Chapter VI: Part 6

This is my ideal of happiness: (under war conditions) to arrive back, after a hard day's navvying among the nice big bangs (I really do like the noise of guns--unhealthy taste, eh?) to come back to camp and tea healthily tired, to come back by the _first_ batch of cars thereby ensuring a wash unhurried and evading the wait by the roadside at "----" _and_ to find a letter from you waiting for me. I am sure you think my effusions over your letters mere civil romance but they are not. I cannot exaggerate the pleasure I feel when I wade into a letter from you.

I am so very glad that you are to have the blessed with you again. I hate to think of you and him apart. It makes me feel altogether too "scattered" (compris?) to have a son here, a wife there, a mother somewhere else, a sister elsewhere. Keep him with you all you can and talk to him about me a _lot_. I do so want to come home to you both.

We are launching forth in many directions: beds (for patients of course) and a young drug store under a roof of its own; no longer housed with the Quarter Master's store. At present _I_ and some score of others are going up to the line daily doing the most glorious navvying: knocking cellars into each other and whitewashing the whole into operating rooms and waiting rooms, and bearers' billets; digging special R.A.M.C. stretcher trenches to connect them (A) with the general communicating trenches and (B) with each other and filling billions of sandbags to protect the entrances to these cellar-stations. I love the work, three days I slaved at a part of the trench where it traverses a mine-yard and came back a Frank Tinney at night. Yesterday I was housebreaking with hammer and chisel or pick connecting up cellars by holes knocked in walls and making bolting holes to get in and out through. Also we go investigating the rows and rows of empty houses (the line where we work passes almost through a mining townlet now deserted) bagging chairs, mirrors--there are many quite good ones unbroken in the midst of the chaos of bent girders, scattered walls, roofs, pavements even.

Everybody seems very high-spirited out here and grumbling is a thing of the past. I suspect that the weather is reason. Day after day is glorious--though night after night is _cold_.

As the weather grows colder my appetite increases, _cake_ most acceptable.

Posting this the morning after writing it. Was called away to interview M. Le Directeur des Mines apropos d'une affaire forte difficile, _je vous dis_.

Love to the dear--I wish I were going to see you both again soon. Wanted!--

[_The above was the last letter ever received from Harold Chapin. The following unfinished letter was found in his pocket-book after his death. It was written some days before the preceding letter._]

XIII--LAST LETTER TO HIS MOTHER--AS HE DIES

DEAREST MATER:

I dunno if I did or did not write to you the day after that letter to Calypso. We've had a good few days lately when 6 o'clock parade (6 o'clock a.m. you understand) and dusk were linked up by a day's work and march so that no letters were written, and I dare swear the censor was correspondingly rejoiced.

Our days spent trench digging (special communication trenches we dig, pour chercher les blessées not for wicked men with arms or what would the Geneva convention say?), our days spent trench digging are a great source of enjoyment--curious, because they involve a bolted breakfast--a seven o'clock start, an hour's jog in a hard, springless, G.S. waggon, a halting, single-file march of a couple of miles and a day of back breaking work at pick and shovel followed sometimes by march and G.S. waggon back, sometimes by a long march and _no_ G.S. waggon. The secret of their charm is the feeling of doing something actual compared with the messing about cleaning waggons for inspection and everlastingly tidying up camp to get it dirty again. Those trenches may never be used but if ever it is necessary to bring in wounded from the fire trenches to the aid posts under anything of a bombardment they will mean endless lives saved. It's a pleasant thought. I haven't seen the Lloyd George speech you mention.--I didn't know he'd written anything lately. Do you know--coeval with his rise in popularity I am getting a bit sick of him. He strikes me as being all enthusiasm and no judgment--no sense of fitness. On the tide and with the tide of universal approval is not the best place for a Welshman. I prefer the "brave man struggling with adversity" to this popular idol playing with his admirers, being rude to them just to show how well he can apologise, etc., etc.

Books--yes, I want a pocket Browning mit everything in it! Is such a thing to be had, I wonder? Of course I've got sizable pockets. Still it's a tall order.

Anyway I want "Paracelsus" and "Men and Women" particularly. I am on guard and writing letters for the next two or three days (I may only send off one a day). Our supply of corporals is not quite adequate to the demands made upon it and this will be my fourth night on guard in a fortnight.--Rather fatiguing work, involving a night of cat naps fully dressed and booted and a final rise at a little after 4 a.m. to call the cooks and "duties," hoist the flag and remove the lamps and finally (at 5 a.m.) to call the camp in general.

Later

(Sunday in fact)

Oh, my dear, I wish you could see your golden-haired laddie sitting by the roadside waiting for a waggon,--time 5 p.m.

I have been for two days digging through the slag heap of a mine! A mine! Our trench happens to go that way. I am as black as a coal heaver.

FOOTNOTE:

[9] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters in the book.

"THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE"--AN AMERICAN WITH THE SLAVS

_Experiences With the Russian Generals_

_Told by Stanley Washburn, Special Correspondent of the "London Times" with the Russian Armies_

Mr. Washburn was the only American (with the exception of the
American Military Attaché, Lieut. Sherman Miles, and Robert R.
McCormick) to have access to the Russian fighting lines at the time
this was written. He met on friendly terms the Czar, Grand Duke
Nicholas, and all the Russians in high authority in the War. He was
decorated by the Czar with the Cross of St. Anne. He has described
the anguish of Warsaw and the Russian retreat in his book entitled:
"Victory in Defeat," an authoritative account of his experiences
in the campaign of Galicia and the retreat through Poland. In his
second book, called "The Russian Advance," he tells how Russia, when
overwhelmingly defeated, managed her colossal offensive drive. The
chapters here given are by permission of his publishers, _Doubleday,
Page and Company_.

[10] I--STORY OF THE RUSSIAN GENERAL STAFF

One hears a lot in war about the "man behind the gun," but there is another individual, and a lot of them just as important, and that is the "man behind" the "man behind the gun," or, more briefly stated, the one higher up. I have known scores of Russian generals since the beginning of the war, and have written a good deal about the men at the greater staffs who play the intellectual end of the game in their distant offices, but, I think, far too little of the generals who sit in rough peasant cottages at the front, just behind the lines where the roar of the artillery and the rattle of the machine gun tells them of their troops in action even before the field telephone buzzes through its raucous message from the trenches. I spent June 23d (1915) with a division commander who may be taken as the type of scores of others who are directing the tactics of the war to-day. And when I write of General Monkevitch I write, I think, of many more who are almost identical in character and mould. This General I call my "Russian godfather," because he was the first one I met when I came to Russia, and it was he who, sitting in a luxurious office in Petrograd in September, 1914, arranged the first permits that enabled me to join the army in the field. In those days he was an important member of the Petrograd General Staff and with his smart uniform and silver _aiguillettes_ with his resplendent shoulder straps he was a picture of a city officer. Even in that early day he bemoaned his fate at being detained on staff work at the distant capital when the real work was going on at the front. When I came back from my first trip I was told that my friend had gone to the front "somewhere in Bukovina," and gradually the recollection of his kindly features drifted back among the memories of the past.

That afternoon I was ushered into the low-ceilinged room of a humble peasant's cottage, where a tired-looking man in war-worn uniform, tarnished shoulder straps, and muddy boots, was leaning over a hand-hewn table strewn with maps. He looked up as we entered, and I discovered in the commander of the division my erstwhile friend of Petrograd. Half of the house was still occupied by the peasants, while the General's sleeping apartment was in a rough shack outside, where he slept on a camp bed, with hardly any adornment in the room save a low bench on which was placed a battered old tin basin, if one may call it an ornament.

"The luxurious establishment of a Russian General of Division," he told me laughingly as he showed me over his place of residence. In the trellised vestibule of the cottage were the telephones and telegraphs, while from all directions came the field wires from the positions six versts beyond.

Sitting round the rough table, we listened to the General's account of his divisions fighting against the advance, an achievement that I have already alluded to in a previous chapter, and then, at his advice, we paid a visit to the front, as I have also mentioned elsewhere. The generals higher up are so far away that it is only by chance that they see their men or come in actual contact with their wounded. These divisional commanders are the ones that stand between the intellectual end of the game and the men in the trenches. The moment a shot is fired unexpectedly, their telephone from the trenches tells them what is the cause. An hour after a fight starts, the wounded (if the positions be near) begin to drift back here. In this headquarters the General could look out of the window and see the price in human suffering that the plans he made on the map before him were costing Russia....

After dinner I accompanied General Monkevitch on a walk about the town. With a long, swinging gait he paced down the primitive little street, with a nod and a word for every soldier that he passed. With scrupulous courtesy he returned the bows of the peasants who smilingly greeted him, for it was easy to see that he was a favourite in the village. Even the little children came in for a pleasant word and a bit of chaff, and several times he stopped with his officers about him to joke with the kiddies, and the littler they were the more happily they responded to his pleasant words.

A bit down the street we turned into the great shed where first come the wounded from the smaller units of the divisions. Yesterday, the General told us, his face suddenly going very sad, had resulted in heavy losses. For a moment he stood in a reverie, and then, throwing off his mood of melancholy, shrugged his shoulders and said: "Well, let us look at those within."

II--TALES OF THE WOUNDED RUSSIAN SOLDIERS

The great wooden shed was divided into a series of rooms where clean, sweet-smelling hay and new-cut clover was piled deeply on the floor, and here lay those too heavily wounded to be moved immediately to the rear. All told, there remained but a few hundred, the great bulk, as the General told me, having been cleared within eight hours after their arrival, to be sent to the greater bases where more comforts awaited them. Between the double rows of haggard creatures slowly strode the General, stopping every few paces to speak to the wounded. The relation of the Russian peasant to his superiors is extraordinary. Never is there the slightest degree of self-consciousness or embarrassment on the part of the soldiers, no matter how high or exalted be the rank of the officer who addresses him.

Again and again soldiers whose haggard features and glazing eyes denoted the serious nature of their wounds called to him in faltering voices: "How goes the fight, Excellency?" or "Did we take the trench, my General?" And always he would stop and reply, "All goes well, my children. You have done superbly. I am proud of you. Go back now to the rear and get well. You have behaved like heroes."

