ROADSIDE GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT WAR ARTHUR SWE ETSER I- ROADSIDE GLIMPSES OF THE GREAT WAR r^*&° THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO Statist! - 5!iMt!u«(| l '«^..; A,**;..Mi r ~{- f. 7- tiii!i(|iu\ l.i mohifisHitoH lies arme«a de terre et d*> out wl ordonnee, ahi*i quo la rehw ocire puni »>« (mile la Honour den lois. obWr aiix prescriptions du TA.SCirVZ.la DE SiOyiLISATIOH (jffljrfj colorific* placees danu sou livret). Son! vise* par It pre.wiil onlrc T0U8 LE8 H0MHEE8 lion presents bows Irs Dnipeaii.v et appartetiant : I* a lARMEE DE TERRE y rompri* lnm.i«rat!i. 2° " ! ARMEE DE MER J roiopriV. tea IH8CHITS mLbITTJSJW el lea Ajusramui ' defc MtABIirS. ji L. s Autorites ch-iles et mtlitaires Bont resp^nsahles de lexecuLion du preBent decret ' j French mobilization order. Bearing the imprint of 1904. The Lure of War 15 war was now but three weeks old ; the Germans were just beginning to leak through Belgium; the first hysteria of excitement had changed into the mechanical reasoning of campaigns. How indeed would Paris act, Paris the gay, the care- free, the irresponsible ? At first all seemed much as before. The boulevards were crowded. Women brought their knitting to the Champs-d'Elysees as they had always done ; men were in evidence in plenty. The city was nearly smothered in flags. Every building, nay almost every window, boasted its tricolor. Sprinkled generously among them were not a few English flags, many Belgian, and now and then a Russian. At first the capital of France seemed festive. Slowly, however, the change flooded over me. Everything was tense and sombre. People looked stern and serious. The cafe and boulevard crowds no longer whiled away the hours nonchalantly; they talked in low, serious tones with hardly a smile. Never was there the agitation of former days except when an extra was screamed through the streets ; then everyone became excited and 1 6 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War the pages were scanned eagerly, fruitlessly. It seemed indeed as though Paris lay hushed and still awaiting the next extra. Apparently that was the one real reason why people continued to go to the cafes and boulevards. On shop after shop were signs "Mobilise" or "Ferme pour la Mobilisation." Theatres, mov- ing-picture houses, and many shops were closed. Evidences of the cessation of ordinary living chilled one at every turn. Troops were everywhere, in the cafes, in the Bois, or marching through the streets. Always they were given preference, as much in entering trams as in the graces of the hero-loving French women. The sale of absinthe had been forbidden. That curse under which France had struggled for years was thrown off with one great moral convulsion. Above all the national health must be conserved. The demi- monde also suffered. Comediennes, models, and others upon whom a pleasure-loving public had long frivolled its surplus savings were now re- duced to a terrible struggle for existence. It is thus indeed that society in time of stress casts off its parasites. The Lure of War 17 But it was at night that the terrible changes stood out most sombrely. Where before Paris had once bedecked herself in myriad lights there was naught but dulness. What had been long scintillating rows of cafes where care-free people dallied tinkling glasses through the long evening, had ceased to be. It was now only the bare business of eating. By 9 o'clock the outer chairs on the sidewalks were collected and piled up ; by 9.30 every cafe was closed as black as a tomb. The few people still out hastened surreptitiously home through the darkened streets. Paris waited, waited, patiently at first, then nervously, for the news which was not given. Up North something was happening, big events were shaping themselves in Belgium. There was much enthusiasm about the holding out of Liege, and not a little wonderment that the Germans were nevertheless miles south of there. News trickled down atom by atom, never com- plete or satisfactory, always late, always vague. Criticism at times was harsh, especially when the plan to send five correspondents, including an A. P. and a U. P. man, was continuously 1 8 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War postponed. Many Parisians felt they were being treated like children, and asked if they had not shown themselves big enough to stand disaster. Had it not been for a tremendous fundamental confidence in French arms and in a combination of an appreciation of the military need for se- crecy and the feeling that no news is good news, Paris would certainly have lost its head. As it was the German avalanche was on them almost before they suspected it. During these first three weeks, for default of anything better, Belgium, Liege, England, and Russia filled the papers. The bravery of Bel- gium served as a beacon light for the French. That gallant little country was hailed with an air of reverence. Likewise the calm, solid sup- port of England steadied the French tremendously and made them feel the ground firm underneath them. The awesome union of France, England, Russia, Belgium, Japan, and Servia in one great concert against Germany glorified the French conception of the war almost into religious fervor. Paris indeed had become a new city. The mirth and song of her life had ceased. The The Lure of War 19 blight of war had penetrated to her very marrows. The light and sparkle had gone, but in their place had come a bigger and finer thing. The veneer of frivolity, irresponsibility, and excess had been scraped off. There stood revealed a patriotism, a self-sacrifice, a determination almost glorious in their intensity. The strength of a nation which had been waiting for forty years was ready — splendidly husbanded, splendidly directed, and strong in the memories of Austerlitz and Jena. It was this spirit which made my waiter say : "Monsieur, I go to mobilize to bring back my grandfather who fell in '70." Five days passed almost in a twinkling. No sooner however did I begin to feel at home in the new Paris than the great events outside called me. Paris was grand indeed, but it was not to see Paris that I had come abroad. A vague but dominant force rose within me; I could not sit idly by in cafes while world history was being decided in the country just outside. I don't know what it was ; whether it was that stupefying, bewildered confusion which brings the moth to the flame, or the nervous, uncontrollable 20 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War curiosity of our American life ; but certain it is that I was helpless against that appeal. My whole heart and soul was trajected out of Paris to the dim, hazy fields of Belgium whence now and then the censor let escape a real spark from the roaring furnace beneath. What was happen- ing behind that thick veil ? More and more often I dropped into the Ameri- can embassy which was even still an uproar of ill-behaved, stranded fellow-countrymen and weak, rather frightened Austrian and German civilians who had come under our care. I asked first one official, then another, till finally I screwed up courage to speak to Captain Parker himself, the military attache. " Lille ! " he exclaimed. " But what in Heaven's name do you want to go there for ?" "Why," I stammered, not quite sure myself, "I remember reading somewhere that it's a fortified city." "Yes, but it may be attacked any time." " I know," I answered desperately. "That's why I want to go there. The Germans are pretty sure to pass that way from Belgium." The Lure of War 21 "But, my dear man," Captain Parker burst out, "you could never get there. Not even a rab- bit could get through to Lille." "Why not?" I asked. "Is there any rule against it ?" "Common-sense ought to tell you," he added stiffly. "Common-sense; this is war. Not even a rabbit could get by now." Thereupon I went to Phil Simms, Paris manager of the United Press. He at least would encourage me. He knew France, for he had been there six years. "Lille!" he exclaimed. "Good Lord, you might as well try to break into Heaven. You've got as much chance as a snowball in hell." "But how do you know?" I persisted. "Know, you darn fool, why, this is war; war, real war. The French don't allow tourist parties. Where's your common-sense ?" "Common-sense" again; that was too much. I too figured that it was war and that everything was topsy-turvy. The most expected would fail to happen ; the least expected was quite likely to happen. So I went to the railroad station. 22 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War "Third class to Lille." This was said boldly. "Oui, monsieur, fourteen francs, please," and the ticket was handed out to me. "No rules, restrictions, passports?" I asked. "No, monsieur, why should there be?" "Common-sense," I almost ejaculated, but didn't. And I walked confusedly out thinking of Captain Parker's rabbit and Simms' snowball. II FROM THE FRENCH LINES TO THE GERMAN The next day, I was on the train for Lille, straight up to the North, straight towards the Belgian border, straight to the heart of that world-struggle from which we had seen only chance sparks. I had set out under the flush of the "glories of war," thrilled with thoughts of flags borne forward, bugles sounding charges men doing triumphs of bravery, shells, smoke, flashes filling the air in one mighty splendor. Towards Cambrai, we saw the first of it. We were on the main line of communications both to Paris and to England. Train after train of soldiers, both French and English, rushed past. Snatches of song, the Marseillaise, Rule Bri- tannia, or friendly greetings or jests in broken French and English floated back to us. Thou- sands of men, smiling and laughing, were rushing 23 24 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War on to annihilate their fellow-men. Did one not realize the horrible business of it all, the songs and jokes might have made it appear almost a colossal game ; but as it was, the cheery faces only heightened the immutability of the forces which drove them on. Our train hitched on, siding by siding. Every mile or so we stopped, backed on to an odd track, and gave right of way to a rushing troop-train. Always we alighted to see anything that was to be seen and to enjoy the warm sunshine of a beautiful day. Just south of Marcoing, those who were first to alight shouted : "Les canons, les canons." The rumble of artillery came clearly to us out of the distance. Great Heavens, the Germans were well inside France! What had happened in Belgium ? How had they broken through ? What, even now, was going on in that spot towards which we strained our eyes ? Did this tragic breaking of the silence in which we had lived presage another Sedan ? For two hours we remained on that siding. Occasionally a German aeroplane was visible on the distant sky, circling around like an angry From the French Lines to the German 25 vulture seeking the prey's weak spot. Train after train rushed by us. Curiously enough, all those going out were British, all those coming back were French. Apparently the Tommies were going out to hold the Germans while the French reformed below. Little we realized it at the time, but the battle we were there hearing from a distance was that of Cateau-Cambrai, where Sir John French's valiant Expeditionary Force just escaped annihilation. Soon came the first wounded, Englishmen huddled into common cattle-cars, having had only the most rudimentary treatment out front, and with no one to care for them on the way. Those in view were wounded in every conceiv- able fashion, arms, legs, and bodies, while behind closed doors lay men even then perhaps breath- ing their last. It had been literally a slaughter, they told us. On Sunday, 25,000 British had been entrenching near Mons when a German aeroplane spied them. Twenty minutes later 125,000 Germans were on them. The artillery fire was fearful beyond words ; whole divisions perished to a man; the 19th Hussars who alone 26 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War could charge were completely obliterated. Finally the British retreated and the Germans ran into a trap. The French cut in on their flank. What then happened Heaven knows. Not a man I saw from the front that day but felt amazement at the Germans' mighty military prowess ; with some it was a mania. The men returning from the front had a sad- ness, a pathos, a bewilderment in their expres- sions which all too well bespoke the whirlpool into which they had been drawn. There was a blankness and a dulness in their eyes which be- tokened almost complete mental dismay. The re- actions of many of them were too unreasonable, too out of perspective to be believed. Many, kindly and gentle in appearance, boasted to me of the most gruesome of deeds — deeds which ordinarily would have shocked them, even in the telling. That delicate something within man, call it soul, spirit, psychology, what you will, had in thousands of cases been smashed so com- pletely that future generations will suffer far more from its effects than from all the physical injuries and disabilities put together. From the French Lines to the German 27 One Tommie I remember who had been in a bayonet charge just before. He was leaning listlessly against the door of the car, his eyes fixed in unseeing gaze on an open field beyond. A sadness enshrouded his still figure which made me hesitate to intrude. As I spoke in a low, impersonal voice, he looked up indifferently, and relapsed almost at once into absorption. Then unexpectedly, in droning, mechanical fashion, he told me how his company had become trapped in the trenches by a German crossfire. "We were going down like flies," he said, "and it would have been the end of all of us to have stayed any longer in that trap, with machine- guns squirting on us from both ends. About the only thing we could do was to make a run straight at 'em — at least we'd die standing up. God knows anything was better than crouching there till we were all cleaned out. We couldn't even fight, it was just waiting." By now the dulness had left his eye, and a ring come into his voice. "It's funny," he went on, "how little things count. When the order came, I jumped over 28 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War the earthworks and then went sprawling over a head of cabbage. It seemed as though I'd never get to my feet again. Bullets were nipping all about me; the enemy's trenches looked like a long line of red ; seemed to me I was as big as a giant with some one catching at my feet and all those guns going at me alone. "I don't remember much more. There was one big final crash and I leaped on the top of the trench and began to stab. Once I remember reaching out to get at someone and stepping on the face of a dead man at my feet. God knows how long it lasted — not long I fancy, for then they broke and ran. "It was an awful mess all about. Dead and wounded all mixed up — lots of Germans and many of us. Then those bloody machine-guns opened on us again. I tried to pull one of our fellows into shelter, but my right arm was out of commission. First I thought I was wounded. Then it came to me. I'd been swinging my bayonet so hard there wasn't any strength left." His eyes clouded again. From the French Lines to the German 29 "My God," he went on softly, "if I could only forget. It's all a nightmare now — still I can't help wondering — maybe the blows didn't get home — maybe — " He turned his face away. Two hours later we started on our way again, not on towards Lille, for that road was indeed blocked, but back in a wide sweep to Amiens. Our carriage, before badly crowded, was jammed almost to suffocation by the cramming in of eighteen Belgian refugees, driven they knew not whither. Opposite me was an old lady with seared face, bright sparkling eyes, and a white ruffled bonnet tied under her chin. She was at least eighty-five years old, and, I wager, had never before left home. With her were several big scrawny men with rough farmers' shirts and finger-nails fresh from the soil, three young girls, and a various assortment of children. Only two days before they had been wakened in the blackness of night by the screeching of German shells bombarding Charleroi. They had had only time to gather their children before fleeing pell-mell, penniless, and without food into 30 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War the darkness. For a whole day they had had nothing to eat. At last at 4 o'clock we came to a station where French soldiers rushed joyously to them with bread. That scene was only one of the tiny back-eddies of war, it is true, but it went into the very depths of human emotions. Three Frenchmen in the carriage with me actually had tears in their eyes, and told the sufferers that they had only to show their colors in France to receive the bounty of a grateful nation. At last at 10 p.m., twelve hours after we had left Paris, we ground heavily into the big station at Amiens. What a sight ! Wave upon wave of refugees wandering aimlessly under the flare of the arc lamps, French and British soldiers here and there in groups, train upon train steaming in, hitching about, and then running out into the blackness, — such was the chaos and confusion about us. Black-robed ministers and priests were stalking about to administer the last rites ; a long Red Cross train with steam up waited for the next load from the North. The refugees, homeless and crazed with fear for loved ones left behind, walked about distractedly From the French Lines to the German 31 or sought sleep on the hard platform floors. Women lay on the few bundles which remained of all their worldly goods. Children were curled up beside large packs. Once, stepping over a prostrate sleeper I put my foot squarely into his derby hat, lying at his stomach. And when at last I arrived at the lunchroom I found there was nothing to be had but a few cakes and chocolate, not very substantial food indeed for my only meal since breakfast. Two long hours we stayed there, waiting. Still that silent death's procession to and from the front. What was happening out there through the blackness ? At last we got under way, Heaven knew whither, except that it was in the general direction of the battle. All night long we hitched our way northward, constantly being sided for troop-trains, and several times stopping for nearly an hour in the blackness of the open country. Somehow I dared not sleep, but preferred to stay awake while darkness faded into dawn and dawn into daylight. At 7 o'clock our train ended its weary way almost with a groan of satisfaction. I looked 32 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War out to see an odd little town of white walls and red roofs, absolutely foreign to anything French. In considerable bewilderment I turned to a French reservist who had just come back from the cotton-mills at Woonsocket, Rhode Island. "Where in the world is this place?" I asked. "Hazebrouck." "Where the devil is that?" "Flanders." "But what the devil is it built like ?" "Flemish." "But what in the name of goodness are we stopping for ?" "It's our destination." "Destination!" I exclaimed. "Where's Lille ?" "Twenty-five kilometers East." "Aren't we going there?" "No, it's on another line." "But what in the name of Heaven are we going to do then?" "Wait." "And the battle, the war — stay cooped up here?" "Je ne sais pas, Monsieur." From the French Lines to the German 33 And we landed at the little Flemish town of Hazebrouck, just on the edge of Belgium, twenty- five kilometers from Lille, and twenty-three hours after leaving Paris. At once we went to the prefect of police, a small army of about twenty-five reservists and myself. Rather ominously I was held till the last. The prefect was a very self-important person with a long black beard and snapping eyes. The moment he saw Uncle Sam's big red seal, he snorted loudly, drove out the French-American who had stayed to help me, settled back in his chair, and flew at me with a volley of French which I could no more stem than I could have stemmed Niagara Falls. I stuttered out that I was an American, and then, with no idea of what the passport was, he settled his big seal on it and herded me out of the office. Lille was open ; the rabbit or the snowball was safe. But that was by no means getting there. After a horrible breakfast and an earnest attempt to remove a little of the night's grime by aid of a faucet in a dirty back yard, we went to the station. No trains would run all morning. 34 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Great Heavens, marooned in a sleepy village, twenty-five kilometers from the centre of world history. The only way I could keep my temper and my wakefulness was to write all morning as I had written all night. By lunch-time even the Frenchmen were worn out with waiting. Two set out for Lille on foot ; others hired the town's one automobile. Both twenty-five kilometers and twenty-five francs seemed big to me, but it was another long time before I ran down a messenger who was just about to drive back to Lille. An interminable ride it was, after our sleepless night, for from 3 to 8 we jolted along in a tireless, springless wagon. My only mem- ories are of heroic efforts not to jounce on to the road in my sleep, of interminable stops for beer at red-tiled inns dotting a magnificently rich country, and of a pretty French woman nursing a won- drous golden-haired child, who asked if we spoke English in America or had a language of our own. At the little town of Armentieres we descended from our good wagon and waited around in the cold damp rain for a tram which by some acci- dent was still running spasmodically. Another From the French Lines to the German 35 half hour and we were in Lille, the city to which not even a rabbit could go, the city the chances of reaching which were as good as "a snowball's in hell." Lille had stopped completely, no work, no play, only waiting. For seven days there had been no trains, no mail, no telegraph, no government. Not a soldier remained, for the forts had been dismantled, the garrison withdrawn, the city decreed open and unfortified. No defence was possible ; the higher strategy felt it necessary to sacrifice the city to greater ends. Big flaring posters begged the citizens to be peaceful when the Germans entered. The papers came out intermittently, always without news. The only news at all was that borne of supercharged imaginations. For all that was known France might have ceased to exist. Wild rumors, both of victory and defeat, sprang from nowhere, surcharged the air, encom- passed the city. Memories of 1870 and wild stories from Belgium made all Lille quiver like a raw nerve. Suspense hung like a pall over the city. Something must happen. It was as 36 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War though a giant genii had mummified all life into inactivity. During my stay reports of a few stray Uhlans in the environs at once sent the rasped nerves of the city completely a-j angle. Crowds gesticu- lated on every street corner. Speculation was wild. It was the occupation at last, atrocities, indemnity, and all. There was above all fear, with a certain relief that the suspense was at last ended, and a deep grief that the city should be thus sullied. But the Germans did not come ; they had more pressing business elsewhere. Nevertheless fear of them so haunted the city that it was finally decreed that anyone spreading sensational news would be arrested and forced to give his authority. How this could be done with all the police force gone I do not know, but doubtless it hushed many a clattering tongue into silence. The government of the Departement du Nord, of which Lille is the capital, had fled pell-mell to Dunkerque on the sea-coast. One day during my stay they returned, and post, telegraph, and train service were resumed. The people were From the French Lines to the German 37 jubilant. The German goblins vanished like a hideous nightmare. Imagine the panic, however, when the very next day it was found that the government had fled again in the night. It was obvious that even if the Germans entered Lille at all, it would be only with a small holding force. The main army was driving through farther east. Douai, they told me, was the centre of activities, but how to cover the forty kilometres there was a poser. At last the idea of a bicycle struck me. It would be quaint in- deed thus to chase the battle-front blindly all over France. After a whole day's hunting and tremendous linguistic effort, I secured the best the city could offer, the best bicycle, I soon believed, in all France, a machine which, costing me but #23 secondhand, was destined to take me half across the country. Then to have my passport vised. The few relics left over from the fugitive city government shunted me on from one to the other as if com- pletely astounded at my proposal. At last I arrived before the grand factotum himself. He growled menacingly at me, and more menacingly ,38 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War at my passport. When he heard I wanted to go on to Cambrai, he snapped out that I was most suspiciously following the armies. So that was where they were then ? but I hastened to tell him of two American girls I was trying to locate. It didn't go. The dates on my pass- port were all against me. The game was up, I thought, and quickly forgot all the French I ever knew. Here's where I go down as a spy, I was just thinking, when suddenly down came his pen on the passport, and I found myself booked for Arras. Arras ? I looked it up on the map as soon as I could and found that there were more ways than one of getting there. So I bicycled out of Lille, for Arras, via Douai. What in the world would I blunder into in those forty kilometres ? French, Germans, battles ; danger or peacefulness ? Inn after inn I stopped at — for it was hot work bicycling — and always it was the same story, husband, son, or brother gone, dead for all that was known these past three weeks, nothing left but misery, suspense, abject fear, and utter defencelessness. What nerves the dull-witted peasant women of Northern From the French Lines to the German 39 France have were worn into such a frazzle that nothing was too terrible to fear of "les barbares." At last, with considerable trepidation I entered Douai. To my amazement, however, the Ger- mans had not yet come there. The atmosphere was even more electric than at Lille ; the slightest clatter down any side street at once magnetized a gaping crowd into activity. Trains, post, telegraph, and newspapers had ceased eight days before. Once I saw a small crowd apparently mobbing a single man, who turned out to be only a poor newspaper dealer with a few old Lille papers. Occasionally a Red Cross auto tore in from that mysterious land of the front, dashing recklessly through the streets and covered thick with dust. Crowds at once gathered in the hope of a few crumbs of news. Only once did I see that fear-ridden crowd laugh. That was when a heavy wagon clattered down the street with three men in front carrying giant carrots cut out to represent the Kaiser. There was the helmet, the upturned moustache, the jaunty head, and all. The laugh, however, was nervous and half-hearted and soon ceased. 