Part 11 (1/2)

At Thann we were shown the spot where the son of Prime Minister Borthon, of France, was killed by a bomb.

After an inspection of Thann, we drove to Gerardmere to spend the night.

It was bright moonlight and we were told there was a great deal of danger from German aeroplanes. This was a long night ride, but considered much safer than going through this part of the country in day-light.

We experienced great difficulty in getting back to the French line from Alsace-Lorraine. In doing so we pa.s.sed through a tunnel entering Alsace-Lorraine territory, within a half-mile of the German firing line.

We saw a hill which has been taken and retaken a number of times and was then in possession of the Germans. We were exposed to the German guns for half an hour and could hear the roaring constantly. At this point the soldier chauffeurs put on steel helmets and placed revolvers near their right hands, taking from boxes in the machine a number of hand grenades. This was all very cheerful for the occupants of the car to witness, inasmuch as we did not have any helmets or hand grenades or anything else which would enable us to help ourselves in case of conflict.

We reached Gerardmere in time for dinner and stopped over night at the Hotel de la Providence. This was a most interesting French village. We were called the advance guard of tourists and were really the first to have visited the place. Signs of war could be seen everywhere. We saw here pontoon wagons. We also saw immense loads of bread being hauled around in army wagons and looking like loads of Bessemer paving block.

During the night of our stay in Gerardmere, we were awakened by the booming of cannons.

We left Gerardmere, going north and, pa.s.sing a hill named ”Bonhomme”, over which French and Germans have fought back and forward. It is now in possession of both forces, armies being entrenched on either side of the hill and within one mile of the summit.

We pa.s.sed through a number of small villages completely riddled; one village had but a single house left untouched.

Our next stop was at St. Die. This is the village where the word ”Amerique” was first used in France. A tablet recalls this circ.u.mstance, the wording on it being as follows:

Here the 15th April 1507 has been printed the ”Cosmographic Introduction” where, for the first time the New Continent has been named ”America.”

Leaving St. Die we began a trip of more than fifty miles along the battle front. This trip required two days, and we were never beyond the sound of the guns.

Our first stop was at the battlefield of La Chipotte, where was fought one of the most sanguinary of the earlier battles of war, resulting in a great French victory, but entailing terrific losses on both sides. In the greater part of this region we saw forests which had been stripped by sh.e.l.ls and the trees of which were only beginning to grow again. In some places they will never grow, having been stripped of every leaf and limb and finally burned by the awful gunfire.

The battle of La Chipotte was fought in 1914. Sixty thousand French drove back a larger army of Germans after several days of fighting. The French loss was thirty thousand, and no one knows what the German loss amounted to. The woods are filled with crosses marking burial places, where often as many as fifty bodies were entombed together. The French buried their dead separately from the German dead, but the community graves are all marked in the same way--with a simple cross. Some of these crosses recite the names of the companies engaged, but few of them give the names of the dead. Most of them simply record the number of French or Germans buried beneath.

At a central part of the battlefield the French have erected a handsome monument, with the following inscription:

”They have fallen down silently like a wall.

May their glorious souls guide us in the coming battles.”

After leaving the battlefield of La Chipotte, we next reached the village of Roan Estape. It was full of ruins and practically deserted.

Beyond this village we pa.s.sed for miles along roads lined on either side with the crosses which indicate burial places of soldiers. The battle front here extended for a long distance and the fighting was b.l.o.o.d.y along the whole line. Much of this righting was done in the old way, trench warfare having only just begun.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Battlefield of La Chipotte, Showing Monument and Markers on Graves.]

Next we came to Baccarat, where nearly all the houses and the cathedral were utterly wrecked. For twenty miles beyond this town we pa.s.sed along the battle front of the Marne, within three miles of where the main struggle had taken place, and saw everywhere graves and signs of destruction. It was surprising how the country had begun to resume its normal aspect and green things begun to take hold again. Our next stop was Rambevillers, where we had luncheon at the Hotel de la Porte.

XIII.

THE STORY OF GERBEVILLER

After luncheon at Rambevillers, we drove to the famous village of Gerbeviller--or rather to what is left of it. This little town is talked of more than any other place in France, and is called the ”Martyr City”.

Its story is one of the most interesting told us, and to me it seemed one of the most tragic, although the residents of the town all wanted to talk about it with pride. While on the way to Gerbeviller we had to show our pa.s.ses, and it was lucky they were signed by General Joffre, since nothing else goes so close to the front. We were made to tell where we were going, how long we meant to stay, and what route we would take coming back.

Prefect Mirman, of the Department of Meurthe and Moselle, one of the most noted and most useful men in France, escorted the commission on this trip.

Gerbeviller is located near the junction of the valleys of Meurthe and Moselle, and occupied a strategic situation at the beginning of the war.

This and the heroic defense made of the bridge by a little company of French soldiers, was, the French believe, responsible for its barbarous treatment by the Germans. In the other ruined towns the destruction was wrought by sh.e.l.l fire. Here the Germans went from house to house with torches and burned the buildings after resistance had ceased and they were in full possession of the town. The French say it was done in wanton revenge and it looks as if that were true. Here is the story as it was told to us in eager French and interpreted for us by one of the party.