THE GERMANS NEARING PARIS
Saturday, August 29th. Paris feels the oppression of war more and more each day. There have been so many “morts pour la patrie” that everywhere there are families who have been stricken by the loss of a member. This leaven of sorrow gives to the population as a whole a somber tone.
Perfectly frightful stories of German barbarities are circulating. They are almost unbelievable, but seem to have some confirmation.
Many of the wounded Frenchmen when returning from the front bring trophies of battle, such as German swords, bayonets, and buttons. The most prized possession of all is the German spiked helmet. Barring only the scalp of the American Indian, a more significant trophy could not be imagined. It is not only significant but gorgeously handsome. Moreover, it is everywhere on earth accepted as the symbol of the Prussian militarism.
Today Mr. Herrick sent an Attaché with a fast automobile out toward Compiègne, which is thirty-eight miles from the Porte St. Denis. The man was not permitted to approach the town, but from hills on this side he could hear the constant rumble of heavy guns. He returned to Paris giving it as his opinion that a battle was being fought at Compiègne. This, however, is so improbable that he can find no one to credit his report. The idea is really too preposterous! The truth might be that manœuvres of the French army were in progress, or that the forts around Paris were practising. We have been warned that this might occur. The war was not declared four weeks ago; how then would it be possible for the Germans already to be at Compiègne? Before they could reach a point so near Paris they must first reduce the triple line of the French frontier fortifications, which are the product of more than forty years of study and labor and form a greater barrier than any ocean. Even were these reduced, the Germans would have to beat back the French active army numbering one and a half million men. Compiègne is no farther from Paris than Peekskill is from New York.
Sunday, August 30th. The rumors of evil which yesterday all refused to believe as absolutely incredible are today accepted as facts. No bad news has yet appeared in print, the censor having suppressed even the slightest hint of misfortune. This lack of any definite information has had a disintegrating effect upon the public morale. Since all official news is denied them, the people add to their previous personal anxiety a ghastly terror of the unknown, multiplied and intensified as it manifests itself in the masses, already in a high state of excitement.[2]
Paris knows with a conviction that nothing can alter that the French armies have met defeat at all points along the line. They do not need dates, or names, or numbers; the one terrible fact that the Germans are again nearing the gates of Paris stands out with greater intensity because all details are withheld.
The Bank of Paris has begun to move. I felt it was an historically memorable day when I stood this morning before its great doors and watched the nervous, hurrying messengers endlessly streaming in and out as they loaded a row of trucks with France’s money bags. The bearers looked for all the world like a stream of ants carrying their larvæ to safety when an ant-hill is broken open.
It is commonly reported that the French Government is planning to flee from Paris. If that actually occurs the papers will doubtless announce it as a “strategic retreat.” The members of the various Embassies are becoming frightfully nervous and most of them will probably leave at the same time.
At the American Chancellerie all goes on quite as usual, partly because we are so busy that there is no time to worry, but principally because Mr. Herrick is so calm and confident that he sets all the other members a compelling example.
Early this afternoon it was reported at the Embassy that a German aëroplane had flown over Paris and had dropped several bombs, one of which had fallen near the St. Lazare Hospital. Mr. Herrick sent me out to investigate. I found that there had really been an aëroplane and that it had thrown three bombs, all of which had exploded. Many windows had been broken and one old woman had been killed. Few people, however, had actually seen the aëroplane.
The censor allowed details of the affair to be published in the evening papers, including what purported to be a translation of a note dropped by the German, saying: “The German army is at the gates of Paris. Nothing remains for you but to surrender.—Lieutenant von Heidssen.” This is an example of the inexplicable working of the censorship. The people tonight all seemed to believe that the German’s note is authentic.
The papers recently published an account of the arrival at a Paris hospital of a wounded Turco who had brought as trophy a German spiked helmet. The peculiar element reported was that the head was still in the helmet. I doubt the truth of this story. It is, however, another example of the extraordinary workings of the censor’s mind. He suppresses every vestige of harmless war news on the plea that it might “assist the enemy,” and then permits the publication of such a hate-breeding tale as this.
