Paris War Days: Diary of an American

by Charles Inman Barnard

Minister of War Millerand has revived the daily meetings of heads of departments at the War Office. To-day the defensive condition of Paris was discussed. Work already in progress, under the supervision of General Galliéni, is pushed forward rapidly and methodically, and obstructions to artillery fire are being cleared away in the suburbs.

I rambled this morning through the so-called German quarter of Paris around the Rue d'Hauteville and between the main boulevards and the Rue Lafayette. All the German and Austrian teutons shops and places of business are closed. The brasseries, where the best Munich or Pilsener beer, with wiener Schnitzel or leber-knoedel suppe could be obtained until the end of July, are invisible behind signless iron shutters. The "intelligence section" of the German general staff had for years obtained precious military information through the enterprising, affable German commercial agents, restaurant keepers, commission merchants, waiters, and hotel errand boys (chasseurs) who thrived in this thrifty quarter.

A wounded sergeant of a Highland regiment, in talking yesterday with an American friend of mine at Amiens station, bitterly denounced the German practice of concealing their advance by driving along in front of them numbers of refugee women and children. The Scottish sergeant said: "Our battalion was badly cut up. We were using our machine guns to repel a German advance. Suddenly we saw a lot of women and children coming along the road towards us. Our officers ordered us to cease firing. The refugees came pouring through our lines. Immediately behind them, however, were the German riflemen, who suddenly opened fire on us at short range with terrible effect. Had it not been for this dastardly trick of shoving women and children ahead of them at the points of their bayonets, we might have wiped out this German rifle battalion that attacked us, but instead of that, we were driven back. Damn these Germans!" With these words the Scottish sergeant, his right arm shattered from shoulder to elbow, climbed into the train of British wounded and was carried off towards Rouen.

A number of French wounded soldiers from the Northern Army arrived in Paris during the night and were sent to the Military Hospital, Rue des Récollets, to the Hospital of Saint-Louis, and to a hospital installed in the College Rollin. Among them were a number slightly wounded, but very few severely. Their spirit seems excellent, and all agree that few were killed considering the number of wounded.

All promise to obey orders more closely when they are well and back in the firing line, and not to be too rash. Rashness and too great anxiety to get at the foe seem, indeed, to have been the cause of a great many casualties.

Friday, August 28.

Twenty-sixth day of the war. Bright, clear weather with northeasterly breezes. Temperature at five P.M. 20 degrees centigrade.

I saw, in the Rue Franklin, M. Georges Clemençeau, the veteran demolisher of cabinets, and former Prime Minister, who in his youthful days was a mayor of the eighteenth arrondissement of Paris, the turbulent Montmartre quarter. M. Clemençeau severely criticizes the new Viviani Cabinet. "Viviani," said he, "asked me twice to form part of it. I declined because, in addition to personal reasons, the Ministry did not seem to me to realize the elements of power and action required by this war. Having this opinion, it would not be fair either to Viviani or to myself to enter into a combination where I should have to assume the responsibility for acts that to my mind would not adequately meet the emergency. Under the circumstances, there are only three ministers that count for anything; those of war, foreign affairs, and finance." M. Clemençeau said: "There must be something wrong with the mobilization scheme, because when our troops were outnumbered at the front, there were great quantities of young officers and men who for ten days had been awaiting, at their various points of assembly, orders to join their corps, and at the last moment were told to go home."

On the other hand, M. Millerand, Minister of War, has visited General Joffre at the army headquarters and returned to Paris to-night "very satisfied with the situation."

I took a spin in an automobile to-day to Versailles, and thence to Buc with its red brick aerodrome tower, sheds, and long rows of hangars. Here were groups of airmen in the rough, serviceable French sapper uniform—loose-fitting blue coat, blue trousers with a double red stripe, blue flannel scarf about their necks, as if they had all got sore throats, and blue pointed forage caps. Here is Chevillard, that wonderful gymnast of the air. There is Verrier, and here, driving a sporting-looking car, is Carpentier, whose more familiar costume is a pair of white slips and a pair of four-ounce gloves. For Carpentier has been mobilized, too. Instead of making thousands of dollars this month by his fight with Young Ahearn, and possibly other matches with Bombardier Wells and Gunboat Smith, he, too, is on the pay list of the army at next to nothing a day. He is attached to the flying center as a chauffeur, and that car he is driving is his own, only he cannot take it out without orders now.