II
You may know that the beautiful provinces or counties of Alsace and of Lorraine were the heavy price France paid for her defeat at Germany’s hands in 1870. But these two provinces always remained French at heart, and their possession by Germany was like an open wound in France’s side. Small wonder, therefore, that when war was declared the first thought of the French Government was, unwisely and imprudently as many people now think, to throw an army into Alsace.
The rapture with which the people there welcomed the French advance was changed into terror when the fortunes of war brought about a temporary retreat. The Germans hate these Alsatians, and cruel was the vengeance they took on them. One terrible example of their revenge aroused deep feelings of pain and horror all over the world, the more so that they actually boasted of the act in the following words:
“The German column was passing along a woody defile, when a little French lad (Französling) belonging to one of those gymnastic societies which wear tricolour ribbons (i.e. the Eclaireurs, or Boy Scouts), was caught and asked whether the French were about. He refused to give any information. Fifty yards further on a battery suddenly opened fire from the cover of a wood. The lad was asked in French if he had known that the enemy was in the wood. He did not deny it. Then walking with firm steps to a telegraph post he stood up against it, with a green vineyard at his back, and received the volley of the firing party with a proud smile on his face. Infatuated wretch! It was a pity to see such wasted courage!”
But we know that his courage was not wasted, and that by their ill-advised recital of that little boy’s heroism, the Germans inspired innumerable Frenchmen, and Frenchwomen too, to show themselves even braver and more fearless for love of country than they might otherwise have done.
It was near a town called Nancy that there took place a touching incident two days after the outbreak of war.
A French detachment came into contact with German troops; soon the Germans retired, leaving behind them a young wounded officer. The French soldiers picked him up, and behaved, as I am glad to say our allies always do behave to their wounded enemy, not only with mercy but with kindness. He was, however, dying, and his last words were, “Thank you, gentlemen. I have done my duty. I have served my country, as you are serving yours.”
This young officer was Lieutenant Baron von Marschall, son of the late Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, who for a few months was German Ambassador in London. He had been, till a few days before the declaration of war, a happy and popular Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.
Duty must have been one of Nelson’s favourite words, for not only did he signal the word in his immortal message, “England expects every man to do his duty,” but the last words he ever spoke were, “I have done my duty; I praise God for it.” The French have some fine sayings concerning duty. Of these the oldest and the finest is, “Fais le droit, advienne que pourra.” “Do thy duty whatever may happen.”
It was in Lorraine that Georges André—one of France’s most famous runners, who is also a Rugby Internationalist, and scored against both England and Ireland in last season’s matches—won the Médaille Militaire (the French Victoria Cross). André, with his company, was surrounded by a large German detachment in a small village. They fought like lions, and he himself at last captured the enemy’s standard, regaining the French lines under a hail of bullets.
We have seen how the German Commander on the fall of Liège handed General Leman back his sword. Much about the same time that this was occurring in Belgium, a similar incident, on a humbler scale, was happening in Alsace.
A Uhlan patrol was surprised by French soldiers. They all took to their heels save one, who fought magnificently until finally overpowered by force of numbers. His French captors, much to his surprise (for the German soldiers had been told the infamous lie that the British and French gave no quarter to the wounded), shook him warmly by the hand, exclaiming, “Tu es un chic type!” a meed of praise which it is impossible to translate. They also showed their admiration of his pluck in a more practical manner, for though they were short of food themselves they supplied him with food and drink before he was taken to the General Quarters.
One likes to remember that in no great war have men had the monopoly of gallant deeds. In this book you have read, and will read, of many such performed by women. A lady can no longer defend a castle, as was done in mediæval Christendom by so many great-hearted wives whose husbands were away fighting. But she can risk her life, and lose it too, for her country, as the following pathetic story proves:
Madame Favre-Schwarz, of Basle, a young and beautiful French lady, married to one of the richest merchants in Alsace, was executed after a court-martial very early in the war. She had attempted to blow up an important tunnel on the line of the Rhine near Leopoldshöhe, in order to hinder the advance of German troops towards her beloved country. Madame Schwarz met her death bravely, and shouted “Vive la France!” as she fell.
After this war is ended, and indeed during the conduct of this war, I hope that no one will ever again sneer at a woman merely for being a woman.
Splendid work has been done to help the men at the front by the women of each of the countries—those of our enemies as well as in our own and those of our allies—during the course of this awful struggle. I was told by a wounded soldier, to whom I had the privilege of talking in a London hospital, that what struck him most during the first terrific battles in which he took part, was the way in which Frenchwomen of all ages, from aged crones to little girls, came into the trenches under fire with fruit and water. This was a true errand of mercy, for during the earlier part of the war the heat was terrible, and our soldiers suffered awfully from thirst.
When the enemy entered Soissons the Mayor of the town had already left it. Accordingly, a certain Madame Macherez, the widow of a former Senator—or, as we should say, of a former member of the French House of Lords—informed the Commander that she was quite ready to take over the government of Soissons.
He assented, and at once she took charge of the police, of the fire station, and of the hospital. She “ran” the town most successfully, and that though the German Commander began by making enormous demands on the unfortunate citizens. He asked for nearly 200,000 pounds (weight) of food, including preserved meats, smoked sausages, and flour, and 40,000 pounds (weight) of tobacco, adding the significant threat that if all this were not at once forthcoming Soissons would be burnt to the ground.
Madame Macherez bluntly told him that it would be just as reasonable for him to ask for the sun and the moon as for all these things. She offered, however, to give what she could, and not only was her offer accepted, but the town was spared the dreadful fate which befell many places in the North of France.
