Paris War Days: Diary of an American

by Charles Inman Barnard

Tuesday, September 8.

Thirty-seventh day of the war. Cloudy weather with rain in the afternoon. Brisk southeasterly wind. Thermometer at five P.M. 22 degrees centigrade.

The allied armies are more than holding their own on the vast line between the Ourcq and Verdun. Meanwhile all precautions are being taken by the Military Government of Paris for an eventual siege. The Bois de Boulogne resembles a cattle ranch. The census of the civil population of the "entrenched camp of Paris," just taken with a view of providing rations during a possible siege, shows that there are 887,267 families residing in Paris, representing a total of 2,106,786 individuals of all ages and both sexes. This is a decrease of thirty percent since the last census in 1911. The health of the city is excellent. The census sheets notify inhabitants that gas during a siege must be used exclusively for lighting purposes and never for cooking or heating. This will cause some tribulation in the small ménages, where the cheap, popular, and handy gas-stove has replaced the coal or charcoal ovens and ranges.

The ram came on this afternoon at four, while a large crowd of Parisians stood in the square in front of the church of Saint-Etienne du Mont, beside the Pantheon, but it failed to disperse the faithful, who were taking part in the outdoor service of homage to Sainte-Geneviève, the protectress of Paris, whose remains are buried in this small church of the Gothic-Renaissance period (1517-1620), one of the most beautiful of all the sacred edifices of France.

Those who recently hastened away from Paris in search of a place of refuge, quiet, and safety, have met with many disappointments. The roads to Tours are blocked with vehicles of every description, many of them filled with refugees who have turned them into temporary dwellings. Automobiles are brought to a standstill for lack of benzol. Everything on the way from Paris to Bordeaux is requisitioned. At Orléans, people wander about vainly seeking a place in which to sleep. The town is filled. People buy ham and sausages, which they eat in cafés or in the streets. At Blois, the citizens offer to lodge refugees and travelers at the rate of five francs a day. The Blois people are very hospitable and do not seek to unduly profit by the situation. The Grand Hotel is of course overflowing, but the prices remain the same as in ordinary times. At Tours, the inhabitants are less hospitable and more avaricious. One of the biggest hotels in the town asks fifty francs (ten dollars) for a simple armchair in which to pass the night. Three special trains yesterday carried away to Provence the inmates of the insane asylums of Bicêtre and Charenton. It was a weird sight to see these men and women, utterly unconscious of the war, gazing with nervous uncertainty upon the strange scenes through which they were conducted to the Orléans Station, somewhat like helpless flocks of sheep.

Shortly after leaving the large room at Number 31 Boulevard des Invalides, where the official communiqués are now given out to the French and foreign press, I met a sergeant of an infantry regiment who had been wounded during the fighting between Coulommier and Ferté-Gaucher. "At daybreak on Sunday," he said, "we were sent forward to prevent the German infantry from making their favorite turning movement on our left wing. Our orders were to hold on to the enemy and prevent his advance until the allied troops near Meaux had repulsed the German attack being made in their direction. Early in the afternoon, the Germans retired from Meaux before the allied divisions. We advanced and drove them north of Ferté-Gaucher. The fighting lasted all night and became very severe on Monday morning, but shortly afterwards the Germans offered but slight resistance. For thirty kilometers we followed up two German infantry regiments, supported by their cavalry and a section of artillery. During their retreat, the Germans did not fire a single shot. We soon succeeded in cutting off a detachment of infantry and in capturing seven field guns and two machine guns. One of the prisoners, an infantry sergeant, admitted that his men were short of ammunition, and that their orders were to use as little of it as possible. It was during the last combat that I was wounded in the thigh by a Prussian officer, who cut me with his sword as I was trying to disarm him."

A wounded French infantry lieutenant says that the German troops seem "fatigued and fagged out." Another officer says that in the trenches near Coulommier, a dozen German infantry soldiers were found dead, having been killed by French .75 millimeter shells, and were in the same attitudes of firing that they had taken at the moment when they had been "crisped" by death. An Algerian Turco was found dead, grasping his rifle, the bayonet of which had pierced and killed a German soldier. Both were corpses, but stood in grim death like a group of statuary.

I received to-day a letter from my gardener at Vernon. He says that the roads are filled with refugees, who are being sent on to Brittany by way of Louviers. Motorists along the roads say that they have passed continuous lines of refugees, sometimes seventy kilometers in length. The Château de Bizy is transformed into a hospital and so also is the Château des Pénitents at Vernonnet. Most of the injured have slight wounds in the arms or legs. Many of them, after five days' treatment, are able to go back to the front.

Wednesday, September 9.

Thirty-eighth day of the war. Somewhat cooler weather, with cloudy sky and with south to southwesterly wind, at times blowing in sharp gusts. Thermometer at five P.M. 21 degrees centigrade.