Chapter I: On the Way to the Front (2)

The bright light from our lamps shows up the road for some distance ahead. We have now slackened to 40 kilometres an hour. The leafy trees by the roadside are lit up from beneath, and we seem to travel through an endless fantastic tunnel of foliage. Far away on both sides of the road are strings of glistening lights--the windows of farms and villages where fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, maids and children are sitting round the lamp to read for the twentieth time the letters and cards received from their soldiers at the French and Belgian front. What do these letters say? I have read several. There are millions of them. The soldier tells his people how he likes his billet, what food tastes like after the heat and stress of the day, what it feels like when the shells burst close by and comrades fall at one’s side. They tell also that the enemy is done for, that he will be thrown back as soon as the commander deems fit to order them to charge. They speak with good-nature of the Frenchmen as courteous and honest soldiers, but of the English with glowing hatred. And, as often as not, the soldier finishes up by saying that there can be no question of any return to the village until he is wounded or useless--which God forbid--and until victory has been gained over Germany’s enemies. For the soldiers know, from the oldest veteran to the youngest drummer boy, that Germany was armed to the teeth to be ready for the war, but that Germany’s Emperor and statesmen did all in their power to avert a disaster which would surely affect the whole world and cause rivers of blood and tears to flow, bring nameless misery to ravaged homes and ruined countrysides, untold nights of anguish and expectation and long years of inconsolable grief and sorrow.

But the evening is wearing on. We have left Naumburg behind us. The good people in the town have gone to bed, for the lights are mostly out and the windows dark. Tucked into their snug beds they listen to the whir of the motor-cars and the warning tooting of horns, and their thoughts no doubt run on to the fateful west whither the cars are speeding. But they will soon get left behind, the buzz dies away in the distance, and sleep carries them into the peaceful realm of dreams. I too begin to get a little sleepy. My eyelids begin to droop and my head feels heavy; it sinks down and recovers with a jerk as the car quickly takes a corner. The excellent Rittmeister seems to suspect something, for he slackens speed and says it is only a few minutes to Kösen; he asks what I think of this little watering-place as a spot for putting up for the night. Yes, I think Kösen is an ideal spot and quite agree that we ought to stop there. So we drive quietly into the little town, the two halves of which are separated from one another by the Saale, but reunited by a stone bridge. We stop at the hotel _Zum mutigen Ritter_ and are soon wide-awake again in its parlour, with a warming cup of steaming tea before us. The host keeps us company and tells us that all the visitors disappeared like magic when the war broke out, and that his own hotel business has dwindled to nothing at all. “But what does that matter as long as we win,” he adds.

The 16th September was heralded by a cloudy sky and heavy, sleepy raindrops, which, however, soon stopped falling after obligingly laying the dust. From Kösen there was a steady rise across and along the heights which line the Saale and Ilm valleys in the north. Pretty vistas open up at the sides, where the valleys sink between the hills and where the forest, dark and heavy, silently mounts guard over its secrets. A little further on the country becomes more broken and the road winds along in big curves. On the left we leave the Apolda and its valley. On a commanding height we catch sight of a so-called Bismarck tower of granite, with the great chancellor’s name hewn into the stone at the top and his portrait medallion at the bottom. These towers are often to be met with in Germany, and on certain days of national rejoicing huge bonfires are lit on their summits.

We cannot drive through Weimar without visiting the house where Goethe lived for forty years, and which stands in the square now bearing his great name. It is with a feeling of reverence that one sets foot on the steps and thresholds and in apartments where Germany’s, perhaps the world’s, greatest poet and thinker lived his life. As far as possible the furniture has been reinstated and restored to its former state. One admires Goethe’s discrimination as a collector and the quick intelligence he brought to bear on all departments of the natural sciences. These traits are evidenced by his large and magnificent geological and mineralogical collections, his zoological and botanical finds, and his physical laboratory. I stop, however, longest before the cabinets containing in large portfolios his pen-and-ink and water-colour sketches. I am touched as I look at them. Every stroke of the brush in these landscapes, portraits and groups has been made by his own hand. Their execution is masterly, and the perspective and general effect superb. Yet this was but a trifling detail in his wonderful endowment. Equally fascinating almost are the busts which render his glorious head and the oil paintings for which he sat. What wonderful eyes, full of life and energy and geniality! They reveal an intellect to which everything is as clear as crystal. With a feeling of awe and without daring to speak to the courteous Dr. Hans Kroeber, who showed us over one of the greatest national treasures of Germany, we entered Goethe’s study on the ground floor with its windows looking out on to the little garden. How simple and modest everything is; it occurs to one that one of the lighter rooms upstairs would have been a good deal pleasanter to work in. Behind the study we see his little bedroom, rigidly simple, where, with the words “More light,” he ended the saga of his wonderful life.

