The Oregon daily journal., May 28, 1916, Page 41, Image 41

WAR ZONE OBSERVATIONS
FRENCH ARMY SHOWS ITS MORALE
CURATE IS ACCORDED RARE HONOR
CLOSE VIEW OF THE LORRAINE BATTLEFIELDS
WHERE GREAT HISTORIC STRUGGLE BETWEEN
Battle of Nancy Was Fought and Won in the Darkness as
Far as Outside World Was Concerned A Victory That
Made the Battle of the Marne Possible,
FRANK H. SIMONDS VISITS NANCY AND
ENVIRONS WHERE HISTORY WAS MADE
i ivWK. Ill y s ' : )
FRENCH
AND
GERMAN
ARMIES
WA
WAGED
Frank H. Simonds.
(Copyright. 1016, by the Tribune Asmdelstion.)
IN THE third week of August, 1914. a
French army crossed the frontier of
Alsace-Lorraine and entered the
Promised Land,' toward which all
Frenchmen had looked In hope arid
sadness for forty-four years. The
long-forgotten communique of that
erly period of the war report
ed success after success, until at
last It -was announced that the
victorious French armies had reached
fcarrebourg and Morhange, and were
astride the Strassburg-Metz railroad.
And then Berlin took up the- cry, and
France and the world learned of a
great German victory and of the de
feat and rout of the Invading army.
Even Paris conceded that the retreat,
had begun, and the 'army of libera
tion" was crowded bark beyond the
frontier and far within French terri
tcry. Then the curtain of the censorship
fell, and the world turned to the west
ward to watch the terrible battle for
Paris. In tlie agony and glory of the
Marne the struggle along the Moselle
was iforgotten; the battle of Nancy, of
Lorraine, was fought and won in the
darknessand when the safety of Paris
was assured the world looked toward
the Aisne, and then toward I'landers. i
Ko it came about that one of the great-
eta battles of the whole war, one or
the most important of the French vic
tories, the succeus that made the Marne
possible, the rally and stand of the
French armies about Nancy, escaped
the fame It earned. Only in legend. In
the romance of the kaiser with his
cavalry waiting on the hills to enter
the Lorraine capital, did the battle live.
A Much-Studied Battlefield.
When I went to France one of the
hopes I had cherished was that 1 might
be permitted to visit this battlefie d.
to see the ground on which a great
Datue had been rought that was still
unknown country, Jn the main, fur
those who havl written on the war.
The Larraine field was the field on
which France and Germany had planned
for a generation to fight. Had the
Germans respected the neutrality of
Belgium. It Is by Nancy, by the gap
tween the Vosges and the hills ofthe
Meuse, that they must have broken
Into France. The Marne was a battle
field which was reached by chance and
fftuirhl ....... I... V. ..-..., I V, . . .........
-wwf,..,. " ' 1 1 hjj iibmiu, 1 ' 11 L C V CI J 1UU L
of the Lorraine country had been stud
led for the f Is lit long years in advance.
Here war followed the natural course,
followed the plans of the general staff
prepared years in advance. Indeed. I
naa treasured over years a plan of the
battle of Nanev. contained in n French
Dcok written years ago, which might
tiivo aa nia ufcLn i a iur x History ui
what happened, as it was written as a
prophecy of what was to come.
When the great general staff was
pleased to grant my request to see the
battlefield of Nancy I was advised to
travel by train to that town, accom
panied by an officer from the general
siaii, anu liuormen mat i snouid mere
meet an officer of the garrison, who
would conduct ir.o to all the points of
interest and explain in detail the vari
ous phases of th j conflict. Thus it fell
it, and I have to thank Commandant
.(tout for th cmirtenv rnd rnniilra
Ion which made this excursion suc-
The Old and the New Xdnes.
