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diff --git a/old/10099.txt b/old/10099.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d804d6e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10099.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5363 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Towards The Goal, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +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: Towards The Goal + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: November 16, 2003 [EBook #10099] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOWARDS THE GOAL *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +TOWARDS THE GOAL + + +By MRS. HUMPHRY WARD +Author of "ENGLAND'S EFFORT," etc. + + + +With an introduction by +THE HON. THEODORE ROOSEVELT + +1917 + + +To +ANDRE CHEVRILLON +True Son of France +True Friend of England +I dedicate this book. + + + +INTRODUCTION + +England has in this war reached a height of achievement loftier than +that which she attained in the struggle with Napoleon; and she has +reached that height in a far shorter period. Her giant effort, crowned +with a success as wonderful as the effort itself, is worthily described +by the author of this book. Mrs. Ward writes nobly on a noble theme. + +This war is the greatest the world has ever seen. The vast size of the +armies, the tremendous slaughter, the loftiness of the heroism shown, +and the hideous horror of the brutalities committed, the valour of the +fighting men, and the extraordinary ingenuity of those who have designed +and built the fighting machines, the burning patriotism of the people +who defend their hearthstones, and the far-reaching complexity of the +plans of the leaders--all are on a scale so huge that nothing in past +history can be compared with them. The issues at stake are elemental. +The free peoples of the world have banded together against tyrannous +militarism and government by caste. It is not too much to say that the +outcome will largely determine, for daring and liberty-loving souls, +whether or not life is worth living. A Prussianised world would be as +intolerable as a world ruled over by Attila or by Timur the Lame. + +It is in this immense world-crisis that England has played her part; a +part which has grown greater month by month. Mrs. Ward enables us to see +the awakening of the national soul which rendered it possible to play +this part; and she describes the works by which the faith of the soul +justified itself. + +What she writes is of peculiar interest to the United States. We have +suffered, or are suffering, in exaggerated form, from most (not all) of +the evils that were eating into the fibre of the British character three +years ago--and in addition from some purely indigenous ills of our own. +If we are to cure ourselves it must be by our own exertions; our destiny +will certainly not be shaped for us, as was Germany's, by a few towering +autocrats of genius, such as Bismarck and Moltke. Mrs. Ward shows us the +people of England in the act of curing their own ills, of making good, +by gigantic and self-sacrificing exertion in the present, the folly and +selfishness and greed and soft slackness of the past. The fact that +England, when on the brink of destruction, gathered her strength and +strode resolutely back to safety, is a fact of happy omen for us in +America, who are now just awaking to the folly and selfishness and greed +and soft slackness that for some years we have been showing. + +As in America, so in England, a surfeit of materialism had produced a +lack of high spiritual purpose in the nation at large; there was much +confusion of ideas and ideals; and also much triviality, which was +especially offensive when it masqueraded under some high-sounding name. +An unhealthy sentimentality--the antithesis of morality--has gone hand +in hand with a peculiarly sordid and repulsive materialism. The result +was a soil in which various noxious weeds flourished rankly; and of +these the most noxious was professional pacificism. The professional +pacificist has at times festered in the diseased tissue of almost every +civilisation; but it is only within the last three-quarters of a century +that he has been a serious menace to the peace of justice and +righteousness. In consequence, decent citizens are only beginning to +understand the base immorality of his preaching and practice; and he has +been given entirely undeserved credit for good intentions. In England as +in the United States, domestic pacificism has been the most potent ally +of alien militarism. And in both countries the extreme type has shown +itself profoundly unpatriotic. The damage it has done the nation has +been limited only by its weakness and folly; those who have professed it +have served the devil to the full extent which their limited powers +permitted. + +There were in England--just as there are now in America--even worse foes +to national honour and efficiency. Greed and selfishness, among +capitalists and among labour leaders, had to be grappled with. The +sordid baseness which saw in the war only a chance for additional money +profits to the employer was almost matched by the fierce selfishness +which refused to consider a strike from any but the standpoint of +the strikers. + +But the chief obstacle to be encountered in rousing England was sheer +short-sightedness. A considerable time elapsed before it was possible to +make the people understand that this was a people's war, that it was a +matter of vital personal concern to the people as a whole, and to all +individuals as individuals. In America we are now encountering much the +same difficulties, due to much the same causes. + +In England the most essential thing to be done was to wake the people to +their need, and to guide them in meeting the need. The next most +essential was to show to them, and to the peoples in friendly lands, +whether allied or neutral, how the task was done; and this both as a +reason for just pride in what had been achieved and as an inspiration to +further effort. + +Mrs. Ward's books--her former book and her present one--accomplish both +purposes. Every American who reads the present volume must feel a hearty +and profound respect for the patriotism, energy, and efficiency shown by +the British people when they became awake to the nature of the crisis; +and furthermore, every American must feel stirred with the desire to see +his country now emulate Britain's achievement. + +In this volume Mrs. Ward draws a wonderful picture of the English in the +full tide of their successful effort. From the beginning England's naval +effort and her money effort have been extraordinary. By the time Mrs. +Ward's first book was written, the work of industrial preparedness was +in full blast; but it could yet not be said that England's army in the +field was the equal of the huge, carefully prepared, thoroughly +coordinated military machines of those against whom and beside whom it +fought. Now, the English army is itself as fine and as highly efficient +a military machine as the wisdom of man can devise; now, the valour and +hardihood of the individual soldier are being utilised to the full under +a vast and perfected system which enables those in control of the great +engine to use every unit in such fashion as to aid in driving the mass +forward to victory. + +Even the Napoleonic contest was child's play compared to this. Never has +Great Britain been put to such a test. Never since the spacious days of +Elizabeth has she been in such danger. Never, in any crisis, has she +risen to so lofty a height of self-sacrifice and achievement. In the +giant struggle against Napoleon, England's own safety was secured by the +demoralisation of the French fleet. But in this contest the German naval +authorities have at their disposal a fleet of extraordinary efficiency, +and have devised for use on an extended scale the most formidable and +destructive of all instruments of marine warfare. In previous coalitions +England has partially financed her continental allies; in this case the +expenditures have been on an unheard-of scale, and in consequence +England's industrial strength, in men and money, in business and +mercantile and agricultural ability, has been drawn on as never before. +As in the days of Marlborough and Wellington, so now, England has sent +her troops to the continent; but whereas formerly her expeditionary +forces, although of excellent quality, were numerically too small to be +of primary importance, at present her army is already, by size as well +as by excellence, a factor of prime importance, in the military +situation; and its relative as well as absolute importance is +steadily growing. + +And to her report of the present stage of Great Britain's effort in the +war, Mrs. Ward has added some letters describing from her own personal +experience the ruin wrought by the Germans in towns like Senlis and +Gerbeviller, and in the hundreds of villages in Northern, Central, and +Eastern France that now lie wrecked and desolate. And she has told in +detail, and from the evidence of eye-witnesses, some of the piteous +incidents of German cruelty to the civilian population, which are +already burnt into the conscience of Europe, and should never be +forgotten till reparation has been made. + +Mrs. Ward's book is thus of high value as a study of contemporary +history. It is of at least as high value as an inspiration to +constructive patriotism. + +THEODORE ROOSEVELT. + +SAGAMORE HILLS, + +_May 1st_, 1917. + + + +CONTENTS + + +No. 1 + +England's Effort--Rapid March of Events--The Work of the Navy--A Naval +Base--What the Navy has done--The Jutland Battle--The Submarine +Peril--German Lies--Shipbuilding--Disciplined Expectancy--Crossing the +Channel--The Minister of Munitions--Dr. Addison--Increase of +Munitions--A Gigantic Task--Arrival in France--German Prisoners--A Fat +Factory--A Use for Everything--G.H.Q.--Intelligence Department--"The +Issue of the War"--An Aerodrome--The Task of the Aviators--The +Visitors' Chateau. + + +No. 2 + +A French School--Our Soldiers and French Children--Nissen Huts--Tanks--A +Primeval Plough--A Division on the March--Significant Preparations +--Increase of Ammunition--"The Fosses"--A Sacred Spot--Vimy +Ridge--The Sound of the Guns--A Talk with a General--Why the Germans +Retreat--Growth of the New Armies--Soldiers at School. + + +No. 3 + +America Joins the Allies--The British Effort--Creating an Army--_L'Union +Sacree_--Registration--Accommodation--Clothing--Arms and Equipment--A +Critical Time--A Long-continued Strain--Training--O.T.C.'S--Boy +Officers--The First Three Armies--Our Wonderful Soldiers--An Advanced +Stage--The Final Result--Spectacle of the Present--Snipers and +Anti-snipers--The Result. + + +No. 4 + +Vimy Ridge--The _Morale_ of our Men--Mons. le Maire--Ubiquitous +Soldiers--The Somme--German Letters--German Prisoners--Amiens--"Taking +Over" a Line--Poilus and Tommies--"Taking Over" Trenches--French +Trenches--Unnoticed Changes--Amiens Cathedral--German Prisoners +--Confidence. + + +No. 5 + +German Fictions--Winter Preparation--Albert--La Boisselle and +Ovillers--In the Track of War--Regained Ground--Enemy +Preparations--German Dug-outs--"There were no Stragglers" +--Contalmaison--Devastation--Retreating Germans--Death, +Victory, Work--Work of the R.E.--A Parachute--Approaching Victory. + + +No. 6 + +German Retreat--Enemy Losses--Need of Artillery--Awaiting the +Issue--Herr Zimmermann--Training--A National Idea--Training--Fighting +for Peace--Stubbornness and Discipline--Training of Officers +--Responsibility--The British Soldier--Soldiers' Humour--A Boy +Hero--"They have done their job"--Casualties--Reconnaissance--Air +Fighting--Use of Aeroplanes--Terms of Peace. + + +No. 7 + +Among the French--German Barbarities--Beauty of France--French +Families--Paris--To Senlis--Senlis--The Cure of Senlis--The German +Occupation--August 30th, 1914--Germans in Senlis--German Brutality--A +Savage Revenge--A Burning City--Murder of the Mayor--The Cure in the +Cathedral--The Abbe's Narrative--False Charges--Wanton Destruction--A +Sudden Change--Return of the French--Ermenonville--Scenes of +Battle--Vareddes. + + +No. 8 + +Battle of the Ourcq--Von Kluck's Mistake--Anniversary of the +Battle--Wreckage of War--A Burying Party--A Funeral--A Five Days' +Battle--Life-and-Death Fighting--"_Salut au Drapeau_"--Meaux +--Vareddes--Murders at Vareddes--Von Kluck's Approach--The +Turn of the Tide--The Old Cure--German Brutalities--Torturers +--The Cure's Sufferings--"He is a Spy"--A Weary March--Outrages +--Victims--Reparation--To Lorraine. + + +No. 9 + +Epernay-Chalons--Snow--Nancy--The French People--_L'Union +Sacree_--France and England--Nancy--Hill of Leomont--The Grand +Couronne--The Lorraine Campaign--Taubes--Vitrimont--Miss Polk--A +Restored Church--Society of Friends--Gerbeviller--Soeur +Julie--Mortagne--An Inexpiable Crime--Massacre of Gerbeviller--"Les +Civils ont tire"--Soeur Julie--The Germans come--German +Wounded--Barbarities in Hospital--Soeur Julie and Germans--The French +Return--Germans at Nancy--Nancy saved--A Warm Welcome--Adieu to Lorraine + + +No. 10 + +Doctrine of Force--Disciplined Cruelty--German Professors--Professor von +Gierke--An Orgy of Crime--Return Home--Russia--The Revolution--Liberty +like Young Wine--What will Russia do?--America joins--America and +France--The British Advance--British Successes--The Italians--A +Soldier's Letter--Aircraft and Guns--The German Effort--April +Hopes--Submarines--Tradition of the Sea--Last Threads--The Food +Situation--More Arable Land--Village Patriotism--Food Prices--The Labour +Outlook--Finance--Messines--The Tragedy of War--A Celtic Legend--Europe +and America + + + +TOWARDS THE GOAL + +No. 1 + +_March 24th, 1917._ + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--It may be now frankly confessed--(you, some time +ago, gave me leave to publish your original letter, as it might seem +opportune)--that it was you who gave the impulse last year, which led to +the writing of the first series of Letters on "England's Effort" in the +war, which were published in book form in June 1916. Your appeal--that I +should write a general account for America of the part played by England +in the vast struggle--found me in our quiet country house, busy with +quite other work, and at first I thought it impossible that I could +attempt so new a task as you proposed to me. But support and +encouragement came from our own authorities, and like many other +thousands of English women under orders, I could only go and do my best. +I spent some time in the Munition areas, watching the enormous and rapid +development of our war industries and of the astonishing part played in +it by women; I was allowed to visit a portion of the Fleet, and finally, +to spend twelve days in France, ten of them among the great supply bases +and hospital camps, with two days at the British Headquarters, and on +the front, near Poperinghe, and Richebourg St. Vaast. + +The result was a short book which has been translated into many foreign +tongues--French, Italian, Dutch, German, Russian, Portuguese, and +Japanese--which has brought me many American letters from many different +States, and has been perhaps most widely read of all among our own +people. For we all read newspapers, and we all forget them! In this vast +and changing struggle, events huddle on each other, so that the new +blurs and wipes out the old. There is always room--is there not?--for +such a personal narrative as may recall to us the main outlines, and the +chief determining factors of a war in which--often--everything seems to +us in flux, and our eyes, amid the tumult of the stream, are apt to lose +sight of the landmarks on its bank, and the signs of the +approaching goal. + +And now again--after a year--I have been attempting a similar task, with +renewed and cordial help from our authorities at home and abroad. And I +venture to address these new Letters directly to yourself, as to that +American of all others to whom this second chapter on England's Effort +may look for sympathy. Whither are we tending--your country and mine? +Congress meets on April 1st. Before this Letter reaches you great +decisions will have been taken. I will not attempt to speculate. The +logic of facts will sweep our nations together in some sort of intimate +union--of that I have no doubt. + +How much further, then, has Great Britain marched since the Spring of +last year--how much nearer is she to the end? One can but answer such +questions in the most fragmentary and tentative way, relying for the +most part on the opinions and information of those who know, those who +are in the van of action, at home and abroad, but also on one's own +personal impressions of an incomparable scene. And every day, almost, at +this breathless moment, the answer of yesterday may become obsolete. + +I left our Headquarters in France, for instance, some days before the +news of the Russian revolution reached London, and while the Somme +retirement was still in its earlier stages. Immediately afterwards the +events of one short week transformed the whole political aspect of +Europe, and may well prove to have changed the face of the war--although +as to that, let there be no dogmatising yet! But before the pace becomes +faster still, and before the unfolding of those great and perhaps final +events we may now dimly foresee, let me try and seize the impressions of +some memorable weeks and bring them to bear--so far as the war is +concerned--on those questions which, in the present state of affairs, +must interest you in America scarcely less than they interest us here. +Where, in fact, do we stand? + +Any kind of answer must begin with the Navy. For, in the case of Great +Britain, and indeed scarcely less in the case of the Allies, that is the +foundation of everything. To yourself the facts will all be +familiar--but for the benefit of those innumerable friends of the Allies +in Europe and America whom I would fain reach with the help of your +great name, I will run through a few of the recent--the ground--facts of +the past year, as I myself ran through them a few days ago, before, with +an Admiralty permit, I went down to one of the most interesting naval +bases on our coast and found myself amid a group of men engaged night +and day in grappling with the submarine menace which threatens not only +Great Britain, not only the Allies, but yourselves, and every neutral +nation. It is well to go back to these facts. They are indeed worthy of +this island nation, and her seaborn children. + +To begin with, the _personnel_ of the British Navy, which at the +beginning of the war was 140,000, was last year 300,000. This year it is +400,000, or very nearly three times what it was before the war. Then as +to ships,--"If we were strong in capital ships at the beginning of the +war"--said Mr. Balfour, last September, "we are yet stronger +now--absolutely and relatively--and in regard to cruisers and destroyers +there is absolutely no comparison between our strength in 1914 and our +strength now. There is no part of our naval strength in which we have +not got a greater supply, and in some departments an incomparably +greater supply than we had on August 4th, 1914.... The tonnage of the +Navy has increased by well over a million tons since war began." + +So Mr. Balfour, six months ago. Five months later, it fell to Sir Edward +Carson to move the naval estimates, under pressure, as we all know, of +the submarine anxiety. He spoke in the frankest and plainest language of +that anxiety, as did the Prime Minister in his now famous speech of +February 22nd, and as did the speakers in the House of Lords, Lord +Lytton, Lord Curzon and Lord Beresford, on the same date. _The attack is +not yet checked. The danger is not over._ Still again--look at some of +the facts! In two years and a quarter of war-- + + Eight million men moved across the seas--almost without mishap. + + Nine million and a half tons of explosives carried to our own armies + and those of our Allies. + + Over a million horses and mules; and-- + + Over forty-seven million gallons of petrol supplied to the armies. + + And besides, twenty-five thousand ships have been examined for + contraband of war, on the high seas, or in harbour, since the war + began. + +And at this, one must pause a moment to think--once again--what it +means; to call up the familiar image of Britain's ships, large and +small, scattered over the wide Atlantic and the approaches to the North +Sea, watching there through winter and summer, storm and fair, and so +carrying out, relentlessly, the blockade of Germany, through every +circumstance often of danger and difficulty; with every consideration +for neutral interests that is compatible with this desperate war, in +which the very existence of England is concerned; and without the +sacrifice of a single life, unless it be the lives of British sailors, +often lost in these boardings of passing ships, amid the darkness and +storm of winter seas. There, indeed, in these "wave-beaten" ships, as in +the watching fleets of the English Admirals outside Toulon and Brest, +while Napoleon was marching triumphantly about Europe, lies the root +fact of the war. It is a commonplace, but one that has been "proved upon +our pulses." Who does not remember the shock that went through +England--and the civilised world--when the first partial news of the +Battle of Jutland reached London, and we were told our own losses, +before we knew either the losses of the enemy or the general result of +the battle? It was neither fear, nor panic; but it was as though the +nation, holding its breath, realised for the first time where, for it, +lay the vital elements of being. The depths in us were stirred. We knew +in very deed that we were the children of the sea! + +And now again the depths are stirred. The development of the submarine +attack has set us a new and stern task, and we are "straitened till it +be accomplished." The great battle-ships seem almost to have left the +stage. In less than three months, 626,000 tons of British, neutral and +allied shipping have been destroyed. Since the beginning of the war +we--Great Britain--have lost over two million tons of shipping, and our +Allies and the neutrals have lost almost as much. There is a certain +shortage of food in Great Britain, and a shortage of many other things +besides. Writing about the middle of February, an important German +newspaper raised a shout of jubilation. "The whole sea was as if swept +clean at one blow"--by the announcement of the intensified "blockade" of +the first of February. So the German scribe. But again the facts shoot +up, hard and irreducible, through the sea of comment. While the German +newspapers were shouting to each other, the sea was so far from being +"swept clean," that twelve thousand ships had actually passed in and out +of British ports in the first eighteen days of the "blockade." And at +any moment during those days, at least 3,000 ships could have been found +traversing the "danger zone," which the Germans imagined themselves to +have barred. One is reminded of the _Hamburger Nachrichten_ last year, +after the Zeppelin raid in January 1916. "English industry lies in +ruins," said that astonishing print. "The sea has been swept clean," +says one of its brethren now. Yet all the while, there, in the danger +zone, whenever, by day or night, one turns one's thoughts to it, are the +three thousand ships; and there in the course of a fortnight, are the +twelve thousand ships going and coming. + +Yet all the same, as I have said before, there is danger and there is +anxiety. The neutrals--save America--have been intimidated; they are +keeping their ships in harbour; and to do without their tonnage is a +serious matter for us. Meanwhile, the best brains in naval England are +at work, and one can feel the sailors straining at the leash. In the +first eighteen days of February, there were forty fights with +submarines. The Navy talks very little about them, and says nothing of +which it is not certain. But all the scientific resources, all the +fighting brains of naval England are being brought to bear, and we at +home--well, let us keep to our rations, the only thing we can do to help +our men at sea! + +How this grey estuary spread before my eyes illustrates and illuminates +the figures I have been quoting! I am on the light cruiser of a famous +Commodore, and I have just been creeping and climbing through a +submarine. The waters round are crowded with those light craft, +destroyers, submarines, mine-sweepers, trawlers, patrol boats, on which +for the moment at any rate the fortunes of the naval war turns. And take +notice that they are all--or almost all--_new_; the very latest products +of British ship-yards. We have plenty of battle-ships, but "we must now +build, as quickly as possible, the smaller craft, and the merchant ships +we want," says Sir Edward Carson. "Not a slip in the country will be +empty during the coming months. Every rivet put into a ship will +contribute to the defeat of Germany. And 47 per cent, of the Merchant +Service have already been armed." The riveters must indeed have been +hard at work! This crowded scene carries me back to the Clyde where I +was last year, to the new factories and workshops, with their +ever-increasing throng of women, and to the marvellous work of the +ship-yards. No talk now of strikes, of a disaffected and revolutionary +minority, on the Clyde, at any rate, as there was twelve months ago. +Broadly speaking, and allowing for a small, stubborn, but insignificant +Pacifist section, the will of the nation, throughout all classes, has +become as steel--to win the war. + +Throughout England, as in these naval officers beside me, there is the +same tense yet disciplined expectancy. As we lunch and talk, on this +cruiser at rest, messages come in perpetually; the cruiser itself is +ready for the open sea, at an hour and a half's notice; the seaplanes +pass out and come in over the mouth of the harbour on their voyages of +discovery and report, and these destroyers and mine-sweepers that he so +quietly near us will be out again to-night in the North Sea, grappling +with every difficulty and facing every danger, in the true spirit of a +wonderful service, while we land-folk sleep and eat in peace;--grumbling +no doubt, with our morning newspaper and coffee, when any of the German +destroyers who come out from Zeebrugge are allowed to get home with a +whole skin. "What on earth is the Navy about?" Well, the Navy knows. +Germany is doing her very worst, and will go on doing it--for a time. +The line of defensive watch in the North Sea is long; the North Sea is a +big place; the Germans often have the luck of the street-boy who rings a +bell and runs away, before the policeman comes up. But the Navy has no +doubts. The situation, says one of my cheerful hosts, is "quite healthy" +and we shall see "great things in the coming months." We had better +leave it at that! + +Now let us look at these destroyers in another scene. It is the last day +of February, and I find myself on a military steamer, bound for a French +Port, and on my way to the British Headquarters in France. With me is +the same dear daughter who accompanied me last year as "dame secretaire" +on my first errand. The boat is crowded with soldiers, and before we +reach the French shore we have listened to almost every song--old and +new--in Tommy's repertory. There is even "Tipperary," a snatch, a ghost +of "Tipperary," intermingled with many others, rising and falling, no +one knows why, started now here, now there, and dying away again after a +line or two. It is a draft going out to France for the first time, north +countrymen, by their accent; and life-belts and submarines seem to amuse +them hugely, to judge by the running fire of chaff that goes on. But, +after a while, I cease to listen. I am thinking first of what awaits us +on the further shore, on which the lights are coming out, and of those +interesting passes inviting us to G.H.Q. as "Government Guests," which +lie safe in our handbags. And then, my thoughts slip back to a +conversation of the day before, with Dr. Addison, the new Minister of +Munitions. + +A man in the prime of life, with whitening hair--prematurely white, for +the face and figure are quite young still--and stamped, so far as +expression and aspect are concerned, by those social and humane +interests which first carried him into Parliament. I have been long +concerned with Evening Play Centres for school-children in Hoxton, one +of the most congested quarters of our East End. And seven years ago I +began to hear of the young and public-spirited doctor and man of +science, who had made himself a name and place in Hoxton, who had won +the confidence of the people crowded in its unlovely streets, had worked +for the poor, and the sick, and the children, and had now beaten the +Tory member, and was Hoxton's Liberal representative in the new +Parliament elected in January 1910, to deal with the Lords, after the +throwing out of Lloyd George's famous Budget. Once or twice since, I had +come across him in matters concerned with education--cripple schools and +the like--when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Education, +immediately before the war. And now here was the doctor, the Hunterian +Professor, the social worker, the friend of schools and school-children, +transformed into the fighting Minister of a great fighting Department, +itself the creation of the war, only second--if second--in its +importance for the war, to the Admiralty and the War Office. + +I was myself, for a fortnight of last year, the guest of the Ministry of +Munitions, while Mr. Lloyd George was still its head, in some of the +most important Munition areas; and I was then able to feel the current +of hot energy, started by the first Minister, running--not of course +without local obstacles and animosities--through an electrified England. +That was in February 1916. Then, in August, came the astonishing speech +of Mr. Montagu, on the development of the Munitions supply in one short +year, as illustrated by the happenings of the Somme battlefield. And +now, as successor to Mr. Montagu and Mr. Lloyd George, Dr. Addison sat +in the Minister's chair, continuing the story. + +What a story it is! Starting from the manufacture of guns, ammunition +and explosives, and after pushing that to incredible figures, the +necessities of its great task has led the Ministry to one forward step +after another. Seeing that the supply of munitions depends on the supply +of raw material, it is now regulating the whole mineral supply of this +country, and much of that of the Allies; it is about to work qualities +of iron ore that have never been worked before; it is deciding, over the +length and breadth of the country, how much aluminium should be allowed +to one firm, how much copper to another; it is producing steel for our +Allies as well as for ourselves; it has taken over with time the whole +Motor Transport of the war, and is now adding to it the Railway +Transport of munitions here and abroad, and is dictating meanwhile to +every engineering firm in the country which of its orders should come +first, and which last. It is managing a whole gigantic industry with +employes running into millions, half a million of them women, and +managing it under wholly new conditions of humanity and forethought; it +is housing and feeding and caring for innumerable thousands; +transforming from day to day, as by a kind of by-work, the industrial +mind and training of multitudes, and laying the foundations of a new, +and surely happier England, after the War. And, finally, it is +adjusting, with, on the whole, great success, the rival claims of the +factories and the trenches, sending more and more men from the workshops +to the fighting line, in proportion as the unskilled labour of the +country--men and women, but especially women--is drawn, more and more +widely, into the service of a dwindling amount of skilled labour, more +and more "diluted." + + * * * * * + +But the light is failing and the shore is nearing. Life-belts are taken +off, the destroyers have disappeared. We are on the quay, kindly +welcomed by an officer from G.H.Q. who passes our bags rapidly through +the Custom House, and carries us off to a neighbouring hotel for the +night, it being too late for the long drive to G.H.Q. We are in France +again!--and the great presence of the army is all about us. The quay +crowded with soldiers, the port alive with ships, the grey-blue uniforms +mingling with the khaki--after a year I see it again, and one's pulses +quicken. The vast "effort of England" which last year had already +reached so great a height, and has now, as all accounts testify, been so +incredibly developed, is here once more in visible action, before me. + +Next day, the motor arrives early, and with our courteous officer who +has charge of us, in front, we are off, first, for one of the great +camps I saw last year, and then for G.H.Q. itself. On the way, as we +speed over the rolling down country beyond the town, my eyes are keen to +catch some of the new signs of the time. Here is the first--a railway +line in process of doubling--and large numbers of men, some of them +German prisoners, working at it; typical both of the immense railway +development all over the military zone, since last year, and of the +extensive use now being made of prisoners' labour, in regions well +behind the firing line. They lift their heads, as we pass, looking with +curiosity at the two ladies in the military car. Their flat round caps +give them an odd similarity. It is as if one saw scores of the same +face, differentiated here and there by a beard. A docile hard-working +crew, by all accounts, who give no trouble, and are managed largely by +their N.C.O.'s. Are there some among them who saw the massacre at +Dinant, the terrible things in Lorraine? Their placid, expressionless +faces tell no tale. + +But the miles have flown, and here already are the long lines of the +camp. How pleasant to be greeted by some of the same officers! We go +into the Headquarters Office, for a talk. "Grown? I should think we +have!" says Colonel----. And, rapidly, he and one of his colleagues run +through some of the additions and expansions. The Training Camp has been +practically doubled, or, rather, another training camp has been added to +the one that existed last year, and both are equipped with an increased +number of special schools--an Artillery Training School, an Engineer +Training School, a Lewis Gun School, a Gas School, with an actual gas +chamber for the training of men in the use of their gas helmets,--and +others, of which it is not possible to speak. "We have put through half +a million of reinforcements since you were here last." And close upon +two million rations were issued last month! The veterinary accommodation +has been much enlarged, and two Convalescent Horse Depots have been +added--(it is good indeed to see with what kindness and thought the Army +treats its horses!). But the most novel addition to the camp has been a +Fat Factory for the production of fat,--from which comes the glycerine +used in explosives--out of all the food refuse of the camp. The fat +produced by the system, here and in England, has already provided +glycerine _far millions of eighteen-pounder shells_; the problem of camp +refuse, always a desperate one, has been solved; and as a commercial +venture the factory makes 250 per cent. profit. + +Undeterred by what we hear of the smells! we go off to see it, and the +enthusiastic manager explains the unsavoury processes by which the bones +and refuse of all the vast camp are boiled down into a white fat, that +looks _almost_ eatable, but is meant, as a matter of fact, to feed not +men but shells. Nor is that the only contribution to the fighting line +which the factory makes. All the cotton waste of the hospitals, with +their twenty thousand beds--the old dressings and bandages--come here, +and after sterilisation and disinfection go to England for gun-cotton. +Was there ever a grimmer cycle than this, by which that which feeds, and +that which heals, becomes in the end that which kills! But let me try to +forget that side of it, and remember, rather, as we leave the smells +behind, that the calcined bones become artificial manure, and go back +again into the tortured fields of France, while other bye-products of +the factory help the peasants near to feed their pigs. And anything, +however small, that helps the peasants of France in this war, comforts +one's heart. + +We climb up to the high ground of the camp for a general view before we +go on to G.H.Q. and I see it, as I saw it last year, spread under the +March sunshine, among the sand and the pines--a wonderful sight. +"Everything has grown, you see, except the staff!" says the Colonel, +smiling, as we shake hands. "But we rub along!" + +Then we are in the motor again, and at last the new G.H.Q.