When the mind has tarried for a little while in this world of great and precious memories, and is suddenly confronted on issuing into the square with a detachment of Landsturm soldiers marching off to their shooting range, when one leaves Goethe’s home behind and is once more surrounded by the modern world and thinks of Germany’s gigantic struggle against half the world--then, indeed, one has to rub one’s eyes and steady oneself mentally so as not to lose one’s balance. And this people, which has produced Goethe, and which now with honour and splendid courage fights on half a dozen fronts, has by the press of many countries and in fact entire nations been called a people of barbarians!

But let us continue our trip along the great highway; it is now lined for a long distance with plum trees where women and girls on ladders are seen picking the great violet fruit and collecting it in baskets drawn on small barrows by dogs. On the whole we do not see many people, apart from the handful of peasants driving hay home in their carts drawn by cows, and a few women mowing the grass on banks and meadows.

Next we come to Erfurt, a town which like so many others in these parts is memorable to us Swedes. At “The Tall Lily” Gustavus Adolphus spent one night of his great life. It was the night between the 28th and 29th October, 1632, after the assembling of the Swedish Army which a few days later was to fight and conquer at Lützen. At Erfurt one also thrills with pride at the memory of Field-Marshal Johan Banér. Here, as everywhere, the Landsturm soldiers sing as they march along. We lose ourselves in the labyrinth of old-world streets, and not even my experienced guide von Krum is able to find his way. “Which way to Gotha?” we cry at every street corner, and the answer comes quickly, _rechts_, _links_ or _gerade aus_. At last we work our way out of the tangle and fly along towards Gotha, the city of Justus Perthes and the Almanach de Gotha. Here it is easy to find the way, and before we know where we are we find ourselves once again dashing along through avenues of tall, graceful poplars towards Eisenach.

On our left the ground rises towards the rain-shrouded, misty ridges of the Thüringer Wald, but the road itself runs through smiling villages with their picturesque houses of the timber framework type, where cackling geese and clucking turkeys sometimes do their best to get run over or at all events to hamper our progress. At every bridge we come to, we receive a smart military salute from the sentries. We spin along at a lightning pace to Eisenach, and are as quickly out of it. The road now turns sharp to the south-west and by a series of gentle curves ascends the heights of the Thüringer Wald. On both sides of the road is a fine wood of lofty pines. I could almost fancy that I had been transplanted to certain parts of my own land where the eye is accustomed to dwell on these dark green, solemn firs standing like sentinels by the roadside. It is a beautiful piece of country. The smell of damp earth and juicy pine-needles rises in the air and reminds one vividly of the country on the road from Rawalpindi to Kashmir.

From the top of the hills a vast perspective opens up towards the south-west. Once again the road runs in serpentine curves down from the Thüringer Wald. The forest here consists largely of foliaged trees rather than conifers. Marksuhl is situated in a broken piece of country, where the higher-lying parts are occupied by clusters of trees whilst the rest of the land is cultivated. At Vacha we cross the important River Werra. From this point we progress again at lightning pace. Villages, fields, meadows, farms, gardens and leafy coppices, everything seems to fly past us.

Here we have Hünfeld in Hesse. Let us stop a moment and drink a cup of tea. There is a cosy dining-room in the restaurant. At a table sits a nurse with the Red Cross badge on her arm talking to two gentlemen, evidently doctors, for they speak of the care of the wounded soldiers. A few sportsmen enter with their bags full of partridges and hares. They are dressed in brown and green, with sporting-looking felt hats with plumes, and carry their guns on the shoulder.

We jump into the car once more and proceed to the old bishopric of Fulda, which does not long engage our attention, then across bridges and streams through a series of villages, one of which with its sinuous main street is called Schlüchtern. We continue to be delayed by poultry, geese and dogs, but the children seem to have learnt to leave the roadway clear. The boys give us a military salute and shoulder their little wooden guns, whilst the little children play on steps and benches, the mothers waving to us almost affectionately as if to say, “Give him my love and God bless him and you and the whole of our country!”

