Our Part in the Great War
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The curé talked with us about the Germans. We asked him how the peasants felt toward them, after the burning and the murders.
"I will tell you how the village electrician felt," replied he. "He came back after the troops had left and took a look about the village.
"'If I ever get hold of those Germans, I'll chew them up,' he said to me.
"'Some of them are still here,' I replied.
"'Show them to me quick,' he demanded.
"'They are in the church – grievously wounded.'
"We went there. A German was lying too high on his stretcher, groaning from his wound and the uncomfortable position.
"'Here, you, what are you groaning about?' thundered the electrician. He lit a cigarette and puffed at it, as he glared at his enemy.
"'Uncomfortable, are you? I'll fix you,' he went on, sternly. Very gently he eased the German down into the softer part of the stretcher, and tucked in his blankets.
"'Now, stop your groaning,' he commanded. He stood there a moment in silence, then burst out again angrily:
"'What are you eyeing me for? Want a cigarette, do you?'
"He pulled out a cigarette, put it in the lips of the wounded man and lit it. Then he came home with me and installed electric lights for me. That was the way he chewed up the Germans.
"As for me, I lost twenty pounds of weight because of those fellows. After they have been in a room, it is a chaos: men's clothing, women's undergarments, petticoats, skirts, shoes, napkins, cloths, hats, papers, boxes, trunks, curtains, carpets, furniture overturned and broken, communicants' robes – everything in a mess. I have seen them take bottles of gherkins, cherries, conserves of vegetables, pots of grease, lard, hams, everything they could eat or drink. What they couldn't carry, they destroyed. They opened the taps of wine casks, barrels of oil and vinegar, and set flowing the juice of fruits ready for distillation.
"The official pillage of precious objects which are to be sent to Germany is directed by an officer. He has a motor car and men. I have sometimes asked for vouchers for the objects, stolen in that way. The vouchers are marked with the signature of the officer doing the requisitioning, and with the stamp of the regiment. But who will do the paying, and when will they do it? The plunderer who takes bottles of wine gives vouchers. I have seen some of them which were playfully written in German, reading:
"'Thanks, good people, we will drink to your health.'
"They don't always have good luck with their pillage. A Boche, who is an amateur of honey, rummages a hive. The valiant little bees hurl themselves on the thief and give him such a face that he can't open his mouth or his eyes for a couple of days. A Boche once held out to me a handful of papers which he took for checks of great value. They were receipts filched from the drawers of Madame Albert Fautellier. The biter was well bitten.
"When the Germans entered my house they held revolvers in their hand. It is so always and everywhere. If all they are asking of you is a match, or a word of advice, the Boche takes out his revolver from its holster, and plunges it back in, when he has got what he wishes. With a revolver bullet he shoots a steer, and knocks down a pig with the butt of his rifle. The animals are skinned. He doesn't take anything but the choice morsels. He leaves the rest in the middle of the street, or a court or garden, the head, the carcass and the hide."
No man in France had a busier time during the German occupation than this village curé. He went on with his recital:
"On Sunday morning, the Germans set our church clock by German time, but the bell was recalcitrant and continued to sound the French hour, while the hands galloped on according to their whim. While they were here, the hour didn't matter. We lost all notion of time. We hardly knew what day it was. My cellar is deep and well vaulted. I placed there a pick-ax, spades and a large shovel. Every precaution was taken. I placed chairs, and brought down water. Wax tapers, jammed in the necks of empty bottles, gave us light enough. That Sunday and the days following I had the pleasure of offering hospitality to 76 persons. My parishioners knew that my home was wide open to them. When you are in numbers, you have less fear.
"The men went into the garden to listen and see whether the battle was coming closer. I recited the rosary in a loud tone. The little children knelt on their knees on the pavement and prayed. Cavalry and infantry passed my door in silence. Once only, I heard the Teutons chanting; it was the third day of the battle: a regiment, muddy and frightened, reentered Friaucourt chanting.