--how +different from that I saw last year!--rises before us. We make our way +into the town, and presently the car stops for a minute before a +building, and while our officer goes within, we retreat into a side +street to wait. But my thoughts are busy. For that building, of which +the side-front is still visible, is the brain of the British Army in +France, and on the men who work there depend the fortunes of that +distant line where our brothers and sons are meeting face to face the +horrors and foulnesses of war. How many women whose hearts hang on the +war, whose all is there, in daily and nightly jeopardy, read the words +"British Headquarters" with an involuntary lift of soul, an invocation +without words! Yet scarcely half a dozen Englishwomen in this war will +ever see the actual spot. And here it is, under my eyes, the cold March +sun shining fitfully on it, the sentry at the door, the khaki figures +passing in and out. I picture to myself the rooms within, and the news +arriving of General Gough's advance on the Ancre, of that German retreat +as to which all Europe is speculating. + +But we move on--to a quiet country house in a town garden--the +Headquarters Mess of the Intelligence Department. Here I find, among our +kind hosts, men already known to me from my visit of the year before, +men whose primary business it is to watch the enemy, who know where +every German regiment and German Commander are, who through the aerial +photography of our airmen are now acquainted with every step of the +German retreat, and have already the photographs of his second line. All +the information gathered from prisoners, and from innumerable other +sources, comes here; and the department has its eye besides on +everything that happens within the zone of our Armies in France. For a +woman to be received here is an exception--perhaps I may say an +honour--of which I am rather tremulously aware. Can I make it worth +while? But a little conversation with these earnest and able men shows +plainly that they have considered the matter like any other incident in +the day's work. _England's Effort_ has been useful; therefore I am to be +allowed again to see and write for myself; and therefore, what +information can be given me as to the growth of our military power in +France since last year will be given. It is not, of course, a question +of war correspondence, which is not within a woman's powers. But it is a +question of as much "seeing" as can be arranged for, combined with as +much first-hand information as time and the censor allow. I begin to +see my way. + +The conversation at luncheon--the simplest of meals--and during a stroll +afterwards, is thrilling indeed to us newcomers. "The coming summer's +campaign _must_ decide the issue of the war--though it may not see the +end of it." "The issue of the war"--and the fate of Europe! "An +inconclusive peace would be a victory for Germany." There is no doubt +here as to the final issue; but there is a resolute refusal to fix +dates, or prophesy details. "Man for man we are now the better army. Our +strength is increasing month by month, while that of Germany is failing. +Men and officers, who a year ago were still insufficiently trained, are +now seasoned troops with nothing to learn from the Germans; and the +troops recruited under the Military Service Act, now beginning to come +out, are of surprisingly good quality." On such lines the talk runs, and +it is over all too soon. + +Then we are in the motor again, bound for an aerodrome forty or fifty +miles away. We are late, and the last twenty-seven kilometres fly by in +thirty-two minutes! It is a rolling country, and there are steep +descents and sharp climbs, through the thickly-scattered and +characteristic villages and small old towns of the Nord, villages +crowded all of them with our men. Presently, with a start, we find +ourselves on a road which saw us last spring--a year ago, to the day. +The same blue distances, the same glimpses of old towns in the hollows, +the same touches of snow on the heights. At last, in the cold sunset +light, we draw up at our destination. The wide aerodrome stretches +before us--great hangars coloured so as to escape the notice of a Boche +overhead--with machines of all sizes, rising and landing--coming out of +the hangars, or returning to them for the night. Two of the officers in +charge meet us, and I walk round with them, looking at the various +types--some for fighting, some for observation; and understanding--what +I can! But the spirit of the men--that one can understand. "We are +accumulating, concentrating now, for the summer offensive. Of course the +Germans have been working hard too. They have lots of new and improved +machines. But when the test comes we are confident that we shall down +them again, as we did on the Somme. For us, the all-important thing is +the fighting behind the enemy lines. Our object is to prevent the German +machines from rising at all, to keep them down, while our airmen are +reconnoitering along the fighting line. Awfully dangerous work! Lots +don't come back. But what then? They will have done their job!" + +The words were spoken so carelessly that for a few seconds I did not +realise their meaning. But there was that in the expression of the man +who spoke them which showed there was no lack of realisation there. How +often I have recalled them, with a sore heart, in these recent weeks of +heavy losses in the air-service--losses due, I have no doubt, to the +special claims upon it of the German retreat. + +The conversation dropped a little, till one of my companions, with a +smile, pointed overhead. Three splendid biplanes were sailing above us, +at a great height, bound south-wards. "Back from the line!" said the +officer beside me, and we watched them till they dipped and disappeared +in the sunset clouds. Then tea and pleasant talk. The young men insist +that D. shall make tea. This visit of two ladies is a unique event. For +the moment, as she makes tea in their sitting-room, which is now full of +men, there is an illusion of home. + +Then we are off, for another fifty miles. Darkness comes on, the roads +are unfamiliar. At last an avenue and bright lights. We have reached the +Visitors' Chateau, under the wing of G.H.Q. + + + +No. 2 + +_March 31st, 1917_. + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--My first letter you will perhaps remember took us +to the Visitors' Chateau of G.H.Q. and left us alighting there, to be +greeted by the same courteous host, Captain----, who presided last year +over another Guest House far away. But we were not to sleep at the +Chateau, which was already full of guests. Arrangements had been made +for us at a cottage in the village near, belonging to the village +schoolmistress; the motor took us there immediately, and after changing +our travel-stained dresses, we went back to the Chateau for dinner. Many +guests--all of them of course of the male sex, and much talk! Some of +the guests--members of Parliament, and foreign correspondents--had been +over the Somme battlefield that day, and gave alarmist accounts of the +effects of the thaw upon the roads and the ground generally. Banished +for a time by the frost, the mud had returned; and mud, on the front, +becomes a kind of malignant force which affects the spirits of +the soldiers. + +The schoolmistress and her little maid sat up for us, and shepherded us +kindly to bed. Never was there a more strangely built little house! The +ceilings came down on our heads, the stairs were perpendicular. But +there was a stove in each room, and the beds though hard, and the floor +though bare, were scrupulously clean. In the early morning I woke up and +looked out. There had been a white frost, and the sun was just rising in +a clear sky. Its yellow light was shining on the whitewashed wall of the +next cottage, on which a large pear-tree was trained. All round were +frost-whitened plots of garden or meadow--_preaux_--with tall poplars in +the hedges cutting the morning sky. Suddenly, I heard a continuous +murmur in the room beneath me. It was the schoolmistress and her maid at +prayer. And presently the house door opened and shut. It was +Mademoiselle who had gone to early Mass. For the school was an _ecole +libre_, and the little lady who taught it was a devout Catholic. The +rich yet cold light, the frosty quiet of the village, the thin French +trees against the sky, the ritual murmur in the room below--it was like +a scene from a novel by Rene Bazin, and breathed the old, the +traditional France. + +We were to start early and motor far, but there was time before we +started for a little talk with Mademoiselle. She was full of praise for +our English soldiers, some of whom were billeted in the village. "They +are very kind to our people, they often help the women, and they never +complain." (Has the British Tommy in these parts really forgotten how to +grouse?) "I had some of your men billeted here. I could only give them a +room without beds, just the bare boards. 'You will find it hard,' I +said. 'We will get a little straw,' said the sergeant. 'That will be all +right.' Our men would have grumbled." (But I think this was +Mademoiselle's _politesse_!) "And the children are devoted to your +soldiers. I have a dear little girl in the school, nine years old. +Sometimes from the window she sees a man in the street, a soldier who +lodges with her mother. Then I cannot hold her. She is like a wild thing +to be gone. 'Voila mon camarade!--voila mon camarade!' Out she goes, and +is soon walking gravely beside him, hand in hand, looking up at him." +"How do they understand each other?" "I don't know. But they have a +language. Your sergeants often know more French than your officers, +because they have to do the billeting and the talking to our people." + +The morning was still bright when the motor arrived, but the frost had +been keen, and the air on the uplands was biting. We speed first across +a famous battlefield, where French and English bones lie mingled below +the quiet grass, and then turn south-east. Nobody on the roads. The +lines of poplar-trees fly past, the magpies flutter from the woods, and +one might almost forget the war. Suddenly, a railway line, a steep +descent and we are full in its midst again. On our left an encampment of +Nissen huts--so called from their inventor, a Canadian officer--those +new and ingenious devices for housing troops, or labour battalions, or +coloured workers, at an astonishing saving both of time and material. In +shape like the old-fashioned beehive, each hut can be put up by four or +six men in a few hours. Everything is, of course, standardised, and the +wood which lines their corrugated iron is put together in the simplest +and quickest ways, ways easily suggested, no doubt, to the Canadian +mind, familiar with "shacks" and lumber camps. We shall come across them +everywhere along the front. But on this first occasion my attention is +soon distracted from them, for as we turn a corner beyond the hut +settlement, which I am told is that of a machine-gun detachment, there +is an exclamation from D----. + +_Tanks_! The officer in front points smiling to a field just ahead. +There is one of them--the monster!--taking its morning exercise; +practising up and down the high and almost perpendicular banks by which +another huge field is divided. The motor slackens, and we watch the +creature slowly attack a high bank, land complacently on the top, and +then--an officer walking beside it to direct its movements--balance a +moment on the edge of another bank equally high, a short distance away. +There it is!--down!--not flopping or falling, but all in the way of +business, gliding unperturbed. London is full of tanks, of course--on +the films. But somehow to be watching a real one, under the French sky, +not twenty miles from the line, is a different thing. We fall into an +eager discussion with Captain F. in front, as to the part played by them +in the Somme battle, and as to what the Germans may be preparing in +reply to them. And while we talk, my eye is caught by something on the +sky-line, just above the tank. It is a man and a plough--a plough that +might have come out of the Odyssey--the oldest, simplest type. So are +the ages interwoven; and one may safely guess that the plough--that very +type!--will outlast many generations of tanks. But, for the moment, the +tanks are in the limelight, and it is luck that we should have come upon +them so soon, for one may motor many miles about the front without +meeting with any signs of them. + +Next, a fine main road and an old town, seething with all the stir of +war. We come upon a crowded market-place, and two huge convoys passing +each other in the narrow street beyond--one, an ammunition column, into +which our motor humbly fits itself as best it can, by order of the +officer in charge of the column, and the other, a long string of +magnificent lorries belonging to the Flying Corps, which defiles past us +on the left. The inhabitants of the town, old men, women and children, +stand to watch the hubbub, with amused friendly faces. On we go, for a +time, in the middle of the convoy. The great motor lorries filled with +ammunition hem us in till the town is through, and a long hill is +climbed. At the top of it we are allowed to draw out, and motor slowly +past long lines of troops on the march; first, R.E.'s with their store +waggons, large and small; then a cyclist detachment; a machine-gun +detachment; field kitchens, a white goat lying lazily on the top of one +of them; mules, heavily laden; and Lewis guns in little carts. Then +infantry marching briskly in the keen air, while along other roads, +visible to east and west, we see other columns converging. A division, +apparently, on the march. The physique of the men, their alert and +cheerful looks, strike me particularly. This pitiless war seems to have +revealed to England herself the quality of her race. Though some credit +must be given to the physical instructors of the Army!--who in the last +twelve months especially have done a wonderful work. + +At last we turn out of the main road, and the endless columns pass away +into the distance. Again, a railway line in process of doubling; beyond, +a village, which seems to be mainly occupied by an Army Medical +detachment; then two large Casualty Clearing Stations, and a Divisional +Dressing Station. Not many wounded here at present; the section of the +line from which we are only some ten miles distant has been +comparatively quiet of late. But what preparations everywhere! What +signs of the coming storm! Hardly a minute passes as we speed along +without its significant sight; horse-lines, Army Service depots bursting +with stores,--a great dump of sandbags--another of ammunition. + +And as I look out at the piles of shells, I think of the most recent +figures furnished me by the Ministry of Munitions. Last year, when the +Somme offensive began, and when I was writing _England's Effort_, the +_weekly_ output of eighteen-pounder shells was 17-1/2 times what it was +during the first year of the war. _It is now_ 28 _times as much_. +Field howitzer ammunition has _almost doubled_ since last July. That of +medium guns and howitzers _has more than doubled_. That of the heaviest +guns of all (over six-inch) _is more than four times_ as great. By the +growth of ammunition we may guess what has been the increase in guns, +especially in those heavy guns we are now pushing forward after the +retreating Germans, as fast as roads and railway lines can be made to +carry them. The German Government, through one of its subordinate +spokesmen, has lately admitted their inferiority in guns; their retreat, +indeed, on the Somme before our pending attack, together with the state +of their old lines, now we are in and over them, show plainly enough +what they had to fear from the British guns and the abundance of British +ammunition. + +But what are these strange figures swarming beside the road--black +tousled heads and bronze faces? Kaffir "boys," at work in some quarries, +feeling the cold, no doubt, on this bright bitter day, in spite of their +long coats. They are part of that large body of native labour, Chinese, +Kaffir, Basuto, which is now helping our own men everywhere to push on +and push up, as the new labour forces behind them release more and more +of the fighting men for that dogged pursuit which is going on +_there_--in that blue distance to our right!--where the German line +swings stubbornly back, south-east, from the Vimy Ridge. + +The motor stops. This is a Headquarters, and a staff officer comes out +to greet us--a boy in looks, but a D.S.O. all the same! His small car +precedes us as a guide, and we keep up with him as best we may. These +are mining villages we are passing through, and on the horizon are some +of those pyramidal slag-heaps--the Fosses--which have seen some of the +fiercest fighting of the war. But we leave the villages behind, and are +soon climbing into a wooden upland. Suddenly, a halt. A notice-board +forbids the use of a stretch of road before us "from sun-rise to +sunset." Evidently it is under German observation. We try to find +another, parallel. But here, too, the same notice confronts us. We dash +along it, however, and my pulses run a little quicker, as I realise, +from the maps we carry, how near we are to the enemy lines which lie +hidden in the haze, eastward; and from my own eyes, how exposed is the +hillside. But we are safely through, and a little further we come to a +wood--a charming wood, to all seeming, of small trees, which in a week +or two will be full of spring leaf and flower. But we are no sooner in +it, jolting up its main track, than we understand the grimness of what +it holds. Spring and flowers have not much to say to it! For this wood +and its neighbourhood--Ablain St. Nazaire, Carency, Neuville St. +Vaast--have seen war at its cruellest; thousands of brave lives have +been yielded here; some of the dead are still lying unburied in its +furthest thickets, and men will go softly through it in the years to +come. "Stranger, go and tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here, +obedient to their will:"--the immortal words are in my ears. But how +many are the sacred spots in this land for which they speak! + +We leave the motor and walk on through the wood to the bare upland +beyond. The wood is still a wood of death, actual or potential. Our own +batteries are all about us; so too are the remains of French batteries, +from the days when the French still held this portion of the line. We +watch the gunners among the trees and presently pass an encampment of +their huts. Beyond, a high and grassy plateau--fringes of wood on either +hand. But we must not go to the edge on our right so as to look down +into the valley below. Through the thin leafless trees, however, we see +plainly the ridges that stretch eastward, one behind the other, +"suffused in sunny air." There are the towers of Mont St. Eloy--ours; +the Bertonval Wood--ours; and the famous Vimy Ridge, blue in the middle +distance, of which half is ours and half German. We are very near the +line. Notre Dame de Lorette is not very far away, though too far for us +to reach the actual spot, the famous bluff, round which the battle raged +in 1915. And now the guns begin!--the first we have heard since we +arrived. From our left--as it seemed--some distance away, came the short +sharp reports of the trench mortars, but presently, as we walked on, +guns just behind us and below us, began to boom over our heads, and we +heard again the long-drawn scream or swish of the shells, rushing on +their deadly path to search out the back of the enemy's lines in the +haze yonder, and flinging confusion on his lines of communication, his +supplies and reserves. He does not reply. He has indeed been strangely +meek of late. The reason here cannot be that he is slipping away from +our attack, as is the case farther south. The Vimy Ridge is firmly held; +it is indeed the pivot of the retreat. Perhaps to-day he is economising. +But, of course, at any moment he might reply. After a certain amount of +hammering he _must_ reply! And there are some quite fresh shell-holes +along our path, some of them not many hours old. Altogether, it is with +relief that as the firing grows hotter we turn back and pick up the +motor in the wood again. + +And yet one is loath to go! Never again shall I stand in such a +scene--never again behold those haunted ridges, and this wood of death +with the guns that hide in it! To have shared ever so little in such a +bit of human experience is for a woman a thing of awe, if one has time +to think of it. Not even groups of artillery men, chatting or completing +their morning's toilet, amid the thin trees, can dull that sense in me. +_They_ are only "strafing" Fritz or making ready to "strafe" him; they +have had an excellent midday meal in the huts yonder, and they whistle +and sing as they go about their work, disappearing sometimes into +mysterious regions out of sight. That is all there is in it for them. +They are "doing their job," like the airmen, and if a German shell finds +them in the wood, why, the German will have done _his_ job, and they +will bear no grudge. It is simple as that--for them. But to the +onlooker, they are all figures in a great design--woven into the +terrible tapestry of war, and charged with a meaning that we of this +actual generation shall never more than dimly see or understand. + +Again we rush along the exposed road and back into the mining region, +taking a westward turn. A stately chateau, and near it a smaller house, +where a General greets us. Lunch is over, for we are late, but it is +hospitably brought back for us, and the General and I plunge into talk +of the retreat, of what it means for the Germans, and what it will mean +for us. After luncheon, we go into the next room to look at the +General's big maps which show clearly how the salients run, the smaller +and the larger, from which the Germans are falling back, followed +closely by the troops of General Gough. News of the condition of the +enemy's abandoned lines is coming in fast. "Let no one make any mistake. +They have gone because they _must_--because of the power of our +artillery, which never stops hammering them, whether on the line or +behind the line, which interferes with all their communications and +supplies, and makes life intolerable. At the same time, the retreat is +being skilfully done, and will of course delay us. That was why they did +it. We shall have to push up roads, railways, supplies; the bringing up +of the heavy guns will take time, but less time than they think! Our men +are in the pink of condition!" + +On which again follows very high praise of the quality of the men now +coming out under the Military Service Act. "Yet they are conscripts," +says one of us, in some surprise, "and the rest were volunteers." "No +doubt. But these are the men--many of them--who had to balance +duties--who had wives and children to leave, and businesses which +depended on them personally. Compulsion has cut the knot and eased their +consciences. They'll make fine soldiers! But we want more--_more!_" And +then follows talk on the wonderful developments of training--even since +last year; and some amusing reminiscences of the early days of England's +astounding effort, by which vast mobs of eager recruits without guns, +uniforms, or teachers, have been turned into the magnificent armies now +fighting in France. + +The War Office has lately issued privately some extremely interesting +notes on the growth and training of the New Armies, of which it is only +now possible to make public use. From these it is clear that in the +Great Experiment of the first two years of war all phases of intellect +and capacity have played their part. The widely trained mind, taking +large views as to the responsibility of the Army towards the nation +delivered into its hands, so that not only should it be disciplined for +war but made fitter for peace; and the practical inventive gifts of +individuals who, in seeking to meet a special need, stumble on something +universal, both forces have been constantly at work. Discipline and +initiative have been the twin conquerors, and the ablest men in the +Army, to use a homely phrase, have been out for both. Many a fresh, and +valuable bit of training has been due to some individual officer struck +with a new idea, and patiently working it out. The special "schools," +which are now daily increasing the efficiency of the Army, if you ask +how they arose, you will generally be able to trace them back to some +eager young man starting a modest experiment in his spare time for the +teaching of himself and some of his friends, and so developing it that +the thing is finally recognised, enlarged, and made the parent of +similar efforts elsewhere. + +Let me describe one such "school"--to me a thrilling one, as I saw it on +a clear March afternoon. A year ago no such thing existed. Now each of +our Armies possesses one. + +But this letter is already too long! + + + +No. 3 + +_Easter Eve_, 1917. + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--Since I finished my last letter to you, before the +meeting of Congress, great days have come and gone. + +_America is with us!_ + +At last, we English folk can say that to each other, without reserve or +qualification, and into England's mood of ceaseless effort and anxiety +there has come a sudden relaxation, a breath of something canning and +sustaining. What your action may be--whether it will shorten the war, +and how much, no one here yet knows. But when in some great strain a +friend steps to your side, you don't begin with questions. He is there. +Your cause, your effort, are his. Details will come. Discussion will +come. But there is a breathing space first, in which feeling rests upon +itself before it rushes out in action. Such a breathing space for +England are these Easter days! + +Meanwhile, the letters from the Front come in with their new note of +joy. "You should see the American faces in the Army to-day!" writes one. +"They bring a new light into this dismal spring." How many of them? +Mayn't we now confess to ourselves and our Allies that there is already, +the equivalent of an American division, fighting with the Allied Armies +in France, who have used every honest device to get there? They have +come in by every channel, and under every pretext--wavelets, forerunners +of the tide. For now, you too have to improvise great armies, as we +improvised ours in the first two years of war. And with you as with us, +your unpreparedness stands as your warrant before history, that not from +American minds and wills came the provocation to this war. + +But your actual and realised co-operation sets me on lines of thought +that distract me, for the moment, from the first plan of this letter. +The special Musketry School with which I had meant to open it, must wait +till its close. I find my mind full instead--in connection with the news +from Washington--of those recently issued War Office pamphlets of which +I spoke in my last letter; and I propose to run through their story. +These pamphlets, issued not for publication but for the information of +those concerned, are the first frank record of _our national experience_ +in connection with the war; and for all your wonderful American resource +and inventiveness, your American energy and wealth, you will certainly, +as prudent men, make full use of our experience in the coming months. + +Last year, for _England's Effort_, I tried vainly to collect some of +these very facts and figures, which the War Office was still +jealously--'and no doubt quite rightly--withholding. Now at last they +are available, told by "authority," and one can hardly doubt that each +of these passing days will give them--for America a double significance. +Surpass the story, if you can; we shall bear you no grudge! But up till +now, it remains a chapter unique in the history of war. Many Americans, +as your original letter to me pointed out, had still, last year, +practically no conception of what we were doing and had done. The +majority of our own people, indeed, were in much the same case. While +the great story was still in the making, while the foundations were +still being laid, it was impossible to correct all the annoying +underestimates, all the ignorant or careless judgments, of people who +took a point for the whole. The men at the heart of things could only +set their teeth, keep silence and give no information that could help +the enemy. The battle of the Somme, last July, was the first real +testing of their work. The Hindenburg retreat, the successes in +Mesopotamia, the marvellous spectacle of the Armies in France--and +before this letter could be sent to Press, the glorious news from the +Arras front!--are the present fruits of it. + +Like you, we had, at the outbreak of war, some 500,000 men, all told, of +whom not half were fully trained. None of us British folk will ever +forget the Rally of the First Hundred Thousand! On the 8th of August, +four days after the Declaration of War, Lord Kitchener asked for them. +He got them in a fortnight. But the stream rushed on--in the fifth week +of the war alone 250,000 men enlisted; 30,000 recruits--the yearly +number enlisted before the war--joined in one day. Within six or seven +weeks the half-million available at the beginning of the war had been +_more than doubled._ + +Then came a pause. The War Office, snowed under, not knowing where to +turn for clothes, boots, huts, rifles, guns, ammunition, tried to check +the stream by raising the recruits' standards. A mistake!--but soon +recognised. In another month, under the influence of the victory on the +Marne, and while the Germans were preparing the attacks on the British +Line so miraculously beaten off in the first battle of Ypres, the +momentary check had been lost in a fresh outburst of national energy. +You will remember how the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee came into +being, that first autumn?--how the Prime Minister took the lead, and the +two great political parties of the country agreed to bring all their +organisation, central or local, to bear on the supreme question of +getting men for the Army. Tory and Radical toured the country together. +The hottest opponents stood on the same platform. _L'union sacree_--to +use the French phrase, so vivid and so true, by which our great Ally has +charmed her own discords to rest in defence of the country--became a +reality here too, in spite of strikes, in spite of Ireland. + +By July 1915--the end of the first year of war--more than 2,000,000 men +had voluntarily enlisted. But the military chiefs knew well that it was +but a half-way house. They knew, too, that it was not enough to get men +and rush them out to the trenches as soon as any kind of training could +be given them. The available men must be sorted out. Some, indeed, must +be brought back from the fighting line for work as vital as the +fighting itself. + +_So Registration came_--the first real step towards organising the +nation. 150,000 voluntary workers helped to register all men and women +in the country, from eighteen to sixty-five, and on the results Lord +Derby built his group system, which _almost_ enabled us to do without +compulsion. Between October and December 1915, another two million and a +quarter men had "attested"--that is, had pledged themselves to come up +for training when called on. + +But, as every observer of this new England knows, we have here less than +half the story. From a nation not invaded, protected, on the contrary, +by its sea ramparts from the personal cruelties and ravages of war, to +gather in between four and five million voluntary recruits was a great +achievement. But to turn these recruits at the shortest possible notice, +under the hammer-blows of a war, in which our enemies had every initial +advantage, into armies equipped and trained according to modern +standards, might well have seemed to those who undertook it an +impossible task. And the task had to be accomplished, the riddle solved, +before, in the face of the enemy, the incredible difficulties of it +could possibly be admitted. The creators of the new armies worked, as +far as they could, behind a screen. But now the screen is down, and we +are allowed to see their difficulties in their true perspective--as they +existed during the first months of the war. + +In the first place--accommodation! At the opening of war we had +barrack-room for 176,000 men. What to do with these capped, bare-headed, +or straw-hatted multitudes who poured in at Lord Kitchener's call! They +were temporarily housed--somehow--under every kind of shelter. But +military huts for half a million men were immediately planned--then for +nearly a million. + +Timber--labour--lighting--water--drainage--roads--everything, had to be +provided, and was provided. Billeting filled up the gaps, and large +camps were built by private enterprise to be taken in time by the +Government. Of course mistakes were made. Of course there were some +dishonest contractors and some incompetent officials. But the breath, +the winnowing blast of the national need was behind it all. By the end +of the first year of war, the "problem of quartering the troops in the +chief training centres had been solved." + +In the next place, there were no clothes. A dozen manufacturers of khaki +cloth existed before the war. They had to be pushed up as quickly as +possible to 200. Which of us in the country districts does not remember +the blue emergency suits, of which a co-operative society was able by a +lucky stroke to provide 400,000 for the new recruits?