_Via_ Gelnhausen we travel on to Hanau, in which neighbourhood we come across swarms of civilian cyclists. “Who on earth are these people, are they recruits on the way to join the army?” I ask. “Bless you, no; they are workmen from the factories and workshops at Hanau returning to their villages at the end of their day.” Big and majestic the Main sends its muddy waters towards the sea. It is raining a little, the roads are soaked but just as good. We can see that we are approaching a big town, the traffic on the road increases, people live closer together, and the telegraph wires combine into mighty clusters--those silent wires which yet talk and know far more than we. When I come to the Valley of the Main I seem once more to hear the good old Swedish music and to see Stålhandske’s cavalry before me, and into the moaning of the tree-tops I seem to read the words of Adler Salvius: “Our Finnish lads who are getting used to those wine-lands are not likely to come back to Savolaks in a hurry. In the Livland wars they often had to put up with water and coarse mouldy bread with their beer-broth; now the Finn quaffs his wine out of his helmet.” Such wealth and such abundance our poor old horsemen and their retainers had never even dreamt of.

Before us through the mist and gloaming twinkled the thousand lights and electric lamps of Frankfurt. When Gustavus Adolphus first came to Frankfurt the good burghers did not want to let him in, but made excuses and put the blame on the Elector of Mayence. But the King answered that he knew of no Elector of Mayence but himself. “I do not want to be delayed. If you refuse to open the gates, I dare say I can find some keys as I have done before in places which have fallen into my hands.” The city surrendered at once. During the winter of 1631-32, when Sweden’s King held his court at Frankfurt, this city was the centre of Europe. It was from here that Gustavus Adolphus said to the French who asked him not to direct his armies against Alsace, which country they pretended to have claimed ever since the death of the remote Dagobert: “I have come not as a traitor to Germany, but as its protector. I will restore it, not rend it asunder.”

We drive on and on. The clusters of houses in the outskirts and suburbs close up into the streets of a large town. The traffic grows, the tram bells ring, the motors hoot, vast crowds of people walk about busily under umbrellas, and after a short while we stop before the entrance of the Hotel which before the war was called _Englischer Hof_, but which has now been re-baptised the _Hessischer Hof_, owing to the feelings of the Germans towards their Germanic kinsmen of the island kingdom.

It is wonderful how attached one gets to one’s car on a long journey! It is with a feeling of boredom that one stops at the hotel where the night is to be spent, and with a sensation of delight that one rises from the breakfast table the next morning to enter the car once more. This is how we felt on the 17th of September, a fine and pleasant day, though heavy clouds raced across the sky. But we could not start at once, we had first to go to a garage to get petrol and then to an _Immobiles Kraftwagen Depot_, where absolutely everything that may be wanted for repairing war cars is to be had. Here we took five spare tyres, which we lashed to the right side and to the back of our car. Of course, we do not pay a single _pfennig_--for we are travelling on Government service.

At last we are off again and follow the long streets of Frankfurt, leaving the city by the western outskirts with their large working-class population. Perhaps it might be thought that these workmen are opposed to the war which Germany is now conducting for the sake of her future? It certainly does not look like it. The social democratic workmen have equipped their little sons with helmets and wooden swords to fight out real battles in the backyards, and you hear them call each other Kluck and Hindenburg.

Once more we get out into the open country, and follow the great road which runs in a direct line to Wiesbaden. The avenue skirting it consists chiefly of apple and pear trees, weighed down with fruit. Farther on we meet with poplars, standing like sentries along the roadside. We do not stop at all in the graceful and elegant Wiesbaden, but fly past its parks and gardens, which are quieter and emptier than usual.

Soon we begin to ascend the Taunus heights via the Eiserne Hand. The rise is gradual and the curves numerous. A trim and straight-stemmed pine wood skirts the road on both sides. One seldom meets a vehicle or a pedestrian. From an eminence a vast panorama is suddenly spread out before us, but the weather has got foggy again and one cannot see far. At Langen Schwalbach the elegant hotels form a striking contrast to the solemn Red Cross flags and the wounded soldiers, now convalescent, who are sitting on balconies and in gardens, taking the air. The road now winds upwards once more, and we breathe a crisper atmosphere, but the view across to smiling dells and wooded hills is limited through fog. Up we go and down again over the gentle undulations of the country, where the ploughed fields merge together in a colour scheme of green, yellow and brown.

Next the road descends steeply to Nassau on the River Lahn. The country is gloriously pretty, its roads magnificent, its forests regal in their dark, silent splendour. On the brow of a hill stands an old ruined castle. The people in Nassau are friendly and greet and wave to us, and a stylish-looking young girl throws a red rose into our car--not for us, forsooth, but as a greeting to her lover, who no doubt is fighting in the war.

