ILLUSTRATIONS[1]
| A Well-Known Tune | [Frontispiece] |
| Map of the German Retreat[2] | [2] |
| “They are over there” | [12] |
| “What, another little Brother!” | [17] |
| “Only that much Bread!” | [44] |
| “Is that wounded Man a Boche?” | [51] |
| “He is big already” | [58] |
| “I didn’t do that!” | [63] |
| “Once, before the War, the Pralines were two for a Sou” | [80] |
| “A Cut of a Sword-scabbard!” | [114] |
| “If I were grown up!” | [124] |
| “Our House used to be there!” | [132] |
| “And do the little Boche children hug their Father?” | [143] |
| “Company, halt!” | [148] |
| “If it hadn’t been for the Officer....” | [157] |
| “He has not come. He has been mobilized....” | [165] |
| “Well, if we don’t see Santa Claus, we may see a Zeppelin” | [171] |
| “And if it freezes to-night?” | [174] |
| “Oh yes, Papa is strong!” | [182] |
| Plan of the Village | [188] |
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
No one, it may safely be said, can see this war as a whole. The nations taking part in it girdle the world, and no people is unaffected by it. Real knowledge can be gained of only comparatively small sections of the conflict, and we are grateful to those who, knowing a small section, give us a faithful account of their own observation and experience, and refrain from speculation and generalisation.
Among the infinitude of tragedies few have appealed more poignantly to our imaginations than those involved in the devastation of Picardy; and among the attempts at salvage few details have attracted the sympathetic attention of America more powerfully than the efforts of the Smith College Relief Unit. Their heroic persistence in the work of evacuation under the very guns of the great offensive of March, 1918, made the members of the Unit suddenly conspicuous; but the more picturesque feats of that terrible emergency had been preceded by a long winter of quiet work. The material results were largely wiped out; the spiritual results will remain. It is the method of that work as carried on in a single village that is described in this little book. When we have read it we know what kind of people these were who clung to the remnants of their homes in the midst of desolation. Their character and temper are depicted with kindly candour; they were very human and very much worth saving. When the time comes for reconstruction on a large scale, such an account as this will be of value in enabling us to realise the nature of the task and in teaching us how to set about it.