Soon after the world became aware of the fact that the German army"s progress through Belgium on its dash to Paris in August of 1914 had resulted in the absolute devastation of the little buffer state, an enterprising and sympathetic American citizen, Mr. James Keeley, editor of the Chicago Herald, penned a remarkable open letter "to the Children of America," in which he suggested the sending of a "Christmas ship" to Europe, filled with gifts of a useful character for the little ones of all the belligerent nations. The response was immediate and most truly generous. Newspapers and civic organizations all over the United States joined in gathering from young and old the contributions that freighted a United States warship with a cargo of gifts worth over two million dollars, and at Yuletide these gifts were systematically distributed among the innocent victims of the war in all the countries concerned.
The idea of the Christmas ship was n.o.bly conceived and splendidly executed. Rulers of the belligerent nations recognized the beauty of the idea and paused awhile in their martial activities to welcome and thank the American commissioner who enacted the role of an international Santa Claus. But the slaughter on the fighting lines of eastern and western Europe went on unabated and the peaceful symbolism of the Christmas ship was soon forgotten in the daily recurrence of battle and bloodshed.
AWFUL CONDITIONS IN POLAND
While the frightful state of Belgium commanded the sympathy of the civilized world in the winter of 1914-15, the conditions in Poland were even worse. At the end of March the great Polish pianist, Ignace Paderewski, paid a visit to London on behalf of the suffering Poles and his efforts resulted in the formation of an influential relief committee. Among the members were such men as Premier Asquith, ex-Premier Balfour, Chancellor of the Exchequer Lloyd-George, Cardinal Bourne, archbishop of Westminster; Admiral Lord Charles Beresford and the Russian and French amba.s.sadors. An American woman, Lady Randolph Churchill, also took an active part in the work of the committee, which soon succeeded in raising a large sum for the relief of the most urgent distress in Poland. While in London on his mission of mercy, Mr.
Paderewski said:
"Is it the death agony or only the birth pangs? That is the question which every Pole throughout the world is asking himself as tragedy follows tragedy in the long martyrdom of our beloved nation. You have only heard the details of Belgium, but I tell you they are as nothing with what has happened in Poland.
"The scene of operations in Poland is seven times larger than that of Belgium, and she has had to endure seven times the torture. Remember, the battle of Europe is being fought in the east, not in the west, and while the tide of battle has reached a sort of ebb along the trenches about the frontiers of Alsace and Flanders, the great waves roll backward and forward from Germany to Russia and break always on Poland.
"Our country, in fact, is just as Belgium was called--the c.o.c.kpit of Europe, and it may now be called the battlefield of the world, if not of civilization.
"It is only perhaps we Poles who have known to its utmost depths what this war has really meant. It is not only that there are 10,000, human beings on the verge of starvation, nay, actually perishing; there is worse than that.
"Remember that both Belgium and Poland are still under the yoke. The Russians, it is true, occupy some fifteen thousand miles of our country, but this is really nothing, for the Germans occupy five-sixths of it, and the desolation pa.s.ses all comprehension.
CALLS IT COMPULSORY SUICIDE
"As to actual battles, I can hardly speak of them. It is torture even to think of them. Only consider! Our one nation is divided as it were into three sections, which were thrust each against the others to work out their destruction. It is parricide! It is fratricide, nay suicide!
Compulsory suicide! That is what it is!
"Listen to what it means to us all. I was told by a man from Austria that an army doctor, a Pole by birth, who was deputed to go over the Austrian battlefields and verify identification marks on the bodies, found among the 14,000 dead hardly any but Polish names. He looked in vain for any others, and in the end went mad with horror at the thought of it. Another story that came to me the other day told of another case of the tragedy of Poland which is almost too terrible for the human mind to contain. The incident took place during a charge. Both armies had been ordered to attack, and the Poles, as usual, were in the front lines. As they met in the shock they recognized each other.
"One poor fellow, as he was struck through by a bayonet, cried out in his death agony, "Jesu Maria! I have five children! Jesu Maria!" The words went as straight to the brain of his conqueror as a dagger to the heart, and killed his reason. Somewhere among the madhouses of Europe there is a lunatic. He is not violent, but he never laughs. He only wanders about with the words of his dying victim, "Ah, Jesu Maria! I have five children. Jesu Maria!"
"The promise of Grand Duke Nicholas that Poland shall be a nation once again went straight to the very heart of every one of our 25,000, fellow countrymen. That one promise has been sufficient to change the whole mentality of the nation and fill their souls with new hope. It has cleared up any doubt that might have existed in the minds of the Poles in Austria and Prussia as to what it is that the allies are fighting for--namely: the principles of nationality for which we have suffered, ah! how many centuries!"
MILLIONS OF POLES DESt.i.tUTE
The ruin wrought by war in Belgium affected 7,000,000 people. In Poland more than twice that number have been rendered dest.i.tute. Not less than 15,000 villages have been laid waste, burned, or damaged in Russian Poland alone. The loss in property has been estimated at $500,000,000, but may reach double that sum.
In Galicia the conditions are reported to be equally appalling, though the smashup has not been as complete, because the Russians have been able to maintain their positions more permanently than they have in the district west and northeast of the Polish capital.
The greater part of Poland lying in a broad sweep of country west, southwest and northeast of Warsaw has been swept over and battered to pieces by shot and sh.e.l.l like the strip of Flanders on both sides of the Yser river.
Without any direct interest in the present great conflict, the unhappy Poles found themselves impressed into the armies of these three great powers and fighting against their own racial brethren. That meant that brother was to fight against brother, and as the stress of the war increased and the age limit was raised to 38 years and even higher, nearly every able-bodied Pole was impressed into service.