A moment later we skim the pretty riverside road to Ems along the Lahn, line up the car in a side street and walk back to the pavement to greet with bared head and a salute a funeral procession which is going through. The dead man was a major who had succumbed to his wounds. First comes a band playing a slow and melancholy march, then two banners which precede the black-craped coffin on its carriage, and behind it the _Kampfgenossen_, members of the Ems _Kriegerverein_, all in tall hats, frock-coats and black ties; the procession is closed by a number of wounded convalescent soldiers housed in the Kursaal. The solemn cortège moves slowly up the street to the railway station, for the dead major’s body is to be sent to his own home. After a while the band returns accompanied by the convalescent soldiers. But now it plays a spirited and lively march. I was told that this was customary after military funerals--first the grief and the sorrow at the parting, the duty towards the honoured dead, then the joy of the survivors returning to the things of life.

The Kurhaus, a fine and roomy building, now contains eighty patients, and more are expected. Most of the badly wounded are in bed, but those who can get up are sitting about on balconies and enjoying the fresh air, and from what they said to me they all long to be back at the front.

I was told here that a young French lieutenant who had been badly wounded in the war had found an asylum in the Kurhaus, and recollecting the reports of the horrible cruelty with which the Germans, according to the English press, treat their French prisoners, I could not resist the temptation to enquire what the French lieutenant had to say about it. His room, which he occupied alone, was certainly not a matter for complaint; it was immediately above one of the six small rooms in which King William I. spent a short time each year from 1867 to 1887, and the view over Ems and the Lahn valley was the same as the King had enjoyed all those years. The wounded man was tended by a German doctor, who entertained good hopes of his recovery, and by two sisters of mercy, one of whom spoke French. But I hasten to add that Lieutenant Verrier, on my asking whether he was satisfied with the treatment he received in Germany, at once answered “yes” with warmth and conviction, and I suppose that wherever his fate will direct his steps he will always remember with gratitude the time he spent over William I.’s apartments in Ems, where the doctor did all in his power to save his leg and the sisters all they could to alleviate his suffering and dispel in a measure his loneliness and homesickness. I am sure that he will be the first to acknowledge that I am right.

I went up to his room and was at once admitted. He lay in a large bed with clean white sheets. His face was little less pale than these, but he looked very handsome with his hair brushed from his forehead, his finely shaped nose and well-kept moustache over a firm mouth, and his black French eyes bespoke a _joie de vivre_ and a bright intelligence. He told me that he had come home from New Guinea in June and that he was just about to be married when the war came and took him away from his bride and parents. He received his wound in the scrap at Rossignol in Belgium. It was a terrible day, spent in the midst of bursting shells and fire from rifles and machine guns. His bullet had struck him obliquely through the knee and calf. He fell and remained lying all night on the field of battle. The following morning he was picked up and taken to a German Field Hospital and subsequently by easy stages to Ems. At the end of August Emperor William visited the town and when he heard that there was a wounded Frenchman there he went to see him. Lieutenant Verrier told me that the Emperor had enquired in excellent French about his adventures in the war and how he felt. I said that I should in all probability soon be meeting the Emperor, and would then tell his Majesty of the impression the gracious visit had made on the invalid. When later I carried out my self-imposed task, the Emperor remembered the French lieutenant very well and was gratified to hear of the hopes entertained for his recovery.

In conclusion I asked Lieutenant Verrier whether there was anything I could do for him within the limits permitted by the German regulations. He seemed almost to have longed for this question, for he had the answer quite ready. Day and night he had been tormented by one single thought: “How are my parents and my fiancée to learn that I am still alive and doing well? I am now in enemy country and have no means of writing.” I asked him for his address, and he wrote in my diary, “Monsieur Verrier-Cachet, Horticulteur, 52, rue du Quinconce, Angers, Marne et Loire.” A minute later I was seated at a desk and wrote on postcards in German the adventures of the young Frenchman and sent them to my family in Stockholm, who, with the assistance of the French Minister, would forward the news to the above address. I know that it reached its destination and caused great joy, for later on I received very hearty greetings and thanks from Verrier’s home.

I have often since wandered with a heavy and lingering step through the “field” and war hospitals, especially the wards containing wounded Frenchmen, British and Belgians who lay there counting the slowly passing hours. How easy would it not have been for me, who had both liberty and health, to send off a postcard here and there which would have reached distant homes with a message of release from the wearing anguish of anxiety! There is nothing so trying and so difficult to bear as the uncertainty of the fate of those we love. When the name of a son, a brother, or a husband appears in the list of missing after a battle, the sickening anguish is almost greater to those at home than if they knew that he had fallen. Their mental vision pictures him as wounded, bleeding to death, alone and abandoned to the horrors of darkness, cold and thirst. But I had really no grounds for such qualms of conscience, for in the first place I had no business to interfere with the regulations of the German military authorities regarding the communication between wounded prisoners and their homes, and in the second place there were far too many of them, and by the evening I realised that the task of acting as a good Samaritan was an altogether hopeless one.[2]

[2] After the beginning of October all prisoners, even wounded Frenchmen in German hospitals, had permission to correspond with their homes. This was given after the French Government had granted the same privilege to German prisoners and wounded.

