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diff --git a/18483.txt b/18483.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db16834 --- /dev/null +++ b/18483.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5600 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** 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 + + + + + + + + + + + +FIGHTING FRANCE + +BY + +STEPHANE LAUZANNE +LIEUTENANT IN THE FRENCH ARMY, CHEVALIER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR +EDITOR IN CHIEF OF THE "MATIN," +MEMBER OF THE FRENCH MISSION TO THE UNITED STATES + +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY +JAMES M. BECK, LL.D. +LATE ASSISTANT ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES + +TRANSLATED BY +JOHN L. B. WILLIAMS, A.M. +SOMETIME FELLOW OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY +NEW YORK +LONDON + +1918 + + + + +Copyright, 1918, by + +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + +Printed in the United States of America + + + + +TO + +MY CHIEFS +MY COMRADES +MY MEN +WHO ARE FIGHTING FOR THE GREAT CAUSE +OF LIBERTY AND CIVILIZATION + +THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED + + + + +FOREWORD + + +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. Stephane Lauzanne, his assumption of duty in +1901 as Editor-in-Chief of the Paris _Matin_ 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 _Matin_ 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. + +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 _Times_, 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 _Times_ 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 _coup_ +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. + +De Blowitz took great interest in his brilliant nephew and at his +suggestion Lauzanne became the London correspondent of the _Matin_ in +1898, when he was only twenty-four years of age. This brought him into +direct communication with the London _Times_ which then as now +exchanged cable news with the _Matin_, 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 +_Matin_, 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 _Matin_ in 1901. + +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. + +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 _Matin_ 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 AEneas said of the Siege of Troy, "Much +of which I saw, and part of which I was." + +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. + +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 _savoir faire_ +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + JAMES M. BECK. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE +I + +WHY FRANCE IS FIGHTING + +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 1 + +II + +HOW FRANCE IS FIGHTING + +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 51 + +III + +FRANCE SUFFERING BUT NOT BLED WHITE + +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 94 + +IV + +THE WAR AIMS OF FRANCE + +Restitution: Alsace-Lorraine--Restoration: The devastated and +looted territories. Guarantees: The Society of Nations 138 + +APPENDICES + +APPENDIX I.--HOW GERMANS FORCED WAR ON FRANCE 179 + +APPENDIX II.--HOW GERMANS TREAT AN AMBASSADOR 183 + +APPENDIX III.--HOW GERMANS ARE WAGING WAR 196 + +APPENDIX IV.--HOW GERMANS OCCUPY THE TERRITORY OF AN ENEMY 200 + +APPENDIX V.--HOW GERMANS TREAT ALSACE-LORRAINE 206 + +APPENDIX VI.--HOW GERMANS UNDERSTAND FUTURE PEACE 229 + + + + +FIGHTING FRANCE + + + + +I + +WHY FRANCE IS FIGHTING + + +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 have said that he was trying to be +recognized and to take part in the discussions. + +But no one paid any attention to him. + +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: + +"Announce the German Ambassador to the Prime Minister." + +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. + +The declaration, as history will record, was expressed in these terms: + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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 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. + + Be good enough, M. le President, to receive the assurances + of my deepest respect. + + (Signed) DE SCHOEN. + +Immediately M. Rene 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: + +"It is false," wrote Dr. Schwalbe in the _Deutsche Medizinische +Wochenschrift_, "that French aviators dropped bombs on the railway at +Nuremberg. The general of the third Bavarian army corps, which was +stationed in the vicinity, assured me that he knew nothing of the +attempt except from the newspapers...." + +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. + +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 _directeur +politique_ 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. + +"Poor Paris," he exclaimed, "what will happen to her?" + +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. + +It was a quarter before seven o'clock in the evening. From that time +on France has been at war with Germany. + + * * * * * + +Mobilization had commenced the previous evening. To be exact, it was +on Sunday, August third, at midnight. + +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: + + In time of mobilization, Lieutenant Lauzanne (Stephane) will + report on the second day of mobilization to the railroad + station nearest his home and there entrain immediately for + Alencon. + +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 been neither disorder nor +disturbance nor a mob, for everything had taken place in a manner that +was marvelously simple and calm. + +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: + +"Track number 5. Your train leaves at 6.27." + +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 unforgettable scenes of those last days--that scene +especially, at four o'clock in the evening on the first 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. + +Then the "Marseillaise"! Then a short, imperious demand: + +"The flags! We want the flags!" + +And flags burst forth from all quarters of Paris, decorated in the +twinkling of an eye as if it were a fete day. Yes, all that had really +happened. All that had taken place. We were really at war. + +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 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: + +"If we've got to go, we've got to go." + +One farmer said: + +"They are looking after our good. I shall fight until I fall." + +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. + +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 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. + +We detrained at Alencon, arriving there about mid-day. Alencon 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: + +"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." + +It is no small matter to clothe, equip and arm 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. + +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 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. + +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: + +"Silence!" + +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 barracks situated to the north of the capital. We were +to stay there a month. + + * * * * * + +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 communique +beginning with the words: "_De la Somme aux Vosges_...." + +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 as the +army is there, Paris has nothing to fear...." And when Sunday the +thirtieth of August came, Paris was as calm and confident as it was +on the first day of the war. + +I shall remember the thirtieth of August for a long time. + +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: + + FRENCHMEN! + + For several 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. + + 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. + + Under the command of an eminent leader, a French army, full + of bravery and resource, will defend the capital and its + people against the invader. But at the same time war will + be carried on over the rest of the territory. + +The small notice was from General Gallieni, the new Governor of Paris. +It had, in its brevity, the beauty of an ancient inscription: + + "I have been ordered to defend Paris. I shall obey this + command until the end." + +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 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. + +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. + +However that may be, the curiosity of Paris 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. + +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 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! + +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. + +"Nothing will happen," I told them. "Look here now, be reasonable and +go home to bed." + +"But we want to see...." + +"What do you want to see?" + +"Want to see what kind of a reception the Prussians will get if they +come." + +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 in +the evening. They had to camp out under the stars. + +"It's very amusing," they said, "here we are just like soldiers." + +I even heard one of them say: + +"What a pity there isn't always war." + +That same night, about eleven o'clock, a heavy sound was heard coming +from the direction of the city. Some urchins shouted: + +"It's the soldiers. It's the soldiers." + +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: + +"See," they shrieked at us, "if we had minded you and gone home, we +wouldn't have