The Better Germany in War Time Part 18

Madame F. L. Cyon was at Lille when it was taken by the Germans, and spent some time there nursing during the German occupation. Madame Cyon's general experiences are printed in an appendix at the end of this volume, but she has given me some further details which are worth recording. I think they will serve to bring out the universal facts of human nature. From her mother, Madame D-- she heard the particulars of her father's arrest. One of the officers who arrested M. D-- was ungentlemanly and rough, the others were polite. The house was searched.

Later a second military search was made, the officers on that occasion being most polite, and apologising for the trouble they caused. As he was leaving, the chief officer said to Mme. D--, "We shall carry away with us the memory of your house as a house of peace and quietness, and of you as a very brave woman." After her husband's arrest, Madame D-- asked for permission to take meals to him, and this was accorded without any demur. One day later the officer just mentioned crossed the street to speak to her. "I want to bring you some good news," he said, "the release of your husband is only a matter of time."

M. D-- was at Maubeuge at the time of his arrest. When he and others were brought back to Maubeuge for trial they got drenched with rain on the way, and were put for that night in the old prison, which was dilapidated and without fire. M. D-- complained next day. The officer to whom he complained apologised and said their imprisonment under these conditions was entirely a mistake. During most of his imprisonment M.

D-- lived on the food provided, which he described as good, but not plentiful. Two fellow prisoners complained, and were allowed to get food from outside. As narrated in the appendix, M. D-- was released when it was found that there was nothing against him. He had indeed been indiscreet in order to meet the wishes of another, but that was all.

After his release he was engaged professionally in forwarding the repairs at Maubeuge, and was repeatedly in touch with the German authorities, with whom he found it quite possible to work.

For some time Madame D--'s house had guards posted outside. There was on one occasion an unpleasant incident with a drunken soldier who came and demanded wine. A sergeant who came along, however, promptly collared the man and turned him out.

It is fair to add that the long German occupation, with its many requisitions and high-handed interference, has embittered M. D. His wife, however, remains quite unembittered. In spite of all the demands, "She seemed to think that, apart from one or two exceptions, the Germans in occupation behaved very much as any army in such circ.u.mstances would have done. Indeed, she added that when the English arrived, some of them were so impertinent ... that people thought that they used to get on better with the Germans." I have quoted part of the last clause, as it seems fair to do so. For me it ill.u.s.trates the general experience that the _present_ discomfort tends by its vividness to seem greater than past discomforts which were really equally great.

One other remark of Mme. D. should be quoted: "I have seen many of the Germans, their doctors for instance, look after the poor and the sick with utter devotion." I have, by request, omitted personal names, except that of Madame Cyon herself.

At the occupation of Lille the Germans at once set about extinguis.h.i.+ng fires that had broken out. In order to prevent these spreading, it was necessary to blow up some houses, and the Germans posted bills telling the people not to be alarmed at the explosions. When Madame Cyon returned to England a newspaper-reporter interviewed her. She stipulated that she must see the ma.n.u.script before the interview was published, and as she found the tone of the ma.n.u.script was not hers, she refused to let it be printed. A later interview with someone else was published in the same newspaper, in which it was made to appear that the Germans had deliberately set fire to the town. This Madame Cyon a.s.serts is directly contrary to the facts. A similar case of exaggeration Madame Cyon noticed while in the occupied districts. There were all kinds of dreadful stories as to what went on about the country, and she was told it would never do to leave Lille. When she did leave, and made her way to Holland, she found no confirmation of these stories. Travelling was uncomfortable and tedious, but there was no peril of any kind.

In the early days of the war there were Belgian refugees at Alexandra Palace. M. Cyon was a journalist, and took his notebook with him to put down interesting facts. He wished to confine himself to facts, however, which not all journalists do. He found the women full of stories about atrocities, but they were always terrible things that had happened to _someone else_. The student of war atrocities indeed finds this to be a very general feature of the stories told. It by no means follows that atrocities do not occur. Certainly they do, but the number undergoes extraordinary exaggeration in the excited minds of the people. M. Cyon, therefore, as a serious observer, asked for one person who could speak at first hand. One of the refugees, he was told, was a woman whose little boy had been branded on both cheeks by the Germans. He was directed to this woman. He asked for her experiences, but she had nothing startling to tell. "But," he asked, "was not your little boy very badly treated by the Germans?" "Little boy!" she exclaimed, in astonishment, "I have no little boy, I have no son at all."