In peace time one goes from Paris to
about that from New York to Boston
iv aunnri a n. in war u is fiirrr-
ere are compensations. Think of the
ew 1 orK-liOBlon trio as ririmrlne- vin
uaiwe, oi uaiue one id mucs away,
atb. the guns booming in the distance
ua i ne aeromanes ana noons in run
lew. ThinW jinn 0f this same trip,
vhich fromTiartford to Worcester fol
ows the line of a battle not yet two
ci m rl4 ViattU tho, V, lAft l
"'..ii i'uvl una icil A La
races In ruined villag.es, in shattered
ouses. un euner sine or in a rn mm
rack the graves descend to meet the
ance and the retreat by the crosses
lllUll 1111 IIIQ IIOIUB. lit) IfUI Uf!llH II HI
ouch the. railroad and extend to the
ear of the houses in the little towns
re filled with graves. Each enclosure
as oeen rougni ror at tne point or the
ayonet and every garden wall recalls
All thla was two years ago, but there
today also. East of Bar-le-Duc
m mmn I nH 1'iir nv I rT-mnn snA i
rjh nnw. Frnm HVirt Camn rl.fl T?rk
tains above St. Mlhlel German guns
weep the railroad near Commercy, and
ns has to (urn south by a long detour,
If one went to Boston by Fltchburg,
KVA Ml VI LU IUIUUKLI 1 11 0 UU LI 11 LI V U 1
ean a Arc ana return dv toui. whose
nui one comes to iancy Dy nignt
tare ra Germans anil a. nmnn ran
Which not so long ago sent a shell
to tne town ana removea a wnoie
ty block beside the railroad station.
Is the sight of this ruin as you en-
the town which reminds you that
her reminders.
entries of the Air,
As we ate our dinner in the cafe
ere disturbed by a strange and cu
ous humming sound. Going into the
11 a r aaw n n lAroniRnA. or rarncr
lights, red and green, like those of a
lip. , It was the first of several, the
ght patrol, rising slowly and stead-
and then sweeping off in a wide
ere the sentries of the air which
en do sentry-go In the air as well as
the earth about the capital of Lor
ine. Then the searchlights- on the
II LSEKOhia fcW ....... a IJ .I. Ill II B 111D 1 1 U 1 1
It' lUHain ncv dciiiiq IIIJIBICI IUUO 1 C
war.
tne next morning t woae witn tne
nse oi ourm or jmy. tsangi .Bang
I had never beard. .Still drowsy. I
nea oven ine r roiica winaows ana
i kv Mil auwii ui i ii n Biiiifl i r 1 imm i
iiwiu uuumea vr iiivi n iiicii, women
A itifniAn hjitl Ivfi flTi4nN . e ti
uijc ui i" luu vsiuiia me
tel. 6till the Incessant barkln of
By
guns, with the occasional boom of
something more Impressive. With dif
ficulty I grasped the fact. I was in
the midst of a Taube raid. Somewhere
over my head, invisible to me because
of. the walls of my hotel, a German
aeroplane was flying and all the anti
air craft guns were shooting at It. Was
it carrying bombs? Should I present
ly see or feel the destruction follow
ing the descent of these?
Put the Taube turned away, the
guns fired less and less frequently, the
people in the streets drifted away, the
children to school, the men to work,
the women to wait. It was Just a de
tail In their lives, as famljiar as the
Incoming steamer to the commuters on
the North River ferryboats. Home -portion
of war has been the day's history
of Naney for nearly two years now.
The children do not carry gas masks to
school with them as they d ,at Pont-a-Mousson,
a dozen miles to the north,
but women and children have been
killed by German shells, by bombs
brought by Zeppelins and by aero
planes. There ls always excitement
of sorts In the district of Nancy.
Where German Violence Broke.