Another groaned audibly as he raised himself to ask: "Have more of my brothers fallen than of the Austrians?" The General replied quickly, raising his voice that all might hear: "For each one of you here, my children, there are five Austrians to pay for it, so rest contented that you have done your duty well."

One mere stripling, shot through the stomach, called to his Chief: "I did my best, Excellency. I killed all I could," and then sank back, groaning, on his bed of straw. And thus it went as we entered building after building where lay the price of victory. One heavily wounded lad called to the General, who immediately went to his side and listened to the high, feverish voice tell of the assault, of capture, escape, and a bullet through the abdomen. With the quick compassion characteristic of the Russians, the General reached for his cigarette case and turned its contents out into the hands of the soldier.

Among the wounded were numbers of Austrians, with pallid features, lying side by side with the Russians, receiving the same kind words and gentle treatment that are accorded to the Russians themselves.

During these assaults many of the wounds are from machine-gun bullets, and a large portion of such are through the stomach or abdomen. Many, I think, of such must die on the battlefield, for of those that die in the hospitals later the bulk are of such a nature. Certainly they are hideously painful, and the little murmuring sobs of the soldiers trying to stifle their anguish are sad indeed to hear.

Outside under the trees was a row of stretchers, each reverently covered with a white sheet. The General halted for a moment, as he uncovered his head. "Our dead," he murmured reverently, and then briskly, "Shall we move on?"

And thus, in the wonderful afterglow of a hot summer day, we strolled with him and beheld the man in his changing moods--General, father of his soldiers, mourner for his dead--each phase merging and emerging from the other as the different sights we saw brought them out. As we wandered casually homeward toward his quarters we passed a house before which stood a sentry. It appeared that he was guarding an Austrian captive officer. Instantly the General turned in and, entering the tiny peasant room, greeted the officer, who proved to be a mere boy, in the uniform of the lowest grade of commissioned officer. The General shook him by the hand, chatted with him for a minute or two, and then again shaking hands and saluting, said in German: "_Wohl, auf wiedersehen, mein Freund. Glücklicher Reise_," and left the Austrian standing in the dim twilight, with a look of wonder on his face. I daresay the Germans never told him that the Russian officers were like this.

III--ALONG THE BATTLE ROAD--WITH THE VICTORIOUS

The first dull gray tinge of a misty morning was in our cottage room when we rolled out of our straw beds next day. A plodding soldier sleepily rubbing his eyes gave us a bit of bread and some hot soup, and we were ready for the day's work. Around at the staff of the corps we met the Chief of Staff in slippers and without collar, standing in the door looking dreamily across the hazy landscape. He smiled genially when he saw us as he announced that our infantry had already attacked and carried the first line of the Austrian trenches on the front of his corps. Away to the west came the heavy booming of guns, muffled as in cotton by the moisture that still hung in the air.

As we talked the General in command stepped out of his room as brisk and dapper as though he had had a night's sleep (which he hadn't). His face was wreathed in smiles as he pulled on his gloves and, lighting a cigarette, stepped out onto the verandah before which stood his motor. A moment later we started, and winding our way out of the little muddy village, we were soon in among the rolling billows of hills that stretch in great sweeps in this section of the country.... Though the hour was early the whole countryside, now saturated with the life of the army, was beginning to move. In every grove artillery ammunition parks were packing up, and already caissons were pulling out on to the roads to overtake their parent batteries which already had left their positions of the night before and were pushing closer to the retiring Austrians, who had succeeded in escaping from their first line of trenches.

Every village through which we passed was crowded with reserves getting on the march to be within easy call of the front, in case the enemy made a counter-attack against the troops that had been fighting and winning during the night. With each mile of our advance the signs of life and activity became more numerous. But as we pushed with our motors through the mud we soon began to encounter the back-wash from the battlefield.

First one met a weary, mud-stained soldier with a red, dripping bandage around one hand which he nursed tenderly with his other. He was the vanguard of the column that from now on we passed for an hour. Next came groups of those wounded so slightly that they could still walk to the rear. That is, those with minor head and arm hits, which represent but a few weeks or even days out of the firing line. Behind these came the creaking peasant carts, each with its pair of tiny horses tugging along through the mud and ruts of the roads, and each loaded with wounded. Some held six or eight men that were able to sit up. All had only the first-aid bandages and most of them were deep-stained with the blood that oozed through the hastily bound dressing. The attack had been made in the pouring rain, through a marsh, and every soldier was saturated with mud, and their faces, what with dirt and the pain of their wounds, looked in the early morning light to be the shade of putty.

Next, one began to encounter the carts of heavily wounded, two in a cart lying on the straw, their eyes staring up into the misty morning sky, their expressions indifferent, stolid, and unemotional. Some clung to the sides of the carts to ease the jolting caused by the inequality of the way. Others lay as though dead, with blankets thrown over their faces. These sights, however, have become as common now as the mud of the road itself and hardly warrant description.

