THE BURNING OF A FRENCH FIELD HOSPITAL
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.THE BURNING OF A FRENCH FIELD HOSPITAL.The hospital was hit by an incendiary shell. So sudden was the blaze that only a few of the Red Cross ambulances could be saved. The hospital and surrounding buildings were razed to the ground.
Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
THE BURNING OF A FRENCH FIELD HOSPITAL.
The hospital was hit by an incendiary shell. So sudden was the blaze that only a few of the Red Cross ambulances could be saved. The hospital and surrounding buildings were razed to the ground.
If we see a wolf we meet him with force. If we deal with a kind man we meet him with kindness. If we meet a reasonable and intelligent being we answer him with reason and intelligent argument, and if we find vicious, violent men, whether burglars, I. W. W.'s, or Germans, we meet them with police, with militia, and with force. In a world of fact this is the only way we have of meeting such. We cannot confront a real and stern and urgent situation with a hazy theory, beautiful as it may be. In the meantime, if we do, we will have no country. We will have a Germanized world, and from our recent experience of Germanism we are convinced that this would be defiantly opposed to the will of God.
Being an American citizen it was natural that the ideals of our constitution should be rooted in my nature, and now I could not but bring them intocontrast with the ideals of Germanism as demonstrated in this war. I believed these American principles to be Christian principles and the very backbone of them to be at cross purposes with the German goal. Our forefathers ordained and established that constitution in order to establish justice which the German had tried to break down while he established injustice. Our forefathers desired to promote the general welfare and insure the blessings of liberty to themselves and to posterity, while the German machine had existed and had begun this war for the purpose of enslaving people and exploiting them, thus depriving them of liberty.
Now one or the other of these viewpoints was right. If America was right, Germany was wrong. Every clod and stone of Belgium declared the guilt of Germany. And I now declare that Germany is wrong! And therefore when she menaces the world in a military sense she must be put down by military means. When one reasons the matter out from the facts he cannot get away from this logic. Germany must be put down by military means!
Now, of course, I did not say this to the Germans who were constantly on guard in the townsand cities. I had no military forces at my command. They had the guns. Nevertheless, I was now morally on the side of the Allied nations who were fighting to defend justice, right, and truth. I firmly believe that this eye-opening experience in Belgium under the very noses of the Germans and within their very power was the thing which brought me to a right perspective of life and to be able to clearly see things in their relative and proper values.
My viewpoint changed, and I am sure that I can never be the same man again. Nobody can be the same who has been in this war.
In Paris I had met and talked with Arno Dosch Fleuro, an American reporter who had been with Richard Harding Davis at Louvain while it was burning. He had told me that when he was there the party was locked in a railroad car but that they could see the blazing buildings from the car window and hear and see the ungodly things which were taking place in the station square. The German soldiers were heavily intoxicated and were bringing lots of Belgians from all quarters of the city and executing them.
One group of soldiers would come in from the street, driving perhaps a dozen or twenty Belgians ahead of them. They would bring them into the station square, hand them over to another detachment which would take them out behind the station, and a volley of bullets would be heard. Then another crowd would be brought in. They too would be taken out behind the depot and then another volley of bullets.
One hilarious German jumped up onto a wagon and began haranguing and explaining why it was necessary for these people to be killed.
"The whole Louvain affair, the wanton burning and the murder, was nothing more than a drunken orgy." This was Arno's statement. The officers acquiesced in the affair, but later on when learning of the effect on neutral countries, the Kaiser said, "My heart bleeds for Louvain." Arno also said that he was the only one of the party in the car who could speak German and he had kept one soldier who was not so drunk as the rest, engaged in conversation at the car window, and this had protected them from the more intoxicated ones.
I knew that Arno himself was a German and I asked him if he had seen Richard Harding Davis' book on the subject. He said, "No, Davis got back long before I did, but I have heard that he wrote a book about it. What did he say? Did he say he was out in the town of Louvain? If he did, he is faking it up, because we were all locked in the car."
I said I could not remember just what Davis had said. When I returned to my room in Paris, however, I looked up Davis' story again and foundit had agreed exactly with Arno's account. He admitted that they had not been out of the train, so I knew the narrative was true.
Later on when I went to Louvain myself, I found that instead of exaggerating the case these men had very much understated it. I am not going to overstate it, but I will not cover up the facts in my recital of the events. I was in Louvain twice, but the first time I only saw it hurriedly and superficially on my way to Liège. The second time I stayed a night and a day. Before the war began the city had a population of forty-five thousand. It had perhaps ten thousand then. It was not all destroyed and the statement that the Hôtel de Ville was burned is incorrect. That beautiful city hall was saved by the Germans for their own use. Outside of this one building, however, every public building in Louvain is in ruins today. For several square miles in the heart of the city there is not a structure left. The cathedral is burned, although the walls still stand. The university library is gone, and in fact, aside from a fringe of houses, mostly tenements, around the edge of the city the most of the edifices are razed to the ground. And a man with whom I talked told me that fifteen of his fellow-townsmen there weretaken by the German soldiers and thrown alive into a vat of quicklime in a factory and were left to die in the agonies of hell. He pointed out the place and told the story, crying as he did so. I believed him.
In the course of my travels I happened to run across two Belgians, one of whom had a brother at Andenne. Upon learning that I was an American he became very friendly and confidential and requested that I call upon his brother, giving me a card to him and assuring me that I would find a cordial reception. He said Andenne presented one of the saddest spectacles of the entire district and his brother had passed through the whole ordeal. At the time he told me this I was on my way from Liége to Namur. It was necessary to take a horse conveyance a part of the distance, between Flémalle and Huy, and I had this conversation with him in the hack. I was very glad to act upon his suggestion and instead of going into Namur that evening I got off at Andenne. It was not difficult to find the man's brother and when I gave him the card and told him I was an American he certainly did treat me royally. That evening we talked far into thenight. He showed me the destruction which the Germans had wrought in his own home and told me of the things they had stolen from him. Incidentally, the desk in his front room had been locked when the Germans broke into the house, but they had overturned it, smashed the drawers in from the bottom and thoroughly looted it.
