DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,--As the news comes flashing in, these April days, and all the world holds its breath to hear the latest messages from Arras and the Vimy ridge, it is natural that in the memory of a woman who, six weeks ago, was a spectator--before the curtain rose--of the actual scene of such events, every incident and figure of that past experience, as she looks back upon it, should gain a peculiar and shining intensity.
The battle of the Vimy Ridge [_April 8th_] is clearly going to be the second (the first was the German retreat on the Somme) of those "decisive events" determining this year the upshot of the war, to which the Commander-in-Chief, with so strong and just a confidence, directed the eyes of this country some three months ago. When I was in the neighbourhood of the great battlefield--one may say it now!--the whole countryside was one vast preparation. The signs of the coming attack were everywhere--troops, guns, ammunition, food dumps, hospitals, air stations--every actor and every property in the vast and tragic play were on the spot, ready for the moment and the word.
Yet, except in the Headquarters and Staff Councils of the Army n.o.body knew when the moment and the word would come, and n.o.body spoke of them.
The most careful and exact organisation for the great movement was going on. No visitor would hear anything of it. Only the nameless stir in the air, the faces of officers at Headquarters, the general alacrity, the endless _work_ everywhere, prophesied the great things ahead. Perpetual, highly organised, scientific drudgery is three parts of war, it seems, as men now wage it. The Army, as I saw it, was at work--desperately at work!--but "dreaming on things to come."
One delightful hour of that March day stands out for me in particular.
The strong, attractive presence of an Army Commander, whose name will be for ever linked with that of the battle of the Vimy ridge, surrounded by a group of distinguished officers; a long table, and a too brief stay; conversation that carries for me the thrill of the _actual thing_, close by, though it may not differ very much from wartalk at home: these are the chief impressions that remain. The General beside me, with that look in his kind eyes which seems to tell of nights shortened by hard work, says a few quietly confident things about the general situation, and then we discuss a problem which one of the party--not a soldier--starts.
Is it true or untrue that long habituation to the seeing or inflicting of pain and death, that the mere sights and sounds of the trenches tend with time to brutalise men, and will make them callous when they return to civil life? Do men grow hard and violent in this furnace after a while, and will the national character suffer thereby in the future? The General denies it strongly. "I see no signs of it. The kindness of the men to each other, to the wounded, whether British or German, to the French civilians, especially the women and children, is as marked as it ever was. It is astonishing the good behaviour of the men in these French towns; it is the rarest thing in the world to get a complaint."
I ask for some particulars of the way in which the British Army "runs"
the French towns and villages in our zone. How is it done? "It is all summed up in three words," says an officer present, "M. le Maire!" What we should have done without the local functionaries a.s.signed by the French system to every village and small town it is hard to say. They are generally excellent people; they have the confidence of their fellow townsmen, and know everything about them. Our authorities on taking over a town or village do all the preliminaries through M. le Maire, and all goes well.
The part played, indeed, by these local chiefs of the civil population throughout France during the war has been an honourable and arduous--in many cases a tragic--one. The murder, under the forms of a court-martial, of the Maire of Senlis and his five fellow hostages stands out among the innumerable German cruelties as one of peculiar horror. Everywhere in the occupied departments the Maire has been the surety for his fellows, and the Germans have handled them often as a cruel boy torments some bird or beast he has captured, for the pleasure of showing his power over it.
From the wife of the Maire of an important town in Lorraine I heard the story of how her husband had been carried off as a hostage for three weeks, while the Germans were in occupation. Meanwhile German officers were billeted in her charming old house. "They used to say to me every day with great politeness that they _hoped_ my husband would not be shot. "But why should he be shot, monsieur? He will do nothing to deserve it." On which they would shrug their shoulders and say, "Madame, c"est la guerre!" evidently wishing to see me terrified. But I never gave them that pleasure."
A long drive home, through the dark and silent country. Yet everywhere one feels the presence of the Army. We draw up to look at a sign-post at some cross roads by the light of one of the motor lamps. Instantly a couple of Tommies emerge from the darkness and give help. In pa.s.sing through a village a gate suddenly opens and a group of horses comes out, led by two men in khaki; or from a Y.M.C.A. hut laughter and song float out into the night. And soon in these farms and cottages everybody will be asleep under the guard of the British Forces, while twenty miles away, in the darkness, the guns we saw in the morning are endlessly hara.s.sing and scourging the enemy lines, preparing for the day when the thoughts now maturing in the minds of the Army leaders will leap in flame to light.
To-day we are off for the Somme. I looked out anxiously with the dawn, and saw streaks of white mist lying over the village and the sun struggling through. But as we start on the road to Amiens, the mist gains the upper hand, and we begin to be afraid that we shall not get any of those wide views from the west of Albert over the Somme country which are possible in clear weather. Again the high upland, and this time _three_ tanks on the road, but motionless, alack! the nozzles of their machine guns just visible on their great sides. Then a main road, if it can be called a road since the thaw has been at work upon it.