seen them." + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 and defeat to Germany, safety to civilization and a repulse +to barbarism. + +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. + +But this maneuver would not in itself have sufficed to win the victory +if Maunoury had not attacked with an irresistible elan 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, on the right, de Castelnau had not held +until the end the Grand Couronne 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! + +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 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! + +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 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! + +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 enter Paris, we are going to the +Moulin Rouge," von Kluck's soldiers said in their jargon to the +inhabitants of Compiegne. "Tomorrow we will burn Bar-le-Duc, +Poincare'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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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: + +"I saw them in 1870. They came here, but they didn't do this. They are +savages." + +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, her arms extended like a great cross. She could only sob: + +"Look! Look!" + +And she was like a symbol of the whole wretched business. + +The men who do such deeds are the men France is fighting. + + * * * * * + +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. + +Bottles covered the ground everywhere at Vincy-Manoeuvre. There were +bottles in the streets, along the highways, in the fields. They +marked 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. + +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 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. + +"Where do you come from?" I asked. "What are you doing here?" + +"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." + +"Very good," I said, "follow me." + +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 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. + +"Show me your wounded," I ordered. + +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. + +The German major asked: + +"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?" + +"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." + +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. + +"Look at that," I said to him. "That is what your men have done." + +The German officer turned very pale, then very red. He answered: + +"It's sad, but it is war." + +"No," I replied, "it isn't war. It's pure barbarism and it's +abominable." + +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: + +"There! That is war--at least it's war as we understand it." + +This time he made no answer. + +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 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. + +I often saw trains stop in what is called a _gare regulatrice_, 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: + +"Your name? Your rank?" + +The German states his name and rank, offering of necessity his +identification card. + +"Your regiment?" + +"Such and such a regiment." + +"Your army corps?" + +"Such and such an army corps." + +"Who is the general in command?" + +Like an automaton the officer replies: + +"_Das sage ich nicht._" ("I can not answer that.") + +And you know that it would be an easier matter to make the stone +beneath your feet talk than one of these prisoners. + +However, the commandant frowns slightly, glances over his notes, and +says coldly: + +"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."... + +"I have nothing to say." + +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: + +"What would you say if we were to put such a principle into practice?" + +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. + +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: + +"We know your beautiful country well. We have been in your beautiful +capital often...." + +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.... 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.... + +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: + +"_Das ist Krieg._" ("It is war.") + +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 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: + +"No. Burn it to the ground!" + +Five other words sufficed to explain everything: + +"Civilians fired on our troops." + +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." + +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. + +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 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: + + 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 _destroy equally + all the enemy's intellectual and material resources_. + 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. + +And, a little farther on, he reads there: + + 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, _that true humanity consists in proceeding + without tenderness_. + +Farther along in that book, he reads: + + All the methods invented by the technic of modern warfare, + the most perfected as well as the most dangerous, _those + which kill the greatest number at once, are permitted_. + 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 beseiged city can hasten the place's fall; in + consequence it would be very foolish of the 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. _It will be used + none the less_--very regretfully--for military reasons. + +Finally, on the volume's last page, is found this extraordinary maxim: + + "Any wrong that the war demands, however great it may be, is + allowed." + +Therefore the horrors which the Germans 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. + +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: + + Hate, Germany! Slit the throats of your millions of enemies. + Raise a monument of their smoking corpses that will rise to + the heavens! + + 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! + + Hate, Germany! Victory will come from your anger. Shatter + their skulls with blows from your ax and the butt of your + musket. These brigands are timid beasts.... They are not + men.... May your fist perform the judgment of God! + +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! + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +What happened at Amiens at the beginning of September, 1914, is +especially characteristic of this. + +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 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. + +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 who directed, advised and commanded the Germans from +behind a veil? + +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. + +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. And her glorious old father, +however indignant he felt, was watching by her side. + +When the parade was passing by, he made a sudden gesture and said: + +"Look at that man on the horse, there, now!" + +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! + +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 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.... + +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." + +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. + +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 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.... + +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! + +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. + +All that will have to be investigated. All that 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. + +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." + +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 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. + +That is why France is fighting, why the whole world ought to fight to +the end, to death or until victory crowns its efforts. + + + + +II + +HOW FRANCE IS FIGHTING + + +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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. + +"The fight has been a hard one," Marshall 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. + + * * * * * + +They knew how to suffer, those other soldiers of the Battle of the +Marne who were a part of General Foch's army at Fere-Champenoise. Five +times they attacked the Chateau 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 Chateau de +Mondement fell. + +That officer at Verdun knew how to suffer. He 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. + +"How can I help you," said the wounded man, "a shell has broken both +my legs." + +"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." + +And, one supporting the other, the blinded man and the lamed man +carried on! + + * * * * * + +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. My +brother, when he saw the man painfully dragging himself along, asked +him whether or not he needed help. + +"I don't need help," replied the wounded man, "but my battery down +there does. It is retreating." + +"If it is retreating, it can't be helped and it is a waste of time for +me to get it ammunition...." + +"No," begged the lieutenant, "get the munitions. We Colonials fight +until the last man falls...." + +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: + +"You are in a bad way. Couldn't you have come here sooner?" + +The lieutenant replied humbly: + +"Pardon me, I lost a lot of time on the way." + + * * * * * + +Those men I saw for months fighting and dying to the south of Verdun, +at the Butte des Eparges, knew how to suffer. + +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. + +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 and frightful in their nakedness, seeming to cry out to +the men of the plain: + +"See, all of you, the scourge of God has passed over this place." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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: + +"You seem as happy as you can be." + +"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...." + +As he mentioned the name of the accursed Butte, I could not repress a +movement. He saw it and said: + +"Sir, I am glad to go there." + +And he told me his name and the number of his company. Then he hurried +away. + +It chanced that precisely one week later I met one of his officers. I +asked him about the merry fellow. + +"That man? He was killed the day before yesterday at Eparges." + +And my comrade added in a low voice: + +"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: + +"Courage, my boy, courage." + +He murmured the reply: + +"Oh, I'm glad to die." + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 expression than +the words that have already served the Commander in Chief of the +French Army, General Petain, on the evening of his great victory at +the Chemin des Dames. In receiving the American newspapermen, he said +to them: + +"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." + + * * * * * + +The women have been no less wonderful. And I want to write a few words +about them. + +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 Matinees +Nationales at the Sorbonne. + +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 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. + +The Germans were masters of the neighborhood for some days. They +seized the inhabitants as hostages and shut them up in a cave. +Marcelle 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. + +"Do you admit," asked the presiding officer, "that you helped French +soldiers to escape?" + +"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." + +This was one time when God intervened. Marcelle did not die. Brought +to the place of execution, at the very moment when they were about to +shoot, the French reentered 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. + + * * * * * + +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 Francaises de Soissons: + + 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. + +In this department, a lay instructress, Mlle. Cheron, merited a +citation which does not contain the least over-praise: + + 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. + +Those three nuns were also Frenchwomen and fighters of whom the +"Journal Officiel" in the general order spoke as follows: + + 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 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.... + + 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.... + + Mlle. Brasseur, Sister Etienne, Mother Superior of the + Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in the Hospital at Compiegne, + 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. + +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, deserved this citation in the orders of the day, of which +thousands of soldiers would be proud: + + 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. + +The women behind the lines have been worthy of their sisters at the +front. + +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 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. + +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 Societe de +Secours aux Blesses Militaires, the Union des Dames de France, and The +Association des Dames Francaises. At the war's outbreak the Societe de +Secours aux Blesses 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 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 +Francaises 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. + +On the thirty-first of December, 1916, the three societies counted +about 42,000,000 days of hospital work, 25,000,000 for the Societe de +Secours aux Blesses alone. From the beginning of the war, this society +has expended for equipment the sum of 38,700,000 francs. + +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 Societe de +Secours aux Blesses has been granted one cross of the Legion of Honor, +94 Croix de Guerre, 119 Medailles d'Honneur des epidemies. The +Association des Dames Francaises has won 17 Croix de Guerre and 80 +Medailles des epidemies. 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. + +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: + +"Sir, we have only done our duty as nurses, never forgetting that we +are Frenchwomen." + +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 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. + +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: + +"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." + +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. + +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 +Couronne!... 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 cure of the village had the +pitiful task of telling the already mourning mother of this new blow +that had struck her. The cure found Madame de Castelnau, and, in the +presence of her great sorrow, he hesitated and was overcome with +embarrassment: + +"Madame," he said, "I come to bring you another blow. But know well +that all the mothers of France weep for you." + +Madame de Castelnau knew the truth at once. She interrupted the priest +and, looking him straight in the eye, replied: + +"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." + +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: + +"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." + +Moved by the tragic grandeur of the sight, the gendarmes rendered her +military honors and presented arms. The mother rose and uttered the +words her dead and her heart inspired: + +"Even so, Vive la France!" + +All of them, mothers of noble birth and of peasant stock, rich and +poor, wives, sisters, and fiancees 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. + +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: + + MY DEAR BOY: + + 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 there is only one vacant place at the + fireside, but how big that one is. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + +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: + + MOYEN, 4 SEPTEMBER, 1914. + + MY DEAR EDOUARD: + + I have heard that Charles and Lucien died on the + twenty-eighth of August. Eugene is badly wounded. As for + Louis and Jean, they are dead also. + + Rose has gone away. + + Mother weeps, but she says that you are brave and wishes + that you may avenge them. + + I hope that your officers will not refuse you that. Jean won + the Legion of Honor; follow in his footsteps. + + 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. + + God gave you life; he has the right to take it away from + you. Mother says that. + + 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! + + Sacrifice your life, my dear brother. We hope to see you + again, for something like a presentiment tells us to hope. + + We embrace you fondly. Farewell, and may we see you again, + if God grants. + + (Signed) YOUR SISTERS. + + P.S. It is for us and for France. Think of your brothers and + of your grandfather in 1870. + +And this next letter is sublime. It was addressed to M. Maurice Barres +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. Barres: + + SIR: 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 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. + + 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.... + + 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. + + 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?... + +Then, too, the women who had only their dignity and their high spirit +to defend themselves against the grossness and the insults of the +Prussians, have been the incarnation of the spirit of France. + +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: + +"It doesn't matter, sir. That mud can be washed off." + +A great lady in one of the chateaux 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: + +"Do not thank me, sir. I did not invite you here." + +And she reentered her house with all dignity. + + * * * * * + +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 and have done all +this, the soldiers, in the mud of the trenches, revere them as +Madonnas. + +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: + +"Alas, alas!" he cried. + +A lady hastened to him. She was the mistress of the house, the famous +Cornelia Graccha. + +"What news do you bring?" she asked. + +"Alas, alas," repeated the slave, "in the battle down there in Umbria, +two of your sons have been killed." + +"Fool," was the reply, "I do not ask that. Have the Barbarians been +conquered?" + +"They have, Cornelia." + +"Then what matters the death of my sons if my country is victorious!" + +Those wonderful words have been handed down 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: + + "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. + Genevieve 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 la Concorde, in the + shadow of the Tuileries, which for days has worn a crepe + 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." + +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. + +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. + +In