The next morning he took me for a walk through the town. As we went through the streets I noticed that every house in the place had been riddled with bullet holes. There were hundreds of holes right through the solid brick. The German machine gunners had simply gone through the place and raked every house so that if there was a single person in it, even asleep in his bed, those bullets would seek him out and send him to meet his God. Besides this, every house had the front doors and windows smashed in and now temporary boardings were nailed up in the place of them. By and by in the progress of our walk we came to the edge of the town.
There, along the side of the road, he showed me two tremendous graves side by side. I am sure they were not less than fifteen by twenty-five feet in dimension and piled up a couple of feet high with quicklime.
"There are sixty of my fellow-townsmen buried in each one of those graves," said my escort. "Piled in there three deep. These men were shot down by the German soldiers when they entered the town for no other offense than that of being Belgian citizens."
The thing seemed incredible. "Are you certain about this?" I asked him. "Were you personally acquainted with these innocent people who were murdered?"
"I have lived here all my life," he replied, "and I am thirty-five years old. This was a place of four thousand people before the war and naturally I must have known almost everybody in the town."
I then said to him, "Would you be willing to give me a list of the names of some of the people whom you know to have been innocently murdered?" He said he would be very glad to do so, and when we got back to his house he took a piece of paper and in a very few minutes' time wrote out a list of fifteen or twenty names, bracketing those which belonged to the same family. In some instances whole families of three to five people were annihilated by the Germans.
That little piece of paper later on came very nearly getting me executed. But it served to showthe deliberate policy of terrorism and frightfulness which the Huns pursued. The man pointed out house after house, naming the owner and his occupation where these murders had been committed.
Later on I went to Aerschot. I had read in the Bryce report of Aerschot. When I entered the town on the electric tram car I saw the old familiar sight. It was the spectacle of gable ends of houses and stores sticking up toward heaven, the roofs having fallen in, all burned out inside and gaping at me from the smoke-blackened window holes where formerly the faces of the little children smiled. The whole town was in ruins. I entered a little shack where a woman was keeping store. We had a short conversation about the tragic experiences there and finally when I started to leave she became excited and frantic. I saw anger and tears coming into her eyes and she shot forth her hand and almost screamed, "Yes, and my own husband was shot down by my side also, as we were hiding in the cellar! We saw the German soldiers coming and we rushed below for refuge. They broke into our house, stole what they wanted, and then hunted us out in the cellar and shot my husband by my side. They then seized my ownfather, sixty-eight years of age, handcuffed him and dragged him out to the public square where with numbers of others of our townsmen he was shot down in cold blood and left lying unburied on the open square for two nights and two days. They wouldn't even let me bury him."
And so it was that this kind of experience was repeated over and over again as I journeyed through desolated Belgium. The Germans put a deliberate policy of murder and of vandalism into awful execution.
They laid low the country on every hand. The traveler sees a remarkable country and a wonderful civilization, but one which has been annihilated by the unappreciative Hun, a brother to the beast. I have seen marvelously beautiful cathedrals, adorned by the conceptions of the greatest masters, built in honor of the one great Master who said, "All ye are brethren," shot to pieces by cannon, riddled by machine guns, burned up by flaming projectiles, thrown with terribly deliberate and accurate aim; cathedrals where the Christ had once been worshiped, and where the holy instincts of gentleness and love were inculcated. Now the figures of the Christ have sword thrusts in their sides and the hands and feet and face are piercedwith bullets from the machine guns. I have seen widows wearing crape, with babies in their arms who cried for food and have been told by them as their eyes flamed up, how their loved ones were shot down by their sides or taken out and bayoneted in their sight; loved ones who had no part in the battle.
When the people learned that the German Army had entered the town they frequently took refuge in the cellar, but the relentless soldiers sought them out. They broke in the doors and windows of the houses, stole the goods which they could carry, shot the men and then set fire to the home, and in not a few cases they shot and bayoneted the women and the babies. Priests also were made a special object of attack and the repeated narratives of particular cruelty toward them could not but carry conviction. A priest of Louvain who had escaped to Holland, later told me of forty of his fellow-priests being trapped in their headquarters and every one shot down.
At the little town of B—— the soldiers demanded the keys to the church from the Belgian priest, in order that they could go in and burn it. When the priest refused they dragged him out of the house, over to the steps of the church, wherethey cut off his ears and nose and left him there alone, where Death shortly found him. These facts are corroborated by witnesses, who take solemn oath to the truth of them; and to anyone who has been in Belgium during the present war, no tale of savagery would sound too wild for belief. The Huns have forgotten that they ever were human beings and have reverted to the wolf, and so they swarmed through Belgium and through northern France, this scourge of God, two million strong, blasting and withering everything they touched.
As I traveled through the country I saw houses by the scores and hundreds upon which machine guns had been turned, while occupied by unarmed and innocent people, and the tragedy was fearful. These things I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. The high power of these modern shooting devices is almost beyond conception. At L—— I saw two rapid-fire guns as I got off the train at the station, little gray, innocent looking things, a sort of rifle barrel mounted on a tripod, with a shield for the operator to stand behind, yet those guns could shoot seven hundred times a minute and when equipped with an electric motor they shoot four times thatnumber, and they shoot to kill. Often with a range of two to three miles, they will deal sure death at a distance of a mile and a half. They are constantly trained on the city. Then their big guns astound the reason!
