Out To Win by Coningsby Dawson

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

The lights are going out in the Casino. It is the hour when, in
the old days, life would be becoming most feverish about the gaming
tables. In little forlorn groups the repatries are being conducted
to their temporary quarters in the town. To-morrow morning before it
is light, another train-load will arrive, the band will again play
the Marseillaise, the American Red Cross workers will again be in
attendance, the gentleman in the top-hat and white-tie will again make
his fiery oration of welcome, his audience will again pay no attention
but will weep softly--the tediously heart-rending scene will be
rehearsed throughout in every detail by an entirely new batch of
actors. Twice a day, summer and winter, the same tragedy is enacted at
Evian. It is a continuous, never-ending performance.

Poor people! These whom I have seen, if they have no friends to claim
them, will re-start their journey to some strange department on which
they will be billeted as paupers. Here again the American Red Cross is
doing good work, for it sends one of its representatives ahead to see
that proper preparations have been made for their reception. After
they have reached their destination, it looks them up from time to
time to make sure that they are being well cared for.

If one wants to picture the case of the repatrie in its true misery,
all he needs to do is to convert it into terms of his own mother or
grandmother. She has lived all her life in the neighbourhood of Vimy,
let us say. She was married there and it was there that she bore
all her children. She and her husband have saved money; they are
substantial people now and need not fear the future. Their sons are
gaining their own living; one daughter is married, the others are
arriving at the marriageable age. One day the Hun sweeps down on them.
The sons escape to join the French army; the girls and their parents
stay behind to guard their property. They are immediately evacuated
from Vimy and sent to some city, such as Drocourt, further behind
the Hun front-line. Here they are gradually robbed of all their
possessions. At the beginning all their gold is confiscated; later
even the mattresses upon their beds are requisitioned. For three and
a half years they are subjected to both big and petty tyrannies,
till their spirits are so broken that fear becomes their predominant
emotion. The father is led away to work in the mines. One by one the
daughters are commandeered and sent off into the heart of Germany,
where it will be no one's business to guard their virtue. At last
the mother is left with only her youngest child. Of her sons who are
fighting with the French armies she has no knowledge, whether they are
living or dead. Then one day it is decided by her captors that they
have no further use for her. They part her from her last remaining
child and pack her off by way of Belgium and Switzerland back to her
own country. She arrives at Evian penniless and half-witted with the
terror of her sorrow. There is no one to claim her; the part of France
that knew her is all behind the German lines. A label is tied to her,
as if she was a piece of baggage, and she is shipped off to Avignon,
let us say. She has never been in the South before; it is a foreign
country to her. Poverty and adversity have broken her pride; she has
nothing left that will command respect. There is nothing left in life
to which she can fasten her affections. Such utter forlornness is
never a welcome sight. Is it to be wondered at that the strangers to
whom she is sent are not always glad to see her? Is it to be wondered
at that, after her repatriation, she often wilts and dies? Her sorrow
has the appearance of degradation. Wherever she goes, she is a threat
and a peril to the fighting morale of the civilian population. Yet in
her pre-war kindliness and security she might have been your mother or
mine.

The American Red Cross, by maintaining contact with such people, is
keeping them reminded that they are not utterly deserted--that the
whole of civilised humanity cares tremendously what becomes of them
and is anxious to lighten the load of their sacrifice.

* * * * *

I have before me a pile of sworn depositions, made by exiles returned
from the invaded territories. They are separately numbered and dated;
each bears the name of the region or town from which the repatrie
came. Here are a few extracts which, when pieced together, form a
picture of the life of captured French civilians behind the German
lines. I have carefully avoided glaring atrocities. Atrocities are
as a rule isolated instances, due to isolated causes. They occur, but
they are not typical of the situation. The real Hun atrocity is the
attitude towards life which calls chivalry sentiment, fair-play a
waste of opportunity and ruthlessness strength. This attitude is
all summed up in the one word Prussianism. The repatries have been
Prussianised out of their wholesome joy and belief in life; it is this
that makes them the walking accusations that they are to-day. In
the following depositions they give some glimpses of the calculated
processes by which their happiness has been murdered.

