +courage. The bravest man is likely to get "jumpy," if he only faces up +to a bombardment occasionally. There are other reasons why combatants +should do the stretcher-bearing which do not need elaborating. The +combatants have an expert knowledge of their own particular frontage; +they are "wise" to the barraged areas; they are "up front" and +continually coming and going, so it is often an economy of man-power +for them to attend to their own wounded in the initial stages; they +are the nearest to a comrade when he falls and all carry the necessary +first-aid dressings; the emblem of the Red Cross has proved to be only +a slight protection, as the Hun is quite likely not to respect it. +What I am driving at is that the Red Cross has had to adapt itself to +the new conditions of modern warfare, so that very many of its most +important present-day functions are totally different from what +popular fancy imagines. + +The American Red Cross has its French Headquarters in a famous +gambling club in the Place de la Concorde. It is somewhat strange to +pass through these rooms where rakes once flung away fortunes, and +to find them industriously orderly with the conscience of an imported +nation. By far the larger part of the staff are business men of +the Wall Street type--not at all the kind who have been accustomed +to sentimentalise over philanthropy. There is also a sprinkling +of trained social workers, clergy, journalists, and university +professors. The medical profession is represented by some of the +leading specialists of the States, but at Headquarters they are +distinctly in the minority. The purely medical work of the American +Red Cross forms only a part of its total activities. The men +at the head of affairs are bankers, merchants, presidents of +corporations--men who have been trained to think in millions and +to visualise broad areas. Girls are very much in evidence. They are +usually volunteers, drawn from all classes, who offered their services +to do anything that would help. To-day they are typists, secretaries, +stenographers, nurses. + +The organisation is divided into three main departments: +the department of military affairs, of civil affairs and of +administration. Under these departments come a variety of bureaus: +the bureau of rehabilitation and reconstruction; of the care and +prevention of tuberculosis; of needy children and infant mortality; +of refugees and relief; of the re-education of the French mutiles; of +supplies; of the rolling canteens for the French armies; of the U.S. +Army Division; of the Military, Medical and Surgical Division, etc. +They are too numerous to mention in detail. The best way I can convey +the picture of immense accomplishment is to describe what I actually +saw in the field of operations. + +The first place I will take you to is Evian, because here you see the +tragedy and need of France as embodied in individuals. Evian-les-Bains +is on Lake Geneva, looking out across the water to Switzerland. It is +the first point of call across the French frontier for the repatries +returning from their German bondage. When the Boche first swept down +on the northern provinces he pushed the French civilian population +behind him. He has since kept them working for him as serfs, labouring +in the captured coal-mines, digging his various lines of defences, +setting up wire-entanglements, etc. Apart from the testimony of +repatriated French civilians, I myself have seen messages addressed +by Frenchmen to their wives, scrawled surreptitiously on the planks of +Hun dug-outs in the hope that one day the dug-outs would be captured, +and the messages passed on by a soldier of the Allies. After three and +a half years of enforced labour, many of these captured civilians are +worked out. To the Boche, with his ever-increasing food-shortage, they +represent useless mouths. Instead of filling them he is driving their +owners back, broken and useless, by way of Switzerland. To him human +beings are merchandise to be sold upon the hoof like cattle. No +spiritual values enter into the bargain. When the body is exhausted it +is sent to the knacker's, as though it belonged to a worn-out horse. +The entire attitude is materialistic and degrading. Evian-les-Bains, +the once gay gambling resort of the cosmopolitan, has become the +knacker's shop for French civilians exhausted by their German +servitude. The Hun shoves them across the border at the rate of about +1,300 a day. From the start I have always felt that this war was a +crusade; what I saw at Evian made me additionally certain. When I was +in the trenches I never had any hatred of the Boche. Probably I shall +lose my hatred in pity for him when I get to the Front again--but +for the present I hate him. It's here in France that one sees what a +vileness he has created in the children's and women's lives. + +I took the night train down from Paris. Early in the morning I woke +up to find myself in the gorges of the Alps, high peaks with romantic +Italian-looking settings soaring on every side. At noon we reached +Lake Geneva, lying slate-coloured and sombre beneath a wintry sky. +That afternoon I saw the train of repatries arrive. + +I was on the platform when the train pulled into the station. It might +have been a funeral cortege, only there was a horrible difference: the +corpses pretended to be alive. The American Ambulance men were there +in force. They climbed into the carriages and commenced to help the +infirm to alight. The exiles were all so stiff with travel that they +could scarcely move at first. The windows of the train were grey with +faces. Such faces! All of them old, even the little children's. The +Boche makes a present to France of only such human wreckage as is +unuseful for his purposes. He is an acute man of business. The convoy +consisted of two classes of persons--the very ancient and the very +juvenile. You can't set a man of eighty to dig trenches and you can't +make a prostitute out of a girl-child of ten. The only boys were of +the mal-nourished variety. Men, women and children--they all had the +appearance of being half-witted. + +They were terribly pathetic. As I watched them I tried to picture to +myself what three and a half long years of captivity must have meant. +How often they must have dreamt of the exaltation of this day--and +now that it had arrived, they were not exalted. They had the look of +people so spiritually benumbed that they would never know despair or +exaltation again. They had a broken look; their shoulders were crushed +and their skirts bedraggled. Many of them carried babies--pretty +little beggars with flaxen hair. It wasn't difficult to guess their +parentage. + +As they were herded on the platform a low, strangled kind of moaning +went up. I watched individual lips to see where the sound came from. +I caught no movement. The noise was the sighing of tired animals. +Every one had some treasured possession. Here was an old man with +an alarm-clock; there an aged woman with an empty bird-cage. A boy +carried half-a-dozen sauce-pans strung together. Another had a spare +pair of patched boots under his arm. Quite a lot of them clutched a +bundle of umbrellas. I found myself reflecting that these were the +remnants of families who had been robbed of everything that they +valued in the world. Whatever they had saved from the ruin ought to +represent the possession which had claimed most of their affections, +and yet--! What did an alarm-clock, an empty bird-cage, a pair of +patched boots, a string of sauce-pans, a bundle of ragged umbrellas +signify in any life? What utter poverty, if these were the best that +they could save! + +There was a band on the platform, consisting mainly of bugles and +drums, to welcome them. The leader is reputed to be the laziest man +in the French Army. It is said that they tried him at everything and +then, in despair, sent him to Evian to drum forgotten happiness into +the bones of repatries. Whatever his former military record, he now +does his utmost to impersonate the defiant and impassioned soul of +France. His moustaches are curled fiercely. His brows are heavy as +thunderclouds. When he drums, the veins swell out in his neck with the +violence of his energy. + +Suddenly, with an ominous preliminary rumble, the band struck up +the Marseillaise. You should have seen the change in this crowd +of corpses. You must remember that these people had been so long +accustomed to lies and snares that it would probably take days to +persuade them that they were actually safe home in France. + +As the battle-song for which they had suffered shook the air their +lips rustled like leaves. There was hardly any sound--only a hoarse +whisper. Then, all of a sudden, words came--an inarticulate, sobbing +commotion. Tears blinded the eyes of every spectator, even those who +had witnessed similar scenes often; we were crying because the singing +was so little human. + +"Vive la France! Vive la France!" They waved flags--not the +tri-colour, but flags which had been given them in Switzerland. They +clung together dazed, women with slatternly dresses, children with +peaked faces, men unhappy and unshaven. A woman caught sight of my +uniform. "Vive l'Angleterre," she cried, and they all came stumbling +forward to embrace me. It was horrible. They creaked like automatons. +They gestured and mouthed, but the soul had been crushed out of their +eyes. You don't need any proofs of Hun atrocities; the proofs are to +be seen at Evian. There are no severed hands, no crucified bodies; +only hearts that have been mutilated. Sorrow is at its saddest when +it cannot even contrive to appear dignified. There is no dignity +about the repatries at Evian, with their absurd umbrellas, sauce-pans, +patched-boots, alarm-clocks and bird-cages. They do not appeal to one +as sacrificed patriots. There is no nobility in their vacant stare. +They create a cold feeling of bodily decay--only it is the spirit that +is dead and gangrenous. + +There is a blasphemous story by Leonid Andreyev, which recounts the +bitterness of the after years of Lazarus and the mischief Christ +wrought in recalling him from the grave. After his unnatural return +to life there was a blueness as of putrescence beneath his pallor; +an iciness to his touch; a choking silence in his presence; a horror +in his gaze, as if he were remembering his three days in the +sepulchre--as if forbidden knowledge groped behind his eyes. He rarely +looked at any one; there were none who courted his glance, who did not +creep away to die. The terror of his fame spread beyond Bethany. Rome +heard of him, and at that safe distance laughed. It did not laugh +after Caesar Augustus had sent for him. Caesar Augustus was a god upon +earth; he could not die. But when he had questioned Lazarus, peeped +through the windows of his eyes, and read what lay hidden in that +forbidden memory, he commanded that red-hot irons should quench such +sight for ever. From Rome Lazarus groped his way back to Palestine and +there, long years after his Saviour had been crucified, continued to +stumble through his own particular Gethsemane of blindness. I thought +of that story in the presence of this crowd, which carried with it the +taint of the grave. + +But the band was still playing the Marseillaise--over and over it +played it. With each repetition it was as though these people, three +years dead, made another effort to cast aside their shrouds. Little +by little something was happening--something wonderful. Backs were +straightening; skirts were being caught up; resolution was rippling +from face to face--it passed and re-passed with each new roll of the +drums. The hoarse cries and moaning with which we had commenced were +gradually transforming themselves into singing. + +There were some who were too weak to walk; these were carried by the +American Red Cross men into the waiting ambulances. The remainder were +marshalled into a disorderly procession and led out of the station by +the band. + +We were moving down the hill to the palaces beside the lake--the +palaces to which all France used to troop for pleasure. We moved +soddenly at first, shuffling in our steps. But the drums were still +rolling out their defiance and the bugles were still blowing. The +laziest man in the French Army was doing his utmost to belie his +record. The ill-shod, flattened feet took up the music. They began to +dance. Were there ever feet less suited to dancing? That they should +dance was the acme of tragedy. Stockings fell down in creases about +the ankles. Women commenced to jig their Boche babies in their arms; +consumptive men and ancients waved their sauce-pans and grotesque +bundles of umbrellas. The sight was damnable. It was a burlesque. It +pierced the heart. What right had the Boche to leave these people so +comic after he had squeezed the life-blood out of them? + +All his insults to humanity became suddenly typified in these five +hundred jumping tatterdemalions--the way in which he had plundered the +world of its youth, its cleanness, its decency. I felt an anger which +battlefields had never aroused, where men moulder above ground and +become unsightly beneath the open sky. The slain of battlefields +were at least motionless; they did not gape and grin at you with +the dreadful humour of these perambulating dead. I felt the Galilean +passion which animates every Red Cross worker at Evian: the agony +to do something to make these murdered people live again. This last +convoy came, I discovered, from a city behind the Boche lines against +which last summer I had often directed fire. It was full in sight from +my observing station. I had watched the very houses in which these +people, who now walked beside me, had sheltered. For three and a half +years these women's bodies had been at the Hun's mercy. I tried to +bring the truth home to myself. Their men and young girls had been +left behind. They themselves had been flung back on overburdened +France only because they were no longer serviceable. They were +returning actually penniless, though seemingly with money. The thrifty +German makes a practice of seizing all the good