Part 18 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: WITH GERMAN OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF THE FRENCH FOOD COMMISSION BEFORE THE COTTAGE AT BAZEILLES, WHERE NAPOLEON III AND BISMARCK MET AFTER THE BATTLE OF SEDAN.]
The feeding of the French population, which is carried on by the American Relief Commission, was a very interesting thing to see and, in company with one of the members of the French committee, we saw the workings of this system of American Relief.
We first visited a storehouse in Charleville, the headquarters for the relief district of which Charleville may be called the capital.
For relief purposes Northern France is divided into six districts.
From the central distribution point in each district, food is sent to the commune within the district, the commune being the ultimate unit of distribution and each commune containing on the average about five hundred souls. We then motored to one of the communes where the distribution of food for the week was to take place that afternoon. Here in a factory, closed since the war, the people of the commune were lined up with their baskets waiting for their share of the rations. On entering a large room of the factory, each stopped first at a desk and there either paid in cash for the week's allowance of rations or signed an agreement to pay at some future date. The individuals who had no prospect of being able to pay received the rations for nothing. About one-third were in each cla.s.s. The money used was not always French, or real money, but was, as a rule, the paper money issued in that part of Northern France by each town and redeemable after the war.
Signs were hung up showing the quant.i.ty that each person was ent.i.tled to receive for the next fifteen days and the sale price per kilo to each inhabitant. For instance, in this particular period for the first fifteen days of the month of May, 1916, each inhabitant could, in this district, receive the following allowances at the following rates:
ARTICLE AMOUNT PER HEAD PRICE Flour 4 K. 500 The Kilogram 0 fr. 48 Rice K. 500 0 fr. 55 Beans K. 500 0 fr. 90 Bacon K. 500 2 fr. 80 Lard K. 250 2 fr. 30 Green Coffee K. 250 1 fr. 70 Crystallized Sugar K. 150 0 fr. 90 Salt K. 200 0 fr. 10 Soap (hard) K. 250 1 fr. 00
In addition to these articles each inhabitant of the commune which we visited, also received on the day of our visit a small quant.i.ty of carrot seed to plant in the small plot of ground which each was permitted to retain out of his own land by the German authorities.
The unfortunate people who received this allowance looked very poor and very hungry and very miserable. Many of them spoke to me, not only here but also in Charleville, and expressed their great grat.i.tude to the American people for what was being done for them. Those in Charleville said that they had heard that I was in their town because of trouble pending between America and Germany. They said they hoped that there would be no war between the two countries because if war came they did not know what would become of them and that, in the confusion of war, they would surely be left to starve.
In Charleville notices were posted directing the inhabitants not to go out on the streets after, I think, eight o'clock in the evening, and also notices informing the population that they would be allowed a small quant.i.ty of their own land for the purpose of growing potatoes.
After visiting the factory building where the distribution of rations was taking place, we motored to Sedan, stopping on the way at the hamlet of Bazeilles, and visiting the cottage where Bismarck and Emperor Napoleon the Third had their historic interview after the battle of Sedan.
The old lady who owns this house received us and showed us bullet marks made on her house in the war of 1870, as well as in the present war. She apologised because she had had the window-pane, broken by a rifle shot in this war, replaced on account of the cold. As a girl, she had received Bismarck and Napoleon and had shown them to the room upstairs where they had held their consultation. I asked her which chair in this room Bismarck had sat in, and sat in it myself, for luck. I also contributed to the collection of gold pieces given to her by those who had visited her cottage.
In Sedan we visited an old mill where stores of the relief commission were kept, and in the mayor's office were present at a sort of consultation between the Prussian officers and members of the French Committee of Sedan in which certain details relative to the feeding of the population were discussed.
The relief work is not, of course, carried on right up to the battle line but we visited a small village not many kilometres in the rear of the German line. In this village we were, as before, shown the stores kept for distribution by the relief commission.
As there were many soldiers in this village I said I thought that these soldiers must have stores of their own but, in order to be sure that they were not living on the supplies of the relief commission, I thought it only fair that I should see where the soldiers' stores were kept. I was taken across the railroad track to where their stores were kept and, judging from the labels on the barrels and boxes, I should say that a great many of these stores had come from Holland.
During this trip about the country, I saw a number of women and girls working, or attempting to work, in the fields. Their appearance was so different from that of the usual peasant that I spoke to the accompanying officers about it. I was told, however, that these were the peasants of the locality who dressed unusually well in that part of France. Later on in Charleville, at the lodging of an officer and with Count Wengersky, who was detailed to act as sort of interpreter and guide to the American Relief Commission workers, I met the members of the American Relief Commission who were working in Northern France and who had been brought on a special train for the purpose of seeing me to Charleville. This Count Wengersky spoke English well. Having been for a number of years agent of the Hamburg American Line in London, he was used to dealing with Americans and was possessed of more tact than usually falls to the lot of the average Prussian officer. We had tea and cakes in these lodgings, and then some of the Americans drew me aside and told me the secret of the peculiar looking peasants whom I had seen at work in the fields surrounding Charleville.