* * * * *

"Lately copper, tin, and zinc have been removed in the factories and
amongst the traders, and quite recently in private houses. For all
these requisitions the Germans gave Requisition Bonds, but private
individuals who received them never got paid the money. To force men
to work 'voluntarily' and sign contracts the Germans employed the
following means: the Germans gave these men nothing to eat, but
authorised their families to send them parcels; these parcels once in
the hands of the Germans are shown to these unhappy men and are not
handed over until they have signed. About a week ago young boys from
the age of fourteen who had come back from the Ardennes had to present
themselves at the Kdr to be registered anew; a number of the young
people work in the sawmills, etc.; some have died of privation and
fatigue."

* * * * *

"A week after Easter this year the population of LILLE was warned by
poster that all must be ready to leave the town. At three o'clock in
the morning private houses were invaded by the German soldiers; they
sorted out women and girls who were to be deported. There then took
place scandalous scenes: young girls belonging to the most worthy
families in the town had to pass medical visits even with the speculum
and had to endure most atrocious physical and moral suffering. These
young girls were segregated like beasts anywhere in the rooms of the
town halls and schoolhouses, and were mingled with the dregs of the
population."

* * * * *

"For a certain time the Germans did not requisition milk and allowed
it to be sold, but now this is forbidden under a fine of 1,000 marks
or three months' imprisonment. Recently WIGNEHIES was fined 100,000
frcs., and as the whole of this sum was not paid the Germans inflicted
punishment as follows: Several inhabitants of WIGNEHIES were caught in
the act of disobeying by the gendarmes and were struck, and bitten by
the police dogs of the gendarmes because they refused to denounce the
sellers.... Brutal treatment is due more to the gendarmes than to the
soldiers. About six weeks ago Marceau Horlet of WIGNEHIES was
found, on a search by the gendarmes, to have a piece of meat in his
possession. He was brutally beaten by them and bitten by the police
dogs because he refused to say who had given it to him. In 1915, the
youth Remy Vallei of WIGNEHIES, age 15, was walking in the street
after 6-9 p.m., which was forbidden; he was seen by two gendarmes and
ran away. He was straightway killed, receiving six revolver bullets in
his body."

* * * * *

"At PIGNICOURT during the CHAMPAGNE offensive the village was
bombarded by the French, who were attempting to destroy the railway
lines and bridges. The Commandant, by name Krama, of the Kdr, forced
men and youths, and even women, to fill up the holes made by the
bombardment during the action. A German general passed and reprimanded
them on the ground that there was danger to the civilians; they were
withdrawn for the moment, but sent back as soon as the general had
left."

* * * * *

"As regards the Hispano-American revictualling, it may be said with
truth that without this the population of Northern France would have
died of hunger, for the Germans considered themselves liberated from
any responsibility. During the first months of the war before this
Committee started, the Germans put up posters saying that the Allies
were trying to starve Germany, who in turn was not obliged to feed the
invaded territory.... When informant (who is from ST. QUENTIN) left at
the general evacuation of this town, no requisition bonds were given
for household goods. As the inhabitants left, their furniture was
loaded on to motor lorries and taken to the station, whence it was
sent by special train to Germany. This shows clearly that requisition
bonds issued by the Germans show only the small proportion of what has
been suffered by the inhabitants.... Informant was the witness of the
execution of French civilians whose only fault was either to hide
arms or pigeons: several who had committed these infractions of
requisitions were shot, and the Germans announced the fact by poster
of a blood-red colour. In other cases the men shot were British
prisoners who had dressed in civil clothes on the arrival of the
Germans. Informant had a long conversation with one of them before
his execution. He told informant how he had been unable to leave ST.
QUENTIN, viz., by the 28th August. Some passers-by offered to hide
him. It appears that, through his ignorance of the French language,
he was unaware that the Germans threatened execution to all men found
after a certain date. He was discovered and condemned to death for
espionage. It is obvious, as the man himself said, that one could not
imagine a man acting as a spy without knowing either the language of
the country or that of the enemy."