redeemable French +money of the repatries before he lets them escape him, giving them in +exchange worthless paper stuff of his own manufacture, which has no +security behind it and is therefore not negotiable. + +We came to the Casino, where endless formalities were necessary. First +of all in the big hall, formerly devoted to gambling, the repatries +were fed at long tables. As I passed, odd groups seeing my uniform, +hurriedly dropped whatever they were doing and, removing their caps, +stood humbly at attention. There was fear in their promptness. Where +they came from an officer exacted respect with the flat of his +sword. What a dumb, helpless jumble of humanity! It was as though the +occupants of a morgue had become galvanised and had temporarily risen +from their slabs. + +The band had been augmented by trumpets. It took its place in the +gallery and deluged the hall with patriotic fervour. An old man +climbed on a table and yelled, "Vive La France!" But they had grown +tired of shouting; they soon grew tired. The cry was taken up faintly +and soon exhausted itself. Nothing held their attention for long. +Most of them sat hunched up and inert, weakly crying. They were not +beautiful. They were not like our men who die in battle. They were +animated memories of horror. "What lies before us? What lies before +us?" That was the question that their silence asked perpetually. Some +of them had husbands with the French army; others had sweethearts. +What would those men say to the flaxen-haired babies who nestled +against the women's breasts? And the sin was not theirs--they were +such tired, pretty mites. "What lies before us?" The babies, too, +might well have asked that question. Do you wonder that I at last +began to share the Frenchman's hatred for the Boche? + +An extraordinary person in a white tie, top hat and evening dress +entered. He looked like a cross between Mr. Gerard's description of +himself in Berlin and a head-waiter. He evidently expected his advent +to cause a profound sensation. I found out why: he was the official +welcomer to Evian. Twice a day, for an infinity of days, he had +entered in solemn fashion, faced the same tragic assembly, made the +same fiery oration, gained applause at the climax of the same rounded +periods and allowed his voice to break in the same rightly timed +places. Having kept his audience in sufficient suspense as regards +his mission, he unwrapped the muffler from his neck, removed his coat, +felt his throat to see whether it was in good condition, swelled out +his chest, including his waist-coat which was spanned by the broad +ribbon of his office, then let loose the painter of his emotion and +slipped off into the mid-stream of perfunctory eloquence. With all his +disrobing he had retained his top-hat; he held it in his right hand +with the brim pressed against his thigh, very much in the manner of +a showman at a circus. It contributed largely to the opulence of his +gestures. + +He always seemed to have concluded and was always starting up afresh, +as if in reluctant response to spectral clapping. He called upon the +repatries never to forget the crimes that had been wrought against +them--to spread abroad the fire of their indignation, the story of +their ravished womanhood and broken families all over France. They +watched him leaden-eyed and wept softly. To forget, to forget, that +was all that they wanted--to blot out all the past. This man with +the top-hat and the evening-dress, he hadn't suffered--how could he +understand? They didn't want to remember; with those flaxen-haired +children against their breasts the one boon they craved was +forgetfulness. And so they cowered and wept softly. It was +intolerable. + +And now the formalities commenced. They all had to be medically +examined. Questions of every description were asked them. They were +drifted from bureau to bureau where people sat filling up official +blanks. The Americans see to the children. They come from living in +cellars, from conditions which are insanitary, from cities in the +army zones where they were underfed. The fear is that they may +spread contagion all over France. When infectious cases are found the +remnants of families have to be broken up afresh. The mothers collapse +on benches sobbing their hearts out as their children are led away. +For three and a half years everything they have loved has been led +away--how can they believe that these Americans mean only mercy? + +From three to four hours are spent in completing all these necessary +investigations. Before the repatries are conducted to their billets, +all their clothes have to be disinfected and every one has to be +bathed. The poor people are utterly worn out by the end of it--they +have already done a continuous four days' journey in cramped trains. +Before being sent to France they have been living for from two to +three weeks in Belgium. The Hun always sends the repatries to Belgium +for a few weeks before returning them. The reason for this is that +they for the most part come from the army zones, and a few weeks will +make any information they possess out of date. Another reason is +that food is more plentiful in Belgium, thanks to the Allies' Relief +Commission. These people have been kept alive on sugar-beets for the +past few months, so it is as well to feed them at the Allies' expense +for a little while, in order that they may create a better impression +when they return to France. The American doctors pointed out to me the +pulpy flesh of the children and the distended stomachs which, to the +unpractised eye, seemed a sign of over-nourishment. "Wind and water," +they said; "that's all these children are. They've no stamina. +Sugar-beets are the most economic means of just keeping the body and +the soul together." + +The lights are going out in the Casino. It is the hour when, in +the old days, life would be becoming most feverish about the gaming +tables. In little forlorn groups the repatries are being conducted +to their temporary quarters in the town. To-morrow morning before it +is light, another train-load will arrive, the band will again play +the Marseillaise, the American Red Cross workers will again be in +attendance, the gentleman in the top-hat and white-tie will again make +his fiery oration of welcome, his audience will again pay no attention +but will weep softly--the tediously heart-rending scene will be +rehearsed throughout in every detail by an entirely new batch of +actors. Twice a day, summer and winter, the same tragedy is enacted at +Evian. It is a continuous, never-ending performance. + +Poor people! These whom I have seen, if they have no friends to claim +them, will re-start their journey to some strange department on which +they will be billeted as paupers. Here again the American Red Cross is +doing good work, for it sends one of its representatives ahead to see +that proper preparations have been made for their reception. After +they have reached their destination, it looks them up from time to +time to make sure that they are being well cared for. + +If one wants to picture the case of the repatrie in its true misery, +all he needs to do is to convert it into terms of his own mother or +grandmother. She has lived all her life in the neighbourhood of Vimy, +let us say. She was married there and it was there that she bore +all her children. She and her husband have saved money; they are +substantial people now and need not fear the future. Their sons are +gaining their own living; one daughter is married, the others are +arriving at the marriageable age. One day the Hun sweeps down on them. +The sons escape to join the French army; the girls and their parents +stay behind to guard their property. They are immediately evacuated +from Vimy and sent to some city, such as Drocourt, further behind +the Hun front-line. Here they are gradually robbed of all their +possessions. At the beginning all their gold is confiscated; later +even the mattresses upon their beds are requisitioned. For three and +a half years they are subjected to both big and petty tyrannies, +till their spirits are so broken that fear becomes their predominant +emotion. The father is led away to work in the mines. One by one the +daughters are commandeered and sent off into the heart of Germany, +where it will be no one's business to guard their virtue. At last +the mother is left with only her youngest child. Of her sons who are +fighting with the French armies she has no knowledge, whether they are +living or dead. Then one day it is decided by her captors that they +have no further use for her. They part her from her last remaining +child and pack her off by way of Belgium and Switzerland back to her +own country. She arrives at Evian penniless and half-witted with the +terror of her sorrow. There is no one to claim her; the part of France +that knew her is all behind the German lines. A label is tied to her, +as if she was a piece of baggage, and she is shipped off to Avignon, +let us say. She has never been in the South before; it is a foreign +country to her. Poverty and adversity have broken her pride; she has +nothing left that will command respect. There is nothing left in life +to which she can fasten her affections. Such utter forlornness is +never a welcome sight. Is it to be wondered at that the strangers to +whom she is sent are not always glad to see her? Is it to be wondered +at that, after her repatriation, she often wilts and dies? Her sorrow +has the appearance of degradation. Wherever she goes, she is a threat +and a peril to the fighting morale of the civilian population. Yet in +her pre-war kindliness and security she might have been your mother or +mine. + +The American Red Cross, by maintaining contact with such people, is +keeping them reminded that they are not utterly deserted--that the +whole of civilised humanity cares tremendously what becomes of them +and is anxious to lighten the load of their sacrifice. + + * * * * * + +I have before me a pile of sworn depositions, made by exiles returned +from the invaded territories. They are separately numbered and dated; +each bears the name of the region or town from which the repatrie +came. Here are a few extracts which, when pieced together, form a +picture of the life of captured French civilians behind the German +lines. I have carefully avoided glaring atrocities. Atrocities are +as a rule isolated instances, due to isolated causes. They occur, but +they are not typical of the situation. The real Hun atrocity is the +attitude towards life which calls chivalry sentiment, fair-play a +waste of opportunity and ruthlessness strength. This attitude is +all summed up in the one word Prussianism. The repatries have been +Prussianised out of their wholesome joy and belief in life; it is this +that makes them the walking accusations that they are to-day. In +the following depositions they give some glimpses of the calculated +processes by which their happiness has been murdered. + + * * * * * + +"Lately copper, tin, and zinc have been removed in the factories and +amongst the traders, and quite recently in private houses. For all +these requisitions the Germans gave Requisition Bonds, but private +individuals who received them never got paid the money. To force men +to work 'voluntarily' and sign contracts the Germans employed the +following means: the Germans gave these men nothing to eat, but +authorised their families to send them parcels; these parcels once in +the hands of the Germans are shown to these unhappy men and are not +handed over until they have signed. About a week ago young boys from +the age of fourteen who had come back from the Ardennes had to present +themselves at the Kdr to be registered anew; a number of the young +people work in the sawmills, etc.; some have died of privation and +fatigue." + + * * * * * + +"A week after Easter this year the population of LILLE was warned by +poster that all must be ready to leave the town. At three o'clock in +the morning private houses were invaded by the German soldiers; they +sorted out women and girls who were to be deported. There then took +place scandalous scenes: young girls belonging to the most worthy +families in the town had to pass medical visits even with the speculum +and had to endure most atrocious physical and moral suffering. These +young girls were segregated like beasts anywhere in the rooms of the +town halls and schoolhouses, and were mingled with the dregs of the +population." + + * * * * * + +"For a certain time the Germans did not requisition milk and allowed +it to be sold, but now this is forbidden under a fine of 1,000 marks +or three months' imprisonment. Recently WIGNEHIES was fined 100,000 +frcs., and as the whole of this sum was not paid the Germans inflicted +punishment as follows: Several inhabitants of WIGNEHIES were caught in +the act of disobeying by the gendarmes and were struck, and bitten by +the police dogs of the gendarmes because they refused to denounce the +sellers.... Brutal treatment is due more to the gendarmes than to the +soldiers. About six weeks ago Marceau Horlet of WIGNEHIES was +found, on a search by the gendarmes, to have a piece of meat in his +possession. He was brutally beaten by them and bitten by the police +dogs because he refused to say who had given it to him. In 1915, the +youth Remy Vallei of WIGNEHIES, age 15, was walking in the street +after 6-9 p.m., which was forbidden; he was seen by two gendarmes and +ran away. He was straightway killed, receiving six revolver bullets in +his body." + + * * * * * + +"At PIGNICOURT during the CHAMPAGNE offensive the village was +bombarded by the French, who were attempting to destroy the railway +lines and bridges. The Commandant, by name Krama, of the Kdr, forced +men and youths, and even women, to fill up the holes made by the +bombardment during the action. A German general passed and reprimanded +them on the ground that there was danger to the civilians; they were +withdrawn for the moment, but sent back as soon as the general had +left." + + * * * * * + +"As regards the Hispano-American revictualling, it may be said with +truth that without this the