--or the other +motley coverings of the hosts that drilled in our fields and marched +about our lanes? The War Office Notes, under my hand, speak of these +months as the "tatterdemalion stage." For what clothes and boots there +were must go to the men at the Front, and the men at home had just to +take their chance. + +Well! It took a year and five months--breathless months of strain and +stress--while Germany was hammering East and West on the long-drawn +lines of the Allies. But by then, January 1916, the Army was not only +clothed, housed, and very largely armed, but we were manufacturing for +our Allies. + +As to the arms and equipment, look back at these facts. When the +Expeditionary Force had taken its rifles abroad in August 1914, 150,000 +rifles were left in the country, and many of them required to be +resighted. The few Service rifles in each battalion were handed round +"as the Three Fates handed round their one eye, in the story of +Perseus"; old rifles, and inferior rifles "technically known as D.P.," +were eagerly made use of. But after seven months' hard training with +nothing better than these makeshifts, "men were apt to get depressed." + +It was just the same with the Artillery. At the outbreak of war we had +guns for eight divisions--say 140,000 men. And there was no plant +wherewith to make and keep up more than that supply. Yet guns had to be +sent as fast as they could be made to France, Egypt, Gallipoli. How were +the gunners at home to be trained? + +It was done, so to speak, with blood and tears. For seven months it was +impossible for the gunner in training even to see, much less to work or +fire the gun to which he was being trained. Zealous officers provided +dummy wooden guns for their men. All kinds of devices were tried. And +even when the guns themselves arrived, they came often without the +indispensable accessories--range-finders, directors, and the like. + +It was a time of hideous anxiety for both Government and War Office. For +the military history of 1915 was largely a history of shortage of guns +and ammunition--whether on the Western or Eastern fronts. All the same, +by the end of 1915 the thing was in hand. The shells from the new +factories were arriving in ever-increasing volume; and the guns were +following. + +In a chapter of _England's Effort_ I have described the amazing +development of some of the great armament works in order to meet this +cry for guns, as I saw it in February 1916. The second stage of the war +had then begun. The first was over, and we were steadily overtaking our +colossal task. The Somme proved it abundantly. But the expansion _still_ +goes on; and what the nation owes to the directing brains and ceaseless +energy of these nominally private but really national firms has never +been sufficiently recognised. On my writing-desk is a letter received, +not many days ago, from a world-famous firm whose works I saw last year: +"Since your visit here in the early part of last year, there have been +very large additions to the works." Buildings to accommodate new +aeroplane and armament construction of different kinds are mentioned, +and the letter continues: "We have also put up another gun-shop, 565 +feet long, and 163 feet wide--in three extensions--of which the third is +nearing completion. These additions are all to increase the output of +guns. The value of that output is now 60 per cent, greater than it was +in 1915. In the last twelve months, the output of shells has been one +and a half times more than it was in the previous year." No wonder that +the humane director who writes speaks with keen sympathy of the +"long-continued strain" upon masters and men. But he adds--"When we all +feel it, we think of our soldiers and sailors, doing their +duty--unto death." + +And then--to repeat--if the _difficulties of equipment_ were huge, they +were almost as nothing to the _difficulties of training_. The facts as +the War Office has now revealed them (the latest of these most +illuminating brochures is dated April 2nd, 1917) are almost incredible. +It will be an interesting time when our War Office and yours come to +compare notes!--"when Peace has calmed the world." For you are now +facing the same grim task--how to find the shortest cuts to the making +of an Army--which confronted us in 1914. + +In the first place, what military trainers there were in the country had +to be sent abroad with the first Expeditionary Force. Adjutants, +N.C.O.'s, all the experienced pilots in the Flying Corps, nearly all the +qualified instructors in physical training, the vast majority of all the +seasoned men in every branch of the Service--down, as I have said, to +the Army cooks--departed overseas. At the very last moment an officer or +two were shed from every battalion of the Expeditionary Force to train +those left behind. Even so, there was "hardly even a nucleus of experts +left." And yet--officers for 500,000 men had to be found--_within a +month_--from August 4th, 1914. + +How was it done? The War Office answer makes fascinating reading. The +small number of regular officers left behind--200 officers of the Indian +Army--retired officers, "dug-outs"--all honour to them!--wounded officers +from the Front; all were utilised. But the chief sources of supply, as +we all know, were the Officers' Training Corps at the Universities and +Public Schools which we owe to the divination, the patience, the hard +work of Lord Haldane. _Twenty thousand potential officers were supplied_ +by the O.T.C's. What should we have done without them? + +But even so, there was no time to train them in the practical business +of war--and such a war! Yet _their_ business was to train recruits, +while they themselves were untrained. At first, those who were granted +"temporary commissions" were given a month's training. Then even that +became impossible. During the latter months of 1914 "there was +practically no special training given to infantry subalterns, with +temporary commissions." With 1915, the system of a month's training was +revived--pitifully little, yet the best that could be done. But during +the first five months of the war most of the infantry subalterns of the +new armies "had to train themselves as best they could in the intervals +of training their men." + +One's pen falters over the words. Before the inward eye rises the +phantom host of these boy-officers who sprang to England's aid in the +first year of the war, and whose graves lie scattered in an endless +series along the western front and on the heights of Gallipoli. Without +counting the cost for a moment, they came to the call of the Great +Mother, from near and far. "They trained themselves, while they were +training their men." Not for them the plenty of guns and shells that now +at least lessens the hideous sacrifice that war demands; not for them +the many protective devices and safeguards that the war itself has +developed. Their young bodies--their precious lives--paid the price. And +in the Mother-heart of England they lie--gathered and secure--for ever. + + * * * * * + +But let me go a little further with the new War Office facts. + +The year 1915 saw great and continuous advance. During that year, an +_average number of over a million troops_ were being trained in the +United Kingdom, apart from the armies abroad. The First, Second, and +Third Armies naturally came off much better than the Fourth and Fifth, +who were yet being recruited all the time. What equipment, clothes and +arms there were the first three armies got; the rest had to wait. But +all the same, the units of these later armies were doing the best they +could for themselves all the time; nobody stood still. And +gradually--surely--order was evolved out of the original chaos. The Army +Orders of the past had dropped out of sight with the beginning of the +war. Everything had to be planned anew. The one governing factor was the +"necessity of getting men to the front at the earliest possible moment." +Six months' courses were laid down for all arms. It was very rare, +however, that any course could be strictly carried out, and after the +first three armies, the training of the rest seemed, for a time, to be +all beginnings!--with the final stage farther and farther away. And +always the same difficulty of guns, rifles, huts, and the rest. + +But, like its own tanks, the War Office went steadily on, negotiating +one obstacle after another. Special courses for special subjects began +to be set up. Soon artillery officers had no longer to join their +batteries _at once_ on appointment; R.E. officers could be given a seven +weeks' training at Chatham; little enough, "for a man supposed to know +the use and repairs of telephones and telegraphs, or the way to build or +destroy a bridge, or how to meet the countless other needs with which a +sapper is called upon to deal!" Increasing attention was paid to staff +training and staff courses. And insufficient as it all was, for months, +the general results of this haphazard training, when the men actually +got into the field--all short-comings and disappointments admitted--were +nothing short of wonderful. Had the Germans forgotten that we are and +always have been a fighting people? That fact, at any rate, was brought +home to them by the unbroken spirit of the troops who held the line in +France and Flanders in 1915 against all attempts to break through; and +at Neuve Chapelle, or Loos, or a hundred other minor engagements, only +wanted numbers and ammunition--above all ammunition!--to win them the +full victory they had rightly earned. + +Of this whole earlier stage, the _junior subaltern_ was the leading +figure. It was he--let me insist upon it anew--whose spirit made the new +armies. If the tender figure of the "_Lady of the Lamp_" has become for +many of us the chief symbol of the Crimean struggle, when Britain comes +to embody in sculpture or in painting that which has touched her most +deeply in this war, she will choose--surely--the figure of a boy of +nineteen, laughing, eager, undaunted, as quick to die as to live, +carrying in his young hands the "Luck" of England. + + * * * * * + +But with the end of 1915, the first stage, the elementary stage, of the +new Armies came to an end. When I stood, in March 1916, on the +Scherpenberg hill, looking out over the Salient, new conditions reigned. +The Officer Cadet Corps had been formed; a lively and continuous +intercourse between the realities of the front and the training at home +had been set up; special schools in all subjects of military interest +had been founded, often, as we have seen, by the zeal of individual +officers, to be then gradually incorporated in the Army system. Men +insufficiently trained in the early months had been given the +opportunity--which they eagerly took--of beginning at the beginning +again, correcting mistakes and incorporating all the latest knowledge. +Even a lieutenant-colonel, before commanding a battalion, could go to +school once more; and even for officers and men "in rest," there were, +and are, endless opportunities of seeing and learning, which few wish +to forgo. + +And that brings me to what is now shaping itself--the final result. The +year just passed, indeed--from March to March--has practically rounded +our task--though the "learning" of the Army is never over!--and has seen +the transformation--whether temporary or permanent, who yet can +tell?--of the England of 1914, with its zealous mobs of untrained and +"tatterdemalion" recruits, into a great military power,[This letter was +finished just as the news of the Easter Monday Battle of Arras was +coming in.] disposing of armies in no whit inferior to those of Germany, +and bringing to bear upon the science of war--now that Germany has +forced us to it--the best intelligence, and the best _character_, of the +nation. The most insolent of the German military newspapers are already +bitterly confessing it. + + * * * * * + +My summary--short and imperfect as it is--of this first detailed account +of its work which the War Office has allowed to be made public--has +carried me far afield. + +The motor has been waiting long at the door of the hospitable +headquarters which have entertained us! Let me return to it, to the +great spectacle of the present--after this retrospect of the Past. + +Again the crowded roads--the young and vigorous troops--the manifold +sights illustrating branch after branch of the Army. I recall a draft, +tired with marching, clambering with joy into some empty lorries, and +sitting there peacefully content, with legs dangling and the ever +blessed cigarette for company, then an aeroplane station--then a +football field, with a violent game going on--a Casualty Clearing +Station, almost a large hospital--another football match!--a battery of +eighteen-pounders on the march, and beyond an old French market town +crowded with lorries and men. In the midst of it D---- suddenly draws my +attention to a succession of great nozzles passing us, with their teams +and limbers. I have stood beside the forging and tempering of their +brothers in the gun-shops of the north, have watched the testing and +callipering of their shining throats. They are 6-inch naval guns on +their way to the line--like everything else, part of the storm to come. + +And in and out, among the lorries and the guns, stream the French folk, +women, children, old men, alert, industrious, full of hope, with +friendly looks for their Allies. Then the town passes, and we are out +again in the open country, leaving the mining village behind. We are not +very far at this point from that portion of the line which I saw last +year under General X's guidance. But everything looks very quiet and +rural, and when we emerged on the high ground of the school we had come +to see, I might have imagined myself on a Surrey or Hertfordshire +common. The officer in charge, a "mighty hunter" in civil life, showed +us his work with a quiet but most contagious enthusiasm. The problem +that he, and his colleagues engaged in similar work in other sections of +the front, had to solve, was--how to beat the Germans at their own game +of "sniping," which cost us so many lives in the first year and a half +of war; in other words, how to train a certain number of men to an art +of rifle-shooting, combining the instincts and devices of a "Pathfinder" +with the subtleties of modern optical and mechanical science. "Don't +think of this as meant primarily to kill," says the Chief of the School, +as he walks beside me--"it is meant primarily to _protect_. We lost our +best men--young and promising officers in particular--by the score +before we learnt the tricks of the German 'sniper' and how to meet +them." German "sniping," as our guide explains, is by no means all +tricks. For the most part, it means just first-rate shooting, combined +with the trained instinct and _flair_ of the sportsman. Is there +anything that England--and Scotland--should provide more abundantly? +Still, there are tricks, and our men have learnt them. + +Of the many surprises of the school I may not now speak. Above all, it +is a school of _observation_. Nothing escapes the eye or the ear. Every +point, for instance, connected with our two unfamiliar figures will have +been elaborately noted by those men on the edge of the hill; the officer +in charge will presently get a careful report on us. + +"We teach our men the old great game of war--wit against wit--courage +against courage--life against life. We try many men here, and reject a +good few. But the men who have gone through our training here are +valuable, both for attack and defence--above all, let me repeat it, they +are valuable for _protection_." + +And what is meant by this, I have since learnt in greater detail. Before +these schools were started, _every day_ saw a heavy toll--especially of +officers' lives--taken by German snipers. Compare with this one of the +latest records: that out of fifteen battalions there were only nine men +killed by snipers _in three months._ + +We leave the hill, half sliding down the frozen watercourse that leads +to it, and are in the motor again, bound for an Army Headquarters. + + + +No. 4 + +_April 14th_, 1917. + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--As the news comes flashing in, these April days, +and all the world holds its breath to hear the latest messages from +Arras and the Vimy ridge, it is natural that in the memory of a woman +who, six weeks ago, was a spectator--before the curtain rose--of the +actual scene of such events, every incident and figure of that past +experience, as she looks back upon it, should gain a peculiar and +shining intensity. + +The battle of the Vimy Ridge [_April 8th_] is clearly going to be the +second (the first was the German retreat on the Somme) of those +"decisive events" determining this year the upshot of the war, to which +the Commander-in-Chief, with so strong and just a confidence, directed +the eyes of this country some three months ago. When I was in the +neighbourhood of the great battlefield--one may say it now!--the whole +countryside was one vast preparation. The signs of the coming attack +were everywhere--troops, guns, ammunition, food dumps, hospitals, air +stations--every actor and every property in the vast and tragic play +were on the spot, ready for the moment and the word. + +Yet, except in the Headquarters and Staff Councils of the Army nobody +knew when the moment and the word would come, and nobody spoke of them. +The most careful and exact organisation for the great movement was going +on. No visitor would hear anything of it. Only the nameless stir in the +air, the faces of officers at Headquarters, the general alacrity, the +endless _work_ everywhere, prophesied the great things ahead. Perpetual, +highly organised, scientific drudgery is three parts of war, it seems, +as men now wage it. The Army, as I saw it, was at work--desperately at +work!--but "dreaming on things to come." + +One delightful hour of that March day stands out for me in particular. +The strong, attractive presence of an Army Commander, whose name will be +for ever linked with that of the battle of the Vimy ridge, surrounded by +a group of distinguished officers; a long table, and a too brief stay; +conversation that carries for me the thrill of the _actual thing_, close +by, though it may not differ very much from wartalk at home: these are +the chief impressions that remain. The General beside me, with that look +in his kind eyes which seems to tell of nights shortened by hard work, +says a few quietly confident things about the general situation, and +then we discuss a problem which one of the party--not a soldier--starts. + +Is it true or untrue that long habituation to the seeing or inflicting +of pain and death, that the mere sights and sounds of the trenches tend +with time to brutalise men, and will make them callous when they return +to civil life? Do men grow hard and violent in this furnace after a +while, and will the national character suffer thereby in the future? The +General denies it strongly. "I see no signs of it. The kindness of the +men to each other, to the wounded, whether British or German, to the +French civilians, especially the women and children, is as marked as it +ever was. It is astonishing the good behaviour of the men in these +French towns; it is the rarest thing in the world to get a complaint." + +I ask for some particulars of the way in which the British Army "runs" +the French towns and villages in our zone. How is it done? "It is all +summed up in three words," says an officer present, "M. le Maire!" What +we should have done without the local functionaries assigned by the +French system to every village and small town it is hard to say. They +are generally excellent people; they have the confidence of their fellow +townsmen, and know everything about them. Our authorities on taking over +a town or village do all the preliminaries through M. le Maire, and all +goes well. + +The part played, indeed, by these local chiefs of the civil population +throughout France during the war has been an honourable and arduous--in +many cases a tragic--one. The murder, under the forms of a +court-martial, of the Maire of Senlis and his five fellow hostages +stands out among the innumerable German cruelties as one of peculiar +horror. Everywhere in the occupied departments the Maire has been the +surety for his fellows, and the Germans have handled them often as a +cruel boy torments some bird or beast he has captured, for the pleasure +of showing his power over it. + +From the wife of the Maire of an important town in Lorraine I heard the +story of how her husband had been carried off as a hostage for three +weeks, while the Germans were in occupation. Meanwhile German officers +were billeted in her charming old house. "They used to say to me every +day with great politeness that they _hoped_ my husband would not be +shot. 'But why should he be shot, monsieur? He will do nothing to +deserve it.' On which they would shrug their shoulders and say, 'Madame, +c'est la guerre!' evidently wishing to see me terrified. But I never +gave them that pleasure." + +A long drive home, through the dark and silent country. Yet everywhere +one feels the presence of the Army. We draw up to look at a sign-post at +some cross roads by the light of one of the motor lamps. Instantly a +couple of Tommies emerge from the darkness and give help. In passing +through a village a gate suddenly opens and a group of horses comes out, +led by two men in khaki; or from a Y.M.C.A. hut laughter and song float +out into the night. And soon in these farms and cottages everybody will +be asleep under the guard of the British Forces, while twenty miles +away, in the darkness, the guns we saw in the morning are endlessly +harassing and scourging the enemy lines, preparing for the day when the +thoughts now maturing in the minds of the Army leaders will leap in +flame to light. + + * * * * * + +To-day we are off for the Somme. I looked out anxiously with the dawn, +and saw streaks of white mist lying over the village and the sun +struggling through. But as we start on the road to Amiens, the mist +gains the upper hand, and we begin to be afraid that we shall not get +any of those wide views from the west of Albert over the Somme country +which are possible in clear weather. Again the high upland, and this +time _three_ tanks on the road, but motionless, alack! the nozzles of +their machine guns just visible on their great sides. Then a main road, +if it can be called a road since the thaw has been at work upon it. +Every mile or two, as our chauffeur explains, the pave "is all burst up" +from below, and we rock and lunge through holes and ruts that only an +Army motor can stand. But German prisoners are thick on the worst bits, +repairing as hard as they can. Was it perhaps on some of these men that +certain of the recent letters that are always coming into G.H.Q. have +been found? I will quote a few of those which have not yet seen +the light. + +Here are a batch of letters written in January of this year from Hamburg +and its neighbourhood: + +"It is indeed a miserable existence. How will it all end? There is +absolutely nothing to be got here. Honey costs _6s. 6d_. a pound, goose +fat _18s_. a pound. Lovely prices, aren't they? One cannot do much by +way of heating, as there is no coal. We can just freeze and starve at +home. Everybody is ill. All the infirmaries are overflowing. Small-pox +has broken out. You are being shot at the front, and at home we are +gradually perishing." + +" ... On the Kaiser's birthday, military bands played everywhere. When +one passes and listens to this tomfoolery, and sees the emaciated and +overworked men in war-time, swaying to the sounds of music, and enjoying +it, one's very gall rises. Why music? Of course, if times were +different, one could enjoy music. But to-day! It should be the aim of +the higher authorities to put an end to this murder. In every sound of +music the dead cry for revenge. I can assure you that it is very +surprising that there has not been a single outbreak here, but it +neither can nor will last much longer. How can a human being subsist on +1/4 lb. of potatoes a day? I should very much like the Emperor to try +and live for a week on the fare we get. He would then say it is +impossible.... I heard something this week quite unexpectedly, which +although I had guessed it before, yet has depressed me still more. +However, we will hope for the best." + +"You write to say that you are worse off than a beast of burden.... I +couldn't send you any cakes, as we had no more flour.... We have +abundant bread tickets. From Thursday to Saturday I can still buy five +loaves.... My health is bad; not my asthma, no, but my whole body is +collapsing. We are all slowly perishing, and this is what it is all +coming to." + +" ... The outlook here is also sad. One cannot get a bucket of coal. The +stores and dealers have none. The schools are closing, as there is no +coal. Soon everybody will be in the same plight. Neither coal nor +vegetables can be bought. Holland is sending us nothing more, and we +have none. We get 3-1/2 lb. of potatoes per person. In the next few days +we shall only have swedes to eat, which must be dried." + + * * * * * + +A letter written from Hamburg in February, and others from Coblenz are +tragic reading: + +" ... We shall soon have nothing more to eat. We earn no money, +absolutely none; it is sad but true. Many people are dying here from +inanition or under-feeding." + +Or, take these from Neugersdorf, in Saxony: + +"We cannot send you any butter, for we have none to eat ourselves. For +three weeks we have not been able to get any potatoes. So we only have +turnips to eat, and now there are no more to be had. We do not know what +we can get for dinner this week, and if we settle to get our food at the +Public Food-Kitchen we shall have to stand two hours for it." + +"Here is February once more--one month nearer to peace. Otherwise all is +the same. Turnips! Turnips! Very few potatoes, only a little bread, and +no thought of butter or meat; on the other hand, any quantity of hunger. +I understand your case is not much better on the Somme." + +Or this from a man of the Ersatz Battalion, 19th F.A.R., Dresden: + +"Since January 16th I have been called up and put into the Foot +Artillery at Dresden. On the 16th we were first taken to the +Quartermaster's Stores, where 2,000 of us had to stand waiting in the +rain from 2.30 to 6.30.... On the 23rd I was transferred to the tennis +ground. We are more than 100 men in one room. Nearly all of us have +frozen limbs at present. The food, too, is bad; sometimes it cannot +possibly be eaten. Our training also is very quick, for we are to go +_into the field in six weeks_." + +Or these from Itzehoe and Hanover: + +"Could you get me some silk? It costs 8s. a metre here.... To-day, the +24th, all the shops were stormed for bread, and 1,000 loaves were stolen +from the bakery. There were several other thousand in stock. In some +shops the windows were smashed. In the grocers' shops the butter barrels +were rolled into the street. There were soldiers in civilian dress. The +Mayor wanted to hang them. There are no potatoes this week." + +"To-day, the 27th, the bakers' shops in the ---- Road were stormed.... +This afternoon the butchers' shops are to be stormed." + +"If only peace would come soon! We have been standing to for an alarm +these last days, as the people here are storming all the bakers' shops. +It is a semi-revolution. It cannot last much longer." + +To such a pass have the Kaiser and the Junker party brought their +countrymen! Here, no doubt, are some of the recipients of such letters +among the peaceful working groups in shabby green-grey, scattered along +the roads of France. As we pass, the German N.C.O. often looks up to +salute the officer who is with us, and the general aspect of the men--at +any rate of the younger men--is cheerfully phlegmatic. At least they are +safe from the British guns, and at least they have enough to eat. As to +this, let me quote, by way of contrast, a few passages from letters +written by prisoners in a British camp to their people at home. One +might feel a quick pleasure in the creature-comfort they express but for +the burning memory of our own prisoners, and the way in which thousands +of them have been cruelly ill-treated, tormented even, in Germany--worst +of all, perhaps, by German women. + +The extracts are taken from letters written mostly in December and +January last: + +(_a_) " ... Dear wife, don't fret about me, because the English treat us +very well. Only our own officers (N.C.O.'s) treat us even worse than +they do at home in barracks; but that we're accustomed to...." + +(_b_) " ... I'm now a prisoner in English hands, and I'm quite comfortable +and content with my lot, for most of my comrades are dead. The English +treat us well, and everything that is said to the contrary is not true. +Our food is good. There are no meatless days, but we haven't any +cigars...." + +(_c_) Written from hospital, near Manchester: " ... I've been a prisoner +since October, 1916. I'm extremely comfortable here.... Considering the +times, I really couldn't wish you all anything better than to be +here too!" + +(_d_) " ... I am afraid I'm not in a position to send you very detailed +letters about my life at present, but I can tell you that I am quite all +right and comfortable, and that I wish every English prisoner were the +same. Our new Commandant is very humane--strict, but just. You can tell +everybody who thinks differently that I shall always be glad to prove +that he is wrong...." + +(_e_) " ... I suppose you are all thinking that we are having a very bad +time here as prisoners. It's true we have to do without a good many +things, but that after all one must get accustomed to. The English are +really good people, which I never would have believed before I was taken +prisoner. They try all they can to make our lot easier for us, and you +know there are a great many of us now. So don't be distressed +for us...." + +X is passed, a large and prosperous town, with mills in a hollow. We +climb the hill beyond it, and are off on a long and gradual descent to +Amiens. This Picard country presents everywhere the same general +features of rolling downland, thriving villages, old churches, +comfortable country houses, straight roads, and well-kept woods. The +battlefields of the Somme were once a continuation of it! But on this +March day the uplands are wind-swept and desolate; and chilly white +mists curl about them, with occasional bursts of pale sun. + +Out of the mist there emerges suddenly an anti-aircraft section; then a +great Army Service dump; and presently we catch sight of a row of +hangars and the following notice, "Beware of aeroplanes ascending and +descending across roads." For a time the possibility of charging into a +biplane gives zest to our progress, as we fly along the road which cuts +the aerodrome; but, alack! there are none visible and we begin to drop +towards Amiens. + +Then, outside the town, sentinels stop us, French and British; our +passes are examined; and, under their friendly looks--betraying a little +surprise!--we drive on into the old streets. I was in Amiens two years +before the war, between trains, that I might refresh a somewhat faded +memory of the cathedral. But not such a crowded, such a busy Amiens as +this! The streets are so full that we have to turn out of the main +street, directed by a French military policeman, and find our way by a +detour to the cathedral. + +As we pass through Amiens arrangements are going on for the "taking +over" of another large section of the French line, south of Albert; as +far, it is rumoured, as Roye and Lagny. At last, with our new armies, we +can relieve more of the French divisions, who have borne so gallantly +and for so many months the burden of their long line. It is true that +the bulk of the German forces are massed against the British lines, and +that in some parts of the centre and the east, owing to the nature of +the ground, they are but thinly strung along the French front, which +accounts partly for the disproportion in the number of kilometres +covered by each Ally. But, also, we had to make our Army; the French, +God be thanked, had theirs ready, and gloriously have they stood the +brunt, as the defenders of civilisation, till we could take our +full share. + +And now we, who began with 45 kilometres of the battle-line, have +gradually become responsible for 185, so that "at last," says a French +friend to me in Paris, "our men can have a rest, some of them for the +first time! And, by Heaven, they've earned it!" + +Yet, in this "taking over" there are many feelings concerned. For the +French _poilu_ and our Tommy it is mostly the occasion for as much +fraternisation as their fragmentary knowledge of each other's speech +allows; the Frenchman is proud to show his line, the Britisher is proud +to take it over; there are laughter and eager good will; on the whole, +it is a red-letter day. But sometimes there strikes in a note "too deep +for tears." Here is a fragment from an account of a "taking over," +written by an eye-witness: + +Trains of a prodigious length are crawling up a French railway. One +follows so closely upon another that the rear truck of the first is +rarely out of sight of the engine-driver of the second. These trains are +full of British soldiers. Most of them are going to the front for the +first time. They are seated everywhere, on the trucks, on the roof--legs +dangling over the edge--inside, and even over the buffers. Presently +they arrive at their goal. The men clamber out on to the siding, collect +their equipment and are ready for a march up country. A few children run +alongside them, shouting, "Anglais!" "Anglais!" And some of them take +the soldiers' hands and walk on with them until they are tired. + +Now the trenches are reached, and the men break into single file. But +the occasion is not the usual one of taking over a few trenches. _We are +relieving some sixty miles of French line._ There is, however, no +confusion. The right men are sent to the right places, and everything is +done quietly. It is like a great tide sweeping in, and another sweeping +out. Sixty miles of trenches are gradually changing their nationality. + +The German, a few yards over the way, knows quite well what is +happening. A few extra shells whizz by; a trench mortar or two splutter +a welcome; but it makes little difference to the weary German who mans +the trenches over against him. Only, the new men are fresh and untired, +and the German has no Ally who can give him corresponding relief. + +It has all been so quietly done! Yet it is really a great moment. The +store of man power which Great Britain possesses is beginning to take +practical effect. The French, who held the long lines at the beginning +of war, who stood before Verdun and threw their legions on the road to +Peronne, are now being freed for work elsewhere. They have "carried on" +till Great Britain was ready, and now she is ready. + + * * * * * + +This was more than the beginning of a new tour of duty [says another +witness]. I felt the need of some ceremony, and I think others felt the +need of it too. There were little half-articulate attempts, in the +darkness, of men trying to show what they felt--a whisper or two--in the +queer jargon that is growing up between the two armies. An English +sentry mounted upon the fire-step, and looked out into the darkness +beside the Frenchman, and then, before the Frenchman stepped down, +patted him on the shoulder, as though he would say: "These +trenches--_all right_!--we'll look after them!" + +Then I stumbled into a dug-out. A candle burnt there, and a French +officer was taking up his things. He nodded and smiled. "I go," he said. +"I am not sorry, and yet----" He shrugged his shoulders. I understood. +One is never sorry to go, but these trenches--these bits of France, +where Frenchmen had died--would no longer be guarded by Frenchmen. Then +he waved his hand round the little dug-out. "We give a little more of +France into your keeping." His gesture was extravagant and light, but +his face was grave as he said it. He turned and went out. I followed. He +walked along the communication trench after his men, and I along the +line of my silent sentries. I spoke to one or two, and then stood on the +fire-step, looking out into the night. I had the Frenchman's words in my +head: "We give a little more of France into your keeping!" It was not +these trenches only, where I stood, but all that lay out there in the +darkness, which had been given into our keeping. Its dangers were ours +now. There were villages away there in the heart of the night, still +unknown to all but the experts at home, whose names--like Thiepval and +Bazentin--would soon be English names, familiar to every man in Britain +as the streets of his own town. All this France had entrusted to our +care this night. + +Such were the scenes that were quietly going on, not much noticed by the +public at home during the weeks of February and March, and such were the +thoughts in men's minds. How plainly one catches through the words of +the last speaker an eager prescience of events to come!--the sweep of +General Gough on Warlencourt and Bapaume--the French reoccupation +of Peronne. + +One word for the cathedral of Amiens before we leave the bustling +streets of the old Picard capital. This is so far untouched and +unharmed, though exposed, like everything else behind the front, to the +bombs of German aeroplanes. The great west front has disappeared behind +a mountain of sandbags; the side portals are protected in the same way, +and inside, the superb carvings of the choir are buried out of sight. +But at the back of the choir the famous weeping cherub sits weeping as +before, peacefully querulous. There is something irritating in his +placid and too artistic grief. Not so is "Rachel weeping for her +children" in this war-ravaged country. Sterner images of Sorrow are +wanted here--looking out through burning eyes for the Expiation to come. + + * * * * * + +Then we are off, bound for Albert, though first of all for the +Headquarters of the particular Army which has this region in charge. The +weather, alack! is still thick. It is under cover of such an atmosphere +that the Germans have been stealing away, removing guns and stores +wherever possible, and leaving rear-guards to delay our advance. But +when the rear-guards amount to some 100,000 men, resistance is still +formidable, not to be handled with anything but extreme prudence by +those who have such vast interests in charge as the Generals of +the Allies. + +Our way takes us first through a small forest, where systematic felling +and cutting are going on under British forestry experts. The work is +being done by German prisoners, and we catch a glimpse through the trees +of their camp of huts in a barbed-wire enclosure. Their guards sleep +under canvas! ... And now we are in the main street of a large +picturesque village, approaching a chateau. A motor lorry comes towards +us, driven at a smart pace, and filled with grey-green uniforms. +Prisoners!