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Various - The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915

V >> Various >> The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915




I saw the industries that were abandoned and the shops that were bare of
customers, the shopkeepers standing before empty shelves looking
bankruptcy in the face. I saw the unburied dead lying between battle
lines, where for weeks they had lain, and where for weeks, and perhaps
months to come, they would continue to lie, and I saw the graves of
countless numbers of other dead who were so hurriedly and carelessly
buried that their limbs in places protruded through the soil, poisoning
the air with hideous smells and giving abundant promise of the
pestilence which must surely follow. I saw districts noted for their
fecundity on the raw edge of famine, and a people proverbial for their
light-heartedness who had forgotten how to smile.

In Germany I saw innumerable men maimed and mutilated in every
conceivable fashion. I saw these streams of wounded pouring back from
the front endlessly. In two days I saw trains bearing 14,000 wounded men
passing through one town. I saw people of all classes undergoing
privations and enduring hardships in order that the forces at the front
might have food and supplies. I saw thousands of women wearing widow's
weeds, and thousands of children who had been orphaned.

I saw great hosts of prisoners of war on their way to prison camps,
where in the very nature of things they must forego all hope of having
for months, and perhaps years, those small creature comforts which make
life endurable to a civilized human being. I saw them, crusted with
dirt, worn with incredible exertions, alive with crawling vermin, their
uniforms already in tatters, and their broken shoes falling off their
feet.

On the day before I quit German soil--the war being then less than
three months old--I counted, in the course of a short ride through the
City of Aix-la-Chapelle two convalescent soldiers who were totally
blind, three who had lost an arm, and one, a boy of 18 or thereabout,
who had lost both arms. How many men less badly injured I saw in that
afternoon I do not know; I hesitate even to try to estimate the total
figure for fear I might be accused of exaggeration.

In Holland I saw the people of an already crowded country wrestling
valorously with the problem of striving to feed and house and care for
the enormous numbers of penniless refugees who had come out of Belgium.
I saw worn-out groups of peasants huddled on railroad platforms and
along the railroad tracks, too weary to stir another step.

In England I saw still more thousands of these refugees, bewildered,
broken by misfortune, owning only what they wore upon their backs,
speaking an alien tongue, strangers in a strange land. I saw, as I have
seen in Holland, people of all classes giving of their time, their
means, and their services to provide some temporary relief for these
poor wanderers who were without a country. I saw the new recruits
marching off, and I knew that for the children many of them were leaving
behind there would be no Santa Claus unless the American people out of
the fullness of their own abundance filled the Christmas stockings and
stocked the Christmas larders.

And seeing these things, I realized how tremendous was the need for
organized and systematic aid then and how enormously that need would
grow when Winter came--when the soldiers shivered in the trenches, and
the hospital supplies ran low, as indeed they have before now begun to
run low, and the winds searched through the holes made by the cannon
balls and struck at the women and children cowering in their squalid and
desolated homes. From my own experiences and observations I knew that
more nurses, more surgeons, more surgical necessities, and yet more,
past all calculating, would be sorely needed when the plague and famine
and cold came to take their toll among armies that already were thinned
by sickness and wounds.

The American Red Cross, by the terms of the Treaty of Geneva, gives aid
to the invalided and the injured soldiers of any army and all the
armies. If any small word from me, attempting to describe actual
conditions, can be of value to the American Red Cross in its campaign of
mercy, I write it gladly. I wish only that I had the power to write
lines which would make the American people see the situation as it is
now--which would make them understand how infinitely worse that
situation must surely become during the next few months.




*How Paris Dropped Gayety*

*By Anne Rittenhouse.*

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Sept. 23, 1914.]


On Friday night the Grand Boulevards were alive with people, motors,
voitures, singing, dancing, and each cafe thronged by the gayest light
hearts in the world.

On Saturday night the boulevards were thronged with growling, ominous,
surging crowds, with faces like those of the Commune, speaking strong
words for and against war.

