The story of the child adopted by the Bedfordshires will be remembered by many. She was found in a ditch by the men on their way to the trenches, and was perforce for some time with them there.
The German trenches were about 150 yards off, and the level, open space between the two lines wasn’t healthy. No man who valued his life would go there unnecessarily, or recklessly put his head above the parapet. One morning, to their horror the men, through the periscope, saw the child standing above the trench on the German side. Cries came from the enemy, but they were not hostile. The sight of the girl, little more than an infant, has touched their sentimental side, and she had offers of chocolate and invitations to go and see them.
After that the girl went over the parapet quite often. She was as safe in that danger zone as if she had been behind the lines. No German would harm her, and once she went close up to their first-line trench.—(Daily News, February 17, 1916).
Austro-Hungarians in Cetinje.
When the Austro-Hungarian troops entered Cetinje there was already serious famine:
The children in the streets were begging bread from the passing soldiers, who shared their tiny brown loaves with the hungry little children, and the military authorities at the barracks were besieged from the morning till late in the evening by the starving population.
There were some fifty or sixty well-to-do better class families, who had been in Government positions before, or prominent business people, who suffered as terribly as their poorer brethren. Among those who went begging for bread to headquarters were wives of ex-Ministers and women who were ladies-in-waiting at the Royal Court only a few weeks previously. For their children’s sake they were all ready to beg for something to eat.
It must be admitted that the military authorities put the soldiers on quarter rations and distributed all the available food among the suffering population. The bad condition of the roads and the consequent lack of supplies in the army itself made it impossible for them to do more.—(Daily News, February 21, 1916.)
On quarter rations—that is worth remembering.