Now, intermingled among the carts, began to appear a sprinkling of the blue-coated Austrians, wandering aimlessly along in the general direction of the flow of traffic. Sometimes a Russian guard plodded along behind them, but more often they came quite alone. Some that were slightly wounded sat beside the road, looking at us with stupid, heavy eyes as we passed in the motor. All, even as the Russian soldiers, were plastered with mud and many saturated with gore, either their own or that of comrades they had tried to help.

IV--CAISSONS! HORSES! MEN!--DRAMA OF THE BATTLEFIELD

With every verst we moved forward the denser became the traffic, and now the flow to the rear was as heavy in volume as that going forward. Caissons that had sat beside their guns all night feeding them the shells that had breached the Austrian lines came toiling back through the deep-cut roads, the horses steaming and sweating with their exertions and the mud-plastered drivers giving them the leash and forcing them into a trot whenever it was possible to get the empty caissons over the road more speedily.

One never realized what a number of characters it takes to make up the great drama behind a battlefield. It would be possible to sit beside the way for an hour and write a volume of the strange and curious things one sees. Here a cartload of peasants that are still pushing to the rear, unconscious, perhaps, that the battle has already gone in the opposite direction. Just beyond lie the smoking embers of the village we saw blazing last night. There is hardly a chimney standing, and soon the roads will obliterate even the site of a group of what but last night was a dozen thatched peasant cottages. I noticed in the throng a Russian soldier leading a pack horse still in the Austrian harness with the quaint blinkers that the enemy use on many of their transport horses. The poor patient beast had been shot through the nose, and little rivulets of blood streamed down his velvety cheek as with plodding steps he followed the soldier who was leading him. No doubt he would be patched up again. Certainly that was the intention of the kindly peasant who now and anon looked back with a gently murmured word of encouragement to his dumb and stricken friend and prisoner. The road is narrow at that part, and we slowed down or took the side again and again to let ambulances or carts of wounded pass us.

The General called out to the passersby, wishing them good morning, or occasionally stopped to inquire of a soldier where he was during the night or how he received his wound. There is an extraordinary spirit of comradeship between them, all these Russians, as I have mentioned many times in my records of this front.

The General stopped his car and in a few minutes was receiving news of the action from his Chief of Staff, whom we left back at ----. He listened intently, and then snapped back some directions, and we pushed on out of the village on to another crest. Here we met a general of cavalry with an orderly at his heels, both incrusted with mud and dripping with wet from the brush through which they had been riding across country. Spurring his hesitant horse up to the side of the motor, he shook hands with his commander and told him gleefully that the prisoners would run into the thousands and that already six guns were in our hands. As he backed away, saluting, he narrowly escaped collision with four stolid soldiers carrying a dead man on a stretcher elevated above their shoulders. "Why this pains with a dead man?" one wondered. "War is for the living and not the dead. Most of them lie where they fall, until buried." But we were on the move again, coming nearer and ever nearer to the guns.... We are now surrounded by columns of unwounded Austrian prisoners winding back in droves that take up a mile at a time on the road. Turning a bit off the narrow ribbon we have been following, we motor up on to another crest, where is the Commander of the Division and his staff. Here is the observation point of a battalion, neatly dug out of the ridge, and men now stroll about casually in the place where it would have been instant death to show one's head four hours ago....

V--HIGH SPIRITS OF THE RUSSIAN TROOPS

The Commander of the Division, whom I knew last year at Warsaw, told gleefully of the prowess of his troops and pointed with riding-crop to the point beneath us where his men forced the river and broke the Austrian line. Everybody was in high spirits and congratulations were exchanged between the General and his officers. In a near-by wheat field were a couple of hundred blue-coated prisoners, waiting for guides to take them to the rear, while a hundred yards away were fifty sour-looking Germans, also waiting developments....

An approaching shell sang through the air and a big six-inch German shell landed in the field a few hundred yards away, throwing up clouds of dirt and heavy volumes of the greasy black smoke of the German high-explosive shell. Every one was surprised, but no one even mentioned it. I suppose it is bad taste to allude to such things.... I must say, however, that these events do not bother the Russians in the least. Nowadays generals in high command are constantly going to the positions and studying out the situation personally, regardless of risks.

After a dozen shells the firing ceased, but suddenly broke out again on a farther ridge where I suppose some observer thought he saw something moving. The General himself sat quietly down on the crest of the trench and with map spread out on his lap began to dictate orders to an orderly who, crouching at his feet, transmitted them through the field telephone. Here one saw the real control of a battle. Over the ridge there our infantry was pushing forward, each regiment unrolling behind it its field wire and every unit constantly in touch with this man lying in the wheat field who with finger on map was directing the following up of the retreating enemy. Wherever one could see a road it was black with traffic moving forward, and wherever one looked over the ridges beyond us one saw the puff of shrapnel and heard the boom and reverberations of our heavy guns and the sullen report of bursting German shells. The map with its many blue and red lines was the key to the puzzle of sound, and the streams of men and horses moving in every direction. This one individual quietly smoking his cigarette on the hilltop, quite unperturbed by bursting shells, could by a single word divert or halt all of those endless columns that we saw. Truly is war a great and fascinating game for those whose post is not in the trenches. As for them--well, war is war.