--this time fresh from the field. We have already heard +rumours on our way of successful fighting to the south. + +The famous Army Commander himself, who had sent us a kind invitation to +lunch with him, is unexpectedly engaged in conference with a group of +French generals; but there is a welcome suggestion that on our way back +from the Somme he will be free and able to see me. Meanwhile we go off +to luncheon and much talk with some members of the Staff in a house on +the village street. Everywhere I notice the same cheerful, one might +even say radiant, confidence. No boasting in words, but a conviction +that penetrates through all talk that the tide has turned, and that, +however long it may take to come fully up, it is we whom it is floating +surely on to that fortune which is no blind hazard, but the child of +high faith and untiring labour. Of that labour the Somme battlefields we +were now to see will always remain in my mind--in spite of ruin, in +spite of desolation--as a kind of parable in action, never to be +forgotten. + + + +No. 5 + +_April 26th_, 1917. + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--Amid the rushing events of these days--America +rousing herself like an eagle "with eyes intentive to bedare the sun"; +the steady and victorious advance along the whole front in France, which +day by day is changing the whole aspect of the war; the Balfour Mission; +the signs of deep distress in Germany--it is sometimes difficult to +throw oneself back into the mood of even six weeks ago! History is +coming so fast off the loom! And yet six weeks ago I stood at the +pregnant beginnings of it all, when, though nature in the bitter frost +and slush of early March showed no signs of spring, the winter lull was +over, and everywhere on the British front men knew that great things +were stirring. + +Before I reached G.H.Q., Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig had already +reported the recapture or surrender of eleven villages on the Ancre +during February, including Serre and Gommecourt, which had defied our +efforts in the summer of 1916. That is to say, after three months of +trench routine and trench endurance imposed by a winter which seemed to +have let loose every possible misery of cold and wet, of storm and +darkness, on the fighting hosts in France, the battle of the Somme had +moved steadily forward again from the point it had reached in November. +Only, when the curtain rose on the new scene it was found that during +these three months strange things had been happening. + +About the middle of November, after General Gough's brilliant strokes on +the Ancre, which gave us St. Pierre Divion, Beaucourt, and Beaumont +Hamel, and took us up to the outskirts of Grandcourt, the _Frankfurter +Zeitung_ wrote--"For us Germans the days of the crisis on the Somme are +over. Let the French and English go on sacrificing the youth of their +countries here. They will not thereby achieve anything more." Yet when +this was written the German Higher Command was already well aware that +the battle of the Somme had been won by the Allies, and that it would be +impossible for Germany to hold out on the same ground against another +similar attack. + +Three months, however, of an extraordinarily hard winter gave them a +respite, and enabled them to veil the facts from their own people. The +preparations for retirement, which snow and fog and the long nights of +January helped them to conceal in part from our Air Service, must have +actually begun not many weeks after General Gough's last successes on +the Ancre, when the British advance paused, under stress of weather, +before Grandcourt and Bapaume. So that in the latter half of February, +when General Gough again pushed forward, it was to feel the German line +yielding before him; and by March 3rd, the day of my visit to the Somme, +it was only a question of how far the Germans would go and what the +retreat meant. + +Meanwhile, in another section of the line our own plans were maturing, +which were to bear fruit five weeks later in the brilliant capture of +that Vimy ridge I had seen on March 2, filling the blue middle distance, +from the bare upland of Notre Dame de Lorette. If on the Somme the anvil +was to some extent escaping from the hammer, in the coming battle of +Arras the hammer was to take its full revenge. + +These things, however, were still hidden from all but the few, and in +the first days of March the Germans had not yet begun to retire in front +of the French line further south. The Somme advance was still the centre +of things, and Bapaume had not yet fallen. As we drove on towards Albert +we knew that we should be soon close behind our own guns, and within +range of the enemy's. + +No one who has seen it in war-time will ever forget the market-place of +Albert--the colossal heaps of wreck that fill the centre of it; the new, +pretentious church, rising above the heaps, a brick-and-stucco building +of the worst neo-Catholic taste, which has been so gashed and torn and +broken, while still substantially intact, that all its mean and tawdry +ornament has disappeared in a certain strange dignity of ruin; and last, +the hanging Virgin, holding up the Babe above the devastation below, in +dumb protest to God and man. The gilded statue, which now hangs at right +angles to the tower, has, after its original collapse under shell-fire, +been fixed in this position by the French Engineers; and it is to be +hoped that when the church comes to be rebuilt the figure will be left +as it is. There is something extraordinarily significant and dramatic in +its present attitude. Whatever artistic defects the statue may have are +out of sight, and it seems as it hangs there, passionately hovering, +above the once busy centre of a prosperous town, to be the very symbol +and voice of France calling the world to witness. + +A few more minutes, and we are through the town, moving slowly along the +Albert-Bapaume road, that famous road which will be a pilgrims' way for +generations to come. + +"To other folk," writes an officer quoted by Mr. Buchan in his _Battle +of the Somme_, "and on the maps, one place seems just like another, I +suppose; but to us--La Boisselle and Ovillers--my hat!" + +To walk about in those hells! I went along the "sunken road" all the way +to Contalmaison. Talk about sacred ground! The new troops coming up now +go barging across in the most light-hearted way. It means no more to +them than the roads behind used to mean to us. But when I think how we +watered every yard of it with blood and sweat! Children might play there +now, if it didn't look so like the aftermath of an earthquake. I have a +sort of feeling it ought to be marked off somehow, a permanent memorial. + +The same emotion as that which speaks in this letter--so far, at least, +as it can be shared by those who had no part in the grim scene +itself--held us, the first women-pilgrims to tread these roads and +trampled slopes since the battle-storm of last autumn passed over them. +The sounds of an immortal host seemed to rush past us on the +air--mingled strangely with the memory of hot July days in an English +garden far away, when the news of the great advance came thundering in +hour by hour. + +"The aftermath of an earthquake!" Do the words express the reality +before us as we move along the mile of road between Albert and La +Boisselle? Hardly. The earth-shudder that visits a volcanic district may +topple towns and villages into ruins in a few minutes. It does not tear +and grind and pound what it has overturned, through hour after hour, +till there is nothing left but mud and dust. + +Not only all vegetation, but all the natural surface of the ground here +has gone; and the villages are churned into the soil, as though some +"hundred-handed Gyas" had been mixing and kneading them into a devil's +dough. There are no continuous shell-holes, as we had expected to see. +Those belong to the ground further up the ridge, where fourteen square +miles are so closely shell-pocked that one can hardly drive a stake +between the holes. But here on the way to La Boisselle and Contalmaison +there is just the raw tumbled earth, from which all the natural covering +of grass and trees and all the handiwork of man have been stripped and +torn and hammered away, so that it has become a great dark wound on the +countryside. + +Suddenly we see gaping lines of old trenches rising on either side of +the road, the white chalk of the subsoil marking their course. +"British!" says the officer in front--who was himself in the battle. +Only a few steps further on, as it seems, we come to the remains of the +German front line, and the motor pauses while we try to get our +bearings. There to the south, on our right, and curving eastward, are +two trench lines perfectly clear still on the brown desolation, the +British and the enemy front lines. From that further line, at half-past +seven on the summer morning for ever blazoned in the annals of our +people, the British Army went over the parapet, to gather in the victory +prepared for it by the deadly strength and accuracy of British guns; +made possible in its turn by the labour in far-off England of millions +of workers--men and women--on the lathes and in the filling factories of +these islands. + +We move on up the road. Now we are among what remains of the trenches +and dug-outs described in Sir Douglas Haig's despatch. "During nearly +two years' preparations the enemy had spared no pains to render these +defences impregnable," says the Commander-in-Chief; and he goes on to +describe the successive lines of deep trenches, the bomb-proof shelters, +and the wire entanglements with which the war correspondence of the +winter has made us at home--on paper--so familiar. "The numerous woods +and villages had been turned into veritable fortresses." The deep +cellars in the villages, the pits and quarries of a chalk country, +provided cover for machine guns and trench mortars. The dug-outs were +often two storeys deep, "and connected by passages as much as thirty +feet below the surface of the ground." Strong redoubts, mine-fields, +concrete gun emplacements--everything that the best brains of the German +Army could devise for our destruction--had been lavished on the German +lines. And behind the first line was a second--and behind the second +line a third. And now here we stand in the midst of what was once so +vast a system. What remains of it--and of all the workings of the German +mind that devised it? We leave the motor and go to look into the +dug-outs which line the road, out of which the dazed and dying Germans +flung themselves at the approach of our men after the bombardment, and +then Captain F. guides us a little further to a huge mine crater, and we +sink into the mud which surrounds it, while my eyes look out over what +once was Ovillers, northward towards Thiepval, and the slopes behind +which runs the valley of the Ancre; up and over this torn and naked +land, where the new armies of Great Britain, through five months of some +of the deadliest fighting known to history, fought their way yard by +yard, ridge after ridge, mile after mile, caring nothing for pain, +mutilation and death so that England and the cause of the Allies +might live. + +"_There were no stragglers, none_!" Let us never forget that cry of +exultant amazement wrung from the lips of an eye-witness, who saw the +young untried troops go over the parapet in the July dawn and disappear +into the hell beyond. And there in the packed graveyards that dot these +slopes lie thousands of them in immortal sleep; and as the Greeks in +after days knew no nobler oath than that which pledged a man by those +who fell at Marathon, so may the memory of those who fell here burn ever +in the heart of England, a stern and consecrating force. + + "Life is but the pebble sunk, + Deeds the circle growing!" + +And from the deeds done on this hillside, the suffering endured, the +life given up, the victory won, by every kind and type of man within the +British State--rich and poor, noble and simple, street-men from British +towns, country-men from British villages, men from Canadian prairies, +from Australian and New Zealand homesteads--one has a vision, as one +looks on into the future, of the impulse given here spreading out +through history, unquenched and imperishable. The fight is not over--the +victory is not yet--but on the Somme no English or French heart can +doubt the end. + +The same thoughts follow one along the sunken road to Contalmaison. +Here, first, is the cemetery of La Boisselle, this heaped confusion of +sandbags, of broken and overturned crosses, of graves tossed into a +common ruin. And a little further are the ruins of Contalmaison, where +the 3rd Division of the Prussian Guards was broken and 700 of them taken +prisoners. Terrible are the memories of Contalmaison! Recall one letter +only!--the letter written by a German soldier the day before the attack: +"Nothing comes to us--no letters. The English keep such a barrage on our +approaches--it is horrible. To-morrow morning it will be seven days +since this bombardment began; we cannot hold out much longer. Everything +is shot to pieces." And from another letter: "Every one of us in these +five days has become years older--we hardly know ourselves." + +It was among these intricate remains of trenches and dug-outs, round the +fragments of the old chateau, that such things happened. Here, and among +those ghastly fragments of shattered woods that one sees to south and +east--Mametz, Trones, Delville, High Wood--human suffering and heroism, +human daring and human terror, on one side and on the other, reached +their height. For centuries after the battle of Marathon sounds of armed +men and horses were heard by night; and to pry upon that sacred +rendezvous of the souls of the slain was frowned on by the gods. Only +the man who passed through innocently and ignorantly, not knowing where +he was, could pass through safely. And here also, in days to come, those +who visit these spots in mere curiosity, as though they were any +ordinary sight, will visit them to their hurt. + + * * * * * + +So let the first thoughts run which are evolved by this brown and torn +devastation. But the tension naturally passes, and one comes back, +first, to the _victory_--to the results of all that hard and relentless +fighting, both for the British and the French forces, on this memorable +battlefield north and south of the Somme. Eighty thousand prisoners, +between five and six hundred guns of different calibres, and more than a +thousand machine guns, had fallen to the Allies in four months and a +half. Many square miles of French territory had been recovered. +Verdun--glorious Verdun--had been relieved. Italy and Russia had been +helped by the concentration of the bulk of the German forces on the +Western front. The enemy had lost at least half a million men; and the +Allied loss, though great, had been substantially less. Our new armies +had gloriously proved themselves, and the legend of German +invincibility was gone. + +So much for the first-fruits. The _ultimate results_ are only now +beginning to appear in the steady retreat of German forces, unable to +stand another attack, on the same line, now that the protection of the +winter pause is over. "How far are we from our guns?" I ask the officer +beside me. And, as I speak, a flash to the north-east on the higher +ground towards Pozieres lights up the grey distance. My companion +measures the hillside with his eyes. "About 1,000 yards." Their +objective now is a temporary German line in front of Bapaume. But we +shall be in Bapaume in a few days. And then? + +_Death_--_Victory_--_Work_; these are the three leading impressions that +rise and take symbolic shape amid these scenes. Let me turn now to the +last. For anyone with the common share of heart and imagination, the +first thought here must be of the dead--the next, of swarming life. For +these slopes and roads and ruins are again alive with men. Thousands and +thousands of our soldiers are here, many of them going up to or coming +back from the line, while others are working--working--incessantly at +all that is meant by "advance" and "consolidation." + +The transformation of a line of battle into an efficient "back of the +Army" requires, it seems, an amazing amount of human energy, +contrivance, and endurance. And what we see now is, of course, a second +or third stage. First of all there is the "clearing up" of the actual +battlefield. For this the work of the men now at work here--R.E.'s and +Labour battalions--is too skilled and too valuable. It is done by +fatigues and burying parties from the battalions in occupation of each +captured section. The dead are buried; the poor human fragments that +remain are covered with chlorate of lime; equipments of all kinds, the +litter of the battlefield, are brought back to the salvage dumps, there +to be sorted and sent back to the bases for repairs. + +Then--or simultaneously--begins the work of the Engineers and the Labour +men. Enough ground has to be levelled and shell-holes filled up for the +driving through of new roads and railways, and the provision of places +where tents, huts, dumps, etc., are to stand. Roughly speaking, I see, +as I look round me, that a great deal of this work is here already far +advanced. There are hundreds of men, carts, and horses at work on the +roads, and everywhere one sees the signs of new railway lines, either of +the ordinary breadth, or of the narrow gauges needed for the advanced +carriage of food and ammunition. Here also is a great encampment of +Nissen huts; there fresh preparations for a food or an ammunition dump. + +With one pair of eyes one can only see a fraction of what is in truth +going on. But the whole effect is one of vast and increasing industry, +of an intensity of determined effort, which thrills the mind hardly less +than the thought of the battle-line itself. "Yes, war _is_ work," writes +an officer who went through the Somme fighting, "much more than it is +fighting. This is one of the surprises that the New Army soldiers find +out here." Yet for the hope of the fighting moment men will go +cheerfully through any drudgery, in the long days before and after; and +when the fighting comes, will bear themselves to the wonder of +the world. + +On we move, slowly, towards Fricourt, the shattered remnants of the +Mametz wood upon our left. More graveyards, carefully tended; spaces of +peace amid the universal movement. And always, on the southern horizon, +those clear lines of British trenches, whence sprang on July 1st, 1916, +the irresistible attack on Montauban and Mametz. Suddenly, over the +desolate ground to the west, we see a man hovering in mid-air, +descending on a parachute from a captive balloon that seems to have +suffered mishap. The small wavering object comes slowly down; we cannot +see the landing; but it is probably a safe one. + +Then we are on the main Albert road again, and after some rapid miles I +find myself kindly welcomed by one of the most famous leaders of the +war. There, in a small room, which has surely seen work of the first +importance to our victories on the Somme, a great General discusses the +situation and the future with that same sober and reasoned confidence I +have found everywhere among the representatives of our Higher Command. +"Are we approaching victory? Yes; but it is too soon to use the great +word itself. Everything is going well; but the enemy is still very +strong. This year will decide it; but may not end it." + + * * * * * + +So far my recollections of March 3rd. But this is now April 26th, and +all the time that I have been writing these recollections, thought has +been leaping forward to the actual present--to the huge struggle now +pending between Arras and Rheims--to the news that comes crowding in, +day by day, of the American preparations in aid of the Allies--to all +that is at stake for us and for you. Your eyes are now turned like ours +to the battle-line in France. You triumph--and you suffer--with us! + + + +No. 6 + +_May 3rd_, 1917. + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--My last letter left me returning to our village +lodgings under the wing of G.H.Q. after a memorable day on the Somme +battle-fields. That night the talk at the Visitors' Chateau, during and +after a very simple dinner in an old panelled room, was particularly +interesting and animated. The morning's newspapers had just arrived from +England, with the official communiques of the morning. We were pushing +nearer and nearer to Bapaume; in the fighting of the preceding day we +had taken another 128 prisoners; and the King had sent his +congratulations to Sir Douglas Haig and the Army on the German +withdrawal under "the steady and persistent pressure" of the British +Army "from carefully prepared and strongly fortified positions--a +fitting sequel to the fine achievements of my Army last year in the +Battle of the Somme." There was also a report on the air-fighting and +air-losses of February--to which I will return. + +It was, of course, already obvious that the German retreat on the Somme +was not--so far--going to yield us any very large captures of men or +guns. Prisoners were indeed collected every day, but there were no +"hauls" such as, little more than a month after this evening of March +3rd, were to mark the very different course of the Battle of Arras. +Discussion turned upon the pace of the German retreat and the possible +rate of our pursuit. "Don't forget," said an officer, "that they are +moving over good ground, while the pursuit has to move over bad +ground--roads with craters in them, ground so pitted with shell-holes +that you can scarcely drive a peg between them, demolished bridges, +villages that give scarcely any cover, and so on. The enemy has his guns +with him; ours have to be pushed up over the bad ground. His +machine-guns are always in picked and prepared positions; ours have to +be improvised." + +And also--"Don't forget the weather!" said another. Every misty day--and +there were many in February--was very skilfully turned to account. +Whenever the weather conditions made it impossible to use the eyes of +our Air Service, men would say to each other on our side, "He'll go back +a lot to-day!--somewhere or other." But in spite of secrecy and fog, how +little respite we had given him! The enemy losses in casualties, +prisoners, and stores during February were certainly considerable; not +to speak of the major loss of all, that of the strongly fortified line +on which two years of the most arduous and ingenious labour that even +Germany can give had been lavished. "And almost everywhere," writes an +eye-witness, "he was hustled and harried much more than is generally +known." As you go eastward, for instance, across the evacuated ground +you notice everywhere signs of increasing haste and flurry, such as the +less complete felling of trees and telegraph posts. It was really a fine +performance for our infantry and our cavalry patrols, necessarily +unsupported by _anything like our full artillery strength,_ to keep up +the constant pressure they did on an enemy who enjoyed almost the full +protection of his. It was dreadful country to live and fight in after +the Germans had gone back over it, much worse than anything that troops +have to face after any ordinary capture of an enemy line. + +The fact is that old axioms are being everywhere revised in the light of +this war. In former wars the extreme difficulty of a retreat in the face +of the enemy was taken for granted. But this war--I am trying to +summarise some first-hand opinion as it has reached me--has modified +this point of view considerably. + +We know now that for any serious attack on an enemy who has plenty of +machine-guns and plenty of successive well-wired positions a great mass +of heavy and other artillery is absolutely indispensable. And over +ground deliberately wrecked and obstructed such artillery _must_ take +time to bring up. And yet--to repeat--how rapidly, how "persistently" +all difficulties considered, to use the King's adjective, has the +British Army pressed on the heels of the retreating enemy! + +None of the officers with whom I talked believed that anything more +could have been done by us than was done. "If it had been we who were +retreating," writes one of them, "and the Germans who were pursuing, I +do not believe they would have pushed us so hard or caused us as much +loss, for all their pride in their staff work." + +And it is, of course, evident from what has happened since I parted from +my hosts at the Chateau, that we have now amply succeeded during the +last few weeks in bringing the retreating enemy to bay. No more masked +withdrawals, no more skilful evasions, for either Hindenburg or his +armies! The victories of Easter week on and beyond the Vimy Ridge, and +the renewed British attack of the last few days--I am writing on May +1st--together with the magnificent French advance towards Laon and to +the east of Reims, have been so many fresh and crushing testimonies to +the vitality and gathering force of the Allied armies. + +What is to be the issue we wait to see. But at least, after the winter +lull, it is once more joined; and with such an army as the War Office +and the nation together, during these three years, have fashioned to his +hand--so trained, so equipped, so fired with a common and inflexible +spirit--Sir Douglas Haig and his lieutenants will not fail the hopes of +Great Britain, of France--and of America! + +At the beginning of March these last words could not have been added. +There was an American professor not far from me at dinner, and we +discussed the "blazing indiscretion" of Herr Zimmermann's Mexican +letter. But he knew no more than I. Only I remember with pleasure the +general tone of all the conversation about America that I either engaged +in or listened to at Headquarters just a month before the historic +meeting of Congress. It was one of intelligent sympathy with the +difficulties in your way, coupled with a quiet confidence that the call +of civilisation and humanity would very soon--and irrevocably--decide +the attitude of America towards the war. + + * * * * * + +The evening at the Chateau passed only too quickly, and we were sad to +say good-bye, though it left me still the prospect of further +conversation with some members of the Intelligence Staff on my return +journey from Paris and those points of the French line for which, thanks +to the courtesy of the French Headquarters, I was now bound. + +The last night under the little schoolmistress's quiet roof amid the +deep stillness of the village was a wakeful one for me. The presence of +the New Armies, as of some vast, impersonal, and yet intensely living +thing, seemed to be all around me. First, as an organisation, as the +amazing product of English patriotic intelligence devoted to one sole +end--the defence of civilisation against the immoral attack of the +strongest military machine in the world. And then, so to speak, as a +moral entity, for my mind was full of the sights and sounds of the +preceding days, and the Army appeared to me, not only as the mighty +instrument for war which it already is, but as a training school for the +Empire, likely to have incalculable effect upon the future. + +How much I have heard of _training_ since my arrival in France! It is +not a word that has been so far representative of our English temper. +Far from it. The central idea of English life and politics, said Mr. +Bright, "is the assertion of personal liberty." It was, I suppose, this +assertion of personal liberty which drove our extreme Liberal wing +before the war into that determined fighting of the Naval and Military +Estimates year after year, that determined hatred of anything that +looked like "militarism," and that constant belittlement of the soldier +and his profession which so nearly handed us over, for lack of a +reasonable "militarism," to the tender mercies of the German variety. + +But, years ago, Matthew Arnold dared to say, in face of the general +British approval of Mr. Bright, that there is, after all, something +greater than the "assertion of personal liberty," than the freedom to +"do as you like"; and he put forward against it the notion of "the +nation in its collected and corporate character" controlling the +individual will in the name of an interest wider than that of +individuals. + +What he had in view was surely just what we are witnessing in Great +Britain to-day--what we are about to witness in your own country--a +nation becoming the voluntary servant of an idea, and for that idea +submitting itself to forms of life quite new to it, and far removed from +all its ordinary habits; giving up the freedom to do as it likes; +accepting the extremities of discomfort, hardship, and pain--death +itself--rather than abandon the idea; and so putting itself to school, +resolutely and of its own free will, that when its piece of self-imposed +education is done, it can no more be the same as it was before than the +youth who has yielded himself loyally to the pounding and stretching of +any strenuous discipline, intellectual or physical. + +Training--"askesis"--with either death, or the loss of all that makes +honourable life, as the ultimate sanction behind the process, that is +the present preoccupation of this nation in arms. Even the football +games I saw going on in the course of our drive to Albert were all part +of this training. They are no mere amusement, though they are amusement. +They are part of the system by which men are persuaded--not driven--to +submit themselves to a scheme of careful physical training, even in +their times of rest; by which they find themselves so invigorated that +they end by demanding it. + +As for the elaboration of everything else in this frightful art of war, +the ever-multiplying staff courses, the bombing and bayonet schools, the +special musketry and gas schools, the daily and weekly development of +aviation, the technical industry and skill, both among the gunners +abroad and the factory workers at home, which has now made our artillery +the terror of the German army: a woman can only realise it with a +shudder, and find comfort in two beliefs. First, that the whole horrible +process of war has _not_ brutalised the British soldier--you remember +the Army Commander whom I quoted in an earlier letter!--that he still +remains human and warm-hearted through it all, protected morally by the +ideal he willingly serves. Secondly, in the conviction that this +relentless struggle is the only means that remains to us of so chaining +up the wild beast of war, as the Germans have let it loose upon the +world, that our children and grandchildren at least shall live in peace, +and have time given them to work out a more reasonable scheme of things. + +But, at any rate; we have gone a long way from the time when Matthew +Arnold, talking with "the manager of the Claycross works in Derbyshire" +during the Crimean War, "when our want of soldiers was much felt and +some people were talking of conscription," was told by his companion +that "sooner than submit to conscription the population of that district +would flee to the mines, and lead a sort of Robin Hood life +underground." An illuminating passage, in more ways than one, by the +way, as contrasted with the present state of things!--since it both +shows the stubbornness of the British temper in defence of "doing as it +likes," when no spark of an ideal motive fires it; and also brings out +its equal stubbornness to-day in support of a cause which it feels to be +supreme over the individual interest and will. + +But the stubbornness, the discipline, the sacrifice of the armies in the +field are not all we want. The stubbornness of the nation _at home_, of +the men and the women, is no less necessary to the great end. In these +early days of March every week's news was bringing home to England the +growing peril of the submarine attack. Would the married women, the +elder women of the nation, rise to the demand for personal thought and +saving, for _training_--in the matter of food--with the same eager +goodwill as thousands of the younger women had shown in meeting the +armies' demand for munitions? For the women heads of households have it +largely in their hands. + +The answer at the beginning of March was matter for anxiety. It is still +matter for anxiety now--at the beginning of May. + +Let us, however, return for a little to the Army. What would the +marvellous organisation which England has produced in three years avail +us, without the spirit in it,--the body, without the soul? All through +these days I have been conscious, in the responsible men I have been +meeting, of ideals of which no one talks, except when, on very rare +occasions, it happens to be in the day's work like anything else to talk +of ideals--but which are, in fact, omnipresent. + +I find, for instance, among my War Office Notes, a short address given +in the ordinary course of duty by an unnamed commandant to his +officer-cadets. It appears here, in its natural place, just as part of +the whole; revealing for a moment the thoughts which constantly +underlie it. + +"Believe me when I tell you that I have never found an officer who +worked who did not come through. Only ill-health and death stand in your +way. The former you can guard against in a great measure. The latter +comes to us all, and for a soldier, a soldier's death is the finest of +all. Fear of death does not exist for the man who has led a good and +honest life. You must discipline your bodies and your minds--your bodies +by keeping them healthy and strong, your minds by prayer and thought." + +As to the relation between officers and men, that also is not talked +about much, except in its more practical and workaday aspects--the +interest taken by officers in the men's comfort and welfare, their +readiness to share in the men's games and amusements, and so on. And no +one pretends that the whole British Army is an army of "plaster saints," +that every officer is the "little father" of his men, and all +relations ideal. + +But what becomes evident, as one penetrates a little nearer to the great +organism, is a sense of passionate responsibility in all the finer minds +of the Army towards their men, a readiness to make any sacrifice for +them, a deep and abiding sense of their sufferings and dangers, of all +that they are giving to their country. How this comes out again and +again in the innumerable death-stories of British officers--those few +words that commemorate them in the daily newspapers! And how evident is +the profound response of the men to such a temper in their officers! +There is not a day's action in the field--I am but quoting the +eye-witnesses--that does not bring out such facts. Let a senior +officer--an "old and tried soldier"--speak. He is describing a walk over +a battlefield on the Ancre after one of our victories there +last November: + +"It is a curious thing to walk over enemy trenches that I have watched +like a tiger for weeks and weeks. But what of the boys who took those +trenches, with their eleven rows of barbed wire in front of them? I +don't think I ever before to-day rated the British soldier at his proper +value. His sufferings in this weather are indescribable. When he is not +in the trenches his discomforts are enough to kill any ordinary mortal. +When he is in the trenches it is a mixture between the North Pole and +Hell. And yet when the moment comes he jumps up and charges at the +impossible--and conquers it! ... Some of the poor fellows who lay there +as they fell looked to me absolutely noble, and I thought of their +families who were aching for news of them and hoping against hope that +they would not be left unburied in their misery. + +"All the loving and tender thoughts that are lavished on them are not +enough. There are no words to describe the large hearts of these men. +God bless 'em! And what of the French on whose soil they lie? Can they +ever forget the blood that is mingled with their own? I hope not. I +don't think England has ever had as much cause to be proud as she +has to-day." + +Ah! such thoughts and feelings cut deep. They would be unbearable but +for the saving salt of humour in which this whole great gathering of +men, so to speak, moves suspended, as though in an atmosphere. It is +everywhere. Coarse or refined, it is the universal protection, whether +from the minor discomforts or the more frightful risks of war. Volumes +could be filled, have already been filled, with it--volumes to which +your American soldier when he gets to France in his thousands will add +considerably--pages all his own! I take this touch in passing from a +recent letter: + +"A sergeant in my company [writes a young officer] was the other day +buried by a shell. He was dug out with difficulty. As he lay, not +seriously injured, but sputtering and choking, against the wall of the +trench, his C.O. came by. 