* * * * *

"Before the evacuation of the population the Germans chose those who
were to remain as civilian workers, viz., 120 men from 15 to 60.
On the very day of the evacuation they kept back at the station 27
others. These men are now at CANTIN or SOMAIN, where they are employed
on the roads or looking after munitions in the Arras group. The others
at DECHY and GUESNIN are in the VIMY group and are making pill-boxes
or railway lines. A certain number of these workers refused to carry
out the work ordered, and as punishment during the summer were tied to
chairs and exposed bareheaded to the full blaze of the sun. They were
often threatened to be shot."

* * * * *

"After the bombardment of LILLE the Germans entered ENNETIERES on
the 12th October, 1914. On the next Monday 200 Uhlans occupied the
Commune, and houses and haystacks were burned.... At LOMME every one
was forced to work: the Saxon Kdnt. Schoper announced that all women
who did not obey within 24 hours would be interned: all the women
obeyed. They were employed in the making of osier-revetement two
metres high for the trenches. The men were forced to put up barbed
wire near Fort Denglas, two kltrs. from the front. A few days after
the evacuation of ENNETIERES the Uhlans shot a youth, Jean Leclercq,
age 17, son of the gardener of Count D'Hespel, simply because they had
found a telephone wire in the courtyard of the chateau."

* * * * *

"Informant, who has lost his right arm, was nevertheless forced to
work for the Germans, notably to unload coal and to work on the roads.
He had with him males from 13 to 60. Having objected because of his
lost arm, he was threatened with imprisonment. At LOMME squads of
workers were given the work of putting up barbed wire; women were
forced to make sand bags. In cases of refusal on either side the Kdr.
inflicted four or five weeks' imprisonment, to say nothing of blows
with sticks inflicted by the soldiers. In spring 1917 a number of
men were sent from LOMME to the BEAUVIN-PROVINS region to work on
defences.... Those who refused to sign were threatened and struck with
the butts of rifles, and left in cellars sometimes filled with water
during bombardments. Several of them came back seriously ill from
privation."

* * * * *

"Young girls are separated from their mothers; there are levies made
at every moment. Sometimes these young girls have barely a few hours
before the moment of departure.... Several young girls have written
to say that they are very unhappy and that they sleep in camps amongst
girls of low class and condition."

* * * * *

"For a long time past women have been forced to work as road
labourers. These work in the quarries and transport wood cut down by
the men in the mountain forest. A number of women and young girls have
been removed from their families and sent in the direction of RHEIMS
and RETHEL, where it is said (although this cannot be confirmed) that
they are employed in aerodromes."

* * * * *

These extracts should serve to explain the mental and physical
depression of the returning exiles. They have been bullied out of the
desire to live and out of all possession of either their bodies or
their souls. They have been treated like cattle, and as cattle they
have come to regard themselves. Lazaruses--that's what they are! The
unmerciful Boche, having killed and buried them, drags them out
from the tomb and compels them to go through the antics of life. Le
Gallienne's poem comes to my mind:

"Loud mockers in the angry street
Say Christ is crucified again--
Twice pierced those gospel-bearing feet,
Twice broken that great heart in vain...."

That is all true at Evian. But when I see the American men and girls,
leaning over the Boche babies in their cots and living their hearts
into the hands and feet of the spiritually maimed, the last two lines
of the poem become true for me:

"I hear, and to myself I say,
'Why, Christ walks with me every day.'"

The work of the American Red Cross at Evian is largely devoted
to children. It provides all the ambulance transportation for the
repatries, to and from the station. American doctors and nurses do
all the examining of the children at the Casino. On an average, four
hundred pass through their hands daily. The throat, nose, teeth,
glands and skin of each child are inspected. If the child is suspected
or attacked by any disease, it is immediately segregated and sent to
the American hospital. If the infection is only local or necessitates
further examination, the child and its family are summoned to present
themselves at the American dispensary next day. Every precaution
is employed to prevent the spread of infection--particularly the
infection of tuberculosis. Evian is the gateway from Germany through
which disease and death may be carried to the furthest limits of
France. Very few of the repatries are really healthy. It would be
a wonder if they were after the privations through which they have
passed. All of them are weakened in vitality and broken down in
stamina. Many of them have no homes to go to and have to be sent to
departments of the interior and the south. If they were sent in an
unhealthy condition, it would mean the spread of epidemics.