some admirable pages, consecrated to the "Effort of French +Womanhood," M. Louis Barthou has painted the picture of the sacred +union there is among all the French women: + + 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. + + 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 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. + +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. + +They all say the same things. + +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: + + MY DEAR: 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 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. + +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: + + 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 died with a sweet smile on our lips and a lovely + superhumanity in our hearts. Vive la France! Vive la France! + +What wonderful enthusiasm! But still more beautiful is this prayer, +that of a little Protestant soldier from the Montbeliard country, who +died in the Gare d'Amberieu hospital: + + "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. + + "Lord, Thou knowest that I have not desired war, but that I + have fought to do Thy will; I offer my life for peace. + + "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. + + "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." + +This prayer, in which the little soldier had put his last living +thoughts, was received by a Catholic sister who had cared for him, +and sent by her to his sorrowing family--a touching proof of sacred +union. + +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: + + "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. + + "'Sir,' he replied, 'that does not prevent me from making my + military arrangements and from fighting. I feel better for + it.' + + "Then I said: + + "'Captain, I do the same thing you do. And I find I get + along pretty well.'" + +This is the letter a young Catholic wrote the evening before a battle +to his fiancee: + + MY DEAR JEANNE: + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + +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 Ypres, writing his last letter.... For of the +twenty-five thousand priests who went off at the beginning of the +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: + + 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! + +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, they are one body which +lives together and dies together. + +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!... + +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: + +"We do not dare throw earth on the bodies of our comrades without a +prayer being said over them." + +The Catholic priest asked to what faith they belonged. + +"We do not know. How can we find out? But can't you arrange among +yourselves?" + +"Well, we shall bless them one after the other." + +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.... + +M. Maurice Barres, 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. + +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 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. + + + + +III + +FRANCE SUFFERING BUT NOT BLED WHITE + + +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: + +"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." + +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 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 elite 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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.... + +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 years of war, France has on her battle front, in +the war zone, an army of 2,750,000 men. + +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. + +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: + + The Battle of the Marne emptied our storehouses. + + On the seventeenth of September, 1914, the minister of war, + who had then been scarcely three 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. + + 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. + + All orders for heavy guns had been countermanded at the + beginning of August, 1914. They 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. + +Now consider these figures, given out by M. Andre Tardieu, High +Commissioner of the French Republic at Washington, in a letter to the +Hon. Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War: + + 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. + + 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. + + 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: + + Field artillery 407 kilos + Trench artillery 203 kilos + Heavy artillery 704 kilos + High Power artillery 12 kilos + ---- + Total 1442 kilos + + And these are the figures for the monthly expenditure in + munitions for the .75's alone: + + July, 1916 6,400,000 shells + September, 1916 7,000,000 shells + October, 1916 5,500,000 shells + + During the last offensive the total expenditure amounted to + twelve million projectiles of all calibers. + +This incomparable war industry has permitted us not only to fight, to +defend ourselves and to 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: + + 1,350,000 rifles +800,000,000 cartridges + 16,000,000 automatic rifles + 10,000 mitrailleuses + 2,500 heavy guns + 4,750 airplanes + +And to France has come the honor of making the light artillery for the +American Army--amounting to several hundred guns per month. + + * * * * * + +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. + +From the first of August, 1914, to the first of January, 1918, the +French Parliament voted war 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The individual deposits in the great credit establishments of France +which, on the thirty-first of December, 1914, amounted to only 4,050 +millions of francs, amounted to 6,050 millions on the thirty-first of +December, 1917. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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: + + 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. + + An indication of the development of industrial activity is + furnished by the continued increase of the demand for coal. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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 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. + +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. + +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; 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. + +An _Office National de Reconstruction_ for the villages has been +established, and an agricultural _Office National de Reconstitution_ +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: + + 6,717,575 cabbage plants + 1,980,000 turnip and rutabaga plants + 41,000 radish plants + 27,200 cauliflowers + 270,250 white beets + 5,340,500 leek plants + 1,836,800 chicory and endive plants + 104,500 celery plants + 105,000 tomato plants + 16,900 tarragon plants + 9,569,450 onion sprouts + 26,009,175 total plants of various kinds. + + 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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +Here is the picture the celebrated German colonial empire offers. + +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 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. + +The conquest was difficult; it was finished only in 1916. An order of +the day of General Aymerich, commander-in-chief of the troops which +conquered Kameroon, points with brief eloquence to some of the +difficulties which have been overcome: + + Officers, Europeans and troops who are natives of Africa and + Belgian Congo. + + At the cost of hardship and unheard-of efforts, you have + just wrenched from the Germans one of their best and richest + colonies. + + 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. + +In this conquest France played a large part, just as was the case in +the conquest of Togoland, 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. + +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: + + 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 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. + +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. + +Now let us look at the picture the French colonial empire offers. + +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 single +German in Morocco who was not certain that the natives would rise in +revolt against France. + +"Not a single Frenchman," wrote, in peace times, the correspondent of +the _Cologne Gazette_, "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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +Besides, North Africa largely took care of the feeding of France. + +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 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. + +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 Gabes; Morocco the lines from Casablanca to Fez and from the +Algerian frontier to Taza. + +General Lyautey said, "A workshop is worth a battalion in Morocco." + +Workshops have been opened everywhere. There was never so much work +done. The colonial empire was never more prosperous, more active and +more glorious. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +But France, France who is represented as worn out and bled white, +heard Serbia's call for help and decided to respond to it. + +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? + +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 _Natal_, +_Sinai_, and _Armenie_, and a flotilla of armored cruisers followed +them. Thirteen thousand men were transported in this fashion. + +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. + +On the seventh of January, 1916, the first 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 _Edgar Quinet_, _Waldeck-Rousseau_, +_Ernest Renan_, _Jules Ferry_ 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. + +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 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. + +The question remained of _Achilleion_, the property of William of +Germany, which was about nine miles from the city. If _Achilleion_ had +been a French property and German soldiers had paid a visit, what +pillage, what defilement, what orgies there would have been! + +But _Achilleion_ 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: + + At four o'clock in the morning an automobile 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 _Achilleion_, whose occupants it + assembled--the watchman and two red-haired chambermaids--_en + deshabille_, 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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +But the easiest thing had been done. The most 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. + +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 +_Illustration_ an unheard-of and unique picture of what this +preparation of Corfu consisted: + + 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 _Marsouin_, _Rove_, + _Iskeul_, _Marseillais 14_, _Audacieux_, _Requin_), + 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 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, and + perform the rest of the maneuvers that are indispensable. + + 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. + + 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. + +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 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. + +In these three principal groups were forty-one field pieces, the +glorious remainder of the Serbian artillery. + +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. + +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, 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. + +Since this was the case, a French trawler, the _Verdun_, commanded by +Lieutenant d'Aubarede, 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. + +In twenty-two days everything was almost over. The troops at San +Giovanni and Valona and Durazzo had been evacuated, as had the +Austrian prisoners. All the money of the Serbian treasury had been +transported to Marseilles in the cruiser _Ernest Renan_. It amounted +to about eight hundred million francs. + +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. + +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 _Marceau_, Ensigns +Couillaud and Auge, who commanded the little trawlers _Petrel_ and +_Marie-Rose_. He ordered them to return once more to San Giovanni and +bring back with them all they could. + +"You must succeed and you will succeed," Captain Cacqueray said +simply. + +Some few minutes later the two trawlers were out in the Adriatic, +headed for San Giovanni. Here we must quote Ensign Auge's words. He +commanded the _Marie-Rose_, and we must be satisfied with citing from +the eloquent brevity of the ship's log: + + 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 _Brindisi_, 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. + + An empty sailboat was moored to the end of the wharf, which + facilitated our operations. The _Petrel_, 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 _Petrel_, and the + carriage and wheels on the _Marie-Rose_, whose hatch was + wider. The beginning was slow, but, after the second cannon, + the embarking went along smoothly. + + 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 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 _Petrel_ 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. + + 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 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 Auge, Commander of the + _Marie-Rose_.) + +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 _Petrel_ and the _Marie-Rose_ started on +the final trip. Will they arrive in time? Probably not. In the +mountains that 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. + +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. + +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 +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. + + At four-fifty in the afternoon [writes Ensign Auge] 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 know what is happening. So much the worse. The most + dangerous thing would be to stop. Let us go on. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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: + +"We are grateful to everyone, but Serbia's heart will remain attached +through all centuries to come to France." + +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. + +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. + + + + +IV + +THE WAR AIMS OF FRANCE + + +A French statesman, Mr. Louis Barthou, has summed up the War aims of +France in the three words: "Restitution, Reparation, Guarantees." + +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. + +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?" + +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. + +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. + +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: + + 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. + +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! + +Historically speaking, there are in Alsace-Lorraine three parts: there +is Lorraine, there is Alsace, and there is the southern part of +Alsace including the town of Mulhouse. + +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 _Conseil des Cinq-Cents_, and the +delegation expressed publicly, officially, the desire of Mulhouse to +be part of the French territory. There was a deliberation, and +unanimously the _Conseil des Cinq-Cents_ voted a motion couched in the +following terms: "_The French Republic accepts the vow of the citizens +of Mulhouse._" + +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." + +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: + + The Emperor cedes to the King of France forever, _in + perpetuum_, 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. + +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! + +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 1701 Count Schmettau, +ambassador of Prussia in Paris, wrote to his king: + +"_We cannot take Alsace, because it is well known that her inhabitants +are more French than the Parisians_...." + +Could anything answer better the affirmation that "Alsatians are of +German tendency?" + +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: "_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._" 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. + +All this is extremely simple and clear. What happened several +centuries later is equally clear. + +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: + + 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. + +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 Bishop of Strasbourg, but +they unanimously signed a declaration which was read at the Tribune of +the German Reichstag. The declaration was the following: + + 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. + + 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. + +I beg to call the attention of the reader to two sentences of this +protestation: + +"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 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." + +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. + +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? + +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, by their elected deputies, when they +unanimously protested against the German annexation. + +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. + +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. + +And finally the referendum was rendered only one year before the +present war, in 1913, when 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? + +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. + +"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." + +And, three days later, using nearly the same words, President Wilson, +in his luminous message to Congress, said: "_The wrong done to France +by 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._" + +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. + +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 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 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." + +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 +Deroulede have been executed: + + When our war victorious is o'er, + And our country has won back its rank, + Then with the evils war brings in its train + Will disappear the hatred the conqueror trails. + + Then our great France, full of love without spite + Sowing fresh springing-corn 'neath her new-born laurels, + Will welcome Work, father of Fortune, + And sing Peace, mother of lengthy deeds. + + Then will come Peace, calm, serene, and awful, + Crushing down arms, but upholding intellect; + For we shall stand out as just-hearted conquerors, + Only taking back what was robbed from us. + + And our