4-0 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Still I don't suppose any other people in the world but the French would have thought of such a thing at such a time. Again it was obvious that I was on the wrong scent. The map showed Valenciennes to be the next big city eastward and I set out without loss of time to get my passport vised onward. "But the Germans are at Valenciennes!" exclaimed a pompous chap, and he went off at once to get another official. Out came a fat little man with staring eyes who seemed to be the big nabob. "But, Monsieur," he protested, "there are Ger- mans there." "I know," I replied. "They won't hurt me." "But," he stammered, "the Germans, the bar- barians — " "Yes, but I'm an American." "And you want to go to Valenciennes, where all the Germans are?" "Yes," I replied. "I'm crazy, stark crazy; nobody will harm a mad man." He burst into a roar of laughter and went out to call the few other officials left in the building. From the French Lines to the German 41 To them we gave a dress performance of the whole, at the end of which the little nabob, amid chuckles and "les Allemands," affixed his portly seal to my much-abused passport. That after- noon he met me in the square and a second time explained about the Germans. At dinner at the hotel I saw him again, still chuckling and talking about "les barbares." Off I started the next day for Valenciennes, sure at last of meeting the Germans, uncertain of everything else. I confess, too, that I could not but absorb some of the terror about me ; I could not but wonder what they would do to a lone civilian bicycling aimlessly about. With every turn of the wheel the tenseness seemed greater. Every kilometer of the thirty-five to Valenciennes the German phantom became more life-like. All the way the stagnation and loneliness increased. Harvests were rotting ; few people were in the fields ; more were at the crossroads, waiting, waiting. At last I came to Aniche, a dirty little town with two main cross-streets, roughly cobbled and wet with filth. Every doorstep was crowded 42 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War with women and children and a few old men, all ready to turn and run, all animated by terror, sustained by curiosity. The fear was so choking that I stopped to inquire. "Les barbares" were just entering. Crash ! they were there at the corner. Up snapped their horses' heads ; to either side the great helmeted men peered with burning inten- sity. Uhlans ! The whole village winced. Chil- dren ran behind their mothers ; women made ready to flee. — Mediaeval indeed, a page from the Crusades ; it could not be the twentieth century. Suddenly two of the horses started towards where I was. The crowd ran helter-skelter in absolute terror. For a second I stood alone in the road-way like a marked man, with my suit- case strapped to my bicycle and a straw hat on my head. Believe me, I lost no time in getting to a doorway with my precious machine. For- tunately, however, it had been no more than a bolting horse. Shortly the people returned, quiv- ering but still curious. Sadly, bitterly, they watched the division ride past, impotent to do anything, their own men way behind them to the From the French Lines to the German 43 South, they themselves absolutely at the mercy of the big, stalwart, fearsome-looking warriors whose march was thus forever engraven on their memory. It made my soul sick when word was whispered back that "les barbares" had taken possession of the town hall and requisitioned luncheon. Now indeed I was within the German lines, a pretty pickle indeed, I began to fear. In four days I had swung around the French and British flanks, from the French and British rear to the German rear, and was hearing the same battle which I had heard only a few days before from the exactly opposite side. What would they say when they found me ? The die was cast ; I might as well go forward as back. Without warning a big gray automobile burst upon me with frightful speed. I thought my bicycle was gone ; but no, the machine tore on into the dis- tance, unnoticing. Dimly, faintly, I began to hear a dull rumble to the south, a sound like far-away thunder, grim and sullen. As I advanced, it separated into the distinct shocks of heavy artillery. By 44 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War the map I could see that the line extended from Cambrai through Le Cateau to Maubeuge. Here indeed was the clash of the nations, cruel, primi- tive, savage, where the world's most momentous issues were being adjudicated by mere brute force. Just at sunset I stood on a little hill looking down on the white spires of Valenciennes. It was the main German headquarters of Northern France. Should I go down ? Certainly I could not put my head more completely into the noose. I had no German papers and nothing but an American passport showing how in five days I had circled up from Paris around the French and English flanks to the German rear. What would "les barbares" make of it all ? And what good reason could I give them for being there anyway ? A long, long time I waited. At last there appeared an educated- looking Frenchman. "Monsieur," I said, "I'm an American. Is it safe to go down ?" Perfectly," he replied. But can one enter the city ?" "Certainly." a a From the French Lines to the German 45 "No guards?" "No, Monsieur." "No sentries?" "No, Monsieur." "No need of passport?" "No, Monsieur." I could not believe it. Surely my French must be wrong. One could not enter the main German headquarters unchallenged. To win his confidence, I showed him Paris papers a week later than any he had seen and gave him news of the capital. His joy knew no bounds ; I was sure that he would not deceive me. I descended the hill ; approached the city gates gingerly ; entered ; passed through ; found myself un- challenged in the city of German headquarters of Northern France. Ah, Valenciennes, you were indeed a stricken city. Helpless under the iron heel of the Ger- man military system, you were forced to house your bitterest enemies ; to give them of your best ; to see yourself made the base of a mighty blow at the heart of your country. Heaven knows how many thousands of hostile troops 46 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War sullied your soil ; how many hundreds of busses, wagons, automobiles, thundered out of your gates towards the capital of France. Alas ! what a tragedy of helplessness ; the spirit willed but strength failed. You were like a great stricken animal, com- prehending all, suffering all, too weak to struggle. Your people looked on with piteous, pleading eye while Germans swarmed on you and over you like a pest of locusts. Sadness, gloom, despair, held you in firm grip, with never a smile to brighten the tragedy. For six days it had been thus. Before that the English had been here for three days, having come 25,000 strong from Dunkerque and Boulogne and rushed through to disaster at Mons. Shortly the Germans burst through Liege, swarmed on in immense droves, and flooded into Valenciennes in unestimated numbers. Hardly had the clatter of one regiment ceased than that of another began. Irresistible, inexhaustible, they swarmed on while Valenciennes choked down its straining heart. Never will I forget the dull agony of the Place d'Armes. On one side rose the great mass of From the French Lines to the German 47 the crystal-towered Hotel de Ville in all its Gothic beauty. High from its belfry flaunted the hated German colors. In its court and throughout its rooms stalked the dull gray of hundreds of German uniforms. In the centre of the square was a constantly changing stream of Ger- man soldiers, artillery, cavalry, and supply wagons, ready for the drive south. On the other side, a line of cafes filled with Germans and French alike. In one of them, the Cafe Francais, I sought out the Mayor. He and his government had been driven from the picturesque Hotel de Ville and forced to take up their headquarters here to do what they could. A splendid picture of manhood he was too, flowing white hair, erect stature, and sparkling eyes. "Sir," I said, "I am an American journalist just from Paris. I have newspapers telling of the new French war ministry. Would you care to see them ?" "Mon Dieu, yes," he exclaimed. "But not here?" I questioned. "Heavens, no," and he led me out of the crowded cafe into a small alley-way, up a rickety 48 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War back stairs into a darkened room, where a group of what had been the city government greeted the news with boyish excitement. It was the first they had had for eight days, and it showed that France still lived. Now for the German commandant. Obviously I could not be caught without some sort of papers. It was better to face it out voluntarily than to wait for the inevitable challenge. I passed through the German sentries patrolling the sidewalk and stepped gingerly out towards the Hotel de Ville over what seemed to be a deadline for all but German gray. A score of soldiers were lolling about in the entry way of the Hotel de Ville. My request in English for the commandant turned all eyes on me most menac- ingly. It was the time when hatred for England was most bitter. Fortunately, one man under- stood me and explained that I should go to the rail- road station. I was glad indeed to go anywhere. Men half naked, men bathing, men gorging food, men marching, men sleeping on straw, Red Cross women flitting about, horses being led out- side, artillery bumping across the platform, From the French Lines to the German 49 noise, confusion, a babel of talking and com- mands — such was the main station of Valen- ciennes on this, the first day of the opening of through communication with Germany. At last I located the commandant and hitched myself to him like a wagon to a star, careering after him through the jumble. "What do you want?" he flared between commands. "To go to Cambrai," I said. "What if you do ?" he snapped. "I suppose I need a German pass," I said. "I don't want to get shot." "You can't get there," he exclaimed. "Oh, yes, I have a bicycle." "My God, you Americans, you're everywhere — always ready." He was off like a shot out of a gun. I caught glimpses of his fat little body flitting about beside a train just in. Suddenly he dropped out of nowhere before me ; ordered me to come with him, and tore off down the platform to his office. "Where do you come from?" he asked. "Boston." 50 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War "That's a poor place." "It's the best city in the world," I exclaimed. "Don't talk like that to me if you want a pass." "Well, what city do you like then?" I asked. "Philadelphia," he replied, and I burst out laughing so hard that he nearly dropped his pen. Finally, after admitting that Philadelphia was incomparable in the United States, I got my German pass. I could not keep away from the Place d'Armes, however ; its tragedy fascinated me. At regular intervals the sound of iron heels of marching men pounding rhythmically on solid cobbles came to us from along the road from Germany. Another detachment swung out of the narrow streets into the square and goose-stepped onwards to the Hotel de Ville. A snapping command cut the air like a razor; the detachment halted as one man ; another snap, and crash, the guns were grounded on the cobbles. Magnificent ! A few minutes rest and another thousand gray uniforms were off to the heart of France. Then a sharp siren screech as a single gray automobile, thick with dust and bristling with I < - mmi "■■■ /L /^ *»# /*//* . ^ M " Herr Arthur Sweetser of Boston (Mass.) " is allowed to go from Valenciennes to Cambrai, from Solesmes to St. Quentin. From the French Lines to the German 51 the barrels of sharp-shooters' guns, burst into the square. A hurried inquiry for directions while the engine still pounded, and off it tore to do its murderous work. Again a huge bus trundled around the corner, and another and another until the square was choked with great machines and ' the air rilled with noise and gasoline. Amid pound- ing engines and sharp commands a brief rest was taken before the whole avalanche in single file ground its way fatalistically southwards. In one division alone I counted seventy-eight machines, some standard army autos, some horse vehicles, and many nondescript conveyances. Occasionally there came groups of tragic French prisoners. All were sad, dejected ; many so downcast as to turn away their faces in shame. A bitter fate indeed to be prisoner in their own country and led by the enemy through their own cities. The Germans lolled lazily out to watch them in contented fashion, much as a hunter contemplates a good day's game; the native French stood wet-eyed and silent, their whole beings expressive of the agony that was in them. Ill IN THE WAKE OF VON KLUCK I wonder if anything is more lonesome, more oppressive, than the work of a solitary war- correspondent seeking the battle-line in an alien country ? Surely it seemed not, as I left the comparative safety of Valenciennes to plunge south after the rapidly advancing Germans. In fact I was seized with a sort of unreasoned panic which made me take a wide detour beyond pos- sible sentries across stubbled fields and far out on to the main road. There, from behind a small hut, I watched for two solid hours the slow, meas- ured passing of a huge German convoy — autos, busses, vans, wagons — plodding steadily on. Grim, helmeted horsemen, looking all the more terrible from the heavy spears which seemed to itch in their hands, cast glowering looks towards the few natives who watched their passing. At last the road was clear and I bicycled off through a group of villagers, who looked at me 52 In the Wake of Von Kluck 53 dully, dazedly, fearfully, as if I too had taken on the atmosphere of war. Now, however, all was quiet. The roar of artillery which had rumbled through this section just two days before had ceased. Absolute peace prevailed. I shuddered to think what that peace meant and what it had cost. One thing, however, it made crystal-clear, and that was that the long-boasted German dash to Paris was well on its way to success. The English and French whom I had seen rushing up this way two days before were evidently in rout. Therefore, I left the highroad and struck off pell- mell across country towards France's capital. Inn after inn I stopped at, for it was hot work bicycling, and there was always chance of picking up news. Scores I met of the peasant women who have made Northern France the granary that it is, women illiterate, bovine, stolid in feature and character, dirty in person and in home, sepulchral-looking in their black clothing. Not one of them realized the significance of the forces surging about them. Revanche, Alsace- Lorraine, 1870, may have been shibboleths in the cities, but amongst these poor peasant women 54 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War they were absolutely unknown. Perhaps their attitude was best expressed by an old woman with dirt-incrusted hands, and, I was going to say, face, who kept a squalid little inn at an open country cross-roads. "Ah, Monsieur," — she was almost weeping, — "they're beasts, les Allemands, beasts. Why do they come down here ? What do they want ? Everything was so happy a few weeks ago ; we had a good crop ; Jacques was just getting well again ; it was going along to fall — and now look at things." "See," she continued in anger, "they don't even pay for what they take. Look at what they gave me. They came in and took my best beer, and drank, drank, drank. When it was all gone, they cursed me. For two days they marched past — two whole days, Monsieur, pound, pound, pound past this door. Sometimes they stopped and swarmed in here and spread all over the room and talked their horrible talk and then gave me this and laughed." She held out a collection of marks and pfen- nigs. I used all the eloquence I had to tell her In the Wake of Von Kluck 55 it was money and represented payment, but I might as well have argued with a mountain. "I don't want their German truck," she burst out. " Why didn't they stay where they belonged ? What are they doing here ? For two days they marched past, two days, and then we heard guns down that way. For three days it lasted and then all was quiet. Where have they gone now, and what am I going to do with all this stuff?' That to her was the war. Two days of march- ing Germans, three days of the noise of guns, quiet — a husband gone, crops running to seed, a store ruined, and a drawerful of worthless coins — what indeed did she care about Revanche, Alsace-Lorraine, Belgium ? She, like so many others, may not have known how to live according to our standards, but God knows she knew how to suffer. Why indeed had a handful of rulers, diplomats, and statesmen belied their purpose in bringing misery to millions of sad-faced, suffer- ing women just like her ? At noon, with a blazing sun overhead and forty kilometres bicycling behind me, I arrived at Solesmes, hot, exhausted, famished. Streets were $6 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War deserted ; houses shut. At two doors I rang ; there was an interminable wait as though the occupants were coming up from an abyss. "Mais non, Monsieur, the Germans have taken everything. There is nothing to eat in the city." And a pair of nervous eyes glancing up and down the street left no doubt that I was an un- welcome intruder. At last before the Hotel de Ville I saw life — a group of German soldiers in their dull gray, cheerless uniforms, lolling comfortably about. I rode boldly up, despite the fear that they might commandeer my bicycle, and lost no time in disappearing into a little inn. There for the first time I learned the war value of a cigarette. The look of suspicion shot out at me by a lone officer near by changed at once into longing when, for want of anything better to do, I took out a package. Carelessly I handed him one which he seized almost ravenously. From that it was but a short step to German headquarters and a rich meal in an abandoned French mansion where empty glasses, half-eaten food, boots and uni- forms already created a condition of filth. In the Wake of Von Kluck 57 My friend proved most voluble and once more useful. After toasting the Kaiser and pretty near all Germany, he took me to a large house on the square from the lower windows of which the German commandant was holding court for the villagers. There, in a group of fearing, cringing peasants between one who volunteered to do Red Cross work and another who asked permission to go to the next town, I had my pass continued on to St. Quentin. With a cheerful smile the comman- dant said he would meet me in Paris September 4. So I pedalled rapidly on through the hot sun after the German avalanche. Hardly a sign of life could be seen. Beautiful fields rich with a bounteous harvest stretched forth in picturesque undulations with no human being about. Little farmhouses cluttered with filth lay open to the world in hollow mockery. Even the quaint little village of Le Cateau, lying in a valley between two steep hills, could show only the dull gray of a few German soldiers. Whither, I wondered, had the country fled ? Leaving the town, I soon topped the crest of a particularly steep hill. Smash ! outlined sharp 58 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War against the sky were two angry field-pieces, sul- lenly, defiantly facing out across the valley towards Germany. Ugly scars — was it possible they were trenches — zigzagged here and there through the rich harvests. Empty cartridge shells in little piles, half-eaten meat and hard-tack, now and then a letter, cards, or a book, occasionally a khaki hat or coat, told their simple tale of the little human units caught in the vortex of war. Strangely, it was English, all English. It was the battlefield of the Cateau-Cambrai line, the strategic point where General French rallied his remnants for one last staying effort while the French concentrated about Paris ; the grave- yard whither the Tommies I had seen a few nights before from the other side had been rushing to bolster up their nearly annihilated comrades fleeing precipitately but valiantly from Belgium. I learned the story later from a curly-headed youngster of twenty who had been one of the few to escape. Twelve hundred strong the regiment had left England. For thirty-six hours without cessation it had fought at Mons. For six days and six nights it had alternately retreated and held In the Wake of Von Kluck 59 till the final graveyard was reached at the peace- ful spot where I now stood. For only eight hours the carnage had lasted, but at the retreat only 300 men were able to leave. Sick at heart I ascended the hill further, to find a terrified French peasant hastily emptying his pockets of fragments of shells. He seemed in perfect terror lest he be shot for taking away a souvenir. "Ah, Monsieur, it is terrible, this war. For two days I have buried dead men, two whole days, and then I thought they would let me go. But no ; I must now bury dead horses. It is terrible, this war, terrible." Apparently he felt no further emotion, and I shook him off with a certain feeling of horror. No man could pass those new-made graves un- moved. The rough piles of earth scattered throughout the harvest and surmounted now and then by a cap or a rough wooden cross told a tale of heroism, of pathos, of homes desolate, which roused one's whole being into anger at human folly. The bounteous harvests which Nature had offered for man's happiness lay 60 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War crushed and mangled under the pounding of hundreds of angry feet. The streaming sun- shine and peace seemed a mockery, not to the brave men who lay near by but to that system which had made such slaughter possible. Reverently from the brow of the hill I stood for a long time surveying this last resting place of so many valiant men. The stillness of a profound peace rested over these once beautiful fields as though the last great struggle was over. The roar that I had heard coming from this spot for two days just before seemed only a hallucination. The terrible engine of destruction had passed onwards, leaving the field to the dead and the Creator. Sadly I, too, followed into the twilight as a beautiful new moon chiselled its way into the deepening skies. It seemed impossible that men were even then in the distance hunting each other like wild beasts. Yet on all sides lay mute wit- nesses to what had here been and was there going on. Big autobusses bearing the familiar names of large English commercial houses lay tossed on their sides after brief services as barricades. Every half mile came the stench of a dead horse In the Wake of Von Kluck 61 and sight of a horrible swollen body, already rotting beside the road. As darkness fell and the night chill set in, the uncanniness of it all became accentuated to the lone bicyclist pedalling his way through this land of carnage. At such times everything in one seems to cry out for the life and warmth of a human habitation, and when at last I came upon a desolate-looking little inn, I waited long to rouse someone to let me in. At last, an old man, terrified lest I be the German army come back, told me with the utmost sadness that they could give me neither bed nor food. I could not believe it till he lighted me about the house, when the shame of it all stood out in full horror. Every room was strewn with straw, bottles, food, and filth. What had once been a home had in a twinkling been turned into a sty. My good friend, however, told me of a place two kilometres off the highroad where after much difficulty I found a house which still boasted a few eggs and some bread. There, though the battle-line was rushing on towards Paris and still out of hearing, I stopped for the night. 62 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Early the next morning, leaving my kind host silhouetted against the doorway, his wooden arm raised on high, calling down all sorts of impreca- tions on the Germans, I set out once more to catch up with the invaders. Again it was one long succession of rotting harvests, decomposed horses, abandoned motor-trucks, and deserted houses. Roadway inns yawned even wider to the outside world, with broken bottles, fly-covered food, and sickening refuse scattered about in disorder. Three armies, English, French, and German, had left the country as a flock of carrions leave a carcass. Suddenly a field of blue — a field where blue coats and caps lent the coloring of the French soldier who had once been there. A few rudi- mentary trenches, piles of broken guns where surrender had been en masse — witnesses indeed to the half-hearted struggle of the half-prepared French force which had simply melted before the Prussian machine. Halfway into France though I was, it was the first sign of French resistance I had seen, and the pitifulness of it made me sick at heart. Later I learned it was the scene of what has been called the battle of St. Quentin. In the Wake of Von Kluck 63 At last, towards noon, I made my way into the quaint old city of St. Quentin. The sombre gray of the German uniform had settled down like a pall. Crowds of foot-sore soldiers, all too en- vious of my bicycle, crowded the rough cobbled streets, while every now and then ponderous auto trains and field artillery pounded through. French in nervous groups gaped at blood-and- thunder manifestoes or hastily scurried from one place of safety to another. All human effort except war had ceased in this old city. Terrible news had been posted in the city that day. The French civilians, who all along had clung to the forlorn hope that Russia might even yet save France, were informed in blazing proc- lamations by the German Headquarters that the Russians had suffered a crushing disaster at Tan- nenberg. As I saw the heart-sick French gazing at these posters, one of which is reproduced herewith, I could not but marvel at that wonderful military organization which overlooks no detail, not even to taking all hope from the civilians of invaded terri- tory. The communique is so exact, so pithy, so absolutely final, that I give a translation herewith : 64 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War 11 du Grand Ouarlier General des Armees Allemandes Le 31 Aoitt 1914. Par T. S. F. Les succes de la bataille de Tannenberg contre la deuxieme armee russe sont encore de beaucoup plus iznportants que nous l'avions suppose au premier moment. Trois corps d'ar- mee russes ont ete completement aneantis. Deux aeneraux commandant les 13*™ et 15'* me corps d'armee russes ont ete faits prisonniers. Avec eux 60 a 70,000 Russes sont tombes entre les mains des Allemands. Des parties du 1" et 6 ms corps russes battent en retraite dans la direction d'Ostrolenka. La deuxieme armee russe, sous le comman- dement du general de cavalerie Rausch de Fran- kenberg, a cesse d'exister. Les premiere et quatrieme armees autri- chiennes avancent victorieusement. Le ministre anglais avoue que de fortes pertes ont ete eprouvees. Le Gouverneur allemand de Namur mande que le butin de guerre comporte non pas 90 mais 169 pieces de forteresse. German communique to the French. See opposite page. In the Wake of Von Kluck 65 "Communique from the Great Headquarters of the German Armies "August 31, 1914. By wireless. "The results of the Battle of Tannenberg against the Second Russian Army are very much more important than we had at first thought. Three Russian army corps have been completely annihilated. Two generals commanding the 13th and 15th Russian army corps have been made prisoner. With them 60,000 to 70,000 Russians have fallen into the hands of the Germans. Parts of the First and Sixth Russian corps are retreating towards Ostrolenka. "The Second Russian Army, under command of General of Cavalry Rausch de Frankenberg, has ceased to exist. "The First and Fourth Austrian Armies are advancing victoriously. "The English minister admits that heavy losses have been suffered. "The German governor of Namur sends word that the war-booty consists, not of 90, but of 169 fortress guns." 66 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War The beautiful main square was one great Ger- man army camp liquid with the continuous flow of engines of destruction. The picturesque, many-spired seventeenth-century Hotel de Ville had been converted into army headquarters care- fully guarded by a cordon of sentries. By much effort I made my way through to a young orderly who spoke both English and French perfectly, and who at the same time vised passports for French peasants, allayed their fears, said they could go and come as freely as when the French flag flew over the city, and incidentally told me of the Kaiser's justification in going to war and the Allies' criminal aggression. "Would you like to see some English prisoners and an English colonel ? We've got a lot out in the rear," as though they were a bag of prize game. To my amazement he led me among them — a motley crowd of 250 Tommies and 200 French. The Tommies, dirty, ill-kempt, and rather dangerous-looking, pressed forward toward me till it was with difficulty that I could get away to see their officer. Somehow, it's a most uncomfortable thing to be a free man among In the Wake of Von Kluck 67 prisoners, to know that at any minute the doors will open for you but not for them. "Yes, by God, I swear it, sir," he was saying. "Those dirty beasts caught us two days back, me and six others, and marched us at the head of the column right into the face of our own guns. You can't believe me — but by God, if you had a Bible, — and now for three days since we've rotted here, stones to sleep on, no blankets, no food, no — " An angry, growling furore rose behind me. I turned to see a group of Englishmen fighting almost like wolves for a piece of bread held out from a window above. "Ah, Monsieur" — it was a French prisoner, tears running down his cheeks, pleading — "it is ghastly. For three days now our English friends have not eaten. For three days the Ger- mans have given us nothing. We French get a little from our women who are allowed in, but the English — you see, they starve. Mon Dieu, I cannot stand it." And almost in a complete breakdown he gave me the name of a well-known Protestant minister in the city. 68 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War I set out to see him at once. "Would you mind speaking English?" he said. "Perhaps it would be easier as I spent four years at Harvard." He listened to my story — listened with anguish lined deep in his finely chiselled features. It was no use, he said ; even the citizens themselves were starving. No trains for six days, every store com- mandeered, all breadmakers working twenty-four hours for the Germans, suffering, misery, lawless- ness on all sides — and, his gentle face hardening : " Sir, I am a minister of God, a disciple of Christ, but it takes every ounce of moral courage, every bit of faith I own, even to administer the last rites to those who have brought us this woe. I try, God knows, I try with all my power to fulfil my mission, but I am not strong enough. My faith says 'God save them'; my heart, 'God curse them.' " Sadly indeed I left him, not, however, wholly convinced that a little American enthusiasm could not even yet find food for the starving Englishmen. But as it was now four o'clock, I decided to get lunch for myself first. From cafe to cafe, store to In the Wake of Von Kluck 69 store, shop to shop, I went — in vain. After an hour's hunt, the best I could do was a cake of chocolate and two beers ; for supper chocolate, three beers, and the last fatty slice of the last round of ham secured after mixing in a free-for-all fight with some German soldiers. After that I gave up thought of feeding 250 Tommies. I knew that nearly every hotel had been com- mandeered, so I started early for a place to sleep. I began at the better hotels, worked down through the smaller ones, till finally late at night I found an extra bed in a dirty little house way off in the slums, cost, one franc. Never did man pass such a lively night; everything seemed living and hungry. The next morning I was about to leave the house and all its memories behind me as fast as I could when the woman of the house offered me breakfast. I knew I could not expect food elsewhere in the city and I thought that eggs at least would be safe, so I returned to a dirty kitchen, where an ignorant, squalid husband was rocking in what was once a chair. The woman, a homely, chicken-chested creature of forty with high cheeks and prominent teeth, yo Roadside Glimpses of the Great War was busy getting breakfast and railing at the Ger- mans. She had gone on for some time when the man said unemotionally : "Tell him about it." She stopped short as she was putting the few rough fittings on the table and looked anxiously at her husband. "Oh," she said, "not that." "Yes," he insisted. "He'd be interested." For some moments there was silence while the woman thought. The husband continued rocking slowly in his rickety chair and the woman went over to see how the eggs were coming on. Then, all the time moving busily about getting the table ready, she began slowly : "Two nights ago there was a pounding at the door. It sounded bad, but we opened. Two German soldiers came in, drunk. They put their pistols against my husband's face." She was working more rapidly now and her husband had ceased rocking. "They demanded food. We gave it to them. They demanded wine. We gave them that too. And then — " In the Wake of Von Kluck 71 The husband rose to his feet and glared towards me. And then," he said, "they demanded my wife." The woman turned from the stove and faced me squarely. A slight flush suffused her thin cheeks and a challenge was in her eye. "Yes," she said, "they demanded me, too." For a moment her glance held firm. But suddenly a quiver went through her being and her face fell. She turned hastily back to the stove and began stirring the eggs more rapidly, while the husband resumed his rocking. There was only the creaking of the chair and the sizzling of the cooking. Then the husband said : "Haven't you got a little jam for his break- fast?" Truly women have suffered in this war, suf- fered as only women can. For them there has been no escape; while their sons, husbands, brothers, have been torn from them, they have been left behind, unknowing, undefended, a prey to the worst dangers. There is a bigger, deeper heroism behind the lines than on them. 72 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War It is odd, when the whole world is running blood, how glaringly the sufferings of a single in- dividual stand out in one's mind. Midst all the horror and anguish about me the fate of this one woman burned its way into my feelings with an intensity that was uncanny. For days it seemed to be with me, sometimes buried, some- times cropping to the surface, but always the example of helpless, innocent suffering which to me synchronized with