Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

“ As girls are now scarce in the war zone, no doubt the few left become spoiled with too much attention. There was a dining room beyond, and I determined to banish my midday hunger before entering upon further adventures. There are two things that the French, no matter of what degree, morals, manners, or disposition, invariably understand, and those are politeness and formality. You gain nothing by sharpness or hauteur; on the contrary, you stand to lose all. When Americans attempt familiarity with strangers they receive contempt. Bearing this principle in mind, one can never go wrong in France. ”

“ It was a quiet and sylvan scene when I saw it, but when guns at the front are thundering, reminding these men that their comrades in arms are falling momentarily, or taubes are drumming overhead searching out the barracks, it seems to me that sustained optimism must be a difficult feat. If the delicacies always craved by the sick will raise the spirits of men who have been wounded and perhaps mutilated in the service of their country, and break the sad monotony of their lives, those in the enjoyment of health and freedom cannot work too hard to raise the necessary money. ”

“ I visited both of the great hospitals, Savonières and Hôpital Central, inside of an hour, for a military automobile goes like lightning and turns aside for no one. The former hospital is situated in a beautiful park some distance from Bar-le-Duc, and the greater one in a cup of the hills, and looks like a new Western mining town. There are some twenty or thirty barracks, two of concrete; but it is so unmistakably a hospital and nothing else (in France) that a taube recently had no difficulty in picking out the main building and dropping a bomb in the operating room. ”

“ I now have a promise of a military automobile for a trip to Révigny, Nancy and Remiramont. No Rheims, no Verdun—unless we can cajole some General within the lines. It is astonishing the high value the French place upon the life of a mere woman. James M. Beck visited Amiens on his way from England to Paris, and within two days of his arrival went off on a tour of the immediate front. The day after his return, off he went again with Owen Johnson, to call on General Joffre. I reminded my friends in the War Office that men were as easily killed as women, even American men. ”

“ Officers also strolled about, three and four in a party. Even in the villages, those old gray villages consisting of one long crooked street, widening to a “place” in the centre and embracing several “farms,” there were often many soldiers home on leave, smoking in front of their houses or playing with their children.
On the other hand, we passed through many more of these villages without seeing a man. The women sat out of doors sewing, and the children swarmed. It is the bourgeoisie which has reduced the birth rate in France. The aristocracy and the poor have large families. ”

“ Traveling by automobile in the war zone is far more complicated than by train. Even in a gray military car, with two men in horizon blue on the front seat, you are held up at the entrance and exit of every town and hamlet, and often half way between, by the sudden appearance of a sentinel in the middle of the road, holding his gun horizontally above his head. ”

“ As I am more susceptible to manners than to anything in the world (I think that is one reason I hate the Germans so, theirs being the worst in the world) , I went away quite happy, and determined to make the most of this trip. After all, something was sure to happen at Bar-le-Duc, and Châlons had once been shelled by a long-range gun. I had no yearning to come to close quarters with big guns, or even taubes, but I did want to see and hear something after enjoying the comforts of Paris for three months. ”

“ The soldiers travel second and third, the officers first. As my carriage was full of officers, and the trip to Châlons lasted two hours, I once more had time to observe at my leisure these men who hold the destinies of France in their hands. Again I was struck by their height, not one being under five feet ten, and many six feet and over. Some few are lanky, weedy, but for the most part they are well knit and very erect, the result not only of military training but of the outdoor sports which for the last generation have been more in vogue than ever among country gentlemen. ”

“ I think it was at Sermaize that after driving through a number of streets as completely wrecked as Gerbéviller, we came suddenly upon a terrace of houses quite intact. We inquired the meaning of this odd forebearance and learned that these mansions had been the property of Germans, who had been warned before the outbreak of the war and fled. Naturally their homes were spared by their loyal countrymen. Germany not only knew who owned every square inch of ground in France, but where every work of art great and small was installed. ”

“ There is nothing like appetizing food, both immediate and prospective, to raise the spirits of a convalescent. No medicine so hastens recovery, and they never looked forward to the pleasures of health as they do to a cup of broth or cocoa, or a slice of ham and a dish of preserves.” Then, like everybody else I met in France engaged in any sort of relief work, she spoke with the deepest gratitude of the practical sympathy of the Americans, of their enormous generosity. ”

“ If you bring even one letter to society, either in France or any European capital, all doors are open to you, for society is accustomed to strangers and variety, and is often bored with itself; which the bourgeoisie, of France at least, never seems to be. ”

“ Frenchmen! Your aviators did not make a mistake. We have learned to-day that the raids were instigated by President Poincaré whose ear has been open to the base counsels of the English.
Here comes the familiar assertion that the Germans know how tired the French are of war, and are but the miserable victims of diabolical Albion. Then, in another burst of self-righteousness:
Germany wars against the armies of France, not against the civil population, the women and children. ”

“ For nearly three months now I have felt like an inverted snob trying to ingratiate myself with, or even to meet members, of that curious caste which exists only in France; a caste reserved, proud, suspicious, intensive, detesting foreigners only less than it does the aristocracy, and averse from variety of any sort. ”

“ I added that on my own account I should like Verdun, Nancy, Rheims and Thann. My new friend was most sympathetic and considerate. He would do his best, but Verdun—an American lady! He feared the Grand Quartier Générale would not take the responsibility. He was sure, however, he could get me something much better than Meaux.
So I went off with my carnet rouge, that precious little red book full of blank permits, only one of which is filled out at a time.
A French friend, Mme. Camille Lyon, went with me to Meaux. The battlefield of the Marne is one of the most impressive sights in the world. ”