The Springfield rifle has a range of five miles and the bullet on leaving the gun goes at a velocity of half a mile a second, or enough momentum to drive it through four and one-half feet of white pine. The siege guns which the Germans dragged up before the forts of Liége could drive a tremendous hole a foot and a half in diameter through twelve feet of solid concrete or four feet of solid steel.
Yet, notwithstanding this, having all the hellish machinery of war that the mind is capable of devising, they want still more and are ready to pay handsome sums to clever inventors who will turn out new and unheard of instruments of torture and death. They build boats which submerge themselves beneath the ocean, and from this position of vantage hurl deadly missiles and send to the bottom giant ships carrying thousands of innocent human lives; they experiment until they find deadly gases which can be projected at the enemy, causing indescribable agony as they are breathedinto the lungs, while the unhappy victim writhes in pain and shortly dies; that they may be more terrible than Attila, the Hun, in their policy of frightfulness, in order to subjugate the world, yet they have failed, in that they have neglected to take into view the eternal laws of God. They have forgotten that the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. Eternal laws cannot be frustrated, and Germany has failed! Again I say, Germany has failed! History teaches him who is able to learn, that the Creator never meant one régime to rule the world. The Hun has failed. The Kaiser does not govern the Almighty nor run this universe. Man is dust and God alone is great.
While I was in Brussels I stayed all the time at the same hotel, that of Madame Baily-Moremans, No. 26, Rue de Vieux Marché au Grains, down near the Bourse. Her maiden name had been Moremans but over there when a woman is married her name often comes last instead of the man's. Here it would be Madame Moremans-Baily.
White sitting in the café one day, she introduced me to a wounded French soldier from Paris who was a prisoner of war. He had had one leg shot off but was about on his wooden leg and was staying at King Albert's palace, which had been converted into a Red Cross hospital. He was allowed by the Germans one free afternoon a week, to go down town for two hours, and I met him on one of these occasions. He told me many strange tales of frightfulness and gave me his card, asking me to come and visit him at the palace. You cannot go there except you have thename of someone whom you wish to see, and then you may visit only on Sunday afternoon between two and three o'clock. German sentinels are constantly on guard outside of the palace. When I went to see him he presented me with a photograph of himself, and having told him confidentially that I was going back to France, he gave me his mother's address in Paris. I afterward found her and told her about her son.
While I was talking with him I noticed that he was continually rubbing his arm, and I finally asked him what was the matter. He then told me of his own almost incredible experience. He said he was lying on the ground at the battle of the Marne, with his leg blown off by shrapnel; while helpless there in this condition a German sergeant came up and attempted to go through his pockets and rob him of some money which he had upon his person. He objected, naturally, and I suppose protested violently, as any human would. Whereupon the German drew his saber and gashed him across his right arm and then drew his pistol and shot him through his left shoulder.
As the man finished telling me he looked about to see if any women were near, and not seeing any, pulled off his coat, rolled his sleeve way up,and showed me one of the most ugly gashes that I have ever seen. His arm was half cut off, and I shall never forget to my dying day the look of revenge that was on his face. Nevertheless Jean was a good fellow and talked and laughed in spite of his mutilated condition.
The daughter of the landlady of the hotel had accompanied me to the palace, and as we were leaving the place we were both looking with bulging eyes about those great salons and taking in the marvelous chandeliers and gorgeous mosaics. Presently she said in a childish way, "I don't think—I—should like to be a queen—it's all too large and grand for me. I would rather live in my own humble little home, down town."
I have never forgotten that remark of the little Belgian girl. For as I reflected on it I thought of Belgium's queen, and where she now is—an outcast, an exile, having no country and no home, while the little girl did have one, such as it was. It was a home nevertheless.
The words of the poet came back to me,
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;A breath can make them, as a breath has made:But a bold peasantry, the country's pride,When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;A breath can make them, as a breath has made:But a bold peasantry, the country's pride,When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;A breath can make them, as a breath has made:But a bold peasantry, the country's pride,When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made:
But a bold peasantry, the country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Two thousand years ago an invading monarch, Julius Caesar, in hisCommentariessaid that the Belgians were the best fighting men that he had met; and the reason was that they inhabited the best country he had visited.
Part of the ground is mountainous and in some places it rises sheer in the air for a thousand feet in solid rock and makes a formidable position for a stronghold or fortress.
In other places it rolls away from the eye for miles in beautiful valleys and fertile plains. The view reminds one of a great ocean on a calm and peaceful day. A fertile country, made doubly so by the ingenuity and industry of its inhabitants. The people of this remarkable land have constructed reservoirs and dug canals, erecting dykes and curious windmills, so that like Holland, her nearest neighbor, Belgium has irrigated her fields and made her water supply regular, and therefore her crops are certain.
The traveler as he passes through on foot or on the meandering tramways is pleasantly surprised to see the abundance of the verdure and heaviness of the grain in the fields and is often amused to see the little carts go by loaded high with produce, drawn to market by the stout family dog, or, as is more often the case, two. These faithful friends display amazing strength and willingness and when hitched up will pull almost like a horse. Dairying is an important product in Belgium, and great cans of milk are loaded on these carts and the thirsty one can buy a pint for a penny or two and drink it as he stands upon the street by the cart, while the family dog is lying down under it.
The spectacle of the peasant folk thus hauling about their wares is very picturesque. A man or woman following a dog-cart and often times lending a hand to help push the load, is a very ordinary scene in the streets of that little country of one hundred miles square, but its prosperity and beauty present a peculiar fascination to anyone who has seen it. The German Emperor had seen it, and that was why he had attacked it.
