Chapter V: A Day at Dun

September 23rd. I had intended leaving the 5th Army that day, but at our meeting on the previous evening Crown Prince William had been kind enough to ask if I could not stay one day longer. This hospitality was the more acceptable, as I wanted to inspect the pretty, but unfortunately badly damaged little town of Dun on the Meuse.

When, therefore, the Crown Prince, called away by duty, motored that morning to Romagne, I accompanied Chamberlain von Behr in one of the Staff cars, and after an early and rapid run to Dun was ceremoniously handed over to the Commandant of the base there, Lieutenant-Colonel Betz. The latter was only just up when we entered his quarters at the Villa Saint Claude, belonging to a M. Thiébaut of Nancy. But he appeared, big, strong and pleasant, and assured me that I should be well looked after at Dun. To begin with I kept him company while he breakfasted, and he gave me an account of how Dun was taken by the Germans and how by far the greater part of the serious damage to the houses in the main street was done by French shells. But this belongs to the general history of the war, and I have pledged myself to speak of nothing but what I have seen with my own eyes.

A civilian who wanders about a recently conquered town, in which the invader’s troops are quartered, looking at everything and sketching this, that and the other, is rightly regarded by sentries and patrols as a highly suspicious character. He is rigorously watched and tracked; he will notice that someone is following him like a shadow; finally he will be arrested and directed with cold military precision to accompany his captor to the proper examining authority. Little adventures of this kind might be quite amusing and exciting to me, knowing that they would always have a happy ending; but I had no time for them, and was grateful when Lieutenant-Colonel Betz told off a non-commissioned officer to escort me on my rambles through Dun.

First we crossed to the east side of the Meuse, where the high road between Montmédy and Verdun runs through a fine avenue. This road joins on to the main street of Dun, in the northern half of which the backs of the houses, wrecked by shell fire, are reflected in the river as ruins and heaps of débris. In the southern part of the same street the hospital service has requisitioned those buildings that have been spared by the shells. Here, too, we find a little garden, enclosed by a fence, which is used as a mortuary, and to which soldiers who have died in hospital are brought. Four dead men were now lying on a grass plot in the shade of the trees. They were dressed in their uniforms and had their caps on. Wrapped in blankets and with a white cloth over the face, they lay there waiting until there were enough of them to be lowered in a batch into the big grave that was kept ready in the churchyard. I went up to them and raised the cloths. The features were cold and stiff, yet infinitely calm, and bore no trace of the hard fate and severe suffering the dead had undergone. I stopped in particular before a soldier who

“seemed to be resting from a game.
His aspect as undaunted as before,
But paler far.”

He was a fine-looking fellow and his face seemed carved in marble. He lay as in a deep and heavy sleep, with eyes and lips closed, oblivious alike of the cannon’s roar and of ether fumes, of fatherland and songs of victory. The soil of France was receiving him in its embrace, and his relatives would never bring wreaths to his grave.

Nevertheless, as we know, the fallen do not vanish without a trace, since every soldier wears round his neck a little disc, giving his regiment and his number. All that remains to be done is to turn up the roll of his unit to find the dead man’s name and home. In clearing the battlefield the discs are collected, and with their help the lists of killed are drawn up.

A steep and narrow road leads up to the crest of the hills that form the eastern boundary of the Meuse valley. On the very edge of the slope stands the handsome and noble church of Notre Dame de Bonne Garde, which dates from the time of the Emperor Charles V. It is characteristic of this part of France that the churches, even of quite insignificant places, are veritable pearls from an architectural and artistic point of view.

The porch is decorated with a little silvered statuette of Joan of Arc. On entering the nave we find on the left, behind an iron railing, a group of painted figures, three feet high, representing John the Baptist baptising Christ. Immediately opposite is a Pieta, on the altar of which helmets, knapsacks and bayonets form a sharp contrast with the ecclesiastical objects. But the floor between the railing and the altar is strewn with straw, and there soldiers have their simple beds. Notre Dame de Bonne Garde! Under her protection German sentries are now finding safe quarters.

Inside the rail under the chancel arch which separates the choir from the nave, the high altar is surrounded by camp mattresses of straw. Some wooden chairs stand about a table and on the floor arms and equipment are heaped pell-mell. Where French priests formerly said mass, foreign soldiers now sit writing field postcards to their homes. On the arms of a silver candelabra stockings are hung to dry, and from niches and altarpieces saints and apostles look down with disconsolate eyes upon rifles and carbines, bayonets, belts and ammunition pouches, which lie scattered over the seats in the nave. Even the sacristy has been transformed into a bedroom. The priestly vestments of red velvet and gold brocade hang untouched in their cupboard, and on the arms of the chairs outside it hangs the soldier’s modest equipment of small and well-worn objects, together with a cloak or two, tattered and worn from the life of the trenches and sooty from the flames of camp-fires. The sacred vessels are touched by nobody. In the German Army it is strictly forbidden to commit depredations on the property of the Church, the State or private persons; and so it was here at Dun.

