A Broken World: Letters, Diaries and Memories of the Great War
Page 17
Emile is gone.
Men of the field army are beginning to pass along the road.
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Monday, August 31st
[…]
We start off again at about one o’clock. Just outside Berru the view embraces a large panorama of woods, cultivated lands and vineyards, scattered over with smiling villages. The hill becomes steep; now we are among woods, and tall trees interlace their branches above us, making a dome of coolness ahead. We pass through Berru and Cernay forests, in which the Reims folk spend their Sundays in summer-time. To-day these splendid glades, which have witnessed so many merry picnics, harbour a multitude of refugee families who have gone round the hill. This halting-place is a moving sight, with its panic and despair. Ah! The forest re-echoes no longer with the laughter and play of former days! From its depths come sounds of misery and fear, the sobbings of children, and curses. The poor wretches have with them droves of cows and sheep, which, watched by small boys, bellow and bleat in reply to the nervous neighing of horses. Small heaps of ashes and embers on the fouled earth, broken branches, and an indescribable look of devastation speak of the bivouacs of former nights and foretell those nights to come. No ties of fellowship seem to bind these groups together. They are, as it were, tribes come each from a different locality, each bringing with it its own peculiar load of misery. There is no intercourse between tribe and tribe: each has enough to do in looking after its own people. Their sufferings on the road, the tragedies they have lived through or feared, have deprived these unfortunates of all taste for neighbourliness. The selfish instinct of self-preservation is their only stimulus and guide. The rich, who have carriages, never offer a lift to the poor who go on foot; and the latter don’t think of asking for one. They hardly worry themselves about the excessive weight of their bundles, though they dream of throwing them away or lightening them.
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Friday, September 4
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Our hostess knows every one here, and everybody knows her. She speaks to one, answers another, ventures on to the street in defiance of orders, keeps stopping. This gets on Pierre’s nerves. ‘I think,’ says he, ‘that we shouldn’t stay here among all this crowd. It is unwise to do so. Let us go straight to the Royal Square, or go home again.’ The words are hardly out of his mouth when a mighty explosion raises the echoes! Nobody takes any notice. We are abreast of Saint-Jacques Church when a second explosion occurs. That makes people turn round and ponder. ‘There! they are celebrating their entry by blank fire.’ But the haughty Prussian officers, who keep on passing, begin to frown and look astonished. We reach the Theatre. A third explosion! This time loud cries are heard. Looking behind us, we see the lower end of the Rue de Vesle filled with dust and smoke; the sunshine is dimmed by it. Everybody begins to run. From all sides people shout at us: ‘They are bombarding us; take cover; get back home!’ In the Royal Square the inquisitive people round the statue of Louis xv., who had climbed up on to the plinth, scatter in all directions, saying that the Germans have signalled them to get to cover. Mothers with babies rush off, uttering piercing cries; children sob and won’t walk; men pommel and push the women riveted to the spot by fear. The streets are emptied in a twinkling, while the shells follow one another methodically and fall with a great uproar. We are much upset, my husband and I. As we don’t know our way about Reims and cannot see any vehicle able to carry us, we instinctively take the first street to the right that we come to – the Rue du Clôitre, which takes us to the apse of the Cathedral. Thence, by the Rue Robert-de-Coucy, we head for the Parvis, hurrying along our friend, whose serenity seems as great as ever. ‘Impossible, my dears,’ she says; ‘my heart trouble prevents me going fast. Go ahead without me.’ We offer her our arms; but she refuses decidedly, pretending that it is too warm to hurry. We can’t dream of leaving her, but how trying it is! I involuntarily quicken my pace and find myself a few yards ahead of the others. In the middle of the street, facing the gate of the Beau Dieu, two ecclesiastics in long cloaks, with still unmoved faces, have stopped and are coolly looking at the top of the north tower, partly hidden by a cloud of dust and screened by scaffolding, out of which fly a number of birds as large as pigeons. Strange objects, which at first I take to be bits of broken bottles, patter and jump on the pavement. I step forward to pick up one of these curious objects, and my hand has already been stretched out towards it when I realise its nature. It is death stalking about me. I feel afraid, and remain motionless, petrified, my eyes fixed mechanically on the sculptures of the lower part of the Cathedral, whose every detail now appears to me to stand out with extraordinary clearness. A short, haggard workman is dragging by the elbow a young woman who weeps and wraps her apron about a small child clasped in her arms. The man shouts at me: ‘Get away! They’re aiming at the Cathedral!’
