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diff --git a/18483-h/18483-h.htm b/18483-h/18483-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b1eb3f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/18483-h/18483-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6979 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Fighting France, by Stephane Lauzanne + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: .7em; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + .citation {position: relative; margin-right: 10%; text-align: right;} + .citation2{position: relative; margin-left: 55%; text-align: left;} + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fighting France, by Stephane Lauzanne + +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: Fighting France + +Author: Stephane Lauzanne + +Contributor: James M. Beck + +Translator: John L. B. Williams + +Release Date: June 1, 2006 [EBook #18483] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING FRANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Brian Sogard, Diane Monico, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>FIGHTING FRANCE</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>STEPHANE LAUZANNE</h2> +<p class="center">LIEUTENANT IN THE FRENCH ARMY, CHEVALIER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR<br /> +EDITOR IN CHIEF OF THE "MATIN,"<br /> +MEMBER OF THE FRENCH MISSION TO THE UNITED STATES<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h4>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY</h4> +<h3>JAMES M. BECK, LL.D.</h3> +<p class="center">LATE ASSISTANT ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h4>TRANSLATED BY</h4> +<h3>JOHN L. B. WILLIAMS, A.M.</h3> +<p class="center">SOMETIME FELLOW OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</h3> +<h4>NEW YORK LONDON</h4> +<h4>1918</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1918, <span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /><br /></p> + +<p class="center">Printed in the United States of America</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<h4>TO</h4> +<h3>MY CHIEFS</h3> +<h3>MY COMRADES</h3> +<h3>MY MEN</h3> +<p class="center">WHO ARE FIGHTING FOR THE GREAT CAUSE<br /> +OF LIBERTY AND CIVILIZATION<br /> +<br /></p> +<h3>THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED</h3> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>FOREWORD</h2> + + +<p>To be Editor-in-Chief of one of the greatest +newspapers in the world at twenty-seven years of +age is a distinction, which has been enjoyed by +few other men, if any, in the whole history of +journalism. There may have been exceptional +instances, where young men by virtue of proprietary +and inherited rights, have nominally, or even +actually, succeeded to the editorial control of a +great metropolitan newspaper. But in the case +of M. Stéphane Lauzanne, his assumption of duty +in 1901 as Editor-in-Chief of the Paris <i>Matin</i> +was wholly the result of exceptional achievement +in journalism. Merit and ability, and not merely +friendly influences, gave him this position of +unique power, for the <i>Matin</i> has a circulation +in France of nearly two million copies a day, and +its Editor-in-Chief thereby exerts a power which +it would be difficult to over-estimate.</p> + +<p>M. Lauzanne was born in 1874 and is a graduate +of the Faculty of Law of Paris. Believing +that journalism opened to him a wider avenue of +usefulness than the legal profession, he preferred—as +the event showed most wisely—to follow a +journalistic career. In this choice he may have +been guided by the fact that he was the nephew +of the most famous foreign correspondent in the +history of journalism. I refer to M. de Blowitz, +who was for many years the Paris correspondent +of the London <i>Times</i>, and as such a very notable +representative of the Fourth Estate. No one ever +more fully illustrated the truth of the words +which Thackeray, in Pendennis, puts into the +mouth of his George Warrington, when he and +Arthur Pendennis stand in Fleet Street and hear +the rumble of the engines in the press-room. He +likened the foreign correspondents of these newspapers +to the ambassadors of a great State; and +no one more fully justifies the analogy than M. +de Blowitz, for it is profitable to recall that when +in 1875 the military party of Germany secretly +planned to strike down France, when the stricken +gladiator was slowly but courageously struggling +to its feet, it was de Blowitz, who in an article in +the London <i>Times</i> let the light of day into the +brutal and iniquitous scheme, and by mere publicity +defeated for the time being this conspiracy +against the honor of France and the peace of +the world. Unfortunately the <i>coup</i> of the Prussian +military clique was only postponed. Our +generation was destined to sustain the unprecedented +horrors of a base attempt to destroy +France, that very glorious asset of all civilization.</p> + +<p>De Blowitz took great interest in his brilliant +nephew and at his suggestion Lauzanne became the +London correspondent of the <i>Matin</i> in 1898, when +he was only twenty-four years of age. This +brought him into direct communication with the +London <i>Times</i> which then as now exchanged cable +news with the <i>Matin</i>, and it was the duty of the +young journalist to take the cable news of the +"Thunderer" and transmit such portions as +would particularly interest France to the <i>Matin</i>, +with such special comment as suggested itself. +How well he did this work, requiring as it did the +most accurate judgment and the nicest discrimination, +was shown when he was made Editor-in-Chief +of the <i>Matin</i> in 1901.</p> + +<p>His tenure of office was destined to be short +for, when the world war broke out, M. Lauzanne, +as a First Lieutenant of the French Army, joined +the colors in the first days of mobilization and +surrendered the pen for the sword. His career +as editor had been long enough, however, for him +to impress upon the minds of the French public +the imminency of the Prussian Peril. As to this +he had no illusions and his powerful editorials +had done much to combat the spirit of pacificism, +which at that time was weakening the preparations +of France for the inevitable conflict.</p> + +<p>The obligation of universal service required him +to exchange his position of great power and +usefulness for a lesser position, but this spirit +of common service in the ranks means much for +France or for any nation. The democracy of +the French Army could not be questioned, when +the powerful Editor of the <i>Matin</i> became merely +a lieutenant in the Territorial Infantry. As such, +he served in the battle of the Marne and later before +Verdun, and thus could say of the two most +heroic chapters in French history, as Æneas said +of the Siege of Troy, "Much of which I saw, and +part of which I was."</p> + +<p>Having fulfilled the obligation of universal +service in the ranks, it is not strange that in 1916 +he was recalled to serve the French Ministry of +Foreign Affairs. For a time he rendered great +service in Switzerland, where from the beginning +of the war an acute but ever-lessening controversy +has raged between the pro-German and the pro-Ally +interests.</p> + +<p>He was then chosen for a much more important +mission. In October, 1916, he came to the United +States as head of the "Official Bureau of French +Information," and here he has remained until the +present hour. As such, he has been an unofficial +ambassador of France. His position has been not +unlike that of Franklin at Passy in the period +that preceded the formal recognition by France +of the United States and the Treaty of Alliance +of 1778. As with Franklin, his weapon has been the +pen and the printing press, and the unfailing tact +with which he has carried on his mission is not +unworthy of comparison with that of Franklin. +No one who has been privileged to meet and know +M. Lauzanne can fail to be impressed with his +fine urbanity, his <i>savoir faire</i> and his perfect tact. +Without any attempt at propaganda, he has +greatly impressed American public opinion by +his contributions to our press and his many public +addresses. In none of them has he ever made +a false step or uttered a tactless note. His words +have always been those of a sane moderation +and the influence that he has wielded has been that +of truth. Apart from the vigor and calm +persuasiveness of his utterances, his winning +personality has made a deep impression upon all +Americans who have been privileged to come in +contact with him. The highest praise that can be +accorded to him is that he has been a true representative +of his own noble, generous and chivalrous +nation. Its sweetness and power have been exemplified +by his charming personality.</p> + +<p>Although he has taken a forceful part in possibly +the greatest intellectual controversy that has +ever raged among men, he has from first to last +been the gentleman and it has been his quiet dignity +and gentleness that has added force to all that +he has written and uttered, especially at the time +when America was the greatest neutral forum of +public opinion.</p> + +<p>If "good wine needs no bush and a good play +needs no epilogue," then a good book needs no +prologue. Therefore I shall not refer to the +simplicity and charm, with which M. Lauzanne +has told the story with which this book deals. +The reader will judge that for himself; and unless +the writer of this foreword is much mistaken, that +judgment will be wholly favorable. There have +been many war books—a very deluge of literature +in which thinking men have been hopelessly submerged—but +most books of wartime reminiscences +do not ring true. There is too obvious an +attempt to be dramatic and sensational. This +book avoids this error and its author has contented +himself with telling in a simple and convincing +manner something of the part which he +was called upon to play.</p> + +<p>I venture to predict that all good Americans +who read this book will become the friends, +through the printed pages, of this gifted and +brilliant writer, and if it were possible for such +Americans to increase their love and admiration +for France, then this book would deepen the profound +regard in which America holds its ancient +ally.</p> + +<p class="citation"><span class="smcap">James M. Beck</span>.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="toc"> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>I</td><td align='right'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Why France Is Fighting</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The declaration of war and the French mobilization—The +invasion and the tragic days of Paris in August and +September, 1914: personal reminiscences—The premeditated +cruelties of Germany: new documents—The German organized +spying system in France</td><td align='right'></td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'>II</td><td align='right'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">How France Is Fighting</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>France fighting with her men, her women and her children—The +men show that they know how to suffer: episodes of the Marne +and of Verdun—The women encourage the men to fight and to +suffer: some illustrations—Sacred Union of all Frenchmen +against the enemy—all, without any distinction of class or +religion, die smiling—Letters of soldiers—The organization +in the rear: the work in the factories</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center'>III</td><td align='right'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">France Suffering But Not Bled White</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Despite her sufferings, France is able to pay 20 billions of +dollars, for the war, in three years—French commerce and +French work during the war—France is helping her allies from +a military standpoint and financially—The saving of Serbia</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center'>IV</td><td align='right'></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">The War Aims of France</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_138">138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Restitution: Alsace-Lorraine—Restoration: The devastated and +looted territories. Guarantees: The Society of Nations</td></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> + +<tr><td align='center'>APPENDICES</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Appendix I.—How Germans Forced War on France</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Appendix II.—How Germans Treat an Ambassador</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Appendix III.—How Germans Are Waging War</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_196">196</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Appendix IV.—How Germans Occupy the Territory of an Enemy</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Appendix V.—How Germans Treat Alsace-Lorraine</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_206">206</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Appendix VI.—How Germans Understand Future Peace</span></td><td align='right'> <a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="FIGHTING_FRANCE" id="FIGHTING_FRANCE"></a>FIGHTING FRANCE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2> + +<h2>WHY FRANCE IS FIGHTING</h2> + + +<p>Had you been in Paris late in the afternoon +of Monday, August third, nineteen +fourteen, you might have seen a +slight man, whose reddish face was adorned with +a thick white mustache, walk out of the German +Embassy, which was situated on the Rue de Lille +near the Boulevard St. Germain. Along the boulevard +and across the Pont de la Concorde he +walked in a manner calculated to attract attention. +He approached the animated and peevish +groups of citizens that had formed a little before +for the purpose of discussing the imminent war +as if he wanted them to notice him. You would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +have said that he was trying to be recognized and +to take part in the discussions.</p> + +<p>But no one paid any attention to him.</p> + +<p>Finally he came to the Quai d'Orsay, opened +the Gate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and +said to the attendant who hastened to open the +door for him:</p> + +<p>"Announce the German Ambassador to the +Prime Minister."</p> + +<p>He was Baron de Schoen, Ambassador Extraordinary +and Minister Plenipotentiary of his Germanic +Majesty, William the Second. For two days +he had wandered through the most crowded streets +and avenues in Paris, hoping for some injury, +some insult, some overt act which would have permitted +him to say that Germany in his person had +been provoked, insulted by France. But there +had been no violence, the insult had not been offered, +the overt act had not occurred. Then, tired +of this method, de Schoen took the initiative and +presented a declaration of war from his government.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> + +<p>The declaration, as history will record, was +expressed in these terms:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The German administrative and military authorities +have established a certain number of +flagrantly hostile acts committed on German territory +by French military aviators. Several of +these have openly violated the neutrality of Belgium +by flying over the territory of that country; +one has attempted to destroy buildings near +Wesel; others have been seen in the district of the +Eifel, one has thrown bombs on the railway near +Carlsruhe and Nuremberg.</p> + +<p>I am instructed and I have the honor to inform +your Excellency, that in the presence of these +acts of aggression the German Empire considers +itself in a state of war with France in consequence +of the acts of the latter Power.</p> + +<p>At the same time I have the honor to bring to +the knowledge of your Excellency that the German +authorities will detain French mercantile vessels +in German ports, but they will release them if, +within forty-eight hours, they are assured of complete +reciprocity.</p> + +<p>My diplomatic mission having thus come to an +end, it only remains for me to request your Excellency +to be good enough to furnish me with +my passports, and to take the steps you consider<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +suitable to assure my return to Germany, with the +staff of the Embassy, as well as with the staff of +the Bavarian Legation and of the French Consulate +General in Paris.</p> + +<p>Be good enough, M. le President, to receive the +assurances of my deepest respect.</p> + +<p class="citation">(Signed) <span class="smcap">de Schoen</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p>Immediately M. René Viviani, the French Premier +and Minister of Foreign Affairs, protested +against the statements of this extraordinary declaration. +No French aviator had flown over Belgium; +no French aviator had come near Wesel; +no French aviator had flown in the direction of +Eifel; nor had hurled bombs on the railroad near +Carlsruhe or Nuremberg. And less than two +years later a German, Dr. Schwalbe, the Burgomaster +of Nuremberg, confirmed M. Viviani's indignant +denial of the German accusations:</p> + +<p>"It is false," wrote Dr. Schwalbe in the +<i>Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift</i>, "that +French aviators dropped bombs on the railway +at Nuremberg. The general of the third Bavarian +army corps, which was stationed in the vicinity,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +assured me that he knew nothing of the attempt +except from the newspapers...."</p> + +<p>But a blow had just been struck that announced +the rising of the curtain on the most frightful +tragedy the universe has ever known. This announcement +was contained in the brief, plain +words of the declaration of war.</p> + +<p>De Schoen left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, +where he had been courteously received for +many years, and made his way out. He was escorted +by M. Philippe Berthelot, who was at the +time <i>directeur politique</i> at the Quai d'Orsay. As +he was going out of the door, de Schoen pointed +to the city, which, with its trees, its houses, and +its monuments, could be seen clearly on the other +side of the Seine.</p> + +<p>"Poor Paris," he exclaimed, "what will happen +to her?"</p> + +<p>At the same time he offered his hand to M. +Berthelot, but the latter contented himself with a +silent bow, as if he had neither seen the proffered +hand nor heard the question.</p> + +<p>It was a quarter before seven o'clock in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +evening. From that time on France has been at +war with Germany.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Mobilization had commenced the previous evening. +To be exact, it was on <a name="Sunday" id="Sunday"></a>Sunday, August +third, at midnight.</p> + +<p>How many times the French people had thought +of that mobilization during the last twenty years, +in proportion as Germany grew more aggressive, +more brutal and more insulting! Personally I +had often looked at the little red ticket fastened +to my military card, on which were written these +brief words:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In time of mobilization, Lieutenant Lauzanne +(Stéphane) will report on the second day of +mobilization to the railroad station nearest his +home and there entrain immediately for Alençon.</p> +</div> + +<p>And each time I looked at the little red card, +I felt a bit anxious.... Mobilization! The railroad +station! The first train! What a mob of +people, what an overturning of everything, what +a lot of disorder there would be! Well, there had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +been neither disorder nor disturbance nor a mob, +for everything had taken place in a manner that +was marvelously simple and calm.</p> + +<p>Monday, August third, at sunrise I had gone +to the Gare des Invalides. There was no mob, +there was no crowd. Some policemen were walking +in solitary state along the sidewalk, which was +deserted. The station master, to whom I presented +my card, told me, in the most extraordinarily +calm voice in the world, as if he had been +doing the same thing every morning:</p> + +<p>"Track number 5. Your train leaves at 6.27."</p> + +<p>And the train left at 6.27, like any good little +train that is on time. It had left quietly; it was +almost empty. It had followed the Seine, and I +had seen Paris lighted up by the peaceable morning +glow, Paris which was still asleep. And I had +rubbed my eyes, asking myself if I wasn't dreaming, +if I wasn't asleep. Were we really at war? +My eyes were seeing nothing of it, but my memory +kept recalling the fact. It recalled the <a name="unforgettable" id="unforgettable"></a>unforgettable +scenes of those last days—that scene especially, +at four o'clock in the evening on the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +of August, when the crowd along the boulevard +had suddenly seen the mobilization orders posted +in the window of a newspaper office. A shout burst +forth, a shout I shall hear until my last moment, +which made me tremble from the crown of my +head to the soles of my feet. It was a shout that +seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth, +the shout of a people who, for years, had waited +for that moment.</p> + +<p>Then the "Marseillaise"! Then a short, imperious +demand:</p> + +<p>"The flags! We want the flags!"</p> + +<p>And flags burst forth from all quarters of Paris, +decorated in the twinkling of an eye as if it were a +fête day. Yes, all that had really happened. All +that had taken place. We were really at war.</p> + +<p>Little by little the train filled up. It stopped +at every station, and at every station men got +aboard. They came in gayly and confidently, bidding +farewell to the women who had accompanied +them and who stayed behind the gate to do their +weeping. Everybody was mixed in together in +the compartments without any distinctions of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> +rank, station, class or anything else. At Argentan +I saw some rough Norman farmers enter the +coaches, talking with the same good natured calmness +as if they were going away on a business trip. +One expression was repeated again and again:</p> + +<p>"If we've got to go, we've got to go."</p> + +<p>One farmer said:</p> + +<p>"They are looking after our good. I shall fight +until I fall."</p> + +<p>The spirit of the whole French people spoke +from these mouths. You felt the firm purpose of +the nation come out of the very earth.</p> + +<p>The country side presented an unwonted appearance. +I remember vividly the view the broad +plains of Beauce offered. They looked as if they +were dead or fallen into a lethargy. Their life +had come to an abrupt end on Saturday, the first +of August, at four o'clock in the afternoon. We +saw mounds of grain that had been cut and was +still scattered on the ground, with the scythe glistening +nearby. We saw pitchforks resting alongside +the hay they had just finished tossing. We +saw sheaves lying on the ground with no one to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> +take them away. The very villages were deserted; +not a human being appeared in them. You would +have said that this train that was passing through +in the wake of hundreds of other trains had blotted +out all the inhabitants of the region.</p> + +<p>We detrained at Alençon, arriving there about +mid-day. Alençon is a tiny Norman village that +is habitually calm and peaceful, but on that day +it was crowded with people. An enormous wave, +the wave of the men who were mobilizing, rushed +through the main street of the little town in the +direction of the two barracks. I went with the +current. My captain, whom I found in the middle +of a part of the barracks, had not even had time +to put on his uniform. He explained the situation +to me with military brevity:</p> + +<p>"It's very simple.... It's now three o'clock +in the afternoon. The day after tomorrow, at +six o'clock in the morning, we entrain for Paris. +We have one day to clothe, equip and arm our +company."</p> + +<p>It is no small matter to clothe, equip and arm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +two hundred and fifty men in twenty-four hours. +You have to find in the enormous pile, which is +in a corner of a shed, two hundred and fifty coats, +pairs of trousers and hats which will fit two hundred +and fifty entirely separate and distinct +chests, legs and heads. You have to find five +hundred pairs of shoes for two hundred and fifty +pairs of feet. You have to arrange the men in +rank according to their heights, form the sections +and the squads. You have to have soup prepared +and transport provisions. You have to go +and get rifles and cartridges. You have to get +funds advanced for the company accounts from +the very beginning of the campaign. You have +to get your duties organized, make up accounts +and prepare statements. You have to breathe +the breath of life into the little machine which is +going to take its place in the big machine.</p> + +<p>And there was not a person there to help us to +do this—not a line officer, not a second lieutenant. +The captain had to act on his own, to think on +his own, to decide everything on his own. He had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +to do all by himself the work that yesterday twenty-five +department store heads, twenty-five shoe +makers and twenty-five certified public accountants +would have had a hard time doing.</p> + +<p>He did it! Every captain in the French Army +did it. And the next morning at six o'clock our +little machine was ready to go and take its place +in the operations of the big machine. The following +day, at six o'clock, we entrained again; but +no longer was it the confused and disorganized +crowd that it had been the evening before. It was +a company with arms and leaders; a company +which had already made the acquaintance of discipline. +That was proved by the silence reigning +everywhere. At the moment of departure the +Colonel had commanded:</p> + +<p>"Silence!"</p> + +<p>There was not a sound. The long train, crowded +with soldiers, was a silent train which passed +through the open country, the towns and the villages +all the way to Paris without a sound except +the puffing of the engine. In the evening, silent +always, we detrained at Paris and marched to a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +barracks situated to the north of the capital. We +were to stay there a month.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The story of Paris during the month of August, +1914, is an extraordinary one that would deserve +an entire volume to itself. That feverish city +has never lived through hours that were more +calm and peaceful. During the first two weeks +Paris seemed to be in a sweet, peaceful dream, in +which the citizens listened eagerly for sounds of +victory coming from the far distant horizon. On +the twenty-fifth of August Paris, which had heard +only vague echoes of the Battle of Charleroi, +awakened with a jolt when it read the famous +communiqué beginning with the words: "<i>De la +Somme aux Vosges</i>...."</p> + +<p>So the enemy was already at the Somme, a few +days' march from the capital! But the awakening +was as free from disturbance as the dream +had been. Paris felt absolute confidence in the +army, in Joffre; and the Parisian reasoning was +expressed in one phrase, "The army has retreated, +but it is neither destroyed nor beaten; as long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +as the army is there, Paris has nothing to +fear...." And when Sunday the <a name="thirtieth" id="thirtieth"></a>thirtieth of +August came, Paris was as calm and confident as +it was on the first day of the war.</p> + +<p>I shall remember the thirtieth of August for a +long time.</p> + +<p>They had posted on all the walls two notices. +One of them was large, the other small. The large +one was a proclamation of the Government announcing +the departure of its officials for Bordeaux:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="center"><span class="smcap">Frenchmen</span>!</p> + +<p>For several <a name="weeks" id="weeks"></a>weeks our troops and the enemy's +army have been engaged in a series of bloody battles. +The bravery of our soldiers has gained +them marked advantages at several points. But +in the north the pressure of the German forces +has compelled us to withdraw.</p> + +<p>This retirement imposes a regrettably necessary +decision on the President of the Republic and the +Government. To protect national safety the government +officials have to leave Paris at once.</p> + +<p>Under the command of an eminent leader, a +French army, full of bravery and resource, will +defend the capital and its people against the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>invader. +But at the same time war will be carried +on over the rest of the territory.</p></div> + +<p>The small notice was from General Gallieni, the +new Governor of Paris. It had, in its brevity, the +beauty of an ancient inscription:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I have been ordered to defend Paris. I shall +obey this command until the end."</p> +</div> + +<p>That same Sunday, the thirtieth of August, +was the first day the Taubes came over Paris. By +chance I was guarding one of the city's gates. I +saw the airplane coming from a distance. I had +not the least doubt about it for it had the silhouette +of a bird of prey that rendered the German +planes so easily recognizable at that time. For +that matter, no one was deceived by it, and from +all the batteries, forts and other positions a violent +fusillade greeted it. There was firing from the +streets, windows, courts and roofs. I followed it +through my field glass, and for a moment I +thought it had been hit, for it paused in its flight. +But this was an optical illusion.... The plane<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +simply flew higher, having without doubt heard +the sound of the fusillade and the bullets having +perhaps whistled too close to the pilot's ears. +When he was almost over my post, a light white +cloud appeared under its wings and, in the ten +ensuing seconds, there followed a terrible series of +sounds, for a bomb had just fallen and exploded +very near at hand. But so entrancing was it to +observe the flight of this pirate who, in spite of +everything, continued in his audacious course, that +I gazed at the heavens, trying to determine whether +or not I saw once more the little white cloud, the +precursor of the machine of death.</p> + +<p>And everyone who was near me—workmen, +passers-by, women, children—stayed there too, +their feet firmly on the ground, their glances lost +in the limitless sky. No one ran away; no one +hid; no one sought refuge behind a door or in a +cellar. It's a characteristic of airplane bombs +that they frighten no one, even when they kill. +The machine you see does not frighten you; only +the machine you can't see upsets your nerves.</p> + +<p>However that may be, the curiosity of Paris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +was insatiable. Even in the tragic hours we were +living through at that time, this curiosity remained +as eager, ardent and amused as ever. Every +afternoon, at the stroke of four, crowds collected +in the squares and avenues. The motive was to +see the Taubes! Since one Taube had flown over +the city, no one doubted that a second one would +come the next day. A girl's boarding school obtained +a free afternoon to enjoy the spectacle. The +midinettes were allowed to leave their work. At +Montmartre, where the steps of the Butte gave a +better chance of scanning the horizon, places were +in great demand.</p> + +<p>There was a crowd along the fortifications to +see the works for the defense on which, by General +Gallieni's order, men were working. Thousands +of spectators of both sexes, but especially of +women, were examining the bases that were being +put in for the guns, the openings they were making +to serve as loopholes, the joists they were putting +across the gates, and the paving stones with which +the entrances were being barricaded. This crowd +did not want to believe in the proximity of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +enemy. Or, if it believed it, it didn't want to admit +that there was danger. Or, if it admitted that there +was danger, it wanted to share in it. Above everything +it wanted to see; it wanted to see!</p> + +<p>The last night in August I had a hard time +freeing the approaches of the gate I was guarding. +There were only women, but there were thousands +of them and neither prayer nor argument +could persuade them to make up their minds to go +home.</p> + +<p>"Nothing will happen," I told them. "Look +here now, be reasonable and go home to bed."</p> + +<p>"But we want to see...."</p> + +<p>"What do you want to see?"</p> + +<p>"Want to see what kind of a reception the +Prussians will get if they come."</p> + +<p>Aside from this the mob was remarkably easy +to get on with. A strict order had forbidden that +anyone be permitted to enter or leave Paris until +sunrise. As a result the capital found itself cut +off from the suburbs, and lots of little working +girls, who came in for the day from Clichy or +Levallois-Perret, couldn't get back to their homes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> +in the evening. They had to camp out under the +stars.</p> + +<p>"It's very amusing," they said, "here we are +just like soldiers."</p> + +<p>I even heard one of them say:</p> + +<p>"What a pity there isn't always war."</p> + +<p>That same night, about eleven o'clock, a heavy +sound was heard coming from the direction of the +city. Some urchins shouted:</p> + +<p>"It's the soldiers. It's the soldiers."</p> + +<p>An entire Algerian division was, as a matter of +fact, detraining and hurrying to fight before +Paris. Behind it followed a long line of taxi-cabs, +the famous line of taxi-cabs requisitioned by General +Gallieni to carry munitions to the battle field +of the Ourcq. They made an incomparable spectacle, +that magnificent summer night, in the +bright moonlight, the long column of Algerian +cavalry, with their shining burnouses, on fiery little +horses. Applause burst forth from the mob +and reached the soldiers. The women threw +kisses at them, but they overwhelmed my men and +me with reproaches:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> + +<p>"See," they shrieked at us, "if we had minded +you and gone home, we wouldn't have seen them."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Paris, which didn't know about the Battle of +Charleroi, knew about the Battle of the Marne. +Paris knew about the Battle of the Marne not only +on account of the troops who marched through +its streets, but because it heard the big guns roar +for three days, without stopping, towards the +north.