The havoc of shells, on the other hand, is one of the privileges of war. Into the lower part of a buttress facing west a shell has penetrated the brickwork to about a third of its length. It is a _Blindgänger_, that is, one which has failed to burst on contact. It seems inadvisable to move a thing of this kind, and it will probably be allowed to stay where it is as a souvenir of the war. The shell is a French one, and its object, like that of the others that destroyed Dun, was to drive the Germans out of the place again or at least to make the first hours of their occupation as warm as possible. A projectile has badly damaged another buttress and several grave-crosses in its neighbourhood. Large blocks of masonry have crushed in their fall a flat gravestone lying close against the wall of the church. Many shrapnel holes may be seen round the clock-face on the tower, and a small house beside the church has been destroyed by two shells.

We went out into the churchyard and turned our steps first to the railing at the edge of the slope. From here a magnificent view is displayed. Right under us lies Dun like a little map, and we can clearly see all the houses that have been ravaged by the French shells. We also have a bird’s-eye view of the valley of the Meuse, with the almost deserted road to Verdun on the south, and on the south-west the road to Romagne and Varennes, filled as usual with whole strings of transport columns, cavalry and hooting motor-cars.

The graveyard itself offers an affecting sight. A shell has fallen in the midst of the tombstones, forming a fresh grave, which however did not expose any of the dead. But now peace reigns among these French crosses, which are often decorated with wreaths of coloured beads, expressing sorrow and loss in simple but eloquent words: _Nos Parents, Regrets, Souvenir_.

To us all these names are unknown. They are modest townsmen of Dun and peasants from the neighbourhood who are taking their long rest in the churchyard. But the gravestones are always costly and handsome, and one can see that even the poor gladly part with their savings in order to honour the memory of their dear ones in the city of the dead.

How simple, in contrast, are the memorials raised to soldiers who have died in the hospitals of Dun! Two strips of wood nailed together in the form of a cross, that is all. There one may read such epitaphs as the following: _Ein unbekannter Soldat._--_Ein Landwehrmann, Kanonier._--_1. Comp. I. R. 22._[12] _Ein deutscher Krieger_ ✠ _16/9 1914._--_Zwei Französische Krieger 21/9._ Curiously enough, _deutsch_ is spelt with a small d, but _Französisch_ with a big F; why, I don’t know--perhaps from some kind of unconscious politeness towards foreigners. The cross signifying “dead” is carved in the glorious shape of the Iron Cross. Here, too, is the big grave prepared for those who are slumbering in the garden down below. By one of the new graves a dog howls plaintively. Perhaps he is lamenting his master--it is a very common thing for the German soldiers to adopt for the sake of company French dogs without a master, who take to them and follow them faithfully.

[12] No. 1 Company of the 22nd Regiment of Infantry. [Infanterie-Regiment Keith (1. Oberschlesisches) No. 22, quartered at Gleiwitz in peace time.]

In a special little chapel at the side of the churchyard are buried the priests, natives of Dun, who have died there.

We descend by another way, a steep lane between ruined houses. One of them has been exposed by the fall of the outer wall, and one can see the interior of a room, the bed standing in its place with blankets and pillows, while a mirror has fallen down and been smashed to pieces. Through the dark, gaping holes in the heap of débris surrounding the house one can see into the kitchen in the basement.

One or two saw-mills and workshops driven by water-wheels had stood by the side of the river, but now nothing was to be seen but the most terrible devastation where formerly they had been. Machinery, belts and wheels lay twisted together into rubbish among charred beams. Close by were to be seen the remains of a bridge, which crossed the river in two spans, and which was blown up by the French when they had to evacuate the place. They also blew up the western span of the three-arched stone bridge over the Meuse, which carries the high road and the main street. With great skill and rapidity the German engineers have replaced the wrecked arch by a wooden bridge.

