The part of the line in which Private Bibby was placed was subjected to a heavy bombardment, after which the enemy delivered an attack. The order to retire was given “and our section made for a road which led into a village, but about a hundred yards up the road I received a bullet wound which passed under the shoulder-blade and pierced a portion of the lung.”
“Private Bibby was forced to lie down by the side of the road, and shortly afterwards an advance party of the Germans came along delivering their attack. The first wave swept past, but of those who followed one stopped to give Private Bibby a cigarette, another took off his wounded foe’s equipment and made it into a pillow for his head, and put his water-bottle within reach, while a third made a pad out of his field dressing with which he staunched the wound. As he turned and followed his comrades, he assured his patient that the Red Cross would come soon.
“A German Red Cross orderly came up shortly afterwards, and was engaged in dressing the wound when the order came for the Germans to retire before a British counter-attack. ‘About ten minutes after the last had passed down the road our lads, counter-attacking, were creeping up the road, and it was not long before the R.A.M.C. lifted me on a stretcher and took me to the advanced dressing station.’
“We congratulate Private Bibby on the recovery he is making from a severe wound, and are glad that he is able to bear this testimony of gratitude to a company of unknown but chivalrous foes.
“It is, of course, well known that the Northcliffe Press refuses to print experiences of this kind.”
“Many of our wounded have passed through the same conditions of captivity and deliverance. They bear witness to the honourable conduct of the German Army doctors (majors). Here, for example, is one of the stories that I have heard: ‘I found myself in a ditch after the battle, unable to move. A German doctor came by; he gave me bread and coffee and promised to come back in the evening if he could, or next day. That night and the following day passed without my seeing any one; the time seemed long. In the evening he came: ‘I had not forgotten you,’ he said, ‘but I have had no time.’ He had me carried away and gave me careful attention.’” (La Guerre vue d’une Ambulance, par L’Abbé Félix Klein, Aumonier de l’Ambulance américaine, p. 80.)
The writer continues: “Facts of this nature deserve to be recorded. Amidst this setting loose of horrors and hates it would be well to lay stress on some of those deeds which are able to soften the soul. This morning I see that an article has been passed in one of the most widely read French journals recommending that no prisoners should be made in forthcoming battles, but that our enemies should be ‘struck down like wild beasts,’ ‘butchered like swine’! Nothing, not even the sack of Senlis, nothing justifies such outbursts of fury.” The French soldiers, M. L’Abbé indicates, confine their denunciations to the Prussian regulars and speak well of the reserves. “They are men like us, married men, fathers of families, fair-minded.” But for the doctors there is often a good word: “Le major allemand est venu, nous a soignés, nous a donné du café, du pain.” “Le major nous a soignés et donné de la soupe.” There was however, much plundering. The armies which do not plunder are indeed raræ aves. “The animosity of the English against the enemy,” says the Abbé, “is greater even than ours.” “In the evening,” runs one narrative, “the soldiers of the 101st put me in the wood where were many wounded Frenchmen and a German captain, wounded the day before. He suffered, he too, poor man (le pauvre malheureux).” When the Germans came, “some looked askance,” but the captain said the Frenchmen had been kind, and when the Germans had taken him they came back and attended to the French. It was a bad time in the retreat, but French and German wounded shared the same fate. (l.c., p. 98.)
Whose Fault?
The poor soldiers, obliged to obey orders under penalty of death, defending (as they believe) their homes from wanton attack, are surely, in the mass, but little to blame. The blame rests elsewhere. A body of Russian prisoners was brought into a village in East Prussia. The sufferings of the inhabitants during the invasion had made them bitter, and from the crowd of onlookers there was a scornful outcry. “At that one of the prisoners bent forward, shook his head and said slowly, with great, sad eyes, ‘It is not your fault, and it is not mine.’” (Dr. Elisabeth Rotten in Die Staatsbürgerin.) Looking at it all with fresh knowledge, after more than three years of war, I feel that this Russian spoke for all the peoples, “It is not your fault, and it is not mine.” Meanwhile there still goes on what my wounded friend, writing from Rouen described as “this orgy of slaughter, this incredible and criminal lunacy.”