</p> + +<p>What has not already been written and said +about the Battle of the Marne, a conflict which +will remain legendary in history? What will not +be said and written on that subject in the future?... +Some writers will see in it a miracle, others +a strategic action engineered by a genius, others +a chance stroke of destiny. The truth of the +matter is more simple and appealing than any +of these explanations and, although the whole +truth is not yet known about the fight at the +Marne, enough is known to make clear the two or +three chief reasons why victory came to France<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +and defeat to Germany, safety to civilization and +a repulse to barbarism.</p> + +<p>To be sure there was a great deal of strategy +in it; and the stroke that was conceived in the +master brain of Joffre and carried out by Generals +Gallieni and Maunoury—a stroke which consisted +in forming a new army on the extreme right +of the German hordes to come and hurl itself +sharply against these hordes—was a brave and +bold maneuver which prepared the way for victory.</p> + +<p>But this maneuver would not in itself have sufficed +to win the victory if Maunoury had not attacked +with an irresistible élan on the extreme +left, upsetting the German plan of battle; if +Franchet d'Esperey had not supported Maunoury's +attack vigorously and succeeded in breaking +the German left; if, especially, Foch, at the center, +had not performed unheard of miracles in breaking +down the enemy's resistance and not allowing +his own lines to be broken; if, farther on, de +Langle de Cary and Sarrail had not held off the +Princes of Bavaria and Prussia before Vitry; if,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +on the right, de Castelnau had not held until the +end the Grand Couronné at Nancy. The first truth +is that they were all—Joffre, Gallieni, Maunoury, +Franchet d'Esperey, Foch, de Langle de Cary, +Sarrail, Castelnau, Dubail, to mention them in +the order of the battle line from left to right—absolutely +incomparable. As an eye-witness said, +"each man was on his own," each man gave the +very best there was in his brain, his skill, his mind, +his soul, his heart. The battle would have been +lost if a single one of them had failed once during +the entire seven days it raged. Opposed to the +Huns was a chain forged of the finest steel, every +link in which met the test for equal and unparalleled +resistance. Therein lay the miracle of the +Marne!</p> + +<p>And the second great truth is that behind these +generals, who all showed themselves without equal, +were armies which, without exception, had kept +intact their fighting spirit, that is, their faith in +themselves, in their leaders, in the destiny of their +country, in the beauty of the cause for which they +fought.... Enough can never be said of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>elemental +importance that lies in the morale of the +fighting men on the battle field. It is lamentable +to hear far distant strategists reduce the conflict +of two peoples to a problem in tactics or a +list of ordnance statistics. It is enough to make +angels weep when spectators, at a safe distance, +speak of succoring a beaten people by sending +them food stuffs, shells and men. Above all, beyond +all, is that immaterial, incalculable, invaluable +force which is the sole true mistress of warfare—moral +force—fighting spirit!</p> + +<p>The Frenchmen in the Battle of the Marne kept +their fighting spirit intact. I remember asking +many of the officers attached to the forces which, +after the Battle of Charleroi, retreated under a +broiling sun, along roads burning with heat, +through a suffocating dust, how they felt at this +disheartening time. All of them answered, "We did +not know where we were going or what we were +doing, but we did know one thing—that we would +beat them!" One writer, Pierre Laserre, described +this retreat in the words, "Their bodies +were retreating, but not their souls!" This is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +proven by the arrival on the fifth of September of +Joffre's immortal order, "The hour has come to +hold our positions at any cost, and to fight rather +than retreat.... No longer must we look at +the enemy over our shoulders; the time has come +to employ all our efforts in attacking and defeating +him."... That evening, when they heard +their leader's appeal, the hearts of the men +bounded in response. The next morning, at dawn, +their bodies leaped up and hurled themselves on +the enemy. Therein lay the miracle of the Marne!</p> + +<p>Finally, at the very hour when the fighting +spirit of the French Army had never been higher, +the fighting spirit of the German Army had never +been lower. It was low because the physical +strength of the Germans was low, worn out, and +broken by the shameful orgies, the disgraceful +drinking which had reduced these men to the level +of swine. It was low because the German fighting +men had been led to believe that they would have +to fight no longer, that the great effort was ended, +that there was no French Army to put a stop +to their pillaging and burning. "Tomorrow we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +enter Paris, we are going to the Moulin Rouge," +von Kluck's soldiers said in their jargon to the +inhabitants of Compiègne. "Tomorrow we will +burn Bar-le-Duc, Poincaré's home town," the +Crown Prince's soldiers said. What sort of resistance +could such men oppose to Joffre's soldiers? +Their spirit, granting that they had ever +had any, was broken beforehand. And that is +another thing that will explain the outcome of the +Battle of the Marne.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>What Paris knew very quickly, very completely +and very surely were the details of frightful +looting and of the first atrocities perpetrated +by the Germans, who demonstrated a premeditated +intention to destroy, defile and wipe out everything +in their path. And Paris was doubtless the +first city in France to comprehend the significance +of this war, which is a war of civilization against +barbarism, a sacred war in which the forces of +humanity raise a rampart of human breasts +against the violent reappearance of primitive +savagery.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>Those of us who had a hand in some part of the +Battle of the Marne were not slow to comprehend +who the enemy was we were fighting and why we +had to fight him to the death.</p> + +<p>Among the many things that will be always engraved +on the tablets of my memory, the deepest +is of the time when I was on guard at the field +of battle on the Ourcq, north of Meaux, on the +extremity of the battle line of the Marne. Field +of battle I have just written. No, it was not a +field of battle but a field of carnage. I have forgotten +the corpses I met in the roads or in the +fields with their grinning faces and their distorted +attitudes. But I shall never forget the ruin that +was everywhere, the abominable manner in which +the fields had been laid waste, the sacrilegious pillage +of homes. That bore the trade mark of German +"Kultur." That trade mark will be enough +to dishonor a nation for centuries.</p> + +<p>I see again those humble villages situated along +the road to Meaux, Penchard, Marcilly, Chambry, +Etrepilly, where a barbarian horde had passed. +Since there were no inhabitants remaining—men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +whose throats could be cut, women who could be +violated, or babies to shoot down—the horde had +vented its rage on the furniture and the poor little +familiar objects in which each one of us puts a bit +of his soul.</p> + +<p>I arrived in Etrepilly at the same time as a detachment +of Zouaves. While they piously buried +their companions who had fallen in forcing their +way into the village, I wandered alone among the +ruins. There had been a hundred houses there, +and not a single one was untouched. Some had +been hit by shells, and the shell which burst in the +interior of the house had destroyed everything. +That, of course, was war, and there was nothing +to say about it.</p> + +<p>But other houses, which had been spared by +shell fire, had not been spared by the Kaiser's +soldiery. The Barbarians had placed their claws +on them. Everything had been taken out of the +houses and scattered to the four winds of heaven. +Here is a portrait that has been wrenched from its +frame and trampled on. A baby's bathtub has +been carried into the garden, and the soldiers have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +deposited their excrement in it. There are chairs +that have been smashed by the kicks of heavy boots +and wardrobes that have been disemboweled. Here +is a fine old mahogany table that has been carried +into the fields for five hundred meters and then +broken in two. An old red damask armchair, +with wings at the sides, one of those old armchairs +in which the grandmothers of France sit by the +fire in the evening has been torn in shreds by knife +thrusts. Linen is mixed with mud; the white veil +some girl wore at her first communion is defiled +with excrement.... An old man is wandering +among the ruins. He has just come back to the +devastated village. He says to me simply:</p> + +<p>"I saw them in 1870. They came here, but they +didn't do this. They are savages."</p> + +<p>A woman was there, too. She had come an hour +or so ago with the old man, and she stood on the +step of her defiled, despoiled home where the +curtains hung in tatters at the windows. She +saw me pass by. She wanted to speak to me, but +her voice stuck in her throat. There she stood,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +her arms extended like a great cross. She could +only sob:</p> + +<p>"Look! Look!"</p> + +<p>And she was like a symbol of the whole wretched +business.</p> + +<p>The men who do such deeds are the men France +is fighting.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Vincy-Manoeuvre was another one of the villages. +It is situated near the border of the Department +of the Oise. It was still in flames when +I entered it. On the outskirts of the hamlet there +used to be a large factory. Only the iron framework +of this factory remained; the ashes had commenced +to smoke, giving forth flames from time +to time. Here also every house had been destroyed +and pillaged. Only the church remained standing, +and on the belfry which was silhouetted against +the sky, the weather cock seemed to shudder with +horror.</p> + +<p>Bottles covered the ground everywhere at Vincy-Manoeuvre. +There were bottles in the streets, +along the highways, in the fields. They marked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +the road by which the vanquished hordes had retreated. +I counted almost two hundred in one +trench, where a German battery had been placed. +They lay pell-mell, mixed in with unexploded +shells. Panic had apparently swept the gunners +away. They had not had time to carry off their +shells, so they had left them behind. But they +had had time to empty the bottles. Absinthe, +brandy, rum, champagne, beer, and wine had all +been consumed, and the labels lay alongside of +each other. Drunken, bloodthirsty brutes, thieving, +sickening, nauseous beasts were what had descended +upon France and passed through her +country. Ruins, ashes and filth were the traces +left behind by the German mob.</p> + +<p>Some hundreds of yards from the village I noticed +a woman lost in the immense beet fields. Apparently +she was unharmed. I walked in her direction, +thrusting aside with my legs corpses of +men and horses, scaling the trenches, making a circuit +around the craters made by shells. Suddenly +what was my surprise at seeing two German soldiers, +accompanied by a farmer, coming along a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +footpath! They stopped at six paces, gave me a +military salute, and pointed to the white brassard +of the Red Cross they wore on their arms.</p> + +<p>"Where do you come from?" I asked. "What +are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>"We come from that farm, where we have been +for two days caring for two of our wounded. We +didn't see any French soldier or officer. We don't +know what to do. We want to go to the village +down there," they pointed out a hamlet two or +three kilometers off, "where we left a doctor and +one hundred and fifty-three wounded."</p> + +<p>"Very good," I said, "follow me."</p> + +<p>Obediently the two orderlies marched behind +me to the village they had pointed out. It was +situated on the national highway to Soissons. In +this place were a hundred and fifty or two hundred +Germans, quartered in four or five houses under the +guard of a company of Zouaves who had just arrived +a half hour previously. The German major, +informed of my arrival, stood in front of the main +building. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, his +face was the type the Alsatian Hansi loves to show<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> +in his books. He spoke very good French and +even pretended that he did not want to answer the +questions I asked him in his own language.</p> + +<p>"Show me your wounded," I ordered.</p> + +<p>He immediately conducted me everywhere, explaining +the nature of each wound. Some were +suffering and groaning; others, seeing the uniform +of a French officer, tried to raise themselves +up and salute.</p> + +<p>The German major asked:</p> + +<p>"When they come to evacuate the wounded to +Meaux or some other place, do you suppose I shall +be allowed to accompany them and continue my +treatment?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," I replied, "but there is one +thing you can be sure of. My superiors will act +in accordance with the demands of humanity. Now +you follow me."</p> + +<p>I led him outside to the doorstep. I pointed out +the poor homes of the village, ruined, reduced to +dust. Everywhere were the dwellings of the entire +region, with their furniture lying in the mud +and ashes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Look at that," I said to him. "That is what +your men have done."</p> + +<p>The German officer turned very pale, then very +red. He answered:</p> + +<p>"It's sad, but it is war."</p> + +<p>"No," I replied, "it isn't war. It's pure barbarism +and it's abominable."</p> + +<p>Some few paces away from us French Zouaves +were sitting beside some wounded Germans. In +their own glasses they poured out a little cordial +for their prisoners; they gave them their last +cigarettes. One of them had even taken, as if +he were his brother, the head of a wounded German +in his left hand to support it. With his +right hand, very carefully, he was giving him a +drink. I pointed that out to the German major, +saying:</p> + +<p>"There! That is war—at least it's war as we +understand it."</p> + +<p>This time he made no answer.</p> + +<p>But all the German prisoners repeated what he +had said to me as a set phrase. On the whole, when +you have seen ten German prisoners you have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +seen a thousand; when you have questioned one +German officer you have questioned fifty. The +characteristic of the race is that they have abolished +all individuality. You find yourself in an +amorphous mass, cast in a uniform mold, not in +the presence of human beings who think their own +thoughts.</p> + +<p>I often saw trains stop in what is called a <i>gare +regulatrice</i>, where the prisoners are questioned +and distributed. These trains bring in prisoners +and their officers. The commandant of the station, +in accordance with his duty, has the officers +appear before him so that he can question them:</p> + +<p>"Your name? Your rank?"</p> + +<p>The German states his name and rank, offering +of necessity his identification card.</p> + +<p>"Your regiment?"</p> + +<p>"Such and such a regiment."</p> + +<p>"Your army corps?"</p> + +<p>"Such and such an army corps."</p> + +<p>"Who is the general in command?"</p> + +<p>Like an automaton the officer replies:</p> + +<p>"<i>Das sage ich nicht.</i>" ("I can not answer that.")<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>And you know that it would be an easier matter +to make the stone beneath your feet talk than one +of these prisoners.</p> + +<p>However, the commandant frowns slightly, +glances over his notes, and says coldly:</p> + +<p>"I know who your general is. If you belong +to such and such an army corps, the general in +command must be General von Bissing."...</p> + +<p>"I have nothing to say."</p> + +<p>As a general thing one of the staff had something +to say. The interpreter, the convoy officer +or the station master would get a lot of fun out of +reciting to the German passages from von Bissing's +famous and ferocious proclamation ordering +that no quarter be given and that the troops +should not encumber themselves with prisoners. +Then he would ask:</p> + +<p>"What would you say if we were to put such a +principle into practice?"</p> + +<p>The German often became very pale. He would +content himself with a shrug of the shoulders—the +shrug of the brute who knows that he is safe +among civilized men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p> + +<p>The men I questioned were often doctors who +ranked as majors or held some commission in the +German medical corps. They were less stiff and +automaton-like than the officers and sergeants +of the line service. Their attitude varied in accordance +with the number of stars they had on +their epaulette. If their rank were inferior to +mine, they were exaggeratedly obsequious, holding +their hands along the crease in the seam of +their trousers with their fingers close together—at +strict attention. If their rank were superior to +mine, they were defiant and insolent. Nevertheless, +they showed themselves more communicative +than their comrades of the line service. Most of +them spoke French—well enough, though not perfectly. +All of them had been in Paris, and one +and all repeated this phrase:</p> + +<p>"We know your beautiful country well. We +have been in your beautiful capital often...."</p> + +<p>For my part, I invariably spoke to them of the +atrocities their men had perpetrated in that beautiful +country, or of those they had perpetrated in +the country of our beautiful neighbor....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +Rheims, Ypres, Louvain, Andenne, were the names +that always returned to my lips. I hoped each time +that I would get from those men who, in spite of +everything, were men of science, members of humanity's +most generous profession, if not a word +of contrition at least a banal word of regret. +Since they had not ordered the sacrileges or the +massacres, they need not keep silent. But it was +all in vain. They also excused, justified and explained....</p> + +<p>The explanation was simple and stereotyped. +For the battered Cathedral of Rheims, for the +total destruction of Clermont, for the systematic +laying-waste of Louvain, for the frightful company +of old men, women and children who were +dragged off into captivity, three words were the +justification—the three words of the German +major at Vincy:</p> + +<p>"<i>Das ist Krieg.</i>" ("It is war.")</p> + +<p>For the blackened ruins of Senlis, for that +charming city of Louvain, razed to the ground in +one night as completely as if the scourge of God +had passed through it; for Andenne, assassinated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +in cold blood with not one of its houses being +granted mercy by the assassins; for Termonde, +where General Sommerfeld, seated in a chair in +the midst of the Grande Place, gave the order +that it be burned and replied to the entreaties +of the mayor:</p> + +<p>"No. Burn it to the ground!"</p> + +<p>Five other words sufficed to explain everything:</p> + +<p>"Civilians fired on our troops."</p> + +<p>Not one village in flames, not one desecrated +monument, not one organized killing, not one tortured +city that does not fall under the scope of one +or the other of those justifications, "War is war," +or "Civilians fired on our troops."</p> + +<p>Doctors, savants, officers, Bavarians, Saxons, +and Prussians have adopted the double excuse +with a marvelous unity: they advance it in a +certain tone of voice. It is firmly embedded in +what is left of their consciences as firmly as the +iron cross is riveted on their necks.</p> + +<p>Besides, it was all planned, wished for, arranged +in advance. German frightfulness formed a part +of the plan of campaign. It is enough to read the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +manual called "Kriegesgebrauch in Landkriege" +(Military Usage in Landwarfare) to be very much +edified. Every German officer has had this manual +in his hands since the days of peace. It comprised +his rules of warfare. It was a part of his war +equipment, the same as his field glasses and his +staff-officer's card. And here is what he reads +on the very first page:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>War carried on energetically can not be directed +against the inhabitants and fortified places of the +hostile state alone; it will endeavor, it ought to +endeavor to <i>destroy equally all the enemy's intellectual +and material resources</i>. Humanitarian +considerations, that is, consideration for the persons +of individuals and for the sake of propriety, +can have no recognition unless the end and nature +of the war allow it.</p></div> + +<p>And, a little farther on, he reads there:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Profound study of the history of war will make +the officer guard against exaggerated humanitarian +concessions, will teach him that war can not +take place without certain harshness, <i>that true +humanity consists in proceeding without tenderness</i>.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> +<p>Farther along in that book, he reads:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>All the methods invented by the technic of modern +warfare, the most perfected as well as the most +dangerous, <i>those which kill the greatest number +at once, are permitted</i>. These last are conducive to +the quickest end of the war; they are, if you consider +matters carefully, the most humane methods.... Prisoners +may be killed in case of necessity +if there is no other means of guarding them properly.... The +presence of women, children, old +men, the sick and the wounded in a <a name="beseiged" id="beseiged"></a>beseiged city +can hasten the place's fall; in consequence it would +be very foolish of the <a name="beseiger" id="beseiger"></a>beseiger to renounce this +advantage.... They will force the inhabitants +to furnish information concerning their army, military +resources and secrets of their country. The +majority of writers in all nations condemn this +usage. <i>It will be used none the less</i>—very regretfully—for +military reasons.</p></div> + +<p>Finally, on the volume's last page, is found this +extraordinary maxim:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Any wrong that the war demands, however +great it may be, is allowed."</p></div> + +<p>Therefore the horrors which the Germans <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>performed +from the war's very beginning, which provoked +an expression of great indignation from all +the civilized world, were not perpetrated in a moment +of orgy or madness. They have been perpetrated +coldly, deliberately, intentionally.</p> + +<p>Besides, not only the officers and the common +soldiers have been taught to make war in this +barbarous fashion. It has been taught to the entire +German people. This precept proves the +case. It emanates not from a soldier but from a +poet, who is not addressing the military class but +the civilians, the women, the children, and all Germany. +It is the "Hymn of Hate" by the poet +Heinrich Vierordt, which, before the war, was recited +in even the German kindergartens:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Hate, Germany! Slit the throats of your millions +of enemies. Raise a monument of their smoking +corpses that will rise to the heavens!</p> + +<p>Germany, arm yourself with brazen armor and +pierce with your bayonet the heart of every enemy. +Take no prisoners! Strike them dumb. Transform +into deserts the lands that lie near you!</p> + +<p>Hate, Germany! Victory will come from your +anger. Shatter their skulls with blows from your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> +ax and the butt of your musket. These brigands +are timid beasts.... They are not men.... +May your fist perform the judgment of God!</p></div> + +<p>It is useless to say what this spirit has brought +about. Germany has carried on the war with +vigor, has armed herself with brazen armor! She +has transformed neighboring lands into deserts! +She has slit throats, laid waste fields, shattered +skulls, she has destroyed all that lay in her path! +She has tried to impress the terror she holds salutary +upon the souls of inoffensive old men and +women and children!</p> + +<p>This is the first of all the reasons why it is necessary +now to fight, and to fight to the death; +because these men will understand the abominable +nature of "frightfulness" only when they see that +"frightfulness" does not pay; only when they see +the uselessness of unchaining horror and of beginning +another war. Let an assassin go at liberty +and he will commence his killing all over +again; send him to the electric chair and he will +regret his crime.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> +<p>Just as France and Paris were not long in understanding +what war meant in Germany's mind, +France and Paris were not long in accounting for +the danger they had passed through on account +of the German spy system, on account of the formidable +web of espionage the German agents had +woven around all France.</p> + +<p>People felt that this German spy system was +there, speculated about it and talked about it for +years and years, but it was only in the first days +of the war that they really appreciated how diabolical +it was and how far it had penetrated into +the heart of France.</p> + +<p>What happened at Amiens at the beginning of +September, 1914, is especially characteristic of +this.</p> + +<p>Amiens was occupied twice by the enemy. To +use the expression of a military historian, it +seemed as if "the French and the Germans were +playing hide-and-seek around the town." As soon +as the blue caps of the French appeared over +the horizon, the yellow pointed helmets of the +Germans disappeared, rapidly. German occupation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +meant the same thing it did everywhere else—exactions, +brutalities, rape. Immediately after +he had entered the Prefecture, the German governor +levied a war contribution of one million +francs. He also demanded that the citizens furnish +his troops with wine, cigars, and tobacco; +drew up a list of hostages; and arrested all the +men between the ages of seventeen and twenty +years. Within twenty-four hours they were led +away under guard.</p> + +<p>Nothing of all this surprised the brave Picard +city. Proudly she submitted to her fate. But +one thing moved her, or rather angered her, and +that was the surety and speed with which the +German authorities went directly to all the places +they should occupy. They did not hesitate an +instant about the street to follow or the door at +which to knock. The arrest of the fifteen hundred +young hostages occurred with an unheard-of +rapidity. It seemed as if an invisible but exceedingly +clever hand guided each step, regulated +each movement of the invaders. Who could it be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +who directed, advised and commanded the Germans +from behind a veil?</p> + +<p>Doubtless the mystery would never have been +solved if, during the second occupation, the citizens +had not been warned that the next day they +would have to keep their shades down and close +all shutters because His Imperial Highness, Prince +Eitel Friedrich, the Kaiser's son, would then make +a formal entry into the capital of Picardy. The +shutters were closed; automatically the streets +were emptied.</p> + +<p>Into a deserted city, to the sound of trumpet +and drum, preceded by a staff gleaming with gold +braid and mounted on spirited steeds, the German +army entered in state. All the shades were drawn +in the city. However, behind some of them drawn +faces peered forth in sorrow or in anger. In a +house on the principal street was a lady whose +husband was at the front. Her father, an aged +general who had fought bravely in the war of +1870, was with her. Through the drawn shades +of her home she was watching the hated scene.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +And her glorious old father, however indignant he +felt, was watching by her side.</p> + +<p>When the parade was passing by, he made a +sudden gesture and said:</p> + +<p>"Look at that man on the horse, there, now!"</p> + +<p>The man in question seemed to have a horse that +pranced a little more than the others. He rolled +around in his saddle a little more than the others. +And the two onlookers had no trouble in recognizing +this aide-de-camp of Prince Eitel's as one of +the former directors of a language school that +had had a branch at Amiens!</p> + +<p>There is a sequel to the story ... for on the +afternoon of that unhappy day Madame X and +ten other society ladies of Amiens at different +times heard a ring at their doors and saw that +same individual, in full regalia, booted and +spurred, enter their drawing rooms. He came to +call on them, to pay his respects, as if it were the +most natural thing in the world that he should +be there in that costume. They all had to restrain +the feeling of disgust and anger this spy +aroused in their breasts. It was for the sake of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> +the safety of their homes, for the lives that were +dear to them, that they did this. And he, entirely +unconscious in his vileness, was suave and polite, +played the man about town, recalled one thing +or another, mentioned dances and parties....</p> + +<p>So we once more find justification for the famous +definition of German contained in Schopenhauer's +famous phrase: "The German is remarkable +for the absolute lack of that feeling which the +Latins call 'verecundia'—sense of shame."</p> + +<p>The essence of this feeling which is found among +the most savage peoples is entirely lacking in the +Teutonic race. And once more we find an abominable +ambush placed for French culture, good faith +and generosity.</p> + +<p>This is not an isolated incident. When the +whole truth is known, there will be even more surprised +indignation felt than there is at present. +Inquiries will have to be made. It will be necessary +to know why the enemy, in certain places, has +rushed in as if he came out of a trap door. It +will be necessary to know why, in certain ravaged +districts, some houses have been entirely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>destroyed +and others carefully spared. It will +be necessary to know why tennis courts have +been put in certain places and why certain masses +of rhododendrons have been planted in certain +parks....</p> + +<p>For we know that the tennis courts have helped +the Germans carry out their schemes, and that the +flower beds have had a place in the machinery of +war they were developing, which they kept alive +until they were at our gates. A tennis match +seems a mere nothing—something very innocent +in the way of pleasure, far from being war-like. +And then, one fine day the discovery is made that +the tennis court has a foundation of reinforced +concrete twenty centimeters thick, fit to support a +house six stories high and, consequently, a heavy +gun!</p> + +<p>A clump of rhododendrons is very lovely, something +very gracious, charming, most poetic. And +one day the discovery is made that the clump conceals +a platform set in concrete on which an entire +battery can be aligned.</p> + +<p>All that will have to be investigated. All that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +will have to be stopped.... And it makes another +reason why it is necessary to fight today, to +fight to the death. For these Germans will understand +the inanity of their Machiavellian scheming +and of their spy system only when they shall +see these methods fall to pieces, when they shall +see their system fail absolutely.</p> + +<p>In conclusion we may say that France fights +for two reasons. The first reason is because on +the third of August at a quarter before seven +o'clock war was declared on her; she was forced +to fight; her territory was invaded, her cities +burned to the ground; her fields ravaged; her +citizens massacred. The second reason is because +she does not want to have to fight in the future; +she does not wish this horror to be reproduced a +second time; she wishes, in the immortal words of +Washington, "that plague of mankind, war, banished +off the earth."</p> + +<p>To accomplish this the engine that makes war +must be destroyed. The engine that makes war +is "made in Germany." War is the national industry +of the Germans, it has been developed and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> +made perfect in Germany, it is dear to all German +hearts. They are proud of it and have faith +in its power. The machine must not only be +stopped; it must be broken and destroyed, thrown +out as scrap iron to prevent the pieces from being +reassembled, readjusted and put in running order +once again.</p> + +<p>That is why France is fighting, why the whole +world ought to fight to the end, to death or until +victory crowns its efforts.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2> + +<h2>HOW FRANCE IS FIGHTING</h2> + + +<p>Two words, courage and tenacity, will serve +the future historian in his description of +how France fought, when the time shall +have come for telling the entire story of the world +war.</p> + +<p>No one has ever doubted French courage +throughout all the centuries of her tormented history; +but skeptical remarks have been made in +times past of the tenacity of the French people.</p> + +<p>Ten epigrams do not describe this war; nor do +three. But one alone serves this purpose—know +how to endure. No more thoughtful words have +ever been spoken than those of the Japanese, +Marshall Nogi: "Victory is won by the nation that +can suffer a quarter of an hour longer than its +opponent."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<p>During the four years of war, France has +proven that she knew how to suffer and was able +to suffer a quarter of an hour longer than her +enemies.</p> + +<p>They knew how to suffer, those soldiers of +General Maunoury's army in the Battle of the +Marne. And they turned the tide of battle in +favor of French arms. They marched, fought +and died for five days and five nights, in the passing +of which some battalions marched forty-two +kilometers and did not sleep for more than two +hours at a time. The mobility of the fighting +units was such that the commissary department +was absolutely unable to supply them with rations. +For three days many of them had no bread, no +meat, nothing at all! They subsisted on crusts +they had with them, or on the food they were able, +by the fortunes of battle, to pick up in the villages +where they happened to be. In spite of all +this, whenever the order was given to charge, +they charged the enemy with a sort of inspired +madness.