The boy soldier is willing to make any day his last if it is a good day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He is puzzled by the war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily weakness is the malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while?
The boy soldier is willing to make any day his last if it is a good day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He is puzzled by the war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily weakness is the malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while?
I SAW him first, my middle-aged man, one afternoon on the boards of an improvised stage in the sand-dunes of Belgium. On that last thin strip of the shattered kingdom English and French and Belgians were grimly massed. He was a Frenchman, and he was cheering up his comrades. With shining black hair and volatile face, he played many parts that day. He recited sprightly verses of Parisian life. He carried on amazing twenty-minute dialogues with himself, mimicking the voice of girl and woman, bully and dandy. His audience had come in stale from the everlasting spading and marching. They brightened visibly under his gaiety. If he cared to make that effort in the saddened place, theywere ready to respond. When he dismissed them, the last flash of him was of a smiling, rollicking improvisator, bowing himself over to the applause till his black hair was level with our eyes.
And then next day as I sat in my ambulance, waiting orders, he trudged by in his blue, "the color of heaven" once, but musty now from nights under the rain. His head of hair, which the glossy black wig had covered, was gray-white. The sparkling, pantomimic face had dropped into wrinkles. He was patient and old and tired. Perhaps he, too, would have been glad of some one to cheer him up. He was just one more territorial—trench-digger and sentry and filler-in. He became for me the type of all those faithful, plodding soldiers whose first strength is spent. In him was gathered up all that fatigue and sadness of men for whom no glamour remains.
They went past me every day, hundreds of them, padding down the Nieuport road, their feet tired from service and their boots road-worn—crowds of men beyond numbering, as far as one could see into the dry, volleying dust and beyond the dust; men coming toward me, a nation ofthem. They came at a long, uneven jog, a cluttered walk. Every figure was sprinkled and encircled by dust—dust on their gray temples, and on their wet, streaming faces, dust coming up in puffs from their shuffling feet, too tired to lift clear of the heavy roadbed. There was a hot, pitiless sun, and every man of them was shrouded in the long, heavy winter coat, as soggy as a horse blanket, and with thick leather gaiters, loose, flapping, swathing their legs as if with bandages. On the man's back was a pack, with the huge swell of the blanket rising up beyond the neck and generating heat-waves; a loaf of tough black bread fastened upon the knapsack or tied inside a faded red handkerchief; and a dingy, scarred tin Billy-can. At his shapeless, rolling waist his belt hung heavy with a bayonet in its casing. On the shoulder rested a dirt-caked spade, with a clanking of metal where the bayonet and the Billy-can struck the handle of the spade. Under a peaked cap showed the bearded face and the white of strained eyes gleaming through dust and sweat. The man was too tired to smile and talk. The weight of the pack, the weight of the clothes, the dust, thesmiting sun—all weighted down the man, leaving every line in his body sagging and drooping with weariness.
These are the men that spade the trenches, drive the food-transports and ammunition-wagons, and carry through the detail duties of small honor that the army may prosper. When has it happened before that the older generation holds up the hands of the young? At the western front they stand fast that the youth may go forward. They fill in the shell-holes to make a straight path for less-tired feet. They drive up food to give good heart to boys.
War is easy for the young. The boy soldier is willing to make any day his last if it is a good day. It is not so with the middle-aged man. He is puzzled by the war. What he has to struggle with more than bodily weakness is the malady of thought. Is the bloody business worth while? Is there any far-off divine event which his death will hasten? The wines of France are good wines, and his home in fertile Normandy was pleasant.
As we stood in the street in the sun one hotafternoon, four men came carrying a wounded man. The stretcher was growing red under its burden. The man's face was greenish white, with a stubble of beard. The flesh of his body was as white as snow from loss of blood. It was torn at the chest and sides. They carried him to the dressing-station, and half an hour later lifted him into our car. We carried him in for two miles. Four flies fed on the red rim of his closed left eye. He lay silent, motionless. Only a slight flutter of the coverlet, made by his breathing, gave a sign of life. At the Red Cross post we stopped. The coverlet still slightly rose and fell. The doctor, brown-bearded, in white linen, stepped into the car, tapped the man's wrist, tested his pulse, put a hand over his heart. Then the doctor muttered, drew the coverlet over the greenish-white face, and ordered the marines to remove him. In the moment of arrival the wounded man had died.
In the courtyard next our post two men were carrying in long strips of wood. This wood was for coffins, and one of them would be his.
