Charles Edward Ryan

“ Thus a dim light is cast over the beds of the patients, but not sufficient to penetrate the gloom of the lofty roof. Impressive as the sight is taken as a whole, the deep interest which it excites is heightened by the thought that every one of those 300 beds bears its wounded sufferer, and that each sufferer could tell his own long history of privation and pain.
Assuredly the saddest congregation that this old Church has ever held! Around the stoves are huddled knots of soldiers, French and German, whose common affliction has changed bitter foes into sympathising friends. ”

“ Under cover of this wood, the Bois de Garenne, we had seen the French massing their troops; and they had evidently been lying here in ambush when the Prussians detected and shelled them, before the final rout, during which they abandoned their arms and ammunition. Down the slope of the hill, and in the bottom of the valley facing the Meuse, dead men and horses, with groups of hastily-dug graves,—many of them German,—and broken spears, and numbers of unsheathed cavalry swords, told the same tale of a death struggle in which hundreds must have perished. ”

“ Half, at least, of those we saw were English, the remainder French and Belgians. It is a curious sensation, that of being for the first time in a foreign country, where one's whole surroundings differ from all one has been accustomed to see and hear in one's native land. My boyish experience made everything, however trivial, a subject of interest. As I walked through the town with Vercourt, I was greatly struck by the civility of the people, their cleanliness and the neatness of their persons and dress, and above all by the absence of any visible wretchedness even among the poor. ”

“ Again, besides the dark blue with red facings of the Prussian Infantry, and the Bavarian light blue with green facings, I could count up Hussars of all colours, red, black, and white, light blue, dark blue and gold, and the Würtemburg green. The German soldiers are certainly a magnificent body of men; and, although at the bottom of my heart my sympathies and affections are altogether with the French, despite their shortcomings, I am bound to declare the superiority of their adversaries, as men of fine physique and manly bearing, and of cool undaunted courage ”

“ May and I counted on the plain a rank of eighty-five dead horses, exclusive of the maimed. The sufferings of these poor brutes, which were as a rule frightfully mutilated, seemed to call for pity almost as much as those of the men themselves. For the men, if wounded very badly, lay still, and their wants were quickly attended to; but the horses, sometimes disembowelled, their limbs shattered, kept wildly struggling and snorting beneath dismounted gun-carriages and upturned ammunition waggons, until either a friendly revolver or death from exhaustion put an end to their torment. ”

“ Deep in the gravel walks, and through the once well-trimmed turf, had the wheels of the guns sunk, as the Prussians made their hasty retreat before the victorious French; [357] and it must have been some consolation to the fair owner of this desolated garden, to think that it was the scene of the solitary French victory in that disastrous war.
In the front garden every vine was dead, cut from the wall. For the wall had served as a shelter for the German soldiers, and was pierced all along for rifle rests, and by every hole was a heap of empty cartridge cases. ”

“ Yet, candour compels me to add, that when I looked at the Prussian sentinels guarding our gates and pacing our ramparts, I could not help admiring their stern, yet frank and honest countenances, and their stalwart physique. A notable contrast, indeed, they presented to the stunted, nervous-looking, and worn-out French soldiers, who, however, it is only fair to add, were suffering from the effects of long exposure and privation, and whom we had seen at their worst. Still, there was a difference in the men themselves which no one with eyes in his head could fail to observe. ”

“ The French, aware that the battle was lost, had become panic-stricken, and getting completely out of the control of their officers, their retreat on Sedan was, in plain truth, the stampede of a thoroughly disorganised and routed army. It was a strange sight, and by no means easy to picture. A huge and miscellaneous collection of men, horses, and materials were jammed into a comparatively small space, all in the utmost disorder and confusion. Soldiers of every branch—cavalry, infantry, artillery—flung away their arms, or left them at different places, in stacks four or five feet high. ”

“ I hastened to the Palais de l'Industrie, where M. Labouchère informed me of the nature of my appointment in the Belgian Ambulance. What was my astonishment when I found that I should have ten infirmiers under me, for whom I was to be responsible, and to whom I must issue orders! Much as I desired to accept this most tempting offer, common sense got the better of my ambition; and I declined, feeling conscious that my imperfect knowledge of French would prevent my being able to discharge my duties with efficiency. ”

“ As we gaze for a second, the old tower clock strikes the hour, the sentinel on watch cries out in reply to the challenge of his superior officer who is on his rounds, "One o'clock and all's well". Yes—all is well,—only a poor soldier has given up his life into the hands of his Maker, for his country's cause. One more German mother has lost her son,—one more German heart is desolate. ”

“ The first I come to is a young Prussian artillery volunteer. He is only sixteen, a mere boy, with large blue eyes, fair soft complexion, and fair [296] hair, and, though stoutly built, has very white and delicate hands. His graceful and engaging manner, and his developed mind, show that he is of a good German family. Yet he is but a private soldier. What has induced him to leave his home and country at such an age? Two reasons alone,—hatred of the French, and a thirst for glory. Poor boy! his leg has been shattered by the fragment of a shell. ”

“ I had one other most interesting expedition, to the Château Bellevue and along by the hills where the Prussians established their heavy guns on the First. It commanded the whole valley, and as we looked down upon the Plateau of Floing, the Bois de Garenne, the slopes of Givonne, and our hospital standing on its huge embankment above the ramparts of Sedan between them and us, the only wonder was that a single man of us remained alive. ”

“ But for the man who deems it a pleasure and a glory to use the science of war as a weapon wherewith to annihilate thousands of human beings, for the delusion called "prestige," or in the game of politics, I would have him to know that it is a foul and monstrous thing, full of hideous suffering, cruelty, and injustice, with nothing to redeem it, save the courage whereby such miseries are endured. ”

“ It was noteworthy, indeed, to see that host pass by, consisting of 130,000 as fine-looking men as any country in the world could produce; and what was most astonishing about them was the neatness and cleanliness of their dress, the brightness of their arms and accoutrements, and their general well-dressed appearance, reminding me more of our handful of soldiers at home, as they marched past the Lord Lieutenant in the Phœnix Park on a field day, than of an army that had been fighting all the past week, and had endured the privations and hardships of a six months' campaign. ”

“ But it was a short-lived delusion; and who would imagine, with all this folly, at once so frivolous and so French, that the great tragedy of war was being enacted around us? However, that such was the case even here was abundantly evident, for it was the sole topic of conversation. Soldiers were everywhere in the streets; the public vehicles and omnibuses were crammed with them; their officers seemed to monopolise half the private carriages; they crowded the public buildings, and soldiers' heads appeared out of half the street windows. ”

“ A Prince, a Duke, or a General who walked about the streets munching alternately a piece of raw ham or sausage from one hand, and a junk of bread from the other, was not exactly one's idea of feudal, or even German dignity, and modern civilisation. ”

“ Having wandered for a couple of hours through the ruins, we drove outside the town. Then we alighted, and one of our party, a captain of artillery who had been through the siege, acted as our guide, and made all the particulars clear to us. Walking along the fortifications, we arrived at the immense breach in the parapet which sealed the fate of Strasburg. It was of great extent, and already hundreds of men were at work repairing it;—but in the interests of Germany, not of France, from whose dominion the city had passed, for who knows how many years? ”

“ A life of campaigning seems to bring out what moralists would perhaps term a diseased hankering after its uncertainties and adventures. But in the case of the Ambulance officer this not altogether human quality is liable to be merged in one more useful. He is in the field not to give wounds, but to heal them, and to assuage the suffering that makes war so detestable in one aspect, so heroic in another. ”

“ My friend here remarked to me cheerfully what a helpless condition we were in, should any accident happen to us, or supposing we fell in with the French outposts. The words, which echoed through the woods (for he was speaking at the top of his voice, and it was a still night) , had hardly passed his lips, when suddenly we heard, first a rustling, and then the sound of voices; shouts were raised on every side of us; and through the brushwood in all directions we could hear men crashing headlong towards the place where we stood entrapped. ”

“ This piece of excitement over, I went to the pontoon bridge, where the stream of soldiers continued to pour across. Although I had been on duty the previous night and all that day, I could not but stay up to watch this historic and interesting spectacle,—the retreat of 200,000 men, composing the whole Army of the Loire, across that river. It was now nearly eleven o'clock, and they had been passing for hours. But the living current flowed on unceasingly during the night, until the last of the troops were over. ”

“ One youth, possibly a half-witted fellow, or a volunteer who had joined en route, made me laugh heartily. He was dressed in full Bavarian costume, plume and all, and marched along bearing a most impassive countenance, quite unaware of the ridiculous figure he was cutting, in a uniform that was much too big for him, and in a helmet and plume which no doubt became their original broad-faced owner, but certainly never were meant to adorn the head of a thin and sharp-featured Frenchman. ”

“ The truth was that nobody could teach our veteran Americans anything new in the management of a Field Hospital. They had all served their time during the four years of the American War, and under a system of military medical organisation which, as all authorities acknowledge, they had brought to perfection. This was the secret of the undoubtedly successful career of our Ambulance. And I must not omit to observe that it was they who introduced the anterior suspension splint for fractures and wounds of the joints, which we were the means of having adopted in many of the German Hospitals. ”

“ The civilians, who were in a wild state of excitement, cheered the troops, "Vive les Cuirassiers!" while the dragoons in return shouted "A Berlin!" and "Vive la France!"—not "Vive l'Empereur!" When they had passed, the excitement continued in another form, for a desperate-looking mob marched up and down in detachments as they had done upon the previous night, with flags flying, and banners waving, singing all the while "La Marseillaise" and the "Champs de la Patrie," with intervening shouts of "A Berlin". ”

“ Nothing irritates him like hunger and thirst; in which circumstance he furnishes the most unpleasing contrast to a French soldier,—always patient, and commonly cheerful under such privations. When suffering in this way, physically (which seldom occurred under the admirable organisation of the German commissariat) , he would pillage and plunder all before him to get food or beer. For such depredations, when caught, he was mercilessly punished. And the German soldier submits impassively to this treatment at the hands of his officer, as if he were a dog, without seeming to resent it. ”

“ By eleven o'clock, the plains to the north and east between us and the Belgian frontier were occupied by dense masses of the French; and at noon, the Prussian artillery on the hills in front turned their fire over our heads, on the French troops behind us. From this [47] moment, we found ourselves in the thick of the fight. Around us on every side raged a fierce and bloody conflict. The Prussian guns in front, which had kept up an intermittent fire since early morning, now seemed to act in concert, and the roaring of cannon and whizzing of shells became continuous. ”

“ Take no notice of a German soldier, and do not molest or interfere with him, especially when he is carrying out the orders of his superiors, and he will be as harmless as a child, and as easily pleased. But if, on the other hand, you do meddle with him, and stir up his rage on any pretext, his revenge will be no less prompt than terrible. In the battlefield, when once he is excited, he will use his bayonet and musket as a Zulu his assegai, or an Indian his tomahawk. ”

“ Day by day news [2] poured in of French defeats following one another in close succession, with long lists of killed and wounded; while among other details I learnt that the French were very short of medical men and skilled dressers, and that the sufferings of the wounded were, in consequence, beyond description. I thought to myself, "Now is my opportunity. If I could but get out to those poor fellows I might render them some substantial assistance; and what an amount of suffering might one not alleviate did one but give them a draught of cold water to appease their agonising thirst!" ”