</p> + +<p>"The fight has been a hard one," Marshall <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>Joffre +wrote in an order of the day that will be famous +throughout eternity. "The casualties, the +number of men worn out by the exhaustion due to +lack of sleep—and sometimes of food—passed all +imagining.... Comrades, the commander in +chief has asked you to do more than your duty, +and you have responded to this request by accomplishing +the impossible." That is the finest word +of praise that has been given fighting men since +the world began.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>They knew how to suffer, those other soldiers +of the Battle of the Marne who were a part of +General Foch's army at Fère-Champenoise. Five +times they attacked the Château de Mondement, +and five times they were driven back. Their officers +were consulting as to the best thing to do; +and the men surrounded the officers, begging them +with tears in their eyes to lead them to the assault +for the sixth time. For the sixth time the +attack was sounded, and at the sixth assault Château +de Mondement fell.</p> + +<p>That officer at Verdun knew how to suffer. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> +will remain a figure for the legends of the future +for, running to transmit an order, he received +a bullet in the eyes which shattered his +optic nerve. He was completely blinded. Nevertheless, +he continued to advance, trying to grope +his way through the night that had fallen upon +him. He encountered something lying on the +ground—a something that was a man just as badly +wounded. The blind man besought him for +help.</p> + +<p>"How can I help you," said the wounded man, +"a shell has broken both my legs."</p> + +<p>"What difference does that make," shouted the +blinded man, "I am going to carry you on my +back. My legs will be yours, and your eyes will +be mine."</p> + +<p>And, one supporting the other, the blinded man +and the lamed man carried on!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>That officer knew how to suffer whom one of +my brothers met on the battle field of Lorraine. +An artillery officer, his arm was shattered, a few +bits of flesh barely holding it fast to his shoulder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> +My brother, when he saw the man painfully dragging +himself along, asked him whether or not +he needed help.</p> + +<p>"I don't need help," replied the wounded man, +"but my battery down there does. It is retreating."</p> + +<p>"If it is retreating, it can't be helped and it is +a waste of time for me to get it ammunition...."</p> + +<p>"No," begged the lieutenant, "get the munitions. +We Colonials fight until the last man +falls...."</p> + +<p>He offered to guide my brother, mounted beside +him on the artillery caisson, and stayed there all +day. For after he had supplied his own battery, +it was the battery next it, and then the one next +to that, which he wanted to supply.... Finally, +in the evening, at nightfall, they came to take him +off in the ambulance. The major looked at his +shattered arm, examined his frightful wound, and +muttered:</p> + +<p>"You are in a bad way. Couldn't you have come +here sooner?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>The lieutenant replied humbly:</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, I lost a lot of time on the way."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Those men I saw for months fighting and dying +to the south of Verdun, at the Butte des Eparges, +knew how to suffer.</p> + +<p>The Butte des Eparges dominates the great +plain of the Woevre, and from the very beginning +it has been the theater of a frightful and long +drawn out battle of the kind one seldom sees in +this war. The Germans have been entrenched on +the left side of the Butte, the French on the right. +And day and night for four years there has been +an incessant battle over its summit of grenades, +bombs and shells; a terrible hand-to-hand fight +in which neither one of the contestants yields an +inch of ground. A brook of blood runs its interrupted +course on each slope. On the south +slope it is red with German blood; with French +blood on the north.</p> + +<p>The two slopes of the Butte have been so raked +by firing that they have not a single tree, bush, or +blades of grass on them; they stand out sinister<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +and frightful in their nakedness, seeming to cry +out to the men of the plain:</p> + +<p>"See, all of you, the scourge of God has passed +over this place."</p> + +<p>They are dented, furrowed and blown into crevasses +by the explosions of mines; they are sown +over with the enormous funnels in which the fighters +take shelter; they are covered with an incessant +smoke from the projectiles that plow them +up.</p> + +<p>As for the summit, it is a no man's land, that +belongs to the dead men whose bodies cover it. +The summit stopped being a battle field to become +a charnel house. The number of men who have +fallen there will never be known. The most fantastic +figures come from the lips of those who +come down ... 5,000, 8,000, 10,000 ... it will +never be known. But what is known is that the +dead are always there. They form a parapet +above which the living fight on. These dead rot +in the sunshine and in the rain. In accordance +with the wind's being from the east or the west, +the frightful odor of all this rotten flesh strikes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> +the Germans or the French. They lie there, an +indistinguishable mass on the ground, and the +men are unlucky who watch by night in the listening +posts or the trenches. They think they are +stumbling against a stone, and it is a skull their +feet are touching; they think they are picking up +the branch of a tree, and they have hold of the +arm of a corpse.</p> + +<p>However, in the shadow of this human charnel +house, at the edge of this bloody sewer, some little +French soldiers come and go, eat and sleep for +months at a time. The dreadfulness of the sights, +the stench in the air, the tragic presence of death +has not gripped their souls, their courage or their +nerves. They are no less confident and merry than +the others and, in the evening, when the setting +sun adds the purple of its shadows to the red of +all the blood that has been shed on the Butte, they +sing from the depths of their charnel house sweet +love songs.... This is the most regally beautiful +sight I have seen in this war; it is the most +splendidly moving example I know of what personal +sacrifice for one's country's sake can do.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>One day, in a rest village in the neighborhood, +I met a soldier from one of the battalions which +was encamped in the charnel house. He was a +boy twenty years old, who hurried along with a +flower in his buttonhole, whistling a tune.... He +was so joyful that I asked him:</p> + +<p>"You seem as happy as you can be."</p> + +<p>"I have leave, Sir," he answered, "and in a +week I shall go to the country to see my mother. +But, for the present, I have to go and take the +trench at Eparges...."</p> + +<p>As he mentioned the name of the accursed +Butte, I could not repress a movement. He saw +it and said:</p> + +<p>"Sir, I am glad to go there."</p> + +<p>And he told me his name and the number of his +company. Then he hurried away.</p> + +<p>It chanced that precisely one week later I met +one of his officers. I asked him about the merry +fellow.</p> + +<p>"That man? He was killed the day before yesterday +at Eparges."</p> + +<p>And my comrade added in a low voice:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He was shot down at my side, struck with a +bullet square in the chest. The death agony set +in at once. As I was trying to do something +for him, passing my hand gently across his forehead, +I said to him:</p> + +<p>"Courage, my boy, courage."</p> + +<p>He murmured the reply:</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm glad to die."</p> + +<p>Glad ... the same phrase, the same words +I had heard a week ago, which can be heard everywhere +on the French front—and they are glad +to go into all the trenches and into all the charnel +houses, and it is with a happy heart that they rest +in peace.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>But France has not only fought with all her +courage, with all her soul, with all her tenacity. +She has fought with all her living strength, with +her men, her women, even her children.</p> + +<p>What can I say which has not already been said +about the men? When I think of my own men, +when I think of all the men floundering and fighting +in this mud, I can find no other means of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +expression than the words that have already +served the Commander in Chief of the French +Army, General Pétain, on the evening of his great +victory at the Chemin des Dames. In receiving +the American newspapermen, he said to them:</p> + +<p>"Do not speak of us, the generals and the officers. +Speak only of the men. We have done +nothing; the men have done everything. Our men +are wonderful; we, their leaders, can only kneel +at their feet."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The women have been no less wonderful. And +I want to write a few words about them.</p> + +<p>The women who are at the front have fought +like the men. Can you imagine a more beautiful +deed of arms than that of a young girl, twenty +years old, named Marcelle Semer, whose heroic +story a French Cabinet Minister, M. Klotz, told +recently at one of the Matinées Nationales at the +Sorbonne.</p> + +<p>In August, 1914, there lived at Eclusier, near +Frise, a young girl with gray eyes and blonde hair +named Marcelle Semer. She was twenty years old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> +at the time and kept accounts in addition to overseeing +the work of a factory. At the time of the +August invasion, after the Battle of Charleroi, the +French tried to halt the Germans at the Somme. +Not being in sufficient force, they retreated, crossing +the river and the canal. The enemy immediately +pursued. Marcelle Semer, who was following +the French troops, had the presence of +mind, after the last soldier had crossed the Somme +Canal, to open the drawbridge in order to prevent +the Germans from crossing it, and to hurl +the key to the bridge into the canal in order that +they might not take it from her when they came +up. An entire enemy army corps was thus detained +for twenty-four hours by this young girl's +presence of mind; and it was only on the following +day that the enemy, having found some boats on +the Somme, made a bridge of them and passed over +the canal. But the French soldiers were already +far away.</p> + +<p>The Germans were masters of the neighborhood +for some days. They seized the inhabitants as +hostages and shut them up in a cave. Marcelle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> +Semer secretly carried them food. She also carried +sustenance to other inhabitants who had hidden +in the woods or in cellars. She succored and +concealed the soldiers whom wounds or fatigue +had prevented from following the main body of +troops. She contrived that sixteen of them, +dressed as civilians, escaped. Then she was apprehended +by the Germans, arrested and led into +the presence of a court-martial. The judgment +was summary, and after a quarter of an hour's +questioning Marcelle Semer was condemned to +death.</p> + +<p>"Do you admit," asked the presiding officer, +"that you helped French soldiers to escape?"</p> + +<p>"I certainly do," she replied. "I managed it +so that sixteen of them escaped, and they are beyond +your reach. Now you can do what you want +to me. I am an orphan. I have only one mother—France. +She does not disturb me when I'm +dying."</p> + +<p>This was one time when God intervened. +Marcelle did not die. Brought to the place of +execution, at the very moment when they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +about to shoot, the French reëntered the village +and, by a miracle, she escaped her executioners. +Today she wears the Croix de Guerre and the +medal of the Legion of Honor.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>They were Frenchwomen and fighters, these +women whose names and deeds are to be found in +the columns of the "Journal Officiel." Read, for +example, this citation concerning Madame Macherez, +President of the Association des Dames +Françaises de Soissons:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>She willingly assumed the responsibility and the +danger of representing the city before the enemy, +and defended or managed the interests of the population +in the absence of the mayor and the majority +of the members of the town council. In +spite of an intense bombardment which partially +ruined the city, she took the most effective means +possible to maintain calm in the city and to protect +the lives of the inhabitants.</p></div> + +<p>In this department, a lay instructress, Mlle. +Cheron, merited a citation which does not contain +the least over-praise:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p><div class="blockquot"><p>She evidenced the greatest energy in difficult +circumstances. Charged with the duties of Secretary +to the Mayor, and alone at the time of the +arrival of the Germans, she was not disconcerted +by their threats, and kept her head in the face +of their demands with remarkable calm and decision. +When our troops returned, she assumed +responsibility for the service and feeding of the +cantonment. She personally took the steps necessary +for the identification and burial of the dead. +Finally, she was able to prevent panic at the time +of the bombardment by the force of her example +and her encouragement of the populace.</p></div> + +<p>Those three nuns were also Frenchwomen and +fighters of whom the "Journal Officiel" in the general +order spoke as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mlle. Rosnet, Marie, sister of the order of St. +Vincent de Paul, Mother Superior of the Hospice +at Clermont-en-Argonne, remained alone in the +village and showed during the German occupation +an energy and coolness beyond all praise. Having +received a promise from the enemy that they +would respect the town in exchange for the care +the sisters gave their wounded, she protested to +the German commander against the burning of the +town with the observation that "the word of a +German officer is not worth that of a French <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>officer." +Thus she obtained the help of a company +of sappers who fought the flames. She gave the +most devoted care to the wounded, German as well +as French....</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mlle. Constance, Mother Superior of the Hospice +at Badonvillers, during the three successive +German occupations in 1914, assisted the sisters +and remained bravely at her post night and day, +in spite of all danger, and was busy everywhere +with a devotion truly admirable....</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mlle. Brasseur, Sister Etienne, Mother Superior +of the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in the Hospital +at Compiègne, from the war's beginning at +the head of a staff whose tireless devotion has deserved +all praise, has given the most intelligent +and enlightened care to numerous wounded men. +During the time of the German occupation, her +coolness and energetic attitude assured the safety +of the establishment she directed. Her brave initiative +allowed several French soldiers to escape +from captivity.</p></div> + +<p>The modest postmistress and telegraph operator +was a Frenchwoman and a fighter, who, in the little +village of Houpelines, in the north of the country,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +deserved this citation in the orders of the day, +of which thousands of soldiers would be proud:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Refusing to obey the order that was given her +to leave her post, she remained in spite of the danger. +On the first of October the Germans entered +her office, smashed her apparatus and threatened +her with death. Mlle. Deletete, who had put her +valuables and accounts in safe-keeping, gave evidence +of the greatest calmness. From the seventeenth +on she endured the bombardment. Her office +having been damaged severely by the enemy's +fire, she took refuge in the civil hospice, where four +persons were killed at her side. She resumed her +duties on the twenty-third, since which date she +has continued to perform them in the face of frequent +bombardments which have found many victims.</p></div> + +<p>The women behind the lines have been worthy of +their sisters at the front.</p> + +<p>In the forges, the foundries, the factories and +the munition plants they have not feared to don +the blouse of the workingman, and on this blouse +they wear as insignia a large grenade like that +on the brassard of the mobilized men. Note these +figures. On the first of February, 1916, the civil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +establishments of war, the munition plants, and +the Marine workshops employed 127,792 women. +The number has increased, and on the first of +March, 1917, they numbered 375,582 women. On +the first of January, 1918, the women working in +the factories manufacturing war material amounted +to 475,000; that is to say, in round numbers, +a half million.</p> + +<p>Others, in the hospitals, ambulance and dispensaries +have devoted themselves to the wounded, the +mutilated, the sick and the suffering, to the sacrifice +of their health, their youth, and sometimes +their life itself. Here again the figures are eloquent—they +speak for themselves. Three great +societies, constituting the French Red Cross, have +carried on this work of charity and devotion—the +Société de Secours aux Blessés Militaires, the +Union des Dames de France, and The Association +des Dames Françaises. At the war's outbreak the +Société de Secours aux Blessés had 375 hospitals +with 17,939 beds; today it has 796 hospitals with +67,000 beds and 15,510 graduated nurses, three +thousand of whom are employed in military<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +hospitals. On the thirty-first of December, 1916, +the Union des Dames de France had 363 hospitals +with 30,000 beds and more than 20,000 graduate +or volunteer nurses. From August, 1914, to +March, 1917, the Association des Dames Françaises +had raised the number of its hospitals from +100 to 350, and from 5,000 to 18,000 the number +of its beds; the number of its graduate nurses +from 5,000 to 7,000.</p> + +<p>On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the three +societies counted about 42,000,000 days of hospital +work, 25,000,000 for the Société de Secours +aux Blessés alone. From the beginning of the +war, this society has expended for equipment the +sum of 38,700,000 francs.</p> + +<p>Aside from these there are other figures which +show the material effort of the Frenchwomen +which I can not pass over in silence. They show +the civic devotion of which they are capable. The +Société de Secours aux Blessés has been granted +one cross of the Legion of Honor, 94 Croix de +Guerre, 119 Medailles d'Honneur des épidémies. +The Association des Dames Françaises has won<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> +17 Croix de Guerre and 80 Medailles des épidémies. +The Union des Femmes de France has won 39 +Croix de Guerre. And last comes the glorious +list of martyrs of the societies: 110 nurses have +died in the devoted performance of their duties.</p> + +<p>The heroism of these valiant women, many of +whom remained in the occupied territories, will be +the eternal pride of France. Madame Perouse, +President of the Union des Femmes de France +wrote to M. Louis Barthou telling him the number +of women who had risked their liberty, their life, +their honor even, to protect in the face of the +ferocious enemy the sacred rights of the French +wounded. It is fitting to add that, if they have +taken care of the German wounded as well as the +French wounded, they can always recall the reply +of a devoted teacher of the Marne district, Mlle. +Fouriaux, to a German major:</p> + +<p>"Sir, we have only done our duty as nurses, +never forgetting that we are Frenchwomen."</p> + +<p>Mlle. Joulin, a nurse at Douai, did not forget +her duty as a Frenchwoman. She was held a prisoner +by the Germans for a year in the camp at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> +Holzminden, in which she took the place of the +mother of five children who had been put down on +the list of hostages drawn up by the German barbarians.</p> + +<p>And if you would know where these heroic +women have poured out their courage, their coolness +and their physical resistance, which they have +put in the service of their country and of humanity, +you have but to listen to the declaration of one +of them, Mlle. Canton-Baccara, who has been made +a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, for having +shown bravery and exceptional devotion in the +face of the greatest danger:</p> + +<p>"The wounded soldier who suffers," said Mlle. +Canton-Baccara, "the soldier who is complaining +or the peasant who is weeping for the farm that +has been pillaged, a woman's smile ought to console +and her voice ought, under all circumstances, +to be ready to recall to him that above these +sufferings and troubles, above the paltry struggles +of interest and ambition, there is, above all +this, France, our France, which matters before +all else."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>Still other women, who were neither in the hospitals, +at the front, nor in the factories, have been +admirable fighters. They fought, according to +Mlle. Canton-Baccara's words, with their heart +and with their smile. They fought by the example +of abnegation they gave, by the moral force with +which they inspired the men in the trenches.</p> + +<p>Madame de Castelnau is a glorious figure, she, +the wife of the General who saved Nancy and +stopped the rush of the barbarians on the Grand +Couronné!... Madame de Castelnau had, before +the war broke out, four sons. Three fell on +the battle field. The fourth is actually still a prisoner +in the hands of the Germans. On the lips of +their father there is never the slightest word of +complaint; on the lips of the mother there are +these admirable words, which the children in the +schools will repeat later on.... Madame de +Castelnau was in a little village when her third son +was killed. The curé of the village had the pitiful +task of telling the already mourning mother of +this new blow that had struck her. The curé +found Madame de Castelnau, and, in the presence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +of her great sorrow, he hesitated and was overcome +with embarrassment:</p> + +<p>"Madame," he said, "I come to bring you another +blow. But know well that all the mothers +of France weep for you."</p> + +<p>Madame de Castelnau knew the truth at once. +She interrupted the priest and, looking him +straight in the eye, replied:</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know what you are going to tell me.... God's +will be done. But the mothers of +France would be wrong in weeping for me. Let +them envy me."</p> + +<p>Those are the words of a Frenchwoman of noble +descent. But you can place on the same high level +the words of an old woman, a humble soul, whom +the gendarmes found one night crouched on a +grave that was still fresh. It was up near Verdun. +She told the gendarmes:</p> + +<p>"I come from La Rochelle. Five of my sons +have already fallen in the war. I have come here +to see where the sixth is buried—the sixth—my +last son."</p> + +<p>Moved by the tragic grandeur of the sight, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> +gendarmes rendered her military honors and presented +arms. The mother rose and uttered the +words her dead and her heart inspired:</p> + +<p>"Even so, Vive la France!"</p> + +<p>All of them, mothers of noble birth and of peasant +stock, rich and poor, wives, sisters, and fiancées +are the first to exhort their sons, husbands +and brothers to fight to the end. All have the +same words of sacrifice and abnegation on their +lips. All of them find words which best fortify, +exalt and console their men.</p> + +<p>Read this letter I picked up on the field of battle, +a letter written by a humble peasant woman +whose heart, after centuries of noble and wise +discipline, was in the right place:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My dear Boy</span>:</p> + +<p>We got your letter, which gave us great pleasure. +We waited anxiously for it. You wrote it +two days ago. Since that time things have +changed. Did you get my letter? I hope so. I +must reassure you about your father the very +first thing. He was away only three days, time +enough to guide a detachment to Bourges. So<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> +there is only one vacant place at the fireside, but +how big that one is.</p> + +<p>My dear boy, you speak to me of sacrifice; yes, +it is one. And I can tell you it is the greatest one +that has ever been asked of me. However, I keep +calm. I tell myself sometimes that I have deserved +it. I am ready to pay, but I wish so much that +you might not pay.</p> + +<p>My dear boy, you speak to me of duty and of +honor. I have never doubted that you would do +what you ought to. Yes, my son, a soldier's honor +lies in being on the battle field when the country +is in danger. Go, then, my son, with the blessing +of your mother and your father, and with that +most mighty one of your country and of heaven.</p> + +<p>You tell me to accept my lot courageously. +Alas, sometimes it fails me. However, I shall try +to be resigned and I hope to see you again in spite +of everything. If that should not happen, say to +yourself, my dear boy, when you close your eyes, +that you have all the love and all the sweetest +kisses of your mother, who would like to fly to +you.</p></div> + +<p>The sisters are worthy of their mothers. Here +is a letter written by two young girls who live in +Lorraine, near Nancy. Plutarch never wrote anything +more beautiful:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="citation"><span class="smcap">Moyen</span>, 4 <span class="smcap">September</span>, 1914.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Edouard</span>:</p> + +<p>I have heard that Charles and Lucien died on +the twenty-eighth of August. Eugène is badly +wounded. As for Louis and Jean, they are dead +also.</p> + +<p>Rose has gone away.</p> + +<p>Mother weeps, but she says that you are brave +and wishes that you may avenge them.</p> + +<p>I hope that your officers will not refuse you +that. Jean won the Legion of Honor; follow in +his footsteps.</p> + +<p>They have taken everything from us. Of the +eleven who went to war, eight are dead. My dear +Edouard, do your duty; we ask only that.</p> + +<p>God gave you life; he has the right to take it +away from you. Mother says that.</p> + +<p>We embrace you fondly, although we would +like to see you. The Prussians are here. Jandon +is dead; they have pillaged everything. I have +just returned from Gerbevillers, which is destroyed. +What wretches they are!</p> + +<p>Sacrifice your life, my dear brother. We hope +to see you again, for something like a presentiment +tells us to hope.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>We embrace you fondly. Farewell, and may we +see you again, if God grants.</p> + +<p class="citation">(Signed) <span class="smcap">Your Sisters</span>.</p> + +<p>P.S. It is for us and for France. Think of +your brothers and of your grandfather in 1870.</p></div> + +<p>And this next letter is sublime. It was addressed +to M. Maurice Barrès by a lady from the +city of Lyons, which is perhaps the most mystic +city in all France. In the newspapers mention +had been made of the men disabled by war, and of +all the unfortunates who were mutilated, whose +limbs had been amputated, who were helpless or +blinded. The question was raised of knowing what +ought to be done to help them. Then the lady +wrote as follows to M. Barrès:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>: One of these recent days, when our troubles +have been so hard to bear, I went to regain +my courage into one of the beloved sanctuaries +of Notre Dame.... A lady dressed in black +came in beside me and, as all mothers are sisters +in these trying days, I asked after her men at +the front. She told me sadly that she was a poor +widow, and that the war had taken away her two +sons, her sole means of support. One of them had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +had an arm amputated—the right arm—and the +hands of the other were cut off at the wrists. She +came from seeing them to pray to the Mother of +Sorrows for her children and herself.</p> + +<p>I was deeply moved by her sorrow and by her +not complaining. I sought means to console her. +This is the means I have found, sir, and I tell +it to you now....</p> + +<p>Let us ask the Virgin, I said to her, to create +young women in France so brave, so strong, and +so devoted that they will gladly and proudly consent +to marry the poor, injured men and to be +not only their hearts but the limbs which will aid +them to make their daily bread; leaving to the +men the privilege of loving them, of respecting +their presences and of guiding their lives.</p> + +<p>The poor woman understood me. We separated. +My own youngest daughter was in my +thoughts; and do you not think that the men who +have a wider audience could stir the hearts of the +young women, twenty years of age in France, if +they asked them to perform this act of devotion, +and to be the companions of the mutilated, maimed +men of France?...</p></div> + +<p>Then, too, the women who had only their dignity +and their high spirit to defend themselves +against the grossness and the insults of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>Prussians, +have been the incarnation of the spirit of +France.</p> + +<p>An old woman who dwelt in a village on the +Aisne was spattered with mud by the Kaiser as +he passed by on horseback. He made a gesture +excusing himself. She fixed her eyes on him and +said simply:</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter, sir. That mud can be +washed off."</p> + +<p>A great lady in one of the châteaux in the invaded +regions, had to receive one of the Kaiser's +sons. The day of his departure he sent for her +to thank her for the hospitality she had shown +him. The old lady, looking at him, contented herself +with replying:</p> + +<p>"Do not thank me, sir. I did not invite you +here."</p> + +<p>And she reëntered her house with all dignity.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Because the women of France have been all +this and have done all this, France has been able +to fight on, and will be able to fight to the end. +Because the women of France have been all this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +and have done all this, the soldiers, in the mud +of the trenches, revere them as Madonnas.</p> + +<p>The historian Tacitus tells somewhere how, on +a hot spring day, a slave, panting and worn out, +entered one of the gates of the Eternal City. +He crossed the Forum without stopping and, in +his course, mounted the Hill of Mars. Finally +he came to one of the greatest houses of the patrician +section of the city. His cries and shouts +filled the house:</p> + +<p>"Alas, alas!" he cried.</p> + +<p>A lady hastened to him. She was the mistress +of the house, the famous Cornelia Graccha.</p> + +<p>"What news do you bring?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Alas, alas," repeated the slave, "in the battle +down there in Umbria, two of your sons have been +killed."</p> + +<p>"Fool," was the reply, "I do not ask that. Have +the Barbarians been conquered?"</p> + +<p>"They have, Cornelia."</p> + +<p>"Then what matters the death of my sons if +my country is victorious!"</p> + +<p>Those wonderful words have been handed down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> +from generation to generation as a symbol of +what ancient Rome was. Those words thousands +of French women have uttered for the last four +years, and they still utter them today. Other +voices answer them. They rise from the trenches, +and they say:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Be without fear, women of France. For you +we will fight to our last gasp, we will shed our +last drop of blood. Know that if for months we +have held our heads below the level of the muddy +trench and offered our breasts to death, it is that +you may be freed from the wild beasts that have +burst forth from the German forests. For your +sakes our homes are not in ruins and our towns +are not vassals to the enemy. It is all for you, so +that when we shall return you need not throw +your arms around conquered necks. Our country, +women of France, is made up of our homes, our +churches, and our fields, and of your beloved faces. +Throughout the tragic periods of its history, our +country has always been incarnated in your faces, +whether they called themselves St. Geneviève or +Jeanne d'Arc. And in our building, to personify +the cities that are dear to us, we have always taken +your bodies, your foreheads, and the folds of your +gowns—see, in Paris, that statue in the Place de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +la Concorde, in the shadow of the Tuileries, which +for days has worn a crêpe veil.... Well, today +is the same as yesterday. In our trenches our +country appears to us in those visions wherein are +mingled your faces. We shall believe that our +country has been well served only when, on your +beloved faces, we shall have caused a smile to appear +because the palms we have placed at your +feet are the palms of victory."</p></div> + +<p>Future historians will state that France has +fought not only with all her courage, her tenacity +and her soul, with all her men, women and children: +they will also state that these men, women +and children, in spite of the terrible times, their +suffering and their mourning, have remained firmly +united, forming a firm rock from which not a +single stone has been splintered.</p> + +<p>In that tormented, feverish France where the +ardor of the Revolution still boils, there were, +before the war, different parties, cliques, groups +and churches. The war has leveled, united and +bound them all together.</p> + +<p>In some admirable pages, consecrated to the +"Effort of French Womanhood," M. Louis Barthou<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +has painted the picture of the sacred union +there is among all the French women:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I have seen [he writes] our women at the front +and behind the lines, in the hospitals, the railway +stations, the automobile service, the canteens, the +factories, in relief work and in charity work. I +have met nurses, unmoved under a bombardment. +I have tested the spirit of fellowship which unites +them, including as it does the names of the most +aristocratic French families and the most modest +citizens. There is no false pride among those in +high places nor envy among those lower in the +social scale. They wear the same garb, the same +cap, with the same cross on their foreheads. For +the soldiers there is the same uniform, and when +you say uniform you mean equality in devotion, in +the risk of life, and in loyalty to duty. Between +the classes of society there is no contention, there +is only emulation. I do not know whether or not, +in times of peace, they had all and everywhere +escaped the local passions which have poisoned national +life, but the war has given them sacred union +for a countersign, and they, as disciplined soldiers, +have respected this countersign.