A funeral passes our car, one every day, sometimes two: a wooden cross in front, carried by a soldier; the white-robed chaplain chanting; the box of light wood, on a frame of black; the coffin draped in the tricolor, a squad of twenty soldiers following the dead. That is the funeral of the middle-aged man. There is no time wasted on him in the brisk business of war; but his comrades bury him. One in particular faithful at funerals I had learned to know—M. Le Doze. War itself is so little the respecter of persons that this man had found himself of value in paying the last small honor to the obscure dead as they were carried from his Red Cross post to the burial-ground. One hopes that he will receive no hasty trench burial when his own time comes.
I cannot write of the middle-aged man of the Belgians because he has been killed. That first mixed army, which in thin line opposed its body to an immense machine, was crushed by weight and momentum. Little is left but a memory. But I shall not forget the veteran officer of the first army, near Lokeren, who kept his men under cover while he ran out into the middle of the road to see if the Uhlans were coming. The only Belgian army today is an army of boys. Recently we had a letter from André Simont, of the "Obusiers Lourdes, Beiges," and he wrote:
If you promise me you will come back for next summer, I won't get pinked. If I ever do, it doesn't matter. I have had twenty years of very happy life.
If you promise me you will come back for next summer, I won't get pinked. If I ever do, it doesn't matter. I have had twenty years of very happy life.
If he were forty-five, he would say, as a French officer at Coxyde said to me:
"Four months, and I haven't heard from my wife and children. We had a pleasant home. I was well to do. I miss the good wines of my cellar. This beer is sour. We have done our best, we French, our utmost, and it isn't quite enough. We have made a supreme effort, but it hasn't cleared the enemy from our country.La guerre—c'est triste."
He, too, fights on, but that overflow of vitality does not visit him, as it comes to the youngsters of the first line. It is easy for the boys of Brittany to die, those sailors with a rifle, the stanch Fusiliers Marins, who, outnumbered, held fast at Melle and Dixmude, and for twelve months made Nieuport, the extreme end of the western battle-line, a great rock. It is easy, because there is a glory in the eyes of boys. But the older man lives with second thoughts, with a subdued philosophy, a love of security. He is married, with a child or two; his garden is warm in the afternoon sun. He turns wistfully to the young, who are so sure, to cheer him. With him it is bloodshed, the moaning of shell-fire, and harsh command.
One afternoon at Coxyde, in the camp of the middle-aged—the territorials—an open-air entertainment was given. Massed up the side of a sand-dune, row on row, were the bearded men, two thousand of them. There were flashes of youth, of course—marines in dark blue, with jaunty round hat with fluffy red centerpiece; Zouaves with dusky Algerian skin, yellow-sorrel jacket, and baggy harem trousers; Belgians in fresh khaki uniform; and Red Cross British Quakers. But the mass of the men were middle-aged—territorials, with the light-blue long-coat, good for all weathers and the sharp night, and the peaked cap. Over the top of the dune where the soldiers sat an observation balloon was suspended in a cloudless blue sky, like a huge yellow caterpillar.Beyond the pasteboard stage, high on a western dune, two sentries stood with their bayonets touched by sunlight. To the south rose a monument to the territorial dead. To the north an aëroplane flashed along the line, full speed, while gun after gun threw shrapnel at it.
As I looked on the people, suddenly I thought of the Sermon on the Mount, with the multitude spread about, tier on tier, hungry for more than bread. It was a scene of summer beauty, with the glory of the sky thrown in, and every now and then the music of the heart. Half the songs of the afternoon were gay, and half were sad with long enduring, and the memory of the dear ones distant and of the many dead. Not in lightness or ignorance were these men making war. When I saw the multitude and how they hungered, I wished that Bernhardt could come to them in the dunes and express in power what is only hinted at by humble voices. I thought how everywhere we wait for some supreme one to gather up the hope of the nations and the anguish of the individual, and make a music that will send us forward to the Rhine.
But a better thing than that took place. One of their own came and shaped their suffering into song. And together, he and they, they made a song that is close to the great experience of war. A Belgian, one of the boy soldiers, came forward to sing to the bearded men. And the song that he sang was "La valse des obus"—"The Dance of the Shells."
"Dear friends, I'm going to sing you some rhymes on the war at the Yser."
The men to whom he was singing had been holding the Yser for ten months.
"I want you to know that life in the trenches, night by night, isn't gay."
Two thousand men, unshaved and tousled, with pain in their joints from those trench nights, were listening.