'Well, So-and-so, awfully sorry! Can I do +anything for you?' 'Sir,' said the sergeant with dignity, still +struggling out of the mud, '_I want a separate peace_!'" + +And here is another incident that has just come across me. Whether it is +Humour or Pathos I do not know. In this scene they are pretty close +together--the great Sisters! + +A young flying officer, in a night attack, was hit by a shrapnel bullet +from below. He thought it had struck his leg, but was so absorbed in +dropping his bombs and bringing down his machine safely that, although +he was aware of a feeling of faintness, he thought no more of it till he +had landed in the aerodrome. Then it was discovered that his leg had +been shot away, was literally hanging by a shred of skin, and how he had +escaped bleeding to death nobody could quite understand. As it was, he +had dropped his bombs, and he insisted on making his report in hospital. + +He recovered from the subsequent operation, and in hospital, some weeks +afterwards, his C.O. appeared, with the news of his recommendation for +the D.S.O. The boy, for he was little more, listened with eyes of amused +incredulity, opening wider and wider as the Colonel proceeded. When the +communication was over, and the C.O., attributing the young man's +silence to weakness or grateful emotion, had passed on, the nurse beside +the bed saw the patient bury his head in the pillow with a queer sound +of exasperation, and caught the words, "I call it _perfectly childish!_" + +That an act so simple, so all in the bargain, should have earned the +D.S.O. seemed in the eyes of the doer to degrade the honour! + + * * * * * + +With this true tale I have come back to a recollection of the words of +the flying officer in charge of the aerodrome mentioned in my second +letter, after he had described to me the incessant raiding and fighting +of our airmen behind the enemy lines. + +"Many of them don't come back. What then? _They will have done their +job._" + +The report which reaches the chateau on our last evening illustrates +this casual remark. It shows that 89 machines were lost during February, +60 of them German. We claimed 41 of these, and 23 British machines were +"missing" or "brought down." + +But as I write the concluding words of this letter (May 3rd) a far more +startling report--that for April--lies before me. "There has not been a +month of such fighting since the war began, and the losses have never +reached such a tremendous figure," says the _Times_. The record number +so far was that for September 1916, in the height of the Somme +fighting--322. But during April, according to the official reports, "the +enormous number of 717 aeroplanes were brought to earth as the result of +air-fights or by gun-fire." Of these, 369 were German--269 of them +brought down by the British and 98 by the French. The British lost 147; +the French and Belgian, if the German claims can be trusted, 201. + +It is a terrible list, and a terrible testimony to the extreme +importance and intensity of the air-fighting now going on. How few of +us, except those who have relatives or dear friends in the air-service, +realise at all the conditions of this fighting--its daring, its epic +range, its constant development! + +All the men in it are young. None of them can have such a thing as a +nerve. Anyone who betrays the faintest suspicion of one in his first +flights is courteously but firmly returned to his regiment. In peace the +airman sees this solid earth of ours as no one else sees it; and in war +he makes acquaintance by day and night with all its new and strange +aspects, amid every circumstance of danger and excitement, with death +always at hand, his life staked, not only against the enemy and all his +devices on land and above it, but against wind and cloud, against the +treacheries of the very air itself. + +In the midst of these conditions the fighting airman shoots, dodges, +pursues, and dives, intent only on one thing, the destruction of his +enemy, while the observer photographs, marks his map with every +gun-emplacement, railway station, dump of food or ammunition, +unconcerned by the flying shells or the strange dives and swoops of +the machine. + +But apart from active fighting, take such a common experience as what is +called "a long reconnaissance." Pilot and observer receive their orders +to reconnoitre "thoroughly" a certain area. It may be winter, and the +cold at the height of many thousand feet may be formidable indeed. No +matter. The thing is done, and, after hours in the freezing air, the +machine makes for home; through a winter evening, perhaps, as we saw the +two splendid biplanes, near the northern section of the line, sailing +far above our heads into the sunset, that first day of our journey. The +reconnaissance is over, and here is the first-hand testimony of one who +has taken part in many, as to what it means in endurance and fatigue: + +"Both pilot and observer are stiff with the cold. In winter it is often +necessary to help them out of the machine and attend to the chilled +parts of the body to avoid frost-bite. Their faces are drawn with the +continual strain. They are deaf from the roar of the engine. Their eyes +are bloodshot, and their whole bodies are racked with every imaginable +ache. For the next few hours they are good for nothing but rest, though +sleep is generally hard to get. But before turning in the observer must +make his report and hand it in to the proper quarter." + +So much for the nights which are rather for observation than fighting, +though fighting constantly attends them. But the set battles in the air, +squadron with squadron, man with man, the bombers in the centre, the +fighting machines surrounding and protecting them, are becoming more +wonderful, more daring, more complicated every month. "You'll see"--I +recall once more the words of our Flight-Commander, spoken amid the +noise and movement of a score of practising machines, five weeks before +the battle of Arras--"when the great move begins _we shall get the +mastery again, as we did on the Somme._" + +Ask the gunners in the batteries of the April advance, as they work +below the signalling planes; ask the infantry whom the gunners so +marvellously protect, as to the truth of the prophecy! + +"Our casualties are _really_ light," writes an officer in reference to +some of the hot fighting of the past month. Thanks, apparently, to the +ever-growing precision of our artillery methods; which again depend on +aeroplane and balloon information. So it is that the flying forms in the +upper air become for the soldier below so many symbols of help and +protection. He is restless when they are not there. And let us remember +that aeroplanes were first used for artillery observation, not three +years ago, in the battle of Aisne, after the victory of the Marne. + +But the night in the quiet village wears away. To-morrow we shall be +flying through the pleasant land of France, bound for Paris and +Lorraine. For I am turning now to a new task. On our own line I have +been trying to describe, for those who care to listen, the crowding +impressions left on a woman-witness by the huge development in the last +twelve months of the British military effort in France. But now, as I go +forward into this beautiful country, which I have loved next to my own +all my life, there are new purposes in my mind, and three memorable +words in my ears: + +"_Reparation--Restitution--Guarantees!_" + + + +No. 7 + +_May 10th_, 1917. + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--We are then, for a time, to put France, and not the +British line, in the forefront of these later letters. For when I went +out on this task, as I think you know, I had two objects in +mind--intimately connected. The first was to carry on that general story +of the British effort, which I began last year under your inspiration, +down to the opening of this year's campaign. And the second was to try +and make more people in this country, and more people in America, +realise--as acutely and poignantly as I could--what it is we are really +fighting for; what is the character of the enemy we are up against; what +are the sufferings, outrages, and devastations which have been inflicted +on France, in particular, by the wanton cruelty and ambition of Germany; +for which she herself must be made to suffer and pay, if civilisation +and freedom are to endure. + +With this second intention, I was to have combined, by the courtesy of +the French Headquarters, a visit to certain central portions of the +French line, including Soissons, Reims, and Verdun. But by the time I +reached France the great operations that have since marked the +Soissons-Reims front were in active preparation; roads and motor-cars +were absorbed by the movements of troops and stores; Reims and Verdun +were under renewed bombardment; and visits to this section of the French +line were entirely held up. The French authorities, understanding that I +chiefly wished to see for myself some of the wrecked and ruined villages +and towns dealt with in the French official reports, suggested, first +Senlis and the battle-fields of the Ourcq, and then Nancy, the ruined +villages of Lorraine, and that portion of their eastern frontier line +where, simultaneously with the Battle of the Marne, General Castelnau +directed from the plateau of Amance and the Grand Couronne that strong +defence of Nancy which protected--and still protects--the French right, +and has baulked all the German attempts to turn it. + +Meanwhile, in the early days of March, the German retreat, south of the +Somme and in front of the French line, was not yet verified; and the +worst devastation of the war--the most wanton crime, perhaps, that +Germany has so far committed--was not yet accomplished. I had left +France before it was fully known, and could only realise, by hot +sympathy from a distance, the passionate thrill of fury and wild grief +which swept through France when the news began to come in from the +evacuated districts. British correspondents with the advancing armies of +the Allies have seen deeds of barbarism which British eyes and hearts +will never forget, and have sent the news of them through the world. The +destruction of Coucy and Ham, the ruin and plunder of the villages, the +shameless loot everywhere, the hideous ill-treatment of the country +folk, the deportation of boys and girls, the massacre of the fruit +trees--these things have gone deep into the very soul of France, burning +away--except in the minds of a few incorrigible fanatics--whatever +foolish "pacificism" was there, and steeling the mind and will of the +nation afresh to that victory which can alone bring expiation, +punishment, and a peace worth the name. But, everywhere, the ruins with +which northern, central, and eastern France are covered, whether they +were caused by the ordinary processes of war or not, are equally part of +the guilt of Germany. In the country which I saw last year on the +Belgian border, from the great phantom of Ypres down to Festubert, the +ravage is mainly the ravage of war. Incessant bombardment from the +fighting lines has crumbled village after village into dust, or gashed +the small historic towns and the stately country houses. There is no +deliberate use of torch and petrol, as in the towns farther south and +east. Ypres, however, was deliberately shelled into fragments day after +day; and Arras is only a degree less carefully ruined. And whatever the +military pretext may be, the root question remains--"Why are the Germans +_in France at all_?" What brought them there but their own +determination, in the words of the Secret Report of 1913 printed in the +French Yellow book, to "strengthen and extend _Deutschtum_ (Germanism) +throughout the entire world"? Every injury that poor France in +self-defence, or the Allies at her side, are forced to inflict on the +villages and towns which express and are interwoven with the history and +genius of the French, is really a German crime. There is no forgiveness +for what Germany has done--none! She has tried to murder a people; and +but for the splendid gifts of that people, she would have achieved +her end. + +Perhaps the tragedy of what is to be seen and heard at Senlis, on the +battle-grounds of the Ourcq, and in the villages of Lorraine, was +heightened for me by the beauty of the long drive south from the +neighbourhood of G.H.Q.--some hundred and forty miles. It was a cold but +clear March day. We had but parted from snow a little while, and we were +soon to find it again. But on this day, austerely bright, the land of +France unrolled before us its long succession of valley and upland, +upland and valley. Here, no trace of the invader; generally speaking no +signs of the armies; for our route lay, on an average, some forty miles +behind the line. All was peace, solitude even; for the few women, old +men, and boys on the land scarcely told in the landscape. But every mile +was rich in the signs and suggestion of an old and most human +civilisation--farms, villages, towns, the carefully tended woods, the +fine roads running their straight unimpeded course over hill and dale, +bearing witness to a _State sense,_ of which we possess too little in +this country. + +We stopped several times on the journey--I remember a puncture, +involving a couple of hours' delay, somewhere north of Beauvais--and +found ourselves talking in small hot rooms with peasant families of all +ages and stages, from the blind old grandmother, like a brooding Fate in +the background, to the last toddling baby. How friendly they were, in +their own self-respecting way!--the grave-faced elder women, the young +wives, the children. The strength of the _family_ in France seems to me +still overwhelming--would we had more of it left in England! The +prevailing effect was of women everywhere _carrying on_--making no +parade of it, being indeed accustomed to work, and familiar with every +detail of the land; having merely added the tasks of their husbands and +sons to their own, and asking no praise for it. The dignity, the +essential refinement and intelligence--for all their homely speech--of +these solidly built, strong-faced women, in the central districts of +France, is still what it was when George Sand drew her Berri peasants, +nearly a hundred years ago. + +Then darkness fell, and in the darkness we went through an old, old town +where are the French General Headquarters. Sentries challenged us to +right and left, and sent us forward again with friendly looks. The day +had been very long, and presently, as we approached Paris, I fell asleep +in my corner, only to be roused with a start by a glare of lights, and +more sentries. The _barriere_ of Paris!--shining out into the night. + +Two days in Paris followed; every hour crowded with talk, and the vivid +impressions of a moment when, from beyond Compiegne and Soissons--some +sixty miles from the Boulevards--the French airmen flying over the +German lines were now bringing back news every morning and night of +fresh withdrawals, fresh villages burning, as the sullen enemy +relaxed his hold. + +On the third day, a most courteous and able official of the French +Foreign Office took us in charge, and we set out for Senlis on a morning +chill and wintry indeed, but giving little sign of the storm it held +in leash. + +To reach Senlis one must cross the military _enceinte_ of Paris. Many +visitors from Paris and other parts of France, from England, or from +America, have seen by now the wreck of its principal street, and have +talked with the Abbe Dourlent, the "Archipretre" of the cathedral, whose +story often told has lost but little of its first vigour and simplicity, +to judge at least by its effect on two of his latest visitors. + +We took the great northern road out of Paris, which passes scenes +memorable in the war of 1870. On both sides of us, at frequent +intervals, across the flat country, were long lines of trenches, and +belts of barbed wire, most of them additions to the defences of Paris +since the Battle of the Marne. It is well to make assurance doubly sure! +But although, as we entered the Forest of Chantilly, the German line was +no more than some thirty-odd miles away, and since the Battle of the +Aisne, two and a half years ago, it has run, practically, as it still +ran in the early days of this last March, the notion of any fresh attack +on Paris seemed the merest dream. It was indeed a striking testimony to +the power of the modern defensive--this absolute security in which Paris +and its neighbourhood has lived and moved all that time, with--up to a +few weeks ago--the German batteries no farther off than the suburbs of +Soissons. How good to remember, as one writes, all that has happened +since I was in Senlis!--and the increased distance that now divides the +German hosts from the great prize on which they had set their hearts. + +How fiercely they had set their hearts on it, the old Cure of Senlis, +who is the chief depository of the story of the town, was to make us +feel anew. + +One enters Senlis from Paris by the main street, the Rue de la +Republique, which the Germans deliberately and ruthlessly burnt on +September 2nd and 3rd, 1914. We moved slowly along it through the +blackened ruins of houses large and small, systematically fired by the +German _petroleurs_, in revenge for a supposed attack by civilians upon +the entering German troops. _Les civils ont tire_--it is the universal +excuse for these deeds of wanton barbarism, and for the hideous +cruelties to men, women, and children that have attended them--beginning +with that incident which first revealed to a startled world the true +character of the men directing the German Army--the burning and sack of +Louvain. It is to be hoped that renewed and careful investigation will +be made--(much preliminary inquiry has already of course taken +place)--after the war into all these cases. My own impression from what +I have heard, seen, and read--for what it may be worth--is that the plea +is almost invariably false; but that the state of panic and excitement +into which the German temperament falls, with extraordinary readiness, +under the strain of battle, together with the drunkenness of troops +traversing a rich wine-growing country, have often accounted for an +honest, but quite mistaken belief in the minds of German soldiers, +without excusing at all the deeds to which it led. Of this abnormal +excitability, the old Cure of Senlis gave one or two instances which +struck me. + +We came across him by chance in the cathedral--the beautiful cathedral I +have heard Walter Pater describe, in my young Oxford days, as one of the +loveliest and gracefullest things in French Gothic. Fortunately, though +the slender belfry and the roof were repeatedly struck by shrapnel in +the short bombardment of the town, no serious damage was done. We +wandered round the church alone, delighting our eyes with the warm +golden white of the stone, the height of the grooved arches, the flaming +fragments of old glass, when we saw the figure of an old priest come +slowly down the aisle, his arms folded. He looked at us rather dreamily +and passed. Our guide, Monsieur P., followed and spoke to him. +"Monsieur, you are the Abbe Dourlent?" + +"I am, sir. What can I do for you?" + +Something was said about English ladies, and the Cure courteously turned +back. "Will the ladies come into the Presbytere?" We followed him across +the small cathedral square to the old house in which he lived, and were +shown into a bare dining-room, with a table, some chairs, and a few old +religious engravings on the walls. He offered us chairs and sat +down himself. + +"You would like to hear the story of the German occupation?" He thought +a little before beginning, and I was struck with his strong, tired face, +the powerful mouth and jaw, and above them, eyes which seemed to have +lost the power of smiling, though I guessed them to be naturally full of +a pleasant shrewdness, of what the French call _malice_, which is not +the English "malice." He was rather difficult to follow here and there, +but from his spoken words and from a written account he placed in my +hands, I put together the following story: + +"It was August 30th, 1914, when the British General Staff arrived in +Senlis. That same evening, they left it for Dammartin. All day, and the +next two days, French and English troops passed through the town. What +was happening? Would there be no fighting in defence of Paris--only +thirty miles away? Wednesday, September 2nd--that was the day the guns +began, our guns and theirs, to the north of Senlis. But, in the course +of that day, we knew finally there would be no battle between us and +Paris. The French troops were going--the English were going. They left +us--marching eastward. Our hearts were very sore as we saw them go. + +"Two o'clock on Wednesday--the first shell struck the cathedral. I had +just been to the top of the belfry to see, if I could, from what +direction the enemy was coming. The bombardment lasted an hour and a +half. At four o'clock they entered. If you had seen them!" + +The old Cure raised himself on his seat, trying to imitate the insolent +bearing of the German cavalry as they led the way through the old town +which they imagined would be the last stage on their way to Paris. + +"They came in, shouting '_Paris_--_Nach Paris!'_ maddened with +excitement. They were all singing--they were like men beside +themselves." + +"What did they sing, Monsieur le Cure?--Deutschland ueber alles'?" + +"Oh, no, madame, not at all. They sang hymns. It was an extraordinary +sight. They seemed possessed. They were certain that in a few hours they +would be in Paris. They passed through the town, and then, just south of +the town, they stopped. Our people show the place. It was the nearest +they ever got to Paris. + +"Presently, an officer, with an escort, a general apparently, rode +through the town, pulled up at the Hotel de Ville, and asked for the +Maire--angrily, like a man in a passion. But the Maire--M. Odent--was +there, waiting, on the steps of the Hotel de Ville. + +"Monsieur Odent was my friend--he gave me his confidence. He had +resisted his nomination as Mayor as long as he could, and accepted it +only as an imperative duty. He was an employer, whom his workmen loved. +One of them used to say--'When one gets into M. Odent's employ, one +lives and dies there.' Just before the invasion, he took his family +away. Then he came back, with the presentiment of disaster. He said to +me--'I persuaded my wife to go. It was hard. We are much attached to +each other--but now I am free, ready for all that may come.' + +"Well, the German general said to him roughly: + +"'Is your town quiet? Can we circulate safely?' + +"M. Odent said, 'Yes. There is no quieter town in France than Senlis.' + +"'Are there still any soldiers here?' + +"M. Odent had seen the French troops defiling through the town all the +morning. The bombardment had made it impossible to go about the streets. +As far as he knew there were none left. He answered, 'No.' + +"He was taken off, practically under arrest, to the Hotel, and told to +order a dinner for thirty, with ice and champagne. Then his secretary +joined him and proposed that the _adjoints_, or Mayor's assistants, +should be sent for. + +"'No,' said M. Odent, 'one victim is enough.' You see he foresaw +everything. We all knew what had happened in Belgium and the Ardennes. + +"The German officer questioned him again. + +"'Why have your people gone?--why are these houses, these shops, shut? +There must be lights _everywhere_--all through the night!' + +"Suddenly--shots!--in the Rue de la Republique. In a few seconds there +was a furious fusillade, accompanied by the rattle of machine guns. The +officer sprang up. + +"'So this is your quiet town, Monsieur le Maire! I arrest you, and you +shall answer with your life for the lives of my soldiers.' + +"Two men with revolvers were set to guard him. The officer himself +presently took him outside the town, and left him under guard, at the +little village of Poteau, at the edge of a wood." + + * * * * * + +What had happened? Unluckily for Senlis and M. Odent, some of the French +rear-guard--infantry stragglers, and a small party of Senegalese +troops--were still in the southern quarter of the town when the Germans +entered. They opened fire from a barrack near the Paris entrance and a +sharp engagement followed which lasted several hours, with casualties on +both sides. The Germans got the better, and were then free to wreak +their fury on the town. + +They broke into the houses, plundered the wine shops, first of all, and +took fifty hostages, of whom twenty-six perished. And at half-past five, +while the fighting was still going on, the punitive burning of the town +began, by a cyclist section told off for the work and furnished with +every means for doing it effectively. These men, according to an +eyewitness, did their work with wild shouts--"_cris sauvages_." + +A hundred and seventeen houses were soon burning fiercely. On that hot +September evening, the air was like a furnace. Before long the streets +were full of blazing debris. Two persons who had hidden themselves in +their cellars died of suffocation; yet to appear in the streets was to +risk death at the hands of some drunk or maddened soldier. + +At the opening of the French attack, a German officer rushed to the +hospital, which was full of wounded, in search of francs-tireurs. +Arrived there, he saw an old man, a chronic patient of the hospital and +half idiotic, standing on the steps of the building. He blew the old +man's brains out. He then forced his way into the hospital, pointing his +revolver at the French wounded, who thought their last hour had come. He +himself was wounded, and at last appeared to yield to the remonstrances +of the Sister in charge, and allowed his wound to be dressed. But in the +middle of the dressing, he broke away without his tunic, and helmetless, +in a state of mad excitement, and presently reappeared with a file of +soldiers. Placing them in the street opposite the rooms occupied by the +French wounded, he ordered them to fire a volley. No one was hurt, +though several beds were struck. Then the women's wards were searched. +Two sick men, _eclopes_ without visible wounds, were dragged out of +their beds and would have been bayoneted then and there but for the +entreaties of the nurses, who ultimately released them. + +An awful night followed in the still burning or smouldering town. +Meanwhile, at nine o'clock in the evening a party of German officers +betook themselves to the hamlet of Poteau--a village north of +Senlis--where M. Odent had been kept under guard since the afternoon. +Six other hostages were produced, and they were all marched off to a +field near Chamant at the edge of a wood. Here the Maire was called up +and interrogated. His companion, eight or nine metres away, too far to +hear what was said, watched the scene. As I think of it, I seem to see +in the southern sky the glare of burning Senlis; above it, and spread +over the stubble fields in which the party stood, a peaceful moonlight. +In his written account, the Cure specially mentions the brightness of +the harvest moon. + +Presently the Maire came back to the six, and said to one, Benoit +Decreys, "Adieu, my poor Benoit, we shall not see each other again +--they are going to shoot me." He took his crucifix, his purse +containing a sum of money, and some papers, out of his pocket, and asked +that they should be given to his family. Then pressing the hands held +out to him, he said good-bye to them all, and went back with a firm step +to the group of officers. Two soldiers were called up, and the Maire was +placed at ten paces' distance. The soldiers fired, and M. Odent fell +without a sound. He was hastily buried under barely a foot of earth, and +his six companions were left on the spot through the night expecting the +same fate, till the morning, when they were released. Five other +hostages, "gathered haphazard in the streets," were shot the same night +in the neighbourhood of Chamant. + +Meanwhile the Cure, knowing nothing of what was happening to the Maire, +had been thinking for his parishioners and his church. When the +bombardment began he gathered together about a hundred and twenty of +them, who had apparently no cellars to take refuge in, and after +sheltering them in the Presbytere for a time, he sent them with one of +his _vicaires_ out of the town. Then--to continue his narrative: + +"I went to the southern portal of the cathedral, and stood there +trembling at every burst of shrapnel that struck the belfry and the +roof, and running out into the open, at each pause, to be sure that the +church was still there. When the firing ceased, I went back to the +Presbytere. + +"Presently, furious sounds of blows from the _place_. I went out. I saw +some enemy cyclists, armed with fragments of stone, breaking in one of +the cathedral doors, another, with a hatchet, attacking the belfry door. +At the sight of me, they rushed at me with their revolvers, demanding +that I should take them to the top of the belfry. 'You have a machine +gun there!' 'Nothing of the sort, monsieur. See for yourselves.' I +unlocked the door, and just as I put my foot on the first step, the +fusillade in the town began. The soldiers started. 'You are our +prisoner!' cried their chief, turning to me, as though to seize me. + +"'I know it. You have me in your hands.' I went up before them, as +quickly as my age allowed. They searched everywhere, and, of course, +found nothing. They ran down and disappeared." + +But that was not the end of the Abbe's trouble. He was presently sent +for to the German Headquarters, at the Hotel du Grand Cerf, where the +table spread for thirty people, by the order of M. Odent, was still +waiting for its guests. The conversation here between the Cure and the +officer of high rank who spoke to him is worth repeating. From the tenor +of it, the presumption is that the officer was a Catholic--probably +a Bavarian. + +"I asked leave to go back to the Presbytere. + +"'Better stay here, Monsieur le Cure. You will be safer. The burning is +going on. To-morrow, your town will be only a heap of ruins.' + +"'What is our crime?' + +"'Listen to that fusillade. Your inhabitants are attacking us, as they +did at Louvain. Louvain has ceased to exist! We will make of Senlis +another Louvain, so that Paris and France may know how we treat those +who may imitate you. We have found small shot (_chevrotines_) in the +body of one of our officers.' + +"'Already?'--I thought. How had there been any time for the post-mortem? +But I was too crushed to speak. + +"'And also from your belfry we have been fired on!' + +"At that I recovered myself. + +"'Sir--what may have passed in the streets, I cannot say. But as to the +cathedral I formally deny your charge. Since war broke out, I have +always had the keys of the belfry. I did not even give them to your +soldiers, who made me take them there. Do you wish me to swear it?' + +"The officer looked at me. + +"'No need. You are a Catholic priest. I see you are sincere.' + +"I bowed." + +A scene that throws much light! A false charge--an excited reference to +Louvain--monstrous threat--the temper, that is, of panic, which is the +mother of cruelty. At that very moment, the German troops in the Rue de +la Republique were driving parties of French civilians in front of them, +as a protection from the Senegalese troops who were still firing from +houses near the Paris exit from the town. Four or five of these poor +people were killed by French bullets; a child of five forced along, with +her mother, was shot in the thigh. Altogether some twenty or thirty +civilians seem to have been killed. + +Next day more houses were burnt. Then, for a time, the quiet of +desolation. All the normal population were gone, or in the cellars. But +twenty miles away to the southeast, great things were preparing. The +German occupation of Senlis began, as we have seen, on a Wednesday, +September 2nd. On Saturday the 5th, as we all know, the first shots were +fired in that Battle of the Ourcq which was the western section of the +Battle of the Marne. By that Saturday, already, writes the +Abbe Dourlent: + +"There was something changed in the attitude of the enemy. What had +become of the brutal arrogance, the insolent cruelty of the first days? +For three days and nights, the German troops, an army of 300,000 men, +defiled through our streets. It was not the road to Paris, now, that +they asked for--it was the way to Nanteuil, Ermenonville, the direction +of the Marne. On the faces of the officers, one seemed to read +disappointment and anxiety. Close to us, on the east, the guns were +speaking, every day more fiercely. What was happening?" + +All that the Cure knows is that in a house belonging to persons of his +acquaintance, where some officers of the rear-guard left behind in +Senlis are billeted, two of the young officers have been in tears--it is +supposed, because of bad news. Another day, an armoured car rushes into +Senlis from Paris; the men in it exchange some shots with the German +soldiers in the principal _place_, and make off again, calling out, +"Courage! Deliverance is coming!" + +Then, on the 9th, just a week from the German entry, there is another +fusillade in the streets. "It is the Zouaves, knocking at the doors, +dragging out the conquerors of yesterday, now a humbled remnant, with +their hands in the air." + +And the Cure goes on to compare Senlis to the sand which the Creator +showed to the sea. "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." "The grain +of sand is Senlis, still red with the flames which have devoured her, +and with the blood of her victims. To these barbarians she cries--'You +want Paris?