The railway to Dun has been repaired by the Germans, and the station showed a scene of animation and traffic which the little town can scarcely have witnessed before. All the storehouses and baggage-rooms were literally packed with mountains of provisions, ready-baked loaves, tinned foods, meat, sacks of flour and oats, and even with wine. These warehouses had a smell like a grocer’s shop. The supply columns are loaded at new and old platforms and then go forward to the troops. I sketched here one of these columns, consisting of requisitioned farmers’ carts, drawn by horses also requisitioned at the seat of war, only two to each cart. The long lines of vehicles are brought up to their loading stations by special roads marked out by placards. Everything is done rapidly, but in silence and with unfailing accuracy. When a column is ready, you hear a shout to the horses, a crack of the whip, and the procession moves forward with creaking wheels on its way to Romagne. I noticed that--in addition to finger-posts--pickets have been posted to guide the traffic and prevent dangerous congestion at cross-roads. This is quite necessary, as column after column is constantly passing along the main road. Here was one, for instance, the wagons of which were marked “Fs. A..., III. Btl. (Mrs.) I. MK”--that is, Foot Artillery Regiment, 3rd (Mortar) Battalion, 1st ammunition column, and then the number of the wagon in the column. The stores at Dun supplied amongst others the army corps whose guest I had been the day before.

In a field quite close to the station was a base slaughterhouse and cattle depot. Here all the cattle collected from the neighbourhood were assembled in a space enclosed with posts and barbed wire. A fenced-off portion was drenched with blood from the slaughter, and here lay immense piles of ox-hides. One felt certain that these would be turned to good account. An enclosure for pigs was equally well filled. There was thus beef and pork in plenty; the troops would not go hungry. The day’s requirements for 1000 men amount to 2 oxen or 6 pigs or 19 sheep, of an average weight respectively of 500, 90 and 40 kilogrammes. The depot is replenished by degrees. In most cases the troops do their own slaughtering; the animals being taken to the front by the provision columns.[13] At Dun there was also a field-bakery detachment with its attendant wagons, ovens and tents, and surrounded by a fragrant odour of new-baked bread. Each of these detachments is capable of supplying 23,000 rations of bread in twenty-four hours, working uninterruptedly.

[13] During more mobile operations the troops requisition their own cattle, so far as the local resources allow.

We also visited the courtyard of a private house, where food was served out to a thousand French prisoners three times a day in separate batches. A kitchen on a grand scale with gigantic caldrons has been installed in a shed in the yard. When the hour strikes, the prisoners, drawn up in single file, have to step up and hold out their bowls to a cook, who fills each bowl with a single dip of his ladle. He is incredibly expert and rapid in his movements, and never spills a drop. Probably the condition of the French prisoners will one day disclose the fact that they have not been subjected to a starvation diet.

Here again I sketched a few types: a gilder, an official and a workman, all from Paris, as well as one of their German guards, a strapping Landwehr man. I remember I had half finished the portrait of a young French soldier--of the 113th Infantry Regiment,[14] of aristocratic, melancholy appearance, when the word of command was given that the batch that had been served was to be taken to its quarters and the next lot brought up. At my request, however, my model was allowed to stay behind. He was a bank clerk from Blois, of a highly _sympathique_ and amiable nature. Perhaps some day he will remember that sitting at Dun; I shall not forget him.

[14] The 113th regiment of infantry of the line belongs to the 5th Army Corps, and is garrisoned at Blois. Parisians as a rule belong to the 4th Army Corps.

While I was sketching the soldiers from Paris, I had a dense crowd of onlookers round me, and I threw out to them the following impertinent question:

“What are you really fighting for?”

“We have absolutely nothing to fight for,” replied one fellow with a defiant air, and he was seconded with much animation by another man opposite.

“You have your country to fight for, I suppose?” I went on.

“We _have_ no country,” answered the two malcontents.

I asked a sensible fellow who was standing behind me what sort of persons they were, and was told: “They are notorious anarchists.”

One may be tolerably certain that they would never have dared to answer like that on the other side of the firing lines. And if they had done so, they would have been torn to pieces by their comrades, who, even if they did not know how and why war had broken out just now, nevertheless understood that the future of France was at stake, nay, perhaps her existence as a first-class Power. On the other hand, they were all agreed in regretting the war, and expressions such as these constantly recurred: “_Cette malheureuse guerre_--_Cette guerre inutile_--_C’est terrible_--_C’est très, très malheureux pour tout le monde_.” But even to this criticism of the war a reservation must be added. For not a spark of the enthusiasm with which the French soldiers went into the fire is left after they have been taken prisoners. Their hope has then vanished and nothing is left but the regret that they can no longer be of use to their country.

But it was now one o’clock, and I was engaged to dine with Colonel Betz at the officers’ mess, where a party of a dozen assembled at a big round table. The mess was installed in a private house, very plain but well preserved, although a few shots or splinters of shell had made their way through its walls. Even the piano had been pierced by a bullet, but its tone was still irreproachable. At this table, again, the German officers spoke with unmixed respect of the French soldiers and their commanders. They are equal and worthy opponents, they are real, fully trained soldiers, not mercenaries who fight for money. They fight for their lives with skill and with the courage of despair.