TESTIMONY FROM FRENCH DEPARTMENTS UNDER OCCUPATION The Deportation of Women and Girls from Lille (1916) begins with an address compiled by the French government seeking to alert neutral governments to German violations of international law. The Minister of Foreign Affairs articulated concerns about the treatment of French citizens in departments under occupation. Excerpts of letters and depositions were gathered by the Ministry of War and added to the document.
Annexe 14.
Letter from X, at Lille, 1st May, 1916, to Mme L. G., at Paris-Passy.
‘This week has been terrible for our unhappy town; 1,200 to 1,500 people have been carried off every night, escorted by soldiers with fixed bayonets and bands playing, machine guns at the corners of the streets, principally girls and young women of all sorts, also men from 15 to 50, sent off promiscuously in cattle trucks with wooden benches, for unknown destinations and employments, nominally to work on the land. You can imagine the despair and agony of their relations. We learn this afternoon that the horrible business is over and our quarter has been spared.
I had come to sleep at home for the first time in two years, in the attempt to save my maid. I am at last going to sleep without the fear of being wakened in the middle of the night to go and open the door to an invasion of soldiers. There will be nobody left except mothers with children under 14, or old men. In the middle of all this the Town Hall was burnt out one night, as if by magic. The deported people, however, showed truly French courage; they kept back their tears, and the trains left the station to the sound of the Marseillaise. The worse things are, the nearer to deliverance it seems to us we are coming.’
Annexe 21.
Letter signed R., not dated, and addressed to Madame B., in Paris.
‘My dear C.,
I suppose the people in France already know of all the trials through which we are passing, even more painful than the last. We have come out of this last one again scot free, and have stayed here, both of us, till a new order comes.
We spent a terrible Easter week here; this is what happened. On Wednesday the 19th of this month, a placard warning the population that there were going to be deportations by order in the invaded territory, that each person was to furnish himself with household utensils and had the right to 30 kilogrammes of luggage. You can imagine the panic in the town.
Two days of waiting passed and at last, on the night of Friday 21st to Saturday 22nd, the streets of one district were blocked by the police at 3 in the morning and the alarm given in each house, with the order to keep in the passage with all luggage. They had brought for this vile duty soldiers, or rather brutes, from another locality simply in order that there should not be any friendliness or weakness towards families who would have begged for mercy. Then, according to the number of people living in the house, the brute made his choice. They carried off girls of the family, servants, men of all sorts and of all ages. They attacked chiefly the working class, which unfortunately always suffer the most; lads and girls of good family who were caught in the raid were released; the same was the case with people seriously ill, but for them application had to be made and often they were put into the train before exemption was gran
ted.
From the 22nd to the 29th, inclusive, 9,890 were deported; a reprieve was granted for Easter day.
All these poor people wondered where and why they were being taken away; there were, I can assure you, sad pictures, but always the cheerful side as well, for one heard groups singing, some patriotic songs, others popular tunes, and as they were kept at the station the whole day some groups played cards, while waiting for their departure. One could even say that the greater number were cheerful, or rather put on a good face against their misfortune, to the bewilderment of the Boches, who were amazed to see the French character not recoiling before any sacrifice.
In spite of that, it is painful to be at their mercy, for everything about them is false, and one wonders what is the object of this deportation and in what state of health and morale these people will come back.