war. Somehow man's mind stands aghast and appalled before war's riot and anguish, and can get an inkling of the whole only by possessing the particular. So it was when I went to the Palais de Justice, a magnificent three-story building fairly writhing with human agony. A dank, ominous odor of disinfectants — I could easily imagine it was the stale smell of clotted blood — greeted me at the doorway. A glance inside showed a huge floor space covered a foot thick with straw and bodies lying helter-skelter all about, just as they had been dumped from the battle-line. Some were half naked, a crushed leg resting painfully on the straw. Others bulged with dark-stained In the Wake of Von Kluck 73 handkerchiefs or had their heads so swathed in bandages that they could hardly breathe. Some were in a death sleep ; some moaned piteously with pain ; others existed on, their dull eyes gazing blankly into space. Nuns and Red Cross nurses wove their way gently in and about, bringing water for parched throats, placing limbs more comfortably on the rough straw, and doing the other trifles which it was left in human power to do. Above, be- yond it all, like an evil-omened spectre, was a black-robed priest, Bible in hand, ready like death itself to enshroud the next victim. And always that smell of disinfectant, unwashed bodies, clotted blood, and death. My God, was it the Palais de Justice I was in ? At that moment, a little French girl — she could not have been over fifteen — who in her sur- roundings and through her sufferings appeared more of the spirit than of the flesh, asked me in a gentle whisper if she could aid me. Learning my mission, she took my hand and led me, as though I too were a child, through those pros- trate forms to the rear. Her whole being was 74 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War rasped and torn. She tiptoed wherever she went and spoke only in whispers. Watching the exquisite spirituality in her face, I almost bumped into a nun carrying the results of Nature's needs from among the helpless patients. Alas, what in thousands of cases would be the reaction on chil- dren such as this one brought in touch with such gruesome suffering ? How dearly will the next generation pay for the excesses of the present one ? At last we found the surgeon general, heavily uniformed and armed. "Ach, do I need help ?" he burst out. "Mein Gott, I am the only doctor to this whole place with nearly iooo wounded. Kommen sie quick." I had told him there were two English doctors held prisoner at the Hotel de Ville. His eyes lit up with joy, and dropping everything he tore up the street. On the way, in mixed English, French, and German, this big-hearted man fal- tered out to me the horrors of this war. It was as though his very soul were going to break. "It is war here in France, real civilized war — gruesome but still civilized, but in Belgium] — I was there two weeks — there is no name for it. In the Wake of Von Kluck 75 I have had German soldiers brought to me with eyes gouged out and bodies fearfully mangled. Why, even sixteen-year-old girls had committed the most unbelievable atrocities." It was another side of the shield — and one could hardly disbelieve the sincerity of the strong man who told it. Truly everything in me went out in sympathy to him. How long, I wondered, could he stand the strain ? And somehow when I learned from my friend at the Hotel de Ville that the two English doctors had just been taken to another hospital, it was painful indeed to think of this big German left entirely alone with such an agony of human misery and suffering. As I sadly watched him hurry off down the street to his maimed, wounded, and dying, the puniness of man's attempts to alleviate the suffering he has deliberately caused flooded in on me in sick- ening vividness. But meantime the German armies were rush- ing on towards Paris. What, I wondered, was happening down south ? Why all this torrent of infantry, cavalry, artillery pouring out through the further end of the square and none coming 76 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War back ? Was there no resistance at all ? And would I never catch up with the battle-line ? From pillar to post I chased to find the comman- dant and finally ran him down in a barber-shop. "An American?" "Yes." "And you want a pass ? How far?" he asked through a sea of lather. "To Paris" — it was a bold thought. The commandant nearly jumped out of his chair. "Paris, ach — " and then he roared. Certainly it would be drole, wouldn't it — a German officer giving out a pass to Paris ? Yes, indeed, and such a good joke afterwards. We could hardly get back to the Hotel de Ville quickly enough, and, while the staff was still in gales of laughter, he said : "I will meet you on the Champs d'Elysees in five days." Five days ! September 7 ! What in the world had happened to the south ? Where were the English and French ? A few hours later — it was record time — I bicycled into Compiegne, seventy-five kilometres nearer Paris. The bridge over the Oise had been In the Wake of Von Kluck yy blown up by the French, and I had the pleasure of sensing German preparedness in crossing the river on a bridge made of the strange boat-like things I had wondered about so much four days before in Valenciennes. Again the same busy, bustling headquarters ; again the beautiful old Gothic Hotel de Ville chiselled against a glorious sunset and floating the German flag; again the sense that the battle-line was miles and miles away. And also no food. It was after seven, and every one was off the streets. Even the main square was slumbering in its guns, while off it the only sound was an occasional clanking of heavy German boots on the rough cobbles. No one would take me in ; everyone was suspicious. By luck and in desperation, I told a little girl who was leading me away from her house as fast as she could that I was an American and hated "les Allemands." Her face lit up; she hurried me back; pushed me in a side door ; and there in a dirty kitchen I had my first square meal in twenty-four hours, able all the time to look out into the front room 78 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War where a squad of German soldiers were drinking heavily, singing, and shouting. "Mon Dieu, the beasts, how we hate them!" one of the young girls said to me. "Drink, drink, drink, nothing but drink all the time ! Ah, Monsieur, what a curse for France ! And one of them tried to kiss me yesterday!" She disappeared outside among them, her face long and lugubrious, her heart sick, and her soul afraid. Soon her younger sister returned, real tragedy in her expression, but also a decided relief to be out of it, even temporarily. "So it is all day," she sighed, "always drink- ing, singing, shouting. There's just we three girls and mother — we don't know what will happen. Oh, how we hate them ! Where are our soldiers, Monsieur, and when will they come back?" By error, but more through the edification of a good dinner, I ventured out among them. Guns were leaning against the wall ; flowing glasses crowded the tables; men with coats off and shirts loosened, leaned back in their chairs sing- ing or talking loudly. I don't remember much In the Wake of Von Kluck 79 but a thick atmosphere of smoke, a dirty gray background of uniforms, a din of noise, and a great stein of wine which appeared suddenly under my nose. In a few minutes I had to return to bed with all its contents inside me and a fer- vent toast to the Kaiser to my credit. Shortly, too, the celebrators retired, in order to be within the strict 9 o'clock curfew. At last the women of the house after another day of strain were able to gain a few hours' relaxation. What a life indeed for those left behind ! The next day early I arose with a firm determi- nation to catch up with the battle-line ; spent part of the morning getting over the surprise of my life ; and ended by being made a prisoner. "Yes, certainly," a big German officer told me. "Your pass is good as far as you want to go, even to Paris if you wish." Then after a pause he added : "Isn't it fine we're allies now?" "Ye-s," I stammered, "bu-t how do you mean ?" "Why, in China, of course." My heart almost stopped beating, for it was just as I was leaving 80 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Paris that Japan had demanded that Germany cede Kiao-chao. " But haven't you heard ?" "Not a word," I said weakly. "Well, it's simple enough. Japan demanded Kiao-chao ; we intrusted it to you ; Japan de- clared war; and now we're fighting together out there." "Holy smoke," I exclaimed. "I'd better be rustling home to get a gun." "You had," my friend said, "and if you want a lift part way, I'll give you one as far as Paris." Great Heavens, I thought, the Germans in Paris — the Germans calling us allies, believing, at least, that we were at war with Japan — most emphatically an ammunition convoy was too slow for my superexcited state. I pedalled off at full speed. My haste, however, was short-lived. Ten minutes later I was arrested. Whether I was a prisoner of war, a suspected spy, or a crazy civilian under convoy I could not find out, but for the next three days I was virtually the former with complete loss of liberty. IV PRISONER OF THE GERMANS Just on the outskirts of the city, I ran plump into two German bicycle scouts, one of whom immediately and in a most professional way started to appropriate my bicycle, which was decidedly better than his own. My pass, how- ever, awed him considerably, and after much deliberation with his mate, indicated that I could not go farther along that road alone. What it was all about I did not know, but at all events he and his companion fastened themselves to me and stuck — or rather made me stick. Off we went in cavalcade, a German with a gun slung over his shoulder on either side of me. Soon we increased our party by still another person. A pretty little French woman, chic, smiling, and to all appearances fairly radiating the joy of life, stepped out into the middle of the road and boldly held us up. She had started out that G 81 82 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War morning, she said, to find her two children who had been visiting in a little town twelve kilo- metres away. The Germans, however, had seized her machine, leaving her high and dry along the roadway with an almost impossible walk before her. During the time which my limping French required to disentangle all her excitement, the two Germans watched intently, and most of the population near by crowded about. It took my whole German vocabulary of "zwei kinder" to explain that Madame had two children ; then it required mimicking, signs, and calisthenics to convey the distance, the bicycle, and the requisi- tioning. Another long period — Madame all the time beating the dust with impatient feet — and I learned that my guards wanted to get her an- other machine. It had been a pathetic story by a pretty woman and I could see that the Germans had tumbled for it whole-heartedly. Thereupon, with Madame still fluttering about and half the village trailing after we set out on a search which finally un- earthed an old machine in a little out-house. Prisoner of the Germans 83 Then, I, who had come to see a war, pedalled off with two German scouts and a chic little woman to find two lost children. The only con- solation was that at least our route was towards Paris. Still no sound of battle — still only putrifying horses and general wreckage. As I was wonder- ing what was happening ahead, we drew near a rough springless peasant's wagon moving country- wards. Through the back could be seen a white figure lying still and motionless on an improvised cot. A boy of about sixteen years sat at the head, looking sadly, hopelessly, helplessly down. As we approached, I saw it was a woman's form. Her mouth was wide open ; her eyes already fixed in a glazed death's stare. A warm red spot on the white cloth about her breast showed what had happened. God knows why ; perhaps she had denied herself to some crazed soldier ; per- haps she had committed some hostile act ; per- haps she was but another of those chance victims who pay the cost of war. We passed slowly, reverently by, while the lugubrious wagon trun- dled slowly on, the Germans, even as myself, 84 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War saddened and silenced. Meanwhile the boy- watched, dazed and oblivious, for the spark of life that would be the last. It was his mother. Ah — was that distant noise artillery ? Was the fighting still going on ? We stopped. There could be no doubt ; through the great woods about us came the faint, faint growl of distant battle. Thank God, the French were not yet vanquished. The dismal flight I had been fol- lowing had at last caught breath. That magni- ficent machine which I had begun to hate for its very magnificence, and which even now had me, too, in its coils, was at last meeting resistance. Our little cavalcade increased its pace as though being drawn into the vortex. Soon we ran into a great mass of artillery, grimy and ugly, manoeu- vring to deliver a flanking movement down a side road. As we started to cross a big bridge, a chorus of shouts greeted us and we looked behind us into the barrels of lowered guns. We scram- bled madly back, but neither our two guards nor Madame's pretty face could prevail with a distempered officer. Off we went, then, across country on a wide detour. Prisoner of the Germans 85 When at last we arrived, Madame went ex- citedly to the house where the two children had been. It was closed and shuttered. She ques- tioned a few sympathetic villagers, only to learn that all the family had fled out into the distance two days before. For just a moment she com- pletely lost herself. In crazed desperation she rushed about shouting : "Charlotte, Charlotte, Madame Fernay, Char- lotte." Quickly, however, she noticed us watching sympathetically. Instantly she caught hold of herself. Her desperation melted in a smile and an indifferent remark. Never again did she so much as once give way to those feelings bursting within her. Never again did she falter. Only occasionally she looked helplessly, pathetically down the open road whither her loved ones had fled. The two Germans requisitioned bread and food ; commandeered a big house and the ser- vices of all people therein living. In its large dining-room, with guns beside us and half the population gaping wide-eyed in through the 86 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War windows, we had a huge lunch which I believe is the dream of the German soldier. Madame announced that she would return to Compiegne ; the two Germans replied that they would accom- pany her; and then to my horror that I would come too. Never had I been so disgusted with gal- lantry. Back then we trundled eighteen kilo- metres, even while the German artillery could be heard beating against Paris. During all that long, tiresome ride, Madame kept up her courageous appearance. Little she cared for the war that was going on about her. Uhlans clattered past ; dead horses stank by the roadside; the rumble of battle came from behind, but not a sign did that distracted mother give of the anguish within her. Heaven knows what happened to her children, but if they know how to suffer as their mother knew, they will not prove unworthy of the Re- public. The next day, for the second time, I set out from Compiegne for Senlis, the two Germans still sticking to me like burs. On the way we entered a dangerous-looking town, ugly and deserted, from the middle of which the bleak, Prisoner of the Germans 87 mediaeval walls of the Chateau de Raray rose in grim sullenness. There had been a nasty fight there, for the side buildings were scarred and the grounds littered with the refuse of the en- campments of three armies. Strangely enough the only person left to welcome us as we entered the front grounds was the German housekeeper. It gave me the uncanny feeling that here lay un- covered one of those many small nerve-centres which had so well served the German General Staff. She welcomed us most cordially, almost too cordially, I thought, and in a gorgeous dining- room in great disorder gave us an excellent lunch. The great building fairly echoed with its sudden desertion. German soldiers, following close on French soldiers, who in turn followed close on the fleeing owners, had left it in pitiful confusion. Every room was choked with mattresses, half- empty wine bottles, and the already rancid leavings of hasty meals. The beautiful parlor, with long lines of ancestral portraits, rare tapes- tries, and luxurious furnishings, had served as headquarters for two higher officers. Two large 88 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War mattresses desecrated the floor, and the remnants of breakfast were putrifying just as they had been left several days before. Upstairs all was in equally violent confusion. Not a drawer but had been opened ; not a single family possession but had been gone over by curi- ous German eyes. Apparently nothing had been sacred. Whether it had been a search for loot or mere morbid curiosity to see how French aris- tocracy lived I do not know, but I could not help wondering why soldiers should have been given so much liberty. My two friends in their turn went over everything, even including the wine cellar, and offered me whatever I wanted. Un- fortunately — and it nearly ended my career later — rapacity overcame me and I took a splen- did volume of Hugo's " Les Miserables." Whether it was a feeling of guilt, the lonesomeness of the chateau, or the rumble of battle, I do not know, but it seemed to me we would never be on. Finally, just as we were leaving, a squad of six Uhlans, gray, sombre, mediaeval-looking, with spears lowered, clattered warily in at the gate as though indeed into a fifteenth-century castle. Prisoner of the Germans 89 Received only by two German bicycle scouts, a German housekeeper, an American corre- spondent, and the portraits of deserted French ancestors, they proceeded in their turn to pore over the family possessions. At last, joyfully, we sped on from the chateau towards Paris. Every turn of the wheel seemed to bring us nearer the great struggle which I had now been pursuing from the Belgian border. What in the morning had been a faint rumble had now become a distinct succession of shocks breaking through a steady growl. It must be the forts of Paris, I thought, for now we were not thirty miles out. It was something at least to know that the capital still held out. About twilight we came to the outskirts of Senlis, a pretty little town about twenty-five miles from Paris. We passed down a long avenue of beauti- ful homes, all shut and unoccupied and as life- less as though swept by a sudden plague. Some had evidently been broken into; before others were mattresses, tables, furniture, and straw. It was as though some giant had stopped a mo- ment, sucked out the household goods, and passed QO Roadside Glimpses of the Great War on into silence. For one long mile we rode through this Pompeian desertion without seeing a single soul. We turned a corner — a mass of red, molten flame flared up to heaven in utter solitude, no one about, no sign of life, no attempt to stop the devastation. To the left the skeleton of the railroad station lay charred and blackened. To the right the Hotel du Nord and the whole Rue de la Republique leapt forth in flames in unli- censed fury. I shuddered as we started down that street. Flames shot out at us from both sides. Hot walls, all ready to crumble, leaned over on top of us. Broken telephone and telegraph wires lay strewn about with now and then what had once been a wall. Not a sound but the crackling of the flames ; not a person to be seen. Never has devastation reigned more undisputed. I had every inclination to stop, to grasp this destruction, to find its justification, but my two guardians picked their way gingerly but determinedly along as if it were but an everyday occurrence. Ruins of Senlis, twenty-five miles from Paris, where the major and sixteen councilmen were shot and the main streets put to the flames as Mr. Sweetser bicycled in under guard. Prisoner of the Germans 91 I pointed to the devastation. "Why ?" I asked. With hardly a quaver one of them imitated the firing of a gun and uttered the laconic remark "Civilians." So, for this civilian resistance a good part of the town had been put to the flames, and more, I learned later, for the Mayor and six- teen councilmen were marched ofF and shot. The Germans claimed that this was merely military retaliation ; that they had been met by an or- ganized volley when they were entering the city after its surrender. Heaven knows if this is true ; at all events it caused no worry to my friends. We rounded another corner, and saw what seemed a sea of dusty gray uniforms in the city's main business square. As my splendid bicycle, ridden by a civilian, came into sight, a wave of that gray surged forwards to seize it. Never have I felt so lost, so helpless. "Americanisch," shouted out one of my friends. Immediately the eager lustful look in the eyes before me disappeared and hands were stretched out from all sides. I was almost stunned by the change and was not aided in recovering my- self by hearing a dozen streams of German 92 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War thrown at me. Somehow, with the background of flames behind me, the unrestrained looting before me, and the fever heat in which men's passions were running, I did not like the situation at all. I stayed close to my two friends. Together we walked about through the wild confusion of the shopping district. Practically every door stood wide open to the world, owners fled and gray uniforms passing ceaselessly in and out. Never will I forget a splendid shoe- store where everything had been pulled down from the walls and piled knee-deep on the floor. An incessant stream of foot-sore Germans filed in and out, kicking over the goods till they found what they wanted, and then to show their good- nature, tossing out the most expensive footwear to the few bold French paupers who of all the civilian population alone remained. Somehow it capped the destruction that the now useless necessities of life should go to the last dregs of the city's population. "Peter," said a voice from within the store, and one of my guards went in. Soon he returned with his mate, whom I now learned was named Georg. Prisoner of the Germans 93 "Nicht gut," said Georg, pointing to my shoes. " Kommen-sie." They led me into the confusion of the store. I cannot convey the medley of feelings that rose within me when I found they wanted me to equip myself with new shoes from the poor French- man's stock. I refused. Georg seemed deeply hurt, as much as to say, "How foolish of you," and then to prove he felt no ill-feeling, tied a pair of gaiters to my bicycle. It was as much as saying he would be a good fellow even if I wouldn't. Across the road the handsome glass door of a fine drugstore yawned wide open, as if beseeching human companionship. The loneliness of the shining cases and the rows of bottles depressed us even as we entered. Shortly a woman appeared in the doorway, a terrified peasant woman who had been driven out of her home into that veri- table inferno by her baby's need for medicine. She faltered when she saw that the Germans were there also, but soon her maternal instinct overcame her terror and I was able to coax her inside. Trembling, she held out a prescription. By one of war's queer chances Peter had been a 94 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War pharmacist before he was a soldier. When he had filled the prescription, fear, hatred, and nationality fled from her. Only the thought of the sick child remained as she rushed joyously out on to the open street through those loot- crazed men to her home. What mattered the war to her, or the burning of the city, or the loot- ing ? For her there was only that sacred bravery of motherhood ; for all she cared the Germans might go where they pleased. In a stationery store near by we found, strangely enough, that the owner had not fled. He wel- comed us most cordially as we entered and showed us his wares with every solicitude to please. We might indeed have been his most honored customers. Then, with a blank-book, paper, and post-cards picked out, I asked the price. "Ah, 9a n'est rien, Monseiur, nothing at all," he said with a sweeping bow. "Only give me the sign, if you please," and he held out a piece of chalk to the two Germans. "Yah, yah," said Georg, earnestly. He at once went out and wrote on the door in great German letters : Prisoner of the Germans 95 "Nicht zu pliindern; gute leute." It was the German way of telling his comrades not to harm the good people within ; the sign I had seen occa- sionally all the way from Belgium ; the strongest protection to property that now remained ; Mon- sieur bowed deeply and gratefully. Poor chap, it was the only insurance he could get. He would willingly have given us his shop for it. Finally it came time for supper and prepara- tions for the night, and I looked forwards with trepidation to a German army camp. Not this, however, for Georg and Peter. We set out from that scene of looting, passed once more through the burning section which now glowed all the redder in the sunset, and arrived in the best residential section, which likewise appeared all the more tragic and desolate. "Das ist gut ?" asked Georg of me, as he pointed to a splendid big mansion. "Yah, sehr gut," I replied, wondering all the time if he were a real estate agent or a second- story man. We pedalled on a minute when, pointing critically to another house, he asked : "Besser?" 96 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War a : Yes, yes," I said, "much better." At last, with all the care of connoisseurs, the two Germans picked out the finest house in the section. It lay silent and unoccupied in beauti- ful grounds, every blind drawn and a confusion of furniture, mattresses, straw, bottles, and dishes on the lawn. We entered under a big gate and forced our way in through a side door. The two Ger- mans, guns fixed, went from room to room, floor to floor, making fast every door and window, and examining every nook and corner to make sure not to be interrupted. At last we felt ourselves as much at home as if in our own castle. Georg and Peter, guns stacked, ammunition belts and coats removed, themselves stripped to thin, sleeveless undershirts, set about most me- thodically to get dinner. It was all so professional and business-like that I felt entirely useless. No sooner, however, had I set out to see what sort of house we were in than a voice from down cellar called : "Americanisch, kommen-sie hier." I went — and chopped wood enough for an army. Prisoner of the Germans 97 Again I set out to see the house; again that command. This time I peeled potatoes till I thought we must be supplying the whole city. Once more I started off; once more Georg bel- lowed me down-stairs. This time I found him standing with eyes wide open and smile stretch- ing from ear to ear, pointing to a cellar and say- ing excitedly : "Gut, gut." It was a splendid wine-cellar. "Yah, bestest gut," I answered. Somehow, in our sudden close affinity he made me understand that he wanted to know whether I preferred red wine or white. " Red," I answered, and he took up an armful of both. Decidedly it was going to be a happy evening. Rather ashamed of my inability to cook, I decided to be at least the wife of the family and lay the table. So, while the sizzling of German fried potatoes and the aroma of a juicy steak were coming in from the kitchen, I prepared for a regal feast. A beautiful drop-light over the centre of the table and two splendid six-flame candelabra on a magnificent mahogany mantel-piece, gave 98 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War forth a warm soft light that was anything but the light of war and a looted home. Madame's best service fitted up the table royally, and four dif- ferent kinds of liquor and Monsieur's proudest vintage lent a comfortable, home-like coloring. The steak had been cooked to perfection and the potatoes browned to a turn. Peter and Georg were most good-natured and kept asking: "1st das gut?" To which I inanely replied : "Yah, yah." To put a little personality into our strange feast, I gave them a toast, not to the Kaiser but to the Fatherland. Their evident appreciation, however, fled in perplexed looks and in rapid questions. Then Georg, lifting his glass towards me, said : "To President Roosevelt." Apparently they had not heard that we had twice since Roosevelt's day changed Presidents ; perhaps, even, they knew of no other American. It must have been a droll sight — two Ger- mans with loaded guns at their side and an Ameri- can journalist who understood no word they said. Prisoner of the Germans 99 What, I wondered, would Madame have said if she could have looked in on this strange party ? We had made ourselves so absolutely at home that even the sombre gray of the German uniform seemed to fit in with the surroundings. Until suddenly — crash — something up-stairs — liquor glasses set down — Peter to his gun — bayonet fixed — trigger set — tiptoeing into the hall. Quick, what was I, German, French, or Ameri- can ? And how to say it quickly enough ? Would one have time to be neutral ? No ! " Kommen-sie," whispered Georg. "Kommen- sie mit den licht." I came. My neutrality was gone. I was scared to death. Up-stairs we started, Georg in front with fixed bayonet, I next with shaking lamp, Peter behind with fixed bayonet. Never have I felt so helplessly innocent. Obviously, I as lamp-bearer would be the first — We entered a bedroom. Georg prodded with his bayonet under the bed, into the comforters, through the closet ; no one. He entered another room. My arm with the lamp followed around ioo Roadside Glimpses of the Great War the corner; then, when I was sure there was no shot, I whisked around after them. And so all over the house, finding nothing. Still, the scare put a damper on the evening, and we decided to turn in. We selected Madame's finest chamber with a beautiful mahogany bed in the middle and all the implements of a French woman's toilet about. Not daring to divide forces, a mattress was dragged in for Peter. One door was barricaded by a big bureau, the other by a heavy safe. Thus, with loaded guns at our side we spent the night in one of Senlis' finest mansions. The next day was a nightmare. We awoke early with the rumble of heavy guns not far away. It was only forty kilometres to Paris; it must be France's last stand. Heavens, how slow those two Germans were getting breakfast ! Would we never be off to the greatest battle in history ? So near — and yet all I could get of it was the rumble. Would France hold ? Breakfast at last — finished — we would be off. No ! The two Germans strolled out on to the back lawn and invited me to sit down. Prisoner of the Germans 101 "Die Vaterland," I implored, pointing whence the rumble came. " Die Vaterland." But neither vehemence nor appeals to patriotism would arouse them. All morning long we sat there ; all morning while von Kluck was hammering away at the Marne. Georg and Peter, I learned, were scouts ordered to quarters at Ecouen, a suburb actually within the walls of Paris. But the knowledge did not make me feel any better. At last, just as dusk was falling, we set out. Action, action, any kind of action I had prayed for all day as the big guns pounded, but when we got back to the ruins of the business section, and I learned what sort of action it was to be, it seemed as if I must get down in the dust and howl from very helplessness. ' For it was to turn back; turn back after having come so far; turn back after having been so near ; turn back once more to that city of Compiegne which I had twice already left. With a scattering force of about 200 Uhlans and bicycle scouts, we rode away from the ruins of Senlis out into the sunset, back towards Ger- many, — the beginning, as I learned later, of the 102 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Teutonic collapse at the Marne, even in sight of the Eiffel Tower itself. Great God, what was happening ? What did this retreat mean ? Was it possible that this superhuman machine was breaking down at last ? In cold, damp darkness we arrived at our old Chateau de Raray where we expected to spend the night, but alas, what havoc ! Two companies of German soldiers had settled on it like a plague. An officer with flashing lamp flayed us with a flood of anger which had neither cause nor mean- ing to me, but only brought pity for those who had to bear such abuse. We hastened on miles and miles more in the night to Verberie, passing now and then scattered groups of Germans and once a lone gray soldier driving aimlessly about the country in a commandeered horse and wagon. Apparently he had no idea where he was going and didn't much care, for the moonlight was wonderful and the air clear and crisp. When at last we arrived at Verberie, all was black, sepulchral, ominously quiet, except for the shrill, uncanny screams of a wounded French prisoner who was being unloaded from a large Prisoner of the Germans 103 German autobus. We were not fastidious this time in selecting a home, for it was unpleasantly dangerous to be out at that hour. We selected one in a block. Georg broke open a window, climbed in with fixed bayonet and an acetylene lamp from his bicycle, and examined it while we stood guard outside. 