"As soon as you get there, you must set to work. It doesn't matter whether it's a black night or a full moon; without making a sound, close to the enemy, you must fill the sand-bags for the fortifications."
Every man on the hill had been doing just that thing for a year.
Then came his chorus:
"Every time we are in the trenches,Crack!There breaks the shell."
But his French has a verve that no literal translation will give. Let us take it as he sang it:
"Crack!Il tombe des obus," sang the slight young Belgian, leaning out toward the two thousand men of many colors, many nations; and soon the sky in the north was spotted with white clouds of shrapnel-smoke.
"There we are, all of us, crouching with bent back—Crack!Once more an obus. The shrapnel, which try to stop us at our job, drive us out; but the things that bore us still more—Crack!—are just those obus."
With each "Crack!Il tombe des obus," the big bass-drum boomed like the shell he sang of. His voice was as tense and metallic as a taut string, and he snapped out the lilting line in swift staccato as if he were flaying his audience with a whip. Man after man on the hillside took up the irresistible rhythm in an undertone, and "Cracked" with the singer. In front of me was being created a folk-song. The bitterness andglory of their life were being told to them, and they were hearing the singer gladly. Their leader was lifting the dreary trench night and death itself into a surmounting and joyous thing.
"When you've made your entrenchment, then you must go and guard it without preliminaries. All right; go ahead. But just as you're moving, you have to squat down for a day and a night—yes, for a full twenty-four hours—because things are hot. Somebody gives you half a drop of coffee. Thirst torments you. The powder-fumes choke you."
Here and there in the crowd, listening intently, men were stirring. The lad was speaking to the exact intimate detail of their experience. This was the life they knew. What would he make of it?
"Despite our sufferings, we cherish the hope some day of returning and finding our parents, our wives, and our little ones. Yes, that is my hope, my joyous hope. But to come to that day, so like a dream, we must be of good cheer. It is only by enduring patience, full of confidence, that we shall force back our oppressors. To chaseaway those cursed Prussians—Crack! We need the obus. My captain calling, 'Crack! More, still more of those obus!' Giving them the bayonet in the bowels, we shall chase them clean beyond the Rhine. And our victory will be won to the waltz of the obus."
It was a song out of the heart of an unconquerable boy. It climbed the hillock to the top. The response was the answer of men moved. His song told them why they fought on. There is a Belgium, not under an alien rule, which the shells have not shattered, and that dear kingdom is still uninvaded. The mother would rather lose her husband and her son than lose the France that made them. Their earthly presence is less precious than the spirit that passed into them out of France. That is why these weary men continue their fight. The issue will rest in something more than a matter of mathematics. It is the last stand of the human spirit.
What is this idea of country, so passionately held, that the women walk to the city gates with son and husband and send them out to die? It is the aspect of nature shared in by folk of oneblood, an arrangement of hill and pasture which grew dear from early years, sounds and echoes of sound that come from remembered places. It is the look of a land that is your land, the light that flickers in an English lane, the bells that used to ring in Bruges.
IChers amis, je vaisVous chanter des couplets,Sur la guerre,A l'Yser.Pour vous faire savoir,Que la vie, tous les soirs,Aux tranchées,N'est pas gaie.A peine arrivé,'l Faut aller travailler.Qu'il fasse noir' ou qu'il y ait clair de lune,Et sans fair' du bruit,Nous allons près de l'ennemi,Remplir des sacs pour fair' des abris.Iret IIeRefrainChaqu' fois que nous sommes aux tranchées,Crack! Il tombe des obus.Nous sommes tous là, le dos courbéeCrack! Encore un obus.Les shrapnels pour nous divetir,Au travail, nous font déguerpir.Mais, et qui nous ennuie le plus,Crack! se sont les obus.IIL'abri terminé,'l Faut aller l'occuper,Sans façons.Allez-donc.Pas moyen d' se bougerDonc, on doit y resterAccroupi,Jour et nuit,Pendant la chaleur,Pour passer vingt-quatr' heures.On nous donn' une d'mi gourde de café.La soif nous tourmente,Et la poudre asphyxiante,Nous étouffe au dessus du marché.IIIMalgré nos souffrances,Nous gardons l'espéranceD' voir le jour,De notr' retourDe r'trouver nos parents,Nos femmes et nos enfants.Plein de joie,Oui ma foi,Mais pour arriver,A ce jour tant rêvé,Nous devons tous y mettre du cœur,C'est avec patience,Et plein de confiance,Que nous repouss'rons les oppresseurs.RefrainPour chasser ces maudits All'mandsCrack! Il faut des obus.En plein dedans mon commandant,Crack! Encore des obus.Et la baionnett' dans les reins,Nous les chass'rons au delà du Rhin.La victoire des Alliés s'ra dûeA la valse des obus.