Then, as a climax to our misfortunes, on Easter night, a fire, due to some unknown cause, entirely destroyed the Town Hall; fortunately the essential things were saved, but what a tragic night!!’
Annexe 153.
M. Albert Camille L—, aged 17, no profession, deported from A— (Oise), in January, 1915: – ‘Directly the Germans came, we really suffered from hunger. We only had 120 grammes of foul black bread. As to meat, we only had the refuse thrown away by the soldiers, and we had to pay very high even for that.
‘The Boches encouraged the population to cultivate the land; they even sold us potatoes for seed; then, when the crop was ready, they took it all without even giving requisition vouchers. The corn they worked at themselves without troubling about the boundaries of the fields; they demanded repayment of the price of this work, then harvested it all and took it. It was absolutely forbidden for us to have any corn or meat in our houses on pain of imprisonment.
‘The Germans took prisoner about 40 civilians, between 18 and 45, in our village. Ten are shut up in the factory of C. They are employed on forced labour. All the trees in this district are cut down. There is not a walnut tree left.’ [Walnut was used to make rifle butts.]
MARY BRITNIEVA was born in St Petersburg in 1894. Her mother was English. She served as a nurse on the Eastern Front, and wrote about her experiences in her memoir One Woman’s Story (1934). The memoir is dedicated to her husband who had been executed by the Bolsheviks during the revolution.
It was in 1916 that the Russian Red Cross applied for permission from the German Authorities to send a mission consisting of a small medical staff to visit the prisoner of war camps in Germany and Austria. Sister Vera M., one of the outstanding nurses of our sisterhood, was chosen to accompany the Mission.
They could not have made a better choice: Sister Vera was not only one of our best nurses – she had a wonderful personality which made itself felt the moment one saw her. Tall and stately, she had a beautiful and typically Russian face which seemed to radiate kindness and sympathy, her manner was charming and simple, and she had a special way of speaking to the soldiers which at once endeared her to them – it was so obvious that she knew, understood and loved them with all her great heart. To me she always seemed to personify Russia itself – her looks, her manner, her speech were so typical of our country.
The consent of the German authorities having been obtained, the members of the Mission left Sweden and Denmark and were away for several months.
When I next saw Sister Vera she had many interesting and moving stories to tell me, but one especially remained in my memory as an example of quite outstanding idealism and devotion. I will try to write it down as I heard it from her.
It happened in Galicia, in one of the small concentration camps visited by the Mission. The prisoners – about fifty of them – were working in the fields, and Sister Vera went out to them. There was a fallen tree lying by the side of the field, and here they all collected around her, eager to see and hear the ‘Sestritza’ who had brought them tidings from their far-away homes. First she said a few words to them, words of comfort and hope, and then they asked her individual questions and handed her letters or asked her to carry out various commissions. Afterwards, they sang Russian folk-songs and finally they all prayed aloud and chanted parts of the beautiful Orthodox Church service. It was evening, the sun was setting and its glowing rays bathed the quiet field, adding to the sense of peace and of beauty that prayers and singing had evoked in the hearts of those poor outcasts. The time came for Vera to return to headquarters and, one by one, the men filed past to shake hands and to wish her godspeed. One of the men stretched out a hand that was terribly mutilated – all the fingers were missing and only part of the thumb remained. ‘How did that happen,’ asked Vera horrified, ‘was it a shell?’ The man flushed and drew back shyly, hiding his hand behind his back. ‘No, it didn’t happen at the front,’ he muttered and turned away. But Vera’s interest was aroused and she repeated her question. The man hung his head and stood silent – but here his companions broke in ‘…go on, tell the Sister, Petruha, there’s nothing to be ashamed of, tell her how it happened.’
