Lest We Forget: World War Stories

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONToC

The controller, as he is called on the Siberian railroad, was passing through the cars to see that every passenger had a ticket. He did not notice the mooshik, which is what the Russian peasant is called in his own language, hiding under one of the car seats with a large bundle in front of him; or if he saw him, he passed on without seeming to have done so.

The mooshik had given the brakeman a small sum of money, about fifty cents in our currency, to let him hide there whenever the controller came around, and in this way ride from Petrograd, or Petersburg as the Bolsheviki renamed it after the revolution, to Vladivostok, a distance of about four thousand miles.

Now this mooshik did not need to go to Vladivostok; but his Russian nature made him go, go somewhere, it made little difference where. He had been the year before to Jerusalem, but this was for religious reasons, and now he must go again for no reason except that from within came the impulse to travel, an impulse too strong to be denied. The Russian government did not attempt to discourage the people from traveling, but actually made it easier by fixing fares for long distances at very small amounts. This traveler did not have even that small amount, but he found it easy with a smaller one to bribe his way in Russia.

There is a society in Russia, whose members pledge themselves never to remain more than three days in any one place; and it is said that wealthy Russians, after their children have grown up, will often divide their property and with staff in hand spend the remainder of their lives in traveling from one holy place to another.

A dream, a vision, leads the wealthy man to do this, and perhaps this is true also of the mooshik; but it is as likely that he goes because of the reality, the real people, the real village, the real home that he leaves behind. He is uneducated, for only seven out of every hundred can read and write in Russia. He lives in a shed as filthy and bad smelling as a pig-pen, or rather he starves there, starves both for food and for comfort. Black bread, potatoes, and sometimes cabbage, make up his "balanced diet." He cannot afford money for meat, eggs, milk, butter, sugar, or any of the many other ordinary foods of the American home, nor for the light of lamp or candle.

It is not strange that such mooshiki constantly move on and have no love for their native place, and have never established an "Old Home Day." It is not so strange that their former Tsar, Peter the Great, said, "One can treat other European people as human beings, but I have to do with cattle." Are they not treated like cattle?

But it is strange that a Russian writer can say of these people, and say it with truth, "A Russian may steal and drink and cheat until it is almost impossible to live with him; and yet, in spite of it all, you feel a charm in him that draws you to him, and that there is something more in him, some good or promise of good, that raises him above the level of all other races you have ever met." It is strange that he is so religious, so pitying of others, and so critical of himself; that he has so many noble visions and dreams for which he is ready and willing to die.

Uneducated, with little or no respect for truth or honesty in their own dealings, with no experience in government, having always been robbed by the aristocracy, and now eager and willing in turn to rob them, but with dreams of a society of men where all crime and hardship and unnecessary suffering are abolished, where there are no grafters, no self-seekers, no wrong-doers, no conflict, no robbery, no war—these Russian mooshiki, workmen, soldiers, and sailors, as a result of a revolution, found themselves attempting to govern a nation nearly twice as large in population as the United States. There are indeed two problems before the world, to make the world safe for democracy, and to make democracy safe for the world.

History tells the story of many revolutions. The story of the American Revolution, which was an uprising of the American colonies against the mother country, and that of the French Revolution, in which the laborers and peasants and some others rose against the extravagant and autocratic rulers of France, are well known to Americans.

When the real character and aims of the German autocracy were made plain to the world, all free people hoped for and expected the World War to end in a revolution of the German people. But the mass of the German people are kept ignorant of what the rest of the world feels and thinks about them, and have so long been trained to unquestioning obedience that a German revolution can come, if ever, only after some unexpected and appalling German defeat.

It has been said that if, at the time the Russian revolution broke out, a few regiments of trained veteran soldiers had been in Petrograd, the revolution would have been put down by these soldiers, to whom obedience to commands of superiors had become second nature. Those on guard in the city were newly-formed regiments recently trained and taken into the service.

The Russian revolution of March 9-13, 1917, overthrew Tsar Nicholas and the Romanoff dynasty. The Tsar has since been shot, and his son and heir has died—from exposure, it was reported. When Tsar Nicholas succeeded his father on the throne of Russia, the Russian people rejoiced and felt certain better days were at hand, and that they should love and loyally support the new Tsar. He had his opportunity and he threw it aside. Instead of granting larger liberty and a greater part in the government to the common people when they petitioned for it, he replied, "Let it be known that I shall guard the autocracy as firmly as did my father." His father was as autocratic as the German Kaiser.

Tsar Nicholas was weak and fickle. He made promises when in trouble and refused to keep his promises when trouble seemed avoided. The Russian people were much disappointed in him, and every year their disappointment grew. Some dreadful massacres of workers at Jaroslav, of peasants in Kharkov, and of miners on the Lena changed their disappointment to hatred.