population of Northern France would have +died of hunger, for the Germans considered themselves liberated from +any responsibility. During the first months of the war before this +Committee started, the Germans put up posters saying that the Allies +were trying to starve Germany, who in turn was not obliged to feed the +invaded territory.... When informant (who is from ST. QUENTIN) left at +the general evacuation of this town, no requisition bonds were given +for household goods. As the inhabitants left, their furniture was +loaded on to motor lorries and taken to the station, whence it was +sent by special train to Germany. This shows clearly that requisition +bonds issued by the Germans show only the small proportion of what has +been suffered by the inhabitants.... Informant was the witness of the +execution of French civilians whose only fault was either to hide +arms or pigeons: several who had committed these infractions of +requisitions were shot, and the Germans announced the fact by poster +of a blood-red colour. In other cases the men shot were British +prisoners who had dressed in civil clothes on the arrival of the +Germans. Informant had a long conversation with one of them before +his execution. He told informant how he had been unable to leave ST. +QUENTIN, viz., by the 28th August. Some passers-by offered to hide +him. It appears that, through his ignorance of the French language, +he was unaware that the Germans threatened execution to all men found +after a certain date. He was discovered and condemned to death for +espionage. It is obvious, as the man himself said, that one could not +imagine a man acting as a spy without knowing either the language of +the country or that of the enemy." + + * * * * * + +"Before the evacuation of the population the Germans chose those who +were to remain as civilian workers, viz., 120 men from 15 to 60. +On the very day of the evacuation they kept back at the station 27 +others. These men are now at CANTIN or SOMAIN, where they are employed +on the roads or looking after munitions in the Arras group. The others +at DECHY and GUESNIN are in the VIMY group and are making pill-boxes +or railway lines. A certain number of these workers refused to carry +out the work ordered, and as punishment during the summer were tied to +chairs and exposed bareheaded to the full blaze of the sun. They were +often threatened to be shot." + + * * * * * + +"After the bombardment of LILLE the Germans entered ENNETIERES on +the 12th October, 1914. On the next Monday 200 Uhlans occupied the +Commune, and houses and haystacks were burned.... At LOMME every one +was forced to work: the Saxon Kdnt. Schoper announced that all women +who did not obey within 24 hours would be interned: all the women +obeyed. They were employed in the making of osier-revetement two +metres high for the trenches. The men were forced to put up barbed +wire near Fort Denglas, two kltrs. from the front. A few days after +the evacuation of ENNETIERES the Uhlans shot a youth, Jean Leclercq, +age 17, son of the gardener of Count D'Hespel, simply because they had +found a telephone wire in the courtyard of the chateau." + + * * * * * + +"Informant, who has lost his right arm, was nevertheless forced to +work for the Germans, notably to unload coal and to work on the roads. +He had with him males from 13 to 60. Having objected because of his +lost arm, he was threatened with imprisonment. At LOMME squads of +workers were given the work of putting up barbed wire; women were +forced to make sand bags. In cases of refusal on either side the Kdr. +inflicted four or five weeks' imprisonment, to say nothing of blows +with sticks inflicted by the soldiers. In spring 1917 a number of +men were sent from LOMME to the BEAUVIN-PROVINS region to work on +defences.... Those who refused to sign were threatened and struck with +the butts of rifles, and left in cellars sometimes filled with water +during bombardments. Several of them came back seriously ill from +privation." + + * * * * * + +"Young girls are separated from their mothers; there are levies made +at every moment. Sometimes these young girls have barely a few hours +before the moment of departure.... Several young girls have written +to say that they are very unhappy and that they sleep in camps amongst +girls of low class and condition." + + * * * * * + +"For a long time past women have been forced to work as road +labourers. These work in the quarries and transport wood cut down by +the men in the mountain forest. A number of women and young girls have +been removed from their families and sent in the direction of RHEIMS +and RETHEL, where it is said (although this cannot be confirmed) that +they are employed in aerodromes." + + * * * * * + +These extracts should serve to explain the mental and physical +depression of the returning exiles. They have been bullied out of the +desire to live and out of all possession of either their bodies or +their souls. They have been treated like cattle, and as cattle they +have come to regard themselves. Lazaruses--that's what they are! The +unmerciful Boche, having killed and buried them, drags them out +from the tomb and compels them to go through the antics of life. Le +Gallienne's poem comes to my mind: + + "Loud mockers in the angry street + Say Christ is crucified again-- + Twice pierced those gospel-bearing feet, + Twice broken that great heart in vain...." + +That is all true at Evian. But when I see the American men and girls, +leaning over the Boche babies in their cots and living their hearts +into the hands and feet of the spiritually maimed, the last two lines +of the poem become true for me: + + "I hear, and to myself I say, + 'Why, Christ walks with me every day.'" + +The work of the American Red Cross at Evian is largely devoted +to children. It provides all the ambulance transportation for the +repatries, to and from the station. American doctors and nurses do +all the examining of the children at the Casino. On an average, four +hundred pass through their hands daily. The throat, nose, teeth, +glands and skin of each child are inspected. If the child is suspected +or attacked by any disease, it is immediately segregated and sent to +the American hospital. If the infection is only local or necessitates +further examination, the child and its family are summoned to present +themselves at the American dispensary next day. Every precaution +is employed to prevent the spread of infection--particularly the +infection of tuberculosis. Evian is the gateway from Germany through +which disease and death may be carried to the furthest limits of +France. Very few of the repatries are really healthy. It would be +a wonder if they were after the privations through which they have +passed. All of them are weakened in vitality and broken down in +stamina. Many of them have no homes to go to and have to be sent to +departments of the interior and the south. If they were sent in an +unhealthy condition, it would mean the spread of epidemics. + +The Red Cross has a large children's hospital at Evian in the villas +and buildings of the Hotel Chatelet. This hospital deals with the +contagious cases. It has others, especially one at the Chateau des +Halles, thirty kilometers from Lyons, which take the devitalised, +convalescent and tubercular cases. The Chateau des Halles is a +splendidly built modern building, arranged in an ideal way for +hospital use. It stands at the head of a valley, with an all day sun +exposure and large grounds. Close to the Chateau are a number of small +villages in which it is possible to lodge the repatries in families. +This is an important part of the repatrie's problem, as after their +many partings they fight fiercely against any further separations. One +of the chief reasons for having the Convalescent Hospital out in the +country is that families can be quartered in the villages and so kept +together. + +The pathetic hunger of these people for one another after they have +been so long divided, was illustrated for me on my return journey to +Paris. A man of the tradesman class had been to Evian to meet his wife +and his boy of about eleven. They were among the lucky ones, for they +had a home to go to. He was not prepossessing in appearance. He had a +weak face, lined with anxiety, broken teeth and limp hair. His wife, +as so often happens in French marriages, had evidently been the +manageress. She was unbeautiful in rusty black; her clothes were the +ill-assorted make-shifts of the civilian who escapes from Germany. Her +eyes were shifty with the habit of fear and sunken with the weariness +of crying. The boy was a bright little fellow, full of defiance and +anecdotes of his recent captors. + +When I entered the carriage, they were sitting huddled together--the +man in the middle, with an arm about either of them. He kept pressing +them to him, kissing them by turn in a spasmodic unrestrained fashion, +as if he still feared that he might lose them and could not convince +himself of the happy truth that they were once again together. The +woman did not respond to his embraces; she seemed indifferent to him, +indifferent to life, indifferent to any prospects. The boy seemed fond +of his father, but embarrassed by his starved demonstrativeness. + +I listened to their conversation. The man's talk was all of the +future--what splendid things he would do for them. How, as long +as they lived, he would never waste a moment from their sides. It +appeared that he had been at Tours, on a business trip when the war +broke out, and could not get back to Lille before the Germans arrived +there. For three and a half years he had lived in suspense, while +everything he loved had lain behind the German lines. The woman +contributed no suggestions to his brilliant plans. She clung to him, +but she tried to divert his affection. When she spoke it was of small +domestic abuses: the exorbitant prices she had had to pay for food; +the way in which the soldiery had stolen her pots and pans; the +insolence she had experienced when she had lodged complaints against +the men before their officers. And the boy--he wanted to be a poilu. +He kept inventing revenges he would take in battle, if the war lasted +long enough for his class to be called out. As darkness fell they +ceased talking. I began to realise that in three and a half years they +had lost contact. They were saying over and over the things that +had been said already; they were trying to prevent themselves from +acknowledging that they had grown different and separate. The only +bond which held them as a family was their common loneliness and fear +that, if they did not hold together, their intolerable loneliness +would return. When the light was hooded, the boy sank his hand against +his father's shoulder; the woman nestled herself in the fold of his +arm, with her head turned away from him, that he might not kiss her so +often. The man sat upright, his eyes wide open, watching them sleeping +with a kind of impotent despair. They were together; and yet they +were not together. He had recovered them; nevertheless, he had not +recovered them. Those Boches, the devils, they had kept something; +they had only sent their bodies back. All night long, whenever I +woke up as the train halted, the little man was still guarding them +jealously as a dog guards a bone, and staring morosely at the blank +wall of the future. + +These were among the lucky ones; the boy and woman had had a man to +meet them. Somewhere in France there was protection awaiting them and +the shelter of a house that was not charity. And yet ... all night +while they slept the man sat awake, facing up to facts. These were +among the lucky ones! That is Evian; that is the tragedy and need of +France as you see it embodied in individuals. + + * * * * * + +The total number of repatries and refugies now in France is said to +total a million and a half. The repatries are the French civilians who +were captured by the Germans in their advance and have since been sent +back. The refugies are the French civilians from the devastated areas, +who have always remained on the Allies' side of the line. The refugies +are divided into two classes: refugies proper--that is fugitives +from the front, who fled for the most part at the time of the German +invasion; and evacues--those who were sent out of the war zone by the +military authorities. Naturally a large percentage of this million and +a half have lost everything and, irrespective of their former worldly +position, now live with the narrowest margin between themselves and +starvation. The French Government has treated them with generosity, +but in the midst of a war it has had little time to devote to +educating them into being self-supporting. A great number of +funds have been privately raised for them in France; many separate +organisations for their relief have been started. The American Red +Cross is making this million and a half people its special care, and +to do so is co-operating directly with the French Government and with +existing French civilian projects. Its action is dictated by mercy +and admiration, but in results this policy is the most far-seeing +statesmanship. A million and a half plundered people, if neglected and +allowed to remain downhearted, are likely to constitute a danger to +the morale of the bravest nation. Again, from the point of view of +after-war relations, to have been generous towards those who have +suffered is to have won the heart of France. The caring for the French +repatriates and refugees is a definite contribution to the winning of +the war. + +The French system of handling this human stream of tragedy is to +send the sick to local hospitals and the exhausted to the _maison +de repos_. The comparatively healthy are allowed to be claimed by +friends; the utterly homeless are sent to some prefecture remote from +the front-line. The prefects in turn distribute them among towns and +villages, lodging them in old barracks, casinos and any buildings +which war-conditions have made vacant. The adults are allowed by the +Government a franc and a half per day, and the children seventy-five +centimes. + +The armies have drained France of her doctors since the war; until +the Americans came, the available medical attention was wholly +inadequate to the civilian population. The American Red Cross is now +establishing dispensaries through the length and breadth of France. +In country districts, inaccessible to towns, it is inaugurating +automobile-dispensaries which make their rounds on fixed and +advertised days. In addition to this it has started a child-welfare +movement, the aim of which is to build up the birth-rate and lower the +infant mortality by spreading the right kind of knowledge among the +women and girls. + +The condition of the refugees and repatriates, thrust into communities +to which they came as paupers and crowded into buildings which were +never planned for domestic purposes, has been far from enviable. In +September, 1917, the American Red Cross handed over the solving of +this problem to one of its experts who had organised the aid given to +San Francisco after the earthquake, and who had also had charge of the +relief-work necessitated by the Ohio floods at Dayton. Co-operating +with the French, houses partially constructed at the outbreak of war +were now completed and furnished, and approximately three thousand +families were supplied with homes and privacy. The start made +proved satisfactory. Supplies, running into millions of francs, were +requisitioned, and the plan for getting the people out of public +buildings into homes was introduced to the officials of most of the +departments of France. Delegates were sent out by the Red Cross to +undertake the organisation of the work. Money was apportioned for the +supplying of destitute families with furniture and the instruments +of trade; the object in view was not to pauperise them, but to afford +them the opportunity for becoming self-supporting. Re-construction +work in those devastated areas which have been won back from the Boche +was hurried forward in order that the people who had been uprooted +from the soil might be returned to it and, in being returned to their +own particular soil, might recover their place in life and their +balance. + +I visited the devastated areas of the Pas-de-Calais, Somme, Oise and +Aisne and saw what is being accomplished. This destroyed territory +is roughly one hundred miles long by thirty miles broad at its +widest point. In 1912 one-quarter of the wheat produced in France +and eighty-seven per cent. of the beet crop employed in the national +industry of sugar-making, were raised in these departments of the +north. The invasion has diminished the national wheat production by +more than a half. It is obvious, then, that in getting these districts +once more under cultivation two birds are being killed with one stone: +the refugee is being made a self-supporting person--an economic asset +instead of a dead weight--and the tonnage problem is being solved. +If more food is grown behind the Western Front, grain-ships can be +released for transporting the munitions of war from America. + +The French Government had already made a start in this undertaking +before America came into the war. As early as 1914 it voted three +hundred million francs and appointed a group of _sous-prefets_ to +see to the dispensing of it. Little by little, as the Huns have been +driven back, the wealthier inhabitants, whose money was safe in Paris +banks, have returned to these districts and opened _oeuvres_ for the +poorer inhabitants. Many of them have lost their sons and husbands; +they find in their daily labour for others worse off than themselves +an escape from life-long despair. Misfortune is a matter of comparison +and contrast. We are all of us unhappy or fortunate according to our +standards of selfishness and our personal interpretation of our lot. +These patriots are bravely turning their experience of sorrow into the +materials of service. They can speak the one and only word which makes +a bond of sympathy between the prosperous and the broken-hearted, "I, +too, have suffered." I came across one such woman in the neighbourhood +of Villequier-au-Mont. She was a woman of title and a royalist. Her +estates had been laid waste by the invasion and all her men-folk, save +her youngest son, were dead. Directly the Hun withdrew last spring, +she came back to the wilderness which had been created and commenced +to spend what remained of her fortune upon helping her peasants. These +peasants had been the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the Hun +for three and a half years. When his armies retreated, they took with +them the girls and the young men, leaving behind only the weaklings, +the children and the aged. Word came to the Red Cross official of +the district that her remaining son had been killed in action; he was +asked to break the news to her. He went out to her ruined village +and found her sitting among a group of women in the shell of a house, +teaching them to make garments for their families. She was pleased to +see him; she was in need of more materials. She had been intending +to make the journey to see him herself. She was full of her work and +enthusiastic over the valiance of her people. He led her aside and +told her. She fell silent. Her face quivered--that was all. Then she +completed her list of requirements and went back to her women. In +living to comfort other people's grief, she had no time to nurse her +own. + +These "oeuvres," or groups of workers, settle down in a shattered +village or township. The military authorities place the township in +their charge. They at once commence to get roofs on to such houses +as still have walls. They supply farm-implements, poultry, rabbits, +carts, seeds, plants, etc. They import materials from Paris and +form sewing classes for the women and girls. They encourage the +trades-people to re-start their shops and lend them the necessary +initial capital. What is perhaps most valuable, they lure the +terror-stricken population out of their caves and dug-outs, and set +them an example of hope and courage. Some of the best pioneer work +of this sort has been done by the English Society of Friends who now, +together with the Friends of the United States, have become a part +of the Bureau of the Department of Civil Affairs of the American Red +Cross. + +The American Red Cross works through the "oeuvres" which it found +already operating in the devastated area; it places its financial +backing at their disposal, its means of motor transport and its +personnel; it grafts on other "oeuvres," operating in newly taken over +villages, in which Americans, French and English work side by side +for the common welfare; at strategic points behind the lines it +has established a chain of relief warehouses, fully equipped with +motor-lorries and cars. These warehouses furnish everything that an +agricultural people starting life afresh can require--food, clothes, +blankets, beds, mattresses, stoves, kitchen utensils, reapers, +binders, mowing-machines, threshing-machines, garden-tools, soap, +tooth brushes, etc. If you can conceive of yourself as having been a +prosperous farmer and waking up one morning broken in heart and dirty +in person, with your barns, live-stock, daughters, sons, everything +gone--not a penny left in the world--you can imagine your necessities, +and then form some picture of the fore-thought that goes to the +running of a Red Cross warehouse. + +But the poverty of these people is not the worst condition that the +Red Cross workers have to tackle; money can always replace money. +Hope, trust, affection and a genial belief in the world's goodness +cannot be transplanted into another man's heart in exchange for +bitterness by even the most lavish giver. I can think of no +modern parallel for their blank despair; the only eloquence which +approximately expresses it is that of Job, centuries old, "Why is +light given to a man whose way is hid and whom God hath hedged in? My +sighing cometh before I eat. My roarings are poured out like waters. +My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them +that weep. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I +quiet; yet trouble came." + +This hell which the Hun has created, beggars any description of +Dante.[1] It is still more appalling to remember that the external +hell which one sees, does not represent one tithe of the dreariness +which lies hidden behind the eyes of the inhabitants. To imagine amid +such scenes is to paralyse compassion with agony. The craving, never +far from one's thoughts, is the age-old desire, "O that one might +plead with God, as a man pleadeth for his neighbour!" + +[Footnote 1: Since this was written and just as I am returning to +the front, the Hun has set to work to create this hell for the second +time. Most of the places referred to below are once more within the +enemy country and all the mercy of the American Red Cross has been +wiped out.] + +I started out on my trip in a staff-car from a city well behind the +lines. In the first half hour of the journey the country was green +and pleasant. We passed some cavalry officers galloping across a brown +field; birds were battling against a flurrying wind; high overhead +an aeroplane sailed serenely. There was a sense of life, motion and +exhilaration abroad, but only for the first half hour of our journey. +Then momentarily a depression grew up about us. Fields and trees were +becoming dead, as if a swarm of locusts had eaten their way across +them. Greenness was vanishing. Houses were becoming untenanted; there +were holes in the walls of many of them, through which one gained +glimpses of the sky. Here, by the road-side, we passed a cluster of +insignificant graves. Then, almost without warning, the barbed-wire +entanglements commenced, and the miles and miles of abandoned +trenches. This, not a year ago from the day on which I write, was the +Hun's country. Last spring, in an attempt to straighten his line, he +retreated from it. Our offensives on the Somme had converted his Front +into a dangerous salient. + +We are slowing down; the road is getting water-logged and full of +holes. The skull of a dead town grows up on the horizon. Even at this +distance the light behind empty windows glares malevolently like the +nothingness in vacant sockets. A horror is over everything. The horror +is not so much due to the destruction as to the total absence of any +signs of life. One man creeping through the landscape would make it +seem more kindly. I have been in desolated towns often, but there were +always the faces of our cheery Tommies to smile out from cellars and +gaps in the walls. From here life is banished utterly. The battle-line +has retired eastward; one can hear the faint rumble of the guns at +times. No civilian has come to re-inhabit this unhallowed spot. + +We enter what were once its streets. They are nothing now but craters +with boards across them. On either side the trees lie flat along the +ground, sawn through within a foot of the roots. What landmarks remain +are the blackened walls of houses, cracked and crashed in by falling +roofs. The entire place must have been given over to explosion and +incendiarism before the Huns departed. One stands in awe of such +completeness of savagery; one begins to understand what is meant by +the term "frightfulness." As far as eye can reach there is nothing to +be seen but decayed fangs, protruding from a swamp of filth, covered +with a green slime where water has accumulated. This is not the +unavoidable ruin of shell-fire. No battle was fought here. The +demolition was the wanton spite of an enemy who, because he could not +hold the place, was determined to leave nothing serviceable behind. +With such masterly thoroughness has he done his work that the spot +can never be re-peopled. The surrounding fields are too poisoned and +churned up for cultivation. The French Government plans to plant a +forest; it is all that can be done. As years go by, the kindliness +of Nature may cause her to forget and cover up the scars of hatred +with greenness. Then, perhaps, peasant lovers will wander here and +refashion their dreams of a chivalrous world. Our generation will +be dead by that time; throughout our lives this memorial to +"frightfulness" will remain. + +We have left the town and are out in the open country. It is clean +and unharried. Man can murder orchards and habitations--the things +which man plants and makes; he finds it more difficult to strangle +the primal gifts of Nature. All along by the roadside the cement +telegraph-posts have been broken off short; some of them lie flat +along the ground, others hang limply in the bent shape of hairpins. +Very often we have to make a detour where a steel bridge has been +blown up; we cross the gulley over an improvised affair of struts and +planks, and so come back into the main roadway. Every now and then +we pass steam-tractors at work, ploughing huge fields into regular +furrows. The French Department of Agriculture purchased in America +nineteen teams of ten tractors apiece in the autumn of last year. The +American Red Cross has supplied others. The fields of this district +are unfenced--the farmers used to live together in villages; so +the work is made easy. It is possible to throw a number of holdings +together and to apply to France the same wholesale mechanical means +of wheat-growing that are employed on the prairies of Canada. All +the cattle and horses have been carried off into Germany. All the +farm-implements have been destroyed--and destroyed with a surprising +ingenuity. The same parts were destroyed in each instrument, so that +an entire instrument could not be reconstructed. The farms could not +have been brought under cultivation this year, had not the Government +and the Red Cross lent their assistance. + +We are approaching Noyon, the birthplace of Calvin. This is one of +the few towns the Hun spared in his retreat; he spared it not out of +a belated altruism, but purely to serve his own convenience. There +were some of the French civilians who weren't worth transporting to +Germany. They would be too weak, or too old, or too young to earn +their