On Sunday night mobs tore down signs, broke windows, shouted the
"Marseillaise," wreaked their vengeance on those who belonged to a
nation that France thought had plunged their country into ghastly war.
Aliens sought shelter; hotels closed their massive doors intended for
defense. Mounted troops corralled the mobs as cowboys round up
belligerent cattle. Detached groups smashed and mishandled things that
came in the way.

Monday night a calm so intense that one felt frightened. Boulevards
deserted, cafes closed, hotels shuttered. Patrols of the Civil Garde in
massed formation. France was keeping her pledge to high civilization.
Yellow circulars were pasted on the buildings warning all that France
was in danger and appealing by that token to all male citizens to guard
the women and the weak.

At daylight only was the dead silence broken; France was marching to war
at that hour. Will any one who was here forget that daily daybreak
tramp, that measured march of the thousands going to the front? Cavalry
with the sun striking the helmets; infantry with their scarlet overcoats
too large; aviators with their boxed machines, the stormy petrels of
modern war; and the dogs, veritably the dogs of war, going on the
humanest mission of all, to search for the wounded in the woods of
battle.

And, side by side with the marching millions, on the pavement, were the
women belonging to them; the women who were to stay behind.

As though the Judgment Trumpet had sounded, France was changed in the
twinkling of an eye. And added to that subconscious terror that lurked
in every American soul of another revolution--a terror that was
dispelled after the third day when France reached out her long arm and
mobilized her people into a strong component whole with but one heart,
was an inexplainable dread of this terrible calm.

We knew about trained armies going to war, but here was a situation
where the Biblical description of the Last Day was carried out, the man
at the wheel dropped his work and was taken; he who was at the plowshare
left his furrow....

First we were afraid we would not have enough to eat. A famine was
prophesied, and the credulous who know nothing of the vast sources which
supply France with food clamored to get to England. Then there were
frenzied stories of hotels closing and prices soaring. None of which
happened or had any chance of happening. Food was never better, and
today we have fruit that melts in the mouth; fish that swims in the
sauce, the lack of which Talleyrand deplored in England; little green
string beans that no other country produces or knows how to cook.

Prices never rose for the fraction of a sou. If one had a credit at a
hotel, all was well, but unless one had ready money in small notes, none
of the restaurants would accept an order. Here, and here only, was a
snag concerning food. It is true that women went for twenty-four hours
without food, but the reason was the lack of small change, not of
eatables.

After the panic caused by a thousand rumors annexed to a dozen
disheartening and revolutionary conditions, after the people felt that
the Commune was the figment of imagination, not inspired prophecy; that
money was getting easier; that, above all, America was looking after its
own, though her move toward that end seemed to take months instead of
days, and because we counted by heart-beats, not calendars; after all
this, we found time and interest to observe the phenomena around us. We
began to feel ashamed of our petty madness on the worldly subject of
money and ships and safe passage home; our passionate, twentieth
century, overindulged selves who were neither fighting nor giving our
beloveds in battle, and who were harassing those who were in a death
struggle. Never throughout the centuries to come, whether the map of
Europe is changed or not, should the stranger within her gates ever
forget the courtesy of Paris.

At night powerful searchlights backed up by artillery guard the city
from the monster of the air.

This is fiction come true. It is Conan Doyle, Kipling, Wells come to
measure. From the moment of sunset until sunrise those comets with an
orbit patrol the skies. Pointing with blazing fingers to the moon and
the stars, to the horizon, they proclaim that Paris watches while her
people sleep.

The idea has given comfort to thousands. You, in your safe, tranquil
homes, cannot know the pleasure it gives to look out of the window in
the wakeful nights and watch those wheeling comets circling, circling to
catch the Zeppelin that may come.

And behind the light is the gun. Rooftop artillery! The new warfare! On
the roof of the fashionable Automobile Club on the Place de la Concorde
the little blue firing guns wheel with the blazing fingers. Always ready
to send shot and shell into a bulging speck in the sky that does not
return the luminous signals. So on the roof of the Observatoir, so on
the encircling environs; sometimes three, sometimes six, they are always
going. People stand in the streets to watch, hypnotized by the moment
into horizon gazing. There will be a speck in the sky; people grow
tense; the comet catches it; is that wigwagging on the roof, those
challenges in fire, returned? No. The speck passes; we breathe again.
And so it goes: a ceaseless centre of interest. It is the novelty of the
world war.