There is little value in telling of suffering unless something can be done about it. So I close this book with an appeal for help in a worthy work.
There was a young peasant farmer who went out with his fellows, and stopped the most powerful and perfectly equipped army of history. He saved France, and the cause of gentleness and liberty. He did it by the French blood in him—in gay courage and endurance. He was happy in doing it, or, if not happy, yet glorious. But he paid the price. The enemy artillery sent a splinter of shell that mangled his arm. He lay out through the long night on the rich infected soil. Then the stretcher bearers found him and lifted him to the car, and carried him to the field hospital. There they had to operate swiftly, for infection was spreading. So he was no longer a whole man, but he was still of good spirit, for he had done his bit for France. Then they bore him to a base hospital, where he had white sheets and a wholesome nurse. He lay there weak and content. Every one was good to him. But there came a day when they toldhim he must leave to make room for the fresher cases of need. So he was turned loose into a world that had no further use for him. A cripple, he couldn't fight and he couldn't work, for his job needed two arms, and he had given one, up yonder on the Marne. He drifted from shop to shop in Paris. But he didn't know a trade. Life was through with him, so one day, he shot himself.
That, we learn from authoritative sources, is the story of more than one broken soldier of Joffre's army.
To be shot clean dead is an easier fate than to be turned loose into life, a cripple, who must beg his way about. Shall these men who have defended France be left to rot? All they ask is to be allowed to work. It is gallant and stirring to fight, and when wounded the soldier is tenderly cared for. But when he comes out, broken, he faces the bitterest thing in war. After the hospital—what? Too bad, he's hurt—but there is no room in the trades for any but a trained man.
Why not train him? Why not teach him atrade? Build a bridge that will lead him from the hospital over into normal life. That is better than throwing him out among the derelicts. Pauperism is an ill reward for the service that shattered him, and it is poor business for a world that needs workers. If these crippled ones are not permitted to reconstruct their working life, the French nation will be dragged down by the multitude of maimed unemployable men, who are being turned loose from the hospitals—unfit to fight, untrained to work: a new and ever-increasing Army of The Miserable. The stout backbone and stanch spirit of even France will be snapped by this dead-weight of suffering.
In our field hospital at Fumes, we had one ward where a wave of gaiety swept the twenty beds each morning. It came when the leg of the bearded man was dressed by the nurse. He thrust it out from under the covering: a raw stump, off above the ankle. It was an old wound, gone sallow with the skin lapped over. The men in the cots close by shouted with laughter at the look of it, and the man himself laughed till he brought pain to the wound. Then hewould lay hold of the sides of the bed to control his merriment. The dressing proceeded, with brisk comment from the wardful of men, and swift answers from the patient under treatment. The grim wound had so obviously made an end of the activity of that particular member and, as is war's way, had done it so evilly, with such absence of beauty, that only the human spirit could cover that hurt. So he and his comrades had made it the object of gaiety.
For legless men, there are a dozen trades open, if they are trained. They can be made into tailors, typists, mechanicians. The soldiers' schools, already established, report success in shoemaking, for instance. The director sends us this word:—
"From the first we had foreseen for this the greatest success—the results have surpassed our hopes. We are obliged to double the size of the building, and increase the number of professors.
"Why?
"Because, more than any other profession, that of shoemaking is the most feasible in the country, in the village, in the small hamlet. This is the one desire of most of these wounded soldiers:before everything, they wish to be able to return to their homes. And all the more if a wife and children wait them there, in a little house with a patch of garden. Out of our fifty men now learning shoemaking, twenty-nine were once sturdy farm laborers. The profession is not fatiguing and, in spite of our fears, not one of our leg-amputated men has given up his apprenticeship on account of fatigue or physical inability."
Very many of the soldiers are maimed in hand or arm. On the broad beach of La Panne, in front of the Ocean Hospital of Dr. Depage, a young soldier talked with my wife one afternoon. Early in the war his right arm had been shot through the bicep muscle. He had been sent to London, where a specialist with infinite care linked the nerves together. Daily the wounded boy willed strength into the broken member, till at last he found he could move the little finger. It was his hope to bring action back to the entire hand, finger by finger.
