C’est un vrai Français, that garçon. What?
V
ON THE HEELS OF VON KLUCK
An excursion to the front—The magic of a military pass—The high-water mark of German shells—Return of the refugees—Fate of the villages—War’s results—Burying the dead—The victorious spirit of France—Approaching the line—Roll and smoke of the guns—Passing the motor transports—Army organisation—Line reserves—Newspapers and tobacco—Soissons deserted—Stoicism of the townspeople—German prisoners—The Sixth Army headquarters—A town in ruins—Character of French women—French democracy and humanity.
Though the Germans were going, the siege by the cordon of French guards around Paris had not been raised. To them every civilian was a possible spy. So they let no civilians by. Must one remain forever in Paris, screened from any view of the great drama? Was there no way of securing a blue card which would open the road to war for an atom of humanity who wanted to see Frenchmen in action and not to pry into generals’ plans?
Happily, an army winning is more hospitable than an army losing; and bonds of friendship which stretch around the world could be linked with authority which has only to say the word in order that one might have a day’s glimpse of the fields where von Kluck’s Germans were showing their heels to the French.
Ours, I think, was the pioneer of the sightseeing parties which afterward became the accepted form of war correspondence with the French. None could have been under more delightful auspices in companionship or in the event. Victory was in the hearts of our hosts, who included M. Paul Doumer, formerly president of the Chamber of Deputies and governor of French Indo-China and now a senator, and General Fevrier, of the French Medical Service, who was to have had charge of the sanitation of Paris in case of a siege.
M. Doumer was acting as Chef de Cabinet to General Gallieni, the commandant of Paris, and he and General Fevrier and two other officers of Gallieni’s staff, who would have been up to their eyes in work if there had been a siege, wanted to see something of that army whose valour had given them a holiday. Why should not Roberts and myself come along? which is the pleasant way the French have of putting an invitation.
The other member of the party was the veteran European correspondent and representative of the Associated Press in Paris, Elmer Roberts, who would not be doing his duty to Melville E. Stone if he did not arrange for opportunities of this kind. I was really hanging onto Roberts’s coat-tails. Other men may have publicity as individuals in a single newspaper or magazine, but the readers of a thousand newspapers take their news from Paris through him without knowing his name.