Covetousness, that strange quality, appears to be a part of the make-up of the human mind. The devil apparently injected this fatal poison into theveins of man. Most people hold it partially under control, but some give free reign to it and allow it to become the ruling power in their lives. The Kaiser, reared in an artificial atmosphere, has not been able to resist this temptation, and so in his life it has been given unbounded sway; and, what is worse, through many patient years he has inoculated other men with the virus and under its influence built up a great machine for military conquest.
He has always dreamed of world empire. He once said, "I have been raised upon the lives of Alexander, Theodoric, Caesar, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. These men all dreamed of world empire. They failed. I have dreamed of world empire, and by the might of the mailed fist I shall not fail." He and the clique of men whom he has gathered about him possess a marvelous amount of persistence and thoroughness, feeling also a superiority over other peoples, and they have depended upon might to bring them victory.
Some delusion inherited from his ancestors and cultivated by his intimate friends caused the Kaiser, even when a very young man, to believe that he had a God-given right to possess anythingthat he could acquire, either by fair means or foul, and he has never taken any pains to control or diminish the conviction. As a matter of fact, on the contrary, he studiously cultivated and nursed it until it came to be the absorbing ambition of his life. When he came to the throne thirty years ago he announced himself as "Earth's supreme war lord." And because his empire continued to grow and develop rapidly, he seemed to take it that the forces of the universe were backing him up and that the Creator was with him and had given him special dispensation to manage the universe.
In the beginning, doubtless, his conceptions had been more vague and abstract, but as time went on they became definite and concrete. He had seen the happy and prosperous lands of Belgium and France to the west, and he had wanted them. This settled the matter. It might shock the world and cost a terrific price, but that was incidental. Let others "pay the piper," he would reap the gain. His philosophy of "Might makes Right" cleverly disseminated through the empire, has caused many of his people to believe in it.
When one examines for a moment this conception which these German people have been taught,it makes their attitude more understandable, although no more excusable. For a generation or more they have been taught the "blood and iron philosophy." The crime is to be laid at the door of the leaders and the thinkers, and the great men of the nation. These have been false teachers, and "when the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch." They have inculcated a system of thinking, into the minds of large numbers of people, which leads them to believe that they are especially designed to dominate the world. Any means which they may employ to attain, establish, and maintain their supremacy are justifiable.
Even the professors in the schools and the theologians, as well, will unblushingly defend this position and justify German crime. As a result of this doctrine—see Belgium and northern France! Belgium, a murdered country, a ravished people, justice outraged, homes violated, churches desecrated, altars battered down, black hell turned loose, and all "justified" by the German contention. Ninety-three of the leading professors in the university, men to whom the world looked for light, but unfortunately men whose salaries might be cut off by the Kaiser at an hour's notice, defended this outrage, saying that Belgium was notwronged. It is safe to assume that the Kaiser requested the statement.
Barbarian savages centuries ago defended the same identical argument that might is the right of the stronger. The nation's leaders, such as Bismarck and Bernhardi, Treitschke, Nietzsche, and the Kaiser himself have advocated this doctrine. Emperor William once told his troops to make themselves as terrible as Attila, the Hun. They have not forgotten this, for in Belgium they executed his command in a grimly literal sense.
When I returned to Brussels I applied at the German office for a pass to Holland. I was told to come back "Next Tuesday," which was five days hence! Meanwhile the Germans kept my American passport. I was angry again. But I decided it was no use to worry Mr. Whitlock, as he could have no influence with these German officials anyway. His heart was willing but his power was weak with them. He had frankly said so. But I was not going to lose those intervening days, so I went without my passport to Mons again and also to Waterloo. At the latter place I climbed that immense artificial mountain two hundred and twenty-six steps up the side of it, cone-shaped as it is, and stood beneath that great British lion of bronze, a monument against the mania for world empire which Napoleon had a hundred years ago. There were three German soldiers up there so I did not tarry long. I was afraid they would ask me to show my papers. Iwas not supposed to move without them and was expected to stay in Brussels. However, I had not attempted to go on the trains, as German officers guard every depot and make anyone approaching the station show their papers. Lacking mine I would have been thrown into jail. So I had taken the tram, which is still run by the Belgian people, and fortunately I was not challenged. Soon after I left Waterloo I read that the Germans had torn down that great British lion, that historic monument a century old, and made it into bullets to shoot back at the British who put it there. It was a strange irony.
Back in Brussels I again applied for my passports at the end of the five days. Instead of getting them I got arrested!
During the searching of my person which followed, and which was conducted with characteristic German thoroughness by Viellaur and his assistant, a bullet-headed fellow whose name I do not know, a peculiar incident occurred. I had a certain amount of material such as personal cards, souvenirs, etc., as any man is apt to have with him, although I had determined not to have anything about me which might in any way offend the Germans or give the slightest ground forsuspicion that I was collecting information, possibly for the enemy. I did unconsciously accumulate a few innocent cards which people handed to me in this place and in that. I do not care who he is, any man who will turn his pockets inside out will find little things like that which perhaps he did not know he had or had forgotten all about.