--you want France? Halt! No road through here!'" + + * * * * * + +This combination of the Cure's written and spoken account is as close to +the facts as I can make it. His narrative as he gave it to me, of what +he had seen and felt, was essentially simple, and, to judge from the +French official reports, with which I have compared it, essentially +true. There are some discrepancies in detail, but nothing that matters. +The murder of M. Odent, of the other hostages, of the civilians placed +in front of the German troops, and of four or five other victims; the +burning out by torch and explosive of half a flourishing town, because +of a discreditable mistake, the fruit of panic and passion,--these +crimes are indelibly marked on the record of Germany. She has done worse +elsewhere. All the same, this too she will never efface. Let us imagine +such things happening at Guildford, or Hatfield, or St. Albans! + +We parted with M. le Cure just in time to meet a pleasant party of war +correspondents at the very inn, the Hotel du Cerf, which had been the +German Headquarters during the occupation. The correspondents were on +their way between the French Headquarters and the nearest points of the +French line, Soissons or Compiegne, from whose neighbourhood every day +the Germans were slowly falling back, and where the great attacks of the +month of April were in active preparation. Then, after luncheon, we +sallied out into the darkening afternoon, through the Forest of +Ermenonville, and up to the great plateau, stretching north towards +Soissons, southwards towards Meaux, and eastwards towards the Ourcq, +where Maunoury's Sixth Army, striking from Paris and the west, and the +English Army, striking from the south--aided by all the gallant French +line from Chateau Thierry to the Grand Couronne--dealt that staggering +blow against the German right which flung back the German host, and, +weary as the way has been since, weary as it may still be, in truth, +decided the war. + +But the clouds hang lower as we emerge on the high bare plain. A few +flakes--then, in a twinkling, a whirling snow-storm through which we can +hardly see our way. But we fight through it, and along the roads every +one of which is famous in the history of the battle. At our northernmost +point we are about thirty miles from Soissons and the line. Columns of +French infantry on the march, guns, ammunition, stores, field kitchens, +pass us perpetually; the motor moves at a foot's pace, and we catch the +young faces of the soldiers through the white thickened air. And our +most animated and animating companion, Monsieur P----, with his +wonderful knowledge of the battle, hails every landmark, identifies +every farm and wood, even in what has become, in less than an hour, a +white wilderness. But it is of one village only, of these many whose +names are henceforth known to history, that I wish to speak--the +village of Vareddes. In my next letter I propose to tell the ghastly +story of the hostages of Vareddes. + + + +No. 8 + +_May 17th_, 1917. + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--Shall I ever forget that broad wintry plateau of +the Ourcq, as it lay, at the opening of March, under its bed of snow, +with its ruined villages, its graves scattered over the fields, its +utter loneliness, save for the columns of marching soldiers in the +roads, and the howling wind that rushed over the fields, the graves, the +cemeteries, and whistled through the gaping walls of the poor churches +and farms? This high spreading plain, which before the war was one scene +of rural plenty and industrious peace, with its farm lands and orchards +dropping gently from the forest country of Chantilly, Compiegne, and +Ermenonville, down to the Ourcq and the Marne, will be a place of +pilgrimage for generations to come. Most of the Battle of the Marne was +fought on so vast a scale, over so wide a stretch of country--about 200 +miles long, by 50 broad--that for the civilian spectator of the future +it will never be possible to realise it as a whole, and very difficult +even to realise any section of it, topographically, owing to the +complication of the actions involved. But in the Battle of the Ourcq, +the distances are comparatively small, the actions comparatively simple +and intelligible, while all the circumstances of the particular struggle +are so dramatic, and the stakes at issue so vast, that every incident +is, as it were, writ large, and the memory absorbs them more easily. + +An Englishwoman, too, may be glad it was in this conspicuous section of +the battle-field, which will perhaps affect the imagination of posterity +more easily than any other, that it fell to the British Army to play its +part. To General Joffre the glory of the main strategic conception of +the great retreat; to General Gallieni the undying honour of the rapid +perception, the quick decision, which flung General Maunoury, with the +6th Army, on Von Kluck's flank and rear, at the first hint of the German +general's swerve to the southeast; to General Maunoury himself, and his +splendid troops, the credit of the battle proper, across the broad +harvest fields of the Ourcq plateau. But the advance of the British +troops from the south of the Marne, on the heels of Von Kluck, was in +truth all-important to the success of Maunoury on the Ourcq. It was the +British Expeditionary Force which made the hinge of the battle-line, and +if that hinge had not been strong and supple--in all respects equal to +its work--the sudden attack of the 6th Army, on the extreme left of the +battle-line, and the victory of General Foch in the centre, might not +have availed. In other words, had Von Kluck found the weak spot he +believed in and struck for, all would have been different. But the weak +spot existed only in the German imagination. The British troops whom Von +Kluck supposed to be exhausted and demoralised, were in truth nothing of +the sort. Rested and in excellent condition, they turned rejoicing upon +the enemy, and, in concert with the French 6th Army, decided the German +withdrawal. Every one of the six Armies aligned across France, from +Paris to the Grand Couronne, had its own glorious task in the defeat of +the German plans. But we were then so small a proportion of the whole, +with our hundred and twenty thousand men, and we have become since so +accustomed to count in millions, that perhaps our part in the "miracle +of the Marne" is sometimes in danger of becoming a little blurred in the +popular English--and American--conception of the battle. Is not the +truth rather that we had a twofold share in it? It was Von Kluck's +miscalculation as to the English strength that tempted him to his +eastward march; it was the quality of the British force and leadership, +when Sir John French's opportunity came, that made the mistake a +fatal one. + +How different the aspect of the Ourcq plateau at the opening of the +battle in 1914, from the snowy desolation under which we saw it! Perfect +summer weather--the harvest stacks in the fields--a blazing sun by day, +and a clear moon by night. For the first encounters of the five days' +fighting, till the rain came down, Nature could not have set a fairer +scene. And on the two anniversaries which have since passed, summer has +again decked the battle-field. Thousands have gone out to it from Paris, +from Meaux, and the whole country-side. The innumerable graves, single +or grouped, among the harvest fields and the pastures, have been covered +with flowers, and bright, mile after mile, with the twinkling tricolour, +as far as the eye could see. At Barcy and Etrepilly, the centres of the +fight, priests have blessed the graves, and prayed for the dead. + +There has been neither labour nor money indeed as yet wherewith to +rebuild the ruined villages and farms, beyond the most necessary +repairs. They stand for the most part as the battle left them. And the +fields are still alive with innumerable red flags--distinct from the +tricolour of the graves--which mark where the plough must avoid an +unexploded shell. In a journal of September 1914, a citizen of Senlis +describes passing in a motor through the scene of the fight, immediately +after the departure of the Germans, when the scavenging and burying +parties were still busy. + +"How can I describe it? Where to begin? Abandoned farms, on hills of +death! The grain-giving earth, empty of human beings. No labourers--no +household smoke. The fire of the burning villages has smouldered out, +and round the houses, and in the courtyards, lie the debris of their +normal life, trampled, dirty and piecemeal, under foot. Poor farms of +the Ile-de-France!--dwellings of old time, into whose barns the rich +harvests of the fields had been joyously gathered year by year--old +tiled roofs, clothed with ancestral moss--plain hospitable rooms where +masters and servants met familiarly together:--you are no more than +calcined and blackened stones! Not a living animal in the ruined stalls, +not an ox, not a horse, not a sheep. One flies from the houses, only to +find a scene more horrible in the fields. Corpses everywhere, of men and +horses. And everywhere in the fields unexploded shells, which it would +be death to touch, which have already made many unsuspecting victims. + +"Sometimes, as the motor draws near, a man or a woman emerges from a +building, having still on their faces the terror of the hours they have +lived through. They scarcely look at us. They are absorbed in their +losses, in the struggle to rescue something from the wreck. As soon as +they are sure it is not the Germans come back, they turn away, with slow +steps, bewildered by what they have suffered." + +The small party in the motor includes a priest, and as it passes near +Betz, at the northern end of the battle-field, they see a burying-party +of French Territorials at work. The officer in charge beckons to the +priest, and the priest goes to speak to him. + +"Monsieur l'Abbe, we have just buried here twenty-two French soldiers." +He points to a trench freshly dug, into which the earth has just been +shovelled. + +"They are Breton soldiers," the officer explains, "and the men of my +burying company are Bretons too. They have just discovered that these +dead men we have gathered from the fields were soldiers from a regiment +recruited in their own district. And _seven_ of them have recognised +among these twenty-two dead, one a son, one a son-in-law, one a brother. +Will you come, Monsieur l'Abbe, and say a few words to these +poor fellows?" + +So the Abbe goes to the new-made grave, reads the _De Profundis_, says a +prayer, gives the benediction, and then speaks. Tears are on the strong, +rugged faces of the bare-headed Bretons, as they gather round him. A +group, some little distance off, which is writing the names of the dead +on a white cross, pauses, catches what is going on, and kneels too, with +bent heads.... + +It is good to linger on that little scene of human sympathy and +religious faith. It does something to protect the mind from the horror +of much that has happened here. + + * * * * * + +In spite of the storm, our indefatigable guide carried us through all +the principal points of the battle-line--St. Soupplets--Marcilly-- +Barcy--Etrepilly--Acy-en-Multien; villages from which one by one, by +keen, hard fighting, the French attack, coming eastwards from Dammartin +to Paris, dislodged the troops of Von Kluck; while to our right lay +Trocy, and Vareddes, a village on the Ourcq, between which points ran +the strongest artillery positions of the enemy. At Barcy, we stopped a +few minutes, to go and look at the ruined church, with its fallen bell, +and its graveyard packed with wreaths and crosses, bound with the +tricolour. At Etrepilly, with the snow beating in our faces, and the +wind howling round us, we read the inscription on the national monument +raised to those fallen in the battle, and looking eastwards to the spot +where Trocy lay under thick curtains of storm, we tried to imagine the +magnificent charge of the Zouaves, of the 62nd Reserve Division, under +Commandant Henri D'Urbal, who, with many a comrade, lies buried in the +cemetery of Barcy. + +Five days the battle swayed backwards and forwards across this scene, +especially following the lines of the little streams flowing eastwards +to the Ourcq, the Therouanne, the Gergogne, the Grivette. "From village +to village," says Colonel Buchan, "amid the smoke of burning haystacks +and farmsteads, the French bayonet attack was pressed home." + +"Terrible days of life-and-death fighting! [writes a Meaux resident, +Madame Koussel-Lepine] battles of Chambry, Barcy, Puisieux, +Acy-en-Multien, the 6th, 7th, and 8th of September--fierce days to which +the graves among the crops bear witness. Four hundred volunteers sent to +attack a farm, from which only seven come back! Ambuscades, barricades +in the streets, loopholes cut in the cemetery walls, trenches hastily +dug and filled with dead, night fighting, often hand to hand, surprises, +the sudden flash of bayonets, a rain of iron, a rain of fire, mills and +houses burning like torches--fields red with the dead and with the +flaming corn fruit of the fields, and flower of the race!--the sacrifice +consummated, the cup drunk to the lees." + +Moving and eloquent words! They gain for me a double significance as I +look back from them to the little scene we saw at Barcy under the +snow--a halt of some French infantry, in front of the ruined church. The +"_salut an drapeau_" was going on, that simple, daily rite which, like a +secular mass, is the outward and visible sign to the French soldier of +his country and what he owes her. This passion of French +patriotism--what a marvellous force, what a regenerating force it has +shown itself in this war! It springs, too, from the heart of a race +which has the Latin gift of expression. Listen to this last entry in the +journal of Captain Robert Dubarle, the evening before his death +in action: + +"This attack to-morrow, besides the inevitable emotion it rouses in +one's thoughts, stirs in me a kind of joyous impatience, and the pride +of doing my duty--which is to fight gladly, and die victorious. To the +last breath of our lives, to the last child of our mothers, to the last +stone of our dwellings, all is thine, my country! Make no hurry. Choose +thine own time for striking. If thou needest months, we will fight for +months; if thou needest years, we will fight for years--the children of +to-day shall be the soldiers of to-morrow. + +"Already, perhaps, my last hour is hastening towards me. Accept the gift +I make thee of my strength, my hopes, my joys and my sorrows, of all my +being, filled with the passion of thee. Pardon thy children their errors +of past days. Cover them with thy glory--put them to sleep in thy flag. +Rise, victorious and renewed, upon their graves. Let our holocaust save +thee--_Patrie, Patrie_!" + +An utterance which for tragic sincerity and passion may well compare +with the letter of an English officer I printed at the end of +_England's Effort_. + +On they go, into the snow and the mist, the small sturdy soldiers, bound +northwards for those great and victorious attacks on the Craonne +plateau, and the Chemin des Dames, which were to follow so close on our +own British victory on the Vimy Ridge. They pass the two ladies in the +motor car, looking at us with friendly, laughing eyes, and disappear +into the storm. + +Then we move on to the northern edge of the battle-field, and at Rosoy +we turn south towards Meaux, passing Vareddes to our left. The weather +clears a little, and from the high ground we are able to see Meaux to +the west, lying beside its great river, than which our children's +children will greet no more famous name. The Marne winds, steely grey, +through the white landscape, and we run down to it quickly. Soon we are +making our way on foot through the dripping streets of Meaux to the old +bridge, which the British broke down--one of three--on their retreat--so +soon to end! Then, a few minutes in the lovely cathedral--its beauty was +a great surprise to me!--a greeting to the tomb of Bossuet--ah! what a +_Discours_ he would have written on the Battle of the Marne!--and a +rapid journey of some twenty-five miles back to Paris. + +But there is still a story left to tell--the story of Vareddes. + +"Vareddes"--says a local historian of the battle--"is now a very quiet +place. There is no movement in the streets and little life in the +houses, where some of the injuries of war have been repaired." But there +is no spot in the wide battle-field where there burns a more passionate +hatred of a barbarous enemy. "Push open this window, enter this house, +talk with any person whatever whom you may happen to meet, and they will +tell you of the torture of old men, carried off as hostages and murdered +in cold blood, or of the agonies of fear deliberately inflicted on old +and frail women, through a whole night." + +The story of Vareddes is indeed nearly incredible. That English, or +French, or Italian troops could have been guilty of this particular +crime is beyond imagination. Individual deeds of passion and lust are +possible, indeed, in all armies, though the degree to which they have +prevailed in the German army is, by the judgment of the civilised world +outside Germany, unprecedented in modern history. But the instances of +long-drawn-out, cold-blooded, unrelenting cruelty, of which the German +conduct of the war is full, fill one after a while with a shuddering +sense of something wholly vile, and wholly unsuspected, which Europe has +been sheltering, unawares, in its midst. The horror has now thrown off +the trappings and disguise of modern civilisation, and we see it and +recoil. We feel that we are terribly right in speaking of the Germans as +barbarians; that, for all their science and their organisation, they +have nothing really in common with the Graeco-Latin and Christian +civilisation on which this old Europe is based. We have thought of them, +in former days,--how strange to look back upon it!--as brothers and +co-workers in the human cause. But the men who have made and are +sustaining this war, together with the men, civil and military, who have +breathed its present spirit into the German Army, are really moral +outlaws, acknowledging no authority but their own arrogant and cruel +wills, impervious to the moral ideals and restraints that govern other +nations, and betraying again and again, under the test of circumstance, +the traits of the savage and the brute. + +And as one says these things, one could almost laugh at them!--so strong +is still the memory of what one used to feel towards the poetic, the +thinking, the artistic Germany of the past. But that Germany was a mere +blind, hiding the real Germany. + +Listen, at least, to what this old village of the Ile-de-France knows of +Germany. + +With the early days of September 1914, there was a lamentable exodus +from all this district. Long lines of fugitives making for safety and +the south, carts filled with household stuff and carrying the women and +children, herds of cattle and sheep, crowded the roads. The Germans were +coming, and the terror of Belgium and the Ardennes had spread to these +French peasants of the centre. On September 1st, the post-mistress of +Vareddes received orders to leave the village, after destroying the +telephone and telegraphic connections. The news came late, but panic +spread like wildfire. All the night, Vareddes was packing and going. Of +800 inhabitants only a hundred remained, thirty of them old men. + +One of the emigrants did not get far from home. He was a man of seventy, +Louis Denet by name. He left Vareddes with his wife, in a farm-cart, +driving a cow with them. They went a day's journey, and put up for a few +days at the farm of a friend named Roger. On Sunday the 6th, in the +morning, four Germans arrived at the farm. They went away and came back +again in the afternoon. They called all the inmates of the farm out into +the yard. Denet and Roger appeared. "You were three men this morning, +now you are only two!" said one of the Germans. And immediately they +took the two old men a little distance away, and shot them both, within +half a mile of the farm. The body of Roger was found by his wife the day +after; that of Denet was not discovered for some time. Nobody has any +idea to this day why those men were shot. It is worth while to try and +realise the scene--the terror-stricken old men dragged away by their +murderers--the wives left behind, no doubt under a guard--the sound of +the distant shots--the broken hearts of the widow and the orphan. + +But that was a mere prelude. + +On Friday, September 4th, a large detachment of Von Kluck's army invaded +Vareddes, coming from Barcy, which lies to the west. It was no doubt +moving towards the Marne on that flank march which was Von Kluck's +undoing. The troops left the village on Saturday the 5th, but only to +make a hurried return that same evening. Von Kluck was already aware of +his danger, and was rapidly recalling troops to meet the advance of +Maunoury. Meanwhile the French Sixth Army was pressing on from the west, +and from the 6th to the 9th there was fierce fighting in and round +Vareddes. There were German batteries behind the Presbytere, and the +church had become a hospital. The old Cure, the Abbe Fossin, at the age +of seventy-eight, spent himself in devoted service to the wounded +Germans who filled it. There were other dressing stations near by. The +Mairie, and the school, were full of wounded, of whom there were +probably some hundreds in the village. Only 135 dead were buried in the +neighbourhood; the Germans carried off the others in great lorries +filled with corpses. + +By Monday the 7th, although they were still to hold the village till the +9th, the Germans knew they were beaten. The rage of the great defeat, of +the incredible disappointment, was on them. Only a week before, they had +passed through the same country-side crying "Nach Paris!" and polishing +up buttons, belts, rifles, accoutrements generally, so as to enter the +French capital in _grande tenue._ For whatever might have been the real +plans of the German General Staff, the rank and file, as they came south +from Creil and Nanteuil, believed themselves only a few hours from the +Boulevards, from the city of pleasure and spoil. + +What had happened? The common cry of men so sharply foiled went up. +"Nous sommes trahis!" The German troops in Vareddes, foreseeing +immediate withdrawal, and surrounded by their own dead and dying, must +somehow avenge themselves, on some one. "Hostages! The village has +played us false! The Cure has been signalling from the church. We are in +a nest of spies!" + +So on the evening of the 7th, the old Cure, who had spent his day in the +church, doing what he could for the wounded, and was worn out, had just +gone to bed when there was loud knocking at his door. He was dragged out +of bed, and told that he was charged with making signals to the French +Army from his church tower, and so causing the defeat of the Germans. + +He pointed out that he was physically incapable of climbing the tower, +that any wounded German of whom the church was full could have seen him +doing it, had the absurd charge been true. He reminded them that he had +spent his whole time in nursing their men. No use! He is struck, +hustled, spat upon, and dragged off to the Mairie. There he passed the +night sitting on a hamper, and in the morning some one remembers to have +seen him there, his rosary in his hand. + +In one of the local accounts there is a touching photograph, taken, of +course, before the war, of the Cure among the boys of the village. A +mild reserved face, with something of the child in it; the face of a man +who had had a gentle experience of life, and might surely hope for a +gentle death. + +Altogether some fourteen hostages, all but two over sixty years of age, +and several over seventy, were taken during the evening and night. They +ask why. The answer is, "The Germans have been betrayed!" One man is +arrested because he had said to a German who was boasting that the +German Army would be in Paris in two days--"All right!--but you're not +there yet!" Another, because he had been seen going backwards and +forwards to a wood, in which it appeared he had hidden two horses whom +he had been trying to feed. One old man of seventy-nine could only walk +to the yard in which the others were gathered by the help of his wife's +arm. When they arrived there a soldier separated them so roughly that +the wife fell. + +Imagine the horror of the September night!--the terror of the women who, +in the general exodus of the young and strong, had stayed behind with +their husbands, the old men who could not be persuaded to leave the +farms and fields in which they had spent their lives. "What harm can +they do to us--old people?" No doubt that had been the instinctive +feeling among those who had remained to face the invasion. + +But the Germans were not content without wreaking the instinct--which is +the savage instinct--to break and crush and ill-treat something which +has thwarted you, on the women of Vareddes also. They gathered them out +of the farmyard to which they had come, in the hopes of being allowed to +stay with the men, and shut them up in a room of the farm. And there, +with fixed bayonets, the soldiers amused themselves with terrifying +these trembling creatures during a great part of the night. They made +them all kneel down, facing a file of soldiers, and the women thought +their last hour had come. One was seventy-seven years old, three +sixty-seven, the two others just under sixty. The eldest, Madame +Barthelemy, said to the others--"We are going to die. Make your +'contrition' if you can." (The Town Librarian of Meaux, from whose +account I take these facts, heard these details from the lips of poor +Madame Barthelemy herself.) The cruel scene shapes itself as we think of +it--the half-lit room--the row of kneeling and weeping women, the +grinning soldiers, bayonet in hand, and the old men waiting in the +yard outside. + +But with the morning, the French mitrailleuses are heard. The soldiers +disappear. + +The poor old women are free; they are able to leave their prison. + +But their husbands are gone--carried off as hostages by the Germans. +There were nineteen hostages in all. Three of them were taken off in a +north-westerly direction, and found some German officers quartered in a +chateau, who, after a short interrogation, released them. Of the other +sixteen, fifteen were old men, and the sixteenth a child. The Cure is +with them, and finds great difficulty, owing to his age, the exhaustion +of the night, and lack of food, in keeping up with the column. It was +now Thursday the 10th, the day following that on which, as is generally +believed, the Kaiser signed the order for the general retreat of the +German armies in France. But the hostages are told that the French Army +has been repulsed, and the Germans will be in Paris directly. + +At last the poor Cure could walk no farther. He gave his watch to a +companion. "Give it to my family when you can. I am sure they mean to +shoot me." Then he dropped exhausted. The Germans hailed a passing +vehicle, and made him and another old man, who had fallen out, follow in +it. Presently they arrive at Lizy-sur-Ourcq, through which thousands of +German troops are now passing, bound not for Paris, but for Soissons and +the Aisne, and in the blackest of tempers. Here, after twenty-four more +hours of suffering and starvation, the Cure is brought before a +court-martial of German officers sitting in a barn. He is once more +charged with signalling from the church to the French Army. He again +denies the charge, and reminds his judges of what he had done for the +German wounded, to whose gratitude he appeals. Then four German soldiers +give some sort of evidence, founded either on malice or mistake. There +are no witnesses for the defence, no further inquiry. The president of +the court-martial says, in bad French, to the other hostages who stand +by: "The Cure has lied--he is a spy--_il sera juge_." + +What did he mean--and what happened afterwards? The French witnesses of +the scene who survived understood the officer's words to mean that the +Cure would be shot. With tears, they bade him farewell, as he sat +crouched in a corner of the barn guarded by two German soldiers. He was +never seen again by French eyes; and the probability is that he was shot +immediately after the scene in the barn. + +Then the miserable march of the other old men began again. They are +dragged along in the wake of the retreating Germans. The day is very +hot, the roads are crowded with troops and lorries. They are hustled and +hurried, and their feeble strength is rapidly exhausted. The older ones +beg that they may be left to die; the younger help them as much as they +can. When anyone falls out, he is kicked and beaten till he gets up +again. And all the time the passing troops mock and insult them. At +last, near Coulombs, after a march of two hours and a half, a man of +seventy-three, called Jourdaine, falls. His guards rush upon him, with +blows and kicks. In vain. He has no strength to rise, and his murderers +finish him with a ball in the head and one in the side, and bury him +hastily in a field a few metres off. + +The weary march goes on all day. When it ends, another old +man--seventy-nine years old--"le pere Milliardet"--can do no more. The +next morning he staggered to his feet at the order to move, but fell +almost immediately. Then a soldier with the utmost coolness sent his +bayonet through the heart of the helpless creature. Another falls on the +road a little farther north--then another--and another. All are killed, +as they lie. + +The poor Maire, Lievin, struggles on as long as he can. Two other +prisoners support him on either side. But he has a weak heart--his face +is purple--he can hardly breathe. Again and again he falls, only to be +brutally pulled up, the Germans shouting with laughter at the old man's +misery. (This comes from the testimony of the survivors.) Then he, too, +falls for the last time. Two soldiers take him into the cemetery of +Chouy. Lievin understands, and patiently takes out his handkerchief and +bandages his own eyes. It takes three balls to kill him. + +Another hostage, a little farther on, who had also fallen was beaten to +death before the eyes of the others. + +The following day, after having suffered every kind of insult and +privation, the wretched remnant of the civilian prisoners reached +Soissons, and were dispatched to Germany, bound for the concentration +camp at Erfurt. + +Eight of them, poor souls! reached Germany, where two of them died. At +last, in January 1915, four of them were returned to France through +Switzerland. They reached Schaffhausen with a number of other +_rapatries,_ in early February, to find there the boundless pity with +which the Swiss know so well how to surround the frail and tortured +sufferers of this war. In a few weeks more, they were again at home, +among the old farms and woods of the Ile-de-France. "They are now in +peace," says the Meaux Librarian--"among those who love them, and whose +affection tries, day by day, to soften for them the cruel memory of +their Calvary and their exile." + +A monument to the memory of the murdered hostages is to be erected in +the village market-place, and a _plaque_ has been let into the wall of +the farm where the old men and the women passed their first night +of agony. + + * * * * * + +What is the moral of this story? I have chosen it to illustrate again +the historic words which should be, I think--and we know that what is in +our hearts is in your hearts also!--the special watchword of the Allies +and of America, in these present days, when the German strength _may_ +collapse at any moment, and the problems of peace negotiations _may_ be +upon us before we know. + +_Reparation_--_Restitution_--_Guarantees_! + +The story of Vareddes, like that of Senlis, is not among the vilest--by +a long, long way--of those which have steeped the name of Germany in +eternal infamy during this war. The tale of Gerbeviller--which I shall +take for my third instance--as I heard it from the lips of +eye-witnesses, plunges us in deeper depths of horror; and the pages of +the Bryce report are full of incidents beside which that of Vareddes +looks almost colourless. + +All the same, let us insist again that no Army of the Allies, or of +America, or of any British Dominion, would have been capable of the +treatment given by the soldiers of Germany to the hostages of Vareddes. +It brings out into sharp relief that quality, or "mentality," to use the +fashionable word, which Germany shares with Austria--witness the +Austrian doings in Serbia--and with Turkey--witness Turkey's doings in +Armenia--but not with any other civilised nation. It is the quality of, +or the tendency to, deliberate and pitiless cruelty; a quality which +makes of the man or nation who shows it a particularly terrible kind of +animal force; and the more terrible, the more educated. Unless we can +put it down and stamp it out, as it has become embodied in a European +nation, European freedom and peace, American freedom and peace, have +no future. + +But now, let me carry you to Lorraine!--to the scenes of that short but +glorious campaign of September 1914, by which, while the Battle of the +Marne was being fought, General Castelnau was protecting the right of +the French armies; and to the devastated villages where American +kindness is already at work, rebuilding the destroyed, and comforting +the broken-hearted. + + + +No. 9 + +_May 24th_, 1917. + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--To any citizen of a country allied with France in +the present struggle, above all to any English man or woman who is +provided with at least some general knowledge of the Battle of the +Marne, the journey across France from Paris to Nancy can never fail to +be one of poignant interest. Up to a point beyond Chalons, the "Ligne de +l'Est" follows in general the course of the great river, and therefore +the line of the battle. You pass La Fertee-sous-Jouarre, where the Third +Corps of General French's army crossed the river; Charly-sur-Marne, +where a portion of the First Corps found an unexpectedly easy crossing, +owing, it is said, to the hopeless drunkenness of the enemy rear-guard +charged with defending the bridge; and Chateau Thierry, famous in the +older history of France, where the right of the First Corps crossed +after sharp fighting, and, in the course of "a gigantic man-hunt" in and +around the town, took a large number of German prisoners, before, by +nightfall, coming into touch with the left of the French Fifth Army +under Franchet d'Espercy. At Dornans you are only a few miles north of +the Marshes of St. Gond, where General Foch, after some perilous +moments, won his brilliant victory over General Billow and the German +Second Army, including a corps of the Prussian Guards; while at Chalons +I look up from a record I am reading of the experiences of the Diocese +during the war, written by the Bishop, to watch for the distant +cathedral, and recall the scene of the night of September 9th, when the +German Headquarters Staff in that town, "flown with insolence and wine," +after what is described as "an excellent dinner and much riotous +drinking," were roused about midnight by a sudden noise in the Hotel, +and shouts of "The French are here!" "In fifteen minutes," writes an +officer of the Staff of General Langle de Gary, "the Hotel was empty." + +At Epernay and Chalons those French officers who were bound for the +fighting line in Champagne, east and west of Reims, left the train; and +somewhere beyond Epernay I followed in thought the flight of an +aeroplane which seemed to be heading northwards across the ridges which +bound the river valley--northwards for Reims, and that tragic ghost +which the crime of Germany has set moving through history for ever, +never to be laid or silenced--Joan of Arc's Cathedral. Then, at last, we +are done with the Marne. We pass Bar-le-Duc, on one of her tributaries, +the Ornain; after which the splendid Meuse flashes into sight, running +north on its victorious way to Verdun; then the Moselle, with Toul and +its beautiful church on the right; and finally the Meurthe, on which +stands Nancy. A glorious sisterhood of rivers! The more one realises +what they have meant to the history of France, the more one understands +that strong instinct of the early Greeks, which gave every river its +god, and made of the Simois and the Xanthus personages almost as real as +Achilles himself. + +But alas! the whole great spectacle, here as on the Ourcq, was sorely +muffled and blurred by the snow, which lay thick over the whole length +and breadth of France, effacing the landscape in one monotonous +whiteness. If I remember rightly, however, it had ceased to fall, and +twenty-four hours after we reached Nancy, it had disappeared. It lasted +just long enough to let us see the fairy-like Place Stanislas raise its +beautiful gilded gates and white palaces between the snow and the +moon-light--a sight not soon forgotten. + +We were welcomed at Nancy by the Prefet of the Department, Monsieur Leon +Mirman, to whom an old friend had written from Paris, and by the +courteous French officer, Capitaine de B., who was to take us in charge, +for the French Army, during our stay. M. Mirman and his active and +public-spirited wife have done a great work at Nancy, and in the +desolated country round it. From the ruined villages of the border, the +poor _refugies_ have been gathered into the old capital of Lorraine, and +what seemed to me a remarkably efficient and intelligent philanthropy +has been dealing with their needs and those of their children. Nor is +this all. M. Mirman is an old Radical and of course a Government +official, sent down some years ago from Paris. Lorraine is ardently +Catholic, as we all know, and her old Catholic families are not the +natural friends of the Republican _regime_. But President Poincare's +happy phrase, _l'union sacree_--describing the fusion of all parties, +classes, and creeds in the war service of France, has nowhere found a +stronger echo than in Lorraine. The Prefet is on the friendliest of +terms with the Catholic population, rich and poor; and they, on their +side, think and speak warmly of a man who is clearly doing his patriotic +best for all alike. + +Our first day's journeyings were to show us something of the qualities +of this Catholic world of Lorraine. A charming and distinguished +Frenchwoman who accompanied us counted, no doubt, for much in the warmth +of the kindness shown us. And yet I like to believe--indeed I am +sure--that there was more than this in it. There was the thrilling sense +of a friendship between our two nations, a friendship new and +far-reaching, cemented by the war, but looking beyond it, which seemed +to me to make the background of it all. Long as I have loved and admired +the French, I have often--like many others of their English friends and +admirers--felt and fretted against the kind of barrier that seemed to +exist between their intimate life and ours. It was as though, at bottom, +and in the end, something cold and critical in the French temperament, +combined with ignorance and prejudice on our own part, prevented a real +contact between the two nationalities. In Lorraine, at any rate, and for +the first time, I felt this "something" gone. Let us only carry forward +_intelligently_, after the war, the process of friendship born from the +stress and anguish of this time--for there is an art and skill in +friendship, just as there is an art and skill in love--and new horizons +will open for both nations. The mutual respect, the daily intercourse, +and the common glory of our two armies fighting amid the fields and +woods of France--soon to welcome a third army, your own, to their great +fellowship!