"The hours go slowly. Suddenly we saw to the East a high column of smoke. Can that be the village of Evres on fire? I think it is, but to reassure my people I tell them that it is a flax-mill burning, or the smoke of cannon. At night we sleep on chairs. The children lie down on an immense carpet, which I fold over them, and in that portfolio they are able to sleep.
"Monday was a day of glorious sunshine. Nature seemed to be en fête. After I had buried seven French and German dead, and was walking home, I saw coming toward me Madame Procès, her daughter Hélène, in tears, a German officer and a soldier. The officer asked me:
"'Do you know these ladies?'
"'Very well,' I answered, 'they are honest people of my parish.'
"'All right. This soldier has not shown proper respect to the young lady. He will be rebuked. If he had gone further he would be shot.'
"The officer then reprimanded the soldier in my presence. The man, stiff at attention, listened to the rebuke in such a resentful, hateful way that I thought to myself there is going to be trouble. The soldier, his rifle over his shoulder, went toward the Mayor's office.
"About twenty minutes later I heard firing from the direction of the Mayor's office, two shots, several shots, then a regular fusilade. The sullen soldier had gone down there, clapped his hand to his head, said he was wounded, and fired. When I heard the first firing, I thought it was only one more of their performances. I had seen them kill a cow and a pig in the street by shooting them.
"But at the sound of these shots the Germans ran out from the houses and the streets, rifle and revolver in hand, shouting to me:
"'Your people have fired on us.'
"I protested with all my power, saying that all our arms had been put in the Mayor's office, and that no one of us had done the firing. But they only shouted the louder:
"'Your people have fired on us.'
"Flames broke out in the homes of Mr. Edouard Gand, and Mr. Gabriel Géminel. We saw the Boches set them on fire with incendiary fuses. Later on, we found the remnants of those fuses.
"Women began running to me, weeping and saying:
"'Curé, save my father.' 'My child is in the flames.' 'They are killing my children.'
"The shooting went on. The fire spread and made a hot cauldron of two streets. Cattle and crops and houses burned.
"Then a strange thing happened. Some Germans aided in saving clothing and furniture from two or three of the houses. But most of them watched the destruction, standing silent and showing neither pleasure nor regret. I could tell it was no new sight for them. In two hours, there was nothing left of the thirty-five houses on two streets.
"Our people ran out, chased by angry Germans who fired on them as if they were hunter's game. Jules Gand, 58 years old, was shot down at the threshold of his door. A seventeen-year-old boy named Georges Lecourtier, taking refuge with me, was shot. Alfred Lallemand hid himself in a kitchen. His body was riddled with bullets. We found it burned and lying in the rubbish, eight days later. He was 54 years old. Men, women and children fled into the gardens and the fields. They forded the river without using the bridge which was right there. They ran as far as Brizeaux and Senard. My cook ran. She had a packet of my bonds, which I had given her for safe-keeping, and she had a basket of her own valuables. In her fear she threw away her basket, and kept my bonds.
"The daughter of one of our women, shot in this panic, came to me and said:
"'My mother had fifty thousand francs, somewhere about her.'
"The body had been buried in haste, with none of the usual rites paid the dead, of washing and undressing. So no examination had been made. We dug the body up and found a bag.
"'Is that the bag?' I asked the daughter.
"'It looks like it,' she replied. It was empty.
"A day later we found another bag in the dead woman's room, and in it were the bonds for fifty thousand francs. That shows the haste and panic in which our people had fled, picking up the wrong thing, leaving the thing of most value.
"It was in the garden of the Procès family that the worst was done. It was Hélène Procès, you remember, who was insulted by the German soldier. The grandmother, 78 years old, Miss Laure Mennehand, the aunt, who was 81 years old, the mother, 40 years old, and Hélène, who was 18, ran down the garden. They placed a little ladder against the low wire fence which separated their back yard from their neighbor's. Hélène was the first one over, and turned to help the older women. The Germans had followed them, and riddled the three women with bullets. They fell one on the other. Hélène hid herself in the cabbages.
