Fighting France

by Stéphane Lauzanne

In some admirable pages, consecrated to the "Effort of French Womanhood," M. Louis Barthou has painted the picture of the sacred union there is among all the French women:

I have seen [he writes] our women at the front and behind the lines, in the hospitals, the railway stations, the automobile service, the canteens, the factories, in relief work and in charity work. I have met nurses, unmoved under a bombardment. I have tested the spirit of fellowship which unites them, including as it does the names of the most aristocratic French families and the most modest citizens. There is no false pride among those in high places nor envy among those lower in the social scale. They wear the same garb, the same cap, with the same cross on their foreheads. For the soldiers there is the same uniform, and when you say uniform you mean equality in devotion, in the risk of life, and in loyalty to duty. Between the classes of society there is no contention, there is only emulation. I do not know whether or not, in times of peace, they had all and everywhere escaped the local passions which have poisoned national life, but the war has given them sacred union for a countersign, and they, as disciplined soldiers, have respected this countersign.

The French nurse's smile will have served the nation's defense well, but I emphasize this when I think how well it will have served the nation's unity in the aftermath that shall follow war. What rancors it will have appeased! What jealousies it will have blotted out! What petty prejudices it will have conquered! These society women and women of the middle class who have leaned over the beds of sick or wounded peasants, and these young girls who have tended their hurts, bound up their wounds, and calmed their sufferings have, with their delicate hands, so expert in the worst treatments, laid the foundations of a France that is united and fraternal, where envy and hate have no place. All eyes have opened to broader vistas of revealed clearness, to which they have hitherto remained closed through prejudice, or obstinacy. They will have learned that bravery, devotion to the right, loyal and tried disinterestedness, heartfelt and wise knowledge can dwell in the simple soul of the peasant and the workingman. The peasants and the workingmen who have come out from their care will have learned that luxury does not exclude goodness, that beauty is not always a sterile gift, that youth is not altogether callow, that a woman can be pretty and generous, delicate and courageous, rich and sympathetic, and that the mothers whose children are dead excel in lavishing the care of their hands and the tenderness of their hearts on the wounded children who are suffering far from their mothers.

The sacred sense of union that reigns among the men is no less firm. It is only necessary to read the letters written on the eve of their deaths—in that hour when a man, alone, face to face with himself, lets his soul speak—by the fighters who gave their heart's blood for the sacred cause.

They all say the same things.

Here is a letter a Jew wrote, named Robert Hertz, a second lieutenant of the 330th infantry regiment, who fell on the 13th of April, 1915, at Marcheville:

My Dear: I remember the dreams I had when I was a little child. With all my soul I wished to be a Frenchman, to be worthy to be one, and to prove that I was one.... Now the old, childish dream comes back to me, stronger than it ever was. I am grateful to the officers who have accepted me for their subordinate, to the men I have been proud to lead. They are the children of a chosen people. I am full of gratitude towards our country which has received me and heaped favors upon me. Nothing would be too much to give in payment for that, and for the fact that my little son may always hold his head high and never know, in the reborn France, that torment which has poisoned many hours of our childhood and of our youth. "Am I a Frenchman?" "Would I deserve to be one?" No, little boy, you shall not say that. You shall have a native land and your step may sound on the earth, nourishing you with the assurance, "My father was there and he gave all he had for France." If recompense is necessary, this is the sweetest one there is for me.

This is the letter of a Protestant, second lieutenant Maurice Dieterlin, who was killed on the sixth of October, 1915, and who, on the eve of the Champagne offensive, wrote these last words they were to read from him, to his family:

I saw the most beautiful day of all my life. I regret nothing and I am as happy as a king. I am glad to pay my debt that my country may be free. Tell my friends that I go on to victory with a smile on my lips, happier than the stoics and the martyrs of all time. For a moment we are beyond the France that is eternal. France ought to live. France will live. Get ready your loveliest gowns, keep your best smiles to welcome the conquerors in the great war. Perhaps we shall not be there, but there will be others in our places. Do not weep, do not wear mourning, for we shall have died with a sweet smile on our lips and a lovely superhumanity in our hearts. Vive la France! Vive la France!