(This American War Correspondent describes in his stories: "The Fall of Warsaw"; "The Escape from Villna"; "The Defense of Petrograd"; "The Lemberg Front," and the other Russian battle lines, with his visits to the "village of horrors," and summaries of the Russian campaigns.)

FOOTNOTE:

[10] All numerals relate to stories herein told--not to chapters in the book.

A FRENCH MOTHER IN WAR TIME

_Being the Journal of Madame Edouard Drumont, Wife of the Well-Known Editor of the Libre Parole_

_Translated by Grace E. Bevir_

This journal reveals the magnificent character and the inspired souls
of the French women. Its translation will give American readers a new
insight into the mentality and spirituality of the French while they
are passing through their Calvary. The husband of Madam Drumont is
an Imperialist in politics, while Paul, who figures largely in the
journal, is her son by a former marriage. It is a beautiful tribute
to mothers, showing how they rise to heights of stoical heroism: "God
gives to each century the heroines it needs." These selections from
the narrative are published by permission of _Longmans, Green and
Company_, who represent the English publishers in America.

[11] I--PARIS--ON THE EVE OF "INEVITABLE WAR"

_July, 1914._--I have just spent a week in Paris waiting for my son, who has been doing his three weeks' training on the frontier at Belfort. I am horrified at the rumors of war which are in the air. Not that I shrink from pain, for both my father and brother were soldiers. On my father's side I am of Lorraine. Every reason, therefore, to be vigorous, and love my country with all my might; but I am so afraid that my son will not have time to finish his military training before the crisis comes, and that I shall not see him again before the war--if there is a war. This idea preys on me day and night.

And yet they say that this war which everyone loathes is inevitable! Are butchery, frightfulness, pillage, and destruction inevitable?

It is incredible that well on in the twentieth century, with civilization at its height, such monstrous iniquity should be considered "inevitable."

I have spent this week of waiting in Paris, where the feeling of feverish agitation which precedes great disasters pervades everything. The shops refuse to sell anything because they are afraid of not being able to get in fresh stock later on, everyone refuses notes, and will only take cash. The banks will give no change, and one rushes wildly about all over the place with notes for a thousand or a hundred francs in one's pocket, without being able to buy a single thing. During all this week I have been conscious of the mutterings of panic like the first rumbling of the thunder which precedes a great storm. I stay at home the whole time waiting for a wire to tell me that Paul was returning.

II--A MOTHER--AND HER SOLDIER SON

_July._--I was on the balcony about two o'clock when a car stopped in front of the house. A sapper got out of it. I uttered a cry of jubilation--it was Paul! He came up and threw himself into my arms. I remained riveted to the spot, speechless and in tears.

"Oh, Mother, Mother, I did so want to see you before the great upheaval. What luck! Well, I've seen you, and now I am ready to go when the bugle calls."

I could not speak; I was choking. I looked at this dear, big, handsome boy who is my only child, my whole life, whom I must give to France, must sacrifice perhaps to the inexorable laws of war. I felt my heart rise in revolt. I did not say anything, however, for he would have scolded me and it would have depressed him.

* * * * *

_July._--Yesterday, when we were dining together, the telephone-bell rang. We both ran to it. It was a call from the Maison B.

"Is F. there?"

"Yes."

"Ask him to come to the telephone at once."

I handed the receiver to my son, and saw that he was listening gravely and attentively. Then his face lighted up; he answered, and I guessed part of what was being said to him. I asked him:

"Is that B.?"

"Yes, Mother; he is asking me to join a squadron of the Flying Corps. Six aeroplanes are to be taken to D.; when I get there I shall be given a commission. You see, I can't refuse."

"Yes, but before that what did he say to you--when you looked so serious? There is going to be war, isn't there?"

He pursed up his mouth, which is a familiar trick of his when he wishes to hide something from me.

"My dear Mother, you think everything points to war. It is quite possible that there will be war, in fact it's almost certain, but as long as they are not actually on the frontier and it is not declared, don't take such a jaundiced view of things, for goodness' sake. B. asks me to go to Douai to make some trial flights, that's all. I gave up flying because there were no openings for civilians, and I had met with endless disappointments and mortifications at the hands of those who should have helped and encouraged me. Now these same people have sent for me; my country needs me, I'm going into the Flying Corps, and I'm off. Cheer up! be pleased about it. I am so pleased to be going to be a bird again! Pack up my things, because I must be at Douai by three o'clock to-morrow. And don't worry--the English and the Russians are in with us. What a lark!"

And I thought: Alas! a poor sort of lark.

III--TO-MORROW--WAR WILL BE DECLARED

_July._--Paul has gone, and I had scarcely time to dry my eyes when I received his call to the colors, ordering him to go to Belfort as a member of the Flying Corps.

* * * * *

And I thought of Drumont, whom I had left at Les Sablons and was to have rejoined that evening. Could I leave him alone any longer? What a torture it was to be divided between one's husband and one's child!

The telephone-bell rang. It was a friend ringing up from Paris who said:

"Go off at once to join your husband. To-morrow war will be declared...."