"You can't do anything—you can't even write," they said to him. So he met that, by schooling his left hand to write.
"Your fighting days are over," they said. He went to a shooting gallery, and with his left arm learned how to hold a rifle and aim it. Through the four months of his convalescence he practised to be worthy of the front line. The military authorities could not put up an objection that he did not meet. So he won his way back to the Yser trenches. And there he had received his second hurt and this time the enemy wounded him thoroughly. And now he was sitting on the sands wondering what the future held for him.
Spirit like that does not deserve to be broken by despair. Apparatus has been devised to supply the missing section of the arm, and such a trade as toy-making offers a livelihood. It is carried on with a sense of fun even in the absence of all previous education. One-armed men are largely employed in it. Let us enter the training shop at Lyon, and watch the work. The wood is being shot out from the sawing-machine in thin strips and planed on both sides. This is being done by a man, who used to earn his living as a packer, and suffered an amputation of his right leg. The boards are assembled in thicknesses of twenty, and cut out by a "ribbon saw." This is the occupation of a former tile layer, with his left leg gone. Others employed in the process are one-armed men.
Of carpentry the report from the men is this: "This work seems to generate good humor and liveliness. For this profession two arms are almost necessary. It can be practised by a man whose leg has been amputated, preferably the right leg, for the resting point, in handling the plane, is on the left leg. However, we cannot forget that one-armed men have achieved wonderful results."
The profits of the work are divided in full among the pupils as soon as they have reached the period of production. Each section has its individual fund box. The older members divide among themselves two thirds of the gain. The more recently trained take the remainder. The new apprentices have nothing, because they make no finished product as yet. That was the rule of the shop. But certain sections petitioned that the profits should be equally divided among all, without distinction. They said that among the newcomers there were many as needy as the older apprentices.
The director says:
"This request came from too noble a sentiment not to be granted, especially as in this way we are certain that our pupils will see to the discipline of the workshops, being the first concerned that no one shall shirk."
He adds:
"I wish to cite an incident. One of the pupils of the group of shoemakers, having been obliged to remain over a month in the hospital, had his share fall to nothing. His comrades got together and raised among themselves a sum equal to their earnings, so that his enforced absence would not cause him to suffer any loss. These are features one is happy to note, because they reveal qualities of heart in our pupils, much to be appreciated in those who have suffered, and because they show that our efforts have contributed to keep around them an atmosphere where these qualities can develop."
The war has been ingenious in devising cruel hurts, robbing the painter of his hand, the musician of his arm, the horseman of his leg. It has taken the peasant from his farm, and the mason from his building. Their suffering has enriched them with the very quality that will make them useful citizens, if they can be set to work, if only some one will show them what to do. For each of these men there is an answer for his wrecked life, and the answer is found in these workshops where disabled soldiers can learn the new trade fitted to their crippled condition.
It costs only four to five francs a day to support the man during his period of education. The length of time of his tuition depends on the man and his trade—sometimes three months, sometimes six months. One hundred dollars will meet the average of all cases. The Americans in Paris raised $20,000 immediately on learning of this need. In our country we are starting the "American Committee for Training in Suitable Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France." Mrs. Edmund Lincoln Baylies is chairman for the United States. Her address is Room B, Plaza Hotel, New York.
We have been owing France through a hundred years for that little matter of first aid in our American Revolution. Here is an admirable chance to show we are still warmed by the love and succor she rendered us then.
At this moment 30,000 maimed soldiers are asking for work; 30,000 jobs are ready for them. The employers of France are holding the positions open, because they need these workers. Only the training is lacking. This society to train maimed soldiers is not in competition with any existing form of relief work: it supplements all the others—ambulances and hospitals and dressing stations. They are temporary, bridging the month of calamity. This gives back to the men the ten, twenty, thirty years of life still remaining. They must not remain the victims of their own heroism. They ask only to be permitted to go on with their work for France. They will serve in the shop and the factory as they have served at the Aisne and the Yser. This is a charity to do away with the need of charity. It is help that leads directly to self-help.
