M. DELCASSÉ, FRANCE’S MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
[He is the most capable of France’s statesmen, and was the prime mover in the formation of the Triple Entente. He has been three times Minister of Marine, once Minister of the Colonies, and five times Minister of Foreign Affairs.]
This morning Paris is informed that the Lieutenant had been punctually on his way to his daily appointment when, in flying over the Bois de Vincennes, a rifle bullet had passed through his heart. Strange to say, he planed down on a long steep slant, this man-bird, just as game birds do when similarly stricken, and landed without serious damage to his machine. He was found sitting stone dead, strapped up in his seat. Such is the quick generosity of the French temperament that today he is mourned by all Paris, this Lieutenant von Heidssen, who died on his lonely way to keep his fifth punctual appointment with the city of his enemies. Paris actually regrets that he no longer comes at six each evening to throw bombs at her.
Mr. Herrick’s remaining in Paris has been greeted with wonderful appreciation and enthusiasm by the whole French nation. His picture is in all the newspapers and shop windows, and even the most humble member of the Embassy shines by reflected glory.
The diplomatic responsibilities resting on our Embassy become more and more important, but everyone acknowledges that in each emergency Mr. Herrick shows himself equal to the situation. When the first German aëroplane threw bombs at Paris, a wave of indignation and protestation swept over the city. It was one of those waves of excitement which carry judgment before it. Citizens and officials, newspapers and posters, Frenchmen and Americans, all besought and begged Mr. Herrick, “the courageous, the noble Mr. Herrick,” to make formal protest to Washington. Everywhere one heard in angry tones the phrases: “brutality,” “contrary to the Hague Convention,” “killing non-combatants,” “barbarians.” Mr. Herrick decided that there was more danger in protesting too soon than of protesting too late. He delayed long enough to consult his books and to confer with his legal and military advisers. I was fortunate enough to be present when he read the final summing-up of his conclusions. He had discovered that neither Germany nor France had signed the clause of the Hague Convention forbidding aircraft to drop bombs on cities. Therefore, the law that non-combatants of a city must be warned before any bombardment is begun did not, in the case of these two nations, technically apply, whatever the considerations of humanity might dictate.
Mr. Herrick did not protest, for there was legally nothing to protest about. He forwarded verbatim to Washington the protests of the French Government.
One now sees many British and Belgian soldiers about Paris. They have come in on the edges of the great retreat. Their morale is exactly the reverse of what one would expect in troops who have been badly beaten. They express great contempt for the German soldier. They describe him as a stupid, brutal, big-footed creature, who does not know how to shoot and who has a distaste for the bayonet. They seem unable to understand why they have been beaten by the Germans and try to explain it by saying, “There are so many of them.”
The Belgians, nearly all of whom have come from Liège and Namur, speak in the most awe-stricken terms of the effects of the big German siege guns, which fire a shell 11.2 inches in diameter. These guns were placed in distant valleys and could not be located by the Belgians. Moreover, they outranged the guns of the forts and could not have been injured even if they had been located. The forts thus lay hopeless and awaited their doom, which came suddenly enough in the shape of great shells dropping out of the sky upon their cupolas. The explosions might have been approximated by combining an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, and a cyclone.