</p> + +<p>The French nurse's smile will have served the +nation's defense well, but I emphasize this when I +think how well it will have served the nation's unity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +in the aftermath that shall follow war. What +rancors it will have appeased! What jealousies +it will have blotted out! What petty prejudices +it will have conquered! These society women and +women of the middle class who have leaned over +the beds of sick or wounded peasants, and these +young girls who have tended their hurts, bound +up their wounds, and calmed their sufferings have, +with their delicate hands, so expert in the worst +treatments, laid the foundations of a France that +is united and fraternal, where envy and hate have +no place. All eyes have opened to broader vistas +of revealed clearness, to which they have hitherto +remained closed through prejudice, or obstinacy. +They will have learned that bravery, devotion to +the right, loyal and tried disinterestedness, heartfelt +and wise knowledge can dwell in the simple +soul of the peasant and the workingman. The +peasants and the workingmen who have come out +from their care will have learned that luxury does +not exclude goodness, that beauty is not always a +sterile gift, that youth is not altogether callow, +that a woman can be pretty and generous, delicate +and courageous, rich and sympathetic, and +that the mothers whose children are dead excel +in lavishing the care of their hands and the tenderness +of their hearts on the wounded children +who are suffering far from their mothers.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> +<p>The sacred sense of union that reigns among +the men is no less firm. It is only necessary to +read the letters written on the eve of their deaths—in +that hour when a man, alone, face to face +with himself, lets his soul speak—by the fighters +who gave their heart's blood for the sacred cause.</p> + +<p>They all say the same things.</p> + +<p>Here is a letter a Jew wrote, named Robert +Hertz, a second lieutenant of the 330th infantry +regiment, who fell on the 13th of April, +1915, at Marcheville:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My Dear</span>: I remember the dreams I had when +I was a little child. With all my soul I wished to +be a Frenchman, to be worthy to be one, and to +prove that I was one.... Now the old, childish +dream comes back to me, stronger than it ever was. +I am grateful to the officers who have accepted +me for their subordinate, to the men I have been +proud to lead. They are the children of a chosen +people. I am full of gratitude towards our country +which has received me and heaped favors upon +me. Nothing would be too much to give in payment +for that, and for the fact that my little son +may always hold his head high and never know, +in the reborn France, that torment which has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> +poisoned many hours of our childhood and of our +youth. "Am I a Frenchman?" "Would I deserve +to be one?" No, little boy, you shall not say that. +You shall have a native land and your step may +sound on the earth, nourishing you with the assurance, +"My father was there and he gave all he +had for France." If recompense is necessary, this +is the sweetest one there is for me.</p></div> + +<p>This is the letter of a Protestant, second lieutenant +Maurice Dieterlin, who was killed on the +sixth of October, 1915, and who, on the eve of +the Champagne offensive, wrote these last words +they were to read from him, to his family:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I saw the most beautiful day of all my life. I +regret nothing and I am as happy as a king. I +am glad to pay my debt that my country may be +free. Tell my friends that I go on to victory with +a smile on my lips, happier than the stoics and the +martyrs of all time. For a moment we are beyond +the France that is eternal. France ought to live. +France will live. Get ready your loveliest gowns, +keep your best smiles to welcome the conquerors +in the great war. Perhaps we shall not be there, +but there will be others in our places. Do not +weep, do not wear mourning, for we shall have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +died with a sweet smile on our lips and a lovely +superhumanity in our hearts. Vive la France! +Vive la France!</p></div> + +<p>What wonderful enthusiasm! But still more +beautiful is this prayer, that of a little Protestant +soldier from the Montbéliard country, who died +in the Gare d'Amberieu hospital:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Lord, may Thy will and not mine be done. I +have consecrated myself to Thee since my youth, +and I hope that the example I have offered may +serve to glorify Thee.</p> + +<p>"Lord, Thou knowest that I have not desired +war, but that I have fought to do Thy will; I +offer my life for peace.</p> + +<p>"Lord, I pray Thee for the welfare of my people. +Thou knowest how greatly I love them all, +my father, my mother, my brothers and my sisters.</p> + +<p>"Lord, return manyfold to these nurses the +good they have done me; I am but a poor man +but Thou art the dispenser of riches. I pray to +Thee for them all."</p></div> + +<p>This prayer, in which the little soldier had put +his last living thoughts, was received by a Catholic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +sister who had cared for him, and sent by her +to his sorrowing family—a touching proof of +sacred union.</p> + +<p>All of them, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, +speak of God and pray to Him.... Read this +letter from Captain Cornet-Acquier, that captain +to whom his wife wrote, "I would urge you on with +my voice if I saw you charging the enemy." He +tells this little incident:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A Catholic captain was saying the other day +that he said his prayers before each battle. The +commanding officer remarked that that was not +the proper moment and that he would do better +to make his military arrangements.</p> + +<p>"'Sir,' he replied, 'that does not prevent me +from making my military arrangements and from +fighting. I feel better for <a name="it" id="it"></a>it.'</p> + +<p>"Then I said:</p> + +<p>"'Captain, I do the same thing you do. And +I find I get along pretty well.'"</p></div> + +<p>This is the letter a young Catholic wrote the +evening before a battle to his fiancée:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">My dear Jeanne</span>:</p> + +<p>Tomorrow at ten o'clock, to the sounds of "Sidi +Brahim" and the "Marseillaise" we charge the +German lines. The attack will probably be deadly. +On the eve of this great day, which may be +my last, I want to recall to you your promise.... Comfort +my mother. For a week she +will have no news. Tell her that when a man +is in an attack he can not write to those he loves. +He must be content with thinking of them. And +if time passes and she hears nothing from me, +let her live in hope. Help her. And if you learn +at last that I have fallen on the field of honor, let +the words come from your heart that will console +her, my dear Jeanne.</p> + +<p>This morning I attended mass and communion +with faith. It was held some yards away from +the trenches. If I am to die, I shall die a Christian +and a Frenchman.</p> + +<p>I believe in God, in France and in Victory. I +believe in beauty and youth and life. May God +guard me to the end. But, Lord, if my blood is +useful for victory, may Thy will be done.</p></div> + +<p>Finally, here is a priest, Father Gilbert de Gironde, +second lieutenant in the 81st infantry, who +was killed on the seventh of December, 1914, at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +Ypres, writing his last letter.... For of the +twenty-five thousand priests who went off at the +beginning of the <a name="mobilization" id="mobilization"></a>mobilization, three hundred were +called military chaplains, the rest were officers, +stretcher-bearers, or common soldiers—and note +the 4,000 citations in the army orders which the +"Journal Officiel" has published, which report the +acts of courage and of bravery done by these +priests on the battle field:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>To die young. To die a priest. To die as a +soldier in the attack, marching to the assault in +full sacerdotal garb, perhaps in the act of granting +an absolution; to shed my blood for the +Church, for France, for her Allies, for all those +who carry in their hearts the same ideal I do, +and for the others also, that they may know the +joy of belief ... how beautiful that is, how beautiful +that is!</p></div> + +<p>Catholics, Protestants, Jews, priests, ministers +and rabbis, that is what they write. It is a belittling, +a profanation, that, in spite of myself, +I have separated and differentiated among them. +For down there, in the bloody mud of the trenches,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +they are one body which lives together and dies +together.</p> + +<p>There was a little Breton who, on the Battle +field of the Marne, was shot in the chest. The +death agony at once set in, and in his agony he +asked for a crucifix. No priest happened to be +on the spot, there was only a Jewish rabbi. The +rabbi ran to get the crucifix, he brought it to the +lips of the dying man, and he, in his turn, was +killed!...</p> + +<p>In a little barrack in the hollow of one of the +depressions at Verdun lived together a priest, a +minister and a rabbi. We often saw the place. +On the evening after a frightful battle, they were +all three in the charnel house where the dead bodies +are brought. They were surrounded by stretcher-bearers, +who said to them:</p> + +<p>"We do not dare throw earth on the bodies of +our comrades without a prayer being said over +them."</p> + +<p>The Catholic priest asked to what faith they +belonged.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We do not know. How can we find out? But +can't you arrange among yourselves?"</p> + +<p>"Well, we shall bless them one after the other."</p> + +<p>And there in the bleeding night was seen the +incomparable sight of the three men side by side, +the Catholic, the Protestant and the Jew, reciting +the last prayer and disappearing....</p> + +<p>M. Maurice Barrès, the celebrated French +writer, from whose magnificent book, "The Spiritual +Families of France," I have borrowed a great +number of the letters I have quoted, has pointed +out that all French churches are fighting in this +hour, forming one great church. Yes, every +church and every saint is fighting! These saints +belong to all beliefs, some of them to no belief. +But one religion has united and solidified them +all—the religion of their country, the religion of +Liberty, the religion of civilization. All speak +the same prayer, all have the same faith in their +hearts, all fall martyrs in the same cause.</p> + +<p>The old walls which, in times of peace, separated +parties and men, have crumbled into dust +at the same time when the German shells crumbled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +into dust the little village churches. An infinite +cathedral, a cathedral that is invisible and +great has risen on high. It is the cathedral of +the faith of France, in which all faiths commune +in the same hope—a cathedral which time and suffering +and death itself shall not destroy.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2> + +<h2>FRANCE SUFFERING BUT NOT BLED WHITE</h2> + + +<p>Listen to the man in the street when he +speaks—that man in the street who reflects +public opinion whether it is just +or unjust, genuine or sophisticated. Listen to +him when he speaks and you will hear him say:</p> + +<p>"Yes, we know. France has a well tempered +spirit. But the blood is gone out of her body. +France would like to fight on, to fight to the bitter +end, but France is suffering. France is worn out. +France is bled white."</p> + +<p>France is suffering ... that is true. In the +cataclysm that she did not wish for, that she did +not start, that she did not prepare, she has lost +more than a million men. And what men they +were! The Ecole Normale, which is the preparatory +school for the French university, lost seventy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +per cent of its pupils. That means that three-quarters +of the thinkers, the literary men, the +scientists, the philosophers, the professors of the +France of tomorrow have been wiped out. They +were the flower of her youth, the élite of her intelligence. +Add to that seven departments, +roughly 20,000 square kilometers in area, which +have been invaded, devastated, ruined and pillaged. +In these seven departments all the machinery, +all the raw materials, all the merchandise, all +the furniture even to the door-knobs and the +boards in the floors have been taken away. These +departments were among the richest and most +prosperous of those on which France prided herself +most industrially.</p> + +<p>Add to that the cultivation that has been destroyed, +the soil that has been made untillable, the +trees that have been cut down, the roads that have +been torn up and the bridges that have been destroyed. +All the misery, all the mourning, all the +sickness: a million wounded and injured men who +have been lost as living forces by a nation which +did not have too many inhabitants. Add the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>hundred +thousand prisoners Germany sends back to +us who have been made tuberculous, paralytics, +nervous wrecks or lunatics because they have been +physically maltreated. Yes, France is suffering.</p> + +<p>But it is not true that she is worn out. It is +not true that she is bled white. The horrible hope +Germany had formed of emptying France of her +strength, of leaving her, fighting for breath and +conquered, beaten to the earth for centuries to +come, has not been realized. France always +stands upright, her arm is still strong, her muscles +vigorous and her blood rich.</p> + +<p>To destroy the lie that France is bled white, +we must let figures, facts, statistics and definite +proofs speak. The public shall judge for itself....</p> + +<p>A nation that is worn out and bled white has +no army to defend itself. France not only still +has an army, but she has an army that is numerically +and materially stronger than it was at the +war's beginning. In 1914, at the Marne, France +had an army of 1,500,000 men; today, after four<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +years of war, France has on her battle front, in +the war zone, an army of 2,750,000 men.</p> + +<p>But the value of fighting men today lies only +in the artillery they have to support them behind +the lines. It lies in the shells the artillery is +able to fire, in all that material that makes up the +sinews of war of the present day. Here we find +the most extraordinary and marvelous effort that +history records. France, invaded, occupied, +weakened; France that had no munitions industry +prior to 1914—or a small munitions industry at +best—that France has built up a war industry +that is doubtless the best in the world, which is +equal to the German war industry and on which +the Allies can draw in the common cause.</p> + +<p>Listen to these figures and keep them in your +heads. They are vouched for by M. Millerand, +who was minister of war during the first year of +hostilities:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Battle of the Marne emptied our storehouses.</p> + +<p>On the seventeenth of September, 1914, the +minister of war, who had then been scarcely three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> +weeks in office, was informed that munitions threatened +to fail our artillery, and that it was necessary +without delay to bring to the front 100,000 +shells per day instead of 13,500 for the .75 guns. +This was merely a beginning. Three days later, +on the twentieth of September, the minister assembled +at Bordeaux the representatives of the +munitions industry and divided them up into regional +groups. At the head of each one he made +one establishment or one individual the responsible +person. In the face of difficulties which could not +be conceived unless they had been overcome, with +establishments diminished in personnel as well as +in raw material, inexperienced for the most part +in the complex and delicate operations which were +expected of them, the manufacture of shells for +the .75's mounted from 147,000 which it had been +in the month of August, 1914, to 1,970,000 in +the month of January, 1915, and then to 3,396,000 +during the month of July, 1915.</p> + +<p>222 .75 guns per month have been constructed +since the month of May, 1915. 227 were constructed +in the month of July, 407 in the month of +January, 1916. For this construction, as for all +the others, once a start was made, there was no +stopping it.</p> + +<p>All orders for heavy guns had been countermanded +at the beginning of August, 1914. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> +were resumed in the month of September, 1914. +Seventy-five per cent of the orders for heavy guns, +on which we got along until April, 1917, had been +given out between September, 1914, and the thirty-first +of October, 1915. In the first seven months +of the war, from September, 1914, to April, 1915, +there were constructed three hundred and sixty +pieces of heavy artillery. On August first, 1914, +we had only sixty-eight batteries. A year later, +to the day, on the first of August, 1915, we had +two hundred and seventy-two batteries of heavy +artillery.</p></div> + +<p>Now consider these figures, given out by M. +André Tardieu, High Commissioner of the French +Republic at Washington, in a letter to the Hon. +Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In the matter of heavy artillery, in August, +1914, we had only three hundred guns distributed +among the various regiments. In June, 1917, we +had six thousand heavy guns, all of them modern. +During our spring offensive in 1917, we had roughly +one heavy gun for every twenty-six meters of +front. If we had brought together all our heavy +artillery and all our trench artillery, we would +have had one gun for every eight meters in the +battle sector.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>In August, 1914, we were making twelve thousand +shells for the .75's per day, now we are making +two hundred and fifty thousand shells for the +.75's and one hundred thousand shells for the +heavy guns per day.</p> + +<p>If you wish to consider the weight of the shells +which fell on the German trenches during our last +offensives, you will find the following figures for +each linear meter:</p></div> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="artillery"> +<tr><td align='left'>Field artillery</td><td align='right'>407 kilos</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Trench artillery</td><td align='right'>203 kilos</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Heavy artillery</td><td align='right'>704 kilos</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>High Power artillery </td><td align='right'>12 kilos</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>——</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'><a name="Total" id="Total"></a>Total </td><td align='right'>1442 kilos</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>And these are the figures for the monthly expenditure +in munitions for the .75's alone:</p></div> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="shells"> +<tr><td align='left'>July, 1916</td><td align='right'>6,400,000 shells</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>September, 1916 </td><td align='right'>7,000,000 shells</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>October, 1916</td><td align='right'>5,500,000 shells</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>During the last offensive the total expenditure +amounted to twelve million projectiles of all calibers.</p></div> + +<p>This incomparable war industry has permitted +us not only to fight, to defend ourselves and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +attack the enemy, but also to supply our friends, +our Allies, with the munitions necessary to fight. +Up to January, 1918, these are the amounts of +munitions France was able to hand over to the +nations fighting at her side in Europe:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="munitions"> +<tr><td align='right'>1,350,000</td><td align='left'>rifles</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>800,000,000</td><td align='left'>cartridges</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>16,000,000</td><td align='left'>automatic rifles</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>10,000</td><td align='left'>mitrailleuses</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>2,500</td><td align='left'>heavy guns</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>4,750</td><td align='left'>airplanes</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>And to France has come the honor of making +the light artillery for the American Army—amounting +to several hundred guns per month.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A nation that is worn out and bled white has +an empty treasury and is no longer able to obtain +taxes from its ruined citizens. Let us consider +what France had done in a financial way in +this war.</p> + +<p>From the first of August, 1914, to the first of +January, 1918, the French Parliament voted war<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +credits amounting to twenty billions of dollars. +Of this enormous fund only two billions have +been borrowed from outside sources; all the +remainder has been subscribed or paid for by +taxation or by loans in France herself. More +than a billion dollars has been loaned to her Allies +by France.</p> + +<p>In 1917 France had the heaviest budget in all +her history. The single item of taxes was raised +to six billion francs ($1,200,000), and these taxes +were paid to the penny, although ten million +Frenchmen were mobilized in the Army, in the +factories, and on the farms, or were untaxable +in the occupied regions.</p> + +<p>In 1915, 1916 and 1917 France raised three +great national loans. That of 1915 amounted to +exactly 13,307,811,579 francs, 40 centimes, of +which 6,017 millions were paid in hard cash. That +of October, 1916, amounted in round numbers to +ten billions francs, of which more than five billions +were paid in hard cash. That of December, 1917, +amounted to 10,629,000,000 francs, of which +5,254 millions were paid in cash.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus, in spite of the war, her invaded territories, +and her mobilized citizens, France has in three +years raised three national loans of almost seventeen +billions francs in hard cash. That is three +times the amount of the war indemnity she paid +Prussia in 1871.</p> + +<p>A nation worn out and bled white has no more +monetary reserve, no more funds in its treasury, +and has been brought into bankruptcy. The +Bank of France, which is probably the leading +national bank in the world, whose credit has never +weakened in the gravest hours of the nation's history, +declared on the first of January, 1918, a +gold reserve of 5,348 millions of francs, an increase +of 272 millions over the gold in hand on January +first, 1917. This is the greatest deposit the bank +has ever had. All this came from the national +resources: the weekly payments are still a million +and a half francs, which are paid without compulsion +and without legal processes.</p> + +<p>The individual deposits in the great credit establishments +of France which, on the thirty-first +of December, 1914, amounted to only 4,050 millions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> +of francs, amounted to 6,050 millions on the +thirty-first of December, 1917.</p> + +<p>And during the first three months of the year +1918, from the first of January to the thirty-first +of March, the surplus deposits made by the peasants +and the working classes in the National Saving +Bank was seventy-five millions of francs, an +excess of more than eight hundred thousand francs +daily.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A nation that is worn out and bled white is +incapable of manufacturing and sees its commerce +and industry perish. Here is the statement of +M. Georges Pallain, Governor of the Bank of +France, representing the accounting of the Counsel +General of the Bank for 1917:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>From the industrial and commercial point of +view, a satisfactory amelioration is noticeable. +The investigation of the Minister of Industry in +July last permits the statement that the percentage +of factories and business houses rendering a +periodical accounting, of which the advantage is +not yet established, is only twenty-three per cent; +it was fifty-five per cent in August, 1914.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>An indication of the development of industrial +activity is furnished by the continued increase of +the demand for coal.</p> + +<p>Operations for mining ore have been pushed +with vigor. Coal production increased greatly in +1914. On the whole it still remains less than it +was before the war, since the invasion has deprived +us of the valleys in the north and the richest portion +of Pas-de-Calais; but in the regions where +mining is still possible the production exceeds by +about forty per cent the figures for 1913.</p> + +<p>This remarkable increase has compensated to a +certain extent for the falling off in the importations +of coal from England; nevertheless it leaves +our supply of coal less than our demand for it.</p> + +<p>To remedy this insufficiency and, at the same +time, to give our national industry greater independence, +researches and experiments have been +equally intensified with a view to employing our +hydraulic resources. In the Alps, in the Pyrenees +and in the central Massif new installations are +under way, and they have already attracted important +metallurgic and chemical plants.</p> + +<p>The development of industrial production has +had the result of an increase in the volume of commercial +transactions. These continue to look +after themselves and, for the most part, they are +on a cash basis. The gradual resumption of credit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +operations, which former years signalized, is still +on the increase. In 1917 the receipts from commerce +were thirty-seven per cent greater than in +1916. There is a notable progression of discounts, +while the total of our delayed payments +has been brought back to 1,140 millions.</p></div> + +<p>A nation that is worn out and bled white is +unable to bind up its wounds or relieve its bed +of suffering. France has not waited for the end +of the war and the evacuation of her territory to +bring in life where the Germans thought they had +left only death.</p> + +<p>In eighty-four of the liberated cantons the work +of reconstruction has already commenced. Commissions +have been appointed. These commissions +have proceeded already to the evaluation of the +damage done and, without waiting for authorization, +the administration has paid advances +amounting to a not inconsiderable figure. Thus a +sum totalling more than one hundred and forty +millions francs has been expended for the reconstruction +of the liberated regions. Seventeen +millions have been expended in cash for repairs;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> +in advances to the farmers for work or supplies, +twenty millions; in advances to workmen, a half +million; for the circulation of funds to the farmers, +merchants and small manufactures, two millions; +under the heading of reconstruction of +buildings or the rapid reinstallation of the evacuated +population, one hundred millions.</p> + +<p>An <i>Office National de Reconstruction</i> for +the villages has been established, and an agricultural +<i>Office National de Reconstitution</i> has +been organized; great things have already been +realized from private organizations. This is the +account of what one of them, the organization of +National Nurseries, sent in 1914 to the front and +into the liberated regions:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="plants"> +<tr><td align='right'>6,717,575</td><td align='left'>cabbage plants</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>1,980,000</td><td align='left'>turnip and rutabaga plants</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>41,000</td><td align='left'>radish plants</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>27,200</td><td align='left'>cauliflowers</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>270,250</td><td align='left'>white beets</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>5,340,500</td><td align='left'>leek plants</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>1,836,800</td><td align='left'>chicory and endive plants</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>104,500</td><td align='left'>celery plants<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>105,000</td><td align='left'>tomato plants</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>16,900</td><td align='left'><a name="tarragon" id="tarragon"></a>tarragon plants</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>9,569,450</td><td align='left'>onion sprouts</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>26,009,175</td><td align='left'>total plants of various kinds.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>These plants have been divided up into 2,436 +shipments, and they have sufficed to nourish not +only the people who have returned to the devastated +villages but also the troops at the front.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A nation that is worn out and bled white has +no colonies, or, if she has, these same colonies are +likewise bloodless and worn out. The French +colonial empire remains intact while the German +colonial empire has disappeared from the face of +the earth. The support the colonies brought to +the mother country is wonderful and deserves a +separate study on its own account.</p> + +<p>Here is the picture the celebrated German colonial +empire offers.</p> + +<p>In 1914 Germany possessed a colonial empire +two million square kilometers in area. It represented +approximately four times the area of the +German Empire, and before the war its exports +amounted to about one hundred millions of francs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> +or twenty-five millions of dollars. There were +German Southwest Africa, 35,000 square kilometers +in extent, with 1,750 kilometers of railroads, +with its copper and diamond mines, its +metals which were worth commercially thirty-seven +millions of marks in 1911; German East +Africa, twice as big as the German Empire, having +1,225 kilometers of railroads, with its harbors +where nine hundred and thirty-three merchant +ships had touched in 1911; German New Guinea, +as large as two-thirds of Prussia, with its rich +deposits of gold and coal, its maritime commerce +of 240,000 tons; the Samoan Islands, one single +port of which, Apia, was visited by one hundred +and ten steamers in a year; Tsing-Tao which, in +1911, had exported 32,500,000 marks' worth of +merchandise, whose maritime interest was represented +by five hundred and ninety steamers which +carried a million tons of freight. All that has +fallen away; all that is actually in the hands of +the Allies.</p> + +<p>The conquest was difficult; it was finished only +in 1916. An order of the day of General Aymerich,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> +commander-in-chief of the troops which conquered +Kameroon, points with brief eloquence to +some of the difficulties which have been overcome:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Officers, Europeans and troops who are natives +of Africa and Belgian Congo.</p> + +<p>At the cost of hardship and unheard-of efforts, +you have just wrenched from the Germans one of +their best and richest colonies.</p> + +<p>Followed without a minute's respite from possession +to possession, the enemy has been obliged +to abandon the last bit of Kameroon. For eighteen +months you have experienced the torrid heat +of the days and the cold dampness of the nights +without a change, you have been under the torrential +equatorial rains, you have traversed impassable +forests and fetid marshes, you have without +a rest taken the enemy's positions one after +another, leaving dead in each one a number of +your comrades. Lacking food and often without +munitions, with your clothing in tatters, you have +continued your glorious march without complaint +or murmur, until you have attained the end for +which you set out.</p></div> + +<p>In this conquest France played a large part, +just as was the case in the conquest of Togoland,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +with her Senegalese Tirailleurs, the famous Tirailleurs, +so much decried and discussed before the +war, who were to win the admiration of the English +generals under whose orders they fought.</p> + +<p>It is appropriate to cite here the order of the +day of the commanding officer of these troops, +because it shows us a side of the colonial wars, +about which little has been said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>An English detachment under the command of +Lieutenant Thomson having been strongly repulsed +in an attack on the post at Kamina, was reinforced +by a group of the Senegalese Tirailleurs +made up of a sergeant, two corporals, and fourteen +Blacks. From the beginning of the encounter +at eleven o'clock, the mixed detachment found itself +exposed to a lively fire from positions that +were solidly established and supported by mitrailleuses. +After the artillery had commenced firing +Lieutenant Thomson, considering that the preparation +was sufficient, bravely led his troop on to +the attack. This courageous initiative failed under +a severe fire from fifty meters of German +trenches. Lieutenant Thomson fell mortally +wounded. However, the Senegalese Tirailleurs, +faithful to that tradition which has already proved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +its value in our colonial epic by such famous exploits, +refused to abandon the body of the unknown +leader their captain had given them and +continued to hold their position. When the fight +was over and the enemy was in flight, the bodies of +the sergeant, the two corporals, and of nine dead +and four wounded Tirailleurs were found stretched +out alongside the English officer and an under officer +who was also English. In the very spot where +they were found, their tomb surrounds that of +Lieutenant Thomson. United in death, they still +seem to watch over the strange officer—unknown +to them—for whom they sacrificed their lives because +their leader had given them orders to do so.