After dinner I continued my ramble and visited amongst other places a hospital, where trained Red Cross sisters were at work. Finally I halted in the main street and sketched it and the bridge. A sheet was stretched right across the street, and on it was written, in enormous letters that nobody could help seeing, a notice that all empty vehicles returning from the front must be reported at the headquarters of the officer in command, where they would find out whether there were any wounded to be transported home. One constantly sees all kinds of directions, on calico, paper, planks and on whitewashed walls, to drive carefully, to keep to the right, as well as information of the distances in kilometres, the names of villages, where different roads lead, the position of the headquarters and other local offices, especially that of the hospital, and many things besides. Here, as in everything else, an exemplary orderliness prevails. Nobody needs to ask, he has only to follow the painted directions. As regards finger-posts and milestones, however, the French had done a good deal in advance; the notices which had to be added concerned the German lines of communication.

The day was drawing to a close as I walked along the principal street of Dun with Colonels Betz and Fretzdorff. Fresh bands of French prisoners--“Red trousers,” as the German soldiers call them--had come in during the day and were now standing with their guards outside headquarters, waiting for orders as to their further destination. The prisoners were patient and calm as usual. Some sat on a bench chatting, others on the kerbstone; but the majority stood with their hands in their trouser-pockets, looking at the movement of the Prussians around them. They had never seen the German Army and its inner life at so close quarters. While fighting, the combatants see very little of each other; and now these Frenchmen had the strange sensation of standing quite close to their enemies without a shot being fired and without there being any question of slaughter. A couple of squadrons of Uhlans, armed with lances, sabres and carbines, were just riding past in close column. Their horses’ hoofs clattered on the stone pavement and the rattle of their arms and stirrups echoed in the narrow space between the houses. The prisoners watched the hostile cavalry attentively but calmly: “They are still in the game; we are out of it,” they appeared to be thinking, and one would have to have a heart of stone not to feel great pity for them.

Colonel Betz told me how desperate things became sometimes, just at this spot, when columns of different kinds met in the street at night, troops marching through and motor-ambulances with severely wounded men anxious to get on. It would be all right if there were any possibility of keeping the street lighted, but the garrison was short of everything in the shape of illuminants, and a street could not very well be lighted with beacons. It was paraffin lamps that were wanted at suitable intervals, and presumably such lamps are now burning at night in the street of Dun, so that the supply columns no longer need get blocked and delay each other.

It had been arranged that at about half-past six I should look out for the Crown Prince and his staff as they passed through Dun on their way back from Romagne. The time was approaching, and we were on the watch. The traffic had not decreased at all, rather the reverse. For a moment it looked like a block, and it would have been a nice thing if the Crown Prince had arrived just then. We crossed the bridge and were outside the town, when the aristocratic-looking cars, bearing the mark, _General Ober Kommando V. Armee_, came tearing along at full speed. Beside the chauffeur of the first one sat the Crown Prince himself in a cloak with a high collar. He made a sign to me to get in and I took my seat behind him. Then he talked for a while to the officers of the lines of communications, and after that we started. But now the pace was slow, as we happened to meet an infantry regiment. The men took hold of their helmets by the spike, raised them aloft and gave a rousing cheer, as if they were charging a French position. But this time the cheer was meant for the Commander of the 5th Army and the heir to the throne, and we drove through a roaring sea of loud hurrahs. Gradually the ranks thinned out and finally came the stragglers--for there are footsore men even in the best marching army of all--in small groups of two or three, but they cheered as wildly as the rest. Last of all a solitary man stood by the side of the road. He, too, joined in with all the strength of his lungs. When the Crown Prince had reassumed his motor goggles and turned up the collar of his cloak he was not easily recognised, especially by the men of the transport columns we met, who had their horses to look after. But his Imperial and Royal Highness turned half round to me and said unassumingly that nothing pleased him more than to find that he was supported and understood by the soldiers. He considered it the first duty of a prince to show himself worthy of the confidence of his whole people, and for his own part he could not imagine a greater happiness than to occupy such a position in the minds of the German people.

We reached home in due course and sat down to table. The spirits of the company were as cheerful and unconstrained as usual, though one would have expected high-sounding speeches, toasts and cheering. For Varennes had been taken and news had come of Weddigen’s exploit at sea.[15] But no speeches were made and there was no cheering at all. The Crown Prince received the news with the same dignified calm as the others; he was glad, but not a muscle of his face moved, only his eyes shone with a moister brightness. The conversation then turned for a while on the question whether the effect of the submarines on the floating forts would be as great as that of the 42-cm. howitzers against the land fortresses. For that matter, subjects of conversation were never wanting at this table, where the spirit of comradeship was always held sacred. The imperturbable calmness of the Germans, especially of the higher ranks, in the face of success aroused my wonder and admiration, as it had done the day before and as it has often done since. And again the thought rose within me of the immense moral strength of the German military power and the conscious will of the German people in its fight for life.

[15] This refers to the sinking of the _Cressy_, _Aboukir_ and _Hogue_ by torpedoes.--Tr.

Immediately outside Dun, on the north side of the road to Romagne, lies a solitary grave, covered with wreaths round its cross. In it reposes a captain, who held out with his little band in the thick of the fire when the French were shelling their own town, and who fell at last at his post. His memory lives among the German soldiers at Dun, fresh as the flowers which are constantly renewed on his grave. And he is only one among millions. Life is the least they can give to the fatherland. The virtue of bravery is not a rare one; history has often borne witness to its existence; but the inflexible fulfilment of duty, which distinguishes the Germans in their hour of destiny, has few parallels. Such a nation _cannot_ be conquered.

Dinner had been going on for some time when Professor Widenmann, the body-physician, came in and took his place. He had been at a hospital, looking after our friend, Baron von Maltzahn, who had been the victim of a motor accident in the course of the day. The car, while going at a terrific pace, had skidded at a corner of the wet road and turned over. Von Maltzahn lay underneath and had the whole weight of the car on his chest. He had a couple of ribs broken, a broken leg, concussion of the brain and general shock. His condition was rather alarming, but the professor had good hopes of his recovery.

That professor is a man one would never forget. We took to each other, more especially as he had travelled all over the world. He had seen a great deal of Africa, and had been very near the summit of Kilima Njaro when he was forced to turn back by wind and weather. We had mutual friends far and near, and long after the others had gone to their rooms we sat up chatting--on that evening, which was my last with the German Crown Prince, the Crown Prince of Prussia.

On the following day, September 24, we made a very early breakfast, after which the cars of the Chief Command of the Army again drove up to the château. I thanked his Imperial and Royal Highness the Crown Prince with all my heart for the great hospitality which had been shown me and for all the memorable things I had had the opportunity of seeing while with his proud army. After a vigorous shake of the hand and a friendly _Auf Wiedersehen!_ the energetic young Imperial Prince got into his car and went off to his duty.

As for myself, I was not to leave till twelve o’clock, as there was no convenient car going direct to Main Headquarters before then. Sitting by myself in Madame du Vernier’s château was far too slow, and I preferred a walk to the great base hospital, where the chief staff surgeon, Professor Sick of Leipzig, showed and explained everything to me in the most obliging way. We went from ward to ward and spoke to many of the patients, both German and French. The largest ward had room for forty beds. Over the head of each was a paper giving the wounded man’s number, name and regiment. On a folding table by the side of the bed stood a number of medicines and a glass of water, and in many cases a little Bible, some field postcards and portraits of relations at home. There was also a chart showing the wounded man’s temperature from day to day. Wards, beds and everything were excellent, which was not to be wondered at, since the building was a hospital in peace time. My visit concerned in particular my friend Baron von Maltzahn, who lay wrapped and bandaged in an officers’ ward. His condition was better to-day, and I was able to sit chatting with him for a good while. He agreed with me that it was a stupid thing to choose a motor accident, when there were so many other ways of getting killed in war. Not till several weeks later was von Maltzahn sufficiently recovered to be able to stand the journey to his home; but as late as the middle of November, when I saw him again in Berlin, he was still limping and had to use a stick.

I then said good-bye to Madame Desserrey and her charming daughter, and made a hasty portrait of Mademoiselle Blanche, which, however, by no means did her justice. After the conclusion of peace I was to write and remind her of the hours we had spent together during the war.

To conclude with a trifling anecdote: I was standing in the road in front of the château, making a hurried sketch of it. Then up came a sentry and addressed me in a rough tone:

“It is forbidden to draw the Crown Prince’s quarters!”

“O-oh?”

“Give me your sketch-book.”

“Here you are.”

“If you have no permit I shall turn you away.”

“You can’t turn away the Crown Prince’s guests.”

“Anybody can say that. Where is your identification?”

I then handed him my _Ausweis_, signed “von Moltke,” Chief of the General Staff. He took the paper, read it and gave it back, stood to attention, saluted and begged my pardon. Whereupon I assured him that he had only done his duty, which was always refreshing and pleasant to see.