“Here, old general, here’s a cheroot which my missus has sent me. Happily France keeps us supplied, as you know. All the same, we intend to give a good hiding to your old Kaiser and all your bigwigs. We are republican. Liberty, equality, and fraternity. Live and let live is our motto. But any one who meddles with us had better look out. Damn it all! why don’t you kick your dirty old Kaiser into the sewer? Never mind! We shall set you free, and be jolly quick about it.”
The postman, dumbfounded, lit his cigar at the wrong end.
Yes, they have changed greatly since our coming. The dogma of French decadence, with which they had been sedulously indoctrinated, no longer finds credence. They join with us in making fun of it. It is amusing to see these humble folk, who have always been treated with disdain by their superiors, whether civil or military, accept us as intimate friends. They feel flattered when they can talk to us on a footing of democratic equality, for they do not fail to recognize our superiority, and they are greatly touched that we never abuse it. They feel that we are sincere in our hatred of the pride of caste. They applaud our republican speeches. In return, they confide to us their grievances and their despair. The poor devils are absolutely unanimous in detesting this horrible butchery.
It is unquestionable that the terrible burden of the war—the most terrible burden of death, weariness, and misery, that has ever weighed humanity down—presses more heavily upon their shoulders than upon ours. We have been held up in the trenches since September. On their side, for a year they have had no respite. Alternately victors and vanquished, upon the eastern front there continually occurs some new gigantic action, like that of the Marne. Day after day there is a savage attack in full force. Day after day there is a massacre. More than three and a half million Germans are fattening the soil of Galicia and Poland; more than ten millions have been wounded. And why? In defence? “Ah,” they say to us, “if you only knew how little we care whether we are French or Prussian! Give us peace, give us peace!”
They no longer believe that the war is a war of defence. They have heard their non-commissioned officers, men of the middle class, cursing Austria for having led them into this hateful business. The idea has become current in the villages where the troops are quartered. Exasperated by their sufferings, the soldiers are murmuring. Many would like to desert. They understand perfectly that they are the victims of a caste of nobles and manufacturers mad with pride. They still obey, but they grumble. A German grumbler is a new phenomenon.
“Every one hates us,” declared in my hearing a young workman from Upper Franconia. “Every one in the world except the Pope and the Turks. There can be no doubt that our rulers wanted everything for themselves. They told us, too, that the French nation was crumbling and would fall to pieces at a touch. What rot! We know well enough that you are splendid soldiers.”
“I was in the Vosges,” said a sentry of the 13th Bavarians. “Your chasseurs alpins are perfect fiends!”
“I was on the Yser,” commented another. “I shan’t forget your colonial infantrymen in a hurry!”
He made me come near the lamp to see his wound.