Also I had a book of cigarette papers which I had brought all the way from France. Being a preacher, of course I had no use for them! But an enthusiastic poilu had wanted me to have some souvenir to remember him by and not having anything else had presented me with this. Now the papers were not the kind which are stuck individually with mucilage by one edge into the cover and which I believe are called Riz-la-Croix, but the brand called Zig-Zag, which are creased in the middle and folded into each other, so that when you pull out one, it pulls the edge of the next one into view, and so on. Now, when it is open, if you press the two ends of the cover of this little book together a small aperture is disclosed in the back of the book, a kind of pocket, a thing which I suppose not one man out of a thousand who uses them constantly ever discovered. There is no reason why he should. But I had discovered this aperture and Isuppose for convenience sake and possibly also for secrecy had stuck the check for my uniform in that aperture behind the cigarette papers when I received it at the Great Northern Railway station in London. The check was a good sized piece of paper on which the parcel man had written a description of my package, "1 Khaki Uniform," and which I had folded up and stuck in there and promptly forgotten. When Viellaur, taking me by surprise, suddenly began searching me, among other things he took this book of cigarette papers out of my pocket. He also found that list of murdered men from Andenne. From top to toe he had rifled me, and all my possessions were lying on his desk. Then, for some reason, he went around to the other side of the desk, and his assistant, with the bullet-head, began carefully examining all the articles. Certain things were plainly innocent and uninteresting. These he laid in one pile. For instance, there was a key, a plain picture post card, a paper napkin from Liége, etc. Certain other things looked interesting to him and he laid these on another pile. On the interesting pile he laid all cards which besides bearing the printed names of the original owners had other names and addresses written on them in handwriting, in ink,or pencil. On the uninteresting pile he put all the other things.
Imagine my astonishment when Mr. Bullet-head began pulling out one cigarette paper after another from that book and finally squeezed the covers and saw the paper check for my uniform back in the little pocket-like aperture! He took it out deliberately, unfolded it and looked it over, and evidently not being able to make any sense out of it calmly laid it on the uninteresting pile! I heaved a sigh of relief for my heart had been in my mouth. If he had been anything but a German he would have immediately drawn the conclusion, fatal for me, that when I had a check for my uniform and baggage in London, I must have used them in the Allies' service, and I certainly intended to go back and get them. But going back to the enemy was just what they did not want. It was lucky that Viellaur, who knew English perfectly, did not see that check. You may be sure that the first chance I got I put the uninteresting pile back in my pocket so that he would not see it and it would not damn me. But the thrilling part was to come. Not feeling satisfied with the search, Mr. Bullet-head decided to go through me once again and made no bones or hesitation about promptlyputting his decision into execution. Alas! He drew from the lining of my coat some maps of Belgium, where it looked as though I had deliberately put them in an attempt to hide them. "Cursed be the Fates anyway," I exclaimed to myself. My coat lining was torn just at the top of my inside pocket and when I had innocently put the maps in my pocket I had unwittingly put them inside the lining instead. It was fearfully damaging evidence! Though done unconsciously it did look mighty suspicious and when he began examining the map and saw the towns which I had marked and particularly the ones which I had considered important places, he concluded I was a spy.
These towns, as a matter of fact, which had the circles of stars around them had been so marked by the manufacturer to indicate that they were fortified towns, but I did not know it. The evidence pointed to the conclusion that I had planned my visits to the fortifications to gather military information and with no good intent towards Germany. They were now sure I was a spy and, by George! before they were through with me I just about began to wonder if I wasn't one myself. I must confess at this distance of security and of time it did look most mightily suspicious.It certainly did, and I was in for the "third degree."
After the German officers had searched me, and examined the papers, they threw me into a big gray military automobile, handcuffing me to the machine, and hurried me down to my hotel. They searched my room and grip, and then brought me back and threw me into a guard room. Five soldiers with saw-edged bayonets were set to watch me. I did whatever they told me without arguing. Upon being searched the several cards with names and addresses which Belgians from here and there had given me in the hope that I might find and cheer some dear one with news of their safety, were found upon my person. I was, therefore, charged with being a spy and with having gone to all these towns for the purpose of getting military information for the enemy. The fact that they themselves had given me the pass made no difference. Having so many spies in every country themselves made the Germans suspicious of everyone else. I was left in that guard room and told that I would have to stay until after lunch. The man must have eaten a heavy meal instead of a lunch, for he did not come back for me until five o'clock in the afternoon. I was given no lunch. Then theofficer came for me, and I was questioned until way into the night.
Next day I was put through the "third degree." I will not attempt to describe the grilling which I got, but take my word it was a fearful ordeal.
When it was apparent to the Germans that they were able to get no satisfaction from me and could not intimidate me into admitting that I was paid by the British Government, they tried more effective measures.
I am frank to admit that during the whole of the proceeding I was frightened. I will go even further than that and confess I was scared nearly to death.
Physically I was intimidated and terrorized and at times I could realize and even see that my knees were shaking, and trembling from fright. Yet strange as it may sound, mentally I was calm and cool and kept my wits about me perfectly. And, my friends, you can say what you please about the delusions that men have of God's presence, and about the "Onlooking Father" being merely a dream-fancy of the imagination, but you can't talk to me with any effect and replace your fatalism for my faith! I'm not theorizing now, for Iknow!I know that an unseen Friend held my life in those awful moments and overruled the designs of those inhuman officials. I admit that I was scared—scared stiff—and yet, at the same time, never did I become confused mentally; not once did I make a single conflicting statement, nor in any way give those inquisitors any ground whatever for confirming their suspicions. If I had made a single break, or even become excited, or protested innocence, or appealed to the American diplomats, or anything of the kind, the effect would have been very bad for me. I simply let those hell-hounds go to it and do their worst, and as God is in heaven I believe to this day that my cool bearing and mental composure had a tremendous influence with them. To speak United States, "it got their goat." If you quail before a German, or show fear, he's got you.
And when as a last resort they threatened me with the most awful punishment that is conceivable, I still stood firm. They said I would tell what I knew or they would know the reason why.