“ There are many hundreds of these hospitals in the war zone, and there must be one rule for all. Thousands can drink milk and eat eggs whether they like them or not, and no exceptions may be made for those who would rather die of inanition than touch either. A delicately built man in a trench receives no favor; he must do his part or be dismissed as a Réformé Numero II., and in the hospital a man must take the same chances. ”

“ Then I bethought me once more of the letter given me by the War Office. I would go straight to military headquarters and ask them for an automobile. She vaguely directed me, and once more I started forth, leaving my things in her charge. The woman had told me to turn to the right. As I was leaving the girl called out that I must turn to the left. I revolved with that helpless feeling one has occasionally in the war zone, and they both began to talk at once, as is the habit of French people of that class when giving advice. ”

“ The Frenchman has arranged his brain in watertight compartments. When he is at the front or on the way to it he is a fighting machine, businesslike and unemotional. During his six days’ leave he enjoys himself as thoroughly as if war had never been ”

“ Beneficent ladies take care of the hospitals in Paris and the provincial cities, but in that great district known as La Zone des Armées, crowded with hospitals, but where so many of the towns are half in ruins and largely evacuated by the inhabitants, where few if any of the shops are open, it becomes a problem at times to find an orange to satisfy the last craving of a dying man. ”

“ During the first week of the battle of the Somme I could hear the guns distinctly night and day, but otherwise, were it not for the blind and legless men one meets constantly in the streets, there would be no external evidence here of war. ”

“ No two of these little gamin faces were alike, and I recalled that I had made the same observation when traveling in the trains with the officers. There is really no type in France. It is a race of individuals.
It was shortly after we left Bar-le-Duc that Major C., consoled by my assurance that I really had not cared in the least to go to either Thann or Dugny, and was delighted at the prospect of reaching Paris that night (this was not true, but never mind) , told us an amusing story of one of his former visits to the front. ”

“ Samuel Watson, wife of the American clergyman in Paris. The French names are among the most distinguished in France, and no list of any oeuvre was ever more carefully chosen both for its effect on the public and for usefulness; coming as it did, late in the day, it was felt to be under a certain handicap.
It was christened “Le Bienêtre du Blessé, Société Franco-Américaine pour Nos Combattants” (The Comfort, or Well-being, of the Wounded; French-American Society for Our Soldiers) , and is to exist throughout the war and for six months after fighting ceases. ”

“ Haussonville the mournful necessity for these simple articles of diet, for she goes periodically into the war zone on tours of hospital inspection. In many places a million francs would not buy one of these things, although the nurses in chief (Infirmière Majors) often sally out in desperation and try to buy out of their own purses something that a sick man craves. One told me that she had only two days before tried in vain to buy a few lumps of sugar in Bar-le-Duc, a town of over 17,000 inhabitants before the war and noted for its preserves. But sugar is scarce in France and very dear. ”

“ After two years of the hardest fighting the world has ever known, and the most terrific strain ever put upon human endurance, the French have nerves of pure steel. They are not a fat race, either, like the Germans, and do their own thinking. What the matter was with Frenchmen in ‘70 is beside the question. They are invincible to-day.
Châlons looked promising. There were cabs at the station, and a tram. Having shown my carnet rouge, I was permitted to leave the dépôt, and the officials stationed there to examine papers directed me to a hotel with a resounding name: “Haute-Mère-Dieu.” ”

“ It is difficult for a non-military nation like ours to realize the dry conservative discipline of a nation that has been military for centuries, and has worked out an economy in money, food, time, and men to a point so fine that there is practically no waste. ”

“ Witness the immortal tactics of Joffre, who has destroyed the maximum of Germans with the minimum of Frenchmen. But, as I have said before, there has never been a war on such a scale as this, and it is the first time the authorities, always relying upon civilians to do their part, have been confronted with a new problem in the dietary kitchen.
Now, however, if the nurses have private supplies it is a simple matter to make a cup of broth or cocoa over a spirit lamp for a man brought in after 6 o’clock and faint from pain and loss of blood. It is done in five minutes and may save his life. ”

“ I saw nothing more interesting at these hospitals than the bathtubs for the wounded brought straight from the front. Even officers who have been in the trenches for several days are not clean, to say the least of it, and the first thing to do before the operation is to give them a bath. If they are grand blessés they must receive as little handling as possible. Consequently they are transferred from their own stretcher to one that covers the top of a very large bathtub full of warm water. This stretcher is lowered mechanically from the head down without jarring the wounded man. ”

“ Nothing annoys an American man, a real American of the good old stock, more than to fail in the endeavor to get something for a woman that she especially desires and he has pledged himself to obtain. Our charming Lieutenant was almost equally annoyed when I called his attention to this fact, and said that no one hated to disappoint a woman as much as a Frenchman did, but that if he appeared philosophical it was because he had never had any hope. ”

“ However, it was easy to get out of, the sky was so blue and clear that the taubes could be seen a long way off, and I certainly did not propose to wait until 5:20 in that hotel. I had retrieved my belongings, visited the police, and there was nothing to do but make myself as comfortable as possible and read Dumas.
The station was already packed with soldiers waiting for various trains. They move so constantly, these poilus, they produce an impression of indescribable confusion. ”