Monday, August 31st. Another German aëroplane flew over the city today and again threw bombs. It arrived at six in the evening. The psychological effect on Paris has been incalculable. Yesterday’s Taube went virtually unobserved; it did not seem to need explanation, and its visit could be interpreted as a freakish exploit—the solitary one of its kind. The attack of another Taube today put an entirely different face upon the matter. Nothing better could have been calculated to disquiet the French. They have always considered themselves kings of the air and have felt that, whatever else might be found wanting, at least the French aviators would always rule that element. Today every soul in Paris saw the Taube. Until now anything about the Germans’ approach has been rumor and hearsay, but now comes this plain fact for all the world to see; and what more convincing or spectacular evidence of their nearness could be set before the Parisians than a German aëroplane flying over their heads? I think it will prove the spark to light one of the historical explosions of the French people, and that this will probably show itself in extreme panic conditions.
Tuesday, September 1st. Panic conditions of the most pronounced order exist today. Everyone seems possessed with the single idea of escaping from Paris. A million people must be madly trying to leave at the present moment. There are runs on all the banks. The streets are crowded with hurrying people whose faces wear expressions of nervous fright. The railroad stations are packed with tightly jammed mobs in which people and luggage form one inextricable, suffocating, hopeless jumble.
Cabs are nearly unobtainable. When anyone is seen to alight from a vehicle, a flock of men and women instantly gather round it like vultures and there stand poised to see if the cabby is to be paid off. If the “fare” makes a motion toward his pocket, the mob piles into the carriage, swearing and scrambling. The matter is then arbitrated by the driver who accepts as client the one who offers the largest pourboire. In the Rue Condorcet today I saw such a dispute settled with a twenty-franc tip. One of the defeated candidates was a poor dejected woman who had fought like a tigress for the cab and had been ejected with considerable force. She now wept copiously and hopelessly. She explained that she had her baggage and three children to take to the station and that she had been endlessly trying to get a vehicle since the night before, and announced that this was the nine hundredth vehicle “qu’on m’a volé.” For one in her emergency I considered this an excusable exaggeration, so I lent her my cocher, Paul, and hurriedly went on foot to the Embassy. My faithful Paul does not desert me, even now when the streets run gold for cochers. Last evening an auto carried a family to Tours, returning this morning. For this it received 1500 francs. Thousands upon thousands of refugees from the north are fleeing across Paris by any and every means of transportation left in the city.
Three days ago we doubted the possibility of a battle as near as Compiègne. Today already we feel it quite possible that the Germans will capture Paris, and that within a few days. It is almost certain that our Embassy will have a tremendous part to play in the capture, for Mr. Herrick will stay in Paris, come what may, unless Washington orders him to leave. It is probable that France will turn over to him her interests in Paris—one might almost say, the city itself.
Another Taube came today and left the usual consignment of three bombs. The aviator arrived promptly at six, just as he did yesterday. I was amused to see two French policemen rush out of a café and fire their revolvers at the so-far-away speck.
Wednesday, September 2d. The German bomb-dropping aëroplane arrives each day as regularly as sunset. It is considerate of him to come always at the same hour—six o’clock. One knows when to expect him and is thus able to be promptly on hand to watch the show. It was especially thrilling today. We all stood in the Rue Chaillot in front of the Chancellerie, and being on the side of the Trocadéro Hill we enjoyed a good view off over the city. The Taube passed almost directly over our heads on its way to attack the Tour Eiffel; it flew at an altitude of about 5000 feet and looked very like a bug crawling across the sky. With our glasses we could see the German aviator looking down at us, and could distinguish on the under side of each wing the black Maltese cross which all German aëroplanes carry as “uniform.”
Off to the east a French machine was slowly mounting above the housetops to give battle. The German sailed over the Tour Eiffel and dropped a bomb. We caught sight of it, a tiny speck floating downwards. After waiting what seemed an unreasonably long time, we heard the faint, muffled “boom” of its explosion. All this time, guns in various parts of the city were shooting at the aëroplane; it sounded like firecrackers on the Fourth of July. There are anti-aircraft guns on the different platforms of the Tour Eiffel. These seemed to be rapid-fire guns which spouted ten shots in about five seconds, and then, after taking a long breath, spouted another ten shots, and so on. The din was extraordinary, but the German aëroplane went serenely on as if utterly unconscious of the thousands of shots of which it was the target.
After throwing his first bomb near the Tour Eiffel, the German described a graceful, sweeping curve off over the Ecole Militaire, and threw another bomb which struck the roof of a house in the Avenue Bosquet. He then turned northward and sailed off in triumph over Montmartre, apparently unscathed. The French machine had meanwhile reached about half the altitude at which the German was flying. The whole affair was extremely dramatic. All Paris stood open-mouthed in the streets, utterly oblivious to everything but the machine which was creeping across the sky.