nation, weary of mourning, + Will soothe the living while praising the dead, + And nevermore will we hear the name of battle + And our children shall learn to unlearn hate. + +Just as France will not accept peace without restitution, she will not +accept peace without reparation. + +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. + +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. + +Every chateau in the north of France, places 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. + +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 +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: + +"The price," exclaimed the Grand Duke, "there's nothing for me to pay +for! Everything here belongs to me." + +But the owner protested, since, as he said, he did own the goods. + +"Here," said the Grand Duke, "this will pay you for them." + +And he handed the man his card with the words "good for so many +francs" written on it; also his signature. + +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. + +The great cities of Lille, Roubaix, Tourcoing, Laon and Mezieres 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. + + * * * * * + +Finally, just as France cannot make peace without receiving +restitution and reparation, she cannot make peace without receiving +certain guarantees. + +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 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. + +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, 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. + +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. + +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. + +He has done better than that, for he has swept aside certain factors +which would have made it 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." + +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! + +Certain hasty critics have observed neither the same prudence nor +logic as President Wilson. They have been farther from the truth, much +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. + +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: + + 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. 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. + + 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." + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + And it is impossible to doubt that the present situation of + the war would have been decidedly different from what it is + today. + +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 reenforced skyscraper is a +cardboard column liable to fall with the first push that is given it? + +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. + +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 +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 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 Liege 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? + +"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 Bethmann-Hollweg, in the Reichstag, cynically +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? + +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? + +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 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? + +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 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? + +Glance over these articles--and let us see how they have been applied: + + ARTICLE 4 provides that "_prisoners of war must be humanely + treated. All their personal belongings, except arms, horses, + and military papers, remain their property_." 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. + + ARTICLE 6 says that "_the state may employ as workmen the + prisoners of war_," but it is careful in stipulating "_that + the work must not be excessive and must have nothing + whatever to do with operations of war_." ARTICLE 7 says + that "_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_." 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. + + ARTICLES 23, 25, 27, and 28 are so interesting that they + must be quoted _in extenso_: + + ARTICLE 23. In _addition to the prohibitions provided by + special conventions, it is especially forbidden_: + + (a) _To employ poison or poisoned weapons._ + + (c) _To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his + arms, or having no longer means of defense, has surrendered + at discretion._ + + (d) _To declare that no quarter will be given._ + + (e) _To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to + cause unnecessary suffering._ + + (f) _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._ + + (g) _To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such + destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the + necessities of war._ + + (h) _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._ + + ARTICLE 25. _The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, + of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are + undefended is prohibited._ + + ARTICLE 27. _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._ + + ARTICLE 28. _The pillage of a town or place, even when taken + by assault, is prohibited._ + + It seems that the men of The Hague, when they 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. + + 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." + + 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." + + It was forbidden to pillage a town or locality, even when + taken by assault. And on the corpse of the German private + Handschumacher (of the Eleventh Battalion of Jaegers, + 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." + + 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 _Berlin Tageblatt_, of November 26, 1914, + implicitly avowed it when, in a technical article on the + military treasury ("_Der Zahlmeister im Felde_"), 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 _vice versa_." + + ARTICLE 50 of this Hague Convention states that "_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_." Side by side with this article, it is + interesting to reproduce an extract from a proclamation of + General von Buelow, posted up at Liege 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 + Grivegnee 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." + + ARTICLE 56 of the Hague Convention provides that "_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. 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._" + + 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. + +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. + +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 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? + +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. + +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. + +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. 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. + +Now we are not building this upon sand, but upon a foundation of solid +rock. + +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 +12,600 millions, an increase of nearly one hundred per cent. + +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 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? + +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. + +There will be no lasting peace until the most 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. + +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 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. + + * * * * * + + + + +APPENDICES + + +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. + + + + +APPENDIX I + +HOW GERMANS FORCED WAR ON FRANCE + + +Answering to the Pope, in September, 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II declared +"_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_." More recently, driving through the battlefield of Cambrai, +the Kaiser, according to the war correspondent of the Berlin +_Lokalanzeiger_, exclaimed: "God knows what I have not done to prevent +such a war!" + +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." + +Speaking at the Sorbonne, in Paris, on March 1, 1918, M. Pichon said: + + 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. + + We have known only recently of its authenticity, and it + defies any sort of attempt to disprove it. It bears the + signature of Bethmann Hollweg (German Imperial Chancellor at + the outbreak of the war) and the date July 31, 1914. 