As the Tsar grew older he drew away from touch with the people, and lived in his palaces, leaving affairs of state to his ministers who were chosen from a small and selfish clique. They brought on the war with Japan, and its failure was due to them. When Russia was defeated, the people were on the brink of a revolution; but the Tsar promised them a constitution, and trouble was put off for a while. When the people were quiet again, he broke his word and did not give them a constitution. Instead, in every way possible, he lessened the power and freedom of the people, and took revenge upon those who had caused the trouble by having them arrested and exiled, or executed.

He was very much under the influence of his wife. She was even weaker in many ways than he was and seemed to be in the power of an ignorant and wicked peasant who claimed to be a monk and was called Rasputin, the Black Monk. His influence over the weak Tsar and the weaker Tsarina so angered and disgusted some of the young Russian leaders that finally they had him secretly put to death—but not until he had helped to set every one against Tsar Nicholas and his wife.

For a while after the World War broke out, matters seemed to be going better. The people wanted the influence of Germany destroyed, and they expected the Russian army would soon be in Berlin. But when defeat and disaster overwhelmed the armies through the treachery of government officials, the people began to turn and to condemn Rasputin, the Tsarina, and the Tsar. It is said that Rasputin had one of his friends serving as physician to the Tsar and that he kept Nicholas drugged. It hardly seems possible that this can be true, but at any rate, the Tsar seemed to show no sense in his dealing with the situation. Instead of appointing better ministers, he appointed worse ones, suggested by Rasputin. Every one became disgusted and felt that only a revolution would save Russia. If it had not come from the people, it would have come from the nobles. It was looked forward to by all, but not until after the war.

There was suffering everywhere in the capital, Petrograd. Living was very high. It was difficult to get enough to eat or to get carried from place to place. Steam trains and trolleys were few and irregular. Though there was plenty of food in Russia, the railroads were in such bad shape that it did not reach the capital. But the Russians were fighting Germany, and no one expected or seemed to desire a revolution until after the war. When it did come, it was not planned, but seemed to come as if by accident.

Trouble began in the factory districts, in connection with bread riots. Stones were thrown, and some damage was done to property. Then crowds gathered and marched up and down the streets crying for bread, singing revolutionary songs, and carrying red flags.

The police were not able to handle the situation alone, and the soldiers were called upon. These were Cossacks and recently trained. There was bad feeling between the police and the Cossacks, and so the Cossacks were inclined to listen to the people and to become friendly with them.

On Sunday, March 11, the factory hands planned to make a great demonstration. The Tsar, learning of it, ordered notices to be posted warning the people that if they gathered, the soldiers were ordered to fire upon them. A few people did gather, and they were fired upon by machine guns and several were killed. The next morning, the officers who had ordered the soldiers to fire upon the people were killed by their own men. Then notices were posted by the government saying that unless the rioters went to work, they would immediately be sent to the front.

Other regiments revolted, and there was a battle between these and the few who remained loyal to the government. It was not a serious battle; but some were killed and the loyal regiments were defeated. Then soldiers and people ran through the streets crying, "Down with the Government."

The Tsar was at the front. Had he been in Petrograd, he might have saved the government by making some new promises; but, as it was, it soon fell.

As soon as the government was overthrown and the Tsar taken prisoner, those who had long sought for a revolution and had been forced to flee from Russia, came rushing back from Switzerland, Greece, France, and the United States. They were the real leaders after they arrived.

An American who was in Petrograd at the time gives the following account of the revolution:

No one knows, at the end of the fourth year of the World War, what the result of the Russian revolution will be. It has so far left Russia a prey to Germany, but Germany is showing such criminal greed and unfairness that she may find her easily gained plunder will be her destruction, like the drowning robber with his pockets filled with gold.

The Russian mooshik has a motto, or rather a philosophy, which is expressed by the word "nitchevo." This word has several meanings, one of which is "nothing." Just what the mooshik has in mind when he says "nitchevo" is illustrated by the following story.

When Bismarck was Prussian ambassador at the court of Tsar Alexander II, he was invited by the Tsar to take part in a great hunt, a dozen or more miles out of the capital.

Bismarck started with his own horses and sledge but soon met with a serious accident, and was obliged to call upon the Russian peasants, or mooshiki, to help him by providing a horse, sledge, and driver. Soon a peasant appeared with a very small and raw-boned horse attached to a sledge that seemed about ready to fall to pieces.

"That looks more like a rat than a horse," growled Bismarck, but he got into the sledge.

The peasant answered but one word, "Nitchevo."