--are the foundations to-day of all the rest; and next come +the efforts that have been made by British and Americans to help the +French in remaking and rebuilding their desolated land, efforts that +bless him that gives and him that takes, but especially him that gives; +of which I shall have more to say in the course of this letter. But a +common victory, and a common ardour in rebuilding the waste places, and +binding up the broken-hearted: even they will not be enough, unless, +beyond the war, all three nations, nay, all the Allies, do not set +themselves to a systematic interpenetration of life and thought, +morally, socially, commercially. As far as France and England are +concerned, English people must go more to France; French people must +come more to England. Relations of hospitality, of correspondence, of +wide mutual acquaintance, must not be left to mere chance; they must be +furthered by the mind of both nations. Our English children must go for +part of their education to France; and French children must be +systematically wooed over here. Above all the difficulty of language +must be tackled as it has never been yet, so that it may be a real +disadvantage and disgrace for the boy or girl of either country who has +had a secondary education not to be able to speak, in some fashion, the +language of the other. As for the working classes, and the country +populations of both countries, what they have seen of each other, as +brothers in arms during the war, may well prove of more lasting +importance than anything else. + + * * * * * + +But I am wandering a little from Nancy, and the story of our long +Sunday. The snow had disappeared, and there were voices of spring in the +wind. A French Army motor arrived early, with another French officer, +the Capitaine de G----, who proved to be a most interesting and +stimulating guide. With him I drove slowly through the beautiful town, +looking at the ruined houses, which are fairly frequent in its streets. +For Nancy has had its bombardments, and there is one gun of long range +in particular, surnamed by the town--"la grosse Bertha," which has done, +and still does, at intervals, damage of the kind the German loves. +Bombs, too, have been dropped by aeroplanes both here and at Luneville, +in streets crowded with non-combatants, with the natural result. It has +been in reprisal for this and similar deeds elsewhere, and in the hope +of stopping them, that the French have raided German towns across the +frontier. But the spirit of Nancy remains quite undaunted. The children +of its schools, drilled to run down to the cellars at the first alarm as +our children are drilled to empty a school on a warning of a Zeppelin +raid, are the gayest and most spirited creatures, as I saw them at their +games and action songs; unless indeed it be the children of the +_refugies_, in whose faces sometimes one seems to see the reflection of +scenes that no child ought to have witnessed and not even a child can +forget. For these children come from the frontier villages, ravaged by +the German advance, and still, some of them, in German occupation. And +the orgy of murder, cruelty, and arson which broke out at Nomeny, +Badonviller, and Gerbeviller, during the campaign of 1914, has scarcely +been surpassed elsewhere--even in Belgium. Here again, as at Vareddes, +the hideous deeds done were largely owing to the rage of defeat. The +Germans, mainly Bavarians, on the frontier, had set their hearts on +Nancy, as the troops of Von Kluck had set their hearts on Paris; and +General Castelnau, commanding the Second Army, denied them Nancy, as +Maunoury's Sixth Army denied Paris to Von Kluck. + +But more of this presently. We started first of all for a famous point +in the fighting of 1914, the farm and hill of Leomont. By this time the +day had brightened into a cold sunlight, and as we sped south from Nancy +on the Luneville road, through the old town of St. Nicholas du Port, +with its remarkable church, and past the great salt works at Dombasle, +all the country-side was clear to view. + +Good fortune indeed!--as I soon discovered when, after climbing a steep +hill to the east of the road, we found ourselves in full view of the +fighting lines and a wide section of the frontier, with the Forest of +Parroy, which is still partly German, stretching its dark length +southward on the right, while to the north ran the famous heights of the +Grand Couronne;--name of good omen!--which suggests so happily the +historical importance of the ridge which protects Nancy and covers the +French right. Then, turning westward, one looked over the valley of the +Meurthe, with its various tributaries, the Mortagne in particular, on +which stands Gerbeviller; and away to the Moselle and the Meuse. But the +panoramic view was really made to live and speak for me by the able man +at my side. With French precision and French logic, he began with the +geography of the country, its rivers and hills and plateaux, and its +natural capacities for defence against the German enemy; handling the +view as though it had been a great map, and pointing out, as he went, +the disposition of the French frontier armies, and the use made of this +feature and that by the French generals in command. + +This Lorraine Campaign, at the opening of the war, is very little +realised outside France. It lasted some three weeks. It was preceded by +the calamitous French reverse at Morhange, where, on August 20th, +portions of the 15th and 16th Corps of the Second Army, young troops +drawn from south-western France--who in subsequent actions fought with +great bravery--broke in rout before a tremendous German attack. The +defeat almost gave the Germans Nancy. But General Castelnau and General +Foch, between them, retrieved the disaster. They fell back on Nancy and +the line of the Mortagne, while the Germans, advancing farther south, +occupied Luneville (August 22nd) and burnt Gerbeviller. On the 23rd, +24th, and 25th there was fierce fighting on and near this hill on which +we stood. Capitaine de G---- with the 2nd Battalion of Chausseurs, under +General Dubail, had been in the thick of the struggle, and he described +to me the action on the slopes beneath us, and how, through his glasses, +he had watched the enemy on the neighbouring hill forcing parties of +French civilians to bury the German dead and dig German trenches, under +the fire of their own people. + +The hill of Leomont, and the many graves upon it, were quiet enough as +we stood talking there. The old farm was in ruins; and in the fields +stretching up the hill there were the remains of trenches. All around +and below us spread the beautiful Lorraine country, with its rivers and +forests; and to the south-east one could just see the blue mass of Mont +Donon, and the first spurs of the Vosges. + +"Can you show me exactly where the French line runs?" I asked my +companion. He pointed to a patch of wood some six miles away. "There is +a French battalion there. And you see that other patch of wood a little +farther east? There is a German battalion there. Ah!" Suddenly he broke +off, and the younger officer with us, Capitaine de B----, came running +up, pointing overhead. I craned my neck to look into the spring blue +above us, and there--7,000 to 8,000 feet high, according to the +officers--were three Boche aeroplanes pursued by two French machines. In +and out a light band of white cloud, the fighters in the air chased each +other, shrapnel bursting all round them like tufts of white wool. They +were so high that they looked mere white specks. Yet we could follow +their action perfectly--how the Germans climbed, before running for +home, and how the French pursued! It was breathless while it lasted! But +we did not see the end. The three Taubes were clearly driven back; and +in a few seconds they and the Frenchmen had disappeared in distance and +cloud towards the fighting-line. The following day, at a point farther +to the north, a well-known French airman was brought down and killed, in +just such a fight. + +Beyond Leomont we diverged westward from the main road, and found +ourselves suddenly in one of those utterly ruined villages which now +bestrew the soil of Northern, Central, and Eastern France; of that +France which has been pre-eminently for centuries, in spite of +revolutions, the pious and watchful guardian of what the labour of dead +generations has bequeathed to their sons. Vitrimont, however, was +destroyed in fair fight during the campaign of 1914. Bombardment had +made wreck of the solid houses, built of the warm red stone of the +country. It had destroyed the church, and torn up the graveyard; and +when its exiled inhabitants returned to it by degrees, even French +courage and French thrift quailed before the task of reconstruction. But +presently there arrived a quiet American lady, who began to make friends +with the people of Vitrimont, to find out what they wanted, and to +consult with all those on the spot who could help to bring the visions +in her mind to pass,--with the Prefet, with the officials, local and +governmental, of the neighbouring towns, with the Catholic women of the +richer Lorraine families, gentle, charitable, devout, who quickly +perceived her quality, and set themselves to co-operate with her. It was +the American lady's intention--simply--to rebuild Vitrimont. And she is +steadily accomplishing it, with the help of generous money subsidies +coming, month by month, from one rich American woman--a woman of San +Francisco--across the Atlantic. How one envies that American woman! + +The sight of Miss Polk at work lives indeed, a warm memory, in one's +heart. She has established herself in two tiny rooms in a peasant's +cottage, which have been made just habitable for her. A few touches of +bright colour, a picture or two, a book or two, some flowers, with +furniture of the simplest--amid these surroundings on the outskirts of +the ruined village, with one of its capable, kindly faced women to run +the _menage_, Miss Polk lives and works, realising bit by bit the plans +of the new Vitrimont, which have been drawn for her by the architect of +the department, and following loyally old Lorraine traditions. The +church has been already restored and reopened. The first mass within its +thronged walls was--so the spectators say--a moving sight. "_That sad +word--Joy_"--Landor's pregnant phrase comes back to one, as expressing +the bitter-sweet of all glad things in this countryside, which has +seen--so short a time ago--death and murder and outrage at their worst. +The gratitude of the villagers to their friend and helper has taken +various forms. The most public mark of it, so far, has been Miss Folk's +formal admission to the burgess rights of Vitrimont, which is one of the +old communes of France. And the village insists that she shall claim her +rights! When the time came for dividing the communal wood in the +neighbouring forest, her fellow citizens arrived to take her with them +and show her how to obtain her share. As to the affection and confidence +with which she is regarded, it was enough to walk with her through the +village, to judge of its reality. + +But it makes one happy to think that it is not only Americans who have +done this sort of work in France. Look, for instance, at the work of the +Society of Friends in the department of the Marne,--on that fragment of +the battlefield which extends from Bar-le-Duc to Vitry St. Francois. "Go +and ask," wrote a French writer in 1915, "for the village of Huiron, or +that of Glannes, or that other, with its name to shudder at, splashed +with blood and powder--Sermaize. Inquire for the English Quakers. Books, +perhaps, have taught you to think of them as people with long black +coats and long faces. Where are they? Here are only a band of workmen, +smooth-faced--not like our country folk. They laugh and sing while they +make the shavings fly under the plane and the saw. They are building +wooden houses, and roofing them with tiles. Around them are poor people +whose features are stiff and grey like those of the dead. These are the +women, the old men, the children, the weaklings of our sweet France, who +have lived for months in damp caves and dens, till they look like +Lazarus rising from the tomb. But life is beginning to come back to +their eyes and their lips. The hands they stretch out to you tremble +with joy. To-night they will sleep in a house, in _their_ house. And +inside there will be beds and tables and chairs, and things to cook +with.... As they go in and look, they embrace each other, sobbing." + +By June 1915, 150 "Friends" had rebuilt more than 400 houses, and +rehoused more than seven hundred persons. They had provided ploughs and +other agricultural gear, seeds for the harvest fields and for the +gardens, poultry for the farmyards. And from that day to this, the +adorable work has gone on. "_By this shall all men know that ye are My +disciples, if ye love one another_." + + * * * * * + +It is difficult to tear oneself away from themes like this, when the +story one has still to tell is the story of Gerbeviller. At Vitrimont +the great dream of Christianity--the City of God on earth--seems still +reasonable. + +At Heremenil, and Gerbeviller, we are within sight and hearing of deeds +that befoul the human name, and make one despair of a world in which +they can happen. + +At luncheon in a charming house of old Lorraine, with an intellectual +and spiritual atmosphere that reminded me of a book that was one of the +abiding joys of my younger days--the _Recit d'une Soeur_--we heard from +the lips of some of those present an account of the arrival at Luneville +of the fugitives from Gerbeviller, after the entry of the Bavarians into +the town. Women and children and old men, literally mad with terror, had +escaped from the burning town, and found their way over the thirteen +kilometres that separate Gerbeviller from Luneville. No intelligible +account could be got from them; they had seen things that shatter the +nerves and brain of the weak and old; they were scarcely human in their +extremity of fear. And when, an hour later, we ourselves reached +Gerbeviller, the terror which had inspired that frenzied flight became, +as we listened to Soeur Julie, a tangible presence haunting the +ruined town. + +Gerbeviller and Soeur Julie are great names in France to-day. +Gerbeviller, with Nomeny, Badonviller, and Sermaize, stand in France for +what is most famous in German infamy; Soeur Julie, the "chere soeur" of +so many narratives, for that form of courage and whole-hearted devotion +which is specially dear to the French, because it has in it a touch of +_panache_, of audacity! It is not too meek; it gets its own back when it +can, and likes to punish the sinner as well as to forgive him. Sister +Julie of the Order of St. Charles of Nancy, Madame Rigard, in civil +parlance, had been for years when the war broke out the head of a modest +cottage hospital in the small country town of Gerbeviller. The town was +prosperous and pretty; its gardens ran down to the Mortagne flowing at +its feet, and it owned a country house in a park, full of treasures new +and old--tapestries, pictures, books--as Lorraine likes to have such +things about her. + +But unfortunately, it occupied one of the central points of the fighting +in the campaign of Lorraine, after the defeat of General Castelnau's +Army at Morhange on August 20th, 1914. The exultant and victorious +Germans pushed on rapidly after that action. Luneville was occupied, and +the fighting spread to the districts south and west of that town. The +campaign, however, lasted only three weeks, and was determined by the +decisive French victory of September 8th on the Grand Couronne. By +September 12th Nancy was safe; Luneville and Gerbeviller had been +retaken; and the German line had been driven back to where we saw it +from the hill of Leomont. But in that three weeks a hell of cruelty, in +addition to all the normal sufferings of war, had been let loose on the +villages of Lorraine; on Nomeny to the north of Nancy, on Badonviller, +Baccarat, and Gerbeviller to the south. The Bavarian troops, whose +record is among the worst in the war, got terribly out of hand, +especially when the tide turned against them; and if there is one +criminal who, if he is still living, will deserve and, I hope, get an +impartial trial some day before an international tribunal, it will be +the Bavarian General, General Clauss. + +Here is the first-hand testimony of M. Mirman, the Prefet of the +Department. At Gerbeviller, he writes, the ruin and slaughter of the +town and its inhabitants had nothing to do with legitimate war: + +"We are here in presence of an inexpiable crime. The crime was signed. +Such signatures are soon rubbed out. I saw that of the murderer--and I +bear my testimony. + +"The bandits who were at work here were assassins: I have seen the +bodies of their victims, and taken the evidence on the spot. They shot +down the inhabitants like rabbits, killing them haphazard in the +streets, on their doorsteps, almost at arm's length. Of these victims it +is still difficult to ascertain the exact number; it will be more than +fifty. Most of the victims had been buried when I first entered the +town; here and there, however, in a garden, at the entrance to a cellar +the corpses of women still awaited burial. In a field just outside the +town, I saw on the ground, their hands tied, some with their eyes +bandaged--fifteen old men--murdered. They were in three groups of five. +The men of each group had evidently clung to each other before death. +The clenched hand of one of them still held an old pipe. They were all +old men--with white hair. Some days had elapsed since their murder; but +their aspect in death was still venerable; their quiet closed eyes +seemed to appeal to heaven. A staff officer of the Second Army who was +with me photographed the scene; with other _pieces de conviction_; the +photograph is in the hands of the Governmental Commission charged with +investigating the crimes of the Germans during this war." + +The Bavarian soldiers in Gerbeviller were not only murderers--they were +incendiaries, even more deliberate and thorough-going than the soldiers +of Von Kluck's army at Senlis. With the exception of a few houses beyond +the hospital, spared at the entreaty of Soeur Julie, and on her promise +to nurse the German wounded, the whole town was deliberately burnt out, +house by house, the bare walls left standing, the rest destroyed. And +as, _after the fire_, the place was twice taken and retaken under +bombardment, its present condition may be imagined. It was during the +burning that some of the worst murders and outrages took place. For +there is a maddening force in triumphant cruelty, which is deadlier than +that of wine; under it men become demons, and all that is +human perishes. + +The excuse, of course, was here as at Senlis--"les civils ont tire!" +There is not the slightest evidence in support of the charge. As at +Senlis, there was a French rear-guard of 57 Chasseurs--left behind to +delay the German advance as long as possible. They were told to hold +their ground for five hours; they held it for eleven, fighting with +reckless bravery, and firing from a street below the hospital. The +Germans, taken by surprise, lost a good many men before, at small loss +to themselves, the Chasseurs retreated. In their rage at the unexpected +check, and feeling, no doubt, already that the whole campaign was going +against them, the Germans avenged themselves on the town and its +helpless inhabitants. + +Our half-hour in Soeur Julie's parlour was a wonderful experience! +Imagine a portly woman of sixty, with a shrewd humorous face, talking +with French vivacity, and with many homely turns of phrase drawn +straight from that life of the soil and the peasants amid which she +worked; a woman named in one of General Castelnau's Orders of the Day +and entitled to wear the Legion of Honour; a woman, too, who has seen +horror face to face as few women, even in war, have seen it, yet still +simple, racy, full of irony, and full of heart, talking as a mother +might talk of her "grands blesses"! but always with humorous asides, and +an utter absence of pose or pretence; flashing now into scorn and now +into tenderness, as she described the conduct of the German officers who +searched her hospital for arms, or the helplessness of the wounded men +whom she protected. I will try and put down some of her talk. It threw +much light for me on the psychology of two nations. + +"During the fighting, we had always about 300 of our wounded (_nos chers +blesses_) in this hospital. As fast as we sent them off, others came in. +All our stores were soon exhausted. I was thankful we had some good wine +in the cellars--about 200 bottles. You understand, Madame, that when we +go to nurse our people in their farms, they don't pay us, but they like +to give us something--very often it is a bottle of old wine, and we put +it in the cellar, when it comes in handy often for our invalids. Ah! I +was glad of it for our _blesses_! I said to my Sisters--'Give it them! +and not by thimblefuls--give them enough!' Ah, poor things!--it made +some of them sleep. It was all we had. One day, I passed a soldier who +was lying back in his bed with a sigh of satisfaction. '_Ah, ma Soeur, +ca resusciterait un mort!_' (That would bring a dead man to life!) So I +stopped to ask what they had just given him. And it was a large glass of +Lachryma Christi! + +"But then came the day when the Commandant, the French Commandant, you +understand, came to me and said--'Sister, I have sad news for you. I am +going. I am taking away the wounded--and all my stores. Those are +my orders.' + +"'But, mon Commandant, you'll leave me some of your stores for the +grands blesses, whom you leave behind--whom you can't move? _What_!--you +must take it all away? Ah, ca--_non_! I don't want any extras--I won't +take your chloroform--I won't take your bistouris--I won't take your +electric things--but--hand over the iodine! (_en avant l'iode_!) hand +over the cotton-wool!--hand over the gauze! Come, my Sisters!' I can +tell you I plundered him!--and my Sisters came with their aprons, and +the linen-baskets--we carried away all we could." + +Then she described the evacuation of the French wounded at night--300 of +them--all but the 19 worst cases left behind. There were no ambulances, +no proper preparation of any kind. + +"Oh! it was a confusion!--an ugly business!" (_ce n'etait pas rose_!). +The Sisters tore down and split up the shutters, the doors, to serve as +stretchers; they tore sheets into long strips and tied "our poor +children" on to the shutters, and hoisted them into country carts of +every sort and description. "Quick!--Quick!" She gave us a wonderful +sense of the despairing haste in which the night retreat had to be +effected. All night their work went on. The wounded never made a +sound--"they let us do what we would without a word. And as for us, my +Sisters bound these big fellows (_ces gros et grands messieurs_) on to +the improvised stretchers, like a mother who fastens her child in its +cot. Ah! Jesus! the poverty and the misery of that time!" + + +By the early morning all the French wounded were gone except the +nineteen helpless cases, and all the French soldiers had cleared out of +the village except the 57 Chasseurs, whose orders were to hold the place +as long as they could, to cover the retreat of the rest. + +Then, when the Chasseurs finally withdrew, the Bavarian troops rushed up +the town in a state of furious excitement, burning it systematically as +they advanced, and treating the inhabitants as M. Mirman has described. +Soon Soeur Julie knew that they were coming up the hill towards the +hospital. I will quote the very language--homely, Biblical, direct--in +which she described her feelings. "_Mes reins flottaient comme ca--ils +allaient tomber a mes talons. Instantanement, pas une goutte de salive +dans la bouche!_" Or--to translate it in the weaker English idiom--"My +heart went down into my heels--all in a moment, my mouth was dry as +a bone!" + +The German officers drew up, and asked for the Superior of the hospital. +She went out to meet them. Here she tried to imitate the extraordinary +arrogance of the German manner. + +"They told me they would have to burn the hospital, as they were +informed men had been shooting from it at their troops. + +"I replied that if anyone had been shooting, it was the French +Chasseurs, who were posted in a street close by, and had every right +to shoot!" + +At last they agreed to let the hospital alone, and burn no more houses, +if she would take in the German wounded. So presently the wards of the +little hospital were full again to overflowing. But while the German +wounded were coming in the German officers insisted on searching the +nineteen French wounded for arms. + +"I had to make way for them--I _had_ to say, '_Entrez, Messieurs!_'" + +Then she dropped her voice, and said between her teeth--"Think how hard +that was for a Lorrainer!" + +So two German officers went to the ward where the nineteen Frenchmen +lay, all helpless cases, and a scene followed very like that in the +hospital at Senlis. One drew his revolver and covered the beds, the +other walked round, poniard in hand, throwing back the bedclothes to +look for arms. But they found nothing--"_only blood_! For we had had +neither time enough nor dressings enough to treat the wounds properly +that night." + +A frightful moment!--the cowering patients--the officers in a state of +almost frenzied excitement, searching bed after bed. At the last bed, +occupied by a badly wounded and quite helpless youth, the officer +carrying the dagger brought the blade of it so near to the boy's throat +that Soeur Julie rushed forward, and placed her two hands in front of +the poor bare neck. The officer dropped both arms to his side, she said, +"as if he had been shot," and stood staring at her, quivering all over. +But from that moment she had conquered them. + +For the German wounded, Soeur Julie declared she had done her best, and +the officer in charge of them afterwards wrote her a letter of thanks. +Then her mouth twisted a little. "But I wasn't--well, I didn't _spoil_ +them! (_Je n'etais pas trop tendre_); I didn't give them our best wine!" +And one officer whose wounds she dressed, a Prussian colonel who never +deigned to speak to a Bavarian captain near him, was obliged to accept a +good many home truths from her. He was convinced that she would poison +his leg unless he put on the dressings himself. But he allowed her to +bandage him afterwards. During this operation--which she hinted she had +performed in a rather Spartan fashion!--"he whimpered all the time," and +she was able to give him a good deal of her mind on the war and the +behaviour of his troops. He and the others, she said, were always +talking about their Kaiser; "one might have thought they saw him sitting +on the clouds." + +In two or three days the French returned victorious, to find the burnt +and outraged village. The Germans were forced, in their turn, to leave +some badly wounded men behind, and the French _poilus_ in their mingled +wrath and exultation could not resist, some of them, abusing the German +wounded through the windows of the hospital. But then, with a keen +dramatic instinct, Soeur Julie drew a striking picture of the contrast +between the behaviour of the French officer going down to the basement +to visit the wounded German officers there, and that of the German +officers on a similar errand. She conveyed with perfect success the cold +civility of the Frenchman, beginning with a few scathing words about the +treatment of the town, and then proceeding to an investigation of the +personal effects of the Boche officers. + +"Your papers, gentlemen? Ah! those are private letters--you may retain +them. Your purses?"--he looks at them--"I hand them back to you. Your +note-books? _Ah! ca--c'est mon affaire!_ (that's my business). I wish +you good morning." + +Soeur Julie spoke emphatically of the drunkenness of the Germans. They +discovered a store of "Mirabelle," a strong liqueur, in the town, and +had soon exhausted it, with apparently the worst results. + +Well!--the March afternoon ran on, and we could have sat there listening +till dusk. But our French officers were growing a little impatient, and +one of them gently drew "the dear sister," as every one calls her, +towards the end of her tale. Then with regret one left the plain +parlour, the little hospital which had played so big a part, and the +brave elderly nun, in whom one seemed to see again some of those +qualities which, springing from the very soil of Lorraine, and in the +heart of a woman, had once, long years ago, saved France. + + * * * * * + +How much there would be still to say about the charm and the kindness of +Lorraine, if only this letter were not already too long! But after the +tragedy of Gerbeviller I must at any rate find room for the victory +of Amance. + +Alas!--the morning was dull and misty when we left Nancy for Amance and +the Grand Couronne; so that when we stood at last on the famous ridge +immediately north of the town which saw, on September 8th, 1914, the +wrecking of the final German attempt on Nancy, there was not much +visible except the dim lines of forest and river in the plain below. Our +view ought to have ranged as far, almost, as Metz to the north and the +Vosges to the south. But at any rate there, at our feet, lay the Forest +of Champenoux, which was the scene of the three frantic attempts of the +Germans debouching from it on September 8th to capture the hill of +Amance, and the plateau on which we stood. Again and again the 75's on +the hill mowed down the advancing hordes and the heavy guns behind +completed their work. The Germans broke and fled, never to return. Nancy +was saved, the right of the six French Armies advancing across France, +at that very moment, on the heels of the retreating Germans, in the +Battle of the Marne, was protected thereby from a flank attack which +might have altered all the fortunes of the war, and the course of +history; and General Castelnau had written his name on the memory +of Europe. + +_But_--the Kaiser was not there! Even Colonel Buchan in his admirable +history of the war, and Major Whitton in his recent book on the campaign +of the Marne, repeat the current legend. I can only bear witness that +the two French staff officers who walked with us along the Grand +Couronne--one of whom had been in the battle of September 8th--were +positive that the Kaiser was not in the neighbourhood at the time, and +that there was no truth at all in the famous story which describes him +as watching the battle from the edge of the Forest of Champenoux, and +riding off ahead of his defeated troops, instead of making, as he had +reckoned, a triumphant entry into Nancy. Well, it is a pity the gods did +not order it so!--"to be a tale for those that should come after." + +One more incident before we leave Lorraine! On our way up to the high +village of Amance, we had passed some three or four hundred French +soldiers at work. They looked with wide eyes of astonishment at the two +ladies in the military car. When we reached the village, Prince R----, +the young staff officer from a neighbouring Headquarters who was to meet +us there, had not arrived, and we spent some time in a cottage, chatting +with the women who lived in it. Then--apparently--while we were on the +ridge word reached the men working below, from the village, that we were +English. And on the drive down we found them gathered, three or four +hundred, beside the road, and as we passed them they cheered us +heartily, seeing in us, for the moment, the British alliance! + +So that we left the Grand Couronne with wet eyes, and hearts all +passionate sympathy towards Lorraine and her people. + + + +No. 10 + +_June 1st_, 1917. + +DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--In looking back over my two preceding letters, I +realise how inadequately they express the hundredth part of that vast +and insoluble debt of a guilty Germany to an injured France, the +realisation of which became--for me--in Lorraine, on the Ourcq, and in +Artois, a burning and overmastering thing, from which I was rarely or +never free. And since I returned to England on March 16th, the conduct +of the German troops, under the express orders of the German Higher +Command, in the French districts evacuated since February by +Hindenburg's retreating forces, has only sharpened and deepened the +judgment of civilised men, with regard to the fighting German and all +his ways, which has been formed long since, beyond alteration or recall. + +Think of it! It cries to heaven. Think of Reims and Arras, of Verdun and +Ypres, think of the hundreds of towns and villages, the thousands of +individual houses and farms, that lie ruined on the old soil of France; +think of the sufferings of the helpless and the old, the hideous loss of +life, of stored-up wealth, of natural and artistic beauty; and then let +us ask ourselves again the old, old question--why has this happened? And +let us go back again to the root facts, from which, whenever he or she +considers them afresh--and they should be constantly considered +afresh--every citizen of the Allied nations can only draw fresh courage +to endure. The long and passionate preparation for war in Germany; the +half-mad literature of a glorified "force" headed by the Bernhardis and +Treitschkes, and repeated by a thousand smaller folk, before the war; +the far more illuminating manifestoes of the intellectuals since the +war; Germany's refusal of a conference, as proposed and pressed by Great +Britain, in the week before August 4th, France's acceptance of it; +Germany's refusal to respect the Belgian neutrality to which she had +signed her name, France's immediate consent; the provisions of mercy and +of humanity signed by Germany in the Hague Convention trampled, almost +with a sneer, under foot; the jubilation over the _Lusitania_, and the +arrogant defence of all that has been most cruel and most criminal in +the war, as necessary to Germany's interests, and therefore moral, +therefore justified; let none--none!