I was in despair and did not know what to do. I felt that my son might arrive at any minute, and that I might have gone and not be there to say good-bye to him. And this time I should be leaving Paris for good and all.

To have to leave Paris, the center of everything, and not to see Paul again because duty calls me back to the country--my God, how cruel it is! The car will take me back to Les Sablons to-night.

IV--VISION OF A FRENCH WOMAN'S HEART

_August._--The mobilization order came out yesterday, just as I was leaving Paris to join D. at Les Sablons.

The sight of the excitement in the villages, the women in tears standing spellbound before the tricolor notices, the mobilized men trudging off with their knapsacks and any sort of uniform, and young fellows singing the Marseillaise, upset me terribly.

On this scene of desolation the sun shone gloriously, indifferent to the troubles of earth, and his rays even penetrated into the car and reached me as I sat huddled up in the corner, crying bitterly.

* * * * *

_August._--The torture has begun. Yesterday evening D. was waiting for me when I arrived--knowing how upset I should be after parting with my son, he was anxious and sympathetic. We were both crying when we kissed each other.

Already we are without papers and without news. We rush after people who pass reading odd sheets, bought in neighboring towns and full of vague rumors which are generally contradicted next day. My chauffeur has gone, and my staff of servants is reduced to my Hindu and a charwoman. We often have a good cry together when we think of the beautiful country we lived in of yore, and are terrified at the thought of what may be in store for us here.

V--THE STREAM TOWARD DEATH

I am still without any news of Paul, and enduring the misery of not knowing where he is.

I particularly asked a soldier who was starting for Dijon to find out if F., the airman, was there. But will he do it?

The road to Fontainebleau passes this house, and all day long troops and horses go by, and men who have been called up and are joining their regiments, and cars bringing back others from their holidays to go to the front.

And already there is fighting on the frontier. Germany, like an octopus, has put out her tentacles to wrest from us our sons, our husbands, and our country. How monstrous a thing is war! I could not, if I would, describe my thoughts and feelings, and who would dare to do so in the midst of such desolation!

* * * * *

The continuous stream flows out towards death--soldiers pass singing and shouting, "To Berlin!" Others go by in silence, fierce-looking, and determined.

The women make superhuman efforts not to cry as they accompany them to the stations. Everything is well organized. Yesterday thirty trains went through at intervals of five minutes, all full of young men. Fontainebleau is in a ferment, so is Paris; they say that the principal hospital will be at Fontainebleau, and a whole nursing staff is being organized to attend to the first wounded who come in. A great many officers' wives have volunteered as nurses. They have put up hospital tents all round the station at Moret.

This morning I at last received news of my darling son. Alas! he has apparently been sent to Belfort. It seems the irony of fate that he who is so madly keen on aeroplanes should be sent to look after balloons, in which he takes no interest. However, Paul is brave and energetic, he is also fortunately devoid of the sort of recklessness which leads people to expose themselves uselessly. Drumont said to me the other day: "The sound common sense he inherits from you will be worth a fortune to him."

My dear boy's letter has stirred me to the very depths of my being. Day or night I will never part with the lock of his hair which we cut off just as he was going.

Since six o'clock this morning there has been an unending stream of horses and carts which have been mobilized. With incredible insolence the Germans have crossed the frontier before declaring war. Near Belfort they have rounded up all the cattle. Their plan seems to be a sudden shattering attack which will cause a panic and bring the half-finished mobilization to a standstill.

I sat in a brown study brooding over all this news, whilst poor old Black, upset by his young master's absence, wandered forlornly round me.

* * * * *

_August._--An anxious letter from Muncho--what an affectionate little thing she is, and she really does love my son, "our Paul," as she calls him. He has written to her, and she is delighted, though it is a delight largely mingled with pain.

I find on analyzing my feelings for my future daughter-in-law that I am not at all jealous of her, or afraid of any paltry rivalry between us in my son's affections. On the contrary, it seems to me that when there are two people to love him so much it should be a sort of protection to him.

* * * * *

_August._--Belgium is putting up a heroic defence--what a debt we shall owe to her! What a hero her King is, and what a fine race of men! They are amazing us by their serenity under the most crushing and undeserved misfortunes, and the way in which, at a word from their sovereign, they are sacrificing themselves for the cause they believe to be right. Our gratitude must be as great as our admiration, and we shall not forget Mr. Asquith's pledge on behalf of the Allies never to sheathe the sword while a German remains in Belgium. We, the mothers of France, offer to their noble Queen, who does her duty with such dignity and simplicity, our homage and our boundless gratitude, a gratitude proportionate to the greatness of her sacrifice.

VI--A SOLDIER'S SOUL--THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE

_August._--I have had a letter from Belfort from my son telling me that it had taken him seventeen hours to get from Paris to Belfort. There was indescribable enthusiasm in every place he passed through. The women were crying and laughing at the same time, as if they were mad, climbing up to the doors and decorating them with flowers, kissing the soldiers and filling the carriages with food and cigarettes. On all sides there were cheering and bravoes and cries of "_à bas l'Allemagne_," and "_Vive la France_"--in fact such scenes of enthusiasm as stimulate courage and awaken patriotism in hearts in which they seemed to be numb.