After breakfast broken by the return
of the aeroplanes we had seen depart
ing the night before for the pa' "1 we
enterea our carH and set out .or the
front, for the near-tront, lor me ime
a lew nines oeninu ine preseiu
trendies, where Nancy was sav.d but
two years ago. Our route lay north
along the valley of the Meurthe, a
smiling, broad valley, marching north
and south and meeting in a few miles
that of the -Moselle coming east. It
was easy to believe that one was rid
ing through the valley of the Susque
hanna, with spring and peace in the
air. Toward the east a wall of hills,
shut out the view. This was the shoul
der of the Grand Couronne, tin wall
against which tlerman violence burst
and broke in September, 1914.
Presently we came to a long stretch
of rrad walled in on the river side by
brown canvas, exactly the sort 'Jf thing
that Is used at football games to Bhut
out the non-paying public. But It had
another purpose here. We were within
the vision of the Germans, across the
river, on the heights, behind the for
est, which outlined itself at the sky
line; there were the kaiser'e troops
and that forest was the Bois-Ie-Pretre,
the familiar incident in so many com
muniques since the war began. Thanks
to the canvas. It was possible for the
French to move troops along this road
without Inviting German shells. Yet it
was impossible to derive any large
feeling of security from a canvas wall.
which alone interposed between you
and German heavy artillery.
We passed through several villages
and each was' crowded with troops;
cavalry, infantry, all the branches
were represented; it was still early
and the soldiers were just beginning
their day's work; war is so completely
a business here. Transport wagons
marched along the' roads; companies
of soldier filed by. Intersperse 1 with
the soldiers were the civilians, the
women and children, for none ot the
villages Is evacuated. Not even the
occasional boom of a gun far off
could give to this thing the character
of real war. It recalled the 3ays of
my soldiering In the militia camp at
Framingham in Massachusetts. It
was simply Impossible to believe that
it was real. Even the faces oi thj
soldiers were smiling. There was no
such sense of terribleness, of ?train
and weariness, as I later found about
Verdun. The Lorraine front isv now
inactive, tranquil; it has been quiet so
long that men have forgotten all the
carnage and horror of the earlier time.
"War Do Not Trespass."
We turned out of the valley and
climbed abruptly up the hillside. In
a moment we came into the center of a
tiny village and loked Into a row of
houses whose roofs had been swept off
by shell fire. Here and there a wholo
house was gone; next door the house
waa undisturbed and the women ana
children looked out of the doors,. The
village was Bte. Genevieve, and we
were at the extreme front of the
French in August, and against this
Jiill burst the flood of German inva
sion. Leaving the car, we walked out
of the village, and at the end of a
street a sign warned the waj-farer not
to enter the fields for which we were
bound: "War Do Not Trespass." Thls
was the burden of the warning.
Once beyond this sign we came out
suddenly upon an open plateau, upon
trenches. Northward the' slope de
scended to a valley at our feet. It
was cut and seamed by trenches, and
beyond the trenches stood the posts
that carried the barbed wire entangle
ments. Here and there, amidnt the
trenches, ther were graves. I went
down to the barbed wire entanglements
and examined them curiously. They at
least were real. Once thousands of
men had come out of the little woods
a quarter of a mile below; they had
come on in that famous massed at
tack, they had come on in the face of
machine guns and "seventy-fives.
They had just reached the wires, which
marked high water.. In the wools be
low, the Bols-de-Facq, in the fields by
the river, 4000 Germans had been
buried.
Looking out from the trenchss, the
whole country unfolded. Northward
the little village of Atton slept under
the steep elope of Cote-de-Mousson, a
round pinnacle crowned with an an
cient chateau. From the hill the Ger
man artillery had owept the ground
where I stood. Below the hill to the
west was Pont-a-Mousson, the city of
150 bombardments, Svhich the Germans
took when they came south and lost
later. Above it was the Boise-le
Pretre, In which guns were now boom
ing occasionally. Far to the north was
another hill, just visible, and its slope
toward us was cut and seamed with
yellow slashes; those were the French
trenches, then of the second or third
line; bftyond there was still another
hill; it. was slightly blurred in the
hase, but it was not over five miles
away, and It was occupied by the Ger
mans. From the slope above m- on a
clear day It is possible to seo Heta.
bo near are French and German lines
to the old frontier.
rorest of th Advance Guard,
Straight across the river to th west
of us was another wood, with a giort-
I ous ,najme, ths Forest of the. Advance
-Piiotogrpli copyriEht. 1916. by the Interntionl Film Serrlce.