Every mile or two, as our chauffeur explains, the pave "is all burst up"
from below, and we rock and lunge through holes and ruts that only an Army motor can stand. But German prisoners are thick on the worst bits, repairing as hard as they can. Was it perhaps on some of these men that certain of the recent letters that are always coming into G.H.Q. have been found? I will quote a few of those which have not yet seen the light.
Here are a batch of letters written in January of this year from Hamburg and its neighbourhood:
"It is indeed a miserable existence. How will it all end? There is absolutely nothing to be got here. Honey costs _6s. 6d_. a pound, goose fat _18s_. a pound. Lovely prices, aren"t they? One cannot do much by way of heating, as there is no coal. We can just freeze and starve at home. Everybody is ill. All the infirmaries are overflowing. Small-pox has broken out. You are being shot at the front, and at home we are gradually perishing."
" ... On the Kaiser"s birthday, military bands played everywhere. When one pa.s.ses and listens to this tomfoolery, and sees the emaciated and overworked men in war-time, swaying to the sounds of music, and enjoying it, one"s very gall rises. Why music? Of course, if times were different, one could enjoy music. But to-day! It should be the aim of the higher authorities to put an end to this murder. In every sound of music the dead cry for revenge. I can a.s.sure you that it is very surprising that there has not been a single outbreak here, but it neither can nor will last much longer. How can a human being subsist on 1/4 lb. of potatoes a day? I should very much like the Emperor to try and live for a week on the fare we get. He would then say it is impossible.... I heard something this week quite unexpectedly, which although I had guessed it before, yet has depressed me still more.
However, we will hope for the best."
"You write to say that you are worse off than a beast of burden.... I couldn"t send you any cakes, as we had no more flour.... We have abundant bread tickets. From Thursday to Sat.u.r.day I can still buy five loaves.... My health is bad; not my asthma, no, but my whole body is collapsing. We are all slowly perishing, and this is what it is all coming to."
" ... The outlook here is also sad. One cannot get a bucket of coal. The stores and dealers have none. The schools are closing, as there is no coal. Soon everybody will be in the same plight. Neither coal nor vegetables can be bought. Holland is sending us nothing more, and we have none. We get 3-1/2 lb. of potatoes per person. In the next few days we shall only have swedes to eat, which must be dried."
A letter written from Hamburg in February, and others from Coblenz are tragic reading:
" ... We shall soon have nothing more to eat. We earn no money, absolutely none; it is sad but true. Many people are dying here from inanition or under-feeding."
Or, take these from Neugersdorf, in Saxony:
"We cannot send you any b.u.t.ter, for we have none to eat ourselves. For three weeks we have not been able to get any potatoes. So we only have turnips to eat, and now there are no more to be had. We do not know what we can get for dinner this week, and if we settle to get our food at the Public Food-Kitchen we shall have to stand two hours for it."
"Here is February once more--one month nearer to peace. Otherwise all is the same. Turnips! Turnips! Very few potatoes, only a little bread, and no thought of b.u.t.ter or meat; on the other hand, any quant.i.ty of hunger.
I understand your case is not much better on the Somme."
Or this from a man of the Ersatz Battalion, 19th F.A.R., Dresden:
"Since January 16th I have been called up and put into the Foot Artillery at Dresden. On the 16th we were first taken to the Quartermaster"s Stores, where 2,000 of us had to stand waiting in the rain from 2.30 to 6.30.... On the 23rd I was transferred to the tennis ground. We are more than 100 men in one room. Nearly all of us have frozen limbs at present. The food, too, is bad; sometimes it cannot possibly be eaten. Our training also is very quick, for we are to go _into the field in six weeks_."
Or these from Itzehoe and Hanover:
"Could you get me some silk? It costs 8s. a metre here.... To-day, the 24th, all the shops were stormed for bread, and 1,000 loaves were stolen from the bakery. There were several other thousand in stock. In some shops the windows were smashed. In the grocers" shops the b.u.t.ter barrels were rolled into the street. There were soldiers in civilian dress. The Mayor wanted to hang them. There are no potatoes this week."
"To-day, the 27th, the bakers" shops in the ---- Road were stormed....
This afternoon the butchers" shops are to be stormed."
"If only peace would come soon! We have been standing to for an alarm these last days, as the people here are storming all the bakers" shops.
It is a semi-revolution. It cannot last much longer."
To such a pa.s.s have the Kaiser and the Junker party brought their countrymen! Here, no doubt, are some of the recipients of such letters among the peaceful working groups in shabby green-grey, scattered along the roads of France. As we pa.s.s, the German N.C.O. often looks up to salute the officer who is with us, and the general aspect of the men--at any rate of the younger men--is cheerfully phlegmatic. At least they are safe from the British guns, and at least they have enough to eat. As to this, let me quote, by way of contrast, a few pa.s.sages from letters written by prisoners in a British camp to their people at home. One might feel a quick pleasure in the creature-comfort they express but for the burning memory of our own prisoners, and the way in which thousands of them have been cruelly ill-treated, tormented even, in Germany--worst of all, perhaps, by German women.