Meanwhile I took a hearty farewell of Verrier and wished him a speedy recovery and a happy reunion with his people at home at Angers.

Before leaving, we looked at the memorial stone commemorating the fateful and firm reply given “on the 13th of July, 1870, at 9.30 a.m.” by King William to the French Ambassador Benedetti, which gave the signal for the Franco-German war. And now, after a lapse of forty-four years, we were back again at the same point. Now it seemed that the thought of revenge for Alsace-Lorraine had ripened into action--unless it be indeed that other evil powers had exploited France’s longing for revenge, or revived it when, as some say, it was dead, to benefit themselves thereby and stop the advance of German prosperity. The near future will be the judge.

After dinner we mounted our car once more and the canary began to sing so that the good people of Ems might get out of our way. We proceeded along the right bank of the Lahn, following its bends in noble curves. The country round here is exceedingly pretty. It is almost a pity that we have to travel so fast; one hardly has time to visualise the beauty of a perspective before the picture disappears and is replaced by another, if possible even finer. Suddenly, beyond a steep spur jutting from the mountain on our right, the majestic Rhine is revealed to our vision, whilst on the crest of a hill on our left towers a romantic old castle. We dash under another railway bridge faithfully guarded by the worthy Landsturm men. Suddenly we enter a street so narrow that its entire width is taken up by a Red Cross flag of more than ample dimensions. Following this street as far as it goes, we suddenly come to the bank of the enormous river whose German waters silently flow between its prosperous and well-populated banks to deliver their burden through neutral Holland into the mighty bosom of the sea.

Once more the river is hidden by narrow streets, but soon it greets us again in all its wonderful splendour as we cross its dancing wavelets by a long pontoon bridge guarded more zealously than any we have yet passed. Next we are in Coblenz, where, at the point where the Moselle empties itself into the Rhine, stands a gigantic statue of old Emperor William on a charger. The plinth of this monument bears the following memorable inscription: _Nimmer wird das Reich zerstöret wenn Ihr einig seid und treu_.[3] The truth of these significant words is now indeed brought home to Germany and to the world.

[3] “Never shall the Empire be destroyed if ye united are and faithful.”

The road next takes us up along the right bank of the Moselle, where a stone bridge with beautiful arches takes us across and past a couple of Moselle steamers which are lying moored, carrying the Red Cross flag. The narrow, winding streets are filled with tramcars, cabs, vans, men and women, and last but not least soldiers in German army uniforms. We breathe more freely as we come out again on to the open road and speed along the bank of the great Rhine tributary. There is plenty for the eye to feast on. Now and again we catch sight of a little steamer or tug gliding on the river; on the steep left bank stone buttresses support the vineyards. The landscape itself is indescribably beautiful round these endless bends, as one village after another comes into view, the grey houses with their black slate roofs and the beautiful churches showing up strikingly against the luxuriant background of foliage. Still bowling along at lightning speed, we soon reach Treis, where a curious-looking ferry, reminding me of those of the Siberian rivers, is ready to take us and our car across to the left bank. We drive down on to the other end of its deck so that another car which has just arrived can be taken on board. The principle upon which the ferry is worked is as follows: A stout cable is stretched across the river and made fast on the left bank to the rock and on the right bank to a securely imbedded pile. From a ring on this cable runs a line, the other end of which is made fast to the bows of the punt-shaped ferry. A long steering-oar projects into the water astern. The rest is done by the current. By reversing the action and the steering-oar, the ferry runs back to the opposite bank.

On the left bank we continue our swift, winding journey. Here and there we pass a military convoy or meet an ambulance train, the first two carriages of which contain wounded Frenchmen, the others Germans. The Frenchmen are no better or worse off than the Germans; all lie on straw and are covered with blankets. The sliding doors of these goods wagons, fitted up specially for the transport of wounded, stood open in order to admit fresh air to the wounded.