'Twas a simple habitation, evidently the unostentatious quarters of a middle- aged bachelor who made a small living by mak- ing fishing tackle. Still, when well barricaded, it provided us with a good supper and a night's rest. Breakfast next morning was strained. I had decided not to go back further. When we went out into the road to leave, their bicycles were pointed towards Compiegne ; mine I set towards Paris. "Where are you going?" I asked. "To Compiegne," Georg replied. "I go to Paris," I said with firm determina- tion. "Auf wiedersehn." "No, come with us," he said. "Nein," I answered stiffly, and for lack of words flashed out my German pass to Paris. 104 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War They consulted. A breathless moment for me indeed. "Franzose," and Georg imitated Frenchmen shooting me. "Nein," I said, flashing out my American pass- port. They looked at me pityingly as though I were crazy. "Auf wiedersehn," I said, firmly holding out my hand. A moment's hesitation and Georg took it ; likewise Peter. By looks if not by words we conveyed the good feelings that had arisen between us. I jumped on my bicycle ; started towards Paris ; wondered if they would call me back ; looked over my shoulder to see them still watching hopelessly ; and waved again. I was free once more, free to go to the world's battle I had been pursuing all the way from the Belgian border. PRISONER OF THE FRENCH Ah, what joy to be at liberty once more, to be my own master, not to have to come at the beck and call of two men hardly one word of whose language I understood. Faintly, ever so faintly, I could hear the rumble of artillery in the distance. With a sort of wild exultation I drove my wheel faster. At last I should see the labor of this world crisis. Perhaps it is morbid, this curiosity, but it surely is irresistible. I was now squarely be- tween the lines, yet I felt no fear. I might be arrested as a spy at any second by either side, and yet that had no interest for me. I was enthralled, mesmerized, overcome, what you will, by the enormity of the forces before me. No longer was I a person, an individuality, a unit with hopes and fears ; rather I was but a straw drawn ir- resistibly into the vortex. Man is indeed puny before such a crisis. 105 106 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War And yet I did feci a chilling loneliness all the while. Consciously, though more subconsciously, I realized that I had no French papers and I felt that I would be gobbled up in a second as soon as the French saw me. Heaven alone knew how desperate they would be after their three weeks' retreat and during their final stand under the walls of Paris. For two hours I pedalled rapidly, with neither French nor German sol- diers to be seen, but with the noise of the battle sounding ever nearer. Senlis I entered once more, this time very guardedly, for surely the French must have arrived by now. The city seemed even more desolate than before, for the buildings which then had been a surging mass of red flame now lay sullenly smoking in crumbled ruin. Even the dingy German gray was absent. Only two persons I saw, a well-to-do civilian who was pointing out to his wife with his um- brella every detail of the destruction as if in pur- posed self-torture. When I asked if the Ger- mans had gone, he said : "Yes, and may the curse of God go with them. We'll hound them back till every one of them is Prisoner of the French 107 dead or fenced in in Germany." And he went on with a steady flow of imprecation and curses which were all the more terrible for being care- fully weighed and reasoned. Senlis, then, was not occupied by either side. It was left alone to its dead and its ruins, a place to pass with a shudder. Off to the left I veered towards Meaux, whence seemed to come the heaviest firing. About noon I entered the little village of Ermenonville. Everyone was on the streets. People questioned each other fearfully. All regular human activity had ceased. "Les Allemands," some one said. Could it be true, I wondered, that the Ger- mans were way down here ? I made as quickly as possible up a steep street leading from the main square and waited. By all odds I did not want to get caught again by them. Despite their courtesy to me and their pass to Paris, which was still in my possession, I preferred an unknown fate at the hands of the French. A civilian accosted me suspiciously. Just then the people in the square below began to flee in three directions. There was no shouting, no 108 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War reason evident. For several moments all was tomb-like. We watched fascinated. Suddenly a horse's head came slowly, cautiously, into sight. Then a spear, a gray-uniformed body leaning forward peering up and down each street. Slowly, more slowly than one would think a horse could move, he advanced to the centre of the square. Ambushed, perhaps, defenceless, victim of the first sniper, he was the advance guard of a little squad of Uhlans, who in the first days of the war were the eyes and ears of the Kaiser's forces. He was indeed a brave man. For some time he looked, then two companions came up. Not a civilian moved ; even the garrulous per- son next to me was hushed. Shortly, as quietly and spectre-like as they had come, they departed. At once the bravery of the man next me returned. He became ugly. Evidently he connected me with the Uhlans and possibly thought me a spy. It is that kind whom one fears most, so I made off as rapidly as possible. He stood in the road- way behind, alternately shouting that I ought to be shot, and warning me that I take all care against it. Such is war's effects on nerves. Prisoner of the French 109 Artillery was very audible now as I entered the sun-flecked roadway of a luxurious wood. Everything except for that was calm with the quiet of Nature and the serenity of Indian sum- mer. Way down the road — was it a group of men ? — I might be wrong — the lights were so deceiving — yet 'twould be well to be cautious. But wait — yes — a group of figures, horsemen — a little block of red — could it be — hullo — one is galloping towards me — I have been seen — my race for the time is run. Was it by any chance, yes, God be praised it was, — it was the advance guard of France's army before Paris — at last ! With gun lowered, the horseman bore down on me rapidly. Evidently a lone bicyclist wear- ing a straw hat and carrying a suit-case tied to the front of his bicycle looked suspicious. Any- way the horseman was business-like. I jumped off my machine at once and held up both hands. He reared up before me with a volley of questions. Convinced I . meant no harm, he led me back, telling me on the way that I had arrived just as no Roadside Glimpses of the Great War they were going to shoot three German prisoners whom they could not take with them. We approached a small squad of French cavalry. Ah, how good it seemed at last to see again their warm red uniforms, to know that France still fought ! Such a wave of emotion swept over me that for the minute I entirely forgot my personal situation. The dapper little officer on his wiry pony typified France, stood as an outpost to say that the Republic, though giving way before the fearful machine loosed against it, was still standing. "Americanisch," in raucous German suddenly grated on my ears. I looked in horror to find one of the three German prisoners smiling at me. Great Heavens, could I never escape them ? Must they pursue me even here ? And wasn't my situation bad enough already ? I smiled a sickly smile ; indeed I remembered him all too well as one of the loot-crazed soldiers who two days before had tried to steal my bicycle amid the flames of Senlis. A splendid introduction this ! The horsemen eyed me even more keenly. I handed up my Prisoner of the French in American passport to the dapper little officer, who read it, asked a few questions, and started off down a side road. Was I to follow ? I asked. Oh no, go right ahead where I had been going. Good Lord, how simple ! Apparently I could go right through to Paris. Shortly the woods ended — a great blur of red and blue lay squarely before me. A big division of French cavalry, strong, powerful-looking, fear- some, held ready to mount at a moment's notice. My heart seemed to stop. A mad desire to turn and run — I dared not enter that great mass — but equally I dared not turn back. Nor could I dally any longer between the lines. Obviously it was now or never. With all the boldness I could muster I went on. A small outlying squad was resting in the shade of a clump of trees. I expected a chal- lenge, bayonets, excitement. No one stirred. I dismounted and waited not ten feet away, still unchallenged. Somehow I did not dare to jump on and chance getting away ; yet it did seem like suicide to give myself up. I walked in among the men till I found an officer dozing. A touch 1 1 2 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War on the shoulder and he jumped to his feet with wild astonishment in his eyes. "Who are you?" "An American." "What are you doing here?" "I'm a war correspondent." "Where did you come from?" "The German lines." "Ooh-la-la, mon capitaine will want to see you." His face clouded into severity. Several sharp orders rang out too fast for me to catch. Three soldiers sprang to attention, bayonets fixed, and took position behind me. The officer pointed towards the main body of cavalry and ordered me to march. Off I went, feeling too helpless even to struggle. Somehow it all seemed so ludicrous for a harm- less, insignificant person like myself to be pushing a suitcase and bicycle over a stubble-field with three desperately serious, red-pantalooned, long- bayoneted French soldiers keeping step at my heels. Truly it was absolute opera-bouffe. The comic scenes of the "Chocolate Soldier" rushed impulsively to my mind. Prisoner of the French 1 13 There was no time to think what to say. In only a few seconds we arrived at the main body, which stood out as a kaleidoscope of red panta- loons and nervous horses ready to be mounted. I was ordered to drop my bicycle and proceed to a group of officers. I brought up before a kindly, wrinkled little man, who stood out as the com- mander, and saluted as best I could. My three guards close at my heels saluted too, and grounded arms. "Bon jour, Monsieur," he said with unexpected kindliness. "Who are you?" "An American." "What are you doing here ?" " I'm a war correspondent." "Where did you come from ?" "The German lines." The commander's eyes opened wide. His ex- pression set. His staff gathered in a close circle about me. Impossible, some seemed to say ; spy, seemed the verdict of others. I was a little dazed, I confess, for how absurd my whole story sounded as I stammered it out in broken French. And how odd these officers looked, kid gloves, 114 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War soft, mauve jackets, gorgeous red trousers, and dainty caps. Was it thus, I gasped, that the French army dressed when routed, crushed, smashed up against the very walls of Paris ? A dream surely ; soon I would see them with beautiful ladies strolling on the Champs d'Elysees ; it was absurd to think that dust- grimed German hordes were just a few miles off. But how had I entered the German lines, they asked ? And how escaped ? A German pass to Paris ? Mon Dieu, it could not be. But look, here it is. Could one believe it ? And the women ? Are they all ravished ? And Com- piegne, burned ? And where are "les barbares" now ? And isn't it true that they're completely routed ? Do you think they'll fight any longer ? I could not begin to keep pace with it all. Ques- tions popped from all sides on all subjects. All the discretion that was possible I called to my aid, for I could see that every word was being weighed. I clung to the truth like a drowning man to a plank, concealing nothing, exaggerating nothing. No atrocities ? Bah, that was absurd. Why everyone — and the barbarians have plenty to Prisoner of the French 115 eat, and don't have to drive their men into battle — and are confident of victory ? The atmosphere was beginning to chill. I claimed to have been with the Germans all this time and could say such things when everyone knew — certainly, there must be something wrong somewhere. I was allowed to sit down, entirely alone and avoided, hungry, thirsty, nervous, with horses neighing near by, the inscrutable wood that might even then be harboring an attack just ahead, and the rumble of battle in the distance. Then came my Nemesis, a dark-eyed, English- speaking officer, who gave forth distrust and sus- picion in every movement. "You come from the German lines?" "Yes, Monsieur." "And you have a German pass to Paris?" "Yes, Monsieur." "And no French papers ?" "No, Monsieur." "Well, you can't convince me," — his black eyes became slits, his lower jaw seemed to shoot forward, he chose his words, — "you can't con- vince me that you're straight. People don't ride n6 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War around on bicycles between the lines in war- times just for fun." "No, sir, it does sound foolish, but I give you my word." "Thank you, thank you, that is good of you." The irony froze to my very soul. "Do you know that this is war-times ?" With intense fervor I replied : "All I ask — is — that — you — do — noth- ing — you cannot — undo." His ironical gaze had now become almost a leer. His eyes bored into me as if to burn out whatever I had that he wanted. With one last look which I think he meant to be terrifying, but which only gave me an angry revulsion, he walked over to the commander. For some minutes he talked, while both glanced sideways at me. Well, what's the use, I wondered ? My fate lay with the gods. I could do nothing but sit tight and hold my peace. Besides I was hot, tired, and hungry, with no food since breakfast, and small use to ask for any. I wondered vaguely what the battle was doing, if the Germans would Prisoner of the French 117 attack through the woods, if Paris was really going to fall. The men about me were nervous ; horses all saddled and ready to mount on a second's notice. And as I looked vaguely about, I en- countered two black eyes glaring at me across the grass, two eyes that I had learned to fear and to hate with all the intensity of the instinctive fight for self-preservation. For a long time I wondered. Why, I asked myself, had that man set out to get me ? What glory did he — "Wo kommen-sie?" snapped into my ear. I glanced up quickly to see my Nemesis glar- ing down on me from behind. By the gods, what perversity is there in man which makes him play the fool when he most wants to be serious ? It amused me, amused me uncontrol- lably, that he should have struck practically the only German phrase I knew. Some absurd im- pulse made me answer slowly and deliberately : "Von Senlis, mein Herr." It was enough. Off he rushed to the com- mander a second time, saying : "I spoke to that man in German and he an- swered in German." n8 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Oooh-la-la, I began to feel I was being carried over the falls. "Gettsen-sie up," or something of that sort, and I got up, to stand an agonizing half-hour telling a German-speaking officer in both French and English that I could not understand a word he said. Never was the ignorance so deeply de- plored a few days before so deeply appreciated as now. Finally in disgust he asked in French : "But why, if you understand no German, did you get up when I told you in German to do so ?" "Because, Monsieur," I replied, "I knew you were addressing me and I arose instinctively from politeness." And he spent another ten minutes endeavoring in every way to trick me into speaking German. At last he left in high disgust, and I shall never have the satisfaction of knowing whether he really asked me for a match or whether I imagined it. At any rate I did not try to prove my German by offering him one. At last just at sunset a big high-powered auto- mobile drove up on the roadway with a group of high officers. I was ordered to my feet, and once more, with three bayoneted soldiers behind me, Prisoner of the French 119 crossed the stubble-field. This time, however, I had still another companion, that English-speak- ing officer with the black slit eyes, who now stood out in my mind for nothing so much as the comic section "Smart Alec." A splendid six-foot-two officer with flowing white plumes falling off his silver helmet stood just in front of his staff officers at the edge of the road. He looked me up and down as I saluted and the guards grounded arms, rather amused, I thought. "Well, what the deuce is the matter with you?" he asked in excellent English. The question took me back considerably, for I wasn't quite sure myself. "I — I — don't know," I stammered weakly. "I — I guess I'm a prisoner," and I pointed to the three guards behind. He smiled — but the smile soon faded. "Who are you," etc., in the form I had learned so well, followed rapidly. Everything I had omitted my "Smart Alec" friend at my elbow supplied, including my deep knowledge of German. "Is that true?" said the officer. 120 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War I told him the facts, and, because I had once seen good-humor in his face, ventured : "You see, it struck me funny that he hit on almost the only German phrase I knew. I used to go to Harvard College, and I almost got fired because I wouldn't learn German, and yet this officer made me understand just what he said." It failed. Not even the suggestion of a smile touched his face. He whispered to an officer behind him. Off I was led to a big Paris auto- bus filled with dust-covered, grimy soldiers. And as I got in, I seemed to see a triumphant leer on the face of my Nemesis. Off towards the sunset we travelled, slowly, almost mysteriously. The big heavy bus jounced and trundled along like a clumsy ani- mal, seeming almost on the verge of voicing a deep protest against such unwonted work. A cloud of dust clung about it like a shroud. All of us were choking, while the blue coats of the soldiers about me were streaked with white, their faces blanched, and their eyelashes standing out as if heavily powdered. Once, looking through the dust towards the reddening sky, I saw just Prisoner of the French 121 beside the road the corpse of an English Tommie, lying face downward and with arms extended just as he had fallen. He might have been a dog for all anyone cared — yet I could not help thinking there must be some one at home in Eng- land who would long wonder what had become of that unnoticed clay. I was left entirely to my own thoughts during that ride, and you may well believe they were not at all cheerful. At every step my predicament had seemed to grow more serious, and the parting look of my white-plumed officer stayed before me as an ugly memory. Some sort of trial, probably ; establishment of identity certainly ; perhaps a weary imprisonment while they com- pletely forgot about me ; worse than that I could not bring myself to believe. A spy ? — but that could not be ; I knew that they sus- pected it, but it certainly was too absurd. At last, in the semi-darkness, we trundled into a deserted town ; no lights, no people, only blank walls, gaping windows, piles of straw, filth, and refuse. From every window of our bus soldiers craned forth their heads. Horror, indignation, 122 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War imprecations came from all sides as the work of the retreating Germans embedded itself in their minds. "Wait till we get to Germany ; wait till we get to Germany," one of them beside me kept repeat- ing like a dirge. It was Nanteuil, one told me, only just evacu- ated by "les barbares" that noon. We chunked our way up the rough cobbles of a bleak, ghost- like street to the main square and there groaned to rest. Two blazing camp fires in the middle of the square flickered a confusion of wagons, horses, and men into an aerie shadow-scene made all the more weird by the giant walls of the Hotel de Ville in the background. Occasional shouting of orders and neighing of horses made it appear even gnome-like. All the soldiers in the bus tumbled rapidly out and were silently swallowed up in the shadow — all but one, who stayed between me and the door. Shortly he proceeded to munch down a rough meal of hard bread and chocolate, which re- minded me I had not eaten since morning. I tried to ingratiate myself by offering him a cigarette, but alas, he was, I believe, the only Prisoner of the French 123 soldier in the French army who did not smoke. At last I could stand it no longer and asked him if I were to get anything to eat. Unfortunately all he had left was a small hunk of hard bread which he generously shared with me. For two whole hours we sat in that horrible bus, apparently forgotten, while my guard dis- cussed laconically the improbability of my being shot. Then, when it seemed I would go crazy, a young English-speaking officer came out of the shadow, looked me up and down, and took out his revolver. "You will not try to escape," he said. "March to the City Hall." I marched. Next came the revolver almost in the small of my back. Then the officer, distant and uncommunicative. Over rough ground we went, through a medley of wagons, horses, and men, to the Hotel de Ville. I felt as though I were walking on eggs and prayed ardently that my guard would not stub his toe. My pistolated friend took me to a small hall- way, where straw had been piled about ankle- deep. He gave me into the custody of four 124 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War guards, who promptly ordered me to lie down in the further corner. Fortunately I was able when no one was looking to snatch up another hunk of hard bread from the straw, and then as no one seemed to bother about me I tried to for- get things in sleep. To say I slept, however, would be a travesty. An incessant stream of men passed in and out of the building, shouting with true French excit- ability and running up and down stairs with flash- ing lanterns. I wondered if the French army ever slept. Soon an odoriferous soldier, who I wager had not taken a bath since the war began, pressed close against me on one side and another placed himself at my feet, so I could not stretch out. At last, nevertheless, midst all the furore, I fell into a state of cold and sickly insensibility. Eternities seemed to have spun themselves away through a nauseating vacuity when suddenly without warning a gruff hand seized my shoulder and I was dragged dizzily forth to the stairway, still covered with straw. There my magnificent white-plumed officer of the after- noon, with the aid of a light from a large greasy Prisoner of the French 125 lantern, was making a most minute examina- tion of my precious suit-case. Rummaging into everything, he came upon the shirt which my two German bicycle scouts had stolen for me at our mansion at Senlis. Every fibre of it seemed to breathe forth its message, to make it stand out as a great red, accusing finger, pointing defiantly at me. But somehow the officer passed it over. Then he came on a big volume of Hugo's "Les Miserables" which I had deliberately stolen from a looted chateau. "Seems to me," he said (would he strike the name-plate), "seems to me that's a funny thing to go to war with." "Yes," I faltered hastily, "but Hugo's my favorite writer and I took it along to — to read evenings." ' "Huh," and he shook his head, as though I were mentally unsound. Anything was better than being thought a spy ; hence I kept a dis- creet silence. Like the labor of a mighty moun- tain which brought forth only a tiny mole, this exacting examination produced nothing more portentous than my diary, which, however, for 126 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War all the fuss they made about it, might have been of fatal menace to the Republic. With that re- moved for further inspection, and my person pushed and prodded for arms or secret papers, I was dismissed once more to my bed of straw and dirty French soldiers. To my dismay my watch told me it was only 12.30. Another eternity afterwards I was yanked out of the straw once more and shoved, sick and dizzy, towards the door. It was cold and bleak out- doors with a damp dew all about. Two guards, revolvers unstrapped, stood menacingly beside me. Vaguely I realized that it was the proverbial hour for the firing squad. But what mattered it ? Without water and almost without food for twenty-four hours, with little sleep and nerves strung taut, I felt too sick to care. My guards, revolvers ready, led me out into the blackness. The shouting of men and the harnessing of horses indicated that a general movement was under way. Bleak and lonely as I felt in the grip of this great force, it was a com- fort to know that there were others besides my- self who were stirring. I was now not at all Prisoner of the French 127 sorry not to be the leading actor. My guards ordered me on to an empty wagon pulling out into the roadway and followed close behind. We went on and on in the darkness, wagons in front, wagons behind, but most fascinating of all, two corpses covered with blankets on the wagon with us. I don't know how long I philosophized on this evidence of the ruthlessness of war, how much soul-stirring I indulged in, when suddenly one rose on his elbow, yawned, and shook the other into action. For a while I was allowed to ride, but soon that appeared too good for a prisoner and I was made to march. On and on we went out into the country, through the darkness, through the dawn, through the sunrise to a glorious day. The first flush of dawn showed to my eyes a huge supply train of busses and wagons, nearly two miles long ; and to our ears it brought the sullen roar of the beginning of another day of the slaughter along the Marne. I was tired, fearfully tired, and weak from lack of food and sleep. There was no stopping, how- ever, for the long caravan wound implacably 128 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War on through the dust. It had been a beautiful country we were passing through, but now it was only a succession of rotting harvests and hun- dreds of little peasant homes deserted and rifled. Like the fateful sweep of Time we passed Er- menonville, where only the day before I had, a free man, fled from German Uhlans to enter the French lines. What a refuge indeed ! I sought relief by wetting my mouth with the acid juice of unripe pears along the roadside. It had long seemed as if I could go no farther when our big supply train drew itself up in giant circles in a big meadow and horse and man sought rest. As the sun mounted it became sickeningly hot, especially as my guard would not let me move far enough to find shade. All morning the roar of the big guns continued, while we poised vulture- like for the outcome. But to me it mattered not that even at that moment Paris might be falling, that I had come all the way to Europe only to be near but not at the decision of world history. Rumble, rumble, rumble, what did I care ? Just before noon it ceased. Perfect stillness followed. Great God, what had happened ? Prisoner of the French 129 The sun had grown hotter and hotter, as if to melt the earth into quiet. Men looked at each other poignantly. The possibility of the annihi- lation of France seemed to echo through that false peace. The laying low of the country I loved so well came home to me with sickening anguish. The hours passed silently ; not a sound disturbed the unusual noon peace till two o'clock. Then, God be praised, the guns resumed, France still lived ; still fought ! But hold — can it be — no — it is too much — but yet — by Heaven above — France not only fought ; she was winning. The Germans were hurled back, back, back; the French recoil had begun, the tiger had sprung. A shout of joy burst out around me ; a quiver of jubilation ran through the convoy ; faces which had been sad and drawn lit up with ecstasy as if charged with electricity. Ah, to have seen this day ! K VI UHLANS AND TAUBES The roar of guns which all morning had been near was now far off. The French had hammered, pounded the Germans into serious retreat. Paris might yet be saved. The long trail of disaster I had followed from Belgium almost to the gates of Paris had snapped back. Ah, it seemed I must fling my heels in the air and shout for pure joy — till I caught the severe eye of my guard resting on me. Obviously jubilation from me would appear wholly simu- lated, hence I choked down my enthusiasm. What a shame that in this world victory there must be a string tied to my happiness ! Activity burst forth on all sides, and in a few minutes we were on our way back to Nanteuil. Alas, that I knew the distance, for it certainly did seem I could not go another eight miles in that blazing sun. Fortunately I had made up my 130 Uhlans and Taubes 131 mind that I would not starve and had demanded bread and water from my guard. It seemed as though I could swallow canteen and all. After endless plodding through the dust my guard told me that two Englishmen were ap- proaching. In my hapless condition I fairly wanted to dash up and kiss them — till I saw them. I gazed eagerly back to see two huge men fully six feet two, with big white towels wrapped over their heads and under their chins, a six weeks' growth of ruddy beard, women's chemises which left bare a big expanse of shaggy chest, trousers which stopped halfway to the knee, and shoes too small to fasten. They were just dismounting awkwardly from what appeared to be children's bicycles and were stalking off down the road towards me. For all the world they might have been the original cave men from the Stone Age. With trepidation I asked : "Do you speak English?" "Well, where th' divil did you come from?" exclaimed one, in richest Irish. "Where the devil did You come from?" I retorted. 