"That same evening some of the villagers went with me to the garden. The women looked as if they were sleeping. They had no trace of suffering in the face. Miss Mennehand had her little toilet bag, containing 1,000 francs, fastened to her left wrist, and was still holding her umbrella in her right hand. Her brains had fallen out. I collected them on a salad leaf and buried them in the garden.
"We carried the three bodies to their beds in their home. In one bed, as I opened it, I saw a gold watch lying. From Monday evening till Wednesday morning, the bodies lay there, with no wax taper burning, and no one to watch and pray. By night the Germans played the piano, close by.
"'Your people fired on our soldiers,' said a Captain to me next day. 'I'll show you the window.'
"He led me down the street, and pointed.
"'It is unfortunate you have chosen that window,' I replied to him; 'at the time you started burning our village the only person in the house was a paralytic man, who was burned in his bed.'
"It was the house of Jean Lecourtier, 70 years old.
"In front of the Poincaré house, I met a General, who, they said, was the Duke of Württemberg. He said to me:
"'I am glad to see you, Curé. I congratulate you. You are the first chaplain I have seen. Generally, when we get to a village, the mayor and the curé have run away. We officers are angry at what has taken place here. You have treated us well.'
"'Perhaps you will be able to stop the horror,' I said to him.
"'Ah, what can you expect? It is war. There are bad soldiers in your army and in ours.'
"The next day I saw him getting ready to enter a magnificent car. His arm was bandaged.
"'You are wounded, General?' I asked him.
"'No, not that,' he answered.
"'A strained ligament (entorse)?' I asked.
"'No,' he said, 'don't tell me the French word,' He opened a pocket dictionary with his unhurt hand, wetting his finger and turning the pages.
"'It is a sprain (luxation),' he said.
"That is the way they learn a language as they go along.
"'You are leaving us?' I asked.
"Yes, I am going to my own country to rest."
The afternoon had passed while we were talking. We rose to make our good-bys.
"Come with me," said the curé. He led us down the village street, to a small house, whose backyard is a little garden on the little river. All the setting was small and homelike and simple, like the village itself and the curé. A young woman stepped out from the kitchen to greet us.
"This is the girl," said Father Viller. Hélène Procès is twenty years old, with the dark coloring, soft, slightly olive skin, brown eyes, of a thousand other young women in the valley of the Meuse. But the look in her eyes was the same look that a friend of mine carries, though it is now twelve years since the hour when her mother was burned to death on board the General Slocum. Sudden horror has fixed itself on the face of this girl of Triacourt, whose mother and grandmother and aunt were shot in front of her in one moment.
She led us through the garden. There were only a few yards of it: just a little homely place. She brought us to the fence – a low wire affair, cheaply made, and easy to get over.
"The bullets were splashing around me," she said.
The tiny river, which had hardly outgrown its beginnings as a brook, went sliding past. It seemed a quiet place for a tragedy.
VII
THE THREE-YEAR-OLD WITNESS
Two persons came in the room at Lunéville where I was sitting. One was Madame Dujon, and the other was her granddaughter. Madame Dujon had a strong umbrella, with a crook handle. Her tiny granddaughter had a tiny umbrella which came as high as her chin. As the grandmother talked, the sadness of the remembrance filled her eyes with tears. Her voice had pain in it, and sometimes the pain, in spite of her control, came through in sobbing. The little girl's face was burned, and the wounds had healed with scars of ridged flesh on the little nose and cheek. The emotion of the grandmother passed over into the child. With a child's sensitiveness she caught each turn of the suffering. Troubled by the voice overhead, she looked up and saw the grandmother's eyes filled with tears. Her eyes filled. When her grandmother, telling of the dying boy, sobbed, the tiny girl sobbed. The story of the murder tired the grandmother, and she leaned on her umbrella. The little girl put her chin on her tiny umbrella, and rested it there.
Madame Dujon said:
"I will try to tell you the beginning of what I have passed through, Monsieur, but I do not promise that I shall arrive at the end. It is too hard. The day of the twenty-fifth of August, which was a Monday – "
As she spoke her words were cut by sobs. She went on:
"When the Germans came to our house, my son had to go all over the house to find things that they wanted. I did not understand them, and they were becoming menacing. I said to them:
"'I am not able to do any better. Fix things yourself. I give you everything here. I am going to a neighbor's house.'"