Above, left to right Turkish lads, whose fathers fell in battle "as officers in the sultan's army, be
ing trained in a military school at Moda, Asia Minor; Peace palace at The Hague that may serve as
a meeting place where the belligerents can talk peace, when the time comes.
Below, left to right British artillerymen in the Balkans watching a battle between belligerent air
craft; British Tommies who are not too much injured to smoke if a fair nurse is at hand to hold a
match to their cigarettes.
Guard. It swept to the sonth of us.
In that wood the Germans had also
planted their guns on the day of battle.
They had swept the trenches where I
stood from three 6ides. Plainly, it
had been a warm corner. But the
French had held on. Their commander
had received a verbal order to retreat.
He insisted that it should be rut in
writing, and this took time. The order
came. It had to tie obeyed, but he
obeyed slowly. Reluctantly the men
ft the trenches they had held sr long
They slipped southward along the road
by which we had just come. But sud
denly their rear guards discovered the
Germans' were also retreating. So the
French came back, and the line of Bte.
Genevieve was held, the northern door
to Nancy was not forced.
Looking down again, it was not dim
cult to reconstitute that German as-
sault, made at night. The thing was
so simple the civilan could grasp it. i
A road ran through the valley, and :
along it the Gemiana had formed; the 1
slope they had to advance up was 1 elw !"ul1 luu"lr)f. IU""'
gentle, far more gradual than that of!hl!ls- mostly without woods, bare in
San Juan. They had been picked the spring, which had not yet come to
troops ejected for a forlorn hope, and ' turn tnem Ereen. In the foreground
thev had come back four times. The,"" 4"L cinuiaivn
next momlnir the whole forest nad : drawn between the Frenchmen 46 years
been filled with dead and dying. Not I
less than a division 20,000 men had i
rrri th tprrihi. vnt-ro Vn ihpr. I
was a strange sense of emptiness in '
the country; war had come and gone,
left its graves, its trenches, its barbed
wire entanglements; but these were a'l
disappearing already. On this 'eauti-
ful spring morning it was impossible
to feel the reality of what hal hap
pened here, what was happening now,
in some measure, five miles or more to
the north. Nature 1 certainly the
greatest of ail pacifists; she will not
perm-it the signs of war to endure nor
the mind to believe that war itself
has existed and exists.
The Promised Land.
From Ste. Genevieve we went to the
Grant Mont d'Amance, the moat fa
mous point In all the Lorraine front.
the southeast corner of the Grand Cou
ronne, as Ste. Genevieve is the north
ern. Jlere, from a hill some 130J fee:
high, one looks eastward in'.o the
Promised Lnd of France into Ger
man Lorraine. In the early i!ays of
August the great French invasion
resting one Lank uno'n this hill, the!
other upon the distan Vosges. had
stepped over the frontier. Onu could
trace its route to the dlstan: hills
among which it had found disasrer. In
th4se hills the Germans had hidden
their heavy guns, and the French, com
ing under their fire without warning,
unsupported by heavy artillery, which
was lacking to them, had broken. Then
the German invasion had rolled back.
You could follow the route. In the
foreground the little Seille river could
ne aiscernea; it marked the old front
ier. Across this bad come the defeated
troops. They had swarmed down the
low, bare hills; tly had crossed and
vanished in the woods Just at my feet;
these woods were the Forest of Cham
penoux. Into this forest the Gerajans
had followed by the thousands; they
were astride the main road to Nancy
wnicn roned wnite and straight at my
feet. But In the woods the French ral
lied. . For day there was fought in
this stretch of trees one of the most
terrible of battles.
As I stood on ths Grand Mont I
faced almost due east. In front of me
and to the south extended the forest.