keep when he got them there. These he sorted out, irrespective +of their family ties, and herded from the surrounding districts into +Noyon. They were crowded into the houses and ordered under pain of +death not to come out until they were given permission. They were +further ordered to shutter all their windows and not to look out. + +As an old lady, who narrated the story, said, "We had no idea, +Monsieur, what was to happen. _Les Boches_ had been with us for nearly +three years; it never entered our heads that they were leaving. When +they took the last of our young girls from us and all who were strong +among our men, it was something that they had done so often and so +often. When they made us hide in our houses, we thought it was only +to prevent a disturbance. It is not easy to see your boys and girls +marched away into slavery--Monsieur will understand that. Sometimes, +on former occasions, the mothers had attacked _les Boches_ and the +young girls had become hysterical; we thought that it was to avoid +such scenes that we were shut up in our houses. When darkness fell, +we sat in our rooms without any lights, for they also were forbidden. +All night long through our streets we heard the endless tramping +of battalions, the clattering wheels of guns and limbers, the sharp +orders, the halting and the marching taken up afresh. Towards dawn +everything grew silent. At first it would be broken occasionally by +the hurried trot of cavalry or the shuffling footsteps of a straggler. +Then it grew into the absolute silence of death. It was nerve-racking +and terrible. One could almost hear the breathing of the listening +people in all the other houses. I do not know how time went or what +was the hour. I could endure the suspense no longer. They might kill +me, but ... Ah well, at my age after nearly three years with 'les +Boches,' killing is a little matter! I crept down the passage and drew +back the bolts. I was very gentle; a sentry might hear me. I opened +the door just a crack. I expected to hear a rifle-shot ring out, but +nothing happened. I opened it wider, and saw that the street was empty +and that it was broad daylight. Then I waited--I do not know how long +I waited. I crouched against the wall, huddled with terror. All this +took much longer in the doing than in the telling. At last I could +bear myself no longer. I tiptoed out on to the pavement--and, Monsieur +will believe me, I expected to drop dead. But no one disturbed me. +Then I heard a rustling. Doors everywhere were opening stealthily, ah, +so stealthily! Some one else tiptoed out, and some one else, and some +one else. We stood there staring, aghast at our daring. Suddenly we +realised what had happened. The brutes had gone. We were free. It was +indescribable, what followed--we ran together, weeping and embracing. +At first we wept for gladness; soon we wept for sorrow. Our youth had +departed; we were all old women or very ancient men. Two hours later +our poilus came, like a blue-grey wave of laughter, fighting their +way through the burning country that those swine had left in a sea of +smoke and flames." + +And so that was why the Hun spared Noyon. But if he spared Noyon, +he spared little else.[2] Every village between here and the present +front line has been levelled; every fruit-tree cut down. The wilful +wickedness and pettiness of the crime stir one's heart to pity and +his soul to white-hot anger. The people who did this must make +payment in more than money; to settle such a debt blood is required. +American soldiers who came to Europe to do a job and with no decided +detestation of the Hun, are being taught by such landscapes. They know +now why they came. The wounds of France are educating them. + +[Footnote 2: Goodness knows where the "present Front-line" may be by +the time this book is published. I visited Noyon in February, 1918, +just before the big Hun offensive commenced.] + +There has been a scheme proposed in America under which certain +individual cities and towns in the States shall make themselves +responsible for the re-building of certain individual cities and +towns in the devastated areas. The scheme is noble; it has only one +drawback, namely that it specialises effort and tends to ignore the +immensity of the problem as a whole. I visited one of these towns--it +is a town for which Philadelphia has made itself responsible. I wish +the people of Philadelphia might get a glimpse of the task they have +undertaken. There is a church-spire still standing; that is about +all. The rest is a pile of bricks. In the midst of this havoc some +Philadelphia ladies are living, one of whom is a nurse. They run a +dispensary for the people who keep house for the most part in cellars +and holes in the ground. A doctor visits them to hold a clinic ever +so often. They have a little warehouse, in which they keep the +necessities for immediate relief work. They have a rest hut for +soldiers. They employ whatever civilian labour they can hire for the +roofing of some of the least damaged cottages; for this temporary +reconstruction they provide the materials. When I was there, the place +was well within range of enemy shell-fire. The approach had to be made +by way of camouflaged roads. The sole anxiety of these brave women +was that on account of their nearness to the front-line, the military +might compel them to move back. In order to safeguard themselves +against this and to create a good impression, they were making a +strong point of entertaining whatever officers were billeted in +this vicinity. Their effort to remain in this rural Gomorrah was as +courageous as it was pathetic. "The people need us," they said, and +then, "you don't think we'll be moved back, do you?" I thought they +would, and I didn't think that the grateful officers would be able to +prevent it--they were subalterns and captains for the most part. "But +we once had a major to tea," they said. "A major!" I exclaimed, trying +to look impressed, "Oh well, that makes a difference!" + +There was one unit I wished especially to visit; it was a unit +consisting entirely of women, sent over and financed by a women's +college. When I was in America last October and heard that they were +starting, I made up my mind that they were doomed to disappointment. +I pictured the battlefield of the Somme as I had last seen it--a sea +of mud stretching for miles, furrowed by the troughs of battered +trenches, pitted every yard with shell-holes and smeared over with +the wreckage of what once were human bodies. I could not imagine what +useful purpose women could serve amid such surroundings. It seemed +to me indecent that they should be allowed to go there. They were +going to do reconstruction, I was told. Reconstruction! you can't +reconstruct towns and villages the very foundations of which have been +buried. There is a Bible phrase which expresses such annihilation, +"The place thereof shall know it no more." Yes, only the names remain +in one's memory--the very sites have been covered up and the contours +of the landscape re-dug with high explosives. It took millions of +pounds to work this havoc. Men tunnelled under-ground and sprung mines +without warning. They climbed like birds of prey, into the heavens to +hurl death from the clouds. They lined up their guns, tier upon tier, +almost axle to axle in places, and at a given sign rained a deluge +of corruption on a country miles in front, which they could not even +discern. The infantry went over the top throwing bombs and piled +themselves up into mounds of silence. Nations far away toiled day and +night in factories--and all that they might achieve this repellant +desolation. The innocence of the project made one smile--a handful of +women sailing from America to reconstruct! To reconstruct will take +ten times more effort than was required to destroy. More than eight +hundred years ago William the Norman burnt his way through the North +Country to Chester. Yorkshire has not yet recovered; it is still a +wind-swept moorland. This women's college in America hoped to repair +in our lifetime a ruin a million times more terrible. Their courage +was depressing, it so exceeded the possible. They might love one +village back to life, but.... That is exactly what they are doing. + +I arrived at Grecourt on an afternoon in January. It is here that the +women of the Smith College Unit have taken up their tenancy. We had +extraordinary difficulty in finding the place. The surrounding country +had been blasted and scorched by fire. There was no one left of whom +we could enquire. Everything had perished. Barns, houses, everything +habitable had been blown up by the departing Hun. As a study in the +painstaking completion of a purpose the scenes through which we +passed almost called for admiration. Berlin had ordered her armies to +destroy everything before withdrawing; they had obeyed with a loving +thoroughness. The world has never seen such past masters in the art +of demolition. Ever since they invaded Belgium, their hand has been +improving. In the neighbourhood of Grecourt they have equalled, if not +surpassed, their own best efforts. I would suggest to the Kaiser that +this manly performance calls for a distribution of iron crosses. It is +true that his armies were beaten and retiring; but does not that fact +rather enhance their valour? They were retiring, yet there were those +who were brave enough to delay their departure till they had achieved +this final victory over old women and children to the lasting honour +of their country. Such heroes are worthy to stand beside the sinkers +of the _Lusitania_. It is not just that they should go unrecorded. + +In the midst of this hell I came across a tumbled chateau. Its roof, +its windows, its stairways were gone; only the crumbling shell of its +former happiness was left standing. A high wall ran about its grounds. +The place must have been pleasant with flower-gardens once. There was +an impressive entrance of wrought-iron, a porter's lodge and a broad +driveway. At the back I found rows of little wood-huts. There was a +fragrance of log-fires burning. I was glad of that, for I had heard +of the starving cold these women had had to endure through the first +winter months of their tenure. On tapping at a door, I found the +entire colony assembled. It was tea-time and Sunday. Ten out of the +seventeen who form the colony were present. A box-stove, such as +we use in our pioneer shacks in Canada, was throwing out a glow of +cheeriness. Candles had been lighted. Little knicknacks of feminine +taste had been hung here and there to disguise the bareness of the +walls. A bed, in one corner, was carefully disguised as a couch. +Save for the fact that there was no glass in the window--glass +being unobtainable in France at present--one might easily have +persuaded himself that he was back in America in the room of a +girl-undergraduate. + +The method of my greeting furthered this illusion. Americans, both +men and women, have an extraordinary self-poise, a gift for remaining +normal in the most abnormal surroundings. They refuse to allow +themselves to be surprised by any upheaval of circumstances. "I should +worry," they seem to be saying, and press straight on with the job +in hand. There was one small touch which made the environment seem +even more friendly and unexceptional. One of the girls, on being +introduced, promptly read to me a letter which she had just received +from my sister in America. It made this oasis in an encircling +wilderness seem very much a part of a neighbourly world. This girl is +an example of the varied experiences which have trained American women +into becoming the nursemaids of the French peasantry. + +She was visiting relations in Liege when the war broke out. On the +Sunday she went for a walk on the embattlements and was turned back. +Baulked in this direction, she strolled out towards the country and +found men digging trenches. That was the first she knew that war was +rumoured. On the Tuesday, two days later, Hun shells were detonating +on the house-tops. She was held prisoner in Liege for some months +after the Forts had fallen and saw more than all the crimes against +humanity that the Bryce Report has recorded. At last she disguised +herself and contrived her escape into Holland. From there she worked +her way back to America and now she is at Grecourt, starting shops in +the villages, educating the children, and behaving generally as if to +respond to the "Follow thou me" of the New Testament was an entirely +unheroic proceeding for a woman. + +And what are these women doing at Grecourt? To condense their purpose +into a phrase, I should say that by their example they are bringing +sanity back into the lives of the French peasants. That is what the +American Fund for French Wounded is doing at Blerancourt, what all +these reconstruction units are doing in the devastated areas, and what +the American Red Cross is doing on a much larger scale for the whole +of France. At Grecourt they have a dispensary and render medical aid. +If the cases are grave, they are sent to the American Hospital at +Nesle. They hunt out the former tradespeople among the refugees and +encourage them to re-start their shops, lending them the money for +the purpose. If the men are captives in Germany, then their wives are +helped to carry on the business in their absence and for their sakes. +Groups of mothers are brought together and set to work on making +clothes for themselves and their children. Schools are opened so +that the children may be more carefully supervised. Two of the girls +at Grecourt have learnt to plough, and are instructing the peasant +women. Cows are kept and a dairy has been started to provide the +under-nourished babies of the district. An automobile-dispensary is +sent out from the hospital at Nesle to visit the remoter districts. It +has a seat along one side for the patient and the nurse. Over the seat +is a rack for medicine and instruments. On the opposite side is a +rack for splints and surgical dressings. On the floor of the car a +shower-bath is arranged, which is so compact that it can be carried +into the house where the water is to be heated. The water is put into +a tub on a wooden base; while the doctor manipulates the pump for the +shower, the nurse does the scrubbing. Most of the diseases among the +children are due to dirt; the importance of keeping clean, which such +colonies as that at Grecourt are impressing on all the people whom +they serve, is doing much to improve the general state of health. In +this direction, as in so many others, the most valuable contribution +that they are making to their districts is not material and financial, +but mental--the contribution of example and suggestion. Seventeen +women cannot re-build in a day an external civilisation which has been +blotted out by the savagery of a nation; but they can and they are +re-building the souls of the human derelicts who have survived the +savagery. This war is going to be won not by the combination of +nations which has most men and guns, but by the side which possesses +the highest spiritual qualities. The same is true of the countries +which will wipe out the effects of war most quickly when the war is +ended. The first countries to recover will be those which fight on +in a new way, after peace has been signed, for the same ideals for +which they have shed their blood. The sight of these American women, +living helpfully and voluntarily for the sake of others among hideous +surroundings, is a perpetual reminder to the dispirited refugees that, +whatever else is lost, valiance and loyalty still survive. + +From Grecourt I went farther afield to Croix, Y and Matigny. Here +a young architect is in charge of the reconstruction. No attempt +is being made at present to re-build the farms entirely. Labour is +difficult to obtain--it is all required for military purposes. The +same applies to materials. Patching is the best that can be done. Just +to get a roof over one corner of a ruin is as much as can be hoped +for. Until that is done the people have to live in cellars, in +shell-holes, in verminous dug-outs like beasts of prey or savages. +Their position is far more deplorable than that of Indians, for they +once knew the comforts of civilisation. For instance, I visited a +farmer who before the war was a millionaire in French money. Many of +the farmers of this district were; their acreages were large even by +prairie standards. The American Red Cross has managed to reconstruct +one room for him in a pile of debris which was once a spacious house. +There he lives with his old wife, who, during the Hun occupation, +became nearly blind and almost completely paralytic. His sons and +daughters have been swept beyond his knowledge by the departing +armies. Before the Huns left, he had to stand by and watch them +uselessly lay waste his home and possessions. His trees are cut down. +His barns are laid flat. His cattle are behind the German lines. At +the age of seventy, he is starting all afresh and working harder than +ever he did in his life. The young architect of the Red Cross visits +him often. They sit in the little room of nights, erecting barns and +houses more splendid than those that have vanished, but all in the +green quiet of the untested future. They shall be standing by the time +the captive sons come back. It is a game at which they play for the +sake of the blinded mother; she listens smilingly, nodding her old +head, her frail hands folded in her lap. + +These pictures which I have painted are typical of some of the things +that the American Red Cross is doing. They are isolated examples, +which by no means cover all its work. There are the rolling canteens +which it has instituted, which follow the French armies. There are +the rest houses it has built on the French line of communications for +_poilus_ who are going on leave or returning. There is the farm for +the mutilated, where they are taught to be specialists in certain +branches of agriculture, despite their physical curtailments. There +is the great campaign against tuberculosis which it is waging. There +are its well-conceived warehouses, stored with medical supplies and +military and relief necessities, spreading in a great net-work of +usefulness and connected by ambulance transport throughout the whole +of the stricken part of France. There are its hospitals, both military +and civil. There is the "Lighthouse" for men wounded in battle, +founded by Miss Holt in Paris. + +I visited this Lighthouse; it is a place infinitely brave and +pathetic. Most of the men were picked heroes at the war; they wear +their decorations in proof of it. They are greater heroes than ever +now. Nothing has more deeply moved me than my few hours among those +sightless eyes. In many cases the faces are hideously marred, the +eyelids being quite grown together. In several cases besides the eyes, +the arms or legs have gone. I have talked and written a good deal +about the courage which this war has inspired in ordinary men; but the +courage of these blinded men, who once were ordinary, leaves me silent +and appalled. They are happy--how and why I cannot understand. Most +of them have been taught at the Lighthouse how to overcome their +disability and are earning their living as weavers, stenographers, +potters, munition-workers. Quite a number of them have families +to support. The only complaint that is made against them by their +brother-workmen is that they are too rapid; they set too strenuous +a pace for the men with eyes. It is a fact that in all trades where +sensitiveness of touch is an asset, blindness has increased their +efficiency. This is peculiarly so at the Sevres pottery-works where I +saw them making the moulds for retorts. A soldier, who was teaching a +seeing person Braille, explained his own quickness of perception when +he exclaimed, "Ah, madame, it is your eyes which prevent you from +seeing!" + +I heard some of the stories of the men. There was a captain who, after +he had been wounded and while there was yet time to save his sight, +insisted on being taken to his General that he might inform him about +a German mine. When his mission was completed, his chance of seeing +was forever ended. + +There was a lieutenant who was blinded in a raid and left for dead +out in No Man's Land. Just before he became unconscious, he placed +two lumps of earth in line in the direction which led back to his +own trenches. He knew the direction by the sound of the retreating +footsteps. Whenever he came to himself he groped his way a little +nearer to France and before he fainted again, registered the direction +with two more lumps of earth placed in line. It took him a day to +crawl back. + +There was another man who illustrated in a finer way that saying, "It +is your eyes which prevent you from seeing." This man before the war +was a village-priest, and no credit to his calling. He had a sister +who had spent her youth for him and worshipped him beyond everything +in the world. He took her adoration brutally for granted. At the +outbreak of hostilities he joined the army, serving bravely in the +ranks till he was hopelessly blinded. Having always been a thoroughly +selfish man, his privation drove him nearly to madness. He had always +used the world; now for the first time he had been used by it. His +viciousness broke out in blasphemy; he hated both God and man. He made +no distinction between people in the mass and the people who tried to +help him. His whole desire was to inflict as much pain as he himself +suffered. When his sister came to visit him, he employed every +ingenuity of word and gesture to cause her agony. Do what she would, +he refused to allow her love either to reach or comfort him. She was +only a simple peasant woman. In her grief and loneliness she thought +matters out and arrived at what seemed to her a practical solution. +On her next visit to the hospital she asked to see the doctor. She was +taken to him and made her request. "I love my brother," she said; "I +have always given him everything. He has lost his eyes and he cannot +endure it. Because I love him, I could bear it better. I have been +thinking, and I am sure it is possible: I want you to remove my eyes +and to put them into his empty sockets." + +When the priest was told of her offer, he laughed derisively at her +for a fool. Then the reason she had given for her intended sacrifice +was told to him, "Because I love him, I could bear it better." He fell +silent. All that day he refused food; in the eternal darkness, muffled +by his bandages, he was arriving at the truth: she had been willing +to suffer what he was now suffering, because she loved him. The hand +of love would have made the burden bearable and, if for her, why not +for himself? At last, after years of refusal, the simplicity of her +tenderness reached and touched him. Presently he was discharged from +hospital and taken in hand by the teachers of the blind, who taught +him to play the organ. One day his sister came and led him back to his +village-parish. Before the war, by his example, he was a danger to +God and man; now he sets a very human example of sainthood, labouring +without ceasing for others more fortunate than himself. He has +increased his efficiency for service by his blindness. Of him it +is absolutely true that it was his eyes that prevented him from +seeing--from seeing the splendour that lay hidden in himself, no less +than in his fellow creatures. + +So far I have sketched in the main what the war of compassion is +doing for the repatries--the captured French civilians sent back from +Germany--and for the refugees of the devastated areas, who have either +returned to their ruined farms and villages or were abandoned as +useless when the Hun retired. To complete the picture it remains to +describe what is being done for the civilian population which has +always lived in the battle area of the French armies. + +The question may be asked why civilians have been allowed to live +here. Curiously enough it is due to the extraordinary humanity of +the French Government which makes allowances for the almost religious +attachment of the peasant to his tiny plot of land; it is an +attachment which is as instinctive and fiercely jealous as that of +a cat for her young. He will endure shelling, gassing and all the +horrors that scientific invention has produced; he will see his +cottage and his barns shattered by bombs and siege-guns, but he will +not leave the fields that he has tilled and toiled over, unless he +is driven out at the point of the bayonet. I have been told, though +I have never seen it, that behind quiet parts of the line, French +peasants will gather in their harvest actually in full sight of the +Hun. Shells may be falling, but they go stolidly on with their work. +There is another reason for this leniency of the Government: they have +enough refugees on their hands already and are not going in search +of further trouble, until the trouble is forced upon them by +circumstances. + +As may be imagined, these people live under physical conditions that +are terrible. They consist for the most part of women and children; +the women are over-worked and the children are neglected. Skin +diseases and vermin abound. Clothes are negligible. Washing is a +forgotten luxury. Much havoc is wrought by asphyxiating gases which +drift across the front-line into the back-country. To the adults are +issued protective masks like those that the soldiers wear, but the +children do not know how to use them. Many of them are orphans, and +live like little animals on roots and offal; for shelter they seek +holes in the ground. The American Red Cross is specialising on its +efforts to reclaim these children, realising that whatever happens to +the adults, the children are the hope of the world. + +The part of the Front to which I went to study this work was made +famous in 1914 by the disembowellings, shootings and unspeakable +indecencies that were perpetrated there. Near by is the little village +in which Sister Julie risked her life by refusing to allow her wounded +to be butchered. She wears the Legion of Honour now. In the same +neighbourhood there lives a Mayor who, after having seen his young +wife murdered, protected her murderers from the lynch-law of the mob +when next day the town was recaptured. In the same district there is +a meadow where fifteen old men were done to death, while a Hun officer +sat under an oak-tree, drinking mocking toasts to the victims of each +new execution. + +The influence of more than three years of warfare has not been +elevating, as far as these peasants are concerned. As early as July, +a little over a month from its arrival in France, an S.O.S. was sent +out by the Prefet of the department, begging the American Red Cross +to come and help. In addition to the refugees of old standing, 350 +children had been suddenly put into his care. He had nothing but a +temporary shelter for them and his need for assistance was acute. +Within a few hours the Red Cross had despatched eight workers--a +doctor, nurse, bacteriologist, an administrative director and two +women to take charge of the bedding, food and clothing. A camionette +loaded with condensed milk and other relief necessities was sent by +road. On the arrival of the party, they found the children herded +together in old barracks, dirty and unfurnished, with no sanitary +appliances whatsoever. The sick were crowded together with the well. +Of the 350 children, twenty-one were under one year of age, and the +rest between one and eight years. The reason for this sudden crisis +was that the Huns were bombing the villages behind the lines with +asphyxiating gas. The military authorities had therefore withdrawn +all children who were too young to adjust their masks themselves, at +the same time urging their mothers to carry on the patriotic duty of +gathering in the harvest. It was the machinery of mercy which had been +built up in six months about this nucleus of eight persons that I set +out to visit. + +The roads were crowded with the crack troops of France--the Foreign +Legion, the Tailleurs, the Moroccans--all marching in one direction, +eastward to the trenches. There were rumours of something