FOOTNOTES[A]When I first published these statements the following letter appeared in the "New York Tribune":—GERMANY'S SPY SYSTEMTo the Editor of "The Tribune."Sir: I was particularly interested in the article by Mr. Gleason in this morning's "Tribune" because, having spent several months in this region in ambulance work, I am able to support several of his statements from personal observation.The house he mentions on the beach near Coxyde Bains was beyond doubt intended for the purpose he describes. I visited it several times before it was completely destroyed, and have now in my possession photographs which show the nature of the building, besides a tile from the flooring.Two instances in which spies were detected came to my knowledge; in one case the person in question was the mayor of the town, in the other a peasant woman. One other time I know of information was given undetected which resulted in the shelling of a road at a time when a convoy of motors was about to pass.The high esteem in which the Red Cross flag is held by German gunners (as a target) is only too forcibly impressed upon one in that service.Malcolm T. Robertson.Mr. Robertson is a member of the Junior Class in Princeton University.[B]When this record was first made public the "New York Tribune" stated editorially:—"The writer of the foregoing communication was for several years a member of 'The Tribune' staff. For the utter trustworthiness of any statement made by Mr. Gleason, this newspaper is willing to vouch. Mr. Gleason was at the front caring for the Belgian wounded. He speaks with full knowledge and complete authority and 'The Tribune' is glad to be able to submit to its readers a first-hand, eye-witness account of atrocities written by an American. It calls attention again to the fact, cited by Mr. Gleason, that his testimony is included in the Bryce Report, which should give Americans new insight into the value of this document."When Theodore Roosevelt read this record of German atrocity, he made the following public statement:"Remember, there is not the slightest room for honest question either as to the dreadful, the unspeakably hideous, outrages committed on the Belgians, or as to the fact that these outrages were methodically committed by the express command of the German Government in order to terrorize both the Belgians and among neutrals those men who are as cold and timid and selfish as our governmental leaders have shown themselves to be. Let any man who doubts read the statement of an American eye-witness of these fearful atrocities, Mr. Arthur H. Gleason, in the 'New York Tribune' of November 25, 1915."From the Bryce Report, English edition, Page 167.British subject:—"The girl was at the point of death. Mr. G—— was with me and can corroborate me as to this and also as to the other facts mentioned below. On the same day at the same place I saw one L. de M——. I took this statement from him.... He signed his statement in my pocket book, and I hold my pocket book at the disposal of the Belgian and English authorities."I also saw at the hospital an old woman of eighty who was run clean through by a bayonet thrust."I next went up to another wounded Belgian in the same ward. His name was F. M——. I wrote his statement in my pocket book and he signed it after having read it."The full statement in the Bryce Report of the atrocities which I witnessed covers a page. The above sentences are extracts. Mr. Niemira had neglected to make a note of the exact date in his pocket book, and calls it "about the 15th of September." It was September 29.[C]If any one wants a history of them, and the world ought to want it, the book of their acts, is it not written in singing prose in Le Goffic's "Dixmude, un Chapitre de l'histoire des Fusiliers Marins"? Le Goffic is a Breton and his own son is with the fighting sailors. He deals with their autumn exploits in Dixmude on the Yser, that butt-end of wreck. Legends will spring out of them and the soil they have reddened. We have heard little of the French in this war—and almost nothing at all from them. And yet it is the French that have held the decisive battle line. Unprepared and peace-loving, they have stood the shock of a perfectly equipped and war-loving army.Monsieur Le Goffic is the official historian of the Fusiliers Marins. His book has gone through forty-nine editions. He is a poet, novelist and critic. That American sympathy is appreciated is proved by this sentence from a letter of Le Goffic to an American who had expressed admiration for the Breton sailors:—"Merci, Monsieur, au nom de mon pays, merci pour nos marins, et merci pour moi meme."
[A]When I first published these statements the following letter appeared in the "New York Tribune":—GERMANY'S SPY SYSTEMTo the Editor of "The Tribune."Sir: I was particularly interested in the article by Mr. Gleason in this morning's "Tribune" because, having spent several months in this region in ambulance work, I am able to support several of his statements from personal observation.The house he mentions on the beach near Coxyde Bains was beyond doubt intended for the purpose he describes. I visited it several times before it was completely destroyed, and have now in my possession photographs which show the nature of the building, besides a tile from the flooring.Two instances in which spies were detected came to my knowledge; in one case the person in question was the mayor of the town, in the other a peasant woman. One other time I know of information was given undetected which resulted in the shelling of a road at a time when a convoy of motors was about to pass.The high esteem in which the Red Cross flag is held by German gunners (as a target) is only too forcibly impressed upon one in that service.Malcolm T. Robertson.Mr. Robertson is a member of the Junior Class in Princeton University.