The Red Cross has a large children's hospital at Evian in the villas
and buildings of the Hotel Chatelet. This hospital deals with the
contagious cases. It has others, especially one at the Chateau des
Halles, thirty kilometers from Lyons, which take the devitalised,
convalescent and tubercular cases. The Chateau des Halles is a
splendidly built modern building, arranged in an ideal way for
hospital use. It stands at the head of a valley, with an all day sun
exposure and large grounds. Close to the Chateau are a number of small
villages in which it is possible to lodge the repatries in families.
This is an important part of the repatrie's problem, as after their
many partings they fight fiercely against any further separations. One
of the chief reasons for having the Convalescent Hospital out in the
country is that families can be quartered in the villages and so kept
together.

The pathetic hunger of these people for one another after they have
been so long divided, was illustrated for me on my return journey to
Paris. A man of the tradesman class had been to Evian to meet his wife
and his boy of about eleven. They were among the lucky ones, for they
had a home to go to. He was not prepossessing in appearance. He had a
weak face, lined with anxiety, broken teeth and limp hair. His wife,
as so often happens in French marriages, had evidently been the
manageress. She was unbeautiful in rusty black; her clothes were the
ill-assorted make-shifts of the civilian who escapes from Germany. Her
eyes were shifty with the habit of fear and sunken with the weariness
of crying. The boy was a bright little fellow, full of defiance and
anecdotes of his recent captors.

When I entered the carriage, they were sitting huddled together--the
man in the middle, with an arm about either of them. He kept pressing
them to him, kissing them by turn in a spasmodic unrestrained fashion,
as if he still feared that he might lose them and could not convince
himself of the happy truth that they were once again together. The
woman did not respond to his embraces; she seemed indifferent to him,
indifferent to life, indifferent to any prospects. The boy seemed fond
of his father, but embarrassed by his starved demonstrativeness.

I listened to their conversation. The man's talk was all of the
future--what splendid things he would do for them. How, as long
as they lived, he would never waste a moment from their sides. It
appeared that he had been at Tours, on a business trip when the war
broke out, and could not get back to Lille before the Germans arrived
there. For three and a half years he had lived in suspense, while
everything he loved had lain behind the German lines. The woman
contributed no suggestions to his brilliant plans. She clung to him,
but she tried to divert his affection. When she spoke it was of small
domestic abuses: the exorbitant prices she had had to pay for food;
the way in which the soldiery had stolen her pots and pans; the
insolence she had experienced when she had lodged complaints against
the men before their officers. And the boy--he wanted to be a poilu.
He kept inventing revenges he would take in battle, if the war lasted
long enough for his class to be called out. As darkness fell they
ceased talking. I began to realise that in three and a half years they
had lost contact. They were saying over and over the things that
had been said already; they were trying to prevent themselves from
acknowledging that they had grown different and separate. The only
bond which held them as a family was their common loneliness and fear
that, if they did not hold together, their intolerable loneliness
would return. When the light was hooded, the boy sank his hand against
his father's shoulder; the woman nestled herself in the fold of his
arm, with her head turned away from him, that he might not kiss her so
often. The man sat upright, his eyes wide open, watching them sleeping
with a kind of impotent despair. They were together; and yet they
were not together. He had recovered them; nevertheless, he had not
recovered them. Those Boches, the devils, they had kept something;
they had only sent their bodies back. All night long, whenever I
woke up as the train halted, the little man was still guarding them
jealously as a dog guards a bone, and staring morosely at the blank
wall of the future.

These were among the lucky ones; the boy and woman had had a man to
meet them. Somewhere in France there was protection awaiting them and
the shelter of a house that was not charity. And yet ... all night
while they slept the man sat awake, facing up to facts. These were
among the lucky ones! That is Evian; that is the tragedy and need of
France as you see it embodied in individuals.