The French already take their daily Taube as much as a matter of course as their daily café. They cannot help exclaiming in admiration “quel aplomb!” It is now the fourth day that a German aëroplane has passed over the French armies, eluded the French machines, and braved a murderous fire from the waiting guns of Paris.
The incidents have been marked by singularly ineffective shooting on both sides. The aëroplanes have thrown a dozen bombs; they have broken windows and roof slates and have killed one old woman. But this has been, as far as I know, the only casualty. On the other hand, the Taubes likewise have escaped unwrecked, in spite of the fact that enough ammunition has been expended against them to have smashed all the aëroplanes in the world. The psychological effect on the Parisians has been immense.
For two weeks now, I have been entirely ready to start on my first tour of the detention camps. The need has seemed so pressing that I have been prepared to start immediately on the receipt of permission from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Herrick rightly refuses to allow me to start without this permission. The reason for the delay seems to be that France insists that she will accord us only those privileges with regard to her German prisoners that the German government gives to the Spanish Embassy in Berlin with regard to the French prisoners in Germany. The hitch is that each takes exactly the same ground, so neither side does anything definite.
Such is European “diplomacy.” The onus of the prisoners’ condition cannot be said to rest upon our shoulders. Mr. Herrick or Mr. Bliss has made démarches in the matter almost every day.
Diplomacy is a trade which I find extremely hard to learn. Its principal rule seems to be never to do anything that you can possibly avoid. Such principles naturally give rise to a great deal of futile routine. When a diplomat must act, he methodically follows a well-trodden and known-to-be-safe path; when he is forced to take a new direction he invariably makes some superior take the responsibility. I know that on one occasion a trivial question was asked of a Jäger at the door of a European Chancellerie; it was passed through eight people of increasing rank and finally reached the ruler of a great nation. I wonder if the applicant was kept waiting at the door by the Jäger during the months necessary for the working out of the process.
The Government of France has announced, officially, that it will depart from Paris tonight and that Bordeaux is to be the new capital. In point of fact, many officials have already gone, while those who still remain are to leave tonight on a series of diplomatic trains. The Embassies of England and Russia and the Legation of Belgium will go also. There is a rumor that several of the neutral ambassadors and consuls will flee, but this I cannot credit. They could have no sufficient excuse for deserting Paris so precipitately, and if they did they would appear arrant cowards. Mr. Herrick is sending Captain Pope, one of the military Attachés, and Mr. Sussdorf, the third secretary, to Bordeaux, in order that we may have some official representation with the French Government in its temporary exile, but feels that the Embassy as a whole should stay in Paris. Bordeaux is in the midst of the districts which contain the detention camps for German and Austrian prisoners, and I therefore rather expected to be sent with Captain Pope and Mr. Sussdorf when I heard at noon that they were to leave for Bordeaux. Mr. Frazier, however, told me that I was to stay in Paris, work here being so pressing that the German prisoners will have to get on without me. I hurriedly turned over to Captain Pope much data I had collected concerning the camps and a satchel containing twenty thousand francs in small change which I had in hand for distribution among the internes.
Thursday, September 3d. Now that part of the Embassy corps has departed for Bordeaux, the following remain at the Chancellerie to face the exciting events of an impending German invasion. Besides Mr. Herrick and the secretaries, Messrs. Bliss and Frazier, there are Majors Cosby, Hedekind, and Henry; Captains Parker, Brinton, and Barker; Lieutenants Donait, Hunnicutt, Boyd, and Greble, all of the United States Army; Major Roosevelt of the Marine Corps; Commander Bricker and Lieutenants Smith and Wilkinson of the Navy. Herbert Hazeltine, William Iselin, and myself are civil Attachés, and Harry Dodge and Lawrence Norton private secretaries to the Ambassador. The Treasurer, Mr. Beazle, was at the Embassy as long ago as the Franco-Prussian war and the Commune, and has already lived through one siege and capture of Paris. There are, of course, innumerable stenographers, bookkeepers, and the like.
