WHEN the history of the war is written at least three names of women will be enshrined forever in the annals: Sister Julie, the fearless nun of Gèrbéviller; that heroic woman who took the place of and acted as mayor of Soissons when von Kluck's legions occupied and ravaged that unfortunate little city; and Marcelle Semmer, a young girl of eighteen, who showed such bravery and extraordinary fortitude in aid of France as to win encomiums from both the British and French officers, who recommended that she be decorated. She has just received both the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, and the War Cross as reward.
M. L. L. Klotz, Deputy from the war-ravaged department of the Somme, has told in glowing words the story of how at the outbreak of the war, these noble women, left defenseless and at the mercy of the invaders, proudly faced these savages and really defied them.
He told of Marcelle Semmer, a young orphan girl of eighteen, living in the little village of Eclusier, near Frise on the river Somme, at the beginning of the war.
This young girl who showed the most extraordinary bravery and fortitude in the service of France, is perhaps but one of many others whose stories may never be known to the world.
She was acting as bookkeeper and clerk in a factory, producing phosphates, which had been founded by her father, an Alsatian refugee.
The invaders, driving back the Allies at Charleroi, captured the town, taking many prisoners. The French fell back across a canal, near the home of Marcelle Sem-mer, where there was a drawbridge. The heroic girl, unmindful of her danger, succeeded in raising the drawbridge before the enemy came up, and threw the lever into, the canal. Without this lever the bridge could not be lowered again. The canal at this point was so deep that the invading army could not ford it, and seeing the fleeing figure of the girl, the soldiers fired volley after volley after her, without once hitting her.
By this audacious act, Marcelle Semmer held back the advance of an entire German army corps until the following day, for the Germans had to await the arrival of their engineers before they were able to put a temporary bridge in place, and this they made of boats, and pontoons hastily constructed, thus consuming hours which were of great value in enabling the hard-pressed French to escape from the hordes which far outnumbered them.
In spite of the danger of detection, the young girl insisted upon remaining in the village during its occupation by the Germans; happily they did not recognize her as the girl who raised the drawbridge against them or she would have been shot at once.
Near the factory where she worked was a shed covering a subterranean passage leading to the phosphate mine. She succeeded in concealing the entrance trap to this passage by means of some large tuns and bagging. During the night she managed to conceal in this passage no less than seventeen French soldiers who had been somehow left in the retreat from the towns of Mons and Charleroi. Not only did she succeed in keeping these men hidden, but she managed to secure for them both food and peasant clothing, and aided them to get away to the French lines to the south. Sixteen of these men succeeded in getting away, but one dark night in a furious rainstorm while she was piloting the seventeenth to a cross-country lane, she was detected by a sentry, who dragged both of them before the German lieutenant.
In the examination before the Commandant at headquarters she defiantly confessed to having aided the French soldiers to escape, crying out, "Yes, I did it for France, and I shall do it again and again, if I am able. Do with me what you will. I am an orphan, I have but one mother, France! For her, my life!"