* * * * *

The total number of repatries and refugies now in France is said to
total a million and a half. The repatries are the French civilians who
were captured by the Germans in their advance and have since been sent
back. The refugies are the French civilians from the devastated areas,
who have always remained on the Allies' side of the line. The refugies
are divided into two classes: refugies proper--that is fugitives
from the front, who fled for the most part at the time of the German
invasion; and evacues--those who were sent out of the war zone by the
military authorities. Naturally a large percentage of this million and
a half have lost everything and, irrespective of their former worldly
position, now live with the narrowest margin between themselves and
starvation. The French Government has treated them with generosity,
but in the midst of a war it has had little time to devote to
educating them into being self-supporting. A great number of
funds have been privately raised for them in France; many separate
organisations for their relief have been started. The American Red
Cross is making this million and a half people its special care, and
to do so is co-operating directly with the French Government and with
existing French civilian projects. Its action is dictated by mercy
and admiration, but in results this policy is the most far-seeing
statesmanship. A million and a half plundered people, if neglected and
allowed to remain downhearted, are likely to constitute a danger to
the morale of the bravest nation. Again, from the point of view of
after-war relations, to have been generous towards those who have
suffered is to have won the heart of France. The caring for the French
repatriates and refugees is a definite contribution to the winning of
the war.

The French system of handling this human stream of tragedy is to
send the sick to local hospitals and the exhausted to the _maison
de repos_. The comparatively healthy are allowed to be claimed by
friends; the utterly homeless are sent to some prefecture remote from
the front-line. The prefects in turn distribute them among towns and
villages, lodging them in old barracks, casinos and any buildings
which war-conditions have made vacant. The adults are allowed by the
Government a franc and a half per day, and the children seventy-five
centimes.

The armies have drained France of her doctors since the war; until
the Americans came, the available medical attention was wholly
inadequate to the civilian population. The American Red Cross is now
establishing dispensaries through the length and breadth of France.
In country districts, inaccessible to towns, it is inaugurating
automobile-dispensaries which make their rounds on fixed and
advertised days. In addition to this it has started a child-welfare
movement, the aim of which is to build up the birth-rate and lower the
infant mortality by spreading the right kind of knowledge among the
women and girls.

The condition of the refugees and repatriates, thrust into communities
to which they came as paupers and crowded into buildings which were
never planned for domestic purposes, has been far from enviable. In
September, 1917, the American Red Cross handed over the solving of
this problem to one of its experts who had organised the aid given to
San Francisco after the earthquake, and who had also had charge of the
relief-work necessitated by the Ohio floods at Dayton. Co-operating
with the French, houses partially constructed at the outbreak of war
were now completed and furnished, and approximately three thousand
families were supplied with homes and privacy. The start made
proved satisfactory. Supplies, running into millions of francs, were
requisitioned, and the plan for getting the people out of public
buildings into homes was introduced to the officials of most of the
departments of France. Delegates were sent out by the Red Cross to
undertake the organisation of the work. Money was apportioned for the
supplying of destitute families with furniture and the instruments
of trade; the object in view was not to pauperise them, but to afford
them the opportunity for becoming self-supporting. Re-construction
work in those devastated areas which have been won back from the Boche
was hurried forward in order that the people who had been uprooted
from the soil might be returned to it and, in being returned to their
own particular soil, might recover their place in life and their
balance.

I visited the devastated areas of the Pas-de-Calais, Somme, Oise and
Aisne and saw what is being accomplished. This destroyed territory
is roughly one hundred miles long by thirty miles broad at its
widest point. In 1912 one-quarter of the wheat produced in France
and eighty-seven per cent. of the beet crop employed in the national
industry of sugar-making, were raised in these departments of the
north. The invasion has diminished the national wheat production by
more than a half. It is obvious, then, that in getting these districts
once more under cultivation two birds are being killed with one stone:
the refugee is being made a self-supporting person--an economic asset
instead of a dead weight--and the tonnage problem is being solved.
If more food is grown behind the Western Front, grain-ships can be
released for transporting the munitions of war from America.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10