The other embassies and most of the consulates have fled. Their members have left Paris more precipitately and with less dignity than has been shown even by the civil population. They all seemed to lose their wits when the Germans drew near Paris; they made their preparations to depart in the most frantic haste; they were white of face and perspiring with nervousness. It is not a pleasant sight to see strong men palsied with fright, but we have seen many such these days. Not a soul remains in the British Embassy or consulate to take care of England’s manifold interests. It seems strange that when thousands of British heroes of the army are dying brave deaths on the fields of battle, not a single British hero was to be found in the diplomatic corps with nerve enough to risk the inconveniences of a siege. The Ambassador of another country, who fled with the crowd, left in spite of orders from his king absolutely directing him to remain. Apparently he has sacrificed his career to his fright, for this king was so determined that his embassy at least should remain in Paris that he has replaced this ambassador by another who has more courage,—the new one is a soldier.
These fleeing diplomats insult France by assuming that she is already conquered, and insult the Germans by assuming that the lives of the accredited plenipotentiaries of foreign nations would not be safe in the hands of German soldiers. They also leave their own subjects in Paris without a soul to represent them at a moment when they really need a representative for the first time in decades. When these magnates have recomposed their minds in Bordeaux and have time to formulate excuses, they will probably say that they left Paris because it was their solemn duty to accompany the French Government; but yesterday, when they were asked why they were departing so swiftly, they could only cry: “The Germans are coming.”
Mr. Herrick looks on with calm amazement. Three days ago he telegraphed Washington to ask for authorization to stay in Paris. The reply left the matter to his own discretion. Thirty minutes later he was in the cabinet of M. Delcassé to say that he would stay in Paris no matter what might come. It must have been a wonderful tableau when those two men faced each other across M. Delcassé’s big desk. As Mr. Herrick stated that the American Embassy was positively to remain in Paris, M. Delcassé’s expression of calm dignity vanished in a flash. He stepped around his desk and shook Mr. Herrick eagerly by the hand. He said there were many precious memorials and many rare objects which might have their habitation in one spot like Paris, but which nevertheless belonged to all civilized humanity, and that no diplomat could perform a greater service to France and to mankind than to stay in Paris and do what could be done to protect these precious memorials and objects from destruction—a destruction which might be avoided if an authorized spokesman of that humanity were present to protest.
The stampede out of Paris grows hour by hour. It is a contagion and seizes all classes. A week ago it was a short street indeed which did not boast at least one Red Cross Hospital; now most of them are deserted, for the fashionable women who followed the fashion in joining hospitals have now again followed the fashion and fled, pell-mell.
The newspaper men and the “war correspondents” have been particularly concerned for their own safety. By supreme efforts, I today managed to obtain conveyances to transport several of them out of the city—men with sweat on their brows and hands that trembled. There is an element of humor in it all, despite the sadness. One of the staff remarked, “Do you notice how all the newspaper men, who for weeks have been pestering us with requests to be sent to the front, now demand as insistently to be sent away, when the front is at last coming to them?” In time of peace diplomats and war correspondents are easily the most pugnacious people in the world. If one has taken them at their own estimation the resulting contrast is painful.
Today we took over the interests of Great Britain, Japan, and Guatemala. We have represented Germany, Austria, and Hungary since the beginning of August, so that, including the United States, we are now seven embassies in one.
Friday, September 4th. Last evening all Paris awaited the “six o’clock Taube” which has become for the French a regular and almost welcome feature of each day’s happenings. At four o’clock a French aviator in a monoplane took the air and mounted up, up, up, in slow wide circles whose center was the Tour Eiffel, until he finally reached an altitude of some 10,000 feet. Then, a mere speck in the cold, thin air, he circled slowly around and around, waiting for the German—who never came. Even without this climax the situation was thrilling enough. The Frenchman descended sadly from his lofty beat just as night fell, while waiting Paris was distinctly disappointed. That night in the restaurants one heard Frenchmen express the extraordinary hope that nothing too terrible had happened to brave Lieutenant von Heidssen.
M. DELCASSÉ, FRANCE’S MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
[He is the most capable of France’s statesmen, and was the prime mover in the formation of the Triple Entente. He has been three times Minister of Marine, once Minister of the Colonies, and five times Minister of Foreign Affairs.]