A big, burly brute then took me out into a big court-yard and showed me a fence which had a cross painted on it. As we stepped out the back door, four soldiers were lined up out there with their rifles and gleaming bayonets. Another manhad a hatchet in his hand and a pan of short spikes.
The detective who brought me out then told me in a confidential tone that if I did not make a clean sweep of the whole affair and tell them my mission and my activities in that country they were going to crucify me at once. I believe I flushed red, but not from fright. Anger such as I never want to return to my poor soul seized hold of me as I shouted into his teeth, "You can crucify me, sir, but you can only make yourself a criminal, not me; God help you!"
There was a moment's silence. Then, "Bring him in," the man said quietly to the soldiers, and I was taken into the room where I had been before. I now felt a little more confidence, for I felt that I had cowed them down and thereafter they did not seem to be quite so cold and arrogant. But I was put into the hands of a different man. They have such a wonderful system of dodging responsibility and of passing you over to other people. I do not believe that cowardly cur dared to deal with me any longer and I never saw him again. I was now given over to Laubenthal, a very tall, business-like fellow, who seemed to have great authority. He asked me many more questions,writing down the answers and seeming to put in his own ideas, and then he told me to sign the paper, which was several pages long. He said it was simply my own story, and like a fool, I wrote my name to it, before I really knew what it was I was signing.
Later, when I thought what it might be, I trembled. It might have been my death warrant!
Over an hour passed, not much was said for a time. I was in the same room where Edith Cavell was sentenced and out of which she was taken through the back door, lined up against a blank wall and shot. Presently, at an ominous moment, Laubenthal stepped over to the wall and took down a white cloth. Holding it dangling conspicuously by the corner he started over toward my chair. My spine went ice. I thought he was going to tie it about my eyes and I was going to be taken out the back door and stood up against the blank wall. All my former sins came back. I faced eternity. It was an awful moment, but quickly passing from the sublime to the ridiculous, do you know I never realized before what a difference there is in the way a man can carry a rag! If he had taken it by the middle, as any decent, sane man would do, I might have thought he was going to do what Ibelieve he eventually did, wash his hands and use it as a towel. Holding it by that corner, however, looked too suspicious for me. It was an innocent rag, but he carried it in a funny way, and without joking, I will say that I have had a wholesome respect for a rag ever since. I now believe he was purposely trying to scare me. Well, if he was, he certainly succeeded. Von Bissing then came in and gave me a ten minute curtain lecture which was anything but pleasant. After a time, however, evidently deciding that there was no case against me, Laubenthal went to the telephone and had a conversation in German. I heard him mention my name, but I did not know whether it meant release or execution, and there is quite a difference. Soon he called over to me and asked me if I was ready to leave that day. Like a flash I said, "Yes, sir; yes, sir." I had been ready for several days. He gave me a permit, saying, "Get out on the seven o'clock train tonight and don't come back." Well, I've been in the habit of missing trains all my life, but I was at that depot at six o'clock. I wouldn't have missed that train for all the iron crosses in the Kaiser's foundry. I got out. That is, Istartedfor Holland.
However, I was pulled off the train by a huskyGerman soldier at the first stop this side of the Holland border, about two miles from the line, and told that my papers were not in order and I would be compelled to go back again to Brussels and get them changed.
Now, Laubenthal had told me not to come back. I knew he meant it, too. And I didn't intend to go back—not that soon.
Consequently while I started back toward Brussels, that night under cover of darkness I soon wheeled around and made for the Holland border—alone—on foot. Part of the way I crept on all fours. Sometimes I was compelled because of the barbed-wire entanglement, to crawl on my stomach. I went through mud and water and clambered over stones. Suddenly I heard two German sentries apparently arguing. Finally one let loose with an automatic and winged me in the leg. Although I twitched I never whimpered and kept crawling on. At last the two miles were traversed and I found myself in Holland. The first Dutchman I saw (and please don't mistake a Dutchman for a German) I will always remember. He was coming toward me with a lantern, and when he heard me he called out to know who it was. I answered "An American." He then came smiling toward me and greeted me with a hearty handshake, but I was laughing throughtears. I slapped him on the shoulder and exclaimed, "Say, old top, you're the first human being I've seen for many weeks. I have been in the hands of those cursed German brutes and they made life fearful for me." Of course he didn't know what "old top" meant but I didn't care anyway. He bandaged up my slight wound and sent me on my way. I was now mad at the Huns, and good and mad, but I was on my way to France. I was in the hands of sympathetic friends instead of hardened foes and I was happy in spite of my anger. I had seen Belgium and had obtained the evidence. Whereas before I had jerked off my frock coat and then later had shed my vest and gritted my teeth, I now began rolling up my sleeves for the Allies. Righteous indignation took the upper hand of pacifism. When I went back to The Hague and told Dr. Van Dyke my story, he was astonished. I did not tell it all, but related enough to considerably startle him.
I had slipped by the consuls, had seen Belgium, had finally escaped, and was now to be passed on to England. I had no further difficulties, and in two days was off for Tilbury Docks. When I got there I was taken aside and searched, but there was none of that terrorism about it which theGermans had used. They had searched me thoroughly thirteen times.
The English officers asked me several leading questions, whether I had seen any movement of troops and what was the food condition, etc. As I did not have any particular military information, I was soon dismissed and got my pass to France.