Almost the first move of the Russians at the outbreak of hostilities was to invade Galicia. This brought with it instantly all the most frightful horrors of war. Embracing as it does a large part of the grain-growing district of the Polish peoples, the devastation of Galicia meant suffering for not only that province, but for Russian Poland as well.
The crops had only been partially harvested by August, when the war began.
The panic of war stopped the work in the fields, even where the peasants were not compelled to flee before the invader. The men were called to the colors and the crops were allowed to rot in the fields. Numerous towns were sacked.
The advance to Lemberg by the Russians was swift. In the panic that followed this great city of 200,000 had scarcely 70,000 left when the invaders took possession. Families were broken up; none of the refugees had time to take supplies or clothes.
Germany"s first move against Russia came from the great fortresses along the Oder and Vistula. All of western Poland was overrun. When the Russian advance from Warsaw drove back the invaders, the scars of the conflict left this section of Poland badly battered. Then came Von Hindenburg"s victorious armies, and again this section was torn by shot and sh.e.l.l and wasted. While some of the larger places, such as Lodz, Plock, Lowicz, Tchenstochow and Petrokov, were spared, the smaller towns, villages, and hamlets in the direct line of battle suffered equally from the defenders and invaders.
All the section to the northeast of Warsaw between the East Prussian frontier and the Bug, Narew, and Niemen rivers has suffered even a worse fate, as the bitterness engendered by the devastation worked by the Russians in East Prussia led to reprisals that not even the strict discipline of the German army could curb. Not only were the peasants"
homes pounded to bits by the opposing artillery fire, but the armies as they fought back and forth took all the cattle, horses, and stock that came to their hands. Disease added to the suffering of the stricken people.
THOUSANDS OF VILLAGES DESTROYED
Henry Sienkiewicz, the great Polish writer and author of "Quo Vadis," a refugee in Switzerland, said, on March 15, 1915:
"In the kingdom of Poland alone there are 15,000 villages burned or damaged; a thousand churches and chapels destroyed. The homeless villagers have sought shelter in the forests, where it is no exaggeration to say that women and children are dying from cold and hunger by thousands daily.
"Poland comprises 127,500 square kilometers. One hundred thousand of these have been devastated by the battling armies. More than a million horses and two million head of horned cattle have been seized by the invaders, and in the whole of the 100,000 square kilometers in the possession of the soldiers not a grain of corn, not a sc.r.a.p of meat, nor a drop of milk remain for the civil population. "The material losses up to the present are estimated at 1,000,000,000 rubles ($500,000,000). No fewer than 400,000 workmen have lost their means of livelihood.
"The state of things in Galicia is just as dreadful for the civil population--innocent victims of the war. Of 75,000 square kilometers all except 5,000 square kilometers around Cracow are in possession of the Russians. They commandeered 900,000 horses and about 200,000 head of horned cattle and seized all the grain, part of the salt fields, and the oil wells.
"The once rich province is a desert. Over a million inhabitants have sought refuge in other parts of Austria, and they are in sheer dest.i.tution."
Truly, "War is h.e.l.l!"
RELIEF FOR BELGIAN SUFFERERS
Following the invasion and over-running of Belgium by the Germans, the problem of feeding the Belgian population became an urgent one. The invaders left the problem largely to the charitable sympathies of the civilized world, and from almost every quarter of the globe aid was sent in money or provisions for the stricken people. In spite of the enormous war drains upon the resources of the British Empire, every one of the Overseas Dominions did its full share in Belgian relief, while the United States, through the Rockefeller Foundation and other agencies, as well as the South American countries, also contributed to alleviate the suffering in the little kingdom. The contributions continued during more than two years and the relief was administered most efficiently by means of commissions.
RELIEF ASKED FOR SERBIA
On April 3, 1915, the leading United States newspapers printed an appeal received from Nish, the war capital of Serbia, which set forth a terrible situation in terms that confirmed a report already made public by Sir Thomas Lipton, who dedicated his famous steam yacht, the Erin, as a hospital ship for use in the Mediterranean, and visited Serbia in February and March. The appeal was dated February 23 and said in substance as follows:
"Typhus is raging in Serbia, and unless immediate aid be sent the mortality will be appalling. "Typhus is a filth disease and is spread by lice, which flourish only in dirt. There are not enough buildings to house the sick and they lie huddled together on dirty straw.
"They have not changed their clothes for six months, and consequently personal cleanliness, which is absolutely essential in checking the disease, is impossible. They cannot get proper nourishment, as there is not enough available, nor is there money to buy it if it were.
"The doctors can usually only work for two weeks before contracting the disease, as they have no means of protecting themselves. Yet they volunteer for typhus hospitals, knowing that they are probably going to their death, for the mortality is over 50 per cent.
"The following four things are most urgently needed:
"1. Tents and portable chicken runs, as these make excellent houses.
There is no lumber in Serbia, so nothing can be built here.
"2. Beds and bed linen. It is impossible to keep straw free from lice.
"3. Underclothing. Dirty clothes make an ideal breeding place for lice.
"4. Disinfectants and whitewash.
"Speedy help is essential, as every day"s delay costs hundreds of lives."
The response to this touching appeal was immediate and generous, Germans and Austrians in America contributing freely. A large amount of cash and supplies for the Austrian prisoners was sent to the American consul at Nish, who was also acting consul for Germany and Austria in Serbia.
GERMAN REPORT OF VILLAGES RAZED
A dispatch from Berlin by wireless March 23 stated that according to a report received there from Cracow, the damages due to the war in Poland and Galicia at that time amounted to 5,000,000,000 marks ($1,250,000,000).
In Galicia 100 cities and market places and 6,000 villages had been more or less damaged, while 250 villages had been destroyed. Horses to the number of 800,000 and 500,000 head of cattle, with all grain and other provisions in Galicia had been taken away by the Russians.