It seems that the Germans had endeavoured to get volunteers from the great industrial town of Lille, Roubeix and Tourcoing to work these fields; that after the posting of the notices calling for volunteers only fourteen had appeared. The Germans then gave orders to seize a certain number of inhabitants and send them out to farms in the outlying districts to engage in agricultural work. The Americans told me that this order was carried out with the greatest barbarity; that a man would come home at night and find that his wife or children had disappeared and no one could tell him where they had gone except that the neighbours would relate that the German non-commissioned officers and a file of soldiers had carried them off. For instance, in a house of a well-to-do merchant who had perhaps two daughters of fifteen and seventeen, and a man servant, the two daughters and the servant would be seized and sent off together to work for the Germans in some little farm house whose location was not disclosed to the parents. The Americans told me that this sort of thing was causing such indignation among the population of these towns that they feared a great uprising and a consequent slaughter and burning by the Germans.
That night at dinner I spoke to von Bethmann-Hollweg about this and told him that it seemed to me absolutely outrageous; and that, without consulting with my government, I was prepared to protest in the name of humanity against a continuance of this treatment of the civil population of occupied France. The Chancellor told me that he had not known of it, that it was the result of orders given by the military, that he would speak to the Emperor about it and that he hoped to be able to stop further deportations.
I believe that they were stopped, but twenty thousand or more who had been taken from their homes were not returned until months afterwards. I said in a speech which I made in May on my return to America that it required the joint efforts of the Pope, the King of Spain and our President to cause the return of these people to their homes; and I then saw that some German press agency had come out with an article that I had made false statements about this matter because these people were not returned to their homes as a result of the representations of the Pope, the King of Spain and our President, but were sent back because the Germans had no further use for them. It seems to me that this denial makes the case rather worse than before.
At the Chancellor's house in the evenings we had discussions on the submarine situation and I had several long talks with von Bethmann-Hollweg alone in a corner of the room while the others listened to music or set the mechanical toys in motion.
These discussions, without doubt, were reported to the Emperor either by the Chancellor or by von Treutler who at that time was high in favor with his Majesty.
I remember on one evening I was asked the question as to what America could do, supposing the almost impossible, that America should resent the recommencement of ruthless submarine warfare by the Germans and declare war. I said that nearly all of the great inventions used in this war had been made by Americans; that the very submarine which formed the basis of our discussion was an American invention, and so were the barbed wire and the aeroplane, the ironclad, the telephone and the telegraph, so necessary to trench warfare; that even that method of warfare had been first developed on something of the present scale in our Civil War; and that I believed that, if forced to it, American genius could produce some invention which might have a decisive effect in this war. My German auditors seemed inclined to believe that there was something in my contentions. But they said, ”While possibly you might invent something in America, while possibly you will furnish money and supplies to the Allies, you have no men; and the public sentiment of your country is such that you will not be able to raise an army large enough to make any impression.” I said that possibly if hostilities once broke out with the Germans, the Germans might force us by the commission of such acts as had aroused England, to pa.s.s a law for universal military service. This proposition of mine was branded by the Germans as absolutely impossible; and, therefore, I am sure that the adoption by the United States of universal service in the first round of the war struck a very severe blow at the morale of Germany.
The Chancellor always desired to make any settlement of the submarine question contingent upon our doing something against England; but I again and again insisted that we could not agree to do anything against some other power as a condition of obtaining a recognition of our rights from the German Empire.
During my stay at the General Headquarters, General Falkenhayn, although he was there at the time, carefully avoided me, which I took to be a sign that he was in favour of war with America.
In fact, I heard afterwards that he had insisted on giving his views on the subject, but that a very high authority had told him to confine himself to military operations.
After we had been a day or so at Charleville, the Vice-Chancellor, Helfferich, arrived. I have always believed that he was sent for to add his weight to the arguments in favour of peace and to point out that it was necessary for Germany to hate the friends.h.i.+p of America after the war, so as to have markets where she could place her goods. And I am convinced that at this time, at any rate, the influence of Helfferich was cast in the scale in favour of peace.
Finally, I was told that on the next day, which was Monday, May first, I was to lunch with the Emperor. Grew was invited to accompany me, and the Chancellor said that he would call for me about an hour before the time set for lunch as the Emperor desired to have a talk with me before lunch. In the afternoon an extract from the log of a German submarine commander was sent to me in which the submarine commander had stated that he had sighted a vessel which he could easily have torpedoed, but as the vessel was one hundred and twenty miles from land, he had not done so because the crew might not be able from that distance to reach a harbour. When the Chancellor called for me the following morning, he asked me if I had read this extract from the submarine officer's log, and noted how he had refrained from torpedoing a boat one hundred and twenty miles from land. I told the Chancellor that I had read the extract, but that I had also read in the newspaper that very morning that a s.h.i.+p had been torpedoed in stormy weather at exactly the same distance from land and the crew compelled to seek safety in the s.h.i.+p's boats; that, anyway, ”one swallow did not make a summer,” and that reports were continually being received of boats being torpedoed at great distances from land.
We then got in the motor and motored to the chateau about a mile off, where the Kaiser resided. We got out of the motor before going into the courtyard of the chateau, and immediately I was taken by the Chancellor into a garden on the gently sloping hillside below the chateau. Here the Emperor, dressed in uniform, was walking.