132 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War " Shure, we've ben afther runnin' al iver the bloody counthry. We wuz one of the first to come out from the old counthry and we've ben runnin' ever since. Them bloody Dutchers blew the hill out of us about thray wakes ago up Belgium way and haven't given us a lit-up since. It was about a wake ago over here somewhere — damn if I know where — only there wuz an open corn falde and a town with a white church — and the bloody Dutchers caught us at both inds with their damn machine-guns. We wuz going down like flies all around. Mike here wuz beside me with his teeth nearly rattlin' out of his head, and I sez : "'Mike,' sez I, 'phwat th' divil ar yez doin' here?' "'Damn if I know,' sez Mike. "'Well,' sez I, 'phwat do yez say we bate it?' "'Right,' sez Mike. "So we sent our guns in one direction, our hats and coats in anither, and oursilves in a third as though hell itself wuz afther us. And by God, all the rist of them bate it too. Bullets wuz flyin' under my arms, betwane my legs, and all Uhlans and Taubes 133 around me. Men wuz goin' down al over the place. I felt like I wuz the size of a house and damn if I don't belave those bloody Dutchers wuz pullin' the wood away from us. "Damn if I know how I did it, but somehow I got into that wood alive. Pretty soon up comes Mike. "'Well,' sez I, 'phwat the hill are you doin'?' '"I'm runnin',' sez Mike. 'Phwat th' hill did yez think I wuz doin' ?' "And no sooner had Mike cum up than up cum the Dutchers. They takes us in tow over to a house and makes signs to us like this. We took off al our clothes that was dacent, and then stopped, but they made us go the limit. Pritty soon we wuz as naked as whin we wuz barne. "'Phwat yez doin'?' sez I to Mike. 'Havin' yer picture took?' "'Shut up,' sez Mike. 'Yer ain't no beauty yerself . ' "Pretty soon they run us into the house and here's the rig they give us. Well, we bate the 134 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War woods thray days with them till one night Mike sez to me : '"I'm gettin' sick of these guys. Let's bate it.' "'AP right,' sez I, and we did. We waited till it wuz dark and then we sneaked away. And for thray days we wandered around livin' on roots till we sees these guys. "'Mike,' sez I, 'who th' hill are thim?' "'Damn if I know,' sez Mike, 'but I'm sick of livin' on roots. I'd rather go back to fried dogs and sauerkraut with the Dutcherc than wander around here any more.'" It was a long speech for the Irishman, and he stopped suddenly. Abruptly he asked : "Who th' hill are these guys ?" "Why," I stammered, "they're soldiers, French soldiers." "Well, I'm damned," he mused. "Here I've been fightin' in their bloody counthry now for thray wakes, and them's the first Frenchies I've sane yet. They're a hill of a lookin' bunch, they are. "Mike, Mike," he burst out. " Would yez look at the pants they've got on ? Damn if I see Uhlans and Taubes 135 how they can run so fast with thim trimmings. I belave I could bate up a whole rigiment of them myself." Fortunately for international comity the wide- eyed Frenchmen who were standing about, gaz- ing wonderingly at the Irishmen's physiques and their methods of covering them, understood neither English nor Irish. Then one of them, with mouth crammed with sardines, sweet choco- late, and pears, learned I was a prisoner. "Phwat are yez talkin' about? Phwat are yez, an Englishman?" "No, an American." "Well, damn me, it's the same thing. Who's got yer ?" I pointed to my little guard. The big Irish- man stalked over, brandished a huge fist in his face, and let forth a volley which nearly sent me prostrate with laughter. "Who th' hill do yez think yer are, anyway? I've got a good mind to knock yer block off, yer good-for-nothing, insignificant little Frenchie. That guy's a frind of mine, and he's worth about six of you." 136 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War And so forth with much anger. The Irish- man put just as much fervor into his words as though the Frenchman had understood every syllable, and the latter seemed perplexed as to whether to laugh or run. At last I got myself together sufficiently to call the Irishman off and tell him it was not the guard, but rather an officer who was responsible. "Well," he said, "show me the officer. I'll bate up the whole damn regiment if I have to." But fortunately more food arrived at that mo- ment and further hostilities were prevented. Finally, in the late afternoon we arrived once more at Nanteuil. For nearly an hour we halted in the city streets, with the tail of our column, where were the two Irishmen, thirty-four German prisoners, and myself at the very outskirts. It was the most dangerous place of all in case of attack, and I had wondered not a little why we had all been put there. Crash ! A rifle volley broke out — bang, bang, bang, just beside us. "Aux Armes," rang down the line — Uhlans were upon us — rifles spat and sputtered on all Uhlans and Taubes 137 sides — the German prisoners twitched with ner- vousness — officers with drawn revolvers herded them menacingly into a side-yard — even my little guard caught the fever and drove me inside, too. Men with guns clutched firmly rushed past our gateway, each for himself. There was no cen- tral command, no unity of action. Men jumped behind trees and tried sharp shooting, much as I imagine was the case in old American days when a prairie schooner was attacked by Indians. "Well, I'm damned if we can iver git rid of thim," said one of the Irishmen, and he imme- diately forgot the battle outside in a large sand- wich. What, I wondered, would happen if the Germans rushed down the street we were on ? The panic spread even to my guard. I had noticed him getting more and more fidgety, and at last he could stand it no longer. Taking out his revolver, he ordered me out of the yard, on to the street, into the range of the flying bullets, and, if you will believe it, towards the front. Then, with a sudden flash of intelligence, he or- dered me into a yard exactly like the one I had left except that I was much nearer the German 138 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War attackers. I guess he must have appreciated that I came over to see the war. "Phwat th' hill have yez been up to?" I heard shortly, and there in the doorway were the two Irishmen. Stirred to action by my sudden departure, they were torn between desire to "git a gun and bate them up" or to get some water to wash down a heavy meal. But as my guard's enthusiasm had now lapsed into quietude, we sat in the shelter of a wall for a long time, while the firing gradually withered away into a few last scattering shots and silence. What, apart from the furore, was the net result I do not know, but I do know that an invaluable convoy was caught entirely unawares, with no central defence, with prisoners in the most exposed position, and probably with no sentries. Then as suddenly as the furore had come and gone came the next act. An officer dashed breathlessly up to me and shouted in my face : "There's a train waiting — hurry up — get out of here." "But how — what do you mean?" I stammered. Uhlans and Taubes 139 "You're free — free — in full liberty — go — leave at once — you're free." He seemed wild with impatience. "But," I stammered again, "what do you mean? I'm no longer a spy?" "No, no, they've decided you're not. Hurry; get away ; go to Paris. The Colonel orders it." They now seemed as eager to get rid of me as before they had been to keep me. "But," I asked, "you've got my bicycle, my suit case, everything I own." "Yes, yes, where are they? What have we done with them ?" My two Irish friends said good-by — off to Paris. "How do I know," I exclaimed, "when you've had this lad running around behind me for two days with a loaded revolver?" He seemed greatly nettled at me for not know- ing. A wild but unavailing search ensued. "There's no more time," he said. "Your train's leaving. What will you do, come with us or get them after the war ?" . 140 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War " T'l I'll come," I replied. Heaven knew where they were going. "But wait a minute, if you please," I shouted after him. "Kindly have this man put up that pistol and tell him that I'm not going to destroy France, and give me over to someone who knows I'm not a spy." Instantly the attitude towards me changed. Soldiers crowded about me with true French cordiality. Even my former guard relaxed in om- inousness. I was given over to a very courteous little soldier who at once felt a very warm spot towards me because I could tell him all about the German signs and dishes in the restaurant at Val- enciennes where he had previously been a waiter. In inky blackness we went out the other side of Nanteuil towards the firing line. Incessantly wounded streamed by, some hobbling, some rid- ing, still others groaning almost in death as they were joggled along on stretchers. Once we stopped on an inky black mountain road to allow a train of artillery to pass and dig itself in on a near-by knoll. Like gnomes of the underworld, dim figures toiled in silence, broken only by the neighing of a horse or a sharp command. Uhlans and Taubes 141 By now I had become an honored guest. My friends insisted that I have the seat on the rear of an ammunition wagon, which courtesy alone forced me to accept. It extended only six inches from the back of the wagon, so that I had to plaster my back absolutely flat against the rear. A bar below gave a little purchase for my toes ; a strap at the side gave something for one hand to cling to. Slowly we jounced and joggled along in the blackness of a wooded road till it seemed as if my teeth would rattle out of my head. Every now and then we brought up so sharply that the big cavalry horses behind me nearly pinned me to the wagon. Just before midnight we arrived at a fine open field under a clear moon-lit sky. Wagons were herded together, horses unharnessed, and a line of guards set about us. Four German soldiers who had been playing the devil in an armored car were brought in amid much excitement. My kind friend set out to get a blanket and returned in great joy, for it appeared that blankets were indeed a luxury. There were three of us under that one and one of them hardly closed his eyes 142 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War all night. Our bed was a stinging stubble-field ; spiders crawled over our faces like an army corps ; field bugs reconnoitred our legs beyond the point of endurance. As the night lengthened a cold damp dew set in which made it necessary to smother our heads in the blankets while our feet stuck out below in the dampness. A French civilian on one side of me snored like a pig and sucked in the blanket ; my soldier friend on the other side snorted spasmodically. At last, at last, the torture ended. All of us rose gladly in a cold dawn to stir life into our deadened arteries. And as we watched the sun climb up and the camp fires kindle, I'll never forget how every man in that great camp coughed with a deep chest cold. There was nothing hot for breakfast, only the same old hard bread and a little jam. Midst all the bustle of awakening life and breaking camp, a speck appeared on the horizon, a tiny speck which grew larger, larger, as it ap- proached, till we saw a beautiful hawk-like Taube circling menacingly about over our heads as if ready to dive at us at any second. Instantly the whole camp sprang to arms and a thousand iliWr^;*. c$%aa}c .v. -r 5^Je^>.iwj^ \c -<^W I 'W ^ ■VWW> is o 3 cr u. o c ID fe Germany in the Suburbs of Paris 173 stillness. We came to a little inn where we hoped to have supper and spend the night. An old lady, too feeble to flee when the Germans had come, and now garrulous in her excitement, said she could not even give us coffee. Her one thought in life seemed to be to show us the havoc the Germans had wrought, the mattresses, straw, and filth which littered every room almost knee-deep ; the broken windows, mirrors, and furniture ; the drawers pulled out and ransacked. We left her whimpering at the doorway and pushed on across the river to Vareddes. There things were even worse. Great holes were rent in walls and buildings by shell fire, and the whole town scarred with rifle bullets. Only a half-dozen men remained of the entire population, and one of these, an ugly customer, would gladly have strangled Rader and me on mere suspicion if it had not been that we had attached to ourselves a quiet little French artist who was seeking some sick relatives. Here, by the best of fortune and much hard work with a penknife, I was able to get one of the Requisition Orders which I had seen on the official 174 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War bulletin boards all the way from the Belgian frontier. I give a translation as showing the minutiae of military organization and the direct personal application of war. "By application of the laws and decrees of military requisition, it is ordered that every owner : (i) of animals under registration, (2) of animals, registration postponed as temporarily unfit for service, (3) of stallions and mares six years old or of mules 4 years old since the last registration (the age to be counted from January 1 of the year of birth), (4) of animals brought into the commune since the last registration, or not presented then for whatever reason and being of the age indicated above, must present them on the sixth day of mobilization at 9 o'clock in the morning to Com- mission of Requisition Number 14. "The animals must be brought with snaffle- bridle, halter provided with a tether, and shoeing in good condition. Owners of carriages classed since the day of registration are ordered to bring them to the place of summons together with the horses. If one of these carriages has been replaced by another since the last registration, the new Germany in the Suburbs of Paris 175 carriage must be presented to the Commission. All carriages subject to requisition must be brought before the Commission, even if their team is com- posed of animals discharged or under age. The carriages and harnesses must be in good condition and the carriages provided with their reins, awn- ings, and grease-plugs as far as possible. The Mayor or his representative must present himself at the place of summons ; he will bring with him tables Number 2 and i\ since the last registration. "Every violation of the foregoing rules will be punished with the full rigor of the law." By now it was dismally dark and pouring rain. There was nothing to eat and no place to sleep. At last, as Rader and I were discussing breaking into a house, our ugly friend splashed up the slimy street to suggest we go to the Town Hall. We found the building black and empty. A greasy lantern gave us light and we went upstairs to the Mayor's office, which we found littered with straw, bandages, and bloodsoaked German uniforms and piles of local maps and charts. There, amidst all the horrible wreckage, we had supper of hard bread and sweet chocolate. By 176 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War good fortune Radcr, nosing about inquisitively, unearthed a squeaking phonograph which gave us music unusual enough to drive away the evil memories of the place. Then with the rain falling in torrents outside, we picked our way to the city jail and spent the night in the straw. It was a hard night, and its memory was made no more pleasant when on rising I found that a comforter I had dragged over me for shelter was heavily clotted with blood. Early the next day, with little breakfast and covered with straw, we climbed a gentle hill to what had been one of the main German posi- tions. A rim of trenches, filled with straw and empty cartridges, ran across the top. Big gaping shell wounds with exploded jackets and thousands of pieces of shrapnel scattered about testified to the efficiency of French artillery. Slightly to the rear were the big holes where heavy guns had been set, and where empty shells and in some cases live ones abandoned in retreat attested the work which had been done. All about were new-made graves so thinly covered that in spots nests of maggots as big as one's fist were visible at their filthy work. Germany in the Suburbs of Paris 177 Over all hung the silence of death. The co- lossal struggle so recently waged there was already fading into history, and a few birds and curious peasants alone remained as if to mock what had there taken place. Scarred, deserted, unterri- fied, the beautiful, smiling country lay wide open to Heaven as if in testimony of the futility and shame of it all. Man had come, looked, and done his horrible work, and now Nature lay wounded but quiet to meditate the wickedness. Two little red-roofed villages lay peaceful in the sun below, deserted. Beyond the gentle, silvery Marne wound about through rich green fields, marked out like checker boards. Farther still were the heights on which the English and the French had in their desperation prepared their catapult. It was a glorious country, rich, fer- tile, smiling. The great German wedge which had driven straight towards the heart of France had fought its way to a magnificent position. Soldiers drag- ging the heavy artillery up the hill-crest were re- warded by looking over Meaux cathedral almost into Paris itself. But the terrible weakness of N 178 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War the situation was all too plainly shown by the shell-marks visible on both sides of the hill. The German forces were caught squarely between two fires. Across the bridgeless Marne stood France's whole army, intact, carefully intrenched ; on the German flank, almost on their rear, there suddenly burst that mysterious army which so dramatically crushed von Kluck's meteoric dash. It seemed as if here on this very hill the German bolt had been spent. Their constantly thinning line of men, exhausted by four weeks of super- human effort and crippled by a three-hundred- mile line of army transport communication, had come for the first time against a real French army, an army practically fresh in strength, settled in positions of its own choosing, protected by a bridgeless river, and with a line of communica- tions not ten miles long. The Germans were forced to come to the big battle nearly spent. For five days they pounded, until when that cloud came up on their flank, they slipped out sideways towards the east and back to the Aisne. Somehow we ourselves felt like ghouls as we moved about taking moving pictures. The earth Germany in the Suburbs of Paris 179 seemed hallowed by the passions and struggles which had passed over it. The dead alone seemed to have title to it. So, after I had served as a dead German and worked other dodges of the movie game, we were only too glad to go back to Paris. Strangely enough, the only people we saw on the way were three American women who had come out to look around. IX PRISONER AGAIN And now by this eighteenth day of September the forces of France, England, and Germany were locked in another terrible battle along the Aisne. The front had moved over ioo kilometres back from Paris, and reports, self-consciously vague, showed the Allies' left by Compiegne slowly pushing the Germans in towards destruction at their centre. "Les barbares" were said to be boxed and cut off from supplies of food, gasoline, and ammunition, and a decisive victory was momentarily expected in Paris. So bad indeed was the reported plight of the Germans that post-mortems on dead soldiers were said to show that many had nothing in their stomachs but sand. Despite fervent oaths during my first trip that if I survived I would never try to go out to the front again, the call of that mighty struggle could 1 80 Prisoner Again 181 not be denied. Rader, too, was blusteringly anx- ious to go out. So together we secured knapsacks for extra clothing, chocolate, sardines, bread, and many packages of cigarettes, which I had learned had the value of gold. As a sop to conscience we spent a whole day rustling from one official to an- other for passports, but might as well have tried to break into heaven. A newspaperman was about as popular as a leper, and we were forced to set out with only our American passports, which had already proved their worthlessness. By dint of tremendous effort we succeeded in getting our bicycles, our knapsacks, and our- selves into the Gare du Nord, where after another struggle we loaded the whole entourage on to a train jammed with peasants and sightseers. We hitched our way along through the forts of Paris, past great areas of barbed-wire entangle- ments and destroyed woods, as far as Montsoult, where we were unceremoniously dumped out into an inhospitable and deserted countryside. Beyond that line civilians were not supposed to go ; beyond it lay almost certain imprisonment, perhaps in conformity with the spy mania. 1 82 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Discretion was gone ; we jumped on our bicy- cles and were off. Soon we passed the beautiful Chateau at Chantilly, which had been entered but not harmed by the Germans, and spent the night near by. Next day we pedalled on to Sen- lis. The buildings which on my entry with the Germans ten days before had been a mass of wild, raging flame were now only cold piles of crumbled masonry and half-standing walls. Even so soon, however, the industrious French people had come back to begin the work of reconstruction, as busy as ants about an ant-hill into which one has stuck a stick. The beautiful mansion which I had occupied with my two German friends remained as cold and deserted as when we had left it. On we went through Villeneuve, where only two weeks ago but twelve men out of five hundred had remained. A nice old peasant friend of my previous trip hailed me in passing, and took me into his shop to show the destruction the Germans had wrought, and the blood-stained helmet and cuirass of a French cavalryman who had been shot in the forehead on the roadway just outside and crawled Prisoner Again 183 into the house to die. Stains were still visible on the floor ; the corpse had been buried outside. At Verberie we came across two wounded Tom- mies of the Belfast Fusilliers, youngsters well under twenty, who had lain seriously ill for three whole weeks, practically unattended in an impro- vised Red Cross hospital. One had carried a bullet in his knee all that time and could not straighten out his leg; the other had a bad shoulder wound. "It was three weeks ago," one of them said weakly, "that we came into this town. We weren't expecting any trouble ; the Dutchers were well away, and we had flags out and every- thing like dress parade. Suddenly a machine- gun opened wide on us ; we couldn't tell from where, and we went down like flies. Something bowled me on to my face and I couldn't get up again. I'd got it on the knee. There were half a dozen others crawling around too, and our only idea was to get out of that hell. We crawled to a house, smashed in the door with our guns, and crawled inside. Pretty soon the firing stopped, and I guess our boys had got it good and plenty. Then a big German officer burst in the door. 184 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War "'Come out here, you dirty beasts. Come out, you're going to get shot. There's no mercy for dogs like you. What right have you to be fighting over here, anyway ? you and your Ind- ian niggers ?' "He was like a mad bull. We tried to get up but couldn't. He swore wildly at us and slapped us with his sword. God knows what would have happened if a German Red Cross man hadn't happened to come in ; I guess we would all have been finished. At last he let the Red Cross man have us, and here we've been ever since." Poor kids, I thought, they certainly had seen war. When I begged them to let me do some- thing for them, one, after looking at the other, stammered timorously : "We haven't had a fag since we've been here." Truly it would have done your soul good to have seen the radiance which lit up their faces when I gave them a whole package. Cigarettes to a Tommie are like water to a man dying of thirst. Faintly now, ever so faintly, we could hear the big guns again. Ah, that indeed seemed like Prisoner Again 185 home. I don't know why, but in a short time the noise of artillery had come to fascinate me, to leave almost a painful void when absent, to cre- ate a craving for more when present. It was a little like the drunkard's liking for drink perhaps, certainly it was equally undesirable. It was the horror and awesomeness of the whole thing that enthralled one, body and soul. "We'll get pinched, Phil," I remarked as we hastened towards it. "I don't care," Rader replied. "We've got to get there." At La Croix St. Ouen we ran into things. The little town was thick with French cavalry. We rode on as nonchalantly as possible, straight through, and were just about out when a heavy voice called us. We dismounted and were led back to a group of under-officers. Things were going badly for us till Phil handed out a ciga- rette ; then matters changed and we became almost guests. It occurred to someone to call two English Tommies who had been split off from their own regiment and formally amal- gamated with the French. 1 86 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War "Well, by Jove," said one, "you are nervy. It's jolly nasty up there, you know ; let's have a drink." We did — and several. Pretty soon the other Tommie took an empty cartridge out of his pocket and looked at it fondly. "I say," he said, "what do you think of that? It's jolly nice, really. It got my first German. You see, we'd just got out from England and only eight hours later were in the trenches. We were opposite a little village on the crest of a hill, God knows where, up Belgium way is all I know. Pretty quick work, though, eight hours, wasn't it ?" "It certainly was," I replied. "How'd you like it?" " Beastly unpleasant," he went on. " I thought I'd funk out at first. It wasn't the shells that bothered me so much ; somehow we'd come out expecting them. It's the little things you don't expect that give you a turn. I suppose it's be- cause you're a bit nervous, anyway. Take the rain-water; it was up to our knees and no chance to get away from it. There wasn't a bally thing Prisoner Again 187 to smoke, either, not a fag in the whole company. And you get fearful fed up when there's not a bally thing to do but be a target — it gets on your nerves." He seemed to be losing the thread of his story. I asked how long he was there. "God knows," he replied. "Years it seemed, and yet I don't suppose it was long, either. I felt so cramped and nervous it seemed as though I'd blow up — and then someone took to sniping. There was an officer in the nearest German trenches — I could just make him out — and I drew my gun on him. It's a funny feeling the first time you shoot at a man, and it was quite a while before I let go. I caught him cold, and he crumpled up as if he hadn't a bone in his body." He paused a moment, juggling the empty shell in his fingers. His expression was proud and joyous. "Well," he went on, "I slipped that cartridge out on the spot. It was my first German and I thought what a bully souvenir it would make for the wife. First-class, eh ? Don't you think she'll like it?" 1 88 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Weakly I nodded assent. Yet I could not but wonder what a wife, perhaps a mother, would think of this "first-class" souvenir. Would she, too, glorify in this man-killing, or would she, as I did, shudder ? My friend, however, had well paid for his sport. Three regiments, one after another, had been piled up before the German artillery when his was ordered in. Somehow he lived through it to suffer the horrors of the Great Retreat. Once they turned to charge with the bayonet ; once the old abandoned formations ordered by their old-time Captain drew on them the fire of their own artillery. In vain they waved flags and handkerchiefs, till with shells bursting mur- derously around them they sought shelter be- hind a large factory. Then one night in the helter-skelter pell-mell of the retreat he was left out on sentry duty with- out relief. For hours and hours he waited, till after dawn, and, on returning, found his regi- ment had decamped in the midst of the night. He struck out southwards alone, along the open road with no idea where to go, till by chance he Prisoner Again 189 ran into the French troops he was now with. Eight times in succession they beat against the enemy's lines before finally breaking free. One day they were under fire twenty times ; one night they slept within one hundred yards of the en- emy's guns and learned the fact only when greeted with a murderous fire at dawn. And now the two Tommies were treated as kings. Most of their time passed in making merry with their new comrades, who were only too glad to lionize their strange recruits. The only draw- back, they said, was that they always had to be the last to flee, always had to seek the spot of greatest danger. There was one little French- man they told me who was their very idol. Imagine my surprise, and his too, when on their seeking him out, I found him to be none other than the sergeant who had done so much for me when I had been a prisoner at Nanteuil. "Ah," he said, "I have thought of you many times. I was afraid we had made it so hot for you that you would not come back. And now you come. I am glad. It is very interesting now." 190 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War But light was fading, and all too soon it was necessary to push on. Our friends saw us on past the guards and we found ourselves once more within the lines. All along the way lay the backwash of a huge army ; in one place over a hundred dust-covered Paris motor-busses; in another a great detachment of cavalry already pitching camp for the night. Horses were being tethered and camp-fires lit as we came to the outskirts of Compiegne. What a different city it was from the Com- piegne I had entered fifteen days before with the Germans. The sombre gray had been replaced with uniforms of blue and red. Fear and tense- ness had given way to joy and freedom. No dam- age was visible. It was just like returning home when we went to the little inn where I had stayed before. But now, instead of eating behind a par- tition with a trio of drunken German soldiers blustering in the main room, we mixed freely and joyously with the exuberant French. The next morning the moment we awoke a deep pounding roar not unlike the heavy rumble Prisoner Again 191 of a distant thunderstorm echoed in our ears. Grim, sullen, fearful, the big guns were at their awful work again. The heavy artillery of two monstrous armies was snarling at each other, till the whole heaven echoed with the ugly rever- beration. For eight days now the first flush of dawn had seen the gunners take their positions with never a let-up, never a moment of relaxa- tion unless for taking another position or allow- ing the red-hot barrels to cool. And always men torn, cut, ripped open in that recrudescence of their primitive savagery. Never was noise so magnetic as that of the big guns of the battle of the Aisne. Full well we realized we would certainly be caught; that men's passions were at fever heat ; that short shift was made of suspicious cases. It mattered not ; the call of the big guns overruled all. Where the great elemental forces of man were playing such havoc, where the world's greatest powers had been gripped in a death-struggle for eight days without decision, where lives of men were as chafF before the lives of nations, oh, it was im- possible to pass it by ! We were magnetized, 192 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War mesmerized by the awful music. To see, to feel, to be near, smashed into atoms all thought of caution or safety. Of course we tried to get papers ; of course we failed. The Mayor frankly suspected us ; a British officer laconically remarked that we could take our chances, but he would like to see us when we got back. We could get nothing but our valueless American passports already sus- piciously vised for travel outside France. "Phil," I said, "we're sure to get it. No man alive can run along that battle-line to Soissons and the novelty of jail life with foodless days, sleepless nights, and rigorous inquisitions has worn off a bit for me. Still I'm for it if you are." "Bet your life," said Phil. "Let's not cry before we're hurt." It was a beautiful day as we bicycled out of the city on to a splendid wood road. Rich sun- light streamed through the reddening trees and gave a welcome warmth to the chill air of the forest. We passed occasional little farm-houses, deserted and silent, old men standing awestruck Prisoner Again 193 at the doors, their faces ever towards the thunder. A few women were crying with fear; now and then a cart, piled high with a few precious posses- sions, careened madly along the road, bearing the last few crazed peasants in wild flight from the horrors they could stand no longer — such is the incidental scourge of war. Then came the first wounded, limping, strug- gling, straggling along like spectres through the quiet road. One hopped along painfully on one foot, the other foot dangling as though unstrung. Another faltered step by step, his head swathed in bandages, on one side a slit for his eye, on the other a coloring of rich red. Often they came in pairs, one supporting the other ; sometimes in ragged, bandaged, blood-stained groups. Their eyes looked blankly and unseeing towards us. Hardly a word passed between them. They seemed no longer men, but mere automatons striving without hope only to get away. The God of Battle had had his fill ; he was now but vomit- ing forth what he no longer wanted. How many, I wondered, would ever reach the end of the wood- road ? 