immense +about to happen--no one knew quite what. Were we going to put on a +new offensive or were we going to resist one? Many answers were given: +they were all guesswork. Meanwhile, our progress was slow; we were +continually halting to let brigades of artillery and regiments +of infantry pour into the main artery of traffic from lanes and +side-roads. When we had backed our car into hedges to give them +room to pass, we watched the sea of faces. They were stern and yet +laughing, elated and yet childish, eloquent of the love of living and +yet familiar with their old friend, Death. They knew that something +big was to be demanded of them; before the demand had been made, +they had determined to give to the ultimate of their strength. There +was a spiritual resolution about their faces which made all their +expressions one--the uplifted expression of the unconquered soul of +France. That expression blotted out their racial differences. It did +not matter that they were Arabs, Negroes, Normans, Parisians; they +owned to one nationality--the nationality of martyrdom--and they +marched with a single purpose, that freedom might be restored to the +world. + +When we reached the city to which we journeyed, night had fallen. +There was something sinister about our entry; we were veiled in fog, +and crept through the gate and beneath the ramparts with extinguished +head lights. Scarcely any one was abroad. Those whom we passed, loomed +out of the mist in silence, passed stealthily and vanished. + +This city is among the most beautiful in France; until recently, +although within range of the Hun artillery, it had been left +undisturbed. In return the French had spared an equally beautiful city +on the other side of the line. This clemency, shown towards two gems +of architecture, was the result of one of those silent bargains that +are arranged in the language of the guns. But the bargain had been +broken by the time I arrived. Bombing planes had been over; the Allied +planes had retaliated. Houses, emptied like cart-loads of bricks into +the street, were significant of the ruin that was pending. Any moment +the orchestra of destruction might break into its overture. Without +cessation one could hear a distant booming. The fiddlers of death were +tuning up. + +Early next morning I went to see the Prefet. He is an old man, whose +courage has made him honoured wherever the French tongue is spoken. +Others have thought of their own safety and withdrawn into the +interior. Never from the start has his sense of duty wavered. Night +and day he has laboured incessantly for the refugees, whom he refers +to always as "my suffering people." He kept me waiting for some +time. Directly I entered he volunteered the explanation: he had just +received word from the military authorities that the whole of his +civil population must be immediately evacuated. To evacuate a civil +population means to tear it up and transplant it root and branch, with +no more of its possession than can be carried as hand-baggage. Some +75,000 people would be made homeless directly the Prefet published the +order. + +It was a dramatic moment, full of tragedy. I glanced out into the +square filled with wintry sunlight. I took note of the big gold gates +and the monuments. I watched the citizens halting here and there to +chat, or going about their errands with a quiet confidence. All this +was to be shattered; it had been decided. The same thing was to happen +here as had happened at Ypres. The bargain was off. The enemy city, +the other side of the line, was to be shelled; this city had to take +the consequences. The bargain was off not only as far as the city was +concerned, but also as regards its inhabitants' happiness. They had +homes to-day; they would be fugitives to-morrow. Then I looked at +the old Prefet, who had to break the news to them. He was sitting at +his table in his uniform of office, supporting his head in his tired +hands. + +"What are you going to do?" I asked. + +"I have called on the Croix Rouge Americaine to help me," he +said. "They have helped me before; they will help me again. These +Americans--I have never been to America--but they are my friends. +Since they came, they have looked after my babies. Their doctors and +nurses have worked day and night for my suffering people. They are +silent; but they do things. There is love in their hands." + +While I was still with him the Red Cross officials arrived. They had +already wired to Paris. Their lorries and ambulances were converging +from all points to meet the emergency. They undertook at once to place +all their transport facilities at his disposal. They had started their +arrangements for the handling of the children. Extra personnel were +being rushed to the spot. There was one unit already in the city. They +had hoped to go nearer to the Front, but on arriving had learnt that +their permission had been cancelled. It was a bit of luck. They could +set to work at once. + +I knew this unit and went out to find it. It was composed of American +society girls, who had been protected all their lives from ugliness. +They had sailed from New York with the vaguest ideas of the war +conditions they would encounter; they believed that they were needed +to do a nurse-maid's job for France. Their original purpose was to +found a creche for the babies of women munition-workers. When they +got to Paris they found that such institutions were not wanted. They +at once changed their programme, and asked to be allowed to take +their creche into the army zone and convert it into a hospital for +refugee children. There were interminable delays due to passport +formalities--the delays dragged on for three months. During those +three months they were called on for no sacrifice; they lived just +as comfortably as they had done in New York and, consequently, grew +disgusted. They had sailed for France prepared to give something that +they had never given before, and France did not seem to want it. At +last their passports came; without taking any chances, they got out +of Paris and started for the Front. Their haste was well-timed; no +sooner had they departed than a message arrived, cancelling their +permissions. They had reached the doomed city in which I was at +present, two days before its sentence was pronounced. Within four +hours of their arrival they had had their first experience of being +bombed. Their intention had been to open their hospital in a town +still nearer to the front-line. The hospital was prepared and waiting +for them. But in the last few days the military situation had changed. +A hospital so near the trenches stood a good chance of being destroyed +by shell-fire; so once again the unit was held up. It volunteered to +abandon its idea of running the hospital for children; it would run it +as a first aid hospital for the armies. The offer was refused. These +girls, whose gravest interest a year ago had been the season's dances +and the latest play, were determined to experience the thrill of +sacrifice. So here they were in the doomed city, as the Red Cross +officials said, "by luck"--the very place where they were most needed. + +When I visited them, after leaving the Prefet's, they had not yet +heard that they were to be allowed to stay. They had heard nothing of +the city's sentence or of the evacuation of the civil population. All +they knew was that the hospital, which had been appointed with their +money, was only a few kilometres away and that they were forbidden +even to see it. They were gloomy with the fear that within a handful +of days they would be again walking the boulevards of Paris. When +the news was broken to them of the part they were to play, the full +significance of it did not dawn on them at once. "But we don't want +anything easy," they complained; "this isn't the Front." "It will +be soon," the official told them. When they heard that they cheered +up; then their share in the drama was explained. In all probability +the city would soon be under constant shell-fire. Refugees would be +pouring back from the forward country. The people of the city itself +had to be helped to escape before the bombardment commenced. They +would have to stay there taking care of the children, packing them +into lorries, driving ambulances, rendering first aid, taking the +wounded and decrepit out of danger and always returning to it again +themselves. As the certainty of the risk and service was impressed on +them their faces brightened. Risk and service, that was what they most +desired; they were girls, but they hungered to play a soldier's part. +They had only dreamt of serving when they had sailed from New York. +Those three months of waiting had stung their pride. It was in Paris +that the dream of risk had commenced. They would make France want +them. Their chance had come. + +When I came out into the streets again the word was spreading. Carts +were being loaded in front of houses. Everything on wheels, from +wagons to perambulators, was being piled up. Everything on four legs, +dogs, cattle, horses, was being harnessed and made to do its share +in hauling. We left the city, going back to the next point where the +refugees would be cared for. On either side of the road, as far as eye +could stretch, trenches had been dug, barricades thrown up, blockades +and wire-entanglements constructed. It all lay very quiet beneath the +sunlight. It seemed a kind of preposterous pretence. One could not +imagine these fields as a scene of battle, sweating torture and agony +and death. I looked back at the city, one of the most beautiful in +France, growing hazy in the distance with its spires and its ramparts. +Impossible! Then I remembered the carts being hurriedly loaded and +the uplifted faces of those American girls. Where had I seen their +expression before? Yes. Strange that they should have caught it! Their +expression was the same as that which I had noticed on the Tailleurs, +the Foreign Legion and the Moroccans--the crack troops of France.... +So they had become that already! At the first hint of danger, their +courage had taken command; they had risen into soldiers. + +Through villages swarming with troops and packed with ordnance +we arrived at an old caserne, which has been converted into the +children's hospital of the district. It is in charge of one of the +first of America's children's specialists. While he works among the +refugees, his wife, who is a sculptress, makes masks for the facially +mutilated. He has brought with him from the States some of his +students, but his staff is in the main cosmopolitan. One of his nurses +is an Australian, who was caught at the outbreak of hostilities in +Austria and because of her knowledge, despite her nationality, was +allowed to help to organise the Red Cross work of the enemy. Another +is a French woman who wears the Croix de Guerre with the palm. She +saved her wounded from the fury of the Hun when her village was lost, +and helped to get them back to safety after it had been recaptured. +The Matron is Swedish and Belgian. The ambulance-drivers are some +of the American boys who saw service with the French armies. In this +group of workers there are as many stories as there are nationalities. + +If the workers have their stories, so have the five hundred little +patients. This barrack, converted into a hospital, is full of babies, +the youngest being only six days old when I was there. Many of the +children have no parents. Others have lost their mothers; their +fathers are serving in the trenches. It is not always easy to find out +how they became orphans; there are such plentiful chances of losing +parents who live continually under shell-fire. One little boy on being +asked where his mother was, replied gravely, "My Mama, she is dead. +Les Boches, they put a gun to 'er 'ead. She is finished; I 'ave no +Mama." + +The unchildlike stoicism of these children is appalling. I spent +two days among them and heard no crying. Those who are sick, lie +motionless as waxen images in their cots. Those who are supposedly +well, sit all day brooding and saying nothing. When first they arrive, +their faces are earth-coloured. The first thing they have to be taught +is how to be children. They have to be coaxed and induced to play; +even then they soon grow weary. They seem to regard mere playing as +frivolous and indecorous; and so it is in the light of the tragedies +they have witnessed. Children of seven have seen more of horror in +three years than most old men have read about in a life-time. Many +of them have been captured by and recaptured from the Huns. They have +been in villages where the dead lay in piles and not even the women +were spared. They have been present while indecencies were worked upon +their mothers. They have seen men hanged, shot, bayoneted and flung +to roast in burning houses. The pictures of all these things hang +in their eyes. When they play, it is out of politeness to the kind +Americans; not because they derive any pleasure from it. + +Night is the troublesome time. The children hide under their beds with +terror. The nurses have to go the rounds continually. If the children +would only cry, they would give warning. But instead, they creep +silently out from between the sheets and crouch against the floor like +dumb animals. Dumb animals! That is what they are when first they +are brought in. Their most primitive instincts for the beginnings of +cleanliness seem to have vanished. They have been fished out of caves, +ruined dug-outs, broken houses. They are as full of skin-diseases as +the beggar who sat outside Dives' gate, only they have had no dogs to +lick their sores. They have lived on offal so long that they have the +faces of the extremely aged. And their hatred! Directly you utter the +word "Boche," all the little night-gowned figures sit up in their cots +and curse. When they have done cursing, of their own accord, they sing +the Marseillaise. + +Surely if God listens to prayers of vengeance, He will answer the +husky petitions of these victims of Hun cruelty! The quiet, just, +deep-seated venom of these babies will work the Hun more harm than +many batteries. Their fathers come back from the trenches to see them. +On leaving, they turn to the American nurses, "We shall fight better +now," they say, "because we know that you are taking care of them." + +When those words are spoken, the American Red Cross knows that it is +achieving its object and is winning its war of compassion. The whole +drive of all its effort is to win the war in the shortest possible +space of time. It is in Europe to save children for the future, to +re-kindle hope in broken lives, to mitigate the toll of unavoidable +suffering, but first and foremost to help men to fight better. + + + + +IV + +THE LAST WAR + + +_The last war!