Paris War Days: Diary of an American

by Charles Inman Barnard

The air is still overcharged with uncertainty as to the result of the great battle along the front of one hundred and twenty miles between the Ourcq and Verdun. Will the Germans succeed in forcing their tremendous wedge through the French center near Vitry and separate the allied armies to the west and around Paris, from the great French armies to the east and around Verdun?

A German repulse means a German tragedy. But if they succeed in their bold move on the center, and separate the allied armies, they will gain a very great strategic success and can then turn their attention to the investment of a segment of the fortifications of Paris.

Meanwhile the official communiqués given out at three P.M. and at eleven P.M., at the Military Government of Paris, are, to say the least, hopeful. Every attempt to break through the French lines on the Ourcq has failed. No change noted on the center and on the allied right.

At two this afternoon I saw a small, low, dusty motor-car come spinning along the Boulevard des Invalides, containing four soldiers, who had with them two German flags, captured this morning during the fighting near the Ourcq. They were bringing their trophies to General Galliéni, who conferred the Military Medal—the highest French distinction for valor in action—on the reserve infantry soldier Guillemard, who captured one of these flags in a hand-to-hand encounter. The flag belonged to the Thirty-sixth Prussian Infantry Regiment, the Magdeburg Fusiliers, and had been decorated with the Iron Cross in 1870.

One of the French biplanes that scour the sky daily in search of German taubes met with sad disaster yesterday while flying over the Bois de Vincennes. The aeroplane contained a lieutenant and a corporal of the aviation corps. A violent gust of wind capsized it, and it fell to the ground, burying the occupants in a heap of débris. When extricated, both were dead. A few moments after the biplane struck the earth, either its motor, or the bombs that it had on board, exploded, and four passers-by were killed by flying fragments. Two of them were ten-year-old lads. A little girl and several other persons were more or less bruised. It so happened that I had watched this biplane from the Boulevard de Courcelles as it soared over Paris at a height of fifteen hundred meters. It was very steady in its movements and was going in an easterly direction. This must have been some ten minutes before the catastrophe.

The committee of the National Society of Fine Arts held a meeting today at the Grand Palais, to render aid to painters, sculptors, and artists in need of assistance, without regard to nationality, passed resolutions of indignation at the injury of works of art in France and Belgium committed by the German armies, and at the destruction of the objects of art solicited by Germany and entrusted by France to the International Exhibition at Leipsic, and unanimously voted to strike from the list of members the names of all artists of German nationality.

The art critic of the Gil Blas, M. Louis Vauxelles, whose scathing criticisms of the "classic" pompier academic school of painting and of sculpture, and whose intelligent censure of the extreme "futurist" clique elicit the hearty approval of all true lovers of art, in the United States, as well as in France, is serving as a simple soldier in an infantry regiment, but finds time occasionally to write to the Intransigéant picturesque descriptions of military life.

I received a letter from a friend at Tours, where the refugees are becoming less numerous, but the hospitals on the contrary are nearly full of wounded. Comtesse Paul de Pourtalès is doing splendid work there as the head of the Red Cross, and M. Gaston Ménier, the popular senator, a warm personal friend of Mr. Andrew Carnegie and the owner of the great chocolate works, has turned his Château of Chenonceaux into a perfectly organized hospital with a corps of surgeons and professional nurses, which he maintains at his own expense. Nearly a hundred French wounded are already being cared for in the Chenonceaux hospital. As soon as they get well enough, they are sent back to rejoin their regiments. All the villas in the neighborhood of Tours are already leased to families that have gone away from Paris.

In accordance with the notices of the Military Governor of Paris, I was vaccinated against smallpox to-day, together with all those now living in the house—in all twelve persons.

Mr. William G. Sharp, who has been appointed to succeed Mr. Myron T. Herrick as American Ambassador in France, remains here with his son, George, and is preparing to make himself familiar with the situation, so that when the proper time comes, he may take over his office. Mr. Sharp is already making headway with his somewhat theoretical knowledge of French. He told me that the war had upset many diplomatic and other precedents. "It is quite obvious," he said, "that at this critical period, Mr. Herrick could not desert his post, where his knowledge and experience have been so valuable." Mr. Sharp added: "It is needless to say that there will be no change of policy with my arrival as Ambassador to France. The friendship between the United States and France was never firmer than it is to-day. Personally, I am a fervent admirer of France, of French art, culture, and science.