</p></div> + +<p>Of the German colonial empire, four times as +big as the fatherland, not a spot exists that is not +in the hands of the Allies today. England holds +the greater part; Japan has Tsing-Tao; France +a considerable part of the African possessions.</p> + +<p>Now let us look at the picture the French +colonial empire offers.</p> + +<p>In 1914 France ruled, in the north of Africa, +over five and a half millions of natives in Algiers, +two millions in Tunis and four millions in Morocco. +When the war broke out there was not a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> +single German in Morocco who was not certain +that the natives would rise in revolt against +France.</p> + +<p>"Not a single Frenchman," wrote, in peace +times, the correspondent of the <i>Cologne Gazette</i>, +"should escape alive." The German Government +was convinced of the fact that the revolt of the +inhabitants and the massacre of the French would +be followed by an appeal of all the Moroccans +for the intervention of the Kaiser. But nothing +of the sort took place. In Algiers the most perfect +calm continued to reign; in Tunis there was +a little trouble that was soon suppressed; in Morocco +there was a man, diplomat and soldier at +the same time, who was able to keep peace and +hold the country firm to France. He was General +Lyautey.</p> + +<p>During the early days of August, 1914, the +question was raised whether or not it would be +necessary to abandon the outposts in the interior +of Morocco and withdraw toward the coast cities. +General Lyautey declared that he would abandon +nothing and advised the French Government to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +that effect. He sent troops, the famous Moroccan +regiments, the best fighting units there were +in 1914, to the battle fields of Flanders, receiving +in exchange territorial divisions recruited for the +most part from the Midi. However, with these +territorial divisions General Lyautey assured the +safety of all that portion of the empire that was +in his care; he finished the operations he had commenced; +he maintained French prestige and, some +months later on, he found means to open at Casablanca +a Moroccan exposition which showed the +marvelous work that had been accomplished in +that country—French for a few years only.</p> + +<p>The French colonies not only remained incomparably +calm and peaceful but they also made a +marvelous effort in coming to the aid of the +mother country both with men and with their +commerce.</p> + +<p>M. Ernest Roume, Governor General of the +Colonies, in charge at the war's beginning of the +government of Indo-China, sent to France more +than sixty thousand native soldiers and military +workers in eighteen months. They were recruited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +from the Asiatic possessions of France. In Senegal, +in Soudan and in Morocco men volunteered by +hundreds of thousands. Moroccans, Kabyles and +blacks came to fight by the side of the French +troops on the Champagne and Lorraine fronts.</p> + +<p>Besides, North Africa largely took care of the +feeding of France.</p> + +<p>In 1914 the cereal crop had been notably deficient +in Algiers and especially in Tunis. However, +Algeria did not hesitate to give the mother +land all the grain she asked for; 50,000 quintals +of wheat and 500,000 quintals of barley and oats +were thus hastened to continental France, and in +addition, 40,000 quintals of wheat went to Corsica +and 130,000 to Paris. In 1915 the colonies +made an even better showing: Algeria furnished +France with 1,625,000 quintals of wheat, 918,000 +quintals of barley, and 77,000 quintals of +oats. In 1916 this figure was passed and the +total exports amounted to four million quintals +of grains. As for Morocco, it exported in 1914, +90,000 quintals of wheat and 130,000 quintals of +barley; in 1915 it exported 200,000 quintals of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +wheat and a million quintals of barley; in 1916 +it exported more than two million quintals of +grains. Add to that the 900,000 sheep Algeria +furnished for the French commissariat and more +than 40,000 sheep furnished to the English commissariat +to feed the Hindoo troops stationed at +Marseilles. Then add in the cattle exported from +Algeria and Morocco by the thousands, add for +Algeria the wines and the vegetables, and for +Tunis the olive oil. In 1916 the confederation +of Algerian winegrowers gave the French poilus +fifty thousand hectoliters of wine.</p> + +<p>Everywhere in the colonies buildings have been +built, agriculture has continued, public works +have been constructed. In the midst of war Algeria +has opened up railroads; Tunis has opened +the line from Sfax to Gabès; Morocco the lines +from Casablanca to Fez and from the Algerian +frontier to Taza.</p> + +<p>General Lyautey said, "A workshop is worth a +battalion in Morocco."</p> + +<p>Workshops have been opened everywhere. +There was never so much work done. The colonial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +empire was never more prosperous, more active +and more glorious.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A nation that is worn out and bled white has +passed the stage where it can come to the aid of +others. In her death agony, she has no more +than her own strength to last her during the last +hours. France has been able to come to the aid +of the other Allies. She has lent them a strong +helping hand, she has been able to save them from +total extinction. French troops have fought and +are still fighting on all the battle fronts; in Italy, +the Balkans, Palestine and Central Africa. It is +almost to France alone and to France especially +that the salvage of the remnant of the Serbian +Army has been due.</p> + +<p>We remember what happened in September, +1915. At the time when the dual offensive was attempted +in Artois and in Champagne, the German +Armies invaded Poland, Volhynia, Lithuania and +Courland, delivered Austrian Galicia and commenced +to submerge Serbia beneath their innumerable +legions. Invaded by three armies, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> +German, Austrian and Bulgarian, all of them +amply supplied with heavy artillery and asphixiating +gas, poor little Serbia was doomed beforehand. +But, tenacious to the end, her heroic defenders +preferred to leave their country rather +than submit to a hated yoke. Step by step the +Serbians, always facing the enemy, retreated to +the sea. It was a terrible tragedy. Their retreat +will remain a matter of legend, like that of the +Ten Thousand under Xenophon. As they retreated, +the Serbians called, in their despair, for +help.</p> + +<p>Who went to Serbia's aid? It was not Russia, +whose armies were quite worn out. It was not +England, who feared an attack on Egypt and who +was still fighting at the Dardanelles. It was not +Italy, whose special efforts were directed towards +preventing the junction of Austria with Greece, +and who was satisfied with establishing herself +at Valona and thus driving a wedge between her +two rivals on the Adriatic coast.</p> + +<p>But France, France who is represented as worn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +out and bled white, heard Serbia's call for help +and decided to respond to it.</p> + +<p>Supplies were first landed at San Giovanni di +Medua and Antivari in the smaller French boats. +But it was soon evident that these supplies would +be insufficient and that the Serbs could not maintain +their positions in the Adriatic ports even +with French help from the sea. The complete +evacuation of an entire army, piece by piece, had +to be undertaken. The transporting of entire +Serbia beyond the seas, to another country, had +to be considered. Where were they to go? Where +were the thousands of worn out soldiers, of sick +and wounded men, to be transported?</p> + +<p>Once again France answered. France held +Tunis, France held Bizerta. Tunis and Bizerta +would shield temporarily the remains of Serbia. +From the end of November, 1915, the smaller +French ships, torpedo boats, trawlers and transports +made the trip from Durazzo to San Giovanni +di Medua to embark the Serbian Army. +Great steamers, such as the <i>Natal</i>, <i>Sinai</i>, and +<i>Arménie</i>, and a flotilla of armored cruisers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>followed +them. Thirteen thousand men were transported +in this fashion.</p> + +<p>But the situation grew worse. The Serbs along +the seacoasts were pressed harder and harder by +the Austrians and by Albanian bands. Besides, +the transporting to Tunis was too slow when the +progress of the enemy was considered. Finally +the appearance of typhus and cholera rendered +more dangerous the removal of the unfortunate +troops to a great distance. A new plan was arranged. +The remaining Serbs were to be transported +not into Tunis, which was so far away, but +to a land as near as possible to the scene of disaster. +Corfu was there; Corfu, only sixty miles +away from the farthest point of debarkation; +Corfu, whose climate was marvelously suited to +the recovery of sick men; Corfu which offered a +very safe harbor. It was decided to occupy +Corfu, prepare the island, transport the entire +Serbian Army thither and assure that this army +would be built up there. And France was charged +with carrying out this operation.</p> + +<p>On the seventh of January, 1916, the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> +French organization of ten trawlers set out from +Malta to make a preliminary reconnoissance +around Corfu, to drag for mines and to clear out +the submarines. A second flotilla followed it +forty-eight hours later. On the eighth of January +the armored cruisers <i>Edgar Quinet</i>, <i>Waldeck-Rousseau</i>, +<i>Ernest Renan</i>, <i>Jules Ferry</i> and +five torpedo boats, which were located at Bizerta, +received orders to embark a battalion of Alpine +chasseurs with their arms, baggage and mules +and to take up their positions to be ready at the +first signal.</p> + +<p>On the night of the tenth, the French consul +at Corfu woke up the Greek prefect in order to +announce to him the imminent arrival of our +squadron and what it was going to do. After +he had received the formal protest of this functionary, +he went down to the port, where there +was no longer any doubt in anyone's mind of +what was going to happen. With him went guides +and automobiles to finish everything quickly before +the Germans could offer any opposition. +Some minutes later, on time at the rendezvous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> +agreed upon, the French cruisers came into the +harbor and immediately disembarked their contingent +of Alpine Chasseurs. Before daybreak +the principal vantage points as well as the most +important positions on the island were occupied. +Suspected persons were seized in their beds, a +doubtful post of T. S. F. was seized also. Corfu, +which went to sleep half German, woke up entirely +French to the tune of the martial music that was +to inform the inhabitants of the little change that +had taken place over night.</p> + +<p>The question remained of <i>Achilleion</i>, the property +of William of Germany, which was about nine +miles from the city. If <i>Achilleion</i> had been a +French property and German soldiers had paid +a visit, what pillage, what defilement, what orgies +there would have been!</p> + +<p>But <i>Achilleion</i> was a German property, and the +French have a method of procedure that is peculiarly +their own. This is what happened, according +to the narrative of a young naval officer +who was on the spot:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>At four o'clock in the morning an automobile<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> +set out from the dock, carrying a squad of twelve +marine fusilliers under the command of one of the +ship's lieutenants. A half hour later he presented +himself at the gate of the palace and demanded +that he be admitted. There was no response. He +was insistent. Finally a door opened and an +angry voice cried out in the darkness: "This isn't +the time for visitors." For the owner, who found +that there are no such things as small profits, +permitted a visit for the sum of two francs per person. +Surprised, the occupant of the palace submitted, +and our detachment entered <i>Achilleion</i>, +whose occupants it assembled—the watchman and +two red-haired chambermaids—<i>en déshabillé</i>, also +a mechanic and an entomologist who wore spectacles. +Pale with fear, the latter threw himself on +his knees before the officer. "If I must die, I ask +that it may be here," said he. He was left in +peace. A company of the Chasseurs arrived and +the marines, with their lanterns in their hands, +went back to the ships. The Tricolor floated over +the Kaiser's villa, which was to become a hospital +for the Serbs.</p> +</div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At eleven o'clock in the morning it was all over, +and the French cruisers put out to sea on the return +trip to Bizerta.</p> + +<p>But the easiest thing had been done. The most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> +difficult was about to begin. It was not only a +question of occupying Corfu; it was also a matter +of arranging to receive a worn-out and decimated +army. It was a difficult task that many +would have judged out of the question. Everything +was lacking; there was nothing on hand.</p> + +<p>A writer on naval matters, who has been the +historian of the French Navy in this war, M. Emile +Vedel, has painted in the pages of <i>Illustration</i> +an unheard-of and unique picture of what this +preparation of Corfu consisted:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It was nothing less than a question of improvising +all means that were necessary for disembarking; +gangways, landing stairs, roads to and from +various points on the island where the expected +troops were to be concentrated; of uniting and +collecting together the numerous boats—large and +small—eighteen tugs (among them the <i>Marsouin</i>, +<i>Rove</i>, <i>Iskeul</i>, <i>Marseillais 14</i>, <i>Audacieux</i>, <i>Requin</i>), +twenty-seven smaller boats, nine barges, and a +dozen mahonnes and small craft of all sizes, without +counting the supply ships, floating tanks, unloading +cranes and so forth—which the rapid unloading +and revictualing of the new arrivals <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>demanded; +of isolating the sick who were infected +with typhus and cholera; in a word, of putting on +their feet the diverse offices that come under the +heading of direction of the port, all the machinery +of which was yet to be created. At the same time +it was necessary to maintain and repair the booms +of the harbor, to test the channels, make arrangements +concerning piloting, anchorage, and new +supplies of water, provisions and coal for the always +hurried transports which arrived, unloaded +and sailed away at all hours of the day and night; +constantly to clear out and drag the waters near +the island; establish observation posts around it, +station batteries in suitable positions, and finally +to protect the channels around Corfu and the Albanian +coast, in which the English aided us effectively +by sending a hundred drifters (a sort of +little fishing boat which we call "cordiers" at +Boulogne), which, beating against the wind under +full sail, dragged a cable a thousand meters long +to snare submarines. Thanks to a pair of floating +docks, which were placed between the extreme +end of Corfu and the neighboring coast, a distance +of but two or three kilometers, our vessels were +soon in position, in a line thirty miles in length +so that they could execute all the movements +necessary for the landing of the Serbs and also +have gun drill, launch torpedoes and sea planes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +and perform the rest of the maneuvers that are +indispensable.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, fresh water in sufficient quantities +had to be procured. For if the springs on the +island could supply eighty thousand inhabitants, +they now had to triple their output and give out +a far greater supply to meet the demand of one +hundred and fifty thousand more mouths. Every +bit of flour had to come from outside, from Italy, +France or England since Corfu has very few resources +and we did not wish to encounter the hostility +of a population to which it was necessary +for us to show firmness more than once. The most +recalcitrant were forced to give in, not without +ceasing to rob us very much in the dealings they +had with us. Oranges went up to ten francs a +dozen, and small shopkeepers realized fortunes by +doing money changing at fantastic rates.</p> + +<p>And all that will furnish only a very incomplete +idea of the innumerable obligations the aquatic +anthill, from an industrial and military standpoint, +which is called a naval base, has to meet.</p></div> + +<p>On the ninth of January, 1916, the situation +of the Serbian Army was precisely as follows: +In the neighborhood of San Giovanni di Medua +there were twelve hundred officers, twenty-six +thousand foot soldiers, seven thousand horses and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +two thousand cattle; at Durazzo there were thirty-six +hundred officers, sixty-nine thousand soldiers, +twenty thousand horses and four thousand cattle; +on the roads that led to Valona some fifty +thousand men including officers, two thousand +horses and three hundred cattle.</p> + +<p>In these three principal groups were forty-one +field pieces, the glorious remainder of the Serbian +artillery.</p> + +<p>Add to that twenty-two thousand Austrian +prisoners whom the Serbs carried along with them +in their exodus towards the coast and also the +pitiable troop of refugees, sick men, old men, +women, children who, desiring at any cost to escape +slavery and servitude, followed the retreating +army.</p> + +<p>The evacuation of this indomitable people was +made at San Giovanni di Medua. The soldiers +were sent to Corfu. The civilians were sent to +Algiers and Tunis, the Austrian prisoners to +Sardinia. But where were the typhoid and the +cholera patients to be transported? No one +wanted them; and in this stampede of a people,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +cholera and typhus had made their appearance +and spread with alarming rapidity. A certain +number of cholera patients had been taken to +Brindisi; and everyone, naturally, refused to take +them in.</p> + +<p>Since this was the case, a French trawler, the +<i>Verdun</i>, commanded by Lieutenant d'Aubarède, +brought the sick to Corfu. And, as M. Emile +Vedel tells it, this was perhaps one of the most +beautiful episodes of our navy's activity, for +there are few deaths as hideous as that to which +they exposed themselves in taking in their arms +poor beings touched with a malady essentially so +contagious, and so dirty and covered with vermin +that they made everyone shudder. With precaution +and care that brothers do not always have +for their own brothers, these near-corpses were +taken to Corfu, where doctors and nurses from +the French Navy saved some of them and made +the end more easy for the rest.</p> + +<p>In twenty-two days everything was almost over. +The troops at San Giovanni and Valona and Durazzo +had been evacuated, as had the Austrian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> +prisoners. All the money of the Serbian treasury +had been transported to Marseilles in the cruiser +<i>Ernest Renan</i>. It amounted to about eight hundred +million francs.</p> + +<p>However, on the twentieth of January, about +two thousand men still remained at San Giovanni +di Medua. There were also a certain number of +field pieces. After so many men and guns had +been saved, were these to be abandoned? No. +Everything must be saved. The last man must +be saved and the last gun must be saved, whatever +may be the risk, the fatigue and the hard work.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the twentieth of January, +Captain Cacqueray, commanding the French naval +forces, had two young naval officers of the French +fleet come aboard his ship, the <i>Marceau</i>, Ensigns +Couillaud and Augé, who commanded the little +trawlers <i>Petrel</i> and <i>Marie-Rose</i>. He ordered them +to return once more to San Giovanni and bring +back with them all they could.</p> + +<p>"You must succeed and you will succeed," Captain +Cacqueray said simply.</p> + +<p>Some few minutes later the two trawlers were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +out in the Adriatic, headed for San Giovanni. +Here we must quote Ensign Augé's words. He +commanded the <i>Marie-Rose</i>, and we must be satisfied +with citing from the eloquent brevity of the +ship's log:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>From the peaceful docks of Brindisi, we passed +through the winding channel of the outer port and +then out of the harbor, gliding between the buoys. +Then the mine fields were to be traversed, although +the night was black and foggy. As we approached +the Albanian coast the wind freshened, and in a +veritable tempest, with hail and icy rain we entered +the Gulf of Drin, whose water is very turbid. +More watchful than ever, since submarines had +been sighted in the neighborhood, we finally arrived +at Medua. Almost blocked off by the sand +bars, the little harbor was further encumbered by +a dozen wrecks, boats which the Austrians had +sunk. The question was where to pass through +this mess, on the top of the water, with masts and +spars pointing every way. After having rounded +the line of mines and the <i>Brindisi</i>, an Italian vessel +that had struck a mine some days before, we +made the port. Ten houses and a wretched wharf +on worm-eaten piling at the end of a funnel of +mountains with terrible rocks is all there is of +Medua.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>An empty sailboat was moored to the end of +the wharf, which facilitated our operations. The +<i>Petrel</i>, which was of lighter draft than my boat, +managed to get alongside and, by vigorous efforts, +we were able to join her. Ashore there were soldiers +in muddy clothes and worn-out shoes. The +gangway and the sailboat were soon filled by a +chilly cold wind, which tried to blow it offshore and +which nothing could restrain. It was impossible +to locate any responsible person and out of the +question to make one's self understood. Everyone +thought only of escaping from that Hell. Finally +some Serbian officers came up who succeeded +somewhat in controlling their impatient troops. +They made us bring up the first cannon, which was +pushed over the shaking planks of the wharf. With +great effort and by the use of triple tackles the +gun was got aboard the <i>Petrel</i>, and the carriage +and wheels on the <i>Marie-Rose</i>, whose hatch was +wider. The beginning was slow, but, after the +second cannon, the embarking went along +smoothly.</p> + +<p>There was not enough time. Everyone +stamped in the mud. With the completely washed +out Serbian uniforms mixed the brilliant colors +of those of the Montenegrin guard. Seated on a +stone, King Nicholas sat stoically in the falling +rain, awaiting the arrival of the Italian torpedo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +boat that was to place itself under his orders. +Soldiers from the French mission arrived and did +police duty. The radio-operators from the Italian +post arrived and put their baggage on board. +An officer of the Serbian Army was there with all +the state archives. A crowd of people instinctively +pressed towards us and got mixed up with the +soldiers who were supposed to keep order. In +spite of the tempest which thwarted everything, +we managed to embark eighteen .75 guns and three +100 howitzers, as well as a hundred cases of projectiles. +The weather grew more dreadful, with +hail stones in the icy rain. Blows were necessary +to prevent the crowding aboard of that mob of +people whom neither shouts nor threats could +stop. We allowed as many as possible to embark—about +a hundred on the <i>Petrel</i> and twice as +many with us—Serbs, Montenegrins and Allies, +of all classes and conditions, and, despairingly we +shoved off to stop the crowd that remained. We +were the last hope of these poor people—there were +about fifteen hundred of them, whose only hope now +was to face the frightful paths, marshes and swollen +rivers that separated them from Durazzo.</p> + +<p>Night was falling; there remained only time +to get away. Cases of preserves were quickly +opened. All our bread and biscuits were used, +and some bowls of boiling tea comforted our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +guests. But leaving the harbor, the sea grew +heavier and torrents of spray put the finishing +touch to the inextricable disorder that prevailed +aboard ship. The storm stayed with us until we +made Brindisi, where we arrived at seven o'clock on +the morning of the twenty-second. When Italy was +sighted, the tiredness and discouragement disappeared +as if by magic. Hand clappings, praise +of France, promises of victory and of revenge, +and absurd efforts to disembark everything at +once—passengers and material. (Journal of Ensign +Augé, Commander of the <i>Marie-Rose</i>.)</p></div> + +<p>Is that all? No; it is not. For if French effort +is limitless, the tonnage of the trawlers is +not. And, in spite of every effort, they were unable +to get everyone aboard. Down there in the +mud at Medua some Serbs still waited, turning +anxious eyes towards the high seas to see whether +or not the tricolor would appear on the horizon.... +Well, it did reappear, for France never gives +up the fight. The French motto here, as everywhere +else, was "to the bitter end." On the twenty-fourth +of January the <i>Petrel</i> and the <i>Marie-Rose</i> +started on the final trip. Will they arrive +in time? Probably not. In the mountains that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> +surround San Giovanni rifle shots and the rattle +of mitrailleuses were heard; the road to Alessio +was deserted, the beach seemed deserted, Medua +harbor was covered with wreckage of all sorts, rendering +navigation impossible. However, the tiny +craft entered the harbor and approached the +shore. Finally they saw some Serbs there. The +news was as disturbing as possible. The Austrians +were only a few kilometers off. There was +fighting on the outskirts of the town. The last +able-bodied Serbs struggled manfully to hold off +the Austrian advance guard, which pressed them +hard. Not a minute was to be lost if a last salvage +was to be made.</p> + +<p>After a brief consultation, the two young commanders +decided to take off everyone in their old +boats, aided by a huge lighter which they took +in tow. A grave responsibility if the weather +did not hold; but the man who risks nothing will +gain nothing.</p> + +<p>They worked with feverish haste. The hope of +not being abandoned gave wings to the weak. By +four o'clock in the afternoon everything was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>practically +ready ... four "seventy-fives," ten artillery +caissons, two radio outfits, a thousand new +rifles, hundreds of cases of shells, cartridges and +grenades and likewise large quantities of harness +were loaded on the trawlers. All the men who were +in the town, its outskirts or on the beach were assembled +and embarked on the boats. Not one +was left behind. This time, safe from the rifles +in the distant mountains, everyone was saved.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>At four-fifty in the afternoon [writes Ensign +Augé] our little boats cleared the harbor for the +last time and made the open sea. Suddenly we +see a trail of foam hastening on us with a mad +rush. It started three or four hundred meters off +on our right. There is a lightning flash and we +see the torpedo cross our bows, too low, fortunately. +A submarine has tried to attack us but +has missed. We describe a great circle in order +to avoid a second attack. Fortunately night falls +to end the chase, and we make for the Italian +coast. Although the sea is smooth, the third boat +is lurching terribly. About midnight I hear terrible +cries from this boat. It is dark as pitch and +impossible to make out anything in the darkness. +The cries continue: sparks burst forth. Something +is thrown into the sea. It is impossible to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +know what is happening. So much the worse. +The most dangerous thing would be to stop. Let +us go on.</p></div> + +<p>They went on and finally arrived in sight of +Italy the next morning. The incident of the night +before had been a little thing which had started a +panic on board the boat. Little by little the roofs +and towers of Brindisi appeared in the distance. +The entire squadron of Allied ships was there, +ranged in battle formation. When they saw the +two little boats which were bringing in the last +Serbs with their last guns, they rendered military +honors to the heroic saviors, the crews cheering +and the colors saluting. Supreme and unprecedented +homage was rendered two nations: +France and Serbia.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In January, 1918, M. Vesnitch, Serbian Minister +to France, on a mission to the United States, +during an after-dinner speech, in a voice that did +not conceal his emotion and with a different manner +from his usual downcast one, told some of the +details of this Passion. And he added:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We are grateful to everyone, but Serbia's +heart will remain attached through all centuries +to come to France."</p> + +<p>I repeat these words, which are France's sweetest +reward, because they attest in history what +France, the nation "worn out and bled white" +has done to save and succor her little ally.</p> + +<p>Finally let me say that the men are wrong who +believe France is without strength and resources. +Beneath her torn garments, in rags, under flesh +that is cruelly bruised, there beats a virile heart +which fights on and on. And there is young, red +blood which still flows and is always ready to flow +for the immortal principles of Liberty, Justice +and Humanity.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2> + +<h2>THE WAR AIMS OF FRANCE</h2> + + +<p>A French statesman, Mr. Louis Barthou, +has summed up the War aims of France +in the three words: "Restitution, Reparation, +Guarantees."</p> + +<p>Restitution means the surrender of all occupied +territories, of the territories occupied by +force during forty-seven months, as well as the +territories occupied by force during forty-seven +years. Between the five departments forming +Flanders-Argonne and the five departments forming +Alsace-Lorraine, France is unable to make +any distinction. France wants Metz back on the +same ground upon which she wants Lille back. If +Germany is to keep Metz she might as well keep +Lille. Her claim to Strasbourg is not better than +her claim to Cambrai.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + +<p>And this is a thing which "the man in the street" +fails sometimes to understand. He says: "Yes, +we know, Alsace-Lorraine was taken from France +forty-seven years ago by violence, without the people +of the occupied territories being consulted. +But how did France acquire Alsace-Lorraine in +previous times? Was it not also by force after +successful wars? Is it not a fact that Alsace-Lorraine, +in days of yore, belonged to Germany, +and that, historically, Alsace is a German land?"</p> + +<p>No, it is precisely not a fact. It is the contrary +of a fact and of truth. And this must +be made clear, once for all.</p> + +<p>When France demands Alsace-Lorraine, she +does not do so because she will have some more +departments in her geographical configuration, +but because these territories belonged to France +during centuries and centuries, because they were +taken from France by force forty-seven years +ago, because the people of these territories not +only were never consulted, but also protested +against Prussian domination—because, in a word, +it is a question of right.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>In a speech, which he delivered on the 24th of +January, 1918, before the Reichstag, Count von +Hertling, the Imperial German Chancellor, expressed +himself as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Alsace-Lorraine comprises, as is known, for +the most part purely German regions which by a +century long of violence and illegality were severed +from the German Empire, until finally in 1779 +the French Revolution swallowed up the last +remnant. Alsace and Lorraine then became +French provinces. When in the war of 1870, we +demanded back the district which had been criminally +wrested from us, that was not a conquest of +foreign territory but, rightly and properly speaking, +what today is called disannexation.</p></div> + +<p>It is doubtful that Count von Hertling will +ever leave in history the memory of a great Chancellor; +but, if he does, it will be no doubt in the +History of Ignorance and Falsehood. Never has +a statesman in so few words uttered with such +impudence so many untruths!</p> + +<p>Historically speaking, there are in Alsace-Lorraine +three parts: there is Lorraine, there is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>Alsace, +and there is the southern part of Alsace including +the town of Mulhouse.</p> + +<p>As regards the town of Mulhouse, the question +is most simple and clear. The town never, at any +time, belonged to Germany or to the Germans. It +belonged to Switzerland and, at the end of the +18th century, during the French revolution, the +town, after a referendum, decided to become +French. A delegation was sent to Paris, to the +French Parliament, then called the <i>Conseil des +Cinq-Cents</i>, and the delegation expressed publicly, +officially, the desire of Mulhouse to be part of the +French territory. There was a deliberation, and +unanimously the <i>Conseil des Cinq-Cents</i> voted a +motion couched in the following terms: "<i>The +French Republic accepts the vow of the citizens +of Mulhouse.</i>"</p> + +<p>A few weeks later the French authorities, among +scenes of unparalleled enthusiasm, made their entry +into the town, and the flag of Mulhouse was +wrapped up in a tricolor box bearing the inscription: +"The Republic of Mulhouse rests in the +bosom of the French Republic."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>Alsace—the rest of Alsace—became French +in 1648, more than two centuries before the war +of 1870. It became French according to a treaty. +The treaty was signed by the Austrian Emperor, +because Alsace belonged to the Austrian Imperial +Family. And it is not without interest to quote +an article (article 75) of the treaty:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Emperor cedes to the King of France forever, +<i>in perpetuum</i>, without any reserve, with full +jurisdiction and sovereignty, all the Alsatian territory. +The Austrian Emperor gives it to the +King of France in such a way that no other Emperor, +in the future, will ever have any power in +any time to affirm any right on these territories.