The highest artillery in the world is on the Eiffel Tower. At its dizzy
top, pointing to the sky, are machine guns that are trained to fire at
an enemy's balloon. It is an answer to the prayer of the people that
these guns have not yet been used.

But it is not only in the artillery on the top of the Eiffel Tower that
interest centres; it is in the wireless that sends the messages to land
and sea, safeguarding armies and navies, patrolling the earth and water.
Strange, isn't it, that the plaything of a nation has become its
safeguard?

That was a stirring day when Paris sang "God Save the King." Gen. French
arrived from London, coming quietly to confer with M. Viviani, the
Minister for War, and with President Poincare. He was the first English
General to come to the aid of France since Cromwell commissioned the
British Ambassador to go to the aid of Anne of Austria. And the French
heart responded as only it can; the people stood, with raised hats, in
quadruple rows wherever he passed, as English, French, and foreign
voices sang a benediction to Britain's King. History was made there.

That night Gen. French dined at the Ritz among a few friends. Even the
newspapers seemed not to know it, and those of us who had the good
chance to be there enjoyed him at leisure. He wore his field uniform of
khaki in strong contrast to the French Generals, who are always in
glittering gold, although he represents an empire and they a republic.
He is an admirable looking soldier, somewhat small of stature, firmly
knit, bronzed, white haired, blue eyed, calm. He spoke of their
responsibilities without exaggeration or amelioration. He did not make
light of the task before his soldiers, and his grave manner seemed a
prophecy of that terrible fight near Mons, above the French frontier,
which was so soon to take place and where English blood was freely
spilled for France's sake.

Another day that we shall be glad we saw when it is written into the
narrative history of this Summer by some future Mme. Sevigne, was when
the first German flag arrived. Before it came, two soldiers exhibited a
German frontier post in front of a cafe on the boulevard, which started
the excitement, but the reception of the flag by the Government and its
placement in the Invalides, where is Napoleon's tomb, was an hour of
dramatic tenseness.

The only music heard in Paris since the first day of August, the day of
mobilization, accompanied this flag to its resting place along with
those historic relics of former French victories. The procession went
over the Alexander Bridge, that superb structure dedicated in honor of
the Russian Czar, whose son is now fulfilling his pledge of friendship
to France. The flag was met at the Invalides by the old soldiers who
bore medals of the Franco-Prussian war. In the solemn inclosure, where
all stood at salute, the veterans stood with lances. The flag was
presented to an old sick soldier, who stumped forward on a wooden leg,
his breast covered with the medals of the Crimea and the Italian
campaign. He received it for France, and when it was placed over the
organ, the listening crowds that jammed the Place des Invalides heard
the singing of the "Marseillaise" by the cracked old voices first, then
by the sturdier younger voices, and so it joined in, this vast concourse
of solemn listeners.

France has gone into this war with the spirit of the Crusaders, but the
spirit of French wit cannot be repressed even under the most terrifying
conditions. So after the news of the superhuman effort made by that
national baby, Belgium, in detaining the huge German forces for many
days, there was a placard on one of the gates at the station, placed
there by some gay refugee, saying that a train de luxe would leave for
Berlin the next day.

It tickled the sensibilities of travelers very much, and it gave rise to
the sale of postcards by an enterprising soul. These cards gave one the
right, so they said, of a daily train to Berlin to visit the tomb of
Guillame. They were bought by the thousands as souvenirs of the war and
as one of the few things that caused a smile in this saddened city.

Another incident that amused the people was the remark of a young
soldier who had single-handed taken some German prisoners, and who, when
asked whether he had done it by the revolver or the bayonet, answered
that he had only held out a slice of bread and butter and the Germans
had followed him.

Amusement and irritation followed the order that all telephoning must be
done in French. The sensation produced depended on the temperament of
the person. Certainly queer things were said over the lines, and no one
could blame the "Allo girl" for laughing. The majority of Americans took
it in good part by saying that it was a French lesson for five cents.