Exactly at my feet the forest reached
up the hlirand there was a little clus -
ter of buildings about a fountain. All
was In rulrje, and here, exactly here,
was the High water mark of th Ger
man advance. They had occupied the
ruins for a few moments and then bad
i v . i -
Xvv;'- ; -ji vV':rvv
been driven out. Elsewhere they had
never emerged from the woods; they
had approached the western shore, but
the French had met them with machine
guns and "Seventy-fives." The brown
woods at my feet were nothing but a
vast cemetery; thousands of French
and German soldiers slept there.
Villages Destroyed.
In their turn the Germans had gone
back. Now, in the same woods, a
French battery was shelling the Ger
mans on the other side of the Seille.
Under the glass I studied the little
villages unfolding as on a map; they
were all destroyed, but it was Impossi
ble to recognize this. Some were
Fiench, 6ome. German; you could fol
low the line, but there were no
trenches; behind them French shells
were bursting occasionally and black
smoKe rose JUSi aoove me ground.
'nousanas or men raced each otner
le9 tnan lour miles rrom wnere l
luou. DUl an mat mere was to oe ae-
tectea were tne sneu Dursts; otnerwise
before the frontier but of natural
epa.aLon m was none. xie nau
c tf a part of France, that was all.
an'j one loked "Pn wnat h,ad ben
and was Btill a bleeding wound.
The Kaiser Waited.
asked the French commandant
about the various descriptions made
by those who have written about the
war. They have described the German
attack as mounting the elope of the
Grand Mont where w stood. He took
me to the edge and pointed down. It
was a cliff almost as steep as the
Palisades. "C'est une blague," he
smiled. "Just a story ." The Germans
( had not charged here, but in the forest
below, where the Nancy road passes
through and enters the valley cf the
Amezeule. They had not tried to
carry but to turn the Grand Mont
More than 200,000 men had fought for
days in the valley below. I asked him
about the legend of the kaiser, sitting
on a hill, waiting In white uniform
with his famous escort, waiting until
the road was clear for his triumphal
entrance into the capital ot Lorraine.
He laughed. I might choose my hill.
! lf the emperor had done this thins the
j MU waa "over there," but had he'
They are h.-.rd on legends at, the front,
and the tales that delight Paris die
easily on the frontiers of war,
But since I had asked so much about
the fighting my commandant promised
to take me In the afternoon to the
point where the struggle had been
fiercest, still further to the south
where all the hills break down and
there is a natural gateway from r
many into France, th beginning of
the famous Charmea Gap, through
which the" German road to Paris from
the east ran, and still runs. ; Leaving
Nancy behind, us, and ascending the
Meurthe valley-on the eastern bank.
turning out of 'it before St Nicholas
du Port, we came presently to the
most completely war swept fields that
I have ever seen. On a perfectly level
plain the little town of Haraucourt
fataadg in sombre ruins. Its houses are
nothing but ashes and rubble. Go out
of the village toward the east!, and
you enter nelds pockmarked by shell
fire. For several miles you can walk
from shell hole to shell hole. The
whole countrj is a patchwork of these
l sheU holes. At every few rods a new
line of old trenches approaches the
road and wanders away again. Barbed
wrle entanglements run up and down
the gently sloping- hillsides.
Presently we cams out upon' a per-
fectly level field. It was simply torn
by shell fire. Old half filled trenches
wandered aimlessly about, and beyond,
under a gentle slope, the little village
of Courbessaux stood In ruins. The
commandent called my attention to a
bit of woods in front.
"The Germans had their machine
guna there,' said he. "We didn't. tnow
it, and a French brigade charged across
this field. It started at 8:15, and at
8:30 it had lost more than 3000 out
of 6000. Then the Germans camo out
of the woods in their turn, and our
artillery, back at Haraucourt, caught
them, and they lost 3500 men in a
quarter of an hour." Along the road
side were innumerable graves. -We
looked at one. It wa marked: "Here
179 French." Twenty feet distant was
another; it was marked: "Hero 196
Germans." In the field where we stood
I was told some 10,000 men are turied.