</p></div> + +<p>When today one reads that treaty, one has the +impression that more than two centuries ago the +Austrian Emperor had already a sort of apprehension +that later on another Emperor would interfere +in the matter and create mischief!</p> + +<p>Fifty-three years after that treaty, the Prussians, +who dislike seeing anything in some one's +else possession, tried to recover Alsace. Their +own ambassador tried to dissuade them, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> +1701 Count Schmettau, ambassador of Prussia in +Paris, wrote to his king:</p> + +<p>"<i>We cannot take Alsace, because it is well +known that her inhabitants are more French than +the Parisians</i>...."</p> + +<p>Could anything answer better the affirmation +that "Alsatians are of German tendency?"</p> + +<p>Lorraine became French in 1552, more than +three centuries before the war of 1870. Lorraine +became French not after a war and as the result +of a conquest, but according to a treaty signed +by all the Protestant Princes of Germany, in +which we find the following sentence, which is +really worthy of meditation: "<i>We find just that +the King of France, as promptly as possible, +takes possession of the towns of Toul, Metz, +and Verdun, where the German language has never +been used.</i>" So that the Germans themselves put +on the same line the towns of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, +and recognized that the town of Metz was +not German.</p> + +<p>All this is extremely simple and clear. What +happened several centuries later is equally clear.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>When, in 1871, on February 16th, the deputies +of Alsace-Lorraine learned that their provinces +would be given up to Germany, they assembled, +and in an historical document which was signed +by all of them—there were thirty-six—they protested +in the following terms:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Alsace and Lorraine cannot be alienated. Today, +before the whole world, they proclaim that +they want to remain French. Europe cannot +allow or ratify the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. +Europe cannot allow a people to be seized +like a flock of sheep. Europe cannot remain deaf +to the protest of a whole population. Therefore, +we declare in the name of our population, in the +name of our children and of our descendants, that +we are considering any treaty which gives us up +to a foreign power as a treaty null and void, +and we will eternally revindicate the right of disposing +of ourselves and of remaining French.</p></div> + +<p>And, three years later, in January, 1874, when +for the first time Alsace and Lorraine had to elect +deputies, they reiterated the same protest. They +elected fifteen new deputies; some were Protestants, +some were Catholics, one of them was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +Bishop of Strasbourg, but they unanimously +signed a declaration which was read at the Tribune +of the German Reichstag. The declaration was +the following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In the name of all the people of Alsace-Lorraine, +we protest against the abuse of force of +which our country is a victim.... Citizens having +a soul and an intelligence are not mere goods +that may be sold, or with which you may trade.</p> + +<p>The contract which annexed us to Germany is +null and void. A contract is only valid when the +two contractants had an entire freedom to sign it. +France was not free when she signed such a contract. +Therefore our electors want us to say +that we consider ourselves as not bound by such +a treaty, and they want us to affirm once more +our right of disposing of ourselves.</p></div> + +<p>I beg to call the attention of the reader to two +sentences of this protestation:</p> + +<p>"Europe cannot allow a people to be seized like +a flock of sheep," wrote the deputies of 1871. +"People are not mere goods which may be sold +or with which you may trade," proclaimed the +deputies of 1874. Now you will find, nearly word<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> +for word, the same thought expressed in the message +of President Wilson to Congress, when he +wrote: "No right exists anywhere to hand peoples +about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they +were property."</p> + +<p>That right does not exist, and it is because that +right was outrageously violated in 1871 that +France wants Alsace-Lorraine to come back to +her. It is because, in 1871, Right has been +wronged that today Right must be reinstated.</p> + +<p>Some people have spoken of a referendum. Why +a referendum? Was there any referendum in +1871? And how could there be a referendum? +How could you include in this referendum the hundreds +of thousands of Alsatians who have fled from +German domination? How could you exclude from +this referendum the hundreds of thousands of +Germans who have come to Alsace?</p> + +<p>The referendum was rendered by Mulhouse in +1798. Will that town be obliged to vote again? +And how many times will it be obliged to vote for +France? The referendum was rendered by the +whole of Alsace and Lorraine in 1871 and 1874,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> +by their elected deputies, when they unanimously +protested against the German annexation.</p> + +<p>It was rendered twenty years ago by the census +which was taken by the Germans themselves in +Alsace. According to that census, in 1895, notwithstanding +the fact that the teaching of French +was prohibited in the public schools, there were +160,000 people in Alsace speaking French. And +five years later, in 1900, according to another +census there were 200,000 people in Alsace +speaking French. And of these 200,000 people, +there were more than 52,000 children.</p> + +<p>The referendum was also rendered by Alsatians +who, before this war, engaged themselves in the +French Army, and became officers. According to +the official statistics of the French War Department, +there were in 1914 in the French Army 20 +generals, 145 superior officers, and 400 ordinary +officers of Alsatian origin. On the other side, +in the German Army in 1914, there were four officers +of Alsatian origin.</p> + +<p>And finally the referendum was rendered only +one year before the present war, in 1913, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +Herr von Jagow, then Prefect of Police in Berlin, +made the following extraordinary declaration: +"We Germans are obliged in Alsace to behave +ourselves as if we were in an enemy's country...." +What better referendum could you wish +than such an admission by a German statesman?</p> + +<p>Moreover, the question of Alsace-Lorraine is +not only a French question, but also an international +question. It is not only France who has +sworn to herself to recover Alsace-Lorraine—it +is all the Allies who have sworn to France that +she should recover it.</p> + +<p>"We mean to stand by the French democracy +to the death," solemnly declared Mr. Lloyd-George +on the 5th of January, 1918, "in the demand they +make for a reconsideration of the great wrong +of 1871, when, without any regard to the wishes +of the population, two French provinces were torn +from the side of France and incorporated in the +German Empire."</p> + +<p>And, three days later, using nearly the same +words, President Wilson, in his luminous message +to Congress, said: "<i>The wrong done to France by</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +<i>Prussia in 1871, in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, +which has unsettled the peace of the world for +nearly fifty years should be righted, in order that +peace may once more be made secure in the interest +of all.</i>"</p> + +<p>All the statesmen who have spoken since the beginning +of the war in the name of the Allied Powers +have attested that this war is not only a struggle +for the liberty of nations and the respect due +to nationalities, but also an effort toward definite +peace. Their words only appeared fit for stirring +up the enthusiasm of the crowds, and fortifying +their will of sacrifice, because they gave expression +to their feelings and prayers. If they +are forgotten by those who uttered them they will +be remembered by those who heard and treasured +them.</p> + +<p>In September, 1914, Winston Churchill said: +"We want this war to remodel the map of Europe +according to the principle of nationalities, and +the real wish of the people living in the contested +territories. After so much bloodshed we wish for +a peace which will free races, and restore the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>integrity +of nations.... Let us have done with +the armaments, the fear of strain, intrigues, and +the perpetual threat of the horrible present crisis. +Let us make the regulation of European conflicts +just and natural." The French republic, of one +mind with the Allies, proclaimed through its authorized +representatives that this war is a war +of deliverance. "France," said Mr. Stephen +Pichon, Foreign Minister, "will not lay down arms +before having shattered Prussian militarism, so +as to be able to rebuild on a basis of justice a regenerated +Europe." And Mr. Paul Deschanel, +the President of the Chamber, continued: "The +French are not only defending their soil, their +homes, the tombs of their ancestors, their sacred +memories, their ideal works of art and faith and +all the graceful, just, and beautiful things their +genius has lavished forth: they are defending, too, +the respect of treaties, the independence of Europe, +and human freedom. We want to know if +all the effort of conscience during centuries will +lead to its slavery, if millions of men are to be +taken, given up, herded at the other side of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>frontier +and condemned to fight for their conquerors +and masters against their country, their families, +and their brothers.... The world wishes to live +at last, Europe to breathe, and the nations mean +to dispose freely of themselves."</p> + +<p>These engagements will be kept. But they will +have been kept only when Alsace-Lorraine—the +Belgium of 1871, as Rabbi Stephen Wise has +called it—has been returned to France. Then, +and only then, will there be real peace. Then, +and only then, will the "Testament" of Paul Derouléde +have been executed:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">When our war victorious is o'er,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And our country has won back its rank,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Then with the evils war brings in its train</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Will disappear the hatred the conqueror trails.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Then our great France, full of love without spite</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Sowing fresh springing-corn 'neath her new-born laurels,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Will welcome Work, father of Fortune,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And sing Peace, mother of lengthy deeds.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Then will come Peace, calm, serene, and awful,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Crushing down arms, but upholding intellect;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">For we shall stand out as just-hearted conquerors,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Only taking back what was robbed from us.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And our nation, weary of mourning,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Will soothe the living while praising the dead,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And nevermore will we hear the name of battle</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And our children shall learn to unlearn hate.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Just as France will not accept peace without +restitution, she will not accept peace without reparation.</p> + +<p>Germany can never make reparation for all the +ruin, all the destruction, all the sacrilege she has +wrought. There can be no reparation for the +Cathedral of Rheims, for the Hotel de Ville at +Arras, for the deaths of thousands of innocent +beings, for the slaughter of women and children.</p> + +<p>But there can be reparation for the damage +done to machinery. The treasures of art which, +contrary to all law and right, Germany has taken +into her own country, can be returned. They can +return the funds illegally stolen from the vaults +of municipalities, banks and public societies. They +can pay off the receipts which they themselves +have signed for the objects they have compelled +the owners to hand over to them.</p> + +<p>Every château in the north of France, places<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +such as those of the Prince of Monaco, of Mr. +Balny d'Avricourt, that of Coucy, have been +looted and pillaged. Antique furniture, paintings +by the great masters, sculptures, historic pieces +of tapestry have been carried off into Germany. +Tapestries, sculptures, furniture and paintings +must come back from Germany. The museums at +St. Quentin and Lille have seen their collections +of value to art and science carried off; these collections +must come back. Factories have been +robbed of their pumps, of their equipment, of +their trucks; other pumps, other equipment, other +trucks must be put in their place. Otherwise, +nothing will prevent that in the future other expeditions +will come to ransack other countries. +A bold move towards Venice allowed base hands +to be laid on the most beautiful works of art humanity +had produced. A fortunate descent on +the shores of Long Island or of New Jersey would +allow the Metropolitan Museum to be looted.</p> + +<p>At Ham, in the Somme district, the Grand +Duke of Hesse, the former Empress of Russia's +brother, one morning entered the shop of an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>antiquarian +and picked out a number of ancient +bibelots and vases, ordering that they be sent to +his quarters. The owner thought it would be +wise to state the price of the lot:</p> + +<p>"The price," exclaimed the Grand Duke, +"there's nothing for me to pay for! Everything +here belongs to me."</p> + +<p>But the owner protested, since, as he said, +he did own the goods.</p> + +<p>"Here," said the Grand Duke, "this will pay +you for them."</p> + +<p>And he handed the man his card with the words +"good for so many francs" written on it; also his +signature.</p> + +<p>The number of francs mentioned on the Grand +Duke of Hesse's card will have to be paid in full +after the war. So will the thousands of requisitions +signed by persons of less importance—governors, +generals, colonels, majors, men who +thought they could ransack all Belgium and the +north of France with impunity, giving in exchange +mere scraps of paper.</p> + +<p>The great cities of Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +Laon and Mezières have been compelled to pay +exorbitant levies for war purposes, which have +amounted to billions of francs. This was contrary +to all international law and to the Hague +Tribunal's regulations. The funds thus illegally +extorted will have to be repaid in full. No indemnities—that +is understood and is perfectly just. +It is precisely because there will not have to be +any indemnities that the indemnities already extorted +will have to be made good.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Finally, just as France cannot make peace +without receiving restitution and reparation, she +cannot make peace without receiving certain guarantees.</p> + +<p>Here we approach one of the most complex and +difficult aspects of the entire problem, because we +find ourselves in the presence of the famous League +of Nations. President Wilson, one of the most +noble and generous spirits, one of the greatest figures +that has appeared in the entire war, launched +if not the idea at least the first definite statement +thereof.... And this statement has awakened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +in all hearts, tired of carnage and slaughter, the +same infinite hope that words of goodness, liberty +and fraternity always awaken, which evoke the +thought of the supreme end towards which humanity +tends. The statement has done better than +merely move men's emotions, it has moved men's +thoughts. It has kindled in them a ray of hope +which tends to shine more brightly every day in +that they know that the civilized world will be +truly a civilized world only when it is formed and +fashioned in the likeness of a civilized nation. In +a civilized nation no one has the right to kill another +man, to obtain justice by using force, to +commit murder, nor to raise armed bands to shoot, +blow up or kill with poisoned gas other men. Tribunals +exist to appease differences and to prevent +fighting; every citizen is associated with every +other citizen in the common cause of security and +progress.</p> + +<p>In a civilized world no nation has the right to +massacre, no nation ought to have the right to +resort to the use of force to obtain justice, no +nation ought to have the right to attack, harm,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +or destroy another nation. There ought to be +tribunals to appease the differences of peoples +as well as those of individuals; every nation ought +to be associated with every other nation to assure +the progress of the entire world.</p> + +<p>This theory is not only appealing, it is irrefutable. +But it is a law for this earth that the most +profoundly just and true theories, those which +have been most scientifically demonstrated, encounter, +when put into practice, obstacles which have +not been surmounted and are often insurmountable.</p> + +<p>President Wilson, who is not only a great jurist +and a noble idealist, but who also has that genius +for realization which is a characteristic of all +America, has not failed to appreciate the difficulties +which the League of Nations would encounter +were it put into practice. And if, in his messages, +he has insisted with a force that is every day more +eloquent on the necessity of tackling the problem; +he has never given a detailed solution for it.</p> + +<p>He has done better than that, for he has swept +aside certain factors which would have made it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +absolutely impossible. On the second, of April, +1917, in his immortal declaration of war, he formally +declared that "no autocratic government +could be trusted to keep faith within a partnership +of nations or observe its covenants. It must be +a league of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue +would eat its vitals away; the plottings of +inner circles who could plan what they would and +render account to no one, would be a corruption +seated at its very heart. Only a free people can +hold their purpose and their honor steady to a +common end, and prefer the interests of mankind +to any narrow interest of their own."</p> + +<p>These are admirable words of truth and of +philosophic depth, words which deserve to be +graven in stone. No autocracy, then, in the +League of Nations, no German militarism nor +Austrian imperialism in it. No universal league +of nations, even, but a limited society, a society of +democracies!</p> + +<p>Certain hasty critics have observed neither the +same prudence nor logic as President Wilson. +They have been farther from the truth, much <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>farther +from the truth. They have falsified his text, +as do all commentators. They have desired to +build complete in all details the League of Nations, +which only existed in outline. They have +succeeded in showing how difficult the construction +would be, and they have only been able to set up +a house of cards which the first breath of wind +would knock down.</p> + +<p>For example, this is how one of the most eminent +French socialists, M. Albert Thomas, a man +who has given abundant proof of his practical +experience and actual talents, formerly the French +Minister of Munitions, depicts the League of Nations:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Let us suppose [he wrote on the twenty-fifth +of December, 1917], as the mathematicians say, +that the problem is solved. Let us suppose that +the society of nations, made up of all the nations, +had been created by common accord about the +year 1910 or 1912. What would it have accomplished? +After the assassination of the Archduke +Franz Ferdinand, the Hague Tribunal, or +perhaps the Washington Tribunal, would have +made inquiry into the conditions of the murder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +It would have taken certain steps. And if Austria, +still dissatisfied, had invaded Serbia for the +sake of revenge or to give scope to her ambitious +designs, if Germany had joined with her in this, +then all the other allied nations, in the performance +of their duty, would have entered into a +war against the central powers in order to force +them to respect the liberties and the integrity of +little Serbia. For there can be no rule without +sanction therefore. No international law is possible +if there does not exist at the service of +this law the "organized force that is superior to +that of any nation or to that of any alliance of +nations" of which President Wilson speaks.</p> + +<p>If the society of nations had existed in 1914 +and if Germany had violated its laws, the entire +world would have taken military action against +Germany by means of war, economic action by +means of blockade and of depriving her of the +necessities of life. The entire world would have +been at war with her and her allies. And in order +that the league of nations might continue to exist, +in order that the rule of justice, scarcely outlined, +could have continued to exist, the victory of +the entente powers would have been as necessary +as it is today. Mr. Lloyd-George and President +Wilson would have said, as they say today, "No +league of nations without victory."</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> +<div class="blockquot"><p>The difference is that in 1914 a verdict in the +case would have been handed down by the common +tribunal of the nations, and that there would +have been no possible discussion of the violations +of right committed by Germany nor on the responsibility +for having caused the war.</p> + +<p>The difference would have been that in place of +seeing the neutral nations hesitating, frightened +by German force, disturbed by German lies, rallying +only under the protection of one of the Entente +armies, at the moment when they had seen on +which side lay right, they would all, at the very +beginning, have entered into the battle in fulfillment +of their obligations not only on account of +their moral responsibility but on account of their +clearly understood interests.</p> + +<p>Finally the difference is that, the rights of +the peoples having been defined clearly, there +would have been no moment's uncertainty nor +hesitation concerning the ends of the war.</p> + +<p>And it is impossible to doubt that the present +situation of the war would have been decidedly +different from what it is today.</p></div> + +<p>I have cited the passage at length in order to +give the critic's argument its widest scope. But, +alas, who does not see the argument's fallacy? +Who does not perceive that this reënforced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>skyscraper +is a cardboard column liable to fall with +the first push that is given it?</p> + +<p>Moreover, from the very beginning, the originator +of the idea of the society of nations admits the +hypothesis of a war and presupposes all the nations +in the league are making war against another +nation. Even with the society of nations +there will still be wars. Even with the society of +nations there will be no guarantee of absolute +peace.</p> + +<p>So we are shown the spectacle, in case of war, +of all the nations making war at once, without the +least hesitation, without delay, without any discussion, +against the people that disturbs the peace +of the world. Is it a certainty that this unanimity +would result? Is it a certainty that there +would be no falling away, no delay? And, granting +that there would be none of this, is it a certainty +that irremediable <a name="catastrophes" id="catastrophes"></a>catastrophes could be avoided? +To consider once more M. Thomas' example of the +war of 1914, let us suppose that there had been +at that time a society of nations, that England +had had an army, that the United States had had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> +an army, and that the Anglo-American army had +not lost a day nor an hour. Is it a certainty that +they would have prevented the Germans from being +at the gates of Liège on the seventh of August, +in Brussels on the nineteenth of August, and +before Paris on the second of September? And if +today France, England, America, Italy, Japan +and four-fifths of the civilized world, in spite of +the treasure of heroism and effort that has been +expended, have not been able to prevent the present +result, is it possible that this would have been +obtained with the assistance of Switzerland, the +Scandinavian nations, Holland and Spain?</p> + +<p>"The difference," continues M. Thomas, "is that +there would not have been the possibility of any +discussion of the violation of rights committed +by Germany, nor upon what nation rests the responsibility +for causing the war." But is that +so sure? How was there any discussion in 1914 +of the violation of Belgium by Germany? Did +not Germany herself, in the teeth of all the world, +hurl the avowal of this violation when von <a name="Beth" id="Beth"></a>Bethmann-Hollweg, +in the Reichstag, cynically <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>declared: +"We have just invaded Belgium.... +Yes, we know that it is contrary to international +law; but we were compelled by necessity. And necessity +knows no law." What international tribunal's +verdict could have the force of this avowal +from the lips of the guilty man? However, the +world has not moved, the world has not trembled, +the world is not now up in arms. And who would +guarantee that another time when the case will be +perhaps less flagrant, the crime more obscure, the +aggressor less cynical, the world will tremble and +rise in arms?</p> + +<p>Moreover, is it always possible to determine the +responsibility for war's origin? Is it always possible, +before an international tribunal of arbitration, +to throw the proper light and all the light on +the course events have taken? Will the judges always +be unanimous?</p> + +<p>Take the case of the last Balkan War in 1912. +Is it possible today, from a six years' perspective, +to establish with any degree of certitude the reasons +for its outbreak and determine without hesitation +the responsibility for it? Can you affirm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +with any degree of certainty that a court composed +of American, European and Asiatic jurists +would be unanimous in condemning Turkey and +exonerating Bulgaria? And tomorrow, if the +Ukraine should suddenly hurl itself against the +Republic of the Don, or if Finland invaded Great +Russia, with your international court would you +be really in a way to pronounce a verdict within +five days? And if Sweden took Finland's part +and Germany took Great Russia's, could you +guarantee that Argentina, Japan, Australia and +even France would consent to mobilize their fleets +and their armies to settle the question of a frontier +on the banks of the Neva? Can you guarantee +that every war of every Slav republic would have +for a correlative the mobilization of the entire +world?</p> + +<p>And then are you certain that the idea of a +society of nations is exactly a new one? Are you +certain that there did not exist a society of nations +before the outbreak of the present war? +Have you never heard that, on the fifteenth of +June, 1907, at The Hague, forty-four nations of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> +the civilized world (and Germany was one of the +number) assembled and met together to form +such a league? Have you never heard of the +treaty that was signed then which, according to +the wording at the treaty's head, had for its object +"fixing the laws and usages at war on the +land"? Have you never read the terms of this +convention, have you never glanced through the +sixty-odd articles which today, in the presence of +the nameless horrors in which we lend a hand, +offer a prodigious interest to actuality?</p> + +<p>Glance over these articles—and let us see how +they have been applied:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Article</span> 4 provides that "<i>prisoners of war +must be humanely treated. All their personal +belongings, except arms, horses, and military papers, +remain their property</i>." Now all the prisoners +held by Germany have, without exception, +been spoiled of their money, of their portfolios, +of their rings, of their jewels, of their eyeglasses.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Article</span> 6 says that "<i>the state may employ as +workmen the prisoners of war</i>," but it is careful +in stipulating "<i>that the work must not be excessive +and must have nothing whatever to do with</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +<i>operations of war</i>." <span class="smcap">Article</span> 7 says that +"<i>prisoners of war shall be treated as regards +board, lodging, and clothing on the same footing +as the troops of the Government who captured +them</i>." Each of these two articles has been violated +since the beginning of the war by the Germans. +After the Battle of the Marne, when the +advancing French troops of Joffre arrived on the +Aisne they found French civilians captured by +the Germans and compelled by them to work in +the trenches. Moreover, an official report emanating +from Mr. Gustave Ador, President of the +International Red Cross, now member of the +Swiss Federal Council, called the attention of the +belligerents as soon as October, 1914, to the bad +treatment of the French prisoners in Germany. +Each French officer had, as prisoner, a salary of +one hundred marks per month, which was not +even half of the pay of an under-officer.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Articles</span> 23, 25, 27, and 28 are so interesting +that they must be quoted <i>in extenso</i>:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap"><a name="Article" id="Article"></a>Article</span> 23. In <i>addition to the prohibitions +provided by special conventions, it is especially +forbidden</i>:</p> + +<p>(a) <i>To employ poison or poisoned weapons.</i></p> + +<p>(c) <i>To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid +down his arms, or having no longer means of defense, +has surrendered at discretion.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>(d) <i>To declare that no quarter will be given.</i></p> + +<p>(e) <i>To employ arms, projectiles, or material +calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.</i></p> + +<p>(f) <i>To make improper use of a flag of truce, of +the national flag, or of the military insignia and +uniform of the enemy, as well as the distinctive +badges of the Geneva Convention.</i></p> + +<p>(g) <i>To destroy or seize the enemy's property, +unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively +demanded by the necessities of war.</i></p> + +<p>(h) <i>A belligerent is likewise forbidden to compel +the nationals of the hostile party to take part +in the operations of war directed against their +own country, even if they were in the belligerent's +service before the commencement of the war.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Article</span> 25. <i>The attack or bombardment, by +whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or +buildings which are undefended is prohibited.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Article</span> 27. <i>In sieges and bombardments all +necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as +possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, +science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, +hospitals and places where the sick and +wounded are collected, provided they are not being +used at the time for military purposes.</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Article</span> 28. <i>The pillage of a town or place, +even when taken by assault, is prohibited.</i></p> + +<p>It seems that the men of The Hague, when they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +wrote those articles, had a sort of prescience of +the future cruelties of war and that they wanted +to avoid them. Let us see how far they have +succeeded.</p> + +<p>It was forbidden to employ poison or poisoned +weapons. No later than last spring when the +Germans evacuated certain parts of the north of +France instructions emanating from the German +general headquarters were found in the pocket +of many German prisoners or on the dead, and +those instructions indicated how the water of +the wells was to be poisoned: "Such and such a +soldier," ran instructions, "will be in charge of +the wells, will throw in each one a sufficient quantity +of poison or creosote, or, lacking these, all +available filth."</p> + +<p>It was forbidden to declare that no quarter +would be given. And here is the order of the day +issued on August 25, 1914, by General Stenger, +commanding the Fifty-eighth German Brigade, to +his troops: "After today no more prisoners will +be taken. All prisoners are to be killed. Wounded, +with or without arms, are to be killed. Even +prisoners already grouped in convoys are to be +killed. Let not a single living enemy remain behind +us."</p> + +<p>It was forbidden to pillage a town or locality, +even when taken by assault. And on the corpse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +of the German private Handschumacher (of the +Eleventh Battalion of Jägers, Reserve) in the very +earliest days of the war, was found the following +diary: "August 8, 1914. Gouvy (Belgium). +There, as the Belgians had fired on the German +soldiers, we at once pillaged the goods station. +Some cases, eggs, shirts, and all eatables were +seized. The safe was gutted and the money divided +among the men. All securities were torn +up."</p> + +<p>In fact, pillage and robberies went on on such +a high scale during the first months of the war +that considerable sums of money were sent from +France and Belgium to Germany. A German +newspaper, the <i>Berlin Tageblatt</i>, of November 26, +1914, implicitly avowed it when, in a technical +article on the military treasury ("<i>Der Zahlmeister +im Felde</i>"), it wrote: "It is curious to note that +far more money-orders are sent from the theater +of operations to the interior of the country than +<i>vice versa</i>."