Another accomplishment that has been furthered in Paris during the last
three weeks is bicycle riding. With the paucity of transportation some
means of getting over the magnificent distances of this city had to be
found. So people who could ride rented bicycles, and those who had not
learned began to take lessons. The girls who work, and those who go on
errands for the Croix Rouge, wear a most attractive costume of pale blue
or violet. It has a short divided skirt, a slim blouse with
blue-and-white striped collar; there is a small hat to match, and the
young cyclists whirling around on their missions of mercy are a pleasant
sight for very sad eyes.




*Paris in October*

[From The London Times, Oct. 21, 1914.]


PARIS, Oct. 19.

The more one studies the life of Paris at the present time, and
especially its patriotic and benevolent activities, the more is one
impressed by the unanimous determination of its inhabitants to face
whatever may befall and to make the best of things. It is difficult to
realize at first sight how completely, in the hour of trial, the
traditional light-heartedness of the Parisian has been translated to a
fine simplicity of courage and devotion to the common cause and to a
high seriousness of patriotism. There is something splendidly impressive
and stimulating in the spectacle of civilization's most sensitive
culture suddenly confronted by the stern realities of a life-and-death
struggle, and responding unanimously to the call of duty. Without
hesitation or complaint, Paris has put away childish things, her toys,
her luxury, and her laughter; today her whole life reflects only fixed
purposes of united effort, of courage never, never to submit or yield,
and this splendid determination is all the more significant for being
undemonstrative and almost silent.

We English people, who, observing chiefly the surface life of the French
capital, have generally been disposed to regard the Parisian temperament
as mutable and often impatient of adversity, must now make our
confession of error and the amende honorable; for nothing could be more
admirable than the attitude of all classes of the community in their
stoic acceptance of the sacrifices and sufferings imposed upon them by
this war at their gates. Especially striking is the philosophic
acquiescence of the city, accustomed to know and to discuss all things,
in the impenetrable [Transcriber: original 'impentrable'] veil of
secrecy which conceals the movements and the fortunes of the French
armies in the field. Go where you will, even among those of the very
poor who have lost their breadwinners, and you will hear few criticisms
and no complaints. The little midinette thrown out of employment, the
shopkeeper faced with ruin, the artist reduced to actual want--they also
are in the fighting line, and they are proud of it. The women of the
thrifty middle class consider it just as much their duty to devote their
savings of years to the common cause as their husbands and brothers do
to bear arms against the enemy; only in the last extremity of need do
they make appeal to the "Secours National" for assistance. And when they
do, they are well content to live on a maintenance allowance of 1s. a
day and 5d. for every child.

The other Sunday morning at the hour of mass, when two German aeroplanes
were engaged in their genial occupation of throwing bombs over the
residential and business quarters of the city, I assisted at several
sidewalk conversations in the district lying between the Madeleine and
the Rue de Rivoli. Nowhere did I find the least sign of excitement.
Indeed, there was curiously little interest shown as to the results of
the explosions in that neighborhood; only a grim acceptance of this
daily visitation as something to be added to the score in the final day
of reckoning and some expression of surprise that the French aeroplanes
(supposed to be constantly on the alert for these visitors) should not
have found some means of putting an end to the nuisance. At the same
time I heard several spectators express their admiration of the German
aviators' courage and appreciation of the ease and grace with which they
handled their beautiful machines. In the cafes that evening, when the
full list of the casualties and damage had been published, one heard a
good deal of criticism, seasoned with Attic salt, on the subject of the
belated appearance of the French aeroplanes on the scene, and hopes that
the boulevards might soon be rewarded by the spectacle of a duel in the
air. They seem to think they have earned it.

But in the afternoon all Paris was out--in the Jarden des Tuileries, in
the Bois, at Vincennes, basking in the sunshine of a glorious Autumn
day, Madame et Bebe bravely making the best of it in the absence of
Monsieur. (Not that Monsieur is always absent; the proportion of men in
the crowd, and men of serviceable age, was considerably larger than one
might have expected.) If the object of the German aviators is to instill
terror into the hearts of the Parisians they are wasting their time and
their bombs.