They were buried hurriedly, and even
now when it rains arms and legs are
exposed.
Two years had passed, almost two
years, since this field had been fought
for. The Germans had taken it. They
had approached Haraucourt, but had
not passed it. This was th center and
the most vital point in the Lo.-raine
battle. What Foch's troops had done
about La Fere Champenoise th se of
Castlenau nad done here. The German
wave had been broken, but at what
cost? And r.ow, after so-many mcnths,
the desolation of war remained. But
yet it was not to endure. Beside these
very graves an old peasant was plow
ing, guiding his plow and his horses
carefully among th tombs. Four miles
away more trenches faced each other
land the battle went on audibly, but
behind this line, in this very field
where so many had died, life was be
ginning.
The Most Wrecked Town of Francs.
Later we drove south, passing with'
in the lines the Germans had bvn in
their great advance we iraveled
through Luneville, which they had
taken and lift unharmed, save as shell
fire had wrecked an eastern suburb.
We visited Gerbeviller, where n an
excess of rage the Germans had turned
every structure in the town. have
never seen such a headquarters of
desolation. Everything that had a
shape, that had a semblance of beauty
or of use, lies in complete ruin de
tached houses, a chateau, the blocks
in the village, all in ashes. Save for
Sermalze, Gerbeviller is the moat com
pletely wrecked tow-n in Franco.
You enter the village over a little
bridge across the tiny Mortagne; Here
some French soldiers made a stand and
held off the German advance for some
hours. There was no other battle at
Gerbeviller, but for this defenie the
town died. Never was death so com
plete, -s Incendiary material was plafed
in every house, and all that thorough
ness could do to make the destruction
icomplete was done. Gerbevilitr is
dead; a few women and children live
amidst its ashes; there ls a wooderii
barrack ty the bridge with a post office
and the inevitable postcards, tmt only
on postcards, picture postcards, does
the town live. It will be a place of
pilgrimage when peace comes.
From Gerbeviller we went by Bayon
to the Plateau of Saffais, the ridge
between the Meurthe and the Moselle
where the defeated army of Castelnau
mads its last and' successful staau. The
French line came south from Ste Gen
evieve, where we had been In the morn
ing, through the Grand Mont, across
ths plain by. Haraucourt and : Corbes
saux, then crossed the MeurtLe ' by
DombasUx and - stood on the neighti
from Kossleres south. - Having taken
Luneville, the Germans attempted to
tw.i ' . -,;-; ;- . ,
S
Morale of - French Army Is Shown by
Conversation at Meal at Battlefront
Topics Discussed at Dinner 100 Feet Underground Range From
Classics to Game of Baseball in America.
Ry William Philip Simms.
Verdun, in a Bomb-Proof Shelter.
P.) Outside the bombardment ls
going on.
The Germans are throwing some 3S0
shells a day Into the city, most of the
shells hitting in the business and res
idential districts, an average of one
shell every four minutes.
Some of the shells are Incendiary,
and the town is on fire at six or seven
different points.
The civil population gone, only a few
cats and does are left behind, to re
mind one that only a few weeks ago
men and women and children sat by
their firesides in this town and car-
rcSsed their pets.
It ls lunch time. In the steam-heat
ed corridors, 100 feet from the surface,
the defenders of Verdun, off duty, are
eating their noonday meal. ,
If you know anything about farms
anf harvest time, you have seen a sim
ilar sight on many an occasion.
There are long tables, with scores of
men on either side, eating and talking
contentedly. There ls no excitement,
only everybody seems Interested.
At the table of the general some 20
guests sit down.
Dinner Is Good One.
As ls the French custom, he nits at
one side, instead of at the end, and the
oldest visitor sits at his right. The
next oldest ls at his left. Opposite
him is his second in command.