Madame Cyon had various patients at Lille. Her 24 Germans, she told me, gave her no more trouble than any ordinary patients. She had, however, four French Moroccan soldiers to nurse, and she describes them as extremely savage. She was sometimes afraid of them, and of one especially.

Madame Cyon was often overworked, and patients are not always reasonable. One evening she brought her German patients some mutton stew, and one of the wounded men made a dissatisfied remark about it.

Madame Cyon was feeling very tired and the remark hurt her. She remained outside in the corridor instead of coming to the men as usual during their meal. Presently one man who had acted as interpreter came out.

"Madame, you are cross." "Yes, I am." "Why are you cross?" "The men have been well treated, I have done all I could, and now they grumble about nothing." The man was very sorry, he went back, and presently all who could walk came out and apologised. How strangely alike, after all, we human beings are! But our rulers could never lead us out in armies to kill each other unless they persuaded us somehow that we only were wonderfully fine chaps, and the others were brutes. Yet the appeal of kindness and devotion tells everywhere. So when the German science student, Albin Claus, mentioned in Madame Cyon's account (p. 262), found her much overworked, he said, "You go to sleep, and I will keep watch,"

and he helped in all ways to keep things right.

"I have since written to the same science student," writes Madame Cyon; "before leaving the hospital he asked my address and I his. He told me he would always be glad to help me in any way, as he knew that I had five brothers in the French army. At the time one of my brothers was missing. I wrote to this man, then promoted a Lieutenant, and I had two letters from him via Switzerland. The correspondence was concerning my brother, and Lieutenant V. R. Albin Claus did his best to help me, and spoke in his letters of his stay in hospital 105, thanking me for my care."

ANOTHER SORT OF WITNESS.

The soldier on both sides has been told all sorts of horrors about the enemy. Hatred is recognised as a great weapon of destruction. The contrast between what the soldier has seen and what he has heard is well ill.u.s.trated by a story told by Mr. John Buchan in one of his lectures. A wounded Scot had said to him, of the Germans, "They're a bad, black lot, _but no the men opposite us_. They were a very respectable lot, and grand fechters."-_Times_, April 27, 1915.

WAR ZONE CHILDREN.

Under the heading "War Zone Children," the following paragraph appeared in the _Westminster Gazette_ of the 30th November, 1915:

The Society of Friends' Emergency Committee for Aliens has just received the following letter from Dr. Elisabeth Rotten, of Berlin (before the war lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge), showing that the German committee for helping alien enemies in distress is not behind similar committees in this country in looking after the little ones belonging to enemy countries:

30/11/15.

Before I leave Switzerland, after a short visit, I should like to write you a few lines.

I have been ten days in Belgium in order to get permission to take Belgian and French children home to their parents, who had left them in the occupied country before the outbreak of war and were now living in France or in other foreign parts.

I was also to bring the first little group with me myself.

Others will be fetched during the next weeks by other ladies of our committee. We spent the night in Frankfurt in the houses of German ladies, who are already looking forward to their future little guests. The whole expedition will belong to one of the pleasantest peace remembrances of the war, and it was a particular pleasure and benefit to me to see and to experience personally in the work of my mission, in how many directions and with what sincerely good and n.o.ble intentions the Governor General endeavours to mitigate personal suffering, and particularly how he cares for the children who are separated from their parents.

I hope soon to write more. The children will now be taken to their parents by Swiss ladies, and I am on the point of starting for Frankfurt, where there are many important points to discuss with the Committee for Advice and Aid in connection with our common work.

The last-named committee is a local Frankfort Emergency Committee for Aliens.

A SOLDIER AND THE CHILDREN.

Here is a German N.C.O. writing in _Vorwarts_ of some experiences in the Russian occupied territory:

He describes the poverty of the people, the lack of even such necessaries of life as salt, boots, etc.; how little children are running about in the snow with bare feet, and often with no other garment on them than a s.h.i.+rt. He adds:

On the whole, however, the children give me great joy, though also not a little annoyance owing to their importunity.

Fortunately, during my activity in connection with the school children's gymnastic society at -- I have gained so much patience that I never permit myself to lose my temper. While I am writing this already ten or twelve children have invaded my room asking for bread. Everyone of them got something. I am now almost reduced to beggary myself, and whatever I can get hold of is given to the children, so that they may enjoy themselves. I got from a friend a few packets of ginger cakes. I gave them all away, and I do not even know how they tasted.

And when I show them photographs of my children's gymnastic society there is almost a riot. How I wish I could understand them better! A little girl of 13, who always reminds me of my own second daughter, has won my heart completely. Every day she says to me a couple of German words which she has picked up somewhere: "I don't know," "Potatoes without salt are no good,"

"Benzine is dangerous," and phrases like that. I cannot realise that these children belong to an enemy nation. I should have dearly loved to roam about with them through forest and field, as I used to in Berlin.-(Quoted in the _Daily News_, December 20, 1915.)[40]

THE CHILD IN NO MAN'S LAND.

The story of the child adopted by the Bedfords.h.i.+res will be remembered by many. She was found in a ditch by the men on their way to the trenches, and was perforce for some time with them there.

The German trenches were about 150 yards off, and the level, open s.p.a.ce between the two lines wasn't healthy. No man who valued his life would go there unnecessarily, or recklessly put his head above the parapet. One morning, to their horror the men, through the periscope, saw the child standing above the trench on the German side. Cries came from the enemy, but they were not hostile. The sight of the girl, little more than an infant, has touched their sentimental side, and she had offers of chocolate and invitations to go and see them.

After that the girl went over the parapet quite often. She was as safe in that danger zone as if she had been behind the lines.

No German would harm her, and once she went close up to their first-line trench.-(_Daily News_, February 17, 1916).

AUSTRO-HUNGARIANS IN CETINJE.

When the Austro-Hungarian troops entered Cetinje there was already serious famine:

The children in the streets were begging bread from the pa.s.sing soldiers, who shared their tiny brown loaves with the hungry little children, and the military authorities at the barracks were besieged from the morning till late in the evening by the starving population.

There were some fifty or sixty well-to-do better cla.s.s families, who had been in Government positions before, or prominent business people, who suffered as terribly as their poorer brethren. Among those who went begging for bread to headquarters were wives of ex-Ministers and women who were ladies-in-waiting at the Royal Court only a few weeks previously. For their children's sake they were all ready to beg for something to eat.

It must be admitted that the military authorities put the soldiers on quarter rations and distributed all the available food among the suffering population. The bad condition of the roads and the consequent lack of supplies in the army itself made it impossible for them to do more.-(_Daily News_, February 21, 1916.)

_On quarter rations_-that is worth remembering.

NOT ALL BARBARIANS, NOR ALL CHIVALROUS.

We have all of us heard many stories from our soldier friends. Many statements and opinions we cannot in these days publish, but some are allowable. Such as the following: "Some of our men were hung up on the German barbed wire. We could do nothing to get at them. We saw the Germans trying to make signs from their trenches and we couldn't at first make out what they meant, but presently some of them ventured out and took in our wounded. I turned to my mate and said, 'They tell us all the Germans are barbarians, but that doesn't look much like it.' It was difficult to keep some of our men from firing on the Germans even then."

The last statement will surprise only those who have not been told the truth about war. Pa.s.sion gets the upper hand of humanity, and indeed reason may support pa.s.sion, for is not destruction of the enemy one of the chief aims of war? Shall we spare the enemy when rescuing their _own_ wounded? By war logic that would be inconceivably foolish. Hence such incidents as the following: A lieutenant of Hussars wrote on October 22, 1914, of his work in a loft which he had previously loopholed. The letter is both frank and generous, and as usual with soldiers' letters, without any of the malicious sanct.i.ty which so besets the civilian. The letter was published in the _Times_, November 26, 1914. "When I got up I could see crowds of Germans advancing. I think they have learnt a lesson from us, for they didn't advance in ma.s.ses, but in extended order like we do. They were jolly good, too.... One fellow was jolly brave. I saw him carrying back a wounded man on his back, and it made a very good target. Though we didn't succeed in hitting him, he had to drop his man.... We were having jolly good fun."

One sentence shows how far removed are the ethics of war from the ethics of peace: "I saw him carrying back a wounded man on his back, _and it made a very good target_."

And here is a case where chivalry was remembered and forgotten. The extract is from the _Daily News_, May 17, 1916. Most of us may get similar information privately, but it is wisest to confine oneself to what has already been published:

A sergeant on active service writes in the course of a letter on his experiences: "I got stuck in a trench up to my waist in mud, and who do you think pulled me out?-only a German about 6ft.

4in. One of my boys wanted to bayonet him.[41] I said: 'Drop that or I shoot you.' The German said: 'Sergeant, it is not my fault-I am only fighting for my country as you are fighting for yours.'"