And now, after this long, exciting journey, Paul is alone in Belfort, with nothing to do but to guard the balloons, when all the time he is dying to be in the fighting round the town. He says, "Sometimes the thought of you and of Her seems to hover over me like two great white birds on a dark plain. It is painful but exquisitely sweet, and I drive away these two birds because they unman me."

Ah! my dear son, what a sorrow parting with you is!

* * * * *

Yesterday evening, as I was leaning out of my window, I heard a train passing, and soldiers shouting "To Berlin." Ah! God grant that they may get there! and I cried as I thought of my son: Where is he? Why can't he write to me? Is he still at the aerodrome?

This morning the butcher said to me, "There is no more beef or mutton, we have only got veal." All the better; I wish we did not have to eat at all.

* * * * *

Yesterday, as I was going to bed, about ten o'clock, one of these trains was passing down the valley. The effect was striking: I could scarcely see the carriages, there were so few lights in the train, but a plaintive sort of melody was issuing from one of them. The unending line of vans full of soldiers playing the tunes of their country as they go to their death, above them a blood-red crescent moon--it was a terrible and unforgetable sight. I shall never forget that phantom train.

Oh, my son! where are you?

* * * * *

We spent the day at the station serving out food and drink to the soldiers traveling to Paris and then on North. They were all so happy, singing and laughing and promising to bring us the Kaiser's head.

VII--STORIES OF REFUGEES--FLEEING FROM THE SAVAGE HORDE

_August._--Four days have gone by without anything interesting happening. The great battle is still impending. The Germans are as savage as ever, and news of my son comes very seldom. Fortunately his little fiancée writes to me, and her letters reach me, as they have not so far to come. These dear children lavish so much affection on me and are always assuring me how certain they are that we shall win.

* * * * *

M. C. saw at Dinant a lieutenant who had got hold of a machine-gun, and was mowing down the Germans who were appearing in fours on the summit of a hill. It required an order from a superior officer to bring that lieutenant back. He remained there alone, without thinking of the danger, and only retired when, tired of arguing, they told him, "Well, if you don't care about your life, we do care about the loss of a machine-gun."

Every moment one comes across similar acts of heroism.

* * * * *

_August._--Paul has written to me; I have his letter here. It is just like him, brave boy! Oh, I am sure that he will come back to me!

* * * * *

Old prophecies are being re-published proclaiming the fall of the German Empire. People gather together to read them aloud, and pass them on to their neighbors, like so many thirsty travelers happening on a spring of fresh water.

"Oh, yes! To see the last Prussian at his last gasp, and all due to us. What a glorious sight!" That is what we are all saying to each other in France.

These hordes of barbarians who rob the dead, kill the wounded, and fire on our ambulances; who shoot old men, women, and children, and girls when they have violated them; who cut off little boys' hands, so that they shall not fight against them later on--these monsters who have escaped from Hell will return thither or else there is no Divine justice.

The news of the atrocities committed in Belgium by the Kaiser's monsters emptied the villages in the North in a single night, and one can imagine nothing more dismal than the stream of fugitives along the roads of France. We saw them passing by our houses, coming from goodness knows where, piled up on carts with their animals, their bedding, their old men and their children, and all their household goods.

They had come through Paris, their horses almost dropping with fatigue, to seek a refuge in some friendly district, but where that would be they knew not. For the moment their only idea was to go a long, long way off to the other ends of the earth, in order to escape from the blood-thirsty hordes.

From the North right down to the South of France the roads were covered with thousands of panic-stricken refugees, in carts, in cars, in carriages, in trains, all in the wildest confusion. Many of them camped out all night, in their carts, and quite near the house there were some whom we tried to help a little. The stories they told led us also to think of flight.

One night the soldiers from the depot at Fontainebleau passed under our windows, going in the direction of Provins. An officer who is a great friend of ours had said to us, "When you see the soldiers from the depot going--go too." It was terrible.

It was a beautiful moonlight night, the regiment in extended formation marched along the Avenue des Sablons. Their measured tread purposely muffled, the slight rattling of their mess-tins against their haversacks, and from time to time a curt command given in a low voice, threw us into an agony of fear. We could not sleep: and hidden behind the Venetian blinds we and our maid spent the night in watching them.

We had tried to give the soldiers drinks, but the officers objected. I thought of all the mothers whose sons were marching through that tragic night to death, while they, poor women, were sleeping or peacefully praying for them in some far-off corner of France. I thought of my own boy, and my heart was wrung with anguish.

When day came I went to lie down, feeling crushed, all my courage gone.

The next day the Mayor sent to say that we ought to go; an enemy force was at Provins; the Germans were advancing rapidly; communications would be cut by them, and it would be wisest to be off.

I could not make up my mind to it, although all these stories filled me with terror, and Paul said in every letter, "For Heaven's sake--go!" I still shrank from the pang of leaving my house and all that was in it, and especially my animals, my dogs, my mementoes, all the links that bind one to one's home.

