Lay Down Your Arms: The Autobiography of Martha von Tilling

by Bertha von Suttner

“Yes, madam, that is the comedy which is being played at home. Meanwhile, on the field of battle, the tragedy is still far from played out by the second sunset. Besides those who are carried to the hospital or the trench, there still remain the ‘missing’. Hidden behind some thick brushwood, in the fields of standing corn, or amongst the ruins of buildings, they have escaped the sight of the bearers or the buriers, and for them begins now the martyrdom of an agony which lasts many days and nights—in the burning heat of midday—in the dark shadows of midnight, crouched on stones and thistles, in the stench of the corpses around and of their own putrefying wounds—a prey, while still quivering, for the feasting vultures.”

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What a journey that was! The regimental surgeon had long ceased to speak, but the scenes he had described went on continually presenting themselves before my mind’s eye. To escape from this train of thoughts which persecuted me, I began to look out of the carriage window and try to find distraction in the prospect of the country. But here also pictures of the horrors of war presented themselves to my vision. It is true that no violent devastation had taken place in this neighbourhood, there were no ruined villages smoking there, “the enemy” had effected no lodgment there, but what was raging there was perhaps still worse, viz., the fear of the enemy. “The Prussians are coming! the Prussians are coming!” was the signal of alarm through the whole region, and though in travelling past one did not hear the words, yet even from the carriage window their effect was plainly to be seen. Everywhere on all the roads and lanes were people flying, leaving their homes with bag and baggage. Whole trains of waggons were moving inland, filled with bedding, household furniture and provisions, all evidently packed up in the greatest haste. On the same car would be some little pigs, the youngest child, and one or two sacks of potatoes, beside it on foot man and wife and the elder children; that is how I saw a family making their escape as they moved down a road near me. Where were the poor creatures going? They themselves very likely did not know, it was only away, away from “the Prussians”. So men flee from the roaring fire, or the rising flood.

Frequently a train passed us on the other line—wounded, always and again wounded—always once more the ashy faces, the bandaged heads, the arms in slings. At the stations especially one might feed on this sight in all its variations to satiety. All the large or small platforms, on which one usually sees the travelling population waiting or cheerfully standing or walking about, were now filled with prostrate or cowering figures. They were the invalid soldiers who had been brought from the field-or private-hospitals in the neighbourhood, and were waiting for the next train which might serve for the transport of the wounded. There they might have to lie for hours; and who knows how many removals they have already passed through! From the battlefield to the first-aid station, from thence to the ambulance, from thence to a movable hospital, then to the village, and now to the railway, whence they have still the journey to Vienna before them; then from the station to the hospital, and from thence, after all these long tortures, perhaps back to their regiment—perhaps to the churchyard. I was so sorry—so sorry—so terribly sorry for these poor fellows! I should have liked to kneel down before each of them and whisper a few words of compassion to him. But the doctor would not allow me. When we got out at a station he gave me his arm and took me into the stationmaster’s office. There he brought me some wine, or some other refreshment.

The nurses carried on their work of mercy here also. They gave the wounded men drink and food, such as they could hunt up, but often there was nothing to be had. The provisions in the refreshment rooms were generally exhausted. This movement at the stations, especially at the large ones, had a bewildering effect on me. It seemed to me like an evil dream. All this running hither and thither, this confused pell-mell—troops marching out, people flying away, sick-bearers, heaps of bleeding and complaining soldiers, sobbing women wringing their hands, shouts, harsh words of command—crowds on all hands, no free passage anywhere—baggage being sent in, war material, cannons—on another side horses and bellowing cattle, and amongst them the continuous sound of the telegraph—trains rushing through filled, or crowded rather, with the reserves coming up from Vienna. These soldiers were brought along in third and fourth class carriages—nay, also in baggage and cattle trucks—just in the same way as cattle to be slaughtered, and regarding it as a matter of fact, I could not repress the thought: “What else were they in reality? Were they not like the cattle marked out for slaughter—were they not, like them, sent to the great political market, where business is done in food for powder—what the French call chair-à-canon?” A mad roar—was it a war song?—pealed out and drowned the rattling sound of the wheels—one minute, and the train was gone. With the speed of the wind it bore a portion of its freight to certain death. Yes, certain death. Even if no individual can say of himself that he is sure to fall, yet a certain percentage of the whole must and will fall. An army marching to the field, as they sweep along the high road on foot or on horseback, may have a touch of antique poetry about it; but for the railroad of our modern day, the symbol of culture binding nations together, to serve as the means for promoting barbarism let loose—that is a thing altogether too inconsistent and horrible. And what a false ring also has the telegraph signal used in this service—that splendid sign of the triumph of the human intellect, which has enabled us to propagate thought with lightning speed from one land to another. All these inventions of the new era which are designed to promote the intercourse of nations, to lighten, beautify, and enrich life, are now misapplied by that old-world principle which aims at dividing the peoples and annihilating life. Our boast before savages is: “Look at our railroads, look at our telegraphs; we are civilised nations”; and then we use these things to increase a hundredfold our own savagery.

My being forced to torture myself with such thoughts as these, and these only, as I waited at the station or pursued my way in the train, made my grief still more deep and bitter. I almost envied those who merely wrung their hands and wept in simple pain, who did not rise up in wrath against the whole hideous comedy, who accused no one—not even that “Lord of armies” of whom yet they believed that He was so, and that it was He who was keeping suspended over their heads the misery that had come to them.

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It was late at night when I got to Königinhof. My travelling companions had been obliged to get out at an earlier station. I was alone, in fear and anxiety. How if Dr. Bresser were prevented from coming? What step could I then take in this place? Besides I was, so to speak, broken on the wheel by the journey, quite unnerved by all the experiences of grief and terror that I had passed through. If it had not been for my longing for Frederick I should have wished now for nothing but death. To be able to lie down, go to sleep, and never wake again in a world where things go on so horribly and so madly! But preserve me from one thing at least, to live on and know that Frederick is among the “missing”!

The train stopped. Tired and trembling, I alighted and took out my hand-baggage. I had taken with me a hand-basket, with some linen for myself and charpie and bandages for the wounded, and also my travelling dressing-case. This I had taken quite mechanically, in the belief in which I was brought up that one could not exist without the silver cases and baskets, the soaps and essences, the brushes and combs. Cleanliness, that virtue of the body, corresponding to honour in the soul, that second nature of educated humanity, what a lesson had I now to learn, that there can be no thought of it at such times as these! That, however, is only consistent—war is the negation of education, and therefore all the triumphs of education must be annihilated by it; it is a step backwards into barbarism and must therefore have everything that is barbarous in its train, and amongst others that thing which to the cultured man is so utterly abominable—dirt.

The chest with materials for the hospitals, which I had looked out for Dr. Bresser in Vienna, had been given over with the other chests to the care of the Aid Committee, and who could tell when and where they would be delivered? I had nothing with me except my two pieces of hand-baggage, and a bag of money round my neck containing a few hundred florin notes. With a tottering step I crossed the rails to the platform. There, in spite of the lateness of the hour, the same confusion prevailed as at the other stations, and the same picture was always repeated. Wounded men—wounded men. No, not the same picture, one still worse. Königinhof was a place which was over-full of these unfortunates, there was not an unoccupied room in the whole village, and now they had brought the sick in crowds to the railway station, where, hastily bandaged up, they were lying about everywhere—on the ground—on the stones.