My seat ls by this officer. On my
right Is a major. The table cloth is
spotless; the service faultless, wine
and all.
No better dinner could be had any
where than this, served by the
artillery canteen, though It was part
of the army commissary.
Our bread was warm and delicious
smelling fresh from the citadel's un
derground bakery.
The lights we ate by, the water we
drank, were from citadel plants out of
harm's way and independent of the
city's supply.
The ventilation was perfect. Be
tween the bricked arches and the rock,
and-earth through which the tunnels
were bored are spaces, .and the spaces
are connected with the outside, worked
by chimneys.
I have seen many a theatre r
church less well aired.
On all sides there was the hum of
voices. I listened.
' Conversation Interesting.
It would be curious to hear what
the defenders of Verdun were talking
about while the Germans hurled them
selves against the city; while the town
burned; while shells fell about them.
cross the Meurthe coming out of the
forest of Vltrimont,
A Boated Army rinds Itself.
Standing on the plateau of Saffais
and facing east, the whole country
unfolded again, as it did at the Grand
Mont. The face of the plateau is
seamed with trenches. They follow the
slopes, and the village of Saffais
stands out like a promontory. On
this ridge the French had massed 300
cartnon. Their army had come back
in ruins, and to steady it they had
been compelled to draw troops from
Alsace. Mulbausen was sacrificed to
save Nancy. Behind these "crests on
which we stood a beaten army, almost
routed, had in three days found Itself
and returned to the charge.
In the shadow of the dusk I looked
across the Meurthe into the brown
mass of the forest of Vltrimont.
Through this had come the victorious
Germans. They had debouched from
the wood; they had approached the
river, hidden under the slope, but
swept by the hell of this artillery
storm, they had broken. But few had
lived to pass the river; none had
mounted the slopes. There were al
most no graves along these trenches.
Afterward the Germans had In turn
yielded to pressure from the south
and gone back. Before the battle of
the Marne' began the German wave of
invasion had been stopped here In the
Jast days of August. A second terri
fic drive, coincident with the Marne,
had likewise failed. Then the Ger
man had rone back U the frontier.
The old boundary line of Bismarck is
now In many Instances an actual 'line
of fire, and nowhere on this front are
"Our school system Is very defective
in that respect," a French captain was
saying to his neighbor. "Our children
are not taught the languages properly.
"They should be givn English, Ital
ian and other languages while still
young, by native teachers, who know
no French, and who, always speak to
the children in the language being
taught . .
This captain had distinguished him
self In the fighting around Verdun H
was shortly to Have the table to start
on a perilous mission.
"Tell tin-," said the major at my
rlRht. "is the Little Church Around the
Corne- t ill standing? I was best man
at a wedding there once. Great town,
New York!"
The general commanding Verdun was
now speaking earnestly to the oldeRt
visitor, the guest of honor. He was
saying:
"No. I'm not from the Midi; I come
from the department of Pas-del-Calais.
So I am very fond of shrimps the lit
tle rose-colored ones, fresh from the
sea. We have them very fine up my
way. . . ."
Said the colonel on my left:
BassbaU Talk Zs Heard.
"I can't help thinking baseball ought
to take on in France very easily. If
only it had a start. I used to be as
big a fan as anybody when I was In
the states. It is really a great game,
more spectacular than any I
know. ..." ,
While he talked baseball I caught
drifts of conversation across the ta
ble. One officer, a captain, was dis
cussing the classics of university days
Homer, Caesar, the Iliad.
When lunch wag finished, and we
found ourselves outside, we discovered
a shell had struck the corner of a lit
tle brick building in which a soldier
was roasting fragrant smelling coffee.
"Hurt you?" ome one asked.
He laughed.
"Not a bit. Little piece of shell
went through the bottom of my pants
there i he showed a rngged bole near
the turncd-up part of the left leg),
and a box of matches was set on fire
in my pocket.
"That and the hole you see In the
wall there is the extent of the dam
age." "
He went on roasting his coffee.