194 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Among them were scores of Turcos, big, stal- wart, swarthy, who had been uprooted from the peace and happiness of their native land to fight a war they knew nor cared not of. Fierce, brutal, even barbarous, they are said to be in the heat of battle, but those who passed us certainly did not look it. Their big soft eyes were liquid and melt- ing. Their fez and baggy trousers fitted oddly in this forest of France. What we call civiliza- tion certainly exacts a bitter toll from those who are forced by gunfire to accept it. Louder and more sullen were the big guns now. We hastened along in a sort of grim silence. Sud- denly we burst out of the woods — puffs of white smoke in the air, a twinkling flash, another puff — Great Heavens ! it was bursting shells — and yes, there were men over there beneath them — men with red pantaloons — trenches just under the crest — the Germans had the range exactly — ah, God, what a massacre ! Boom, way off in the distance ; a sobbing, racking wail ; it vibrated like a gigantic string; it mounted into a whistling, screaming shriek; it crashed with a final, stunning crash into a thousand atoms ; a Prisoner Again 195 twinkling flash against the azure blue; a rain of lead on the helpless men below ; a little cotton- ball of white smoke drifted off in the air — and God knows how many more souls were loosed for their last resting-place. Another express train roar, another crash, another cotton-ball of smoke, and another, and another, and an- other. The men, poor devils, were on the crest of a ridge just across the Aisne off to our extreme left. Before us was a big meadow land, a seething whirl- pool of wagons, cavalry, and soldiers, where the first line of reserves, supplies, and convoys stood ready to supply the advance trenches. Eddies of movement were visible here and there, where one little unit sought to extricate itself to go its way. Directly in front of us the road we were on ran down past a thin line of peasant homes, through the confusion of the meadow, past a cross-roads running back into the woods behind, and on into the trees on the other side. Along it two ill-defined lines of wagons worked their way in opposite directions, one of them turning off" at the cross-roads even as we watched. 196 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War 'Twas just across the narrow Aisne, barely seventy-five yards wide, that the German shells were bursting not a quarter of a mile away. The French had intrenched just below the top of a gentle ridge paralleling the river, a ridge which will probably be distinguished in history as the heights of the Aisne. Below, swarms of men waited, waited, for the unseen death from above. Click, click, click, the snapping, clacking rattle of the Maxim spitting forth its torrents of bullets, hideous as the devil's own cackle, a noise not of men but of demons. It barked above and beyond the screech of the big guns ; it was silenced mo- mentarily during the explosions, only to break out with harsher venom in the ensuing silence. The skeleton of death itself could alone by snap- ping all its bones together in hollow frenzy have equalled this inhuman noise. And the gunner, lying flat on his belly, sighting down the ranks before him — Where, I wondered, were the glories of war, the heroic charges, the cavalry dashing through a rain of smoke and iron, the batteries close behind, messengers, aides-de-camp, and orderlies Prisoner Again 197 dashing about ; where indeed was the bird's-eye battle-scene which I had visualized from paint- ings and war books ? Few such delusions were held by those poor devils crouching resignedly in the trenches across the river while death flared down on them from above, and little heroism or grandeur of soul was shown by the men flounder- ing around on the road before me. Modern battle is the cold, calculating work of science, largely shorn of the human element. Men mechanically load and unload artillery, firing in cold blood without enthusiasm, even with- out knowledge of results, at other men who die without knowledge of whence came the fatal missiles. The rifle has become about as useful as a toothpick ; there is no defence against shrap- nel ; it is simply a case of whether it gets you or the man beside you. Rader and I watched this long-distance slaughter for a long, long time. "Well, Phil," I said, "there's your battle and it's a poor sight. We can now go back to Com- piegne, or go ahead and get jailed." "Oh, don't cry before you're hurt. Nobody's going to bother us." 198 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War "All right; but remember, I've been out front before. It's up to you." On we went along that road, down into the meadow about a quarter of a mile from the burst- ing shells among the first-line reservists — how far I shall never know. We ran at once into the big convoy which was winding serpentine along the road for miles. Literally hundreds of great autobusses slipped and trundled through the heavy slime into which a week's rain and their incessant passage had worked the roadway. Exhausts open, gears shifting, drivers shouting, horsemen dashing back and forth to hasten the great centipede, — it was a scene of wild con- fusion. Bicycling was impossible in that slime and walk- ing was not easy. Several times we were forced off the road to let a double line of convoys pass ; once we went out into a field when a detachment of troops was added to the confusion. We had gone hardly a hundred yards when a mounted officer slouched up through the mud to question us. "We're gone, Phil." Prisoner Again 199 The officer studied our American passports most methodically and then looked down to ask what nationality we were. With a few more words he waved us on. "Well, Phil," I said, "we're by this time, but they'll get us yet." "Oh, don't cry before you're hurt," ran the familiar reply. So we continued to slip and slide our way along through the mire. We passed an infantry divi- sion, guns stacked, waiting for strength to go on, passed another division being driven sheep-like to the slaughter ; cavalry standing ready beside their mounts, hundreds of other men standing about, talking and yawning and with their fore- most idea that of getting a smoke. No glory, no tremendous action, no wild exultation of battle. We were stopped again. This time it took longer, but once more we went free. Soon we were squarely flush with the bursting shells. A sign said it was twelve miles to Compiegne whence we had come. At this spot we were held up a third time. 200 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War "Phil," I ventured, "it's getting pretty thick. We don't stand a chance of making Soissons." "Oh, don't hunt trouble ; we're not bitten yet." On we went. We passed a short, squat, heavily eyebrowed little officer who looked at us glower- ingly, but said nothing. To my amazement we were within a few rods of the end of that long line of men. It seemed as if we were going to get through after all, but suddenly a sharp voice called out. We turned to find the funny, squat little officer after us. His sword and medals dangled pompously. A crowd of soldiers at once pressed in. "Oh, no, you can't go on here. You must go back to the etat-major. They will give you a proper pass ; most certainly yes." "Phil, I'm fed up with this," I said. "Just as soon as we walk into headquarters we'll be pinched." "Oh, nonsense," came the reply. "We've set out for Soissons and we're going to get there. Don't cry before you're hurt." By now I was angered all the way through. It occurred to me that Rader was very pig-headed Prisoner Again 201 to think he knew more about being out front than I. "All right," I replied. "We'll go till it's you who's doing the crying. I know what we're in for the moment we see the etat-major. You'll find out." Nobody seemed to know where headquarters were ; nevertheless, every time I saw an officer's eye light on us I immediately forestalled inquiries by asking directions. We slipped and slid our way back till a sudden downpour overtook us. Thereupon we took shelter in a little roadside house where groups of cavalrymen were sitting about nonchalantly eating a late lunch or play- ing cards, just as if their fellow-countrymen were not going down like flies only a quarter of a mile away. They were most courteous and conducted us to an open window whence we could look out at the breaking shells, now showing a sullen gray through the rain. What a miserable thing, indeed, this war ; a driving, drenching rain filling the trenches knee-deep ; little food ; no smokes ; death from an unseen source flaming from above ; nothing to do but shiver and wonder when your 202 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War turn would come. So it was for 400 miles, from the North Sea to Switzerland. When the storm passed over, we went forth once again on the still more slimy roads. By much effort we located the etat-major off on a side-road and presented ourselves to one of a large group of staff officers, standing about along the roadway. Briefly I told him who we were and what we wanted. Most politely he invited us to enter the yard of a pleasant little country house. We did, just as the fly goes into the spi- der's nest, except that we knew better. The gates closed behind us. For the third time I was a prisoner. Decidedly war correspondence was not all it was recommended to be. "Well, Phil?" I asked. "Oh, shut up," he replied. "We've got our American passports, haven't we?" Just then an officer told us to enter the house. We did so — and came out more quickly than we had gone in. Something grabbed me by the arm, and when my thinking apparatus got going again, I found myself out on the lawn with an excited staff officer asking if I didn't know better than to Prisoner Again 203 burst into a staff meeting. It seemed that when I had turned to the right after entering the house, I had blundered into a sorrowful meeting of the General and staff of the Fifth Division control- ling that whole section of the Battle of the Aisne, and very much out of sorts because of a bad reverse. We now became aware of the importance we had gained for ourselves. Our officer friend sent over a gendarme who led us over near the stable and stationed us under a tree. Immediately he took three new bronze cartridges out of his belt and loaded his ugly stub gun. Pointedly he drawled : "One for you, Monsieur, one for your friend, and another — well, I might miss." Comfortable indeed ! Things were getting into their stride. To make it more home-like the rain started up again and big cold drops splashed down off the tree on to us. Rader and I stood first on one foot, then on the other ; talking a little, smoking a little, wondering a lot. For some rea- son the General happened to come out, and when he saw us talking together, he went off like a 204 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War bunch of firecrackers till I thought for a moment he was going to have our poor guard shot for allowing us such liberty. Thereafter Rader and I were not allowed to talk, to smoke, hardly to look at each other. Every time we so much as changed our positions, the ugly stub of our guard's gun took on a very business-like air. For a solid hour we stood under that dripping tree till an officer came out to find out all about us. After hearing my really incredible story, he whipped his fist up into my face, put his nose about two inches from mine, distorted his eyes till they seemed ready to snap, and exclaimed : "You're an Austrian." "No, Monsieur, I beg your pardon, I'm an American — an American newspaperman." What a fool I felt denying in meek, disingen- uous voice that I was not an Austrian, but only a poor dog of a correspondent. Then, dripping with rain and shivering with cold, they led me into the General Headquarters. There three of them took me into a side room for the third degree. Found on the firing-line with no papers but a German pass to Paris and a Prisoner Again 205 French order of release from jail, I was none too cheerful. "Have you any arms?" they asked first. Instead, they received a baby camera which I preferred to give them openly than have them discover themselves. Their eyes fairly popped with surprise. Cameras are not popular near the front, not at all. "What else have you?" they asked. "A German pass to Paris," I replied, with all the honesty and guilelessness borne of the convic- tion that they would surely find it on me if I did not show it to them. I might as well have exploded a bomb. After a minute examination they rummaged through my knapsack, which yielded three maps. It made no difference that one was of France, one of Belgium, and the third of Paris ; they were maps just the same, and sus- picious characters always carry maps. A camera, a German pass to Paris, three maps — I wonder if I could have done better if I had deliberately set out to get shot ? From their expressions I doubt it. I tried to relax the ten- sion by handing around some cigarettes ; each of 206 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War them soberly and seriously took a whole package, a whole package each, and then glowered even more darkly. "Take off your coat," they ordered. I removed the dripping garment while they prodded me all over for arms or secret papers. For half an hour I stood there in my shirt-sleeves (the shirt I had looted at Senlis, incidentally), shivering in the cold, while they plied me with questions. By sheer will-power I could control the chattering of my teeth, only to have the shivers run through some other part of me. I am sure they must have thought I was having the palsy from fear. At last the examination was ended. They took everything I had but the clothes on my back; then, petrified with cold, they led me back to the tree where poor Rader was still standing. X HOW A SPY WOULD FEEL "Well," he grunted, "I thought you were full of lead by this time." "Wait till you get yours," I started to say, when our guard's gun got business-like again. It was still raining hard and by now pitch-black. Shortly an officer came out and had us led over to the roadway. The place was all abustle, and indi- cated plainly that the General Headquarters were withdrawing for the night. Rader and I were ranged side by side, our bicycles being swallowed up in the void. A very busy officer said to me : "Your left arm," and to Rader, "Your right." We held them out — click, a pair of handcuffs were snapped on. No word, no explanation ; the officer did his work quickly, nonchalantly, while Rader and I gaped open-mouthed and speechless at our new bond of union. There was only three feet of play between us. 207 208 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Once more we were led out on that slimy road. Behind us in the darkness we made out the gray of three German prisoners similarly handcuffed. Behind them in turn five manacled French sol- diers, who I later learned were being disciplined for drunkenness. Gendarmes with loaded guns completed the detachment, a motley one indeed, the honor of leading which at least fell to Rader and me. Handcuffed, in a heavy rain, through an ink- black night, we set out for an unknown destina- tion. So wet were the roads with the week's downpour, so slippery from the passing of busses, wagons, artillery, cavalry, and infantry, that for every three feet we went forward we seemed to slide back two. Rader slipped and slid along the side of the road and was in constant danger of falling into the ditch beside him. Every time that happened the chain yanked viciously at my arm till it seemed as if it would be pulled out of the socket. The road lay most of the way through the forest of Compiegne and literally was so black we could not see our hands at arm's length or the sky overhead. Meanwhile, the cold, merciless How a Spy would Feel 209 rain soaked through the heavy foliage and chilled us to our very bones. At times came eerie sounds of life from some- where in the darkness in front. Our solitary horseman picked his way gingerly ahead till he was swallowed up in the blackness. A few sombre words of challenge and answer from out front, and we splashed on once more through the rain and mud. Always it was a supply train, a small detach- ment of troops, an army automobile, and once an interminable convoy which stopped us. The magic word "Prisonniers" would give us passage and sometimes cheap sarcasm and jests. Only the talk of men, the light of a cigarette, or the movement of horses or wagons told how close we were to liv- ing things. For miles while we were passing the convoy I walked with my free arm before my face to save myself in case anything ran into me. "Well, Phil," I ventured, "this road doesn't go to Soissons." "Oh, shut up," he snapped ; "this is bad enough without making it worse." "Why, we've still got our American passports, haven't we ?" 210 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War It was hours, it seemed eternities, before we arrived, exhausted and dripping, at a desolate little town which seemed even more funereal than the forest we had just left. The occasional house which sent us a warm, cheery light through the downpour made the desolation of the others stand out more drear. It was Pierrefonds, my guard told me (a chance cigarette had made him friendly), and only eight kilometres from our starting-place. Our procession, looking neither to right nor left, marched in the most business-like manner direct to the mairie or town hall, where we were to exist till daybreak. There it was that our ugly little captain first came on the scene. He had just felled to the floor one of the French prisoners amid a torrent of oaths when he noticed our guard piling up a good bed of straw for Rader and me. He bristled up and shouted : "They're prisoners just like the rest and must get no better." Thereupon he saw that we got worse and went off to kick the man he had previously knocked down — why, I don't know. How a Spy would Feel 211 Rader and I lay down on part of the thin layer of straw which covered the whole floor. I had expected they would remove our manacles, but no chance. Every time in our sleeplessness that either forgot, he yanked the other into full con- sciousness. Just try sleeping sometime with your arm tied to one spot. Chilled through with rain, the cold of the damp floor seeping up through the thin straw, with no covering at all, my mud- soaked feet feeling as though they were incased in ice, I remember as some awful nightmare the snoring gendarmes beside me, the closely cropped pate of a German prisoner beside Rader, the yank- ing of the chain, the entry of some peasant women made homeless by the war, and the vain pounding of others who sought refuge from the downpour outside. Those stolid peasant women sitting silent all night through beside the dim lan- tern with their shawls wrapped tightly over their heads will remain as long as I live a memory of what the great God of War does to the little atoms who happen to be in his path. Hopelessly — would morning ever come — I watched the first gray of another rainy dawn 212 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War penetrate our jail and dim the flickering lamps into uselessness. After eternities life began to stir among the gendarmes. The peasant women filed silently, fatalistically out, — to what, I wondered ? For another hour, there was brushing, brushing of coats, trousers, shoes, till at last the uniforms were spotlessly clean and the atmosphere choked with dust. Through the window we could look up at the massive walls of the mag- nificent chateau of Pierrefonds, which I had always wanted to see, but which I little expected to see from jail. Finally came time for departure, whither we knew not, nor cared. Our fat, ugly little captain was bustling, sputtering about in high dudgeon. We soon saw that the drunken French soldiers were to be left behind. Then our manacles were removed and we were able to forego our Siamese twin relationship to resume our individual lives once more. Our bicycles, too, appeared myste- riously from somewhere. Evidently we were go- ing to push them. Nor did it matter much when one of the gendarmes conceived the ingenuous idea of letting out the air so we could not make a How a Spy would Feel 213 break for liberty. Open air, exercise, a chance to get warm, no manacles, surely things were looking up — Till that beastly little captain came fussing around. Oh no, it would never do to let us go unmanacled, never, we must be shackled, oh, Mon Dieu, yes. I submitted resignedly, for by now I too was being convinced that I was a dan- gerous enemy to France. But then, to my horror, as a grand finale, that beastly little captain brought up one of the German prisoners and hitched him to the other end. That was too much. I knew what it would mean all along the way for a civilian to be tied to a German soldier ; the explanation was obvious. "But, Monsieur le capitaine," I protested, "we are Americans. This is not just. Also it is not safe." Like a burst of fire-crackers he flew into a rage. "Americans !" he shouted. "What does that matter ? Why didn't you stay at home ? What business have you over here ? We don't want you "... and so forth in too violent pyro- technics for my limping French to decipher. 214 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Fortunately, I imagine, I couldn't remember a single phrase of French adequate to express my feelings. "Well, anyway," laughed Rader, with the first humor he had shown for some time: "I'm tied to a real man at least." So, powerless, we set out, pushing our flat- tired bicycles with our right hands, manacled each to a German prisoner with our left, and guarded by two mounted gendarmes. It was dark and lowering as it had been during all those ten fearful days of battle, but hardly had we got under way when it opened up in torrents. Our still wet clothing became wetter still, and it was a long time before we could drive any warmth into our shivering bodies. Mile after mile we strug- gled along till I began to wonder if we were going all the way to Paris. Everywhere we found evidences of a consum- ing anger towards the Germans and of the esti- mate of two civilians handcuffed to German prisoners. Peasant folk whose houses had been ransacked and emptied by the Prussians on their march to victory only two weeks before How a Spy would Feel 215 saw our companions return as prisoners with a silence which was only too eloquent. Sadly, bitterly, with a burning hatred in their expres- sions, they came to their gates to watch us go by. Once, nearly exhausted, we asked our guards for water. We were just then approaching a little peasant house with a woman standing at her doorway. "Yes, Monsieur," she replied to our guard, "there's plenty for you, but for the prisoners, none." She stood stiff and defiant before her squalid little home. Her eyes were piteously cold and her whole body was restrained as though dis- daining to crush us with the punishment we deserved. An intensity of hatred such as I never dreamed could exist seemed to flow out against us from her stolid features. "But," replied the guard, "it is for them that I want it." "Not a drop," she replied in icy tones. "Not a drop. Let them suffer. It will do them good. They can die of thirst for all I care." 216 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War "But, Madame," our guard insisted firmly but gently, "they are our prisoners. We must be human. They have walked far to-day." "What do I care ?" she retorted in rising anger. "Did they think of us when they came here? Did they bother about our suffering? Look at my house, everything ruined, stolen, smashed. May God curse them. They'll die before they get water here, the beasts !" Her anger was now red-hot. "But," again remonstrated the guard, "they are our prisoners. We are French. We must be humanitarian, even to them." "Humanitarian, ha-ha," she echoed the word with a terrible hollowness. "It will do them good to suffer. Where, I ask you, is my hus- band ? What has happened to my three sons ? Who is going to get in the harvest ? Who will restore my home ? Give them water ? Ha-ha, Mon Dieu, never ! There is plenty where they came from." Her voiced mounted in a crescendo. The hatred of her whole soul was in her eyes. Her arms and hands seemed to crave action. She How a Spy would Feel 217 might have been a lioness about to spring. The guard dismounted. "Madame" — it was an order delivered with crushing dignity — "Madame, I command you to bring these prisoners water." A flash of burning anger shot from her black eyes. Her frame stiffened. All the horror and disgust which only a woman can feel to the limit surged out from her in revolt. But she met only the cold, stern eye of the guard. Slowly her whole being began to subside. It was like a brilliant flame gradually dying out. Somehow I could not but pity her in her acquies- cence to the helplessness of her situation. Surely it was another case of where women have to suffer, uncomplaining. Slowly she turned and was gone. "The women take it pretty hard," our guard remarked. "I guess they suffer too." Shortly she returned and held out the water from a distance as though not to be contami- nated. In very shame I told her that I was an American. She did not, could not, comprehend ; the connection between the German and myself was far too close. 218 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Silence hung heavy over our little party as we plodded on through the rain. Each deserted little village we came to I thought was our last, only to find we were to go through and out the other side. The poor chap I was manacled to was a simple soul, one of the great peasant mass which gives the German army its strength. By tremendous effort and considerable linguistic ingenuity we talked for a while of the great war. "The Kaiser," he said with soul-felt fervor, "is the greatest man in history, the saviour of Germany from the base intrigues of France, Russia, and England. He would do anything for his men, just as we would do anything for him. The war is the greatest war of self-defence in history, a war against the greed, jealousy, and revengefulness of the Allies." So well indeed had he learned his lesson. What puppets, I thought, men are ! How easily are their minds mesmerized by nationality, by leaders of their own blood ! It was the same rote, the same mechanical logic as among the French and English. How a Spy would Feel 219 a ; Mein frau," broke off the German, "mein frau," and he fell back into the real spirit of the man. Would I send word to her, just say he was alive? Yes, he had three "kinder." Would I really take her name and address and send her word ? The war might last a long time ; he would be a prisoner all that period ; his wife would not know what had happened to him ; oh, it would be so kind if I would send her word. Poor chap, in the rush which followed the chance was lost. After eighteen kilometres, practically without stopping, we saw ahead of us the roofs of a good- sized town. Our guard said it was Villers- Cotterets, headquarters of the Fifth Army Divi- sion who had caught us on the Aisne. Running far out into the country, we encountered a long convoy resting for lunch, with hundreds of soldiers standing about and horses feeding near by. Hardly a man of that big crowd but flocked to the roadside to see us pass. Almost immediately we were marching through a double line of soldiers holding all the way to the town itself. 