The extracts are taken from letters written mostly in December and January last:
(_a_) " ... Dear wife, don"t fret about me, because the English treat us very well. Only our own officers (N.C.O."s) treat us even worse than they do at home in barracks; but that we"re accustomed to...."
(_b_) " ... I"m now a prisoner in English hands, and I"m quite comfortable and content with my lot, for most of my comrades are dead. The English treat us well, and everything that is said to the contrary is not true.
Our food is good. There are no meatless days, but we haven"t any cigars...."
(_c_) Written from hospital, near Manchester: " ... I"ve been a prisoner since October, 1916. I"m extremely comfortable here.... Considering the times, I really couldn"t wish you all anything better than to be here too!"
(_d_) " ... I am afraid I"m not in a position to send you very detailed letters about my life at present, but I can tell you that I am quite all right and comfortable, and that I wish every English prisoner were the same. Our new Commandant is very humane--strict, but just. You can tell everybody who thinks differently that I shall always be glad to prove that he is wrong...."
(_e_) " ... I suppose you are all thinking that we are having a very bad time here as prisoners. It"s true we have to do without a good many things, but that after all one must get accustomed to. The English are really good people, which I never would have believed before I was taken prisoner. They try all they can to make our lot easier for us, and you know there are a great many of us now. So don"t be distressed for us...."
X is pa.s.sed, a large and prosperous town, with mills in a hollow. We climb the hill beyond it, and are off on a long and gradual descent to Amiens. This Picard country presents everywhere the same general features of rolling downland, thriving villages, old churches, comfortable country houses, straight roads, and well-kept woods. The battlefields of the Somme were once a continuation of it! But on this March day the uplands are wind-swept and desolate; and chilly white mists curl about them, with occasional bursts of pale sun.
Out of the mist there emerges suddenly an anti-aircraft section; then a great Army Service dump; and presently we catch sight of a row of hangars and the following notice, "Beware of aeroplanes ascending and descending across roads." For a time the possibility of charging into a biplane gives zest to our progress, as we fly along the road which cuts the aerodrome; but, alack! there are none visible and we begin to drop towards Amiens.
Then, outside the town, sentinels stop us, French and British; our pa.s.ses are examined; and, under their friendly looks--betraying a little surprise!--we drive on into the old streets. I was in Amiens two years before the war, between trains, that I might refresh a somewhat faded memory of the cathedral. But not such a crowded, such a busy Amiens as this! The streets are so full that we have to turn out of the main street, directed by a French military policeman, and find our way by a detour to the cathedral.
As we pa.s.s through Amiens arrangements are going on for the "taking over" of another large section of the French line, south of Albert; as far, it is rumoured, as Roye and Lagny. At last, with our new armies, we can relieve more of the French divisions, who have borne so gallantly and for so many months the burden of their long line. It is true that the bulk of the German forces are ma.s.sed against the British lines, and that in some parts of the centre and the east, owing to the nature of the ground, they are but thinly strung along the French front, which accounts partly for the disproportion in the number of kilometres covered by each Ally. But, also, we had to make our Army; the French, G.o.d be thanked, had theirs ready, and gloriously have they stood the brunt, as the defenders of civilisation, till we could take our full share.
And now we, who began with 45 kilometres of the battle-line, have gradually become responsible for 185, so that "at last," says a French friend to me in Paris, "our men can have a rest, some of them for the first time! And, by Heaven, they"ve earned it!"
Yet, in this "taking over" there are many feelings concerned. For the French _poilu_ and our Tommy it is mostly the occasion for as much fraternisation as their fragmentary knowledge of each other"s speech allows; the Frenchman is proud to show his line, the Britisher is proud to take it over; there are laughter and eager good will; on the whole, it is a red-letter day. But sometimes there strikes in a note "too deep for tears." Here is a fragment from an account of a "taking over,"
written by an eye-witness:
Trains of a prodigious length are crawling up a French railway. One follows so closely upon another that the rear truck of the first is rarely out of sight of the engine-driver of the second. These trains are full of British soldiers. Most of them are going to the front for the first time. They are seated everywhere, on the trucks, on the roof--legs dangling over the edge--inside, and even over the buffers. Presently they arrive at their goal. The men clamber out on to the siding, collect their equipment and are ready for a march up country. A few children run alongside them, shouting, "Anglais!" "Anglais!" And some of them take the soldiers" hands and walk on with them until they are tired.
Now the trenches are reached, and the men break into single file. But the occasion is not the usual one of taking over a few trenches. _We are relieving some sixty miles of French line._ There is, however, no confusion. The right men are sent to the right places, and everything is done quietly. It is like a great tide sweeping in, and another sweeping out. Sixty miles of trenches are gradually changing their nationality.
The German, a few yards over the way, knows quite well what is happening. A few extra sh.e.l.ls whizz by; a trench mortar or two splutter a welcome; but it makes little difference to the weary German who mans the trenches over against him. Only, the new men are fresh and untired, and the German has no Ally who can give him corresponding relief.