This morning Paris is informed that the Lieutenant had been punctually on his way to his daily appointment when, in flying over the Bois de Vincennes, a rifle bullet had passed through his heart. Strange to say, he planed down on a long steep slant, this man-bird, just as game birds do when similarly stricken, and landed without serious damage to his machine. He was found sitting stone dead, strapped up in his seat. Such is the quick generosity of the French temperament that today he is mourned by all Paris, this Lieutenant von Heidssen, who died on his lonely way to keep his fifth punctual appointment with the city of his enemies. Paris actually regrets that he no longer comes at six each evening to throw bombs at her.
Mr. Herrick’s remaining in Paris has been greeted with wonderful appreciation and enthusiasm by the whole French nation. His picture is in all the newspapers and shop windows, and even the most humble member of the Embassy shines by reflected glory.
The diplomatic responsibilities resting on our Embassy become more and more important, but everyone acknowledges that in each emergency Mr. Herrick shows himself equal to the situation. When the first German aëroplane threw bombs at Paris, a wave of indignation and protestation swept over the city. It was one of those waves of excitement which carry judgment before it. Citizens and officials, newspapers and posters, Frenchmen and Americans, all besought and begged Mr. Herrick, “the courageous, the noble Mr. Herrick,” to make formal protest to Washington. Everywhere one heard in angry tones the phrases: “brutality,” “contrary to the Hague Convention,” “killing non-combatants,” “barbarians.” Mr. Herrick decided that there was more danger in protesting too soon than of protesting too late. He delayed long enough to consult his books and to confer with his legal and military advisers. I was fortunate enough to be present when he read the final summing-up of his conclusions. He had discovered that neither Germany nor France had signed the clause of the Hague Convention forbidding aircraft to drop bombs on cities. Therefore, the law that non-combatants of a city must be warned before any bombardment is begun did not, in the case of these two nations, technically apply, whatever the considerations of humanity might dictate.
Mr. Herrick did not protest, for there was legally nothing to protest about. He forwarded verbatim to Washington the protests of the French Government.
One now sees many British and Belgian soldiers about Paris. They have come in on the edges of the great retreat. Their morale is exactly the reverse of what one would expect in troops who have been badly beaten. They express great contempt for the German soldier. They describe him as a stupid, brutal, big-footed creature, who does not know how to shoot and who has a distaste for the bayonet. They seem unable to understand why they have been beaten by the Germans and try to explain it by saying, “There are so many of them.”
The Belgians, nearly all of whom have come from Liège and Namur, speak in the most awe-stricken terms of the effects of the big German siege guns, which fire a shell 11.2 inches in diameter. These guns were placed in distant valleys and could not be located by the Belgians. Moreover, they outranged the guns of the forts and could not have been injured even if they had been located. The forts thus lay hopeless and awaited their doom, which came suddenly enough in the shape of great shells dropping out of the sky upon their cupolas. The explosions might have been approximated by combining an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, and a cyclone.
Namur was surrounded by twelve forts. The bombardment began on a Wednesday night and three of the forts were reduced to scrap in two days. The Germans marched through the gap thus made and took the other forts in the rear, so that in less than three days Namur was completely in their possession. This will undoubtedly be the system used against Paris, and apparently there is no antidote. The forts cannot reply, for they cannot determine where the big guns are located; but meanwhile the big guns know the exact position of the forts, and they, moreover, outrange the forts.
Today I had an opportunity to talk with three British officers recently arrived in Paris from that part of the front just this side of Chantilly. They were incredibly grimy, dirty, and sweaty and were greatly embarrassed thereby. They were of the first body of British troops landed in France; they had met the Germans at Charleroi and had been through the whole retreat of nearly one hundred and fifty miles, having been constantly in action for some two weeks. They summed up their experiences by saying that they had received “a hell of a licking.” This statement is rather over-modest since within a day or so we have learned that the British, numbering about sixty thousand, were opposed by four or five German army corps, amounting to two hundred thousand men, and that in spite of this the British had retreated stubbornly, contesting every mile.
A most extraordinary thing which these officers told me was that, during their whole retreat from Charleroi to Compiègne, they had never seen a single French soldier nor received any assistance from the French army. One is tempted to wonder what would have happened if there had been no British army to help check the retreat toward Paris.
British soldiers agree that they have received most extraordinary hospitality from the civilians and peasantry of Belgium and France. Whole villages, themselves facing starvation, gave their last crumb of bread and their last drop of wine to the British troops and cheerfully slept in the fields in order that the soldiers might snatch a bit of rest in their houses.