Vera had a good look at him. What she saw was a simple, homely and good-natured peasant face with a reddish beard and kind, child-like grey eyes. She drew him gently towards her, and sitting down on the tree trunk, said encouragingly:
‘Sit down next to me, Petruha, and tell me how it happened – I want you to tell me yourself.’ Petruha smiled shyly and began his tale:
‘You see, Sestritza, I was taken prisoner in East Prussia with several others and we were all put to work in a factory. I was made a stoker. All day long I shovelled coal into a furnace with never a thought in my head: I was unaccustomed to the work, and my back and arms ached, but after a few days, when I had got more used to things, my mind began to work again, and suddenly I realized that I was doing wrong: “Oh, God” – I thought in terror – “here am I actually helping to make shells and bullets for the enemy! – Shells and bullets destined to kill my own brothers, to kill our brave allies whom we have promised to help. No, I must not do it. I must not! I cannot be a traitor to them all – let them punish me, let them do what they like to me, but I cannot lose my very soul.” And this thought, constantly in mind, I had no peace that night, and the next morning, when we were led down to the factory, I refused to work. I was led away and they suspended me from a beam by my wrists, my toes just touching the ground. I hung like that for twelve hours and it was terribly painful. When they took me down, they put me in hospital, and I remained there for three weeks. At the end of that time I was pronounced well enough to resume work and they sent me back to the same factory. Once again they put me down to stoke the boilers and again I refused to work, it was the only way in which I could save myself from being a foul traitor, for now I realized more clearly than ever that every shovelful of coal put on by me helped to make that which meant death, yes, Sestritza, death, to my brothers. And I couldn’t kill my own blood and flesh. They led me away and suspended me as before, but this time I hung for twenty-four hours. The blood rushed through my head, my ears felt as if they would burst and I bled by the nose – it was painful agony… They took me to hospital again and I lay there for three months. But I recovered and I was taken back to the same factory. As I was being marched along the road, my soul was full of anguish and I prayed and prayed to the Lord to give me strength so that I should not give in, for I knew that if I did, my soul would perish – I would have sold it to the devil. But as we neared the gate, a terrible fear came over me – I knew too well what would happen when I refused to work: again they would hang me up by my wrists and probably add other punishments this time and I feared that I might not be able to bear it all, so I prayed to the Lord for help that He might in His mercy show me some way out.
When we entered the gate and were being marched across the yard, I suddenly saw something that shone brightly lying on a tree-stump that stood in the middle of the yard; after a few paces I saw that it was an axe, a beautiful new axe. There it lay reflecting the sunshine almost as a mirror would and, as this thought occurred to me, I su
ddenly seemed to feel that a voice inside of me had spoken to me pointing out the way. It was the answer to my prayer. God had had that axe put there to help me. I broke away from the line of prisoners and ran swiftly to the tree-stump, I made the sign of the cross and saying to myself: ‘For Faith, Tsar and Country,’ I seized the axe in one hand, and placing the other on the stump, with one blow I chopped off my fingers.’
This is an example of a Field Service postcard that was issued to soldiers for sending home. In place of a signature the soldier who sent this postcard, Albert E. Peto, has inscribed the word ‘Peace’. He probably sent this postcard on, or close to, the date of the Armistice on 11 November 1918. It is held at the Imperial War Museum.
These train tickets to towns in German possession were found by R.E. Roller in the ruins of Ypres station in 1916 and sent to his uncle. The letter that accompanied them is included in this section.
HENRY WILLIAMSON (1895–1977) was born in Brockley, London. His book Tarka the Otter (1927) won the Hawthornden Prize. He was a territorial soldier before the First World War started, and served until demobilised in 1919. He wrote seven books about the war: The Wet Flanders Plain (1929), The Patriot’s Progress (1930) and five parts of his fifteen-volume work A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight (1951–69). In 1963 Gordon Watkins, a producer at the BBC, asked Williamson to contribute to the Great War series. He was eventually interviewed, but his initial response was to send a postcard agreeing to a meeting yet saying: ‘I’ve waited since 1919 to write these novels – now they are all in print and I am FREE’ (18 July). This is a later letter.
16th Oct[obe]r 1963