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Article</span> 50 of this Hague Convention states +that "<i>no general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, +shall be inflicted upon the population on account +of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be +regarded as jointly and severally responsible</i>." +Side by side with this article, it is interesting to +reproduce an extract from a proclamation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +General von Bülow, posted up at Liège on August +22, 1914: "The inhabitants of the town of Andenne, +after having protested their peaceful intentions, +treacherously surprised our troops. It +is with my full consent that the general in command +had the whole place burned, and about a +hundred people were shot." Moreover, here is an +extract from a proclamation of Major-Commander +Dieckmann, posted up at Grivegnée on +September 8, 1914: "Every one who does not +obey at once the word of command, 'Hands up,' is +guilty of the penalty of death." And finally here +is an extract from a proclamation of Marshal +Baron von der Goltz, posted up in Brussels on +October 5, 1914: "In future all places near the +spot where such acts have taken place [destruction +of railway lines or telegraph wires]—no matter +whether guilty or not—shall be punished +without mercy. With this end in view, hostages +have been brought from all places near railway +lines exposed to such attacks, and at the first attempt +to destroy railway lines, telegraph or telephone +lines, they will be immediately shot."</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Article</span> 56 of the Hague Convention provides +that "<i>the property of municipalities, that of institutions +dedicated to religion, charity, and education, +to the arts and sciences, even when state +property, shall be treated as private property</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +<i>All seizure of, destruction, or willful damage done +to institutions of this character, historical monuments, +works of art and science, is forbidden, and +should be made the subject of legal proceedings.</i>"</p> + +<p>Four names, which will be eternally remembered, +are here sufficient to answer: there is Rheims +and its Cathedral, Louvain and its library, Arras +and its Town Hall, Ypres and its bell tower.</p></div> + +<p>In the course of this war, Germany has disavowed +her signature any number of times and +has broken her pledges just as often as she has +made them. Germany is a proven perjurer not +only in the eyes of the nations at war with her, but +also in the regard of the forty-four countries signatory +of the Hague Convention. However, we +have never heard that a single one of these nations +lodged a protest against her actions. The Hague +Convention has been torn into shreds, and not +one of its signers has entered the slightest protest.</p> + +<p>Is the next society of nations to be modeled on +the same principles? Is the next society of nations +going to draw up articles of the same kind +as the Hague society? Is the future society of +nations to accept among its members the same <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>Empire +of Germany which in 1914 declared bankruptcy? +Will the future act of the society of +nations be a simple scrap of paper, like the last +act of 1907?</p> + +<p>But let us cease asking these questions. There +is no gain in asking certain questions to gain certain +replies. There is no gain in examining certain +problems to make the difficulties of the solution +more apparent.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt that the society of nations +will exist some day. For the honor of humanity +we must hope that it will exist. But it is not one +day's work, nor the speaking of a single discourse +nor the writing of one article that will build it. +In M. Clemenceau's words, right can not be firmly +established as long as the world is based on might. +To bring about the rule of Right, Might must be +destroyed and driven out as the very first move +in the campaign for ultimate liberty.</p> + +<p>German Might will not be destroyed by international +compacts to which Germany will be +party. Recall the treaty guaranteeing Belgium's +integrity, which was one that Germany signed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> +Recall the Hague Conventions, signed by this +same Germany. The men are fools who will not +recall these things, who will not profit by them +as examples. German might will only be destroyed +by international agreements to which Germany +is not a party, and which shall place German +might beyond the regions in which it can play a +dangerous part.</p> + +<p>Now we are not building this upon sand, but +upon a foundation of solid rock.</p> + +<p>Germany needs two things to continue her national +existence. She must import from other +countries certain products necessary to her existence. +For example, there is wool, of which +she was obliged to import 1,888,481 metric quintals +in order to manufacture her sixteen thousand +grades of woolen fabrics. There is copper, of +which Germany imported 250,000 tons in 1913 +(200,000 tons came from America), in order to +sell the merchandise she finds has a good market +in foreign countries. Considering all Germany's +exports for the period from 1903-1913, we find +that their total has passed from 6,400 millions to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +12,600 millions, an increase of nearly one hundred +per cent.</p> + +<p>There lies the best, the true, indeed the only +means whereby the Allies can compel Germany to +disarm. We do not demand that the economic +war shall continue after the actual warfare is at +an end, but we can demand that the Allies shall +not lay aside their economic arms when the Germans +shall have laid aside their fighting arms. In +other words, we can demand that the Allies do not +give Germany wool, copper and money if they +know that this wool, money and copper are to +feed the war machine. This war machine cost +the German Empire nearly four hundred millions +of dollars according to the budget of 1914. Suppose +the Allies said to Germany, "As long as you +have a military and naval budget of four hundred +millions of dollars, we regret that we shall be unable +to sell you wool and copper. We regret that +we shall be unable to buy anything from you. But, +if you reduce this budget by half, we are willing +to give you one million metric quintals of wool +and 125,000 tons of copper. Likewise, we are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +disposed to make purchases in your market totalling +one billion dollars. If your military and +naval budgets fall to nothing, we are willing to go +much farther and buy and sell everything with +you in unlimited quantities." Suppose the Allies +make these proposals to Germany. Suppose they +are put into effect. Will they not be a better +guarantee of universal peace than all the Conventions +and all the courts of arbitration in the +world?</p> + +<p>Then let no one disturb the peace of the world +for his selfish purposes. Left to themselves, the +little Balkan States and Slav States will not start +great, long wars, just as the lone robber posted at +the edge of a woods will not endanger a province's +communications for very long. The formidable +thing is the great country that is arranged and +planned along the lines of war, where everything +is organized with a view to war; just as the formidable +thing for a city is the small band of malefactors +who are able to terrify half the citizens +by the use of highly perfected arms.</p> + +<p>There will be no lasting peace until the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> +terrible war machine the world has ever known +shall have been destroyed, reduced to an impotent +state of non-existence. Ideals will not destroy +this machine, but practical means and getting +down to the facts of the case will do so. Pasteur +did not overcome hydrophobia by writing treatises +and dissertations. He met poison with poison, +he injected the healing serum into the veins of the +maddened dog. Now Germany is the mad dog, +and Germany must be inoculated. After that +there will be time to pass hygienic measures for +the regiment of the entire world. Today Germany +must be killed or cured. Germany is the +cancer that must be cut out, lest it eat up +the world.</p> + +<p>It has been a matter of life and death for Liberty +and Civilization. Both of them have been +sick unto death. Clutched foully by the throat, +they have heard their own death rattle; they +themselves thought they might not survive. Now +they stand on their feet, so weak, so pale, and so +feeble that their life might still be despaired of. +If we do not obtain definite guarantees against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> +the monster who has barely failed to strangle them +and to force the entire world back into the darkness +of slavery, we shall have failed in our task, +and the blood shed in the fight for Liberty will +have been shed in vain.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="APPENDICES" id="APPENDICES"></a>APPENDICES</h2> + + +<p>The following irrefutable documents, selected +from among thousands of others which history +will record, prove better than any other means +how the Germans understand war and peace. They +deserve a place in this volume because they demonstrate +why and against what France is fighting.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_I" id="APPENDIX_I"></a>APPENDIX I</h2> + +<h2>HOW GERMANS FORCED WAR ON FRANCE</h2> + + +<p>Answering to the Pope, in September, 1917, +Kaiser Wilhelm II declared "<i>that he had always +regarded it as his principal and most sacred duty +to preserve the blessing of Peace for the German +people and the world</i>." More recently, driving +through the battlefield of Cambrai, the Kaiser,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> +according to the war correspondent of the Berlin +<i>Lokalanzeiger</i>, exclaimed: "God knows what I +have not done to prevent such a war!"</p> + +<p>A document made public by M. Stephen Pichon, +French Foreign Minister, shows exactly +how, in the last days of July, 1914, the Kaiser +tried "to preserve the blessings of Peace for the +German people and the world" and what he did +"to prevent such a war."</p> + +<p>Speaking at the Sorbonne, in Paris, on March +1, 1918, M. Pichon said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I will establish by documents that the day the +Germans deliberately rendered inevitable the most +frightful of wars they tried to dishonor us by the +most cowardly complicity in the ambush into +which they drew Europe. I will establish it in +the revelation of a document which the German +Chancellor, after having drawn it up, preserved +carefully, and you will see why, in the most profound +mystery of the most secret archives.</p> + +<p>We have known only recently of its authenticity, +and it defies any sort of attempt to disprove +it. It bears the signature of Bethmann +<a name="Hollweg" id="Hollweg"></a>Hollweg (German Imperial Chancellor at the outbreak +of the war) and the date July 31, 1914.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> +On that day Von Schoen (German Ambassador to +France) was charged by a telegram from his +Chancellor to notify us of a state of danger of +war with Russia and to ask us to remain neutral, +giving us eighteen hours in which to reply.</p> + +<p>What was unknown until today was that the +telegram of the German Chancellor containing +these instructions ended with these words:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>If the French Government declares it will remain +neutral your Excellency will be good enough +to declare that we must, as a guarantee of its neutrality, +require the handing over of the fortresses +of Toul and Verdun; that we will occupy them and +will restore them after the end of the war with +Russia. A reply to this last question must reach +here before Saturday afternoon at 4 o'clock.</i></p></div> + +<p>That is how Germany wanted peace at the moment +when she declared war! That is how sincere +she was in pretending that we obliged her to take +up arms for her defense! That is the price she +intended to make us pay for our baseness if we +had the infamy to repudiate our signature as +Prussia repudiated hers by tearing up the treaty +that guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium!</p></div> + +<p>It was explained that the above document has +not previously been published, because the code<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +could not be deciphered: the French Foreign Office +succeeded only a few days before in decodifying +the document.</p> + +<p>Moreover, Herr von Bethmann <a name="Holl" id="Holl"></a>Hollweg, on +March 18, 1918, acknowledged the accuracy of +M. Pichon's quotation and contented himself to +declare that "his instructions to Von Schoen were +justified."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_II" id="APPENDIX_II"></a>APPENDIX II</h2> + +<h2>HOW GERMANS TREAT AN AMBASSADOR</h2> + + +<p>This document is quoted from the French "Yellow +Book," page 152:</p> + +<p class="center"><i>From Copenhagen</i><br /> +<i>French Yellow Book No. 155</i><br /></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>M. Bapst, French Minister at Copenhagen, to<br /> +M. Doumergue, Minister for Foreign Affairs.<br /> +</p> +<p class="citation"><span class="smcap">Copenhagen, August</span> 6, 1914.<br /> +</p> + +<p>The French Ambassador at Berlin, M. Jules +Cambon, asks me to communicate to your Excellency +the following telegram:</p> + +<p>I have been sent to Denmark by the German +Government. I have just arrived at Copenhagen. +I am accompanied by all the staff of the Embassy +and the Russian Chargé d'Affaires at Darmstadt +with his family. The treatment which we have +received is of such a nature that I have thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> +it desirable to make a complete report on it to +your Excellency by telegram.</p> + +<p>On the morning of Monday, the 3rd of August, +after I had, in accordance with your instructions, +addressed to Herr von Jagow a protest against +the acts of aggression committed on French territory +by German troops, the Secretary of State +came to see me. Herr von Jagow came to complain +of acts of aggression which he alleged had +been committed in Germany, especially at Nuremberg +and Coblenz by French aviators, who according +to his statement "had come from Belgium." +I answered that I had not the slightest information +as to the facts to which he attached so much +importance and the improbability of which +seemed to me obvious; on my part I asked him +if he had read the note which I had addressed +to him with regard to the invasion of our territory +by detachments of the German army. As +the Secretary of State said that he had not yet +read this note I explained its contents to him. I +called his attention to the act committed by the +officer commanding one of the detachments who +had advanced to the French village of Joncherey, +ten kilometers within our frontier, and had blown +out the brains of a French soldier whom he had +met there. After having given my opinion of this +act I added:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You will admit that under no circumstances +could there be any comparison between this and +the flight of an aeroplane over foreign territory +carried out by private persons animated by that +spirit of individual courage by which aviators are +distinguished.</p> + +<p>"An act of aggression committed on the territory +of a neighbor by detachments of regular +troops commanded by officers assumes an importance +of quite a different nature."</p> + +<p>Herr von Jagow explained to me that he had +no knowledge of the facts of which I was speaking +to him, and he added that it was difficult for events +of this kind not to take place when two armies +filled with the feelings which animated our troops +found themselves face to face on either side of +the frontier.</p> + +<p>At this moment the crowds which thronged the +Pariser Platz in front of the Embassy and whom +we could see through the window of my study, +which was half open, uttered shouts against +France. I asked the Secretary of State when all +this would come to an end.</p> + +<p>"The Government has not yet come to a decision," +Herr von Jagow answered. "It is probable +that Herr von Schoen will receive orders today to +ask for his passports and then you will receive +yours." The Secretary of State assured me that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +I need not have any anxiety with regard to my +departure, and that all the proprieties would be +observed with regard to me as well as my staff. +We were not to see one another any more and +we took leave of one another after an interview +which had been courteous and could not make me +anticipate what was in store for me.</p> + +<p>Before leaving Herr von Jagow I expressed to +him my wish to make a personal call on the Chancellor, +as that would be the last opportunity that +I should have of seeing him.</p> + +<p>Herr von Jagow said that he did not advise +me to carry out this intention as the interview +would serve no purpose and could not fail to be +painful.</p> + +<p>At 6 o'clock in the evening Herr von Langwerth +brought me my passports. In the name of +his Government he refused to agree to the wish +which I expressed to him that I should be permitted +to travel by Holland or Belgium. He +suggested to me that I should go either by way +of Copenhagen, although he could not assure me +a free passage by sea, or through Switzerland via +Constance.</p> + +<p>I accepted this last route; Herr von Langwerth +having asked me to leave as soon as I possibly +could it was agreed, in consideration of the +necessity I was under of making arrangements<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +with the Spanish Ambassador, who was undertaking +the charge of our interests, that I should +leave on the next day, the 4th August, at 10 +o'clock at night.</p> + +<p>At 7 o'clock, an hour after Herr von Langwerth +had left, Herr von Lancken, formerly +Councilor of the Embassy at Paris, came from +the Minister for Foreign Affairs to tell me to +request the staff of my Embassy to cease taking +meals in the restaurants. This order was so +strict that on the next day, Tuesday, I had to +have recourse to the authority of the Wilhelmstrasse +to get the Hôtel Bristol to send our meals +to the Embassy.</p> + +<p>At 11 o'clock on the same evening, Monday, +Herr von Langwerth came back to tell me that +his Government would not allow our return by +way of Switzerland under the pretext that it +would take three days and three nights to take +me to Constance. He announced that I should +be sent by way of Vienna. I only agreed to this +alteration under reserve, and during the night I +wrote the following letter to Herr von Langwerth:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="citation">"<span class="smcap">Berlin, August</span> 3rd, 1914.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">M. le Baron</span>; +</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking over the route for my +return to my country about which you came to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +speak to me this evening. You propose that I +shall travel by Vienna. I run the risk of finding +myself detained in that town, if not by the action +of the Austrian Government, at least owing to the +mobilization which creates great difficulties similar +to those existing in Germany as to the movements +of trains.</p> + +<p>"Under these circumstances I must ask the German +Government for a promise made on their +honor that the Austrian Government will send +me to Switzerland, and that the Swiss Government +will not close its frontier either to me +or to the persons by whom I am accompanied, as +I am told that that frontier has been firmly +closed to foreigners.</p> + +<p>"I cannot then accept the proposal that you +have made to me unless I have the security which +I ask for, and unless I am assured that I shall +not be detained for some months outside my country.</p> + +<p class="citation"> +"<span class="smcap">Jules Cambon</span>."<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>In answer to this letter on the next morning, +Tuesday the 4th August, Herr von Langwerth +gave me in writing an assurance that the Austrian +and Swiss authorities had received communications +to this effect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> + +<p>At the same time M. Miladowski, attached to +the Consulate at Berlin, as well as other Frenchmen, +was arrested in his own house while in bed. +M. Miladowski, for whom a diplomatic passport +had been requested, was released after four hours.</p> + +<p>I was prepared to leave for Vienna when, at +a quarter to five, Herr von Langwerth came back +to inform me that I would have to leave with +the persons accompanying me at 10 o'clock in the +evening, but that I should be taken to Denmark. +On this new requirement I asked if I should be +confined in a fortress supposing I did not comply. +Herr von Langwerth simply answered that he +would return to receive my answer in half an hour. +I did not wish to give the German Government +the pretext for saying that I had refused to depart +from Germany. I therefore told Herr von +Langwerth when he came back that I would submit +to the order which had been given to me but "that +I protested."</p> + +<p>I at once wrote to Herr von Jagow a letter of +which the following is a copy:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="citation"><span class="smcap">Berlin, August</span> 4, 1914.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>:</p> + +<p>"More than once your Excellency has said to +me that the Imperial Government, in accordance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +with the usages of international courtesy, would +facilitate my return to my own country, and +would give me every means of getting back to it +quickly.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday, however, Baron von Langwerth, +after refusing me access to Belgium and Holland, +informed me that I should travel to Switzerland +via Constance. During the night I was informed +that I should be sent to Austria, a country which +is taking part in the present war on the side of +Germany. As I had no knowledge of the intentions +of Austria towards me, since on Austrian +soil I am nothing but an ordinary private individual, +I wrote to Baron von Langwerth that I +requested the Imperial Government to give me a +promise that the Imperial and Royal Austrian +authorities would give me all possible facilities +for continuing my journey and that Switzerland +would not be closed to me. Herr von Langwerth +has been good enough to answer me in writing +that I could be assured of an easy journey and +that the Austrian authorities would do all that +was necessary.</p> + +<p>"It is nearly five o'clock, and Baron von Langwerth +has just announced to me that I shall be sent +to Denmark. In view of the present situation, +there is no security that I shall find a ship to take +me to England and it is this consideration which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +made me reject this proposal with the approval +of Herr von Langwerth.</p> + +<p>"In truth no liberty is left me and I am treated +almost as a prisoner. I am obliged to submit, having +no means of obtaining that the rules of international +courtesy should be observed towards me, +but I hasten to protest to your Excellency against +the manner in which I am being treated.</p> + +<p class="citation">"<span class="smcap">Jules Cambon</span>."<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>Whilst my letter was being delivered I was told +that the journey would not be made direct but by +way of Schleswig. At 10 o'clock in the evening, I +left the Embassy with my staff in the middle of a +great assembly of foot and mounted police.</p> + +<p>At the station the Ministry for Foreign Affairs +was only represented by an officer of inferior rank.</p> + +<p>The journey took place with extreme slowness. +We took more than twenty-four hours to reach +the frontier. It seemed that at every station +they had to wait for orders to proceed. I was accompanied +by Major von Rheinbaben of the +Alessandra Regiment of the Guard and by a police +officer. In the neighborhood of the Kiel Canal the +soldiers entered our carriages. The windows were +shut and the curtains of the carriages drawn +down; each of us had to remain isolated in his +compartment and was forbidden to get up or to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> +touch his luggage. A soldier stood in the corridor +of the carriage before the door of each of +our compartments which were kept open, revolver +in hand and finger on the trigger. The Russian +Chargé d'Affaires, the women and children and +everyone were subjected to the same treatment.</p> + +<p>At the last German station about 11 o'clock +at night, Major von Rheinbaben came to take +leave of me. I handed to him the following letter +to Herr von Jagow.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="citation">"<span class="smcap">Wednesday Evening, August</span> 5, 1914. +</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>:</p> + +<p>"Yesterday before leaving Berlin, I protested in +writing to your Excellency against the repeated +change of route which was imposed upon me by +the Imperial Government on my journey from +Germany.</p> + +<p>"Today as the train in which I was passed over +the Kiel Canal an attempt was made to search all +our luggage as if we might have hidden some instrument +of destruction. Thanks to the interference +of Major von Rheinbaben, we were spared +this insult. But they went further.</p> + +<p>"They obliged us to remain each in his own +compartment, the windows and blinds having been +closed. During this time, in the corridors of the +carriages at the door of each compartment and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +facing each one of us, stood a soldier, revolver in +hand, finger on the trigger, for nearly half an +hour.</p> + +<p>"I consider it my duty to <a name="protest" id="protest"></a>protest against this +threat of violence to the Ambassador of the Republic +and the staff of his Embassy, violence which +nothing could even have made me anticipate.</p> + +<p>"Yesterday I had the honor of writing to +your Excellency that I was being treated almost +as a prisoner. Today I am being treated as a +dangerous prisoner. Also I must record that +during our journey which from Berlin to Denmark +has taken twenty-four hours, no food has +been prepared nor provided for me nor for the +persons who were traveling with me to the +frontier.</p> + +<p class="citation">"<span class="smcap">Jules Cambon</span>."<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>I thought that our troubles had finished, when +shortly afterwards Major von Rheinbaben came, +rather embarrassed, to inform me that the train +would not proceed to the Danish frontier if I +did not pay the cost of this train. I expressed +my astonishment that I had not been made to pay +at Berlin and that at any rate I had not been +forewarned of this. I offered to pay by a cheque +on one of the largest Berlin banks. This facility +was refused me. With the help of my companions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +I was able to collect, in gold, the sum which was +required from me at once, and which amounted +to 3,611 marks, 75 pfennig. This is about 5,000 +francs in accordance with the present rate of +exchange.</p> + +<p>After this last incident, I thought it necessary +to ask Major von Rheinbaben for his word of +honor as an officer and a gentleman that we +should be taken to the Danish frontier. He gave +it to me, and I required that the policeman who +was with us should accompany us.</p> + +<p>In this way we arrived at the first Danish station, +where the Danish Government had had a +train made ready to take us to Copenhagen.</p> + +<p>I am assured that my British colleague and the +Belgian Minister, although they left Berlin after +I did, traveled by the direct route to Holland. +I am struck by this difference of treatment, and +as Denmark and Norway are, at this moment, infested +with spies, if I succeed in embarking in +Norway, there is danger that I may be arrested +at sea with the officials who accompany me.</p> + +<p>I do not wish to conclude this dispatch without +notifying your Excellency of the energy and +devotion of which the whole staff of the Embassy +has given unceasing proof during the course of +this crisis. I shall be glad that account should +be taken of the services which on this occasion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +have been rendered to the Government of the +Republic, in particular by the Secretaries of the +Embassy and by the Military and Naval Attachés.</p> + +<p class="citation"><span class="smcap">Jules Cambon</span>.<br /> +</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_III" id="APPENDIX_III"></a>APPENDIX III</h2> + +<h2>HOW GERMANS ARE WAGING WAR</h2> + + +<p>The French Government, as soon as it heard of +the first German atrocities, instituted a Commission +of inquiry composed of three high French +magistrates: Mr. Georges Payelle, President of +the Cour des Comptes, Mr. Georges Maringer, +Councilor of State, and Mr. Edmond Paillot, +Councilor of the Cour of Cassation. That Commission +proceeded to the spot where the atrocities +had been perpetrated and heard witnesses, who deposed +under oath.</p> + +<p>All evidence and proceedings have been printed +and fill up ten heavy volumes.</p> + +<p>Among many depositions, the following one, +taken the twenty-third of October, 1915, at Paris, +will give an idea of the horrors to which the invaded +regions of France were submitted.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Duren Virginie, wife of Berard Durem, 29 years<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +of age, inhabitant of Jarny in the Department +of Meurthe et Moselle, a refugee at Levallois-Perret:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>I swear to tell the truth and nothing but the +truth.</p> + +<p>On the 25th of August, 1914, the sixty-sixth +and sixty-eighth Bavarian regiments were quartered +together at Jarny. I was ordered to bring +water for the soldiers, so went in search of a +large number of water pails. At three o'clock in +the afternoon an officer, who met me, told me I had +carried enough water and ordered me to go back +to my house. As the Germans were firing on our +house with mitrailleuses, I took refuge in the cellar +with my two sons, Jean, aged six, and Maurice, +aged two, and also my daughter Jeanne, nine +years of age. The Aufiero family was also there. +Soon petrol was poured over the house; it got into +the cellar through the air-hole, and we were surrounded +by flames. I saved myself, carrying my +two little boys in my arms, while my daughter +and little Beatrice Aufiero ran along holding on +to my skirt. As we were crossing the Rougeval +brook, which runs near my house, the Bavarians +fired on us. My little Jean, whom I was carrying, +was struck by three bullets, one in the right thigh,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +one in the ankle, and one in the chest. The thigh +was almost shot away, and from the place where +the bullet through his chest came out the lung +projected. The poor child said, "Oh, Mother, I +have a pain," and in a moment he was dead. At +the same time little Beatrice had her arm broken +so badly that it was attached to her shoulder only +by a piece of flesh, and Angele Aufiero, a boy of +nine years, who followed a short distance behind +us, was wounded in the calf of the leg. Little +Beatrice suffered cruelly and wept bitterly, but +she did not fall down, continuing to go along with +me.</p> + +<p>While these things were taking place, the Perignon +family, which lived next door to us, was +massacred.</p> + +<p>When they were no longer shooting at us, I +tried to wash my baby, who was covered with +blood, in the brook; but a soldier prevented me, +shouting, "Get away from there."</p> + +<p>Finally we got to the road. Meanwhile they +were driving M. Aufiero out of the cellar. The +Germans, who spoke French after a fashion, said +to his wife, "Come see your husband get shot." +The poor man, on his knees, asked for mercy, and +as his wife shrieked "My poor Côme," the soldiers +said to her, "Shut your mouth." His execution +took place very near us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + +<p>The Bavarians sent me, my children, Mme. Aufiero +and her daughter to a meadow near the Pont-de-l'Etang. +A general ordered that we be shot, +but I threw myself at his feet, begging him to be +merciful. He consented. At this moment an officer, +wearing a great gray cloak with a red collar, +said, as he pointed to the dead body of my child, +"There is one who will not grow up to fight our +men."</p> + +<p>The next day, in my flight to Barrière Zeller, +an officer came up and told me that the body of +my dead child smelled badly and that I must get +rid of it. Since I could find no one to make a +coffin, I found in the canteen two rabbit hutches. +I fastened one of these to the other, and there I +laid the little body. It was buried in my garden +by two soldiers, and I had to dig the grave myself.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_IV" id="APPENDIX_IV"></a>APPENDIX IV</h2> + +<h2>HOW GERMANS OCCUPY THE TERRITORY OF AN ENEMY</h2> + + +<p>In the first days of April, 1916, the following +notice, bearing the signature of the German commander, +was posted on all the walls of Lille, the +great town in the north of France which has been +occupied by the Germans since the beginning of +the war.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>All the inhabitants of the town, except the children +under fourteen years of age, their mothers, +and the old men, must prepare to be transported +within an hour and a half.</p> + +<p>An officer will decide definitely which persons +shall be conducted to the camps of assembly. For +this purpose, all the inhabitants must assemble +in front of their homes, in case of bad weather +they shall be permitted to stay in the lobbies. +The doors of the houses must be left open. All<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> +complaints will be unavailing. No inhabitant of +a house, even those who are not to be transported, +can leave the house before eight o'clock in the +morning (German time).</p> + +<p>Each person may take thirty kilograms of baggage +with him. Should there be any excess over +this amount, all that person's baggage will be +refused regardless of everything. Separate packages +must be made up by each person, and a visibly +written, firmly secured address must be on each +package. The address must bear the person's +name, surname, and the number of his identification +card.</p> + +<p>It is very necessary for each person to provide +himself with utensils for eating and drinking, also +with a woolen blanket and some good shoes and +some linen. Each person must have on his person +his identification card. Whoever shall attempt to +evade deportation shall be punished without mercy.</p> + +<p class="citation"><span class="smcap">Etappen—Kommandantur</span></p> +</div> + +<p>The threat contained in the notice cited here +was carried out to the letter. Here is an account +of it from the communication addressed by M. +D——, formerly the <i>receveur particulier</i> of Lille, +to M. Cambon, formerly the French Ambassador +to Berlin:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>On Good Friday night at three o'clock the +troops who were going to occupy the designated +section, Fives, came through our houses. It was +dreadful. An officer passed by, pointing out the +men and women whom he chose, leaving them a +space of time amounting to an hour in some cases +and ten minutes in others, to prepare themselves +for their journey.