Those people in London who complain about not being able to get supper
after the theatre, and other minor disturbances of their even tenor of
existence, should spend a few days in Paris. They would observe how
easily a community may learn to do without many things, and how the
lesson itself becomes a moral tonic, unmistakably stimulating in its
effects.

Paris is reminded every morning of duty and discipline when it begins by
doing without its beloved petits pains and croissants for breakfast, the
order having gone forth that bakers, being short-handed, are to make
only pain de menage. Similarly, because the majority of journalists and
popular writers are under arms, Paris does without its accustomed daily
refreshment of ephemeral literature, its comic and illustrated press,
its literary and artistic causeries, its feuilletons, and chroniques. It
does without its theatres, its music halls, without politics, art, and
social amenities, without barbers, florists, and motor cars, partly
because there are not men enough to keep these things going, and partly
because, even if there were, la patrie comes first, so that thrifty
self-denial has become the duty of every good citizen. If the telephone
breaks down, (as it usually does,) there is no one to repair it, so the
subscriber goes without; if the trains and trams cease running on
regular schedules the Parisian accepts the fact and stays at home.

In normal times life is made up of the sum of little things, but at
great moments the little things cease to count. How true this is in
Paris today one may judge from the correspondence and records of the
"Secours National"; they reveal an intense and widespread impulse of
personal pride in self-denial, and prove that the heart of the Parisian
bourgeoisie is sound to the core.

To a foreigner, accustomed to the Paris of literary and artistic
traditions, perhaps the most remarkable feature in the life of the city
today lies in the absence of articulate public opinion, and apparently
of public interest, in everything outside the immediate issues of the
war. With one or two exceptions, such as the Temps and the Debats, the
press of the capital practically confines itself to recording the events
and progress of the campaign; nothing else matters. So far as Paris is
concerned, all the rest of the world, from China to Peru, might be
non-existent. Neither the political nor the economic consequences of the
war are seriously examined or discussed; the sole business of the
newspapers consists in supplementing, to the best of their abilities,
the meagre war news supplied through official channels. Some interest
attaches, of course, to the attitude of Italy; but, beyond that, all
things sublunary seem to have faded into a remote distance of
unreality--sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

The explanation [Transcriber: original 'explaantion'] of this attitude
of complete detachment lies, no doubt, chiefly in the fact that the men
who make and exchange political opinions have gone to Bordeaux, while
most of those who create and guide public (as distinct from political)
opinion, have exchanged the pen for the sword. Just as Paris, for want
of bakers, has only one kind of bread, so, for want of the men who
usually inspire public opinion, her press has concentrated upon one
absorbing idea, ecraser les allemands. Moreover, for want of printers
and of advertisers, most of the daily papers have now dwindled to
microscopic proportions. The virile intelligence of Paris journalism and
the nimble and adventurous inquisitiveness, which are its normally
distinguishing characteristics, have gone, like everything else, to the
front. As the editor of the Gil Blas says in a farewell poster to his
subscribers: "Youth has only one duty to perform in these days. Our
chief and all the staff have joined the colors. Whenever events shall
permit, Gil Blas will resume its cheerful way. A bien-tot."




*France and England As Seen in War Time*

*An Interview With F. Hopkinson Smith.*

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE, Dec. 6, 1914.]


F. Hopkinson Smith was in France when the war broke out, he spent
September in London, and is now back in New York. He has brought home
many sketches. Not sketches which suggest war in the least, but which
were made with the thought of the war lurking in the background.

"Curiously enough," he said, without waiting for any opening question
from THE TIMES reporter--Mr. Smith often interviews himself--"curiously
enough, I was on my way to Rheims to make a sketch of the Cathedral when
the war broke out. I had started out to make a series of sketches of the
great European cathedrals. Not etchings, but charcoal sketches.

"Let me say here, too, that cathedrals for the most part ought not to be
etched. You lose too many shadows, though you gain in line; but in the
etching you have to cross-hatch so heavily with ink that the result is
just ink, and not shadow at all. Charcoal gives you depth and
transparency. I was eager to do a series of the cathedrals, as I had
done a series for the Dickens and Thackeray books, and had planned to
give my, entire Summer to it.

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