Germany wars against the armies of France, not against the civil population, the women and children. She hopes that this remonstrance will be sufficient to prevent any future attacks of this barbarous nature. In case of the opposite she will feel obliged to make reprisals in kind.
You know now, Frenchmen, that that slave of England, M. Poincaré, will be responsible for blood shed by innocent victims, and that it is the barbarity of the English which will oblige us to bring destruction and death to your cities far from the front.
Strange, muddled brains, victims of overtraining that have left whole tracts completely atrophied. This document would be merely funny were it not for the terrible problem which confronts the civilized world in dealing with this abnormal species which has grown up in its midst and can never be exterminated root and branch.
While we were laughing over the ultimatum, read aloud by our Lieutenant, we heard a loud noise at the foot of the hill behind the house, and went to the window. A military train was passing. It was decorated with green boughs, and all the windows were filled with soldiers, singing and waving their caps. They were on their way to the Somme.
LE BIENÊTRE DU BLESSÉ
t was during the latter part of May that a number of ladies met at the house of the Marquise de Talleyrand-Périgord in Paris to found an oeuvre on the grand Countess d’Haussonville, President of the first division of the Red Cross, presided, scale for the greater comfort of convalescent officers and soldiers in the war zone, and of that original group those who accepted official positions were the Marquise d’Andigné (Madeline Goddard of Providence), Mme. de Talleyrand (Elizabeth Curtis of New York), Countess de Roussy de Sales (American), Princess Poniatowska (Elizabeth Sperry of California), Mme. Ernest Mallet, wife of the President of the Bank of France; Mme. le General Pau and Mme. Waddington, who, as all the world knows, was Mary King of New York.
Mme. d’Andigné, who has established a reputation for executive ability and conscientious application to whatever she undertakes, was elected President, and Mme. Poincaré became Honorary President.
On the council are thirty-nine names, French, French-American, and American. Among the last are Mrs. Bliss of the American Embassy, Mrs. Ridgley Carter, Mrs. Herman Harges, Mrs. Lawrence Slade, Mrs. William Crocker, Miss Crocker, Mrs. Bell, Mrs. Lee Childe, Mrs. Potter, Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Hyde and Mrs. Samuel Watson, wife of the American clergyman in Paris. The French names are among the most distinguished in France, and no list of any oeuvre was ever more carefully chosen both for its effect on the public and for usefulness; coming as it did, late in the day, it was felt to be under a certain handicap.