--of these things rest forgotten in +our minds until peace is here, and justice done! + +The German armies are capable of "_no undisciplined cruelty_," said the +93 Professors, without seeing how damning was the phrase. No!--theirs +was a cruelty by order, meditated, organised, and deliberate. The +stories of Senlis, of Vareddes, of Gerbeviller which I have specially +chosen, as free from that element of sexual horror which repels many +sensitive people from even trying to realise what has happened in this +war, are evidences--one must insist again--of a national mind and +quality, with which civilised Europe and civilised America can make no +truce. And what folly lies behind the wickedness! Let me recall to +American readers some of the phrases in the report of your former +Minister in Belgium--Mr. Brand Whitlock--on the Belgian deportations, +the "slave hunts" that Germany has carried out in Belgium and "which +have torn from nearly every humble home in the land, a husband, father, +son, or brother." + +These proceedings [says Mr. Whitlock] place in relief the German +capacity for blundering almost as sharply as the German capacity for +cruelty. They have destroyed for generations any hope whatever of +friendly relations between themselves and the Belgian people. For these +things were done not, as with the early atrocities, in the heat of +passion and the first lust of war, but by one of those deeds that make +one despair of the future of the human race--a deed coldly planned, +studiously matured, and deliberately and systematically executed, a deed +so cruel that German soldiers are said to have wept in its execution, +and so monstrous that even German officers are now said to be ashamed. + +But the average German neither weeps nor blames. He is generally amazed, +when he is not amused, by the state of feeling which such proceedings +excite. And if he is an "intellectual," a professor, he will exhaust +himself in ingenious and utterly callous defences of all that Germany +has done or may do. An astonishing race--the German professors! The year +before the war there was an historical congress in London. There was a +hospitality committee, and my husband and I were asked to entertain some +of the learned men. I remember one in particular--an old man with white +hair, who with his wife and daughter joined the party after dinner. His +name was Professor Otto von Gierke of the University of Berlin. I +gathered from his conversation that he and his family had been very +kindly entertained in London. His manner was somewhat harsh and +over-bearing, but his white hair and spectacles gave him a venerable +aspect, and it was clear that he and his wife and daughter belonged to a +cultivated and intelligent _milieu_. But who among his English hosts +could possibly have imagined the thoughts and ideas in that grey head? I +find a speech of his in a most illuminating book by a Danish professor +on German Chauvinist literature. [_Hurrah and Hallelujah!_ By J. P. +Bang, D.D., Professor of Theology at the University of Copenhagen, +translated by Jessie Broechner.] The speech was published in a collection +called _German Speeches in Hard Times_, which contains names once so +distinguished as those of Von Wilamovitz and Harnack. + +Professor von Gierke's effusion begins with the usual German falsehoods +as to the origin of the war, and then continues--"But now that we +Germans are plunged in war, we will have it in _all its grandeur and +violence_! Neither fear nor _pity_ shall stay our arm before it has +completely brought our enemies to the ground." They shall be reduced to +such a condition that they shall never again dare even to snarl at +Germany. Then German Kultur will show its full loveliness and strength, +enlightening "the understanding of the foreign races absorbed and +incorporated into the Empire, and making them see that only from German +kultur can they derive those treasures which they need for their own +particular life." + +At the moment when these lines were written--for the book was published +early in the war--the orgy of murder and lust and hideous brutality +which had swept through Belgium in the first three weeks of the war was +beginning to be known in England; the traces of it were still fresh in +town after town and village after village of that tortured land; while +the testimony of its victims was just beginning to be sifted by the +experts of the Bryce Commission. + +The hostages of Vareddes, the helpless victims of Nomeny, of +Gerbeviller, of Sermaize, of Sommeilles, and a score of other places in +France were scarcely cold in their graves. But the old white-haired +professor stands there, unashamed, unctuously offering the kultur of his +criminal nation to an expectant world! "And when the victory is won," he +says complacently--"the whole world will stand open to us, our war +expenses will be paid by the vanquished, the black-white-and-red flag +will wave over all seas; our countrymen will hold highly respected posts +in all parts of the world, and we shall maintain and extend our +colonies." + +_God, forbid!_ So says the whole English-speaking race, you on your side +of the sea, and we on ours. + +But the feeling of abhorrence which is not, at such a moment as this, +sternly and incessantly translated into deeds is of no account! So let +me return to a last survey of the War. On my home journey from Nancy, I +passed through Paris, and was again welcomed at G.H.Q. on my way to +Boulogne. In Paris, the breathless news of the Germans' quickening +retreat on the Somme and the Aisne was varied one morning by the welcome +tidings of the capture of Bagdad; and at the house of one of the most +distinguished of European publicists, M. Joseph Reinach, of the +_Figaro_, I met, on our passage through, the lively, vigorous man, with +his look of Irish vivacity and force--M. Painleve--who only a few days +later was to succeed General Lyautey as French Minister for War. At our +own headquarters, I found opinion as quietly confident as before. We +were on the point of entering Bapaume; the "pushing up" was going +extraordinarily well, owing to the excellence of the staff-work, and the +energy and efficiency of all the auxiliary services--the Engineers, and +the Labour Battalions, all the makers of roads and railways, the +builders of huts, and levellers of shell-broken ground. And the vital +importance of the long struggle on the Somme was becoming every day more +evident. Only about Russia, both in Paris and at G.H.Q., was there a +kind of silence which meant great anxiety. Lord Milner and General +Castelnau had returned from Petrograd. In Paris, at any rate, it was not +believed that they brought good news. All the huge efforts of the Allies +to supply Russia with money, munitions, and transport, were they to go +for nothing, owing to some sinister and thwarting influence which seemed +to be strangling the national life? + +Then a few days after my return home, the great explosion came, and when +the first tumult and dust of it cleared away, there, indeed, was a +strangely altered Europe! From France, Great Britain, and America went +up a great cry of sympathy, of congratulation. The Tsardom was +gone!--the "dark forces" had been overthrown; the political exiles were +free; and Freedom seemed to stand there on the Russian soil shading her +bewildered eyes against the sun of victory, amazed at her own deed. + +But ten weeks have passed since then, and it would be useless to +disguise that the outburst of warm and sincere rejoicing that greeted +the overthrow of the Russian autocracy has passed once more into +anxiety. Is Russia going to count any more in this great struggle for a +liberated Europe, or will the forces of revolution devour each other, +till in the course of time the fated "saviour of society" appears, and +old tyrannies come back? General Smuts, himself the hero of a national +struggle which has ended happily for both sides and the world, has been +giving admirable expression here to the thoughts of many hearts. First +of all to the emotion with which all lovers of liberty have seen the all +but bloodless fall of the old tyranny. "It might have taken another +fifty years or a century of tragedy and suffering to have brought it +about! But the enormous strain of this war has done it, and the Russian +people stand free in their own house." Now, what will they do with their +freedom? Ten weeks have passed, and the Russian armies are still +disorganised, the Russian future uncertain. Meanwhile Germany has been +able to throw against the Allies in France, and Austria has been able to +throw against Italy on the Isonzo, forces which they think they need no +longer against Russia, and the pace of victory has thereby been +slackened. But General Smuts makes his eloquent appeal to the Russia +which once held and broke Napoleon: + +"Liberty is like young wine--it mounts to your head sometimes, and +liberty, as a force in the world, requires organisation and +discipline.... There must be organisation, and there must be discipline. +The Russian people are learning to-day the greatest lesson of life--that +to be free you must work very hard and struggle very hard. They have the +sensation of freedom, now that their bonds and shackles are gone, and no +doubt they feel the joy, the intoxication, of their new experience; but +they are living in a world which is not governed by formulas, however +cleverly devised, but in a world of brute force, and unless that is +smashed, even liberty itself will suffer and cannot live." + +Will the newly-freed forget those that are still suffering and bound? +Will Russia forget Belgium?--and forget Serbia? + +"Serbia was the reason why we went to war. She was going to be crushed +under the Austrian heel, and Russia said this shall not be allowed. +Serbia has in that way become the occasion probably of the greatest +movement for freedom the world has ever seen. Are we going to forget +Serbia? No! We must stand by those martyr peoples who have stood by the +great forces of the world. If the great democracies of the world become +tired, if they become faint, if they halt by the way, if they leave +those little ones in the lurch, then they shall pay for it in wars more +horrible than human mind can foresee. I am sure we shall stand by those +little ones. They have gone under, but we have not gone under. England +and America, France and Russia, have not gone under, and we shall see +them through, and shame on us if ever the least thought enters our minds +of not seeing them through." + + * * * * * + +Noble and sincere words! One can but hope that the echoes of them may +reach the ear and heart of Russia. + +But if towards Russia the sky that seemed to have cleared so suddenly is +at present clouded and obscure--"westward, look, the land is bright!" + +A fortnight after the abdication of the Tsar, Congress met in +Washington, and President Wilson's speech announcing war between Germany +and America had rung through the world. All that you, sir, the constant +friend and champion of the Allies, and still more of their cause, and +all that those who feel with you in the States have hoped for so long, +is now to be fulfilled. It may take some time for your country, across +those thousand miles of sea, to _realise_ the war, to feel it in every +nerve, as we do. But in these seven weeks--how much you have done, as +well as said! You have welcomed the British mission in a way to warm our +British hearts; you have shown the French mission how passionately +America feels for France. You have sent us American destroyers, which +have already played their part in a substantial reduction of the +submarine losses. You have lent the Allies 150 millions sterling. You +have passed a Bill which will ultimately give you an army of two million +men. You are raising such troops as will immediately increase the number +of Americans in France to 100,000--equalling five German divisions. You +are sending us ten thousand doctors to England and France, and hundreds +of them have already arrived. You have doubled the personnel of your +Navy, and increased your Regular Army by nearly 180,000 men. You are +constructing 3,500 aeroplanes, and training 6,000 airmen. And you are +now talking of 100,000 aeroplanes! Not bad, for seven weeks! + + * * * * * + +For the Allies also those seven weeks have been full of achievement. On +Easter Monday, April 9th, the Battle of Arras began, with the brilliant +capture by the Canadians of that very Vimy Ridge I had seen on March +2nd, from the plateau of Notre Dame de Lorette, lying in the middle +distance under the spring sunshine. That exposed hill-side--those +batteries through which I had walked--those crowded roads, and +travelling guns, those marching troops and piled ammunition dumps!--how +the recollection of them gave accent and fire to the picture of the +battle as the telegrams from the front built it up day by day before +one's eyes! Week by week, afterwards, with a mastery in artillery and in +aviation that nothing could withstand, the British Army pushed on +through April. After the first great attack which gave us the Vimy Ridge +and brought our line close to Lens in the north, and to the +neighbourhood of Bullecourt in the south, the 23rd of April saw the +second British advance, which gave us Gravrelle and Guemappe, and made +further breaches in the Hindenburg line. On April 16th the French made +their magnificent attack in Champagne, with 10,000 prisoners on the +first day (increased to 31,000 by May 24th)--followed by the capture of +the immensely important positions of Moronvillers and Craonne. +Altogether the Allies in little more than a month took 50,000 prisoners, +and large numbers of guns. General Allenby, for instance, captured 150 +guns, General Home 64, while General Byng formed three "Pan-Germanic +groups" out of his. We recovered many square miles of the robbed +territory of France--40 villages one day, 100 villages another; while +the condition in which the Germans had left both the recovered territory +and its inhabitants has steeled once more the determination of the +nations at war with Germany to put an end to "this particular form of +ill-doing on the part of an uncivilised race." + +During May there has been no such striking advance on either the French +or British fronts, though Roeux and Bullecourt, both very important +points, from their bearing on the Drocourt-Queant line, behind which lie +Douai and Cambrai, have been captured by the British, and the French +have continuously bettered their line and defied the most desperate +counter-attacks. But May has been specially Italy's month! The Italian +offensive on the Isonzo, and the Carso, beginning on May 14th, in ten +days achieved more than any onlooker had dared to hope. In the section +between Tolmino and Gorizia where the Isonzo runs in a fine gorge, the +western bank belonging to Italy, and the eastern to Austria, all the +important heights on the eastern bank across the river, except one that +may fall to them any day, have been carried by the superb fighting of +the Italians, amongst whom Dante's fellow citizens, the Florentine +regiment, and regiments drawn from the rich Tuscan hills have specially +distinguished themselves. While on the Carso, that rock-wilderness which +stretches between Gorizia and Trieste, where fighting, especially in hot +weather, supplies a supreme test of human endurance, the Italians have +pushed on and on, from point to point, till now they are within ten +miles of Trieste. British artillery is with the Italian Army, and +British guns have been shelling military quarters and stores in the +outskirts of Trieste, while British monitors are co-operating at sea. +The end is not yet, for the Austrians will fight to their last man for +Trieste; and owing to the Russian situation the Austrians have been able +to draw reinforcements from Galicia, which have seriously stiffened the +task of Italy. But the omens are all good, and the Italian nation is +more solidly behind its army than ever before. + +So that in spite of the apparent lull in the Allied offensive on the +French front, during the later weeks of May, all has really been going +well. The only result of the furious German attempts to recover the +ground lost in April has been to exhaust the strength of the attackers; +and the Allied cause is steadily profited thereby. Our own troops have +never been more sure of final victory. Let me quote a soldier's plain +and graphic letter, recently published: + +"This break-away from trench war gives us a much better time. We know +now that we are the top dogs, and that we are keeping the Germans on the +move. And they're busy wondering all the time; they don't know where the +next whack is coming from. Mind you, I'm far from saying that we can get +them out of the Hindenburg line without a lot of fighting yet, but it is +only a question of time. It's a different sensation going over the top +now from what it was in the early days. You see, we used to know that +our guns were not nearly so many as the Germans', and that we hadn't the +stuff to put over. Now we just climb out of a trench and walk behind a +curtain of fire. It makes a difference. It seems to me we are steadily +beating the Boche at his own game. He used to be strong in the matter of +guns, but that's been taken from him. He used gas--do you remember the +way the Canadians got the first lot? Well, now our gas shells are a bit +too strong for him, and so are our flame shells. I bet he wishes now +that he hadn't thought of his flame-throwers! ... Then there's another +thing, and that's the way our chaps keep improving. The Fritzes are not +so good as they used to be. You get up against a bunch now and again +that fight well, but we begin to see more of the 'Kamerad' business. +It's as much up to the people at home to see this thing through as it is +to the men out here. We need the guns and shells to blow the Germans out +of the strong places that they've had years to build and dig, and the +folks at home can leave the rest to us. We can do the job all right if +they back us up and don't get tired. I think we've shown them that too. +You'll get all that from the papers, but maybe it comes better from a +soldier. You can take it from me that it's true. I've seen the +beginning, and I've been in places where things were pretty desperate +for us, and I've seen _the start of the finish_. The difference is +marvellous. I've only had an army education, and it might strike you +that I'm not able to judge. I'm a soldier though, and I look at it as a +soldier. I say, give us the stuff, keep on giving us the tools and the +men to use them, and--it may be soon or it may be long--we'll beat the +Boche to his knees." + +The truth seems to be that the Germans are outmatched, first and +foremost, in aircraft and in guns. You will remember the quiet certainty +of our young Flight-Commander on March 1st--"When the next big offensive +comes, we shall down them, just as we did on the Somme." The prophecy +has been made good, abundantly good!--at the cost of many a precious +life. The air observation on our side has been far better and more +daring than that on the German side; and the work of our artillery has +been proportionately more accurate and more effective. + +As to guns and ammunition, "the number of heavy shells fired in the +first week of the present offensive"--says an official account--"was +nearly twice as great as it was in the first week of the Somme +offensive, and in the second week it was 6-1/2 times as great as it was +in the second week of the Somme offensive. As a result of this great +artillery fire, which had never been exceeded in the whole course of the +war, a great saving of British life has been effected." And no praise +can be too high for our gunners. In a field where, two years ago, +Germany had the undisputed predominance, we have now beaten her alike in +the supply of guns and in the daring and efficiency of our gunners. + +Nevertheless, let there be no foolish underestimate of the still +formidable strength of the Germans. The British and French missions will +have brought to your Government all available information on this point. +There can be no doubt that a "wonderful" effort, as one of our Ministers +calls it, has been made by Germany during the past winter. She has +mobilised all her people for the war as she has never done yet. She has +increased her munitions and put fresh divisions in the field. The +estimates of her present fighting strength given by our military writers +and correspondents do not differ very much. + +Colonel Repington, in _The Times_, puts the German fighting men on both +fronts at 4,500,000, with 500,000 on the lines of communication, and a +million in the German depots. Mr. Belloc's estimate is somewhat less, +but not materially different. Both writers agree that we are in presence +of Germany's last and greatest effort, that she has no more behind, and +that if the Allies go on as they have begun--and now with the help of +America--this summer should witness the fulfilment at least of that +forecast which I reported to you in my earlier letters as so general +among the chiefs of our Army in France--_i.e._ "this year will see the +war _decided_, but may not see it ended." Since I came home, indeed, +more optimistic prophecies have reached me from France. For some weeks +after the American declaration of war, "We shall be home by Christmas!" +was the common cry--and amongst some of the best-informed. + +But the Russian situation has no doubt: reacted to some extent on these +April hopes. And it is clear that, during April and early May, under the +stimulus of the submarine successes, German spirits have temporarily +revived. Never have the Junkers been more truculent, never have the +Pan-Germans talked wilder nonsense about "annexation" and "indemnities." +Until quite recently at any rate, the whole German nation--except no +doubt a cautious and intelligent few at the real sources of +information--believed that the submarine campaign would soon "bring +England to her knees." They were so confident, that they ran the last +great risk--they brought America into the War! + +How does it look now? The situation is still critical and dangerous. But +I recall the half-smiling prophecy of my naval host, in the middle of +March, as we stood together on the deck of his ship, looking over his +curtseying and newly-hatched flock of destroyers gathered round him in +harbour. Was it not, perhaps, as near the mark as that of our airmen +hosts on March 1st has proved itself to be? "Have patience and you'll +see great things! The situation is serious, but quite healthy." Two +months, and a little more, since the words were spoken:--and week by +week, heavy as it still is, the toll of submarine loss is at least kept +in check, and your Navy, now at work with ours--most fitting and +welcome Nemesis!--is helping England to punish and baffle the +"uncivilised race," who, if they had their way, would blacken and defile +for ever the old and glorious record of man upon the sea. You, who store +such things in your enviable memory, will recollect how in the Odyssey, +that kindly race of singers and wrestlers, the Phaeacians, are the +escorts and conveyers of all who need and ask for protection at sea. +They keep the waterways for civilised men, against pirates and +assassins, as your nation and ours mean to keep them in the future. It +is true that a treacherous sea-god, jealous of any interference with his +right to slay and drown at will, smote the gallant ship that bore +Odysseus safely home, on her return, and made a rock of her for ever. +Poseidon may stand for the Kaiser of the story. He is gone, however, +with all his kin! But the humane and civilising tradition of the sea, +which this legend carries back into the dawn of time--it shall be for +the Allies--shall it not?--in this war, to rescue it, once and for ever, +from the criminal violence which would stain the free paths of ocean +with the murder and sudden death of those who have been in all history +the objects of men's compassion and care--the wounded, the helpless, the +woman, and the child. + + * * * * * + +For the rest, let me gather up a few last threads of this second +instalment of our British story. + +Of that vast section of the war concerned with the care and transport of +the wounded, and the health of the Army, it is not my purpose to speak +at length in these Letters. Like everything else it has been steadily +and eagerly perfected during the past year. Never have the wounded in +battle, in any war, been so tenderly and skilfully cared for;--never +have such intelligence and goodwill been applied to the health +conditions of such huge masses of men. Nor is it necessary to dwell +again, as I did last year, on the wonderful work of women in the war. It +has grown in complexity and bulk; women-workers in munitions are now +nearly a fifth of the whole body; but essentially the general aspect of +it has not changed much in the last twelve months. + +But what has changed is _the food situation_, owing partly to submarine +attack, and partly to the general shortage in the food-supply of the +world. In one of my earlier letters I spoke with anxiety of the still +unsettled question--Will the house-wives and mothers of the nation +realise--in time--our food necessities? Will their thrift-work in the +homes complete the munition-work of women in the factories? Or must we +submit to the ration-system, with all its cumbrous inequalities, and its +hosts of officials; because the will and intelligence of our people, +which have risen so remarkably to the other tasks of this war, are not +equal to the task of checking food consumption without compulsion? + +It looks now as though they would be equal. Since my earlier letter the +country has been more and more generally covered with the National War +Savings Committees which have been carrying into food-economy the energy +they spent originally on the raising of the last great War Loan. The +consumption of bread and flour throughout the country has gone down--not +yet sufficiently--but enough to show that the idea has taken +hold:--"_Save bread, and help victory_!" And since your declaration of +war it strengthens our own effort to know that America with her +boundless food-supplies is standing by, and that her man-and sea-power +are now to be combined with ours in defeating the last effort of Germany +to secure by submarine piracy what she cannot win on the battle-field. + +Meanwhile changes which will have far-reaching consequences after the +war are taking place in our own home food-supply. The long neglect of +our home agriculture, the slow and painful dwindling of our country +populations, are to come to an end. The Government calls for the sowing +of three million additional acres of wheat in Great Britain; and +throughout the country the steam tractors are at work ploughing up land +which has either never borne wheat, or which has ceased to bear it for +nearly a century. Thirty-five thousand acres of corn land are to be +added to the national store in this county of Hertfordshire alone. The +wages of agricultural labourers, have risen by more than one-third. The +farmers are to be protected and encouraged as they never have been since +the Cobdenite revolution; and the Corn Production Bill now passing +through Parliament shows what the grim lesson of this war has done to +change the old and easy optimism of our people. + +As to the energy that has been thrown into other means of food-supply, +let the potatoes now growing in the flower-beds in front of Buckingham +Palace stand for a symbol of it! The potato-crop of this year--barring +accidents--will be enormous; and the whole life of our country villages +has been quickened by the effort that has been made to increase the +produce of the cottage gardens and allotments. The pride and pleasure of +the women and the old men in what they have been able to do at home, +while their sons and husbands are fighting at the front, is moving to +see. Food prices are very high; life in spite of increased wages is +hard. But the heart of England is set on winning this war; and the +letters which pass between the fathers and mothers in this village where +I live, and the sons at the front, in whom they take a daily and hourly +pride, would not give Germany much comfort could she read them. I take +this little scene, as an illustration, fresh from the life of my +own village: + +Imagine a visitor, on behalf of the food-economy movement, endeavouring +to persuade a village mother to come to some cookery lessons organised +by the local committee. + +Mrs. S. is discovered sitting at a table on which are preparations for a +meal. She receives the visitor and the visitor's remarks with an +air--quite unconscious--of tragic meditation; and her honest +labour-stained hand sweeps over the things on the table. + +"Cheese!"--she says, at last--"_eightpence_ the 'arf pound!" + +A pause. The hand points in another direction. + +"_Lard--sevenpence_--that scrubby little piece! _Sugar_! sixpence +'a'penny the pound. The best part of two shillin's gone! Whatever _are_ +we comin' to?" + +Gloom descends on the little kitchen. The visitor is at a loss--when +suddenly the round, motherly face changes.--"But _there_ now! I'm goin' +to smile, whatever 'appens. I'm not one as is goin' to give in! And we +'ad a letter from Arthur [her son in the trenches] this morning, to say +'is Company's on the list for leave, and 'e's applied.--Oh dear, Miss, +just to _think_ of it!" + +Then, with a catch in her voice: + +"But it's not the comin' home, Miss--it's _the goin' back again_! Yes, +I'll come to the cookin', Miss, if I _possibly_ can!" + +There's the spirit of our country folk--patriotic, patient, true. + + +As to labour conditions generally. I spoke, perhaps, in my first letter +rather too confidently, for the moment, of the labour situation. There +has been one serious strike among the engineers since I began to write, +and a good many minor troubles. But neither the Tyne nor the Clyde was +involved, and though valuable time was lost, in the end the men were +brought back to work quite as much by the pressure of public opinion +among their own comrades, men and women, as by any Government action. +The Government have since taken an important step from which much is +hoped, by dividing up the country into districts and appointing local +commissioners to watch over and, if they can, remove the causes of +"unrest"--causes which are often connected with the inevitable friction +of a colossal transformation, and sometimes with the sheer fatigue of +the workers, whose achievement--munition-workers, ship-wrights, +engineers--during these three years has been nothing short of +marvellous. + +As to finance, the colossal figures of last year, of which I gave a +summary in _England's Effort,_ have been much surpassed. The Budget of +Great Britain for this year, including advances to our Allies, reaches +the astounding figure of two thousand three hundred million sterling. +Our war expenditure is now close upon six million sterling a day +(L5,600,000). Of this the expenditure on the Army and Navy and munitions +has risen from a daily average of nearly three millions sterling, as it +stood last year, to a daily average of nearly five millions. + +But the nation has not spent in vain! + +"Compare the first twenty-four days of the fighting on the Somme last +year,"--said Mr. Bonar Law in a recent speech--"with the first +twenty-four days of the operations of this spring. Four times as much +territory had been taken from the enemy in this offensive as was taken +in the Somme, against the resistance of double the number of German +divisions. And of those divisions just one-half have had to be +withdrawn--shattered--from the fighting line while the British +casualties in the offensive have been from 50 to 75 per cent, less than +the casualties in the Somme fighting." + +Consider, too, the news which is still fresh as I finish this +letter--(June 11th)--of the victory of Messines; perhaps the most +complete, the most rounded success--so far--that has fallen to the +British armies in the war! Last year, in three months' fighting on the +Somme, we took the strongly fortified Albert ridge, and forced the +German retreat of last February. On April 8th of this year began the +battle of Arras which gave us the Vimy Ridge, and a free outlook over +the Douai plain. And finally, on June 7th, four days ago, the Messines +ridge, which I saw last year on March 2nd--apparently impregnable and +inaccessible!--from a neighbouring hill, with the German trenches scored +along its slopes, was captured by General Plumer and his splendid army +in a few hours, after more than twelve months' preparation, with lighter +casualties than have ever fallen to a British attack before, with heavy +losses to the enemy, large captures of guns, and 7,000 prisoners. Our +troops have since moved steadily forward; and the strategic future is +rich in possibilities. The Germans have regained nothing; and the German +press has not yet dared to tell the German people of the defeat. Let us +remember also the victorious campaign of this year in Mesopotamia; and +the welcome stroke of the past week in Greece, by which King "Tino" has +been at last dismissed, and the Liberal forces of the Greek nation +set free. + + * * * * * + +Aye, we do consider--we do remember--these things! We feel that the goal +is drawing slowly but steadily nearer, that ultimate victory is certain, +and with victory, the dawn of a better day for Europe. But who, least of +all a woman, can part from the tragic spectacle of this war without +bitterness of spirit? + +_"Who will give us back our children?"_ + +Wickedness and wrong will find their punishment, and the dark Hours now +passing, in the torch-race of time, will hand the light on to Hours of +healing and of peace. But the dead return not. It is they whose +appealing voices seem to be in the air to-day, as we think of America. + +Among the Celts of ancient Brittany there was a belief which still +survives in the traditions of the Breton peasants and in the name of +part of the Breton coast. Every All Souls' Night, says a story at least +as old as the sixth century, the souls of the dead gather on the cliffs +of Brittany, above that bay which is still called the "Bai des +Trepasses," waiting for their departure across the ocean to a far region +of the west, where the gods sit for judgment, and the good find peace. +On that night, the fishermen hear at midnight mysterious knockings at +their doors. They go down to the water's edge, and behold, there are +boats unknown to them, with no visible passengers. But the fishermen +take the oars, and though they see nothing, they feel the presence of +the souls crowding into the boats, and they row, on and on, into the +west, past the farthest point of any land they know. Suddenly, they feel +the boats lightened of all that weight of spirits, and the souls are +gone--streaming out with solemn cries and longing into the wide +illimitable ocean of the west, in search of some invisible shore. + +So now the call of those hundreds of thousands who have given their +young lives--so beloved, so rich in promise!--for their country and the +freedom of men, is in your ears and ours. The dead are witnesses of the +compact between you and us. For that cause to which they brought their +ungrudged sacrifice has now laid its resistless claim on you. Together, +the free peoples of Europe and America have now to carry it to victory +--victory, just, necessary, and final. + +MARY A. WARD. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Towards The Goal, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOWARDS THE GOAL *** + +***** This file should be named 10099.txt or 10099.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/0/9/10099/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Ginny Brewer and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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