We can easily imagine this brave woman’s joy when, a few days later, the same troops who had behaved in an arrogant, if not in a barbarous, manner passed in full retreat through Soissons!
The French have a peculiar, passionate love for their flag—the Revolutionary tricolor which banished the old lilies of France and under which Napoleon led his soldiers from victory to victory.
Very early in this war a light infantry regiment, closely engaged by the enemy, saw over twenty men who in turn held the standard cut down; a fresh soldier immediately grasped the coveted trophy and held it aloft, while his comrades ringed him round with dead. So it went on until supports arrived, and the standard and the little remnant of gallant men were saved.
I must tell you what a London lady did to cheer and encourage the young men who were eagerly joining the colours. She lives in a street where recruits are constantly passing, and she felt sad to see how weary they often looked, and what little notice passers-by took of them. She therefore bought a large Union Jack, and whenever a contingent of recruits marched by she hurried to her front door and waved the flag, thus showing them that there was at least one person there who wished to do them a little honour and felt gratitude for what they were doing for England. In due course she was rewarded, for an officer, before then quite unknown to her, called specially to tell her how much his men had been cheered and touched by her action.
Some time before the British airmen’s daring raid into Germany, two French flyers, Lieutenant Cesari and Corporal Prudhomme, performed a magnificent exploit over Metz.
They left Verdun under orders to reconnoitre and destroy if possible the Zeppelin sheds at Metz. The two airmen flew over the line of forts, the lieutenant at about 8000 feet up, and the corporal at 6500. In the midst of a cloud of bursting projectiles they kept on their way, but a little before they arrived above the parade ground the lieutenant’s motor suddenly stopped!
Determined not to descend without having accomplished the task assigned to him, he proceeded to volplane, and it was in planing that he launched his bomb at the shed. A little later, much to his surprise, for he had given himself up for lost, his motor re-started. Corporal Prudhomme also dropped a bomb from his machine. On their return journey hundreds of shells were fired at them, but they reached headquarters safe and sound.
A French aviator is reported to have brought down from the skies a German rifle bullet which he had caught in his hand! He was flying at a height of about 7000 feet, when he suddenly became aware of a small black object close to his head. He thought it was an insect of some kind, and was enough of an entomologist to realise that a flying insect at such a height was a curiosity. So he stretched out his hand and grasped what to his amazement proved to be a bullet! It was evidently a rifle bullet that had been fired almost vertically, and had there reached its utmost elevation.
It has been said that this great war has been waged in a very pitiless manner, but there have been, as we have seen, merciful exceptions.
One of these was the reconciliation on the battlefield between a French and a German soldier, who lay wounded and abandoned near the little town of Blâmont. They were there all through the cold, dark night, with only the dead about them. When dawn came they began to talk to one another, and the Frenchman gave his water-bottle to the German. The German sipped a little, and then kissed the hand of the man who had been his enemy.
“There will be no war in Heaven,” he said.
Boys, as we know, have played a splendid part in the war. One of the bravest French lads, whose name I am sorry I cannot tell you, saved the town in which he lived from total destruction, and from French shells.
It was at Montmirail, where the German Headquarters Staff was for a few brief hours installed in the château of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld. When the first French shell burst, the Germans did not wait for a second; they quickly cleared out. But of this retreat the French could not know anything, so they went on firing. It was then that a brave lad, in order to save the castle, took his bicycle and rode out with the shells shrieking above his head to inform the battery that the enemy had fled.
Surprise was felt in our country when it was heard that quite young German boys were in the firing line, but in the great American Civil War there were lads as young as thirteen and fourteen, fighting. One of them, called John Rhea, performed an act of extraordinary bravery during the retreat from Fishing Creek. He recognised in a prostrate figure on the ground an old school friend, named Sam Cox. Although he knew that he faced almost certain death by trying to help the wounded lad, he bent down, managed somehow to get him on his back, and carried him into safety.
Here let me break off to tell you that German boys have not been backward in helping their beloved country.
At the end of August, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, who is thirteen years old, placed himself at the head of a corps of schoolboys, who not only helped to get in the harvest, but did other useful work.
One of the most remarkable dogs in the world is a French dog. His name is Tom (a very favourite name for a dog in France), and he has been trained to help the wounded by carrying their caps to the Ambulance Corps. He never touches a dead man.
A certain French soldier was struck by a fragment of shell in the arm. With a bullet in his jaw as well, and a sabre cut over the head, the wounded man was lying terribly alone amid a little heap of his fallen comrades, when he felt a light touch on his forehead. It was Tom.
The soldier knew that the dog was trained to carry to the camp the cap of every wounded man he found, but alas! the soldier had lost his. “Run along, Tom. Go and find my comrades. Get along and find them!” Tom understood. He dashed away to the camp, ran about among the men, pulling at their capes and barking, and succeeded in drawing two ambulance men to the spot where the wounded man was lying.
I think the story of French pluck which has touched me most was that of Denise Cartier, the little girl who was so terribly injured in one of the German bomb attacks on Paris. The first words which Denise said to the policeman who lifted her up after the explosion were, “Surtout ne dites pas à maman que c’est grave.” (“Above all, don’t tell mother that it’s serious.”)
But alas! her mother had soon to know the worst, for brave little Denise had to have her leg cut off. When she awoke after the operation, she found by her bedside a pile of most beautiful presents sent her by kindly Parisians who had heard of her misfortune. Among them was a gold medal, and what do you think was engraved on it? Her own brave words to the policeman, “Surtout ne dites pas à maman que c’est grave.”