One's Impression, after such an ex
perience, ls that the only way to hurt
wha military writers call, the "mor
ale" of an army is to let it alone, not
to fight, especially lf that army ls of
the French kind, which seems gayer
and less inclined to gloom the more It
has to do In the way of scrapping.
tbe Germans more than three or four
miles wunin r rencn territory,
If you snouid look at ths map of
the whole imaginary battle of Nancy
drawn by Colonel Boucher to illus
trate his book, published before 1910,
a book describing the problem of the
defense of the eastern frontier, you
will find the lines on which the
French stood at Sacais indicated ex
actly. Colonel Boucher had not dreamed
this battle, but for a generation the
French general staff had planned it
Here they had expected to meet the
German thrust. When the Germans
decided to go by Belgium they had In
turn taken the offensive, but, having
failed, they had fought their long
planned battle.
A City Waiting,
Out of all the region of war, of wat
today ana war yesteraay, one goes
back to Nancy, to Its busy streets.
its crowds of people returning from
their day's work. War is less than
15 miles away, but Nancy ls as calm
as London is nervous. Its bakers
still make macaroons; even Taube
raids do not excuse the children from
punctual attendance at school. Nancy
is calm with the calmness of all
France, but with Just a touch ,of
something more than calmness, which
48 years of living by an open fron
tier brings. Twenty-one months ago
it was tne gage of battle, and half a
minion men rougni ror it; a new
German drive may approach it at
ny time. Out toward the old fron
tier there is still a German gun, hid
den in the forest of Bezange. which
has turned one block to ashes and
may fire again at any hour. . Zeppe
lins have come and gone, leaving dead
NOW RARELY GIVEN
Victoria Cross Given Chap
lain; First to Receive It"
Since 1879.
Hy Frederlclc rainier.
British Headquarters, France (I,
S.) The Victoria Cross is rarely given
even In this war of countless deed'
of bravery. The Hev. Noel Mellish, a
London curate, is tlie first chaplain
in the British army to receive 'the
cross since the second Afghan war of
1879. .
On the occasion of the presentation''
the units of the famous fighting array,"
were drawn up In division forming
a hollow square on the spring green of
an open field. In the center stood
Mr. Melllsh with another officer, Who,
received the distinguished service
order. In the front line stood Other
officers who were to receive lesser
decorations.
Before pinning the ribbon on MeN; -
llsh's breast the general read a brief;'
account of the deed of gallantry that,
won him the honor. When the clergy-
man came forward those witnessing,
the ceremony were agreeably lm-
pressed with an extremely slender and'
boyish figure scarcely looking his 30'
years, and Indeed, looklrtg more
gentle and reserved man of peace
than a fighting parson.
The general told how again and .
again, fighting at St. Kloi under mm
murderous fire, Melllsh had risked hl.
life to attend the wounded and bring'
them to places of safety. Then there-"
was a call of three cheers from the, v
troops and those were given with a
mighty roar. '
As already told in dispatches. See
ond Lieuter.ant Arnold Whltrtdge,'
Yale 1914. son of F. W. Whltrtdge of .
New York, was among those receiving-
tne military cross for gallantry ui
continuing to direct the fire of his
battery in the face of some of the,
hottest fighting recently experienced.'
and with the enemy trenches but a. "
lew hundred yards away.
Whltrtdge ls one of a group of1
young American college men who
Joined the British artillery early ln
ine war.
women and children behind them, bat '
Nancy goes on with today. ;
And tomorrow? In the hearts of all v
ine peopie or mis Deautirui city there
Is a single and a simple faith. Nancy
turns her face toward the ancient '
frontier; she looks hopefully out upon
beyond to the promised land. And the "
people say to you, if you ask them
about war and about ' peace, as one
of them said to me; "Peace will.
come, but not until we have our"
ancient frontier, not until we have
C....L.... 1 ' - , - I . - M
a long-time, ls it not so?" -
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