| The ruined village of Gerbéviller, destroyed after their retreat by the Germans. |
| Captain Gabriel Puaux, of the General-Headquarters Staff, and Mr. Davis. |
I knew somewhere in the château there must be the conning-tower from which the general directed his armies, and after luncheon asked to be allowed to visit it. It was filled with maps, in size enormous but rich in tiny details, nailed on frames, pinned to the walls, spread over vast drawing-boards. But to the visitor more marvellous than the maps showing the French lines were those in which were set forth the German positions, marked with the place occupied by each unit, giving the exact situation of the German trenches, the German batteries, giving the numerals of each regiment. With these spread before him, the general has only to lift the hand telephone, and direct that from a spot on a map on one wall several tons of explosive shells shall drop on a spot on another map on the wall opposite. The general does not fight only at long distance from a map. Each morning he visits some part of the fifty miles of trenches. What later he sees on his map only jogs his memory. It is a sort of shorthand note. Where to you are waving lines, dots, and crosses, he beholds valleys, forests, miles of yellow trenches. A week ago, during a bombardment, a brother general advanced into the first trench. His chief of staff tugged at his cloak.
“My men like to see me here,” said the general.
A shell killed him. But who can protest it was a life wasted? He made it possible for every poilu in a trench of five hundred miles to say: “Our generals do not send us where they will not go themselves.”
We left the white swans smoothing their feathers, and through rain drove to a hill covered closely with small trees. The trees were small, because the soil from which they drew sustenance was only one to three feet deep. Beneath that was chalk. Through these woods was cut a runway for a toy railroad. It possessed the narrowest of narrow gauges, and its rolling-stock consisted of flat cars three feet wide, drawn by splendid Percherons. The live stock, the rolling-stock, the tracks, and the trees on either side of the tracks were entirely covered with white clay. Even the brakemen and the locomotive-engineer who walked in advance of the horses were completely painted with it. And before we got out of the woods, so were the passengers. This railroad feeds the trenches, carrying to them water and ammunition, and to the kitchens in the rear uncooked food.
The French marquis who escorted “Mon Capitaine” of the Grand Quartier Général des Armées, who was my “guide philosopher and friend,” to the trenches either had built this railroad, or owned a controlling interest in it, for he always spoke of it proudly as “my express,” “my special train,” “my petite vitesse.” He had lately been in America buying cavalry horses.
| From a photograph, copyright by Medem Photo Service. |
| “Through these woods ran a toy railroad.” |
| This picture shows President Poincaré on the toy railroad en route to the trenches. |