All the officers with whom I have had the opportunity to talk agree that the German losses have been enormous. I do not think that this is entirely patriotic exaggeration, since British officers are not particularly prone to flights of fancy. One of them prefaced his remarks on the retreat from Charleroi by saying, “The truth of the matter is, we got damn well licked,” and went on to say that his men shot and shot and shot until they became sick of killing, and that the Germans kept coming, always coming, their ranks riddled and smashed by bullets and shells. The British all agree that the German troops have an unflinching, dogged, brutal courage, which nothing seems to daunt. They come on and on, climbing over the bodies of the regiments which have gone before. The German tactics are those of Napoleon. They attack a position and they keep on attacking it until they take it, no matter what it costs; regiments and brigades are wiped out without any wavering in the commander’s resolve or in the dogged persistence of his troops.
In spite of the fact that they have been constantly beaten by German tactics, the officers of the Allies persist in considering them antiquated and barbarous. They ascribe the German successes to their big guns and to the wonderfully efficient way in which their bad tactics are carried out. They all agree that the German skill in concentrating troops before an attack is wonderful. So far they have never failed to have overwhelming numbers at any point of offense.
CHAPTER III
WITH THE BRITISH ARMY. THE NIGHT BEFORE
THE BATTLE OF THE MARNE
Paris, Sunday, September 6th. Since the French Government left Paris we have been totally ignorant of all that is going on outside of the city walls. For the past few days everything has been hazy rumor. During all last week we expected the Germans to march into Paris any day; for their headquarters were at Compiègne, their heavy advance at Senlis and Coulomiers, and their cavalry at Pontoise and Chantilly.
With the Germans only fifteen miles from the gates of Paris, the newspapers make no definite mention of the fact, but fill their space with accounts of the great victories which the Russians think to win in Silicia. Rumor has it that the Germans have even encircled Paris and are at Fontainebleau to the south-southeast. This is highly improbable, but we have already seen that the wildest improbability of one day becomes an actuality the next. Everyone at the Embassy, and indeed all Paris, is desperately anxious for news. Even unfavorable news would be better than this prolonged suspense. Everyone inquires and wonders and queries, but no one knows what the real situation is—where the German army is stationed, what its next move may be, or if any of the Allied army is between it and Paris.
After several days of great tension, desperately trying to the active American temperament, I decided that the easiest way to find out what was happening outside the city was to go and see. It was first absolutely necessary to obtain permission from the authorities of Paris to pass out of the gates—as without proper papers I would certainly be arrested. I, by this time, knew personally many of the police officials in the city, having interviewed them hundreds of times in regard to German and Austrian internes. Finally I found one who thought he knew me well enough to trust me with a pass. He explained that the garrison of Paris occupied a zone which extended out from the walls ten miles in all directions. Outside this were the moving armies, and once beyond the defensive zone we could, at our own risk, go where we chose. My permit stated that we were bound for Lagny, which is about twelve miles from the gates and well outside the circle of defense. I took one of the Embassy automobiles driven by a skillful American amateur, Melvin Hall. He drove his own six-cylinder high-power car, carrying a light touring body.
We left the city about four o’clock in the afternoon by the Porte de Vincennes. Immediately we left the walls behind us, we found all the roads guarded by French troops and barred by elaborate obstructions. Every two or three minutes we were brought to a stop by little gated forts built across the highway, which were loopholed for rifles and commanded the road in both directions. These were designed to retard German scouting parties or halt German mitrailleuse automobiles. The barriers were built of an extraordinary variety of material: trees, paving-stones, barrels, carts, hen-coops, sandbags, boxes, and fence-rails. At each barrier were stationed a score or more of soldiers, and as one approached, one saw the gleam of bayonets and heard a sharp, imperative “Halte-là!” When we came to a full stop, two or three of the sentinels would step out cautiously and suspiciously, their rifles all ready for action, while in a gingerly way they examined our papers.
The barriers were usually placed in positions of strategic importance, on hills or ridges, and always one was found at each end of the main thoroughfare of every village. All the side streets of the villages were closed and fortified, and any opening between the outermost houses was piled high with obstructions. Each little town within the fortified zone thus became itself a small fort, a complete circle of defense. We travelled along slowly for some ten miles, being halted and examined about every half mile. Finally we came to a great trench which ran across the fields on either side of the road. Facing away from Paris, one looked over a valley, and in the distance could distinctly hear the boom of guns in action.