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. + + What was unknown until today was that the telegram of the + German Chancellor containing these instructions ended with + these words: + + _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._ + +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! + +It was explained that the above document has not previously been +published, because the code could not be deciphered: the French +Foreign Office succeeded only a few days before in decodifying the +document. + +Moreover, Herr von Bethmann 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." + + + + +APPENDIX II + +HOW GERMANS TREAT AN AMBASSADOR + + +This document is quoted from the French "Yellow Book," page 152: + + _From Copenhagen_ + _French Yellow Book No. 155_ + + M. Bapst, French Minister at Copenhagen, to + M. Doumergue, Minister for Foreign Affairs. + + COPENHAGEN, AUGUST 6, 1914. + + The French Ambassador at Berlin, M. Jules Cambon, asks me to + communicate to your Excellency the following telegram: + + 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 Charge d'Affaires at + Darmstadt with his family. The treatment which we have + received is of such a nature that I have thought it + desirable to make a complete report on it to your Excellency + by telegram. + + 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: + + "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. + + "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." + + 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. + + 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. + + "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 + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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 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. + + 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 Hotel Bristol to send our meals to + the Embassy. + + 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: + + "BERLIN, AUGUST 3rd, 1914. + + "M. LE BARON; + + "I have been thinking over the route for my return + to my country about which you came to 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. + + "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. + + "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. + + "JULES CAMBON." + + 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. + + 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. + + 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." + + I at once wrote to Herr von Jagow a letter of which the + following is a copy: + + BERLIN, AUGUST 4, 1914. + + "SIR: + + "More than once your Excellency has said to me that + the Imperial Government, in accordance 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. + + "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. + + "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 made me + reject this proposal with the approval of Herr von + Langwerth. + + "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. + + "JULES CAMBON." + + 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. + + At the station the Ministry for Foreign Affairs was only + represented by an officer of inferior rank. + + 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 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 Charge d'Affaires, the women and children and + everyone were subjected to the same treatment. + + 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. + + "WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 5, 1914. + + "SIR: + + "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. + + "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. + + "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 + facing each one of us, stood a soldier, revolver in + hand, finger on the trigger, for nearly half an hour. + + "I consider it my duty to 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. + + "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. + + "JULES CAMBON." + + 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 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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 have + been rendered to the Government of the Republic, in + particular by the Secretaries of the Embassy and by the + Military and Naval Attaches. + + JULES CAMBON. + + + + +APPENDIX III + +HOW GERMANS ARE WAGING WAR + + +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. + +All evidence and proceedings have been printed and fill up ten heavy +volumes. + +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. + + * * * * * + +Duren Virginie, wife of Berard Durem, 29 years of age, inhabitant of +Jarny in the Department of Meurthe et Moselle, a refugee at +Levallois-Perret: + + I swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. + + 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, 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. + + While these things were taking place, the Perignon family, + which lived next door to us, was massacred. + + 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." + + 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 Come," the soldiers said to + her, "Shut your mouth." His execution took place very near + us. + + 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." + + The next day, in my flight to Barriere 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. + + + + +APPENDIX IV + +HOW GERMANS OCCUPY THE TERRITORY OF AN ENEMY + + +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. + + 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. + + 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 + 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). + + 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. + + 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. + + ETAPPEN--KOMMANDANTUR + +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 _receveur particulier_ of Lille, to M. Cambon, +formerly the French Ambassador to Berlin: + + 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. + + 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 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. + + 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 Liberte!" and singing the + Marseillaise. They cheered up those who remained; their poor + mothers who were weeping, and 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. + +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. + + HOLNON, 20th July, 1915. + + 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:-- + + 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 six months and every third day their + nourishment shall be only bread and water. + + 2.--Lazy women shall be exiled to Holnon to work. After the + harvest the women will be imprisoned six months. + + 3.--The children who do not work shall be punished with + blows from a club. + + Furthermore, the commandant reserves the right to punish men + who do not work with twenty blows from a club daily. + + Workmen in the Commune of Verdelles have been punished + severely. + + (Signed) GLOSE, + COLONEL AND COMMANDANT. + + + + +APPENDIX V + +HOW GERMANS TREAT ALSACE-LORRAINE + + +Von 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. + +The following picture shows how this _German_ province is treated by +Germany: + + +_Treatment of the Civilian Population_ + +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. + +An inhabitant of Alsace-Lorraine can not mail his letters in Germany. +For example, Wissembourg is on the border of the Palatinate. There 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. + +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. + +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. + +The _Nouvelle Gazette_ 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: + + 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 _Kreisdirection_ 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. + + 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. + +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. + +The great deportations which have been practiced in France and Belgium +have been repeated in Alsace as recently as January, 1917. The +inhabitants of Muelhausen 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. + +This proceeding has been practiced on a large scale since the war's +beginning. Preventive imprisonment, called _Schutzhaft_, 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 _Le Matin_, 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. + +The Germans themselves have been so demoralized by the regime they +have established that the authorities have had to put a check on +anonymous denunciations, almost all of which were false, by an +official communique published in the _Gazette de Hagenau_ for the +sixth of December, 1916. + +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. + +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: + +M. Giessmann, an old man seventy years old, saluted French prisoners +in a Strassburg street: Sentence, six weeks in prison. + +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. + +Emilie Zimmerle, a cook at Kolmar, sang an anti-German song as she +washed out her pots. Thirty marks fine. + +Mlle. Stern, the daughter of a pastor at Mulhouse, spoke against the +violation of Belgium. One month in prison. + +Abbe Theophile Selier, cure at Levencourt, for the same offense, six +weeks in prison. + +Even children and young girls have been punished for peccadillos that +were absolutely untrue. + +The _Metz Zeitung_ 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." + +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." + +Two little girls of Kolmar, named Grass and Broly, were arrested for +"having answered, by waving their hands, kisses French prisoners threw +to them." + +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." + +On the thirtieth of March, 1916, two sisters from Guebwiller--Sister +Edwina, nee Bach, Mother Superior, and Sister Emertine, nee Eckert, +were charged with anti-German manifestations for having treated as +lies the figures regarding French and Russian prisoners sent out in +the German communiques, 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, "How can they attack a country that asked +for nothing?" + +The result was that they got six months' imprisonment. + +The case of Mme. Berthe Judlin, in the faith Sister Valentine, is more +tragic. + +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. + +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 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." + + +_The War on the French Language_ + +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. + +The fact that a person speaks French has become a special offense, +that of "provocation." And this offense appears to be a frequent one. + +On the twenty-second of February, 1916, the sous-prefect of Boulay +gave the following warning to the mayors of his arrondissement: + + 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. + +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. + +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." + +A little girl from Bourg-Bruche who, although she spoke German, used +the French language in spite of repeated warnings, had a sentence of +detention inflicted on her by the same tribunal. + +The Mulhouse _Tageblatt_ 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. + +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. + +The _Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung_ 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." + +Twenty and thirty marks fine to Amelie Bany and Catherine Jacques of +Knutange "for having spoken French although they understood German." + +The Mayor of Broque, a commune where French is spoken, was sentenced +to three months' imprisonment for having spoken French to his +councilors. + +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. + +An order from the Statthalter, dated March tenth, 1915, forbade French +conversations in the schools. + +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. + +The war against the French language has been marked by the suppression +of all French newspapers since the war's beginning, the _Journal +d'Alsace-Lorraine_, the _Messin_, _the Nouvelliste d'Alsace-Lorraine_. +But nothing shows better the necessity of having organs of public +opinion in French than the establishment at Metz of the _Gazette +d'Alsace-Lorraine_ by the government, which served as a model for the +_Gazette des Ardennes_, founded later on at Mezieres, to demoralize +the inhabitants of the invaded districts in the north and west of +France. + + +_The Treatment of the Soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine_ + +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. + +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." + +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." + +The movement has never stopped. During the thirty-second month of the +war, on the fourteenth of March, 1917, General von Nassner, +commandant for the district of Saarbruck, published the following +extraordinary order: + +"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." + +The Strassburg _Neueste Nachrichten_ for the twenty-seventh of +September announced that the "_chambre correctionnelle_ 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." + +The _Oberelsaessische Landeszeitung_ 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. + +The _Haguenauer Zeitung_ from the eleventh to 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. + +On the twenty-fifth of October there was another list of deserters, +nineteen of whom were natives of Strassburg. + +In his book, "The Martyrs of Alsace and Lorraine," M. Andre 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. + +Besides, far from treating the Alsatians enrolled in the German Army +like Germans, the government has accorded them a distinctly different +treatment. + +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: + + 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. + + FOR THE STELLVERT, GENERAL KOMMANDO RADECKE, MAJOR. + +Finally, it was only on the ninth of October, 1917, that the +Strassburg _Neue Zeitung_ announced the abolition of the special +postal control to which the soldiers from Alsace-Lorraine were +submitted at the front. + + It is but just [says the _Freie Presse_ 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. + +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. + +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 Vize Sergeant, flanked by two guards. + +The former said to them: + +"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." + +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. + +Later on another lieutenant ordered the Vize Sergeant to "train the +Alsatians well. They are all robbers and traitors." + +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. + + +_The Sequestration of Property_ + +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. + +In fact the local newspapers contain lists of sequestrations that are +almost as long as the lists of deserters. + +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 reenter the +German Empire, orders they had no possible chance of obeying, but +which gave the imperial government an easy pretext for pronouncing +their denationalization and the confiscation of their property. + +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. + +On the twenty-fourth of August, 1916, _Les Dernieres Nouvelles de +Strasbourg_, advertised the sale under the hammer of the properties of +Prince de Tonnay-Charente, situated at Hambourg and consisting of a +splendid chateau, furnished in Louis Fourteenth style, Gobelin +tapestries of great value, family portraits, green houses, outhouses, +ponds, farms, etc., etc. + +The Strassburg _Post_ for the twenty-ninth of October announced the +liquidation sale of Cite 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' quarters, garden, surrounded by twenty-eight hectares of +fields." + +The same paper for the fourth of October announces the sale of the +famous chateau of Robertsau, the property of Mme. Loys-Chandieu, nee +Pourtales, with two hundred and thirty hectares of farm land and one +hundred and thirty hectares of forest. + +The _Metzer Zeitung_ for the twentieth of October announced the +liquidation of twenty properties in the Moyeuvre Grande district, and +of eleven in that of Sierek. + +Many people have obviously been covetous of these French possessions. + +On this subject curious letters and unceasing polemics appeared in the +Alsatian newspapers. + +Certain interested persons complained (_Strassburger Post_ 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 prices for these sales there ought to +be a large number of bidders. + +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 +chateau, 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?" + +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 +reestablished in the future." + +To these complaints and wrongs the _Strassburger Post_ for the eighth +of November replied in detail. + +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. + +This catalogue was quickly used up and the demand for it continued to +come in, which proved that the buyers were informed in time. + +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. + +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 the war. In industrial matters, there was recently +founded in Berlin a German syndicate which proposes to buy up the +actions. + +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." + +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. + + + + +APPENDIX VI + +HOW GERMANS UNDERSTAND FUTURE PEACE + + +If an account is desired of the manner in which the Germans understand +a future peace, this letter suffices. It was addressed to the +_Berliner Lokalanzeiger_ by Herr Walter Rathenau. He was in charge of +the direction of all industrial establishments in Germany: + + 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. + + On the lessons taught by actual war we must figure out + carefully what our country lacks in raw materials and + accumulate great stores of these which shall never be + utilized until _Der Tag_ 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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 advantageous to their commercial interests to + carry on commerce with none of the belligerents and not to + sell them munitions. + + 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. + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes + +Pg. 6, Sunday, 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.) + +Pg. 7, unforgetable changed to unforgettable. (It recalled the +unforgettable scenes.) + +Pg. 14, thirteenth changed to thirtieth, per context (when Sunday the +thirtieth of August came). + +Pg. 14, week changed to weeks. (For several weeks our troops) + +Pg. 54, beseiged and beseiger 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) + +Pg. 88, removed ending double quotes. (I feel better for it.') + +Pg. 90, mobolization changed to mobilization (priests who went off at +the beginning of the mobilization). + +Pg. 100, sum of artillery kilos do not equal Total kilos. Left as +original. + +Pg. 108, tetragon changed to tarragon (16,900 tarragon plants). + +Pg. 162, catastrophies changed to catastrophes (irremediable +catastrophes could be avoided?). + +Pgs. 163, 206, Bethmann-Hollweg, hyphenation inconsistent with +Pgs. 180, 182, Bethmann Hollweg. Kept as in original. + +Pg. 167, ARTICLE 23 has no (b) paragraph. + +Pg. 193, protect changed to protest to reflect the actual letter (I +consider it my duty to protest against this threat of violence to the +Ambassador). + +Pg. 219, correstionnelle changed to correctionelle ("_chambre +correctionnelle_ at Kolmar). + +Pg. 229, Appendix VI, added HOW to title to match Table of Contents +and make it consistent with rest of Appendices. + + + + + + + + + +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.txt or 18483.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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