At the village of Eller we stop for a moment at an inn, where the host, Herr Meinze, entertains us with what he knows about the war. His young daughter runs off to fetch a letter just received from the son of the family, twenty-two years old, an Uhlan of the Guard from Potsdam. The letter bears the somewhat vague postal address of La Ferté, and the writer complains that he has not had a word from home for a month. He mentions that he was present on an occasion when a French airman dropped a bomb over a gun team, killing three men and wounding twenty. Of his British opponents he speaks very disrespectfully. But he forgets that the English mercenaries, whatever their faults, show great personal courage and fight with bravery and contempt of death. He ends his letter with the hope that Germany will soon have made mincemeat of all her enemies. The chief trait which pervades all these field postcards is the bright and cheery spirit of the soldiers and their blind faith in the unconquerable might of the German Army and final victory. That _I_ may fall is of no account. That _I_ may not be one of the triumphant army which will march in through the Brandenburger Tor cannot be helped, but Germany must win, if not before, then after the spring flowers have begun to sprout and blossom round my grave.

At Alf, where a white paddle-steamer flying the Red Cross flag lies at her moorings, we leave the Moselle and follow the laconic advice of a signpost pointing up towards the hills which mark the nearest way to Treves. It pours with rain. We put up the awning and the rain patters loudly on the taut canvas. Owing to the great speed we get one drenching after another. The water in the puddles spurts up around the wheels as before the bows of a swift steamer. The road is only half as wide as the great main road eastward. But on the other hand the traffic is insignificant. “Way to Wittlich?” von Krum asks in a village, when uncertain of the road. “To Paris!” comes the retort of a couple of joyous maidens who point in the direction we are to go. In due course we get to Wittlich and struggle through its horribly narrow streets, which, to make matters worse, are encumbered with all sorts of vehicles. The houses both of villages and towns in this part of the country are almost entirely of stone, and the streets are very narrow--sometimes one almost gets the impression that they were originally built with a view to protection against foreign invasion.

Off we go again down to the banks of the Moselle and to its beautifully situated villages, and when at length we stop at the _Trierischer Hof_ at Treves, it is pitch-dark and raining pitilessly. We were drenched to the skin, and had intended to proceed to Luxemburg after a moment’s rest to dry our clothes. But as the deluge grew worse instead of better, and as we were told that there were no rooms to be had at Luxemburg for love or money, we decided to stop where we were. Soon we were sitting in the restaurant at our belated dinner. The place teemed with officers, and in the streets the soldiers splashed about in the wet in their grey overcoats. We asked everybody where the Main Headquarters were, but nobody knew anything about it. Some said that the General Staff was at Luxemburg, others that it had moved to Belgium. “Well, we shall get there in time,” we said to ourselves.

The _Trierischer Hof_ actually had a couple of modest rooms, where we made ourselves at home. My excellent friend von Krum told me that officers were entitled in war time to billet where they liked. Room with breakfast must always be placed at their disposal free of charge. Dinner and other meals they have to pay for. The officer has only to fill in a printed receipt which he hands to the host on leaving in place of currency. On producing this receipt before the competent military authority, the host receives his money, but not at the same rate as in peace time, for values are set at a lower figure than under normal conditions. The same applies to horses, carts, motor-cars and much else that is needed in war. Everything is valued by special committees and then paid for with a receipt. At Treves it was impossible to get a car or even a horse-cab, as there were no horses left. When therefore our host received a telegram saying that his son, who had probably been slightly wounded at the front, was expected at 3 a.m., there was no means whatever of getting a conveyance to meet him and take him home in. He asked if he might borrow our car, but unfortunately we were not allowed to leave it in civilian hands. In the end he managed to borrow a doctor’s car and found his son in pretty good condition.

Luckily the trams were running, and in the evening we took one to the Horn Barracks, usually occupied by Infantry Regiment No. 29 _von Horn_ (3rd Rhenish). But now the entire regiment is in the field and the barracks have been turned into a hospital. They hold in peace time three battalions, but at the present time only 500 wounded, as the latter need more room with special accommodation for doctors and nursing staff. Premises have, in addition, been requisitioned for operating theatres, bath-rooms, store-rooms, etc. Just now there is plenty of room, as only 220 beds are occupied, of which 150 by Frenchmen. Six doctors and one head surgeon, assisted by a great number of Red Cross sisters, were in charge of the wounded soldiers. In due course we arrived at the barracks, were passed by the sentry at the gate, entered a corridor and knocked at a door which was duly opened, and a moment later we had become the bosom friends of a couple of young doctors sitting at supper before a steaming bowl of soup which had just been brought in. I asked them, whatever they did, not to interrupt their meal, as we could sit and chat with them in the meantime. But no, that would not do at all, the soup could wait, and guided by a little oil lamp we marched out through the long corridor and began at once by inspecting a couple of the operating theatres, which had been rigged up hurriedly on the outbreak of war and equipped as far as possible on thoroughly modern lines. The operating tables were in the middle of the room. Water-pipes, vessels, appliances and a number of surgical instruments--everything was in superb condition. The walls and floor of these rooms had been painted over in oil and an average of fifteen operations took place in them daily. Several other barracks at Treves have been fitted up as hospitals in a like manner.