_ I heard the phrase for the first time on the evening +after Great Britain had declared war. I was in Quebec en route for +England, wondering whether my ship was to be allowed to sail. There +had been great excitement all day, bands playing the Marseillaise, +Frenchmen marching arm-in-arm singing, orators, gesticulating and +haranguing from balconies, street-corners and the base of statues. + +Now that the blue August night was falling and every one was released +from work, the excitement was redoubled. Quebec was finding in war +an opportunity for carnival. Throughout all the pyramided city the +Tri-colour and the Union Jack were waving. At the foot of the Heights, +the broad basin of the St. Lawrence was a-drift in the dusk with +fluttering pennons. They looked like homing birds, settling in +dovecotes of the masts and rigging. + +As night deepened, Chinese lanterns were lighted and carried on poles +through the narrow streets. Troops of merry-makers followed them, +blowing horns, dragging bells, tin-cans, anything that would make a +noise and express high spirits. They linked arms with girls as they +marched and were lost, laughing in the dusk. If a French reservist +could be found who was sailing in the first ship bound for the +slaughter, he became the hero of the hour and was lifted shoulder high +at the head of the procession. War was a brave game at which to play. +This was to be a short war and a merry one. Down with the Germans! Up +with France! Hurrah for the entente cordiale! + +Beneath the coronet of stars on the Heights of Abraham the spirit of +Wolfe kept watch and brooded. It was under these circumstances, that I +heard the phrase for the first time--_the last war_. + +The street was blocked with a gaping crowd. All the faces were raised +to an open window, two storeys up, from which the frame had been taken +out. Inside the building one could hear the pounding of machinery, +for it was here that the most important paper of Quebec was printed. +Across a huge white sheet a man on a hanging platform painted the +latest European cables. A cluster of electric lights illuminated him +strongly; but he was not the centre of the crowd's attention. In the +window stood another man. Like myself he was waiting for his ship +to sail, but not to England--to France. He was a returning French +reservist. Across the many miles of ocean the hand of duty had +stretched and touched him; he was ecstatically glad that he was +wanted. In those first days this ecstasy of gladness was a little hard +to understand. Thank God we all share it instinctively now. He was +speaking excitedly, addressing the crowd. They cheered him; they were +in a mood to cheer anybody. His face was thin with earnestness; he +was a spirit-man. He waved aside their applause with impatience. He +was trying to inspire them with his own intensity. In the intervals +between the shouting, I caught some of his words, "I am setting out +to fight the last war--the war of humanity which will bring universal +peace and friendship to the world." + +A sailor behind me spat. He was drunk and feeling the need of +sympathy. He began to explain to me the reason. He was a fireman on +one of the steamers in the basin and a reservist in the British Navy. +He had received his orders that day to report back in England for +duty; he knew that he was going to be torpedoed on his voyage across +the Atlantic. How did he know? He had had a vision. Sailors always had +visions before they were drowned. It was to combat this vision that he +had got drunk. + +I shook him off irritably. One didn't require the superstitions of an +alcoholic imagination to emphasize the new terror which had overtaken +the world. There was enough of fear in the air already. All this +spurious gaiety--what was it? Nothing but the chatter of lonely +children who were afraid to listen to the silence--afraid lest they +might hear the creaking footstep of death upon the stairs. And these +candles, lighting up the fringes of the night--they were nothing but a +vain pretence that the darkness had not gathered. + +But this spirit-man framed in the window, he was genuine and +different. Yesterday we should have passed him in the street +unnoticed; to-day the mantle of prophecy clothed him. Within two +months he might be dead--horribly dead with a bayonet through him. +That thought was in the minds of all who watched him; it gave him an +added authority. Yet he was not thinking of himself, of wounds, +of death; he was not even thinking of France. He was thinking of +humanity: "I am setting out to fight the last war--the war of humanity +which will bring universal peace and friendship to the world." + +Since the war started, how often have we heard that phrase--_the last +war!_ It became the battle-cry of all recruiting-men, who would have +fought under no other circumstances, joined up now so that this might +be the final carnage. Nations left their desks and went into battle +voluntarily, long before self-interest forced them, simply because +organised murder so disgusted them that they were determined by weight +of numbers to make this exhibition of brutality the last. + +Before Europe burst into flames in 1914, we believed that the last +war had been already fought. The most vivid endorsement of this belief +came out of Germany in a book which, to my mind, up to that time was +the strongest peace-argument in modern literature. It was so strong +that the Kaiser's Government had the author arrested and every copy +that could be found destroyed. Nevertheless, over a million were +secretly printed and circulated in Germany, and it was translated into +every major European language. The book I refer to was known under its +American title as, _The Human Slaughter-House_. It told very simply +how men who had played the army game of sticking dummies, found +themselves called upon to stick their brother-men; how they obeyed at +first, then sickened at sight of their own handiwork, until finally +the rank and file on both sides flung down their arms, banded +themselves together and refused to carry out the orders of their +generals. There was no declaration of peace; in that moment national +boundaries were abolished. + +In 1912 this sounded probable. I remember the American press-comments. +They all agreed that national prejudices had been broken down to such +an extent by socialism and friendly intercourse, that never again +would statesmen be able to launch attacks of nations against nations. +Governments might declare war; the peoples whom they governed would +merely overthrow them. The world had become too common-sense to commit +murder on so vast a scale. + +Had it? The world in general might have: but Germany had not. The +argument of _The Human Slaughter-House_ proposed by a German in +protest against what he foresaw was surely coming, turned out to be a +bad guess. It made no allowance for what happens when a mad dog starts +running through the world. One may be tender-hearted. One may not like +killing dogs. One may even be an anti-vivisectionist; but when a dog +is mad, the only humanitarian thing to do is to kill it. If you don't, +the women and children pay the penalty. + +We have had our illustration in Russia of what occurs when one side +flings away its arms, practising the idealistic reasonings which this +book propounds: the more brutal side conquers. While the Blonde Beast +runs abroad spreading rabies, the only idealist who counts is the +idealist who carries a rifle on his shoulder--the only gospel to which +the world listens is the gospel which saviours are dying for. + +The last war! It took us all by surprise. We had believed so utterly +in peace; now we had to prove our faith by being prepared to die for +it. If we did not die, this war would not be the last; it would be +only the preface to the next. To paraphrase the words of Mr. Wells, +"We had been prepared to take life in a certain way and life had taken +us, as it takes every generation, in an entirely different way. We had +been prepared to be altruistic pacifists, and ..." + +And here we are, in this year of 1918, engaged upon the bloodiest war +of all time, harnessing the muscle and brain-power of the universe +to one end--that we may contrive new and yet more deadly methods +of butchering our fellow men. The men whom we kill, we do not hate +individually. The men whom we kill, we do not see when they are dead. +We scald them with liquid fire; we stifle them with gas; we drop +volcanoes on them from the clouds; we pull firing-levers three, ten, +even fifteen miles away and hurl them into eternity unconfessed. And +this we do with pity in our hearts, both for them and for ourselves. +And why? Because they have given us no choice. They have promised, +unless we defend ourselves, to snatch our souls from us and fashion +them afresh into souls which shall bear the stamp of their own image. +Of their souls we have seen samples; they date back to the dark +ages--the souls of Cain, Judas and Caesar Borgia were not unlike them. +Of what such souls are capable they have given us examples in Belgium, +captured France and in the living dead whom they return by way of +Evian. We would rather forego our bodies than so exchange our souls. +A Germanised world is like a glimpse of madness; the very thought +strikes terror to the heart. Yet it is to Germanise the world that +Germany is waging war to-day--that she may confer upon us the benefits +of her own proved swinishness. There is nothing left for us but to +fight for our souls like men. + +The last war! We believed that at first, but as the years dragged +on the certainty became an optimism, the optimism a dream which we +well-nigh knew to be impossible. We have always known that we would +beat Germany--we have never doubted that. But could we beat her so +thoroughly that she would never dare to reperpetrate this horror? +Could we prove to her that war is not and never was a paying way of +conducting business? Men began to smile when we spoke of this war as +the last. "There have always been wars," they said; "this one is not +the last--there will be others." + +If it is not to be the last, we have cheated ourselves. We have +cheated the men who have died for us. Our chief ideal in fighting is +taken away. Many a lad who moulders in a stagnant trench, laid down +his life for this sole purpose, that no children of the future ages +should have to pass through his Gethsemane. He consciously gave +himself up as a scapegoat, that the security of human sanity should +be safeguarded against a recurrence of this enormity. The spirit-man, +framed in the dusky window above the applauding crowds in Quebec, +was typical of all these men who have made the supreme sacrifice. His +words utter the purpose that was in all their hearts, "I am setting +out to fight the last war--the war of humanity which will bring +universal peace and freedom to the world." + +That promise was becoming a lie; it is capable of fulfilment now. The +dream became possible in April, 1917, when America took up her cross +of martyrdom. Great Britain, France and the United States, the +three great promise-keeping nations, are standing side by side. They +together, if they will when the war is ended, can build an impregnable +wall for peace about the world. The plunderer who knew that it was not +Great Britain, nor France, nor America, but all three of them united +as Allies that he had to face, no matter how tempted he was to prove +that armed force meant big business, would be persuaded to expand +his commerce by more legitimate methods. Whether this dream is to +be accomplished will be decided not upon any battlefield but in the +hearts of the civilians of all three countries--particularly in +those of America and Great Britain. The soldiers who have fought and +suffered together, can never be anything but friends. + +My purpose in writing this account of America in France has been to +give grounds for understanding and appreciation; it has been to prove +that the highest reward that either America or Great Britain can gain +as a result of its heroism is an Anglo-American alliance, which will +fortify the world against all such future terrors. There never ought +to have been anything but alliance between my two great countries. +They speak the same tongue, share a common heritage and pursue the +same loyalties. Had we not blundered in our destinies, there would +never have been occasion for anything but generosity. + +The opportunity for generosity has come again. Any man or woman +who, whether by design or carelessness, attempts to mar this growing +friendship is perpetrating a crime against humanity as grave as that +of the first armed Hun who stepped across the Belgian threshold. It +were better for them that mill-stones were hung about their necks and +they were cast into the sea, than ... + +God is giving us our chance. The magnanimities of the Anglo-Saxon +races are rising to greet one another. If those magnanimities are +welcomed and made permanent, our soldier-idealists will not have died +in vain. Then we shall fulfil for them their promise, "We are setting +out to fight the last war." + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Out To Win, by Coningsby Dawson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT TO WIN *** + +***** This file should be named 15194.txt or 15194.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/1/9/15194/ + +Produced by Rick Niles, William Flis, and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |