Paris War Days Part 6

I drove to-day with the Duke de Loubat, who is a close friend of Cardinal Ferrata, now spoken of as foremost favorite among the Papabili Cardinals. Monseigneur Ferrata enjoys great popularity not only at Rome but abroad, and is a warm friend of the United States. He has also a keen sense of humor. Not long ago a distinguished member of the French parliament lunched with Monseigneur Ferrata and remarked: "How is it that the Church requires such a long lapse of time before p.r.o.nouncing a decree of nullity of marriage?" "Well," replied Cardinal Ferrata, "before the end of the ten years' delay, it is usually found that one of the three dies or disappears, and that the pet.i.tion consequently is no longer pressed!" A great change is noticeable in the Paris churches. They have been more crowded since the war than for many years past. I entered the Madeleine to-day and found, to my surprise, an unusually large proportion of men among the congregation. Most of them were reservists called to arms. In other churches the congregations were almost entirely composed of women and children.

Our Amba.s.sador, Herrick, is a sort of guardian angel for Americans in Paris. I saw him to-day working with Mr. Robert Woods Bliss, first secretary of the Emba.s.sy. He rose at six in the morning, and except for a brief repose for breakfast and dinner, is constantly ready to give advice to Americans or to attend to intricate diplomatic duties that crop up here at every turn. Our Amba.s.sador also has on his shoulders the affairs of all the Germans and Austrians who remain in France. Some of our countrymen are very hard to please. Everything possible is being done for those who wish to return home, and money, when necessary, is advanced to them for the purpose. But they strongly object to waiting in line for their turn, whether at the Emba.s.sy, the Consulate, or at the Transatlantic Company, where, owing to the crowd of applicants, there is some necessary delay in attending to them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Robert Woods Bliss, First Secretary of the United States Emba.s.sy in Paris, September, 1914.]

A number of complications have arisen by discharged servants filing statements against their former employers, denouncing them as "probable spies." Several examples of this have already occurred with prominent American ladies who permanently reside here. I spoke with M. Hennion, the prefect of police, on the subject, and he said that "such malicious accusations"-and he showed me a pile of denunciations nearly a yard high-"were never acted upon, unless under really suspicious circ.u.mstances."

One of Mr. Herrick's callers at the American Emba.s.sy was Mme. Henri de Sincay, a grand-daughter of General Logan, of Civil War fame. She is the wife of a French army officer and when the war broke out was living in a chateau near Liege. She fled to Brussels with her child, and then, leaving the latter there with her sister-in-law, came to Paris to say good-by to her husband, who is attached to the aviation corps near Versailles. Now Mme. de Sincay cannot return to her child, but she is not worrying over the situation and has offered her services to the American Ambulance here in Paris.

The earnest, practical way in which General Victor Constant Michel, Military Governor of Paris, carries out his work, is admirable. General Michel has quietly despatched large numbers of the unruly youths of Belleville, Montmartre, and Montparna.s.se,-known as the "apaches"-to the country, in small gangs, to reap the wheat harvest, and he also employs them in the government cartridge and ammunition factories. In Paris, they have completely vanished from sight. The prohibition of the drinking and sale of absinthe, not only in Paris, but throughout France, was also due to the foresight of the Military Governor. General Michel, although a rigid disciplinarian and a masterful organizer, is extremely affable and agreeable. He was born at Auteuil in 1850, and after graduation from Saint-Cyr, the French West Point, served in the war of 1870-1871 as second lieutenant of infantry. In 1894 he was made colonel of an infantry regiment and showed such proficiency during the manoeuvers that he became general-of-brigade in 1897. He was made general-of-division in 1902; he is member of the Supreme War Council, and in 1910 was awarded the high distinction of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor.

Monday, August 24.

Twenty-second day of the war. Hot day with bright blue sky and southeasterly wind. Thermometer at five P.M. 27 degrees centigrade.

Terrific night and day fighting continues on the Sambre and Meuse. The French attack seems to have been repulsed. The allies remain on the defensive, awaiting further German attacks. The losses on both sides are terrible. Some days yet must elapse before the final result of the great battle can be known. Meanwhile, Paris waits with patriotic confidence. Russian victories in East Prussia, the j.a.panese bombardment of Tsin-Tao, in Kiao-Chow, the advance of the Servians, and the increasing probability of Italy claiming eventually her "irredenta" territory, are all encouraging factors in this world-wide war.

The American volunteers mustered to-day at their recruiting offices in the Rue de Valais and marched to the Invalides, where they pa.s.sed the French medical test prior to enrolment in the French army. The men are wonderfully fit, and their splendid muscular, wiry physique was greatly admired as they marched through the streets. Out of the two hundred present, only one was not pa.s.sed by the army surgeons, and even he was not definitely refused. The corps will proceed to-morrow to the Gare Saint-Lazare for entrainment. They will be sent, at first, to Rouen.

M.F.A. Granger, a young Frenchman, arrived to-day in Paris from New York, where he left his wife and family. He sailed on the Rochambeau with many of his countrymen, coming, like himself, to join the colors. M. Granger tells me that he saw near Lisieux a train of German prisoners, mostly cavalrymen, some of whom had been wounded by lance thrusts. They seemed resigned to their fate, without enthusiasm, and on the whole rather pleased at the prospect of being confined and fed in France, instead of remaining at the front. They said that they had no idea that England and Belgium were fighting against them, until they crossed swords with the Belgian cavalry, which they at first supposed were French.

Tuesday, August 25.

This is the twenty-third day of the war. Another warm, sunny day, with northwesterly breezes. Thermometer at five P.M. 24 degrees centigrade.

Better news from the front this morning. The great battle that has been raging for three days from Mons to Virton, during which the French and British attacks were repulsed, has been resumed, and renewed German attacks have been checked. Considerable anxiety as to the result nevertheless prevails. My concierge, Baptiste, for instance, shakes his head in a mournful way and says: "Ah! Monsieur, there is already terrible loss of life. My brother-in-law, who left Luxemburg three weeks ago to join his reserve regiment in France, is without a cent in the world, and what will become of his wife and two little children-the Lord only knows! Their little farmhouse, with all their belongings, has been burned, and nothing is left."

I breakfasted to-day at the restaurant Champeaux, Place de la Bourse. Two agents-de-change (official members of the Paris Stock Exchange) took very gloomy views of the situation. It seems, however, that the French rentes maintain their quotation of seventy-five francs. Mr. Elmer Roberts of the a.s.sociated Press and Mr. Hart O. Berg sat at our table. Both thought that the war would be much longer than at first expected and would depend upon how long Germany could exist, owing to the impossibility of obtaining food from abroad. "Eight months," said Mr. Berg.

After lunch I went with Roberts to see the departure of the first contingent of American volunteers from the Gare Saint-Lazare. These youths are a tall, stalwart lot, marching with a sort of cowboy swing. They were not in uniform, but wore flannel s.h.i.+rts, broad-brimmed felt hats, and khaki trousers. They carried a big American flag surmounted with a huge bouquet of roses, and alongside this a large French flag. They were loudly cheered as they were entrained for Rouen, where they will be drilled into effective shape.

I met Mrs. Edith Wharton, who remains in Paris, and is doing good work with her ouvroir, or sewing-circle, which, with Mrs. Thorne, she has organized in the Rue Vaneau. This ouvroir is to supply work to unmarried French women and widows. Among those who have liberally subscribed to this are Mrs. William Jay, Mrs. Elbert H. Gary, Mrs. Beach Grant, and Mrs. Griswold Gray.

I went in the afternoon to see Madame Waddington at her ouvroir, 156 Boulevard Haussmann. Madame Waddington makes an appeal by cable to the New York Tribune, calling upon all American women and men to aid her indigent French sewing-women, who are employed in making garments for the sick and wounded, for which they receive one and a half francs (thirty cents) and one meal, for a day's work. Madame Waddington wore a gray linen gown, with a red cross, and was working away very merrily, distributing materials to the women. She told me that her son had joined the colors as a sergeant in an infantry reservist regiment and was at the front.

M. Maurice Maeterlinck, the Belgian writer and philosopher, is living at his quaint Abbaye de Sainte-Wandrille, on the Seine near Caudebec. The author of La Vie des Abeilles has been helping the peasants gather the wheat harvest.

[Photograph: Photo by Paul Thompson. A party of American volunteers crossing the Place de l'Opera in Paris on their way to enlist.]

After three weeks, during which relief funds have been advanced to Americans at the Emba.s.sy, the demands for money continue to be as heavy as ever. Paris is a human clearing-house, into which new arrivals are now coming every day from Switzerland and elsewhere. Although many tourists have been helped and started on their way for the United States, new ones take their places before they are fairly out of the way.

Thus, although the Emba.s.sy hoped that it had succeeded in getting the persons in most urgent need off to America on the Espagne, the departure of that vessel has caused no let-up in the demand for funds, and some individuals who have already been helped once are now coming back for further a.s.sistance.

One of the negro song and dance artists, who was given some money a couple of weeks ago and who was supposed to have left on the Espagne, presented himself and asked for further funds after that vessel steamed. When asked how it happened that he did not go, as arranged, he replied: "'Deed, Ah overslept mahself."

"Considering that the boat train left at six o'clock in the evening," remarked Major Cosby, who has charge of the administration of the relief fund, "he would seem to be a good sleeper."

In the case of all persons who are helped, the stipulation is made that they must take the earliest possible means of transport to America. The Government has no intention of financing tourists who desire to visit Europe at this time. The sole object of the relief fund is to get them back to the United States as soon as possible.

In addition to the ordinary relief fund, one hundred and seventy thousand francs have been paid out at the Emba.s.sy this week by cable orders against funds already deposited with the Department of State. This is a purely business transaction, the Government having already received the full amount of the payment made, but it has been a source of much relief to many travelers.

Wednesday, August 26.

Twenty-fourth day of the war. Dull, cheerless weather, with a Scotch drizzle in the afternoon and heavy rain in the evening. Southwesterly wind. Temperature at five P.M. 20 degrees centigrade.

The great battle on the Sambre and Meuse continues with frightful slaughter on both sides. The allies have been partially forced back but resist with dogged determination.

Mrs. Hermann Duryea, a family relative of mine, and whose husband's horse "Durbar" won the English Derby this spring, has come to Paris for a few days from their country place near Argentan in Normandy, and is stopping at her apartment in the Avenue Gabriel. Mrs. Duryea's chauffeur, who is a young Frenchman, says that Belgian chauffeurs have reached Normandy from the north, telling harrowing tales of the brutality and cruelty of the Germans, and announcing that the "German cavalry and armored motor-cars would soon prevent people from leaving Paris." Mrs. Duryea, who is an exceedingly cool-headed, plucky woman, came to me for advice. I told her that there was no probability at present of communication from Paris to the westward being interfered with. She sent some of her servants home to the United States and made arrangements to rejoin her husband at Bazoches-en-Houlme, near Argentan. The chateau has, through the generosity of the Duryeas, been turned into a Red Cross hospital.

President Poincare has taken a leaf from Great Britain, and Premier Rene Viviani has reconstructed a new Cabinet with eminent men, representing all political parties, making a government of national defence. Since the outbreak of the war, the Cabinet has been taking advice from statesmen such as MM. Millerand, Delca.s.se, Briand, and Ribot. These men now form part of the Ministry, the formation of which was announced to a group of journalists at 11.30 this evening at the Ministry of War, when we a.s.sembled there for the usual nightly communique. The new Cabinet is made up as follows: Prime Minister (without Portfolio), M. Rene Viviani; Vice-President of Council and Minister of Justice, M. Aristide Briand; Interior, M. Malvy; Foreign Affairs, M. Delca.s.se; War, M. Millerand; Navy, M. Augagneur; Finance, M. Ribot; Agriculture, M. Fernand David; Public Works, M. Marcel Sembat; Labor, M. Bienvenu-Martin; Commerce, M. Thomson; Public Instruction, M. Albert Sarraut; Colonies, M. G. Doumergue; Minister without Portfolio, M. Jules Guesde.

M. Etienne Alexandre Millerand is an ill.u.s.trious member of the Paris Bar, who has been several times a cabinet minister. As head of the War Department, two years ago, he did more than any living Frenchman towards the reconst.i.tution of true esprit militaire in the French army. He prepared the way for the three years' service, and reorganized the forces of the nation that had grown rusty during the decade that preceded the alarm caused by the German Emperor at Agadir. It is quite probable that M. Millerand will prove to be the Lazare Carnot-"The Organizer of Victory"-of the present war. With M. Theophile Delca.s.se as Minister of Foreign Affairs, French diplomacy cannot be in better hands. In calling upon M. Jules Guesde, socialist deputy for Lille, and upon M. Marcel Sembat, a red-hot socialist-both unified socialists and trusted friends of the late Jean Jaures, the Government is a.s.sured of the hearty support of the extreme "revolutionary" parties.

MM. Guesde and Sembat can certainly do the Government less harm inside the Cabinet than they might do outside of it. No better evidence that all bitterness of political parties is now in the melting-pot can be found than in the comment of the reactionary, ultra-Catholic, royalist Gaulois, which says: "We are to-day all united in the bonds of patriotism in face of the common enemy. We place absolute confidence in the men who have a.s.sumed a task, the success of which means the salvation of France and the triumph of civilization." M. Georges Clemenceau was offered a place in the Cabinet, but declined to accept it.

The appointment of General Joseph Simon Gallieni as commander of the army of Paris, and military governor, in succession to General Michel, means that France is resolved to put Paris in a thoroughly efficient state of defence, and to be ready for the worst possible emergencies. General Michel is an admirable organizer and administrator, but he has not had the vast military experience of General Gallieni, who is, by the way, a warm friend and comrade of the former military governor. Moreover General Michel will now serve under General Gallieni's orders.

[Photograph: Photo. Henri Munuel, Paris. General Joseph Simon Gallieni, appointed Military Governor and Commander of the Army of Paris, August 26, 1914.]

General Gallieni, as a strategist, enjoys the same high reputation as the commander-in-chief, General Joffre. He was born on April 24, 1849, at Saint-Beat in the department of the Haute Garonne. He entered the Saint-Cyr military academy in 1868, and was appointed a sub-lieutenant in the Third Regiment of Marine Infantry two years later, and he fought with his regiment through the war of 1870. Since then he has distinguished himself in Tonkin, Senegal, and Madagascar. Everywhere he has shown exceptional qualities, both as a soldier and administrator. His brilliant career finally led to his appointment as a member of the Higher Council of War, and, in acknowledgment of his great services, he was maintained on the active list after pa.s.sing the age limit. He is a Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor.

President Poincare to-day confers further extraordinary powers upon General Joffre, authorizing him to exercise the almost sovereign right of promoting officers on the spot, just as Napoleon did, by simply naming them to the posts where he thinks they may be most useful. Thus, General Joffre can make a captain a colonel or a full-fledged general-of-division, by word of mouth. This privilege was not even granted by Napoleon to his marshals. These promotions are, however, only provisional during the war, and when peace is made, must be ratified by Parliament. This renders it possible to replace general officers, killed or wounded, by officers selected on the battlefield, and above all enables important commands to be filled by young officers, who give proof of their qualities in face of the enemy.

An idea of the infinite tragedy of war was brought home to many Parisians by a visit to the Cirque de Paris, where twenty-five hundred Belgian refugees, men, women, and children, have been provided with at least a temporary shelter.

The vast building, where so many famous boxing-matches have taken place, is now completely transformed. The ring has been cut in two, and hundreds of fauteuils have been placed in small groups so arranged as to form subst.i.tutes for beds. The boxes have been reserved for the many women with infants in arms.

Hardly were they installed, and hardly had the news spread in Paris of their miserable plight, than hundreds of Parisians visited the Cirque de Paris, all bringing gifts of food, drink, or clothing. It was a pathetic and at the same time a cheering sight to watch the refugees hungrily eating the midday meal which their French sympathizers had helped to provide. These refugees, many of whom carry babies in arms, will probably be sent into Normandy and Brittany to be cared for.

Thursday, August 27.

Twenty-fifth day of the war. Rain, severe thunderstorm at noon, northwesterly wind. Temperature at five P.M. 17 degrees centigrade.

The huge German army, making its desperate struggle to invade France at many points from Maubeuge to the Vosges, is still held in check. Meanwhile the hand of fate, in the shape of the gigantic "Russian steam-roller," steadily advances in East Prussia. Cossacks have penetrated to within two hundred miles of Berlin.

Minister of War Millerand has revived the daily meetings of heads of departments at the War Office. To-day the defensive condition of Paris was discussed. Work already in progress, under the supervision of General Gallieni, is pushed forward rapidly and methodically, and obstructions to artillery fire are being cleared away in the suburbs.

I rambled this morning through the so-called German quarter of Paris around the Rue d'Hauteville and between the main boulevards and the Rue Lafayette. All the German and Austrian teutons shops and places of business are closed. The bra.s.series, where the best Munich or Pilsener beer, with wiener Schnitzel or leber-knoedel suppe could be obtained until the end of July, are invisible behind signless iron shutters. The "intelligence section" of the German general staff had for years obtained precious military information through the enterprising, affable German commercial agents, restaurant keepers, commission merchants, waiters, and hotel errand boys (cha.s.seurs) who thrived in this thrifty quarter.

A wounded sergeant of a Highland regiment, in talking yesterday with an American friend of mine at Amiens station, bitterly denounced the German practice of concealing their advance by driving along in front of them numbers of refugee women and children. The Scottish sergeant said: "Our battalion was badly cut up. We were using our machine guns to repel a German advance. Suddenly we saw a lot of women and children coming along the road towards us. Our officers ordered us to cease firing. The refugees came pouring through our lines. Immediately behind them, however, were the German riflemen, who suddenly opened fire on us at short range with terrible effect. Had it not been for this dastardly trick of shoving women and children ahead of them at the points of their bayonets, we might have wiped out this German rifle battalion that attacked us, but instead of that, we were driven back. d.a.m.n these Germans!" With these words the Scottish sergeant, his right arm shattered from shoulder to elbow, climbed into the train of British wounded and was carried off towards Rouen.

A number of French wounded soldiers from the Northern Army arrived in Paris during the night and were sent to the Military Hospital, Rue des Recollets, to the Hospital of Saint-Louis, and to a hospital installed in the College Rollin. Among them were a number slightly wounded, but very few severely. Their spirit seems excellent, and all agree that few were killed considering the number of wounded.

All promise to obey orders more closely when they are well and back in the firing line, and not to be too rash. Rashness and too great anxiety to get at the foe seem, indeed, to have been the cause of a great many casualties.

Friday, August 28.

Twenty-sixth day of the war. Bright, clear weather with northeasterly breezes. Temperature at five P.M. 20 degrees centigrade.

I saw, in the Rue Franklin, M. Georges Clemenceau, the veteran demolisher of cabinets, and former Prime Minister, who in his youthful days was a mayor of the eighteenth arrondiss.e.m.e.nt of Paris, the turbulent Montmartre quarter. M. Clemenceau severely criticizes the new Viviani Cabinet. "Viviani," said he, "asked me twice to form part of it. I declined because, in addition to personal reasons, the Ministry did not seem to me to realize the elements of power and action required by this war. Having this opinion, it would not be fair either to Viviani or to myself to enter into a combination where I should have to a.s.sume the responsibility for acts that to my mind would not adequately meet the emergency. Under the circ.u.mstances, there are only three ministers that count for anything; those of war, foreign affairs, and finance." M. Clemenceau said: "There must be something wrong with the mobilization scheme, because when our troops were outnumbered at the front, there were great quant.i.ties of young officers and men who for ten days had been awaiting, at their various points of a.s.sembly, orders to join their corps, and at the last moment were told to go home."