One of the many infirmières majors with whom I talked told me there was a second and imperative reason for a private kitchen. Military discipline closes every hospital kitchen in the war zone (both the grand régime and the petit régime) promptly at 6 P.M. and does not open it again until 7 the next morning. If a blessé is brought in after 6 there is not so much as a teaspoonful of milk to give him, and if, as sometimes happens, he is passed on to another hospital early in the morning, he leaves without having had sustenance of any sort. It is difficult for a non-military nation like ours to realize the dry conservative discipline of a nation that has been military for centuries, and has worked out an economy in money, food, time, and men to a point so fine that there is practically no waste.
Witness the immortal tactics of Joffre, who has destroyed the maximum of Germans with the minimum of Frenchmen. But, as I have said before, there has never been a war on such a scale as this, and it is the first time the authorities, always relying upon civilians to do their part, have been confronted with a new problem in the dietary kitchen.
Now, however, if the nurses have private supplies it is a simple matter to make a cup of broth or cocoa over a spirit lamp for a man brought in after 6 o’clock and faint from pain and loss of blood. It is done in five minutes and may save his life. In other respects I saw nothing to criticise in these military hospitals, although I am told that some of the smaller and newer ones are greatly in need of pillows, which seem to be scarce in France. But those I inspected were clean, airy, run like clock work, and the ordinary kitchen (grand régime), for those well on the road to recovery, was abundantly supplied. In one hospital outside of Remiramont I even saw a woman occupying a large room by herself. There are no doctors left in this small town and she had been brought to the military hospital for treatment. When I looked in at the door and saw her gray face surrounded by scattered gray hair I could not imagine for a moment what it was, so little did I expect to see a woman after having gone through some twenty wards filled with men; most of them, by the way, with their legs elevated in wooden frames—an invention, I was told, of Dr. Blake. I never saw any one look more ill. She had had thirteen children and now had a floating kidney. Several of her sons had fallen and more were in the trenches. I have often wondered if she survived.
The Hôpital Central is beautifully located in a high valley just outside of Bar-le-Duc and looks like a new mining town. It is laid out in streets and there must be thirty of the wooden barracks besides two pavilions—long structures of stucco painted white. They are fine targets for taubes and I can’t think why they are not painted brown. All of these buildings but one are in charge of Mme. d’Haussonville’s division of the Red Cross, Société Française de Secours aux Blessés Militaires; the exception is run by the second division, Société des Dames Françaises. These women, both of the noblesse and the haute bourgeoisie, give their services and work like slaves.
The infirmière major, Mlle. de Sézilles, and the médicin chef walked me through every one of those buildings except those devoted to infectious cases. The day was hot and I had walked miles already, but the doctor was inexorable. He had not wanted to show me the hospital, even although I had brought a personal letter to Mlle. de Sézilles, but had surrendered when I produced my letter from the Ministère de la Guerre in which the privilege of visiting the hospitals in the war zone was extended to me. So he determined I should have my fill.
However, every foot of the way was interesting. Here men were brought to remain until they were well enough to return to the front or be transferred to Paris, the blind until their bodies were strong enough to give them courage for delicate operations or to face life once more. The men in bed were protected by netting from the loathsome flies which swarm in this district, and every counterpane was as white as the crisp gowns of the infirmières. The advanced convalescents in the pavilions were sitting in the corridors that traverse the front, reading or gazing at the charming scenery; if blind, merely sunning themselves. They alone, of all the maimed, look sad.
Mlle. de Sézilles showed me her barrack with great pride, and it certainly was an unexpected sight in a base hospital. Its corridors were set with palms and flowering shrubs, every window had its boxes, and there were pictures above the beds. Each ward, in fact, was a revelation of the taste or purse of its infirmière major. Some were austere, but in many an attempt had been made to relieve the barrenness of a military hospital ward, where the men must lie for weeks, or months, with little to do but stare at a glimpse of the hills, and during long silence unbroken by any sound but the raucous voice of war. There is no question that the wounded in the decorated wards looked more than commonly cheerful, for not only has the Frenchman a passion for beauty but he is the most grateful of all the wounded soldiers. And he would answer politely the most inane question if he were being disemboweled at the moment.
Mlle. de Sézilles showed me a cupboard stocked with the first consignment from Le Bienêtre du Blessé we had been able to send, and once more I heard how welcome it was. “It is good for the morale of the men, also,” she added. “The poor fellows, courageous as they are, and gay by temperament, are often depressed. There is nothing like appetizing food, both immediate and prospective, to raise the spirits of a convalescent. No medicine so hastens recovery, and they never looked forward to the pleasures of health as they do to a cup of broth or cocoa, or a slice of ham and a dish of preserves.” Then, like everybody else I met in France engaged in any sort of relief work, she spoke with the deepest gratitude of the practical sympathy of the Americans, of their enormous generosity. I told her that the Eastern States had borne the brunt so far, and that California had done well, but that I was waiting for the West to wake up.
Several Americans have asked me why the rich people of France do not run this oeuvre themselves. The answer is simple enough. There are no rich people left in France, not as we estimate riches, at all events. Between the moratorium, which has cut off their rents, the mobilization of their farm hands or workmen, taxes, the increased cost of living, and the constant demands to which they have responded since the first day of the war (I know one woman who runs three hospitals in the South of France out of her own pocket), they find themselves at the beginning of the third year with little to spare. Some have shut up the greater part of their beautiful apartments or hôtels, and live in the fewest possible rooms, on the smallest possible sum, giving away every penny they can squeeze out of their depleted incomes.
Take the case of one Frenchman, of the old noblesse, married to an American girl. She brought him a large dower, but he was wealthy and it was a love match. The French trenches run through his northern estate, and he will not be permitted to set foot on it before the end of the war unless his regiment happens to be ordered there. It is ruined in any case. His southern estate is intact, but he receives no rent from his tenants, and all his able-bodied men are at the front—or dead. To be sure the women and boys work in the fields, but so they did before the war, and there is no one to take the place of the absent men. Out of his invested capital he must pay high and ever higher taxes, he is asked every day in the week for a subscription, and I believe he runs a hospital. He would smile at hearing himself called a rich man to-day.