I now went down to the railway station and got my uniform where I had checked it. When I crossed the channel and went into France I had a funny experience. I went up to the railroad ticket office and asked for a special rate ticket to Paris (one-fourth fare). The woman asked, "Have you papers to show that you are military?" I said, "No, Madame, I have none with me." And I was having an awful time with my French. Just then young Du Boucher stepped up to the window. He was an old friend from Paris, and he looked good to me. He had just come from Etaples and spoke perfect French and perfect English. Besides, he was a good fellow. His father was one of the main surgeons and founder of our hospital in Neuilly. But with all that, we could not persuade the woman to give me a military ticket. She said to come back later and see the officer. ThenDu Boucher said he would stay with me and see me through. When we went back we found a grouchy officer. We asked him for a military pass. When he asked for our papers I gave him my "leave of absence." He looked at it and said, "My dear sir, you are a deserter. This paper gives you ten days' leave and you have been gone much longer. You must come back and see the colonel at eight o'clock."
I told him my train would go to Paris at seven-thirty. He didn't hear me at all. He said, "This is very serious, and you must see the colonel." I then told him I wasn't really military, don't you know, as the ambulance service was in reality neutral, so I was not a deserter. "Oh, I see," said he. "You're not really military, and why then are you attempting to buy a military ticket? This is still more serious. You must see the colonel."
I was scared green.
However, when we came back to see the colonel we found a very affable human man, who said he couldn't do anything for us about a special ticket if we had no papers to show that we were entitled to it, but that we could go to the window and make a try at getting it. Again we did so. A different agent was at the window, and we wentup and asked him for such a ticket. He handed it out without a question.
For the next two minutes I can tell you we did some laughing. We were compelled to stay over night, but at any rate I did not have to face court-martial as a deserter, and in the morning I was in Paris. There is nothing like having a fluent speaker of French with you in France, especially when you are in trouble. I was now back again in the good old country. Dear old France, how good it looked! My heart had been changed and I now immediately went into action again, under the colors of France. The fighting had been very heavy and some terrible scenes were shortly to be witnessed. Hundreds of men were now literally ground to pieces on the Western front.
In the French Army, now, I had a different standing than at first. Our unit in its entirety was taken over and we becamebrancardiers, or stretcher bearers, in the Second Army of France. Accordingly we were quartered in the army barracks. For some time after I got back from Belgium there were days of blood and thunder as a fearful offensive had been launched by the Germans.
An entire change of heart had now come over me. I who had been a kind of peaceful milk and water ecclesiastical pacifist to now stand beside the boys with the guns and even sleep with the poilus whose main object is to kill Germans, and approve of it, was unusual to say the least, and I thought it would shock some of the deacons back in my tranquil church at home. I was ready to even risk a guess that some of my befrocked clerical friends would be surprised. But I figured that when universal freedom was at stake, as I now clearly saw it was, I could not afford to be aneutral even though I was a Presbyterian preacher. I could not resist my conscience.
As I look at it now, I wish they would put a number of these "conscientious objectors" into the same kind of service. That experience was the best thing that ever happened to me. I became enthusiastic for the Allies and the war, and dead against the Kaiser and his gang.
Soon after this I was dispatched to a certain place near L—— for duty. I found a man who had just been out on a wire-cutting expedition. As I lifted him on to the stretcher he said, "Well, I did it anyhow." Then with some effort he related the following experience to me:
"When the order was given that we would go 'over the top' at three o'clock in the morning, and take the Germans' first line trench, our boys were ready. There was no 'try to take it' nor 'attack it,' but 'we will go over the top and take it.' There was a note of finality in the wording of the order, which we well understood. Our lieutenant then came down to our fire bay and asked who would volunteer to go out at midnight and cut the lanes. He was looking right at me, and said 'Vincent, how about it?' I timidly replied, 'I'll go, sir.' There was no way out. I am frank toconfess that after I got to thinking about it, my knees began to shake. The more I thought, the worse they got. I had given my word, though, and I wouldn't be a quitter. I don't think there is any yellow streak in me, but there is a lot of human nature. I love life. I got to thinking of my past and the words of Shakespeare ran in my mind, 'Conscience doth make cowards of us all.' I wasn't scared, I was paralyzed.
"I realized what it meant that I had promised to do. It meant that I was to climb up a scaling ladder over our parapet, go out into the full exposure of the enemy, crawl on my stomach slowly—slowly again—an inch at a time—so slowly that if a German saw me, he would not know I was moving at all, and would suppose me dead. I must cover the distance between our parapet and our entanglement, which was perhaps a dozen yards, with a tripping wire in between, then noiselessly cut a lane through twenty feet of knotted and gnarled barbed wire, fastening it back so that it could not curl up and entangle our men as they rushed through. Then I must creep and crawl on my stomach, hugging the ground until I got back and slid into our trench. If I were seen, it was all day with me. I'd go to Blighty—for good.
"Well, twelve o'clock came around—all too soon. I went. When I had cut my first wire, a German star shell fell, lighting up the barbed-wire entanglement for rods around. Luckily for me it fell short of the parallel in which I was, to the trenches. If it had fallen back of me, it would have thrown my body into bold relief."
For the readers' benefit be it said that a star shell is something like a sky rocket or a roman candle. It is sent up into the air and falls to the ground, lighting up everything around it. The purpose of it is to betray any action of the enemy in No Man's Land. Obviously, if it falls short, it blinds the sender to what is going on beyond it, just as a light in the window of a house will not throw the objects in the room into view from the outside, especially if the spectator is some distance away. But objects can be plainly seen in the room by a person across the street, if the light is on the far side of the room. This is particularly true if the object should move. So with the star shell. But it must frighten one at best to be lying on his stomach and have the whole world illuminated about him even if he is behind the light.
In slower and lower tones the poilu continued:
"I had just cut my last wire and folded it back on the post—I don't think thirty seconds had passed—when a star shell came down between me and my own trench and glimmered away as if it never would go out. It may have burned for thirty seconds, but that thirty seconds seemed like thirty years to me.