Thereupon we went into a large ward filled with wounded German soldiers, and chatted with several of them. All were very satisfied and cheerful, they all felt thoroughly at home and could not conceive it possible to receive better and kindlier treatment than they got at the hospital. Nevertheless time hung heavily on their hands, and they could not help thinking of their comrades in the field. They longed to be back at the war and hoped soon to be about again--that is to say, those who knew that they would not be crippled for life.

We left them with a “_Gute Nacht, gute Besserung_,” and proceeded to a ward higher up, where French soldiers were being tended. Here we also spoke with some of the patients. They were all polite and communicative, but lacked the cheery disposition of the Germans, which was really not to be wondered at, as they were in enemy country and cut off from all communication with their own people. One of them had been wounded at Rossignol like Lieutenant Verrier, but did not know him. He had been shot through the left hand and the left leg, which the surgeon had been obliged to amputate. When he got his bullet wounds, he had strength and presence of mind enough to creep into a ditch for protection against the weather and the firing. He had torn off strips of cloth from his greatcoat and wound them round his wounds. Next day the German ambulance men had found him, applied a proper “first field dressing” and carried him to the nearest field hospital, from which not long ago he had been conveyed by rail to Treves.

Another soldier had been left lying on the field for two nights and had suffered maddening torture from thirst. The thirst had if possible caused him greater suffering than his wounds. Twice the Germans had in passing given him water and chocolate. Finally the ambulance people had found him and taken him to a field hospital. Like his comrade, he expressed his gratitude for the treatment he had met with here at Treves, and several assenting voices were heard from the neighbouring beds. The two German doctors who took us round told us that the French wounded usually did not want to leave the hospital, as they knew that as soon as they recovered they would be treated as ordinary prisoners. This view of the matter is quite natural and is most certainly shared by all wounded, no matter to what nation they belong. For it is pleasanter to lie in one’s comfortable bed and be coddled in every way, than to live in a barracks or a concentration camp with crowds of other prisoners, including Senegalese negroes, Moroccans and Indians.

Finally our guide took us to the door of a room containing three French officers. One of them, who had been shot through the lung, slept well and did not permit himself to be disturbed by our talk. Another had a more dangerous lung wound and was continually troubled by a nasty cough which, whenever it attacked him, threw his head backwards and forwards with great violence. His condition was considered very critical, and even if one had known the address of his people it would have been no relief to them to learn his condition.

The third, a big and somewhat stout Captain, had served for several years in southernmost Morocco and was accustomed to little scraps with the Tuaregs in the Sahara. But _this_ was something very different. It was terrible, _terrible_! He had been called home from his African station to take part in this horrible struggle. His right foot had been smashed in a fight in Belgium by a rifle bullet, whilst another had carried away a couple of his fingers. He said he had a sort of recollection of having the wound dressed on the battlefield by German Red Cross men or doctors who had done all they could to check the flow of blood. Afterwards he had been taken to a dressing station, where his wounds had received further treatment. As he was classed amongst the comparatively slightly wounded, he had been taken to Luxemburg and now at length to Treves. He was probably aware that when discharged as convalescent he would remain a prisoner with all the privileges to which his rank entitled him, receiving, besides, half the pay he had been getting at home. There he lay, the poor Captain, with his jovial face, aquiline nose and heavy beard. He was cheerful and good-tempered, and assured us that he had absolutely nothing to grumble about--apart from the fate which denied him the honour to continue fighting for his country. But it was evident that he was a bit of a philosopher and he bore his unkind fate like a man. He lay there with a smile on his lips and was grateful for anything that was done for him and for the interest taken in him by the unknown visitors. During the long lonely hours of the night he often heard his comrades struggling and wrestling with death, whilst his own thoughts wandered to the palm trees on the desert fringe, and he seemed to hear the dromedaries’ swishing steps over the sand and the desert winds calling “come home, come home!”