We were now at the outer line of the defense zone, within which all the roads, bridges, and valleys were held by infantry working in conjunction with the large forts placed at intervals in the great circle. Outside of this zone is open country in which battles are being fought; where and when, it was our aim to discover.
At the trench where we halted, the men on guard were very much on the qui vive and the officers were busy with their field-glasses, for they had just received warning that German cavalry were in front of them in the valley over which we looked. We stopped to talk for a few minutes with the commanding officer, and then, releasing our brakes, slid quietly out in front of the trench, down the hill.
It was silent and lonely in the valley; the whole countryside was desolate. We saw neither soldier nor civilian. The very air seemed charged with disaster. In a few minutes we ran into Lagny, which was absolutely deserted. A curious sensation it is to enter a town having all the marks of being inhabited and yet to sense the utter absence of human beings. On the village square, however, we found the Mayor, who, like so many brave French officials throughout the country, had felt it his first duty to stand by his community, come what might to him personally. He told us that the Germans were spread all over the country between Lagny and the Meaux, ten miles away, and added that their cavalry had been through the town recently and might return any minute. He then warned us that we could not cross the Marne, which ran through the village, because the bridges were all down. We, therefore, turned south toward Ferrières, at right angles to our original course, and parallel to the walls of Paris.
Before reaching Ferrières, we again touched the outer lines of the fortified camp. Here a big standing trench was occupied by French infantry which had been in action with some German cavalry only a few minutes before. The captain in command asked us to take a soldier who had been wounded back to the brigade hospital some two or three miles to the rear. This we did gladly and found the hospital located in the schoolhouse of a small village. Here we also encountered a wounded English private who was manifestly grateful to hear the sound of his own language. The village was occupied by a large body of French Hussars who were there encamped. Some of them were rubbing down their horses, others were cooking supper. The gray smoke of the fires ascending through the poplar trees, the bare-armed soldiers laboring over their mounts, the deserted houses, the litter of saddles and equipment, made a picture not soon to be forgotten.
We returned to the entrenchments again, crossed them, and proceeded to Ferrières, where we at last found a road which turned off to the east. We followed this for two miles, passing through the grounds of a large château only to find the road barred by an impassable combination of ditches, barriers, and barbed wire. We went back again to Ferrières, which we learned had been the seat of the British General Staff only that morning, and from there continued southward for several miles to another village called Pontcarré. Here at last we found a straight and open road to the east. We turned down it at top speed, not having the faintest idea of what was ahead, and ran for ten miles through deserted farming country in which the only signs of life were two French cavalry patrols scouting through the woods.
Just as night was falling, we approached Villeneuve-le-Comte. Watchful sentries in khaki surrounded the village, and the fields around it on all sides were packed with British troops, who had just arrived and were in the act of bivouacking for the night. From them we learned that the German army was less than three miles away at Crécy and that on the morrow at dawn a great battle was to be staged. All the Allies had been force-marching to get there in time.
On every side camp fires gleamed out through the gray of the gloaming and their smoke mounted upward to mingle with the gray of the evening sky above. Everywhere one saw men and horses blissfully resting after the long, hot, and dusty march. The men lay upon the ground with every muscle relaxed, while the horses, with drooped heads, stood first on one tired hind foot and then upon the other. Long lines of motor trucks loaded with ammunition were parked along the gutters of all the roads and byways. Along the crowded highway a lane was, however, sacredly kept open, and men looked twice before they ventured to cross it. From time to time an orderly on a motor-cycle, carrying instructions to subordinate commanders, would zip at a dizzy speed down this narrow path which was flanked by almost unbroken walls of men, wagons, and lorries.
The streets of the little French village were crowded full with khaki-clad soldiers. A battalion of Highlanders were going through inspection in the dusk. They now numbered only three hundred odd, but two weeks ago in Belgium they had been eleven hundred strong. An officer of another regiment informed us that he knew of no British battalion in all history which had sustained such heavy losses and yet been able to maintain its formation and fight on. We watched with interest the Scotchmen of that regiment file by after dismissal. They were incredibly tattered and torn, their kilts dirty and frayed; many of them wore big, battered straw hats. The only things about them which were neat were their rifles, their bayonets, and their clean-shaven faces. One could certainly have no doubts as to the excellent state of their morale; we were, indeed, much impressed by the morale of all these British troops who, notwithstanding the fact that they had been beaten back during two long weeks across a hundred and fifty miles of country and had been retreating until that very morning, in no sense felt themselves defeated but eagerly awaited the word to advance and attack.