220 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War "Espion, espion," they shouted at us. Rader and I in our civilian clothes were the cynosure of all eyes. "Les Boches" were almost forgotten. "Kill the dirty beasts," "you'll get what's coming to you" — etc. Several men slashed their fingers across their throats, making a long rasping noise at the same time and then holding their noses with one hand and gesticulating at us with the other. Another pointed a long, villainous-looking knife at his stomach and then began to laugh in wild glee. Many were silent; many laughed; many made either joking or insulting remarks. It was like sitting on gunpowder. I never felt sure but that someone would set a spark to the mob spirit, causing the hatred underlying that whole attitude to burst into flame. Handcuffed, with only two guards, we stood no chance at all. To be sure, I marched with as much assurance and with my head as high as I possibly could, and yet even at that I am afraid my eagle-scream was but a feeble peep. I was badly frightened. At last we arrived at the village itself. There an even worse reception greeted us. Civilians How a Spy would Feel 221 who had lost their all during the German occupa- tion proved much more vicious than soldiers who had had the chance somewhat to relieve their feelings in actual battle. Fortunately I did not understand much of what was said, while my companions understood only the all-too-eloquent signs. Finally when it seemed we would never reach the end of that jeering, insulting crowd, when, hungry, thirsty, exhausted by lack of sleep and an eleven-mile march under manacles, chilled to the bone by rain and dripping clothes, it seemed we could go no farther, we arrived at the proverbial mairie. To our surprise we were un- shackled and the Germans rushed off elsewhere, so quickly we could not learn the addresses of their wives. Rader and I were yanked off to headquarters. Down that same street by which we had entered we now passed unmanacled, but to my disgust most of the jeerers were in at lunch. A splendid old mansion served as the permanent home of our General and his staff, who went back and forth each day to field headquarters on the Aisne. Rader and I were led into the back-yard to the 222 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War stable. He was put in a horse-stall and I in an olcTtool-house. There at last we came to rest to wait the next act. The place I was in was crammed to the door with old furnishings. A time-honored couch with stiff hair bursting out in several places was backed up against one wall, and a small table and collection of tools occupied the other. By good fortune I found a thin white blanket with a doubtful past and many holes, which served to wrap about my drenched person. There was no room to walk in, so for three hours I sat on the table in the darkness of my cold jail, my blanket wrapped about me, looking for all the world like a Buddha, and meditating on what a fool I had been not to have followed the advice of the gen- darme captain and stayed at home. Fortunately two Irish and a Scotch Tommie, who, separated from their regiment, were virtu- ally prisoners too, not only relieved our guards' suspicions and our own weariness, but more important still, brought us supper. Long after dark I was led over to the splendid stall-jail occupied by Rader. By now, we had learned How a Spy would Feel 223 what "hit the hay" means and we lost no time in doing it. At last we had enough to get decently warm and were able to dry our clothes and thaw out a bit. A sick Moroccan, who showed almost no signs of life, moaned occasionally in the straw beside me ; and in the middle of the night a fool French soldier lay down at our feet. I found him very useful to warm my toes under, till suddenly Rader lengthened out and brought his shoe with a crash like the falling of a heavy cocoanut against the Frenchman's skull. Wildly the poor victim jumped to his feet like a jack-in-the-box, and for several minutes flung himself around pinwheel- fashion, shouting his head off over our prostrate, semi-conscious forms till the whole building was awake. Then he left. That next day was awful. Never had I known the insanity of solitary confinement. Immedi- ately after a sunrise breakfast we were separated, and I was sent back to my Buddha's throne. Nothing to read, nothing to do, not even chance to join in a game of pitch-pennies among the sol- diers outside. The dull rumble of the battle of the 224 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Aisne continued to come to us, and occasionally a French aeroplane whirred overhead. Along in the middle of the morning Rader's face appeared around the corner. "Hey," he said, "I'm going crazy. Why don't you telegraph Ambassador Herrick?" "Why, we've still got our passports, haven't we ?" I laughed. "Oh, cut it, I'm sick of this. Wire the Ambas- sador." "But, Phil," I teased, "how about Soissons?" "Shut up, for Heaven's sake, I didn't suppose we'd get into all this stew. If you don't wire Herrick, I will." "You can't," I replied. "You don't know French." "Oh, hell, that's what you always say. I haven't got a chance. I hate this beastly coun- try. Get me out of this and I'll take your word for anything." " All right," I said. " Wait a minute. I'm going nuts too." But my plan was not to wire the Ambassador. We had deliberately gotten ourselves into this How a Spy would Feel 225 trouble and had no right to call upon the Ambas- sador to get us out of it. I asked my guard to take me to the Captain of the day. To my surprise he did so without ques- tion. "Where did you come from?" the Captain burst out. "Where are you staying? What are you doing here ?" Briefly I told him I was nothing but a poor dog of a newspaperman, that I was tired of living half- fed, soaked, and manacled, in straw and horse- stalls, and that my greatest ambition in life was to get back to Paris. Naturally I did not bother to burden him with the fact that I had been caught by the staff officers abreast the Aisne. He set himself with vim to clear up the mystery. The General and his staff* had gone back to the front. The gendarmes who had brought us had returned to Pierrefonds. The guards who had first received us had been shifted and sent to the firing-line that very morning at 6.30. No written record could be found. The Captain decided he would let us go. There was neither rime nor reason to it, merely a shrug Q 226 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War of the shoulders. To my amazement they gave us back both camera and bicycles. I pleaded for a pass which he said was unnecessary. Every time I had heard that before, I told him, I had wound up in jail a few hours after and I did not at this time want to do any more first-hand investigating of French prison life. An English high-daddy standing near by interjected the cheerful news that he would have put us in a fortress till the end of the war if he had caught us. "That is exactly why we avoided the English," I retorted, as the Captain handed me our pass. Believe me, we lost no time in getting back to Paris. A long bicycle ride took us to Crepy, where we entrained for the capital. "Well," said Phil, "I guess there are some things about American passports, Soissons, and French jails that I did not know. Never again, believe me. VILLE DE VILLERS-COTTERETS Laisse^ passer fjtf..%. '/i/Zuiy f'l ye ?/,£■/- _.-%>■-■*„? Oil '■<-/ ^//t^Ucszi-n-t demeurant a VILLERS-COTTERETS. vqyageant : a pied, en v oilure, en bicyclette, en chemin defer ou en automobile el se rendant a ^C£^/§ .. m, £z& oV 4T LE Maire - M. Arthur Sweetser living at Villers-Cotterets " is freed once more to go to Paris. XI FROM FRANCE'S CALMNESS TO BEL- GIUM'S AGONY Paris now was a new city, tried, tested, and proved. The life and gayety were fast returning. The crowds which had fled in panic on the German approach were flowing back like a molten stream, pouring over the boulevards and into the side- streets. The barren, lifeless, deserted Paris, which, when I had left for the front two weeks ago, had lain sad as a sepulchre with the Germans but twenty miles out, had again become the city of crowds and excitement now that the apparently invincible "barbares" had been crumpled back to the Aisne. Such is the lightness of heart of the Parisian. Yet there was a difference. The Parisian was not the same as of old. The horror of those two weeks, the presence of the German military ma- chine in the suburbs of the city itself, had sobered 227 228 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War and subdued the people. Not a man but realized that the German coup had all but come off; not a man but now knew the battle was but half won. No one believed the mighty Prussian could break the bonds fast closing about him ; nevertheless no one forgot that 1,000,000 "Boches" still be- fouled the fair land of France. Panic had disappeared. The dread of annihila- tion had passed. The people had seen the army brought together, had seen it stand firm in its last trenches, had seen it blaze forth triumphant. The dawn of a new day, the recrudescence of France's national glory, the wiping out of the smirch of '70, were hailed on all sides. It was a new France that arose in the trail of von Kluck's retreat, for the scars of '70 and the chains of forty years of bond- age were tossed off in one mighty moral struggle. The nightmare of the half-century since that igno- minious defeat was dissolving in the dream of a new and better day than France had ever known. There was, however, no wild, unseemly exuber- ance of spirit. The Germans' narrow miss, set in the background of an unforgettable Sedan,, made that impossible. France had something of France's Calmness and Belgium's Agony 229 the air of a bull-dog which after much effort has finally got his teeth hard set in the vitals of an inveterate opponent. There was to be no relin- quishing, no letting up. Already winter supplies were being gathered together. Women all over the country were knitting socks and clothing. The patience of the people was marvellous. Still only the most meagre and colorless news escaped the censor. For eighteen days the Titanic struggle of the Aisne had been on, and yet it was difficult to piece together even the rough outlines of the battle- front. The war was one carried on in grim, deathly silence, and to the everlasting honor of France be it said that this nervous people waited patiently, uncomplainingly. There was but one protest and that the pitifully human one against interminable delays in getting letters to and from "nos petits" at the front. Some of the troops were known to have been under constant fire for four and five weeks, many of them un- doubtedly being prayed for weeks after they had been cast into an unmarked grave. Never has there been such a press campaign of bitterness and hatred. Never was nation so 230 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War fiercely condemned as the German. "The sackers of Rheims and Louvain," "murderers of women and children," were execrated with a fierce, unpar- alleled fury. With all the force of inherent skill fanned to genius by the passions of war, the French writers wrote and rewrote Belgium, Rheims, Louvain, till they were fairly glutted with tales of barbarity, cruelty, and bestiality. The German was represented as an unclean beast, aiming at the complete annihilation of everything French, from the superior civilization of to-day, which he had vainly tried to steal to the very soul of France as manifested in Rheims and the like. To me this was one of the most sickening sides of the war. To see a huge nation of 45,000,000 people feeding its soul on the most extreme unreasoned hatred was positively nauseating. The passions and anger then being burned into every Frenchman's soul will survive this generation and the next, will cast a fiendish laugh at interna- tional comity, the brotherhood of man, and the Hague. Frenchmen will get for years with the milk from their mothers' breasts the conviction France's Calmness and Belgium's Agony 231 that the nation to the east of them is a nation of beasts and vipers. Italy too was a centre of attack. It was not enough that she did not hold to her alliance with Austria and Germany ; that she allowed France to withdraw her troops from the southern frontier; no, she must now knife her former ally in the back ; hurl her 2,000,000 soldiers against Austria. The Latin brotherhood, the centuries-old Austrian conflict, the prize of a reunited Trieste were urged and reurged. The United States, as in England, was being most jealously watched. Tremendous capital was made of American editorials favorable to the Allies and of the horror expressed at the destruc- tion of Louvain and Rheims. Our spiritual alli- ance was accepted as complete. Things English had become even more wildly popular than on my first visit. Even the unnatural marriage de con- venance with Russia was extremely popular; glorious Russian victories were chronicled, and people commonly felt that if France herself could not pull victory out of the fire, Russia's hordes would at last send the Kaiser tumbling to his 232 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War knees. Servia was followed closely but with less enthusiasm than deserved, while Japan, niching like a ghoul from a dead man's body, was hardly mentioned. All this was interesting, tremendously so, but none the less pale and dim in comparison with the big events outside. The deadlock along the Aisne continued ; the Germans were just uncovering their incidental side-attack to clean up Antwerp. A few days' rest in Paris had put lots of enthusiasm back in me, and I decided that as I must soon be returning to the United States I would cross over to England via Belgium. At least I might learn something first hand of the never ending atrocity stories, and perhaps have a chance to see the siege of Antwerp. Fate decreed that my route should lie through Lille. It was now five weeks since my first trip there, and it was with deep foreboding that I set out to repeat it. I could not help thinking on saying good-by to Paris for the third time that at least I might run into a new kind of jail in Belgium. Somehow too, deep down within me, France'* s Calmness and Belgium's Agony 233 I hoped that things would now be better. The first time I went out the thin little wedge of British soldiers who had been hurled to the Belgian border to make a screen for the French mobilization was being smashed to pieces on the Cateau-Cambrai line. The German avalanche was sweeping on in the flush of a wild excitement and all France seemed doomed. But now, since that time five weeks ago, the German bolt had been spent ; the two armies had settled down to a mole-like warfare; panic had given way to dogged determination. In an incredibly short time our train passed out from life into desolation. The military activity about Paris, the barbed-wire entanglements, herds of cattle, and lines of guards faded away as in a dream as we entered the No Man's land over which the battle had ebbed and flowed. Deserted villages, abandoned farm-houses, miles and miles of heavy harvest sighing for the hand that would not reap, — all this over and over again as if stretching out into eternity. Occasionally we passed a lonely railroad guard who looked wistfully towards us as we rattled by, or a few last refugees trudging along the road with their pathetic bundles. Once in a 234 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War while, too, a clumsy supply train could be seen lumbering slowly along or an aeroplane circling overhead in big sweeps through the sky, to show us the awful work was still going on out front. Otherwise the country had been left to bird, beast, and field. What a change from five weeks ago ! Then we had hitched and shunted our way through a seeth- ing medley of troops and ammunition trains, men shouting and calling, engines tooting, the grumble of heavy cannon in our ears. Just south of Marcoing we had been sidetracked while a huge army ebbed and flowed before us, and then after hours of waiting had turned around and fled before the advancing Germans in a wide sweep to Amiens. Everything was a seething, bubbling mass of uproar and confusion. But now — silence, drear, pitiful silence. What had happened to that flood of humanity ? And what was now happening to us ? Our train was barely moving ; we were picking our way cau- tiously over bridge after bridge which had been blown up and hastily rebuilt with heavy planks ; evidently we were coming to a city. When one France'' s Calmness and Belgium's Agony 235 leaves Paris nowadays, it is indeed like shooting off into the blue. When and where you will arrive is entirely beyond the point. Someone said it was Amiens, that we were the first passenger train to enter since the Germans had evacuated the city a few days before. I wondered what the place would be like. Before, we had arrived at midnight. Train after train in long, unending stream had ground in and out. Head- lights had flashed, engines tooted, horses neighed and stamped in their rickety stalls, and hundreds of refugees walked aimlessly about or tried to sleep on the platforms. Crowds had cheered madly as French and English poured out for the front, and then as quickly melted into sympathy as the wounded and dying came back in train- loads. But now — absolute, total desertion hung like a pall over the big, high-roofed structure and interlaced tracks. Not a person was to be seen, not a sound heard. The big iron girders above and the empty tracks before us yawned as if in mockery of the life that had gone. Gingerly I made for the restaurant. It was locked and 236 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War barred ; a man dozing on a chair outside woke up long enough to remark laconically : "Nothing for civilians." The station with its contrast in memory was one of the most morbid places I have ever been in. We could not leave it too quickly. Hours more we rode on, Heaven knows where, till at last we found ourselves way out at Boulogne on the sea- coast, exactly at right angles to Lille. From there we trundled on to Calais, where at nine o'clock I was at last able to get something to eat, two poor sandwiches and some beer. There we turned inland again, and finally brought up at Lille at 1 1 o'clock. It had taken thirteen hours for a four-hour run, but I could not find it in me to complain, for on the first trip we had taken twenty-four hours and had then wound up, not at Lille, but at Hazebrouck, twenty-five kilo- metres away. A crowd of refugees hung about the station with nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to think of but the dreaded Germans. The city had been rasped to a frazzle by the continual threat of occupation by the enemy ; for, in all the long time SUPREME APPPEL a la Population Lilloise Dans le cas nil us peine de fournir mi prclexte a des represailles sanglantes. Les lois de hi guerre soul formelles a eel egard. I ne fois de plus, nous vous supplions de rentier chcz vous el de garde'r votre sang-froid ! \leliie/-Mnis des ji^cnts provocateurs. Chartes\DELESALLE, Ch. DEBIERRE, '';. N ^'" si, u, M. GHESQUIERE, o: Delory, Depute SAINT-VENANT, Conseiller General Deput, PICA VET, Conseiller d'Arrondissemenl " For five weeks Lille had been rasped to a frazzle." See opposite page. France's Calmness and Belgium'' s Agony 237 I had been gone, the Germans had been in heavy force just outside and had once sent in a squad of Uhlans. Even as I entered, I read on all the walls official proclamations just posted by the Mayor that the formal surrender of the city was imminent. One of those which seemed to be most universal I was able to detach from an official bulletin board at considerable risk. It is reproduced on the opposite page, and may be translated as follows : "Supreme appeal to the population of Lille! In case German horsemen, however small their numbers, make an incursion into our city, we call attention to the fact that no civilian has the right to do them any injury or give them any provoca- tion under pain of furnishing a pretext for bloody reprisals. The laws of war are strict in this matter. "Once more, we beg you to keep to your homes and preserve your sang-froid. Distrust provocateurs." The next day, it seemed as though all Lille were emptying itself southward in one great stream. Fortunately, I discovered a lone train at the station bound for Tournai, just across the border in Belgium, and I lost no time in getting on board, 238 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War aided by a young French girl who picked an acquaintance with me and quite seriously pro- posed that I take her to the States. Such is the fraternity of war-times. After a short ride, a sixth sense which war seems to develop showed someone running off with my precious bicycle at a little way-station. To my surprise I found it was the Belgium customs, one of the last shreds of Belgian authority left. "I am an American" opened the country to me with mystic rapidity and we sped rapidly on to the danger-line. I have known fear several times during this war, but never had it been so subtle, so stifling, so all- pervading as it was after I had been in the little Belgian town of Tournai for an hour. It seemed as though the whole population of Belgium had been squeezed out from under the merciless Ger- man steam-roller and backed up into the town's little square. I had planned to bicycle on through the German lines, into Charleroi, Mons, Louvain, and Holland, but alas that I stopped ! Yes, the Germans were just outside ; ooh-la-la, anyone on a bicycle was shot first and examined afterwards ; Uhlans were all over; and I had Paris papers ? — France } s Calmness and Belgium' 's Agony 239 they were forbidden on pain of death — and a camera ? — oh, Monsieur, you would not live five minutes. I paused. The little square was choked with people. Everyone was shifting, moving nervously about, casting apprehensive glances towards the East, as though from that quarter some fearful ogre might spring. Wild, unreasoned terror electrified the seething mob. It was in the air ; it sprang from person to person ; it finally worked its way into me too. I glanced fearfully in the direction I had planned to travel. My two lunch companions, educated Belgian refugees, enlarged on stories of children cut to pieces, women disembowelled, a whole village put under the mitrailleuse — "They're coming." It rose up from the mob, a great wail. A new group of refugees brought word that the Germans were moving on the town in large numbers. The news spread like wild-fire. The ominous noise of a terrified mob rose louder and louder. People grabbed up their bundles and ran everywhere, helter-skelter. Some rushed to the open roads to the south and west; some jammed a four-car 240 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War tram even to the roof; others surged over to a long train waiting with steam up in the station. In a twinkling the town had emptied itself. The square before me was completely barren. My two lunch companions had vanished into space; only the waiter remained in what had been a crowded restaurant. Except for him I was the only living being about. What to do — I cer- tainly did not relish the idea of being there alone to welcome the whole German army. And my bicycle, my camera, my French newspapers ? Brrrh. The blind, unreasoned, psychological effect of mob fear surged over me too. My only desire was to run — to get away — to escape that terrible something in the air. I too crowded my way into the station and found room at last only in the baggage-car. I never wanted to see a German again. Slowly we hitched along. Every compartment was crowded to over-flowing with sometimes as many as fifteen people. Thousands were fleeing blindly, not knowing whither or caring, except that it was away from the scourge behind. They had abandoned everything but a few large bundles France's Calmness and Belgium' 's Agony 241 of clothes or precious possessions snatched up at the last minute. They had left husbands, wives, children, friends, whose fates their imaginations pictured in most ghastly detail. There indeed was one of the most agonizing tragedies in all this agony-stricken land. Belgium might have been divided into two spheres, a little ragged, ill-trained army hopelessly, gloriously brave, and a seething homeless peasantry crazed with a fear which denied all reason. While the soldiers were flinging themselves forward to certain death with a smile on their lips, the ignorant, superstitious peasants were fleeing, pell-mell, vying with each other in ghastly atrocity stories and drinking in with avidity the most impossible reports of wholesale butchery, slaughter, and devastation. That the Belgian army stood up against this fearful panic is an eternal tribute in itself. At last we arrived at Ghent, that beautiful historic city where almost 100 years ago England and America made peace. Here too it was one great molten stream of sad, despairing refugees, pushed on from all over Belgium by the German tidal wave. A nervous, seething crowd throbbed R 242 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War about the big square before the station, now rush- ing to one side to watch a line of soldiers file by and off into the distance, now gaping vacantly at an aeroplane overhead, but always raw with terror and premonition. And as I picked my way through this human wreckage to the Hotel de Ville, I could not but hope that the English and French flags which were draped there on either side of the Belgian might bring rescue to this gallant little people who had dared to defend themselves. Just one more atom as I was in that trembling mob, I made straight for a big Stars and Stripes flying over the American consulate. , My first acquaintance there was an American lecturer, who, I am sure, was the only man in Europe be- sides myself to be wearing a straw hat. "Late for straws," I ventured. "Yes," he replied, "I guess we're the last ones left." "It's the last thing I got in Boston." "Good Heavens," he exclaimed. "That's where mine came from," and the labels showed they were bought within one hundred yards of each other. France'' s Calmness and Belgium's Agony 243 "Where you been ?" I asked. "Nearly shot by the Germans for a spy," he replied. "And you ?" "Oh, the same thing by the French," and another war friendship was on. Consul van Hee then hove in sight and took me to another room. Like a thunderbolt he dropped me down before two American girls just as I was, dressed in rags and rough-and-tumble clothing. They were terribly — I use the word advisedly — terribly pretty ; tall, lithe, graceful, with beautiful coloring, and each wearing a pink and white sweater, a trig short skirt, and high tan tramping boots. They were indeed types of ideal woman- hood, bright, sparkling, vivacious. "Great girls," said van Hee. "Just come from Charleroi." "Charleroi!" I echoed dazedly. The word struck me cold, for at that time Charleroi was an inferno, and all the hundred miles between were filled with men drunk with battle who knew not right nor chivalry. "Yes," laughed one, "we've just come from there." 244 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War "But," I gasped, "how in Heaven's name did you do it ?" "Oh," she replied, "we walked. You see we'd been there eight weeks in the Red Cross and couldn't stand the strain any longer. We left Paris the minute war broke out and joined the Red Cross at Charleroi. First came the Belgian soldiers, then the French, then the English, then the bombardment. For three days they fought about the city while we lived underground. Then the Germans fought their way in — there were hours of street fighting — and finally they got con- trol. There was nothing we could do but stay ; the wounded and dying were being poured in by hundreds ; and we were the only trained nurses in the city. No time for rest or sleep, always the same awful work, always on duty. After eight weeks we broke down. Finally we told the Ger- mans we simply must get away. They didn't pre- vent us, but they wouldn't do one thing to help us. They really did need us. We decided to go anyway. We packed a few clothes in knapsacks and set out on foot for Paris. Every now and then we got a lift, and here we are, eight days afterwards." France *s Calmness and Belgium'' s Agony 245 That indeed is the American girl. For two months they had borne the strain of nursing while the battle had raged round them. Then they had set resolutely out on foot, undaunted by the 150 miles to Paris, the crowds of war-drunk soldiers on their route. 'Tis an unsung bravery indeed that carried these young and tempting women through. Mr. van Hee was so interested that he offered his automobile for a trip to Antwerp. Probably in no other way could we have entered that beleaguered city. Though none of us had passes the machine bore two large American flags and was widely known as the one thing other than bullets and shells which passed between the Belgian and German lines. Every few minutes along the rough, cobbled way we were held up by suspicious sen- tries with guns lowered and fingers on the trigger. Each time our chauffeur leaned out, motioned to the sentry, and whispered in his ear the one word : "Mons." That was all ; there was no scrutiny, no exam- ination ; that one word was the Open Sesame to 246 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War the great city of Antwerp. Surely it was more mediaeval than modern — made me think, too, more of the absurd college fraternity than war. It was amusing to see that one word metamorphose the determined scowling face of a heavily armed sentry into a broad smile with ejaculations of "Bon, bon, bon." Miles and miles we went, past soldiers lounging about or cavalry all mounted for action, past trains of rapid-fire guns and supplies ; past tangled networks of barbed wire, fields of sharp- pointed stakes, and little woods cut down so that bullets but not horses might pass, embankments and subterranean shelters. Nature the whole length of the road to Antwerp had been perverted to the work of annihilation. Truly the traps which man sets for man are heinous. Ah, Antwerp, thou fair city, as your graceful spires came into view over the little harbor, what a prayer welled up within us that you at least might rest unsullied from the invincible conqueror who has devastated all your peaceful country. There, within your gates, you held the last of Belgium, King, government, army, and all, backed up in France' 's Calmness and Belgium's Agony 247 the last and greatest stronghold after a struggle which will ring gloriously down through the pages of history. All that there was, all that there is of Belgium, was in your keeping. As we rattled across a rough pontoon bridge over the Scheldt, our hearts were indeed fast with you in your hour of trial. Strange indeed it was how Antwerp kept its natural expression, even in these most dire hours. The inexorable German army was even then pounding at the inner forts ; the eastern suburbs were closed by the bombardment, and yet there were but few signs of the intensity of the combat near by. Soldiers were strolling all about ; Red Cross officials were moving busily around ; mili- tary machines honked their way through rather crowded streets to the outposts ; many stores were closed ; the lights were out at 8 o'clock ; but even at that there was at first nothing striking in the atmosphere. Only slowly did the grim spectre which lay behind become evident. Above all was a calmness almost of fatality which awoke in one a peculiar combination of premonition and acute grief. Everyone seemed grim and determined, as 248 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War though the sufferings of recent weeks had steeled them to meet the future's worst. How bitterly affairs were going at the front was concealed from everyone, even newspapermen, and the thought that the city would be in German hands within a week was never entertained. So self-controlled did Antwerp seem that we decided to run back to Ghent to get back to the front from that direc- tion. Little did we dream that the Cathedral we admired so that night would see Zeppelins sail- ing about it and shells bursting around it only seventy-two hours later. 