[A]When I first published these statements the following letter appeared in the "New York Tribune":—
GERMANY'S SPY SYSTEMTo the Editor of "The Tribune."Sir: I was particularly interested in the article by Mr. Gleason in this morning's "Tribune" because, having spent several months in this region in ambulance work, I am able to support several of his statements from personal observation.The house he mentions on the beach near Coxyde Bains was beyond doubt intended for the purpose he describes. I visited it several times before it was completely destroyed, and have now in my possession photographs which show the nature of the building, besides a tile from the flooring.Two instances in which spies were detected came to my knowledge; in one case the person in question was the mayor of the town, in the other a peasant woman. One other time I know of information was given undetected which resulted in the shelling of a road at a time when a convoy of motors was about to pass.The high esteem in which the Red Cross flag is held by German gunners (as a target) is only too forcibly impressed upon one in that service.Malcolm T. Robertson.
GERMANY'S SPY SYSTEM
To the Editor of "The Tribune."
Sir: I was particularly interested in the article by Mr. Gleason in this morning's "Tribune" because, having spent several months in this region in ambulance work, I am able to support several of his statements from personal observation.
The house he mentions on the beach near Coxyde Bains was beyond doubt intended for the purpose he describes. I visited it several times before it was completely destroyed, and have now in my possession photographs which show the nature of the building, besides a tile from the flooring.
Two instances in which spies were detected came to my knowledge; in one case the person in question was the mayor of the town, in the other a peasant woman. One other time I know of information was given undetected which resulted in the shelling of a road at a time when a convoy of motors was about to pass.
The high esteem in which the Red Cross flag is held by German gunners (as a target) is only too forcibly impressed upon one in that service.
Malcolm T. Robertson.
Mr. Robertson is a member of the Junior Class in Princeton University.
[B]When this record was first made public the "New York Tribune" stated editorially:—"The writer of the foregoing communication was for several years a member of 'The Tribune' staff. For the utter trustworthiness of any statement made by Mr. Gleason, this newspaper is willing to vouch. Mr. Gleason was at the front caring for the Belgian wounded. He speaks with full knowledge and complete authority and 'The Tribune' is glad to be able to submit to its readers a first-hand, eye-witness account of atrocities written by an American. It calls attention again to the fact, cited by Mr. Gleason, that his testimony is included in the Bryce Report, which should give Americans new insight into the value of this document."When Theodore Roosevelt read this record of German atrocity, he made the following public statement:"Remember, there is not the slightest room for honest question either as to the dreadful, the unspeakably hideous, outrages committed on the Belgians, or as to the fact that these outrages were methodically committed by the express command of the German Government in order to terrorize both the Belgians and among neutrals those men who are as cold and timid and selfish as our governmental leaders have shown themselves to be. Let any man who doubts read the statement of an American eye-witness of these fearful atrocities, Mr. Arthur H. Gleason, in the 'New York Tribune' of November 25, 1915."From the Bryce Report, English edition, Page 167.British subject:—"The girl was at the point of death. Mr. G—— was with me and can corroborate me as to this and also as to the other facts mentioned below. On the same day at the same place I saw one L. de M——. I took this statement from him.... He signed his statement in my pocket book, and I hold my pocket book at the disposal of the Belgian and English authorities."I also saw at the hospital an old woman of eighty who was run clean through by a bayonet thrust."I next went up to another wounded Belgian in the same ward. His name was F. M——. I wrote his statement in my pocket book and he signed it after having read it."The full statement in the Bryce Report of the atrocities which I witnessed covers a page. The above sentences are extracts. Mr. Niemira had neglected to make a note of the exact date in his pocket book, and calls it "about the 15th of September." It was September 29.
[B]When this record was first made public the "New York Tribune" stated editorially:—
"The writer of the foregoing communication was for several years a member of 'The Tribune' staff. For the utter trustworthiness of any statement made by Mr. Gleason, this newspaper is willing to vouch. Mr. Gleason was at the front caring for the Belgian wounded. He speaks with full knowledge and complete authority and 'The Tribune' is glad to be able to submit to its readers a first-hand, eye-witness account of atrocities written by an American. It calls attention again to the fact, cited by Mr. Gleason, that his testimony is included in the Bryce Report, which should give Americans new insight into the value of this document."
"The writer of the foregoing communication was for several years a member of 'The Tribune' staff. For the utter trustworthiness of any statement made by Mr. Gleason, this newspaper is willing to vouch. Mr. Gleason was at the front caring for the Belgian wounded. He speaks with full knowledge and complete authority and 'The Tribune' is glad to be able to submit to its readers a first-hand, eye-witness account of atrocities written by an American. It calls attention again to the fact, cited by Mr. Gleason, that his testimony is included in the Bryce Report, which should give Americans new insight into the value of this document."