She went with the tiny grand-girl, who was three years old, her son, Lucien, fourteen years old, and another son, sixteen. The Germans came here too, breaking in the windows, and firing their rifles. The house was by this time on fire. The face of the little girl was burned.
"My poor boys wished to make their escape, but the fourteen-year-old was more slow than the other, because the little fellow was a bit paralyzed, and he already had his hands and body burned. He tried to come out as far as the pantry. I saw the poor little thing stretched on the ground, dying.
"'My God,' he said, 'leave me. I am done for. Mamma, see my bowels.'
"I saw his bowels. They were hanging like two pears from the sides of his stomach. Just then the Germans came, shooting. I said to them:
"'He has had enough.'
"The little one turned over and tried to get the strength to cry out to them:
"'Gang of dirty – ' ("Bande de sal – ")
"Every one called to us to come out of the fire. The fire was spreading all over the house. I did not want to understand what they were saying. I went upstairs again where the little girl was, to try to save her (see still the marks which she received). I succeeded, not without hurt, in carrying away the little girl out of the flames.
"I had to leave my boy in the flames, and, like a mad person, save myself with the little girl.
"I have two sons-in-law, of whom one is the father of this little girl here. Look at her face marked with scars."
"Yes. They burned me," said the tiny girl. She held up her hand to the scars on her face.
"My other little boy escaped from the fire. He was hidden all one day in a heap of manure. He did not wish to make me sad by telling how his brother had cried out to die."
Madame Dujon sobbed quietly and could not go on for a moment. The little girl put her chin on her little umbrella, and her eyes filled with tears. The Mayor of Lunéville, Monsieur Keller, said to us:
"Madame has not told you – the Germans finished off the poor child. Seeing that he was nearly dead, they threw him into the fire and closed the door."
VIII
MIRMAN AND "MES ENFANTS"
When I went across to France there was one man whom I wished to meet. It was the Prefect of the Meurthe-et-Moselle. I wanted to meet him because he is in charge of the region where German frightfulness reached its climax. Leon Mirman has maintained a high morale in that section of France which has suffered most, and which has cause for despair. Here it was that the Germans found nothing that is human alien to their hate. When they encountered a nun, a priest, or a church, they reacted to the sacred thing and to the religious person with desecration, violation and murder. But that was only because there were many Roman Catholics in the district. They had no race or religious prejudice. When they came to Lunéville there was a synagogue and a rabbi. They burned the synagogue and killed the rabbi. As the sun falling round a helpless thing, their hate embraced all grades of weakness in Lorraine. In Nomeny they distinguished themselves by a fury against women. In some of the villages they specialized in pillage. Others they burned with zeal. Badonviller, Nonhigny, Parux, Crevic, Nomeny, Gerbéviller – the list of the villages of Meurthe-et-Moselle is a tale of the shame of Germany and of the suffering of France.
But not of suffering only. At no place is France stronger than at this point of greatest strain. The district is dotted with great names of the humble – names unknown before the war, and now to be known for as long as France is France. Here Sister Julie held back the German Army and saved her wounded from the bayonet. Here the staunch Mayor of Lunéville and his good wife stayed with their people through the German occupation.
Leon Mirman is the Prefect of all this region. He was Director of Public Charities in Paris, but when war broke out he asked to be sent to the post of danger. So he was sent to the city of Nancy to rule the Department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. The Prefect of a Department in France is the same as the Governor of a State in America. But his office in peace is as nothing compared to his power in time of war. He can suspend a Mayor and remove an entire population from one village to another. The morale of France for that section is dependent on the reaction he makes to danger and stress.