"I was less than forty yards from the German trenches, and I believe within thirty yards of their barbed wire. As that star shell came down, I had my hand upon a post about a foot from the ground. And as it was, I was really grasping the barbed wire, wrapped around the post, and thus assisting myself to crawl back to our trenches. Although the wire was cutting my fingers fiercely, I dared not let loose of that post, for fear the Germans would detect the motion and let me have it hot and heavy. Just before the star shell burned out, I distinctly heard some German voices. One man said, 'There, look there!' Then the star shell went out. Expecting another immediately, I dared not move or withdraw my hand. It came. Again I could hear those Germans talking, this time arguing about me, instead of shooting me, and when that star shell went out, I pulled myself up by the aid of that post and ran as I neverran in my life before. I believe I broke the world's record.
"And then, at last, they began to shoot, and just as I fell into our trenches, one of them caught me here." His breathing was labored as he placed his hand on his side.
"But somehow, when a fellow is out there—alone—facing death in the solitude, it seems so much worse than it is two hours later, when the boys go 'over the top,' dozens of them together, with bayonets gleaming and with yelling and shooting and barrage fire. It doesn't seem nearly so bad in a crowd. I don't mean that the men like it. No man ever likes to go 'over the top,' but there is a hypnotism when the crowd goes with you. It is what the professors call mob psychology. It's the thing that will make a man jump into a scrimmage on the football field eagerly, knowing that he will get hurt, without thinking anything about it. But I went alone. I'm all right but I feel ——" Here his breath came hard.
"The charge was set for three o'clock. A fearful bombardment was opened up. The barrage fire was terrific. Word was finally passed along from mouth to mouth, 'ten minutes till we go over the top!' All the while the bombardmenthad been going on more fiercely and the firing was let loose, the like of which was never seen before.
"At last it was five minutes of three. The 'death ladders' were put in place, so the men could scale the parapet, and at exactly three o'clock the whistles blew a mighty blast. Up the boys went like monkeys over a garden wall. The curtain fire was thrust forward. Through the lanes they went. Across No Man's Land they rushed, and men were falling all about. At this moment some of the Germans made a kind of countercharge, and a few got very near our trenches. One big German was almost falling into our trench on top of me, when I heard him yell at me. I could not tell what he said, but as his mouth opened in yelling, amazement and fear gripped me, for, like the shiny tongue of a snake, there stuck out of his mouth a long, glistening object. I thought he was making faces at me. But only a second elapsed, until his yell merged into a fiendish shriek and he pitched toward me. One of our men had jammed his bayonet through the big Boche from behind, and it had come out of his mouth. It was the last of him. I know our boys got there. But it sure is hell. But—it—is glorious!" I thenrealized that he was weakening and when I asked him if he was badly hurt he answered, "No—not bad—I reckon—only—'goin' West.'" As the poor fellow spoke these last words his breath was coming hard. Life was slowly ebbing out and as I stood with his hand clasped in mine he passed over the Great Divide. In solemn reflection I stood beside him for a moment. Yes, it was glorious, in a way, yet for my part it sickened me. I had had enough. I was fed up with the war and I longed for rest.
That rest was to come ere long—but not immediately. I had seen the tragedy and horror of modern warfare but I was still to undergo another heart-tearing ordeal. The boys of a certain company were as handsome a lot as ever donned a uniform. But some of the best of them were marked men. Two of these fellows whom I had come to consider as pals, got theirs a few days later. The name of one was Jean, and I couldn't pronounce the other, so I used to call him "Frenchie." They were both fine, strapping lads, larger than the average Frenchman and had the pep of young Americans. Jean was twenty-one and "Frenchie" I suppose about twenty-five. We used to have great times together trying to understand each other and laughing over my mistakes in speaking French. Some of them were worth laughing at, too.
On occasions I would sit and swap yarns with them or would yield to their requests to tell themall about the United States. We struck up an intimacy which was unusual, and it got so that we sought each other's company whenever possible. The boys used to ask me all kinds of questions about New York and wanted to know how far out Pike's Peak was from the metropolis. I had to laugh at their conception of American geography as much as they did at my conception of their language. Many a pleasant hour we enjoyed together.
But alas! One Sunday afternoon a gas alarm was suddenly sounded. All the men along the trench began excitedly fumbling for their gas masks and shouting to one another. That was the very worst thing that they could do. Remaining cool and keeping your mouth shut is the only possible method of combating this awful weapon. You must lose no time in shaking off your metal trench helmet and getting the gas mask on and buttoned tightly around your neck, but the way to save time is to go about it cooly. Now "Frenchie" had become excited and couldn't find his mask. It wasn't in his bag provided for the purpose. He had lost it. In his excitement, instead of wetting his handkerchief and tying it over his nose as a temporary substitute, he began yelling at the otherboys, asking them if they had seen it or if they had an extra one. In doing this he had taken in several breaths of the deadly fumes and was quickly overcome. He was carried back into the receiving station and there he lay in agony. When I got there two men were bending over him as he lay upon the stretcher and with a fan and oxygen tube, they were trying to assist him in getting air into his lungs. I went over and spoke to him, but his eyes were closed and he could not answer. For ten or fifteen minutes we worked with him, but it seemed like eternity. As his eyelids twitched, his throat contracted, and his nostrils distended in the awful effort to get air; I thought I should faint as I was forced to look upon his indescribable suffering. When once or twice I asked him something the agonizing efforts which he made to speak to me were terrible to behold. I would rather die myself than ever have to look on such a sight again. Death isn't hard to see and the sight of it becomes commonplace on the battle line. But the spectacle of a fellow-human going through the slow agonies of the damned, in his vain attempts to get air, is one which no mortal ought ever to be called upon to undergo.