When Theodore Roosevelt read this record of German atrocity, he made the following public statement:
"Remember, there is not the slightest room for honest question either as to the dreadful, the unspeakably hideous, outrages committed on the Belgians, or as to the fact that these outrages were methodically committed by the express command of the German Government in order to terrorize both the Belgians and among neutrals those men who are as cold and timid and selfish as our governmental leaders have shown themselves to be. Let any man who doubts read the statement of an American eye-witness of these fearful atrocities, Mr. Arthur H. Gleason, in the 'New York Tribune' of November 25, 1915."
"Remember, there is not the slightest room for honest question either as to the dreadful, the unspeakably hideous, outrages committed on the Belgians, or as to the fact that these outrages were methodically committed by the express command of the German Government in order to terrorize both the Belgians and among neutrals those men who are as cold and timid and selfish as our governmental leaders have shown themselves to be. Let any man who doubts read the statement of an American eye-witness of these fearful atrocities, Mr. Arthur H. Gleason, in the 'New York Tribune' of November 25, 1915."
From the Bryce Report, English edition, Page 167.
British subject:—"The girl was at the point of death. Mr. G—— was with me and can corroborate me as to this and also as to the other facts mentioned below. On the same day at the same place I saw one L. de M——. I took this statement from him.... He signed his statement in my pocket book, and I hold my pocket book at the disposal of the Belgian and English authorities."I also saw at the hospital an old woman of eighty who was run clean through by a bayonet thrust."I next went up to another wounded Belgian in the same ward. His name was F. M——. I wrote his statement in my pocket book and he signed it after having read it."
British subject:—
"The girl was at the point of death. Mr. G—— was with me and can corroborate me as to this and also as to the other facts mentioned below. On the same day at the same place I saw one L. de M——. I took this statement from him.... He signed his statement in my pocket book, and I hold my pocket book at the disposal of the Belgian and English authorities.
"I also saw at the hospital an old woman of eighty who was run clean through by a bayonet thrust.
"I next went up to another wounded Belgian in the same ward. His name was F. M——. I wrote his statement in my pocket book and he signed it after having read it."
The full statement in the Bryce Report of the atrocities which I witnessed covers a page. The above sentences are extracts. Mr. Niemira had neglected to make a note of the exact date in his pocket book, and calls it "about the 15th of September." It was September 29.
[C]If any one wants a history of them, and the world ought to want it, the book of their acts, is it not written in singing prose in Le Goffic's "Dixmude, un Chapitre de l'histoire des Fusiliers Marins"? Le Goffic is a Breton and his own son is with the fighting sailors. He deals with their autumn exploits in Dixmude on the Yser, that butt-end of wreck. Legends will spring out of them and the soil they have reddened. We have heard little of the French in this war—and almost nothing at all from them. And yet it is the French that have held the decisive battle line. Unprepared and peace-loving, they have stood the shock of a perfectly equipped and war-loving army.Monsieur Le Goffic is the official historian of the Fusiliers Marins. His book has gone through forty-nine editions. He is a poet, novelist and critic. That American sympathy is appreciated is proved by this sentence from a letter of Le Goffic to an American who had expressed admiration for the Breton sailors:—"Merci, Monsieur, au nom de mon pays, merci pour nos marins, et merci pour moi meme."
[C]If any one wants a history of them, and the world ought to want it, the book of their acts, is it not written in singing prose in Le Goffic's "Dixmude, un Chapitre de l'histoire des Fusiliers Marins"? Le Goffic is a Breton and his own son is with the fighting sailors. He deals with their autumn exploits in Dixmude on the Yser, that butt-end of wreck. Legends will spring out of them and the soil they have reddened. We have heard little of the French in this war—and almost nothing at all from them. And yet it is the French that have held the decisive battle line. Unprepared and peace-loving, they have stood the shock of a perfectly equipped and war-loving army.
Monsieur Le Goffic is the official historian of the Fusiliers Marins. His book has gone through forty-nine editions. He is a poet, novelist and critic. That American sympathy is appreciated is proved by this sentence from a letter of Le Goffic to an American who had expressed admiration for the Breton sailors:—"Merci, Monsieur, au nom de mon pays, merci pour nos marins, et merci pour moi meme."