The answer of the ravaged region to the murder and the burning is a steadiness of courage, a busy and sane life of normal activity. Beautiful Nancy still lifts her gates of gold in the Place of Stanislaus. The lovely light of France falls softly on the white stone front of the municipal buildings, and from their interior comes a throbbing energy that spreads through the hurt district. The Prefect's houses for refugees are admirably conducted. School "keeps" for the children of Pont-à-Mousson on a quiet country road, while their mothers still live in cellars in the bombarded town, busy with the sewing which has made their home famous. They are embroidering table cloths and napkins, and Americans are buying their work. They are not allowed any longer to be happy, but they can go on creating beauty. None of their trouble need escape into the clean white linen and the delicate needle-work, and the Bridge of Pont-à-Mousson embosses the centerpiece as proudly as if the town had not been pounded by heavy shells for two years.
But the parents were agreed on one thing: it was no place for children. So these and other hundreds of little ones have been brought together. The Prefect means that these children, some of whom have seen their homes burned, their mothers hunted by armed men, shall have the evil memory wiped out. He is working that they shall have a better chance than if the long peace had continued. The simple homely things are going on, as if the big guns could not reach in.
I attended the classes of domestic science, where little girls plan menus for the family meal. Overhead, the aeroplanes spot the sky. Three times in my days in the district they came and "laid their eggs," in the phrase of the soldiers. Sometimes a mother is killed, sometimes a sister, but the peaceful work goes on. The blackboard is scribbled over with chalk. Piping voices repeat their lesson. I saw the tiny boys at school. I saw the older boys working at trades. Some of them were busy at carpentry, remaking the material for their own village, bureaus, tables and chairs. We talked with boys and girls from Nomeny, where the slaughter fell on women with peculiar severity. These children had seen the Germans come in. Wherever I went I met children who had seen the hand grenades thrown, their homes burning. I visited many hundreds of these children at school. They are orderly and busy. It will take more than fire and murder from unjust men to spoil life for the new generation of France. For that insolence has released a good will in a greater race than the race that sought to offend these little ones.
And the same care has been put on the older refugees. I saw the barracks of the famous Twentieth Army Corps – the Iron Divisions – and of the Eighth Artillery used for this welfare work. Mirman has taken these poor herds of refugees and restored their community life in the new temporary quarters. Here they have a hospital, a church and a cinema. He is turning the evil purpose of the Germans into an instrument for lifting his people higher than if they had known only happiness. Beyond the great power and authority of his office he is loved. The Prefect is a good man, simple and high-minded.
He has given me the statement that follows for the American people. Let us remember in reading it that it comes from the highest official in France in charge of the region where systematic atrocity was practiced in an all-inclusive way. On this chance section of the world's great area, a supreme and undeserved suffering fell. Monsieur Mirman makes here the first official statement of the war on the subject of reprisals. There is something touching in his desire for our understanding. France hoped we would see her agony with the eyes she once turned toward us. She still hopes on, and sends this message of her representative:
"I wish you to understand in what spirit we began the war in France, and especially in this district. It was our intention to follow the rules of what you call in English 'Fair Play.' We wished to carry on the war as we had carried on other wars, to our risk and peril, with all the loyalties of fighting men. But from the start we have been faced with men whom we are unable to consider as soldiers, who have conducted themselves in a section of our Department as veritable outlaws. You are not going, unfortunately, to Nomeny, which is a town of this Department where the Germans have committed the worst of their atrocities. At least you will go to Gerbéviller, where they burned the houses, one by one, and put to death old men, women and children.
"Mention is often made of these two townships where the inhabitants suffered the most severely from the invasion of the enemy, but in many other townships, a long list, the Germans acted in the same way. They burned the streets, they killed men, women and children without cause. Always they gave the pretext, to excuse themselves, that the civilian population had fired on them. On that point, I bring you my personal testimony: I say to you on my honor that this German allegation is absolutely false.
"At my request I was appointed the Prefect of Meurthe-et-Moselle on August 9, 1914. In all the townships of this Department, on my arrival, I requested in the most urgent terms that the inhabitants should not give way to restlessness, and should not resort to a single act which I called an unruly act, by themselves taking direct part in the war. I made those requests in perfect agreement with all the population, approved by the most ardent patriots. I held inquiries, frequent and detailed, to find out if my instructions had been respected. Not once have I been able to establish the fact that a civilian fired on the Germans.