</p> + +<p>Antoine D. ... and his sister, twenty-two years +of age, were taken away. The Germans did not +want to leave behind the younger daughter in the +family, who was not fourteen. Their grandmother, +ill with sorrow and terror, had to be cared +for at once. Finally they met the young daughter +coming back. In one case an old man and two +infirm persons could not keep the daughter who +was their sole support. And everywhere the +enemy sneered, adding vexatious annoyance to +their hateful task. In the house of the doctor, who +is B.'s uncle, they gave his wife the choice between +two maids. She preferred the elder and they said, +"Well, then she is the one we are going to take." +Mlle. L., the young one who has just got over +typhoid and bronchitis, saw the non-commissioned +officer who took away her nurse coming up to her. +"What a sad task they are making us do." "More +than sad, sir, it could be called barbarous." "That +is a hard word, are you not afraid that I will sell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +you?" As a matter of fact the wretch denounced +her. They allowed her seven minutes and took her +away bare-headed, just as she was, to the Colonel +who commanded this noble battle and who also +ordered her to go, against the advice of a physician. +Only on account of her tireless energy and +the sense of decency of one who was less ferocious +than the rest, did she obtain permission, at five +o'clock in the afternoon, to be discharged, after +a day which had been a veritable Calvary. The +poor wretches at whose door a sentry watched, +were collected together at some place or other, a +Church or a school. Then the mob of all sorts +and conditions of people, or all grades of social +standing, respectable young girls and women of +the street, was driven to the station escorted by +soldiers marching at the head of the procession. +From there they were taken off in the evening +without knowing where they were going or for +what work they were destined.</p> + +<p>And in the face of all this our people evidenced +restraint and admirable dignity, although they +were provoked that day by seeing the automobiles +going around which were taking away these unfortunate +people. They all went away shouting +"Vive la France. Vive la Liberté!" and singing +the Marseillaise. They cheered up those who remained; +their poor mothers who were weeping, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> +the children. With voices almost strangled with +tears, and pale with suffering, they told them not +to cry as they themselves would not; but bore +themselves proudly in the presence of their executioners.</p> +</div> + +<p>Another document shows better than all this +talking the treatment the French have been receiving +from the Germans for over thirty months. +This document is a German notice which was +found at Holnon, northwest of St. Quentin. The +document bore the official seal of the German commander.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="citation"><span class="smcap">Holnon</span>, 20th July, 1915.<br /> +</p> + +<p>All workmen, women and children over fifteen +years of age must work in the fields every day, +also on Sunday, from four o'clock in the morning +until eight o'clock at night, French time. For +rest they shall have a half-hour in the morning, an +hour at noon and a half-hour in the afternoon. +Failure to obey this order will be punished in the +following manner:—</p> + +<p>1.—The men who are lazy will be collected for +the period of the harvest in a company of workmen +under the inspection of German corporals. +After the harvest the lazy will be imprisoned for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +six months and every third day their nourishment +shall be only bread and water.</p> + +<p>2.—Lazy women shall be exiled to Holnon to +work. After the harvest the women will be imprisoned +six months.</p> + +<p>3.—The children who do not work shall be punished +with blows from a club.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, the commandant reserves the +right to punish men who do not work with twenty +blows from a club daily.</p> + +<p>Workmen in the Commune of Verdelles have been +punished severely.</p> + +<p class="citation2">(Signed) <span class="smcap">Glose</span>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Colonel and Commandant</span>.<br /> +</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_V" id="APPENDIX_V"></a>APPENDIX V</h2> + +<h2>HOW GERMANS TREAT ALSACE-LORRAINE</h2> + + +<p>Von <a name="Bethmann" id="Bethmann"></a>Bethmann-Hollweg, Count von Hertling +and Herr von Kuhlmann state that Alsace-Lorraine +is a province of the German Empire by +right and by fact, and that it is firmly attached +to Germany.</p> + +<p>The following picture shows how this <i>German</i> +province is treated by Germany:</p> + + +<p class="center"><i>Treatment of the Civilian Population</i></p> + +<p>The Government has established for the duration +of the war an insurmountable barrier between +Alsace-Lorraine, which is called a territory of the +Empire, and the rest of the German states. +Briefly, Alsace-Lorraine is treated as a suspect.</p> + +<p>An inhabitant of Alsace-Lorraine can not mail +his letters in Germany. For example, Wissembourg +is on the border of the Palatinate. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +is a great temptation for the citizens of this town +to assure a rapid delivery of their letters and their +escape from annoying censorship by making use +of the German mail system. A music teacher, +Mlle. Lina Sch—— was sentenced to pay a fine +of one hundred marks in March, 1917, for an infraction +of this sort. The war council at Saarbruck, +which pronounced this sentence, had already, +in June, 1916, sentenced for like cause, the +Spanish Consul, to the payment of a fine of eighty +marks because he had allowed a citizen of Sarreguimine +to have letters to his sons, who were refugees +at Lausanne, addressed to the Spanish Consulate.</p> + +<p>In addition, German hostility to the Alsatians +is shown by a number of childish measures against +Alsatian uniforms and costumes, in proportion +as they resemble the French.</p> + +<p>In all seriousness the question arose of forbidding +the Catholic Clergy to wear the soutane, as +it was the custom in the Latin countries. It was +given up; but steps were taken in the case of the +firemen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p>The <i>Nouvelle Gazette</i> of Strassburg published +an official notice, dated the ninth of December, +1915, which emphasized an order suppressing the +uniforms worn by the Alsatian firemen because the +cut was French, as was the cap, and complained +that this order was not everywhere observed:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Recently, in the course of a fire which broke out +near Molsheim, it is an established fact that the +firemen wore their old Alsatian uniforms, and that +the fire alarm was sounded by means of the old +clarions of the type in use in France. The <i>Kreisdirection</i> +finds itself obliged to insist that the suppressed +uniforms disappear, and that the clarions +do likewise; and to ask that it be informed of +contraventions that happen in the future.</p> + +<p>Other societies and associations, such as the +singing societies which frequently still wear uniforms +recalling those of the French collegians, +ought to lay aside the forbidden garments, which +are to be entrusted to the guard of the police.</p></div> + +<p>But these puerilities seem insignificant compared +to other things to which the people of Alsace-Lorraine +have been subjected, things which +unite them more firmly than ever to the French and +the Belgians of the invaded regions.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + +<p>The great deportations which have been practiced +in France and Belgium have been repeated +in Alsace as recently as January, 1917. The inhabitants +of Mülhausen between the ages of seventeen +and sixty years were assembled in the barracks +at that place, whence they were sent into +the interior of Germany.</p> + +<p>This proceeding has been practiced on a large +scale since the war's beginning. Preventive imprisonment, +called <i>Schutzhaft</i>, was applied to +Messin Samain, who was first incarcerated at +Cologne and then sent to the Russian front, where +he was killed. It was also applied to M. Bourson, +former correspondent of <i>Le Matin</i>, who is interned +at Cannstatt in Wurtemburg. Other citizens, +after having been held in prison for weeks and +months, have been exiled finally into Germany.</p> + +<p>The Germans themselves have been so demoralized +by the régime they have established that the +authorities have had to put a check on anonymous +denunciations, almost all of which were false, by +an official communiqué published in the <i>Gazette de +Hagenau</i> for the sixth of December, 1916.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>The story of how the civilian population has +been treated will only be known in its entirety later +on. The government has, as a matter of fact, +forbidden the press to publish accounts of the war +councils' debates because the population, far from +being terrified by them, would find in them laughing +matter.</p> + +<p>It is estimated that the people of Alsace-Lorraine +have served in actual hours more than five +thousand years in prison. Here are some crimes +committed by them:</p> + +<p>M. Giessmann, an old man seventy years old, +saluted French prisoners in a Strassburg street: +Sentence, six weeks in prison.</p> + +<p>Guillaume Kohler, an infantry soldier from +Saverne, during a journey in Germany, censured +the inhuman manner in which certain German officers +treated their men at the front. The council +at Saarbruck sentenced him to two years in +prison.</p> + +<p>Emilie Zimmerle, a cook at Kolmar, sang an +anti-German song as she washed out her pots. +Thirty marks fine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mlle. Stern, the daughter of a pastor at Mulhouse, +spoke against the violation of Belgium. +One month in prison.</p> + +<p>Abbe Théophile Selier, curé at Levencourt, for +the same offense, six weeks in prison.</p> + +<p>Even children and young girls have been punished +for peccadillos that were absolutely untrue.</p> + +<p>The <i>Metz Zeitung</i> for the twenty-second of October +mentions the sentences pronounced against +Juliette F. de Vigy, eighteen years old, a pupil in +the commercial school, and Georgette S——, +twenty-three years old, a shop girl, dwellers at +Mouilly. Having gone one morning to the station +at Metz, they saw some French prisoners in a +train to whom they spoke and at whom they "made +eyes."</p> + +<p>Juliette F——, the more guilty of the two, was +sentenced to pay a fine of eighty marks, and +Georgette S—— to pay one of forty marks, +because "acting this way to prisoners of war exercises +a particularly disturbing effect on them."</p> + +<p>Two little girls of Kolmar, named Grass and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +Broly, were arrested for "having answered, by +waving their hands, kisses French prisoners threw +to them."</p> + +<p>A boy fifteen years old, pupil in the upper +school at Mulhouse, named Jean Ingold, who, in +the classroom tore down the portrait of the Emperor +and painted French flags on the wall with +the inscription "Vive la France," was condemned +to a month in prison. The War Council saw an +aggravating circumstance in the fact that Jean's +father "occupies a very lucrative position as a +German functionary."</p> + +<p>On the thirtieth of March, 1916, two sisters +from Guebwiller—Sister Edwina, née Bach, +Mother Superior, and Sister Emertine, née Eckert, +were charged with anti-German manifestations +for having treated as lies the figures regarding +French and Russian prisoners sent out in the +German communiqués, for having protested +against the bombardment of Rheims Cathedral, +for having treated as false the German victories +that had been announced, and for having said on +the subject of the German invasion of Belgium,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +"How can they attack a country that asked for +nothing?"</p> + +<p>The result was that they got six months' imprisonment.</p> + +<p>The case of Mme. Berthe Judlin, in the faith Sister +Valentine, is more tragic.</p> + +<p>The Mulhouse newspapers have published the +account of the proceedings in the case of this +Sister before the War Council. It appears that +she has been the victim of monstrous calumnies, +and that her fate can well be compared to that of +Miss Edith Cavell.</p> + +<p>She was accused of having, from the ninth to +the fourteenth of August when she was assigned +to the convent of the Redemptorists at Riedishiem, +favored the French wounded at the expense +of the German wounded. These accusations, which +specified in particular, that she had taken various +objects away from one wounded man (a +charge the prosecution withdrew) and that she hid +the cartridges of the French wounded in the +attic, were contested by Sister Valentine. After +the testimony of the witnesses, nine for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>prosecution +and fourteen for the defendant, the government +commissioner asked that she be punished +with a sentence of fifteen years at hard labor and +ten years of deprivation of civil rights. Her +lawyer asked for her acquittal. The War Council +on the fourteenth of December, 1915, after an +hour and a quarter's deliberation, decided that +"Sister Valentine has done harm to the German +Army" and has hidden the cartridges. It condemned +Sister Valentine to "five years of hard +labor and five years' deprivation of civil rights."</p> + + +<p class="center"><i>The War on the French Language</i></p> + +<p>The Germans never cease recalling and von +Hertling has just repeated the fact that eighty-seven +per cent of the Alsatians speak German. It +is strange, then, that the German reign of terror +has manifested itself in one particular against the +use of French, even in the region where French is +the language universally spoken.</p> + +<p>The fact that a person speaks French has become +a special offense, that of "provocation."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +And this offense appears to be a frequent one.</p> + +<p>On the twenty-second of February, 1916, the +sous-prefect of Boulay gave the following warning +to the mayors of his arrondissement:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The use in public of French will be considered +a "provocation" when used by persons who know +enough German to make themselves understood or +who can have recourse to persons who understand +German as intermediaries.</p></div> + +<p>The War Council Extraordinary at Metz, in +consequence handed down a decision condemning +two women to fourteen days in prison because, in +a manner that gave "provocation," they spoke +French in a trolley car in spite of the warnings +of the conductress.</p> + +<p>In addition, the War Council Extraordinary at +Strassburg fined a salesman who "not only let a +French label remain on his packages, but had +put a French label on a package addressed to a +customer who understood German."</p> + +<p>A little girl from Bourg-Bruche who, although +she spoke German, used the French language in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> +spite of repeated warnings, had a sentence of +detention inflicted on her by the same tribunal.</p> + +<p>The Mulhouse <i>Tageblatt</i> for the twenty-third +of September, 1917, announced that women who +had conversed to one another in French in public +had been condemned to from two to three weeks +imprisonment by the War Council at Thionville.</p> + +<p>Another person who had made a usage of the +French language that gave grounds for "provocation," +was condemned to pay a fine of fifty marks +or serve ten days in prison.</p> + +<p>The <i>Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung</i> for the +twelfth and twenty-sixth of October published the +following sentences: "Fines of twenty and ten +marks to the venders A. Nemarg and M. Cahen +for having spoken to a convoy of French officers +in the station at Thionville."</p> + +<p>Twenty and thirty marks fine to Amélie Bany +and Catherine Jacques of Knutange "for having +spoken French although they understood German."</p> + +<p>The Mayor of Broque, a commune where French +is spoken, was sentenced to three months' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>imprisonment +for having spoken French to his councilors.</p> + +<p>In Alsace this campaign against the French +language is carried even into the girls' boarding +schools, which have always been the principal +centers for the study of French.</p> + +<p>An order from the Statthalter, dated March +tenth, 1915, forbade French conversations in the +schools.</p> + +<p>A German pastor of the Lutheran Church +named Curtius, who had opposed suppressing the +old parish of Saint Nicholas at Strassburg, was +removed. His successor, who was better disciplined, +gave in to the measure that was demanded.</p> + +<p>The war against the French language has been +marked by the suppression of all French newspapers +since the war's beginning, the <i>Journal +d'Alsace-Lorraine</i>, the <i>Messin</i>, <i>the Nouvelliste d'Alsace-Lorraine</i>. +But nothing shows better the +necessity of having organs of public opinion in +French than the establishment at Metz of the +<i>Gazette d'Alsace-Lorraine</i> by the government, +which served as a model for the <i>Gazette des</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span><i>Ardennes</i>, +founded later on at Mezières, to demoralize +the inhabitants of the invaded districts in the +north and west of France.</p> + + +<p class="center"><i>The Treatment of the Soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine</i></p> + +<p>The soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine, whose loyalty +was proclaimed at the war's beginning, have, as +a matter of fact, been treated like spies and embryo +deserters.</p> + +<p>In August, 1915, at the opening of the Alsatian +parliament, the Statthalter denounced the +anti-patriotism of a part of the population and +stigmatized the "traitors" who had "gone over +to the enemy."</p> + +<p>In fact, no less than fourteen thousand Alsatians, +in the face of manifold perils and difficulties, +had rejoined the colors of their true country. +All the newspapers of Alsace-Lorraine still publish +the lists of them as citizens and of their belongings +as "refractory individuals."</p> + +<p>The movement has never stopped. During the +thirty-second month of the war, on the fourteenth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> +of March, 1917, General von Nassner, commandant +for the district of Saarbruck, published the +following extraordinary order:</p> + +<p>"Whoever, after due examination, has reason +to believe that a soldier or a man on reprieve proposes +to desert and who can still prevent the +execution of this crime, must without delay give +notice of this fact to the nearest military or police +authority."</p> + +<p>The Strassburg <i>Neueste Nachrichten</i> for the +twenty-seventh of September announced that the +"<i>chambre <a name="correctionnelle" id="correctionnelle"></a>correctionnelle</i> at Kolmar had condemned +by default one hundred and ninety men +from the arrondissements of Guebwiller and Ribeauville +to fines of six hundred marks or forty +days in prison for having failed to perform their +military obligations."</p> + +<p>The <i>Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung</i> for the +eleventh of October, 1917, announced sentences of +fines of three thousand marks or three hundred +days in prison for the same reason against seven +persons.</p> + +<p>The <i>Haguenauer Zeitung</i> from the eleventh to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +the twentieth of October published the names of +seventeen soldiers, some of them deserters, the +others guilty of rebellion in favor of the enemy +or of treason.</p> + +<p>On the twenty-fifth of October there was another +list of deserters, nineteen of whom were natives +of Strassburg.</p> + +<p>In his book, "The Martyrs of Alsace and Lorraine," +M. André Fribourg has fifteen pages taken +from the lists of the debates of the German war +councils. These pages are made up of the names +of young Alsatians who have left their country +rather than fight against France.</p> + +<p>Besides, far from treating the Alsatians enrolled +in the German Army like Germans, the +government has accorded them a distinctly different +treatment.</p> + +<p>It has sent them to the Russian front and employed +them at the most dangerous posts, as this +secret order, from the Prussian Minister of War +to the temporary commander of the Fourteenth +Army Corps, proves:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>All men from Alsace-Lorraine employed as +secretaries, ordnance officers, etc., must be relieved +of their duties and sent to the battle front. In +the future, all the men from Alsace-Lorraine will +be sent to the "General Kommando," who will +send them at once to the units on the Eastern +Front. This order to go into effect before the first +of April, 1916.</p> + +<p class="citation"><span class="smcap">For the Stellvert, General Kommando</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Radecke, Major.</span><br /> +</p></div> + +<p>Finally, it was only on the ninth of October, +1917, that the Strassburg <i>Neue Zeitung</i> announced +the abolition of the special postal control to which +the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine were submitted +at the front.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>It is but just [says the <i>Freie Presse</i> on that +occasion] that the exceptional measures taken +against the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine be +abolished at last. Among these measures we consider +the interdiction still in force for a man to +return to his native town. And [the same newspaper +adds] from the moment that the bravery +of our soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine is vaunted +everywhere, it is absolutely wrong to reward them +with scorn and insults.</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the notice from G. Q. G. for the twenty-fifth +of November, 1917, are the details gathered from +the Alsatian prisoners themselves of the treatment +their compatriots endure in the German +Army.</p> + +<p>On the twenty-second of last June, all the Alsatians +received orders to present themselves at +the F. R. D. of their division, where they were +received by the Vizé Sergeant, flanked by two +guards.</p> + +<p>The former said to them:</p> + +<p>"What! You have not yet laid aside your accoutrements; +traitors, deserters, scoundrels, rascals. +Get into the shelter quick where you can put +up nine additional supports for the roof and +where you can kick the bucket at your ease."</p> + +<p>Since some of the Alsatians declared that, having +received nothing to eat or to drink, they could +not work, a lieutenant, who was summoned by the +adjutant, ran up with his riding whip and, making +one of them step forward, beat him until he lost +consciousness.</p> + +<p>Later on another lieutenant ordered the Vizé<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> +Sergeant to "train the Alsatians well. They are +all robbers and traitors."</p> + +<p>All these facts proclaim in an undeniable manner +that the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine are not +treated like ordinary citizens by the German +Army, but like foreigners temporarily under the +domination of Germany.</p> + + +<p class="center"><i>The Sequestration of Property</i></p> + +<p>For a "German" country, Alsace-Lorraine +seems to have a great number of landowners who +are French, if one is to judge by the sequestrations +and confiscations with which the authorities +have been so desperately busy for three years.</p> + +<p>In fact the local newspapers contain lists of +sequestrations that are almost as long as the +lists of deserters.</p> + +<p>And these confiscations apply not only to the +landowners who live in France. A large number +have been pronounced against inhabitants of +Alsace-Lorraine who live abroad. Orders were +given them to reënter the German Empire, orders +they had no possible chance of obeying, but which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +gave the imperial government an easy pretext for +pronouncing their denationalization and the confiscation +of their property.</p> + +<p>Also, the sequestrations followed by sales under +the hammer, of French and Alsatian properties +were extremely numerous. Among these properties +there are a certain number of considerable +importance.</p> + +<p>On the twenty-fourth of August, 1916, <i>Les +Dernières Nouvelles de Strasbourg</i>, advertised the +sale under the hammer of the properties of Prince +de Tonnay-Charente, situated at Hambourg and +consisting of a splendid château, furnished in +Louis Fourteenth style, Gobelin tapestries of great +value, family portraits, green houses, outhouses, +ponds, farms, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>The Strassburg <i>Post</i> for the twenty-ninth of +October announced the liquidation sale of Cité +Hof, belonging to the heirs of Paul de Geiger, +including "forty-two hectares of fine arable land, +fine dwelling houses, barns and stables, a very fine +park, summer houses, a coach house, etc." ... +"of the Villa Huber, with a fine park, servants'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> +quarters, garden, surrounded by twenty-eight hectares +of fields."</p> + +<p>The same paper for the fourth of October announces +the sale of the famous château of Robertsau, +the property of Mme. Loys-Chandieu, née +Pourtalès, with two hundred and thirty hectares +of farm land and one hundred and thirty hectares +of forest.</p> + +<p>The <i>Metzer Zeitung</i> for the twentieth of October +announced the liquidation of twenty properties +in the Moyeuvre Grande district, and of +eleven in that of Sierek.</p> + +<p>Many people have obviously been covetous of +these French possessions.</p> + +<p>On this subject curious letters and unceasing +polemics appeared in the Alsatian newspapers.</p> + +<p>Certain interested persons complained (<i>Strassburger +Post</i> for the third of November) that the +time was so short that only the inhabitants of the +country and their immediate neighbors had any +opportunity of profiting by these occasions. They +remarked with all justice that to get the highest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> +prices for these sales there ought to be a large +number of bidders.</p> + +<p>For the farm lands, the neighbors would suffice +to bring up the bids to a high enough sum, but +when it was a matter of a magnificent château, +like that at Osthofen, with a garden and a park, +bidders for this luxury would scarcely be found +among the peasants. The speculators alone would +step in and would acquire for a mere nothing +properties of great value. And the plaintiffs +added, "Is that desirable?"</p> + +<p>The following considerations advanced by one +of the plaintiffs are not without interest. "Sufficient +means of communication still remain between +France and Germany. Do you not see the +danger of feigned sales, to third persons, who +will buy in the goods at small cost and will hand +them over later on to their former proprietors? +In this way the French influence over the ownership +of the land will be reëstablished in the future."</p> + +<p>To these complaints and wrongs the <i>Strassburger</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> +<i>Post</i> for the eighth of November replied +in detail.</p> + +<p>It assured that the list of goods to be disposed +of had not only been placed by the authorities in +the several states of the empire, to give buyers +time to take advantage of possible bargains, but +also a catalogue of stationary objects had been +published in fifteen hundred copies by Schultz +& Co. of Strassburg.</p> + +<p>This catalogue was quickly used up and the +demand for it continued to come in, which proved +that the buyers were informed in time.</p> + +<p>The newspaper adds that the things to be sold +have been visited by buyers coming from old Germany +as well as from Alsace-Lorraine, and sales +propositions have been made before the publication +of notices in the newspapers.</p> + +<p>It seems, furthermore, that if the sales of land +and the exploitation of farm lands have ended +rapidly, it was because colonization societies, +called "black bands," have overtly bought up or +had bought up the properties by their agents, in +the hope that their plans would be realized after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +the war. In industrial matters, there was recently +founded in Berlin a German syndicate which proposes +to buy up the actions.</p> + +<p>For the textile industry in particular, it is a +question of a veritable trust against which is arrayed +"a syndicate of Alsatian manufacturers +who have felt the need of defending themselves."</p> + +<p>The entire scope of recent German policies with +regard to Alsace-Lorraine shows that this land +which von Hertling said was "allied to Germanism +by more and more intimate bonds" has been, +as a matter of fact, to treat it like a foreign land, +kept by force under imperial domination and +submitted, like the occupied portions of France +and Belgium, to a veritable reign of terror.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="APPENDIX_VI" id="APPENDIX_VI"></a>APPENDIX VI</h2> + +<h2><a name="HOW" id="HOW"></a>HOW GERMANS UNDERSTAND FUTURE PEACE</h2> + + +<p>If an account is desired of the manner in which +the Germans understand a future peace, this letter +suffices. It was addressed to the <i>Berliner +Lokalanzeiger</i> by Herr Walter Rathenau. He was +in charge of the direction of all industrial establishments +in Germany:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>We commenced war a year too soon. When we +shall have obtained a German peace, reorganization +on a broader and more solid basis than ever +before must commence immediately. The establishments +which produce raw materials must not +only continue their work, but they must also redouble +their energies and thus form the foundation +of Germany's economical preparation for the +next war.</p> + +<p>On the lessons taught by actual war we must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +figure out carefully what our country lacks in +raw materials and accumulate great stores of +these which shall never be utilized until <i>Der Tag</i> +of the future. We must organize the industrial +mobilization as perfectly as the military mobilization. +Every man of technical training or partial +technical training, whether or not he is enrolled +in the list of men who can be mobilized, +must have received authority by official order to +take over the direction of industrial establishments +on the second day which shall follow the +next declaration of war.</p> + +<p>Every establishment which manufactures for +commercial purposes ought to be mobilized and to +know officially that the third day after the declaration +of war it must make use of all its facilities in +satisfying the needs of the Army.</p> + +<p>The quantity of merchandise which each one of +these establishments can furnish to the Army in +a given time and the nature thereof ought to be +determined in advance. Every establishment also +ought to furnish an exact and complete list of +the workmen with whose services it can dispense, +and those men alone can be mobilized for military +services.</p> + +<p>Finally commercial arrangements will be made +necessary with nations outside Europe through +which we will give them sufficient advantages, +specified in detail, so that it would be directly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +advantageous to their commercial interests to +carry on commerce with none of the belligerents +and not to sell them munitions.</p> + +<p>We can accept such obligations for ourselves +without any fear and finally, when the next war +shall come, it cannot come a year too soon.</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h4>Transcriber's Notes</h4> + +<p>Pg. 6, <a href="#Sunday">Sunday</a>, August third, left as original as it's uncertain which +day the author meant. Sunday was actually August 2, Monday was August +3; and the context from the beginning of the chapter was that the +declaration of war was delivered late afternoon Monday, August 3. +(Mobilization had commenced the previous evening. To be exact, it was +on Sunday, August third, at midnight.)</p> + +<p>Pg. 7, unforgetable changed to <a href="#unforgettable">unforgettable</a>. (It recalled the +unforgettable scenes.) </p> <p>Pg. 14, thirteenth changed to <a href="#thirtieth">thirtieth</a>, per +context (when Sunday the thirtieth of August came). </p> <p>Pg. 14, week +changed to <a href="#weeks">weeks</a>. (For several weeks our troops) </p> <p>Pg. 54, <a href="#beseiged">beseiged</a> and +<a href="#beseiger">beseiger</a> left as original, as author quoted from another book. (in a +beseiged city can hasten the place's fall; in consequence it would be +very foolish of the beseiger to renounce) </p> <p>Pg. 88, removed ending +double quotes. (I feel better for <a href="#it">it.'</a>) </p> <p>Pg. 90, mobolization changed +to <a href="#mobilization">mobilization</a> (priests who went off at the beginning of the +mobilization). </p> <p>Pg. 100, sum of artillery kilos do not equal <a href="#Total">Total</a> +kilos. Left as original. </p> <p>Pg. 108, tetragon changed to <a href="#tarragon">tarragon</a> +(16,900 tarragon plants).</p> +<p>Pg. 162, catastrophies changed to <a href="#catastrophes">catastrophes</a> (irremediable +catastrophes could be avoided?).</p> +<p>Pgs. <a href="#Beth">163</a>, <a href="#Bethmann">206</a>, Bethmann-Hollweg, hyphenation inconsistent with<br /> +Pgs. <a href="#Hollweg">180</a>, <a href="#Holl">182</a>, Bethmann Hollweg. Kept as in original.</p> +<p>Pg. 167, <a href="#Article">ARTICLE 23</a> has no (b) paragraph. </p> +<p>Pg. 193, protect changed to <a href="#protest">protest</a> to reflect the actual letter (I +consider it my duty to protest against this threat of violence to the +Ambassador). </p> +<p>Pg. 219, correstionnelle changed to <a href="#correctionnelle">correctionelle</a> ("_chambre +correctionnelle_ at Kolmar).</p> +<p>Pg. 229, Appendix VI, added <a href="#HOW">HOW</a> to title to match Table +of Contents and make it consistent with rest of Appendices. </p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fighting France, by Stephane Lauzanne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIGHTING FRANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 18483-h.htm or 18483-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/8/18483/ + +Produced by Brian Sogard, Diane Monico, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +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. 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