The young doctors who accompanied us told us that the German soldiers always and without exception longed to be back at the front, unless their condition was such that they had not strength enough to desire anything. Among the French the feeling was different: “Whatever you like, anything but the fire at the front.” But this is, on psychological grounds, quite natural and cannot well be otherwise. There is nothing that depresses and demoralises the soldier as much as being a prisoner. He feels that he is playing the part of the weaker, that he is entirely at the mercy of others, that his strength is gone, his initiative taken from him and his fighting spirit rendered unavailing. In such a situation, to gain personal advantages and to make the best of a bad job, he will say much that he would never have dreamt of uttering on his own side of the fighting line. It is therefore unfair to judge the fighting value of an army by the remarks of prisoners detached from it.

Herein we have perhaps the explanation of the fact observed at the Treves hospitals, or, at all events, at the Horn barracks, that the mortality amongst the Frenchmen was incomparably greater than amongst the Germans. It would be futile to try to explain it by the suggestion that the doctors and nurses involuntarily felt greater compassion for their own countrymen, for when it is considered that 35,000 wounded have been transported through Treves _Westbahnhof_--latterly 1500 a day--it will be realised that the doctors available must be so overwhelmed with work as to have no time for sentiment. To them the case is everything, and it is a point of honour with them to save as many as possible. The whole care of the wounded becomes a professional, almost mechanical, matter, and one cannot wonder at it when one sees the stream of wounded passing through. I was told that the wounds of the Germans heal better and quicker than those of the Frenchmen, whatever the reason may be. But plainly the psychological factor has something to do with this also.

To this must be added another point of view--the wounds of the Frenchmen are usually more malignant than those of the Germans. Whilst the former are all too frequently hit in the lungs, stomach or abdomen, the Germans in the great majority of cases are wounded in the shoulders, arms and legs. It becomes obvious that the Germans must keep closer to the ground and are more skilled in using cover. It would be interesting to know exactly in what measure this point is affected by the French army uniform, the dark-blue tunic and the bright red trousers, exactly the same as worn in 1870-71. This dress obviously presents a most excellent target, whilst the Germans with their grey field uniforms and grey headgear merge into their environment.

We were talking in this strain as we were leaving the hospital, and the young doctors were inexhaustible in their stories of what they had experienced during their work at Treves. It was not only the barracks that had been converted into hospitals--churches and schools had also been requisitioned. “But how do the children get on with their schooling if the schools are turned into hospitals?” “Well, it is this way. Since the younger professors and masters were called to the war, older teachers, both men and women, have turned up from almost everywhere and carry on the work to the best of their ability. Thus they earn a little money which they badly need in these hard war times.”

We also spoke, of course, about the unceasing stream of wounded who are being brought into Germany. The seriously wounded and those not expected to recover are kept near the front, as they cannot stand being moved. But the lightly wounded, or at all events those who can stand the journey, are sent home. Soldiers who have had a bullet through the hand or a flesh wound in the arm, may, if they wish it, go straight home to their people. In such cases, on leaving the army, they are provided with the receipt which entitles them to free medical care at home. They must then attend daily at a certain hour at the doctor’s for examination; when fully recovered they return to their own regiment. Soon I suppose there will not be a single village in Germany without its war hero and its Iron Cross. One can imagine the pride and joy with which a son is received on returning home after his deeds of valour, and the heartfelt good wishes which accompany him when for the second time he leaves for the front!

I was told that a fresh train-load of wounded was expected at Treves at half-past twelve the same night. The doctors were holding themselves in readiness to receive another avalanche of exhausted and maimed heroes. Our doctors told us that when the train stopped they used to go through all the carriages to examine the patients. Those who were too bad to go any further were carried on hammock-stretchers to the hospitals. The others were allowed to go on after having their wounds redressed. This is another phase of the struggle between life and death--the doctor on the side of life struggling to snatch back those whom death has vainly sought to capture on the battlefield.

To wind up our visit, we had a peep into a store-room, the floor of which was encumbered with entire bales of cotton, gauze dressings, oil cloth, sticking-plaster and bandages of all kinds. Entire railway trains full of dressings and bandages, surgical instruments and drugs, are constantly running east and west from the heart of Germany. Our hospital at Treves was also permeated with a strong scent of carbolic, ether and chloroform. When one sees the pale faces and red scars of the wounded and the mountains of dressings, and when one inhales this penetrating hospital odour, one almost seems to hear the ping of the rifle bullets and the fierce shrieking of the shells. At such moments the deep and horrible solemnity of war seems to draw closer, and one realises indeed its sinister reality. Late in the evening, as we wandered back in the wet to the _Trierischer Hof_, I felt that we were, indeed, not far away from those parts of Europe where entire nations are grappling in a life-and-death struggle.