Passed by the censor

by Wythe Williams

We stop at this field in the morning soon after leaving Meaux. As we look across it we see none of the signs of conflict that I had witnessed in September. There are none of the ruined accouterments of war. No horses lie on their backs, four legs sticking straight in the air. There are no human forms in huddled and grotesque positions in the ravines and on the flat. True, every tree bears the mark of bullets, every wall has been shattered by shells, but these signs are not overpowering evidences of massive conflict. There is nothing to make vivid the fearful charge of the Zouaves against the flower of Von Kluck's army only five months before.

Yes—there is something. As we look more closely we see far away a cluster of little rude black wood crosses. They are not planted on mounds, they just stick up straight from the level ground. There are other little clusters throughout the field. Each cross marks a grave. Each grave contains from a dozen to fifty bodies. Together the crosses mark the total of five thousand dead.

An old woman hobbles along the main road. She looks at us curiously and stops beside the car. I ask if we can go close to the little black crosses. She replies that we can but that the fields are very muddy. I ask if any of the graves are marked with the names of the fallen soldiers. She shakes her head. No, they are the unknown dead. The regiments that fought across that field are known—that is all. There are both French and German dead. The relatives of course know that their men were in those regiments and they may assume, if they have not received letters from them recently, that they have been buried there—out on that vast, undulating, wind swept plain under one of the little black crosses. But, of course, one can never be sure. They might not be dead at all—only prisoners—or again, they might have died somewhere else. It is all very confusing and vague—what happens to the men who no longer send letters home. It is safe to believe they are just dead—to determine where they died is difficult.

The old woman suggests that we visit the little village graveyard, at the corner of the field. The Zouave officers are buried there—those who were recognized as officers. Some English had also been found and carried there. She is the caretaker of the little graveyard. She will show it to us. She says that it is much more interesting than the field. The field is much too muddy.

The world is as still as the death all around us when we enter that little country graveyard. It has been trampled by a multitude. The five months that have elapsed and the hard work of the little old woman have not destroyed the signs of conflict there. But the time has taken the glory. The low stone wall that surrounds the place has been used as a barricade by the Zouaves. It is pierced with holes for their rifles. In many places portions of the wall are missing, showing where the shells have struck.

In the center of the yard, one of them has opened a grave. It is a child's grave. I look down into the hole about three feet below the muddy surface of the yard. I see a weather-beaten headstone. It bears the child's name. A hundred years, according to date, that stone has silently borne witness of the few years of life before death, and then it has been rudely crushed into the earth on a glorious day in September. The graves of the soldiers who died there that same glorious day are all fresh mounds. There are only twenty or thirty mounds, but five hundred dead are buried beneath them. Above the mounds are freshly painted crosses. On some of them are roughly printed the names of the fallen officers. On several are wreaths or artificial flowers—beads in the shape of violets and yellow porcelain immortelles. In one corner under a little cross is inscribed the name of an English lieutenant of dragoons—aged twenty. The old caretaker says that his family may take his body to England when the war is over—but, of course, he is not buried in a coffin—just put into the ground on the spot where he was found clutching a fragment of his sword in his hand.

We drive away to the north. On both sides of the road little clusters of black crosses are planted in the fields. Several times we pass great charred patches on the earth. These are the places where the Germans burned their dead before retreating. There are trenches too—trenches and the dead. There are old trenches and new—those made in a few hours while both armies alternately advanced and retreated, and those which the French engineers have made since for use if the Germans again advance.

We are a dozen miles from the river Aisne when our chauffeur stops. If we go nearer we will be in "the zone of operations" where passes are rigidly required—where if one does not possess a pass one is under rigid suspicion. We do not take the chance of advancing further.

We are in a devastated village. We have passed through many but this one seems worse than the others. The church has been demolished and two-thirds of the houses gutted by shells and fire. The place is almost deserted by the inhabitants. When we halted our car there was not the sound of a living thing. Then a few scare-crow children gathered and examined us curiously. We examine the remnants of the House of God. It has doubtless been used as a fortress. Bloody uniforms are scattered among the tumbled stones. Five bodies are rotting underneath the altar. Our minds have gone morbid by the horror. The chauffeur turns the car about. An old man comes from the ruins of a shop. He asks if we want to buy souvenirs. The word "souvenirs" halts us. We wonder how many thousand will be sold in this village, and in all the villages during the years following the war. I recall that only a few years ago one might buy "authentic souvenirs of the battle of Waterloo." The old man lugs forth a German helmet and the cartridge of a French shell—one of the famous "seventy-fives." He asks if we are Americans. Then he places a value of five dollars on the helmet and one dollar for the cartridge. We think that the thrifty inhabitants of these villages may yet triumph over the devastation of war if they lay in sufficient stock of souvenirs. Our chauffeur informs us that we can pick up all we desire in the fields, and we take to the road again.