We spent a profitable and long-to-be-remembered hour and a half talking with the British officers and watching the troops. We had brought with us a supply of the two things they most craved—matches and newspapers, and whenever any of these were distributed it nearly produced a riot. When a box of matches was handed out, two matches would, as long as they lasted, be given to each man of a company.
Word was passed around that we were to return to Paris that evening, and first and last we were given some fifty notes written hurriedly by the men who wished to send a last word to their homes before the battle which was to begin on the morrow. We, of course, accepted these notes only with the permission of the officers.
It was long after dark before we started back toward Paris. Mist and fog hung close to the ground, and it was a weird ride as we felt our way through lonely woods and deserted villages, being continually stopped by ditches or barbed wire or a barrier across the road. Often ahead of us we would suddenly see bayonets flickering through the mist as our head-lights shone out upon them, and immediately the terse cry of “Halte-là!” followed; a sergeant would come forward, lantern in hand, to examine our papers and suspiciously look us over. All the time we felt that a dozen unseen rifles were leveled at us from somewhere out in the dark.
We re-entered Paris through the Porte de Vincennes at half-past eight. After dinner I made a report of our trip to Mr. Herrick, saying that a great battle was about to begin; that the German armies formed a right angle, the apex of which was near Meaux, while one side extended north through Senlis and the other ran almost due east; that between this German army and Paris were stationed the British and French troops who would retreat no farther but expected themselves to open the attack in the morning. After the suspense of the past few days it is a tremendous relief to have definite news.
Monday, September 7th. For me all the world was this morning electric with excitement. That Paris should go calmly about her daily routine, unconscious and unconcerned, seemed monstrous. I wanted to grasp everyone I met and cry: “The Germans are only twenty miles away! A great battle is even now being fought just outside the gates!—a battle on the issue of which hangs the fate of France—and much more than France. If the thin line which stands between Paris and her enemies does not hold, this day sees France reduced to a second-rate Power and Paris will again hear the tramp of German armies marching down the Champs-Elysées!” My feet walked the familiar streets, but every pulse-beat, every conscious thought was with the Allied armies of defense with which I had so recently been in touch. The sense of their near presence and of their great conflict was much more vivid to me than the objects passing before my physical eyes.
Tuesday, September 8th. I spent yesterday and today at the Embassy superintending the card-indexing of the German internes. Think of card catalogues! and the battle, perhaps the world’s greatest battle, raging no farther away than one might reach in an hour by automobile!
Wednesday, September 9th. Mr. Breckenridge, the American Assistant Secretary of War, has arrived in Paris, and with him came also Colonel Allen of the General Staff of the United States Army. Just as I reached the limit of endurance in card-indexing, release came.
Through the energy and activity of Mr. Breckenridge, a permit has been obtained allowing Colonel Allen, Captain Parker, and myself to leave the city and view the battle which is raging outside. We are to observe and study as much of the operations as possible, in order to gather information useful to our army in America.
We are allowed to take our own chauffeur, and Melvin Hall, at my suggestion, has been chosen for this position. We hope to stay a week and shall leave tomorrow, if the machine can be made ready for so long a trip in so short a time.
Thursday, September 10th. I had this morning a long talk with Richard Harding Davis. He has just arrived from Belgium and is at present striving to get permits to see the war in France. He said that never in his previous war experiences had he seen such unspeakable atrocities as the Germans have committed in Belgium. He speaks nearly as vehemently about it as does Dr. Louis Seaman. He is the first person with whom I have had opportunity to talk who has actually been in Belgium and saw the details of the violation of that country by Germany.
Hall was today unable to complete the preparations on his automobile. On this trip, running through a region devastated by war, we dare not count on finding gasoline, tires, or food, but must start well stocked with all these essentials. We wish to keep going at least five or six days and probably shall find during that time no opportunity to refit. Hall is, therefore, loading up every spare corner of his automobile with food, tires, and gasoline cans.
The great cry of the troops at the front is for matches, cigarettes, and newspapers. I have purchased one hundred boxes of matches, one hundred and sixty newspapers, and six hundred cigarettes to distribute among them as chance offers.
It has been raining almost constantly this week. One cannot help wondering what effect it has had upon the great battle out yonder, the battle about which we still know so little, and of which we think so anxiously.