'Twas midnight when again we saw the graceful spires and the rough pontoon bridge on our way back to Ghent. Behind us Antwerp lay calm and still in the moonlight. All lights were out, lest any prowling Zeppelin get in its dastardly work. 'Twas an eerie sight and sad, for truly it seemed that no life moved within. 'Twas an eerie ride, too, which was to come. Our route lay through a dim, bluish moonlight, through long miles of dying camp-fires, where heavily blanketed men moved ghost-like about, trenches, barbed wires, and occasional neighing horses. Every quarter France's Calmness and Belgium's Agony 249 mile or so, in spectral, uncanny way, a red lantern moved out into the road and a heavily armed sentry with shining rifle-barrel peered suspiciously through the semi-darkness. Again the magic word "Mons" passed us through with smiles and whispered ejaculations. Engraven on my memory for all time is the picture of that weak bluish light cast by a shimmering moon on cleared fields, trenches, entanglements, and the spectral figures of men with the back-ground of a city in its last stand for freedom. XII BELGIUM'S HOPELESS HEROISM The next day was in ways the most surprising of the many surprising days I had spent in Eu- rope. I still retained vivid memories of my war correspondent's experiences in France, of my being dragged about handcuffed, cooped up in jails, left to sleep in horse-stalls, on bare floors, in the open air, and otherwise convinced of my unpopularity. Indeed, I had been cured of any idea that correspondents were men, or to be treated in any way as human beings. Conse- quently, when some English correspondents, whom I had picked up at Ghent, invited me to go to the front in their automobile, to take a sightseeing tour, as it were, for the small sum of #5, it seemed as though I were in a dream. Cer- tainly we would be shot for our presumption. Still, I accepted. To my surprise they pro- duced a real automobile. I blundered in be- wildered. Even now as I write I can hardly 250 Belgium? 's Hopeless Heroism 251 believe what I say. We left Ghent ; we passed guard after guard ; we stopped ; we took pic- tures ; we rode wherever we wished ; we did whatever we desired. We set off in one direc- tion because we thought we could locate a battle there ; we changed our course several times on getting advice nearer the front. In all grim reality, we were hunting a battle as though it were a spectacle. All the way it was a beautiful lowland, the rich, verdant lowland of Belgium, cut by regular lines of slim-trunked, high-tufted poplars and peaceful with the spell of the first breath of early fall. All the way, too, there were marching men, swift-moving cavalry, long trains of artil- lery and convoys, with always the distant grumble of battle humming like a dull background. We had absolutely no idea where we were. Modern battles cover so much territory and are so in- definite in line that you can chase one all day and then not recognize it when you come upon it. Suddenly, however, we came full upon four little field guns just swinging into action in a 252 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War cabbage-field. The Pathe Freres movie man jumped out. "Howdy-do, Captain ?" he said in English to a Belgian officer whom he recognized. "Starting something ?" "Yes, you're just in time." "Wait a minute then, till we get ready." And the order to fire was held up till the pho- tographers had distributed themselves in strategic positions. That indeed was too much for me — I had to rub my eyes to see if I were really awake. If this had been France, we would by now have had guards with fixed bayonets behind us and a wild-looking official in front of us. Instead, the movie man turned to the Captain informally, and said : "All ready, Captain." "Fire!" rang out the order in whatever the French of it is. Four terrific crashes, four fiery flashes at the gun muzzles, four wisps of smoke, four barrels kicked violently back in recoil, four empty shells thrown out hot and smoking, four new shells slid into the breeches — and four more shells were Belgium? s Hopeless Heroism 253 off to the German trenches miles away. Round followed round, dully, mechanically, unemotion- ally. About the guns were small squads of men, dull, mechanical, unemotional. It might have been drill ; it surely did not seem real war. There was no lust of battle, no flush of strife. Blindly the gunners had set the machines to scientific calculations, which they did not understand ; equally blindly they loaded and reloaded against an enemy they had perhaps never seen. Probably no man there, except the Captain, knew what success they were having. Several miles away men were falling under the fleecy white puffs which followed every crash from the guns before us. It was a poor game after all. So far as we could see, all they were aiming at was a row of poplars 100 yards ahead. Through that first line was a meadow ; beyond that a second line — that was all, except for one's imagination. Truly it was wearisome, that constant loading and re- loading, much as the din of the old Fourth of July becomes wearisome before the day is hardly on. We were standing in the middle of the road, smoking and discussing the futility of it when — 254 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War Zz-z-z-z-z-z, a horrible, screeching, tearing, smashing sound slashed its way through the atmosphere overhead in a siren crescendo which crashed in a scattering explosion behind us. It might have been a giant express train catapult- ing through the atmosphere at stupendous speed, except that the high-pitched, vibrant noise of its passage was too entirely supernatural. It was so ugly, so vicious, so vindictive, that it seemed rather the death scream of some terrible fiend. I was too stunned by its suddenness and its horror to move from the spot where I had been idly smoking. I half expected the heavens to come clattering down on us through the rent overhead. "Hullo," said the Captain, putting his head out of a hut where he had taken shelter. "There are the Germans saying good morning." "Yes," I stammered, "and I don't intend to stay till they say good night." "Don't worry," he replied. "It's not the ones you hear that do the harm. They're too far past. It's the ones you don't hear.' >» Belgium? 's Hopeless Heroism 255 Thereupon I was obsessed with a desire to hear shells. Quicker than scat we had turned our automobile round and were making off fast down the road, leaving our little battery at its work, with the pretty certain knowledge that the next shell would strike nearer home. For some time we drove along in the lee of a twelve-foot embank- ment flanking the river Nethe, almost lost as to the location of the battle. Above it rose a tre- mendous dense cloud of coal-black smoke pouring up in billows from a large gasoline storage tank which had been fired by Belgian artillery as soon as the German forces had come up to it. Shortly we were stopped by sentries. How natural it seemed ! This idea of war correspond- ents running around in automobiles, chasing battles, with artillery captains holding their fire till the cameras were ready, was wearing on my nerves. But no, it was only to say that while we might go on if we wished, it would not be wise to do so. The Germans were for some strange reason bombarding the little town of Grambur- gen to powder, although the sentry assured us that not a solitary inhabitant, except possibly a 256 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War few cats, remained. They were big guns that were at work, too. I timed several of those screeching monsters, catching one at ten seconds and another at thirteen from the time its siren first began till the final crash. Think of it, thir- teen seconds of hurtling death ! Suddenly I conceived the brilliant idea of climb- ing the embankment of the Nethe to see what was on the other side. Pandemonium burst out among the sentries ; several of them rushed for me; I found myself in the middle of the road with the whole group gesticulating about me. The purport of it all was that the Germans were only seventy-five yards beyond ; that a head over the top of the embankment would have been a target for one hundred guns ; that the Teutons almost took another American's life. Such is the difficulty of locating "the front" nowadays. Anyway, I did not climb the embankment, nor did we go farther down the road. Instead we returned to the white, characterless town of Zele, where by good fortune was what purported to be an inn. It was just about far enough behind it Belgium's Hopeless Heroism 257 the lines for men to shake themselves free from the horror of battle and see its real significance. I was sitting in a small parlor when a sous-officer, gray with mud and startlingly pallid, entered the room and dropped into a chair. "Pardon, Monsieur," he said to me. "May I rest here a moment ?" Certainly," I answered; and after a pause, It's pretty rough outside to-day, isn't it ?" "Mon Dieu, it's terrible," he replied. "Those Germans, ah — " He shuddered, and then looked resentfully at the small grimy window and its large heavy curtains. Suddenly he burst out : "That noise, always that noise — even in this quiet little room. They pound night and day, night and day till it seems as though I'd go crazy. Can't I ever get away from it — can't I ever get where I won't hear those guns again ?" "You're just back?" I ventured. "Yes," he replied wistfully, "and I almost wish I weren't, almost wish I'd stayed out there with Jacques. Jacques was my best friend, Monsieur, — he is dead now — yet I wonder if s 258 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War he isn't better off ? At least he won't always have to remember." His head fell into his hands. It seemed during a long silence as though he were sobbing, then he murmured : "Ah, Monsieur, what a ghastly thing war is ! How brutal ! What things it makes us do ! Two days ago I was happy — now I can think of noth- ing but Jacques, hear nothing but that roar. "You see it was night before last at midnight that they got us out to dig a trench. There was Jacques, who had been my best friend for years, myself, and about 120 others. We worked with terrific speed, for we only had a few hours before dawn. < ' " Before we were half done it began to get gray. Suddenly there was an awful crash. Then the hellish jip-jip-jip of a machine gun. We all dropped where we stood in the half-dug trenches, — Jacques and I were together — and in a second we saw the Germans had caught us from both ends. There wasn't anything we could do — to have tried to run would have been sure death — so we squashed down into the half-dug Belgium' 's Hopeless Heroism 259 holes. I remember digging with my hands — burrowing like a mole to get myself underground and away from that ghastly fire. Any way I lay part of me was exposed, and it seemed as though any second might be my last. Hours and hours those guns kept going. "Suddenly there was a little gasp beside me. Jacques crumpled all in, limp and strengthless. I spoke — then I turned up his face. Ah, Mon- sieur, it was the look I had learned too well recently, — and yet to have it come to Jacques — mon Dieu, it was too much. "And the Germans kept right on with that hellish noise. It seemed as though they might have let up for a few minutes — it would have been a little thing to have done — and I thought I'd go wild with fury that they didn't. I started burrowing again — I thought I'd never get away from it. Then my eye fell on poor Jacques — no, I couldn't do it — it was too much — and yet why not — it meant no harm to him now, poor lad, and I knew he'd want me to. "Monsieur," he continued almost in a whisper, "I pulled Jacques up carefully from the hole 260 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War he'd been in and doubled him up between me and the Germans. He'd done me many a good turn in life, yet how, I've asked myself ever since, could I have asked this of him in death ?" His voice broke, then — "Heaven knows how long we lay there, Jacques and I — it seemed years. Several times there was a thud against the cold body beside me and each time I thought I'd go crazy. If only I could jump into the air, dance feverishly about, and then crash into that machine gun with poor Jacques. "Then at four o'clock in the afternoon came the order to retreat, twelve hours afterwards. Somehow they'd got the Germans out and we had a few minutes' chance. I moved Jacques back and fixed him as well as I could. Then we ran — and when we united in the little wood some way behind, there were only twenty-two of the one hundred and twenty left. "Ah, mon Dieu, to think of those twelve hours — and of what I did to Jacques. I wonder if it's true — certainly it isn't possible I could have profaned him in that way. Yet I know it Belgium* s Hopeless Heroism 261 is — I did it — I know I did it — can I never forget?" It was enough to make one's heart bleed, that shaking, dust-covered head and shoulders and the grim silence broken only by quick breathing and the ever present rumble of the guns. I could not but feel that here was another of those several million men who have experienced psy- chological and spiritual shocks in this war which would have made it far better if they, too, could have fallen as Jacques fell on the spot where they received their fatal wounds. How much, I won- dered, will Europe be retarded when all these men return home to live in mental anguish and to cause it, to continue on as mental derelicts, and to pass on their sufferings to those about them and their children ? Such is the poison of war. Glad indeed I was when it came time for luncheon. About the big table were nine Belgian officers, men who exemplified a bravery so help- less, so tragic as to make one almost cry in pain. During a pause I asked : "Do you think the Germans will take Antwerp ?" 262 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War A stillness fell. Then slowly one of them re- plied : "Monsieur, the Germans get anything they want." Not an officer protested ; not a man spoke. A pin could have been heard falling. The silence was sacred. Shortly the officer lifted his eyes, and, racked with emotion, said : "But, by God, it will cost them dear." Such was the spirit of the Belgian army. Such was the knowledge of its men on the firing-line, who still fought like tigers, even when they knew how hollow was the world's belief that Antwerp was impregnable. The height of utter self- sacrifice shown in those few words dulled the rest of luncheon till all of us were glad of its completion. Even yet I felt odd at being at large. It seemed I ought, instead of dining with officers, to have been munching war bread in a horse-stall with sentries glowering in at the windows. The climax, however, was now to come. Two officers asked if I wouldn't like to see the country. We entered a church, climbed up and up the cold Belgium? 's Hopeless Heroism 263 stone stairway of the steeple, up the wooden lad- der of the upper belfry, to stand finally at the very apex. Belgium lay before me, a rich, smiling, checkerboard country, the Scheldt wandering in the foreground, two burning villages beyond, and Antwerp far on the sky-line. And beside me were two men who did not think me a spy, two men who trusted me so fully as to give me their field-glasses, in order to see the better. Could this, I wondered, be war ? Yes, emphatically yes, when a hubbub in the street below called us down lest we attract the German shells to the tower. That afternoon for the first time I saw joy in stricken Belgium. It was when we entered an ill-kempt, drear little village right in the heart of the fighting-zone. There was every reason for despondency, Heaven knows, for German shells and German soldiers might come at any moment. And yet there were hundreds of people about. The streets were crowded. Everyone was laughing, smiling, talking. People who for days had huddled panic-stricken in their homes, who had thought of nothing but blood, rapine, and 264 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War death, came forth from hiding-places as if to face the sunrise of a new day ; faces which for weeks had shown naught but anguish and misery were lit up with a happiness which fairly spiritualized the whole motley unkempt crowd. Positively it was uncanny. We honked our way through the crowd who cheered enthusiastically at the Union Jack on our radiator. The little square in the centre of the village was jammed solid. We got out of the machine and forced our way in among the people. Ah, Tommies ! English armored motor- cars ! Heaven be praised ! Great Britain had come back to Belgium ! How big, how cheerful, how inspiring those few khaki uniforms looked ! What a warmth and radiance glowed over the whole scene ! Positively we thrilled till the tears almost came to our eyes. Little Belgium, smashed and crushed into its last stronghold, alone against an overwhelming enemy, might now see rising be- hind it the might and power of the British Empire. The bleeding Belgian army could once more struggle to its feet and acclaim itself a fighting Belgium'' s Hopeless Heroism 265 force. The utter desperation which had settled upon Belgium when the British and French had fled precipitately from Mons and Charleroi was now at least lightened. It was not the actual force of the five Rolls-Royce mitrailleuse ma- chines before us ; it was the power for which they stood. Nor did the Belgians mistake this fact, not even the pretty Belgian maidens who brought out tea to their strange phlegmatic guests. And whatever be said of Churchill's 9000 marines, let it ever be remembered that 50,000 Belgian soldiers retreated out of Antwerp with the knowl- edge that their struggle was not a lone one. It was dark when we got back to Ghent that night, but the atmosphere we found there was even darker. Waelheim and Catherine St. Woevre were crumbling before the German attacks. The fall of Antwerp was being spoken of as a real possibility. All next day, even as British marines rushed through Ghent and British aeroplanes flew overhead, the exodus was beginning. The roads were filled with refugees fleeing wildly before the German avalanche. Parts of the army passed through Ghent, on foot, in automobiles, by train. 266 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War The last chapter in a heroic fight was being written. To my eternal regret I did not realize it at the time. There were signs, all sorts of signs, but none of them conclusive. All the correspondents, too, who had been there since the war started, assured me Antwerp could not fall inside months. Just at that time I fell sick of a sharp fever. The horror of it all, the constant suspicion, the danger, the longing for home and friends, surged over me. My work seemed done ; it would not be right to spend weeks on the chance of seeing Antwerp fall. The next day I joined the army of refugees flowing through Ghent to the coast. After hours of discomfort on a cattle-pen train, crammed with home-sick, grief-stricken, countryless people, with troop trains rushing alongside and a pro- cession of aeroplanes overhead we arrived at Ostend, — Ostend, once the fashionable, now the anguishing. Still another tragedy of all Bel- gium's insufferable tragedies swept over me here. I was standing before the ugly rent made in a parkway by a German bomb, talking with a cultured Belgian whose roof had been burned Belgium's Hopeless Heroism 267 over his head up-country, and who had lost wife, children, and friends. "Ah, God, if this were all the Germans had done," he said. "If it were only physical de- struction — but, Monsieur, it is that deeper thing, that seering of our national soul, that is the worst curse they have brought us. You know, of course, of the numbers of Germans liv- ing in Belgium — of how we've taken them into our homes, our confidence, our government, and treated them exactly as if they were of our very own family. You find them in high positions in the army, in the cabinet, in business, everywhere. And you know how they betrayed us at the open- ing of the war ?" "Not wholly," I answered. "Well," he went on, "you remember how after the murder of the Arch-duke all Europe began to arm itself for the inevitable struggle. King Albert saw the writing on the wall and he begged his ministers to get the country ready. But the Germanophiles in the government stood out against him. He pleaded, he argued, he reasoned, but to it all they answered, 'There's nothing to it.' 268 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War So Belgium drifted on — the king powerless against those who did not want to see. Even as ultimatums flashed back and forth, as mobili- zation orders followed in rapid succession, he could not get action. "Then came a letter to the Queen. She's a daughter to the King of Bavaria, you know, and was told by her father that it was urgent she leave Belgium at once. No reason was given — nor was one necessary. It was a terrible situation for her — her father and land of birth on one side — her king and husband on the other. She chose the latter and gave her father's letter to the king. "He at once issued hurry orders for an emer- gency meeting of the ministry. Almost sobbing with anguish he read them the letter. A hush fell upon those who had not heeded him, and in the stillness, the king said: 'Gentlemen, for God's sake give me action.' It could no longer be delayed ; the damage was done ; the ministry concurred. Orders flew back and forth, but alas too late. The Germans and German sympathizers in the government had held them up just long enough. When the German army entered the Belgium's Hopeless Heroism 269 country a few days later, they found it unpre- pared ; they found the way blazed out for them by their own agents ; they found their success assured by the men who had won Belgium's con- fidence only to betray it." Another time I talked with an artillery officer who had been fought back inch by inch all the way from Liege through Namur and Charleroi to Antwerp. "Namur?" he asked with downcast face. "Oh, I can't talk about it. It's too terrible, too unbelievable. I was there — God knows how I got away — God grant I may forget about it. You wonder that it stood out only four days ? I only thank God it wasn't worse. "There are a whole lot of German officers in our army, and some of them in high places. There was one fort at Namur — it was the key position — and if it fell, the whole thing would go. The Germans had taken positions around it and had hammered it pretty hard, when one day a big gray automobile drove up under a flag of truce. Pretty soon the officer in command of the fort went out to it with his staff. To everyone's 270 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War horror he shook hands with the German officers inside, and then got into the machine with them. Turning to his staff, he said : '"Gentlemen, you are all prisoners of war. This position with its garrison has been surrendered,' and the machine bore him off. "The staff," my friend continued, "rushed back to the fort. They tried to telephone headquarters, but all the telephone wires had been cut. They tried to organize resistance, only to find that the exhaustion of their munitions had been concealed from them. Then they found a note saying that the Germans had been allowed to take command- ing positions on three sides. The fight was made hopeless for them, but not a man would surrender. There was nothing to do but for as many as could to hack a way through. Only a very small rem- nant of that garrison lived to tell of it." These were the same stories I had heard all through Belgium — betrayal, espionage, corrup- tion, treason. Heaven knows if they were true, the important thing was that on everyone's lips were rumors of betrayal by German residents and agents ; rumors of treason by German officers Belgium? 's Hopeless Heroism 271 in Belgian service ; rumors of bribery and intim- idation of Belgian peasantry. There was no tragedy more awesome than this anguish of national soul and spirit ; no horror more horrible than this unsuspected cancer within. That the Belgian army stood up against it, stood up against civilian panic, stood up against hopeless odds and still smiled, is a tribute which makes a glorious struggle doubly glorified. It was with heart almost bursting with grief, sympathy, and veneration that I went the next morning to the harbor front. My boat was scheduled to sail at 8, but even when I arrived at 6.30 there was a stream of refugees choking the long wharf and passageway far into the street. In the hour and a half be- fore the boat sailed, I progressed halfway from the end of the line to the gang-plank, only to see the boat go out without me. Fortunately, however, a second boat went out at 9. Fully 2000 refugees, none of them with more than a small bundle of clothing, jammed the little ship. A mysterious cannonading still wafted out to us from blood- soaked Europe off Dunkirk ; a lane of six British 272 Roadside Glimpses of the Great War torpedo boats guided us to the land of safety. All about me on the boat was the quietude and solitude of a deep anguish. It was indeed almost a fu- neral ship that I was on, for it was witnessing the burial of all the hopes of those whose lives had been uprooted. The cliffs of Dover that day looked down not on the joys of immigrants en- visaging a new land, but on the pains and suffer- ings of those whose hearts clung only to the old. When we landed at Folkestone, we found that the relentless German maw had that day cast up 9000 wrecked and shattered lives on England's shores. Printed in the United States of America. '""THE following pages contain advertisements of a few of the Macmillan books on kindred subjects The Diplomacy of the Great War By ARTHUR BULLARD Cloth, i2tno, $/.jo A book which contributes to an understanding of the war by revealing something of the diplomatic negotiations that preceded it. The author gives the history of interna- tional politics in Europe since the Congress of Berlin in 1878, and considers the new ideals that have grown up about the function of diplomacy during the last genera- tion, so that the reader is in full possession of the general trend of diplomatic development. There is added a chap- ter of constructive suggestions in respect to the probable diplomatic settlements resulting from the war, and a con- sideration of the relations between the United States and Europe. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York The Aftermath of Battle By E. D. TOLAND With a Preface by Owen Wister. With 16 full-page plates Cloth, i2mo, $1.00 " Most of the pages in this book," says Owen Wister in his preface, " are like the photographs which go with them, torn fresh and hot, so to speak, from the diary of a young American just as he jotted them down day by day in the war hospitals of France." Of the author's service and of the nature of his record of it Mr. Wister continues : " In those hospitals ... he served the wounded Germans and allies, he carried them upstairs and down, or in from the rain, he assisted at operations, he held basins, he gave ether, he built the kitchen fire, he pumped the water, he was chauffeur, forager, commissariat, he helped in what ways he could, as he was ordered and also as his own intelligence prompted in the not infrequent absence of orders. He saw the wounded die, he saw them get well, and he tells about them, their sufferings, their courage, their patience. ... As page succeeds page, written with- out art, yet with the effect of high art, with the effect, for example, of DeFoe's account of the Plague, the reader ceases to be looking at a picture ; he is himself in the pic- ture, its terrific realities surround him as if he were walk- ing among them." THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York The German Empire Between Two Wars By ROBERT H. FIFE, JR. Professor of German at Wesleyan University Cloth, 8vo This is not a " war book " and yet one of its several interests undoubtedly arises from the application of the matters which it discusses to present events. The author writes impartially ; he is not pro-German but treats Germany sympathetically as well as critically. In the first part of the volume he considers the relations of Germany with foreign powers from 1871-1914, after which he takes up internal politics during the same period. He then presents a view of the Germany of to-day, giving special attention to the government of the rapidly growing cities, the school systems, the church and the press. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth. Avenue New York A Short History of Germany By ERNEST F. HENDERSON New Edition in Two Volumes. With a New Preface and Three New Chapters Cloth, 8vo. Boxed " In our opinion, for the English reader, there is no more admirable contribution to the history of Germany as a whole than in these volumes. The excellence of its text lies in its apparent freedom from prejudice. Further- more, on a thorough examination of original documents and sources, we find here the great figures in German history painted as we must believe they really were. They have been described by one who brings to his work a signal freshness, buoyancy and vivacity crowning his past labors as an investigator. Dr. Henderson's style is vital in the best sense." It is the Outlook which thus commends an earlier edi- tion of this standard work, a commendation which has been heartily endorsed by all students of history as well as by the general public. To his previous chapters the author has now added three new ones which bring the text down to the period just prior to the beginning of the present war. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 530 THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 295 837 9