VIII--STORY OF THE FLIGHT BEFORE THE INVADERS

The journey, which generally takes two hours, lasted for ten. We were packed like sardines. There were all sorts of things in our carriage, from a baby's bath to a birdcage. Oh! how often we stopped between the stations! (We heard afterwards that there had been an accident on a side line, which accounted for the block and the impossibility of getting on.) The passengers kept getting out and sitting on the banks, and the children played about and amused themselves.

Trains full of soldiers, and even of wounded, were hung up like us on parallel lines. All this confusion brought home to one the panic and terror of this herd of human beings who, in order to escape from the enemy, were rushing headlong into inconceivable troubles.

On the edge of the forest of Orleans we stopped for more than an hour. By this time it was night, but the moon was shining. Another train had also drawn up, and in the moonlight, the two trains looked like long funeral processions.

The Master had not spoken since we left. With my face in my hands I was crying, and there was complete silence in the compartment. All of a sudden the most exquisite song rose on the tragic night. The voice came from the other train which had been stopped like ours near the forest. It was a man's voice, and he sang the serenade from "_La Damnation de Faust_"--"_Vous qui faites l'endormie_," etc., and this song, rendered with feeling by a musical and charming voice, lifted my spirits from gloom and my soul from despair.

How I listened to this song, which bore from the train-load of wounded the sweet message of a loving thought to some far-away sweetheart. In the moonlight in the midst of all this human misery and distress it was sublime.

Oh! love, thou art within the reach of all, and like the great sea sheddest thy glamor even within the lowliest dwelling.

I shall long remember that man's song, and his warm and vibrant southern voice.

These poetic impressions were soon obliterated at Orleans. Never shall I forget the hell that station was.... It seemed impossible to walk through that station without treading upon something or somebody. Hundreds of human beings were stretched on seats and on the ground; children were sleeping amongst bits of orange-peel and dirty pieces of paper, their mothers were squatting down beside them. Stretcher-bearers were going round with their stretchers.

All of us conceal from our neighbors our inmost thoughts, our secret wounds, our hidden dreams, our cherished illusions, and our unknown longings. And the part of us which we hide so jealously is the most real, the most essential, the most enduring. That which we offer to the outer world is only the husk and the mask!

Ah! what we mothers hide!

Yesterday at Lamballe we met a convoy of Prussian prisoners. They were going, under a strong guard, to work on the railway. At the sight of the gang my heart leapt within me. Standing up in the car I lost all control of myself, and shouted: "Bandits, savages, assassins, down with the Kaiser!" I was trembling with rage and emotion to think that here I had before my eyes those brutes who had killed women and children, girls and old men, for no reason at all--simply for the pleasure of killing.

My friends were as much moved as I was, and even after the prisoners had passed we kept on shouting, "_A bas l'Allemagne_," and "_Vive la France!_"

They marched by, unmoved, with a contemptuous and disdainful expression on their brutal faces. Only a very few of them looked as if they came from a decent class--the rest were savages. Really, when one is near them, one feels a regular surge of hate.

IX--THE BREAKING HEARTS OF THE MOTHERS OF FRANCE

_December 31._--The wintry wind is blowing keenly and violently. The year is dying, and I am thinking of those out there in the trenches who are playing at "_Qui perd gagne_." How sorrowfully they must be thinking of their loved ones! and I am thinking also of the unutterable sadness of everything around my son.

The pagans used to sprinkle lustral waters on towns defiled by inexpiable wars, to appease the anger of the gods. Who can tell us what ritual we can perform to allay the anger of God and wipe out the traces of so much blood?

What is my son doing on this last evening of the year, on this December 31st which soon will be torn from this year's calendar like the last leaf from a tree that thenceforward remains black and withered.

* * * * *

The papers are full of stories of German atrocities. The naked bodies of some women were found stripped and empaled on German bayonets near a farm, their breasts had been cut in pieces, and other unspeakable details revealed the Sadism which prevails among the Kaiser's soldiers. Is his madness infectious? and has it spread to his Army?--or are these massacres due to the brutes being drunk? A Red Cross nurse who had looked after a wounded prisoner, an officer, was warmly thanked by him several times. His thanks were charmingly expressed in excellent French. He even went so far as to promise to send her a little souvenir when he went back to his country. Soon afterwards, when he had recovered, he did go back, and the nurse thought no more about it, until one day she received a parcel from the German officer.

Rather surprised at so much politeness she eagerly undid the parcel, and nearly fainted with horror on discovering, wrapped up in tissue-papers, two baby's hands cut off at the wrist. Such monstrous behavior seems inconceivable on the part of a man of a certain class, and therefore better educated than the mass of common soldiers. A story like this sets one thinking of the mother who must have been present when her child was mutilated....

Who will ever know all the sufferings endured by Frenchwomen in these hours of terror and death brought upon them by the German war? They, too, have trodden the road to Calvary.

Surely this Kaiser must be the Anti-Christ, for he has destroyed the foundations of the old world and overthrown the pillars of modern society, and all the laws of humanity and of Christian morality. Surely the hand of God will weigh heavy upon him!