Soon the horse was flying over the snow at a great rate of speed. There was no road to be seen and the peasant was heading for the woods. "Look out!" yelled Bismarck. "You will throw me out!" But the peasant replied, "Nitchevo."

In a moment they were among the trees and were turning, now this way, now that, to avoid hitting them. The raw-boned horse had not lessened his speed in the least. Suddenly there was a crash. The sledge had skidded and struck a tree. The peasant and his passenger were thrown out headlong.

Bismarck was a man of fiery temper. When he had picked himself up, he rushed up to the peasant, who was trying to stop his bleeding nose, and yelled, "I will kill you." The mooshik did not seem at all frightened or troubled, and answered simply, "Nitchevo." He drew a piece of rope from the sledge and began to tie the broken parts together.

"I shall be late at the hunt," yelled the angry Bismarck.

"Nitchevo," replied the peasant.

While the sledge was being repaired, Bismarck noticed a small piece of iron broken from the runner and lying on the snow. He picked it up and put it in his pocket.

The mooshik soon had the sledge ready for them, and this time he reached the hunting lodge with his distinguished passenger without further accident or delay.

The Tsar and his companions laughed heartily at the story, as related by Bismarck, and then explained to the Prussian that by nitchevo the mooshik meant that nothing mattered, that they would get where they had started for, if they did not let accidents or circumstances turn them from it.

When Bismarck returned to the capital he had a ring made from the piece of iron, and on the inside of it he had inscribed the word nitchevo.

The Russian mooshik of to-day is the same in character and belief as the mooshik that replied "Nitchevo" to Bismarck. To Germany, to the Kaiser, to the world, the Russians, amid all their sorrows and troubles, are saying "Nitchevo." They will reach their goal at length, for they look upon the dangers and delays as nothing.

The Russian word Bolsheviki, used to designate the revolutionary party which was in power in Russia in 1918, is composed of two words: bolsh, meaning many; and vik, meaning most. Bolsheviki means the greatest number, or the common people, as compared with the few, or the aristocracy. Bolshevik, with the accent on the first syllable, is the singular and means one of the greatest number. Bolsheviki, with accents on the second and on the last syllables, is the plural. Similarly mooshik means a peasant, and mooshiki means peasants.

A BALLAD OF FRENCH RIVERS[6]ToC

A river is the most human and companionable of all inanimate things. It has a life, a character, a voice of its own; and is as full of good-fellowship as a sugar-maple is of sap. It can talk in various tones, loud or low; and of many subjects, grave or gay.

Henry van Dyke.

FOOTNOTES:

BACILLI AND BULLETSToC

Sir William Osler, one of the greatest medical men in the world, told the soldiers in the English training camps that he wanted to help them to get a true knowledge of their foes. The officers had impressed the soldiers with the truth that it was always necessary to find out where their enemies were and how many they were. But Sir William Osier told them of other invisible enemies which they should most fear, and fight against. "While the bullets from your foes are to be dreaded," he said, "the bacilli are far more dangerous." Indeed in the wars of the world, the two have been as Saul and David,—the one slaying thousands, the other tens of thousands.

He continued, "I can never see a group of recruits marching to the depot without asking what percentage of these fine fellows will die from wounds, and what percentage will perish miserably from neglect of ordinary sanitary precautions. It is bitter enough to lose thousands of the best of our young men in a hideous war, but it adds terribly to the tragedy to think that more than one half of the losses may be due to preventable disease. Typhus fever, malaria, cholera, enteric, and dysentery have won more victories than powder and shot. Some of the diseases need no longer be dreaded. Typhus and malaria, which one hundred years ago routed a great English army in the expedition against Antwerp, are no longer formidable foes. But enough such foes remain, as we found by sad experience in South Africa. Of the 22,000 lives lost in that war—can you believe it?—the bullets accounted for only 8000, the bacilli for 14,000. In the long, hard campaign before us, more men will go into the field than ever before in the history of the Empire. Before it is too late, let us take every possible precaution to guard against a repetition of such disasters. I am here to warn you soldiers against enemies more subtle, more dangerous, and more fatal than the Germans, enemies against which no successful battle can be fought without your intelligent coöperation. So far the world has only seen one great war waged with the weapons of science against these foes. Our allies, the Japanese, went into the Russian campaign prepared as fully against bacilli as against bullets, with the result that the percentage of deaths from disease was the lowest that has ever been attained in a great war. Which lesson shall we learn? Which example shall we follow, Japan, or South Africa with its sad memories?

"We are not likely to have to fight three scourges, typhus, malaria, and cholera, though the possibility of the last has to be considered. But there remain dysentery, pneumonia, and enteric.

"Dysentery has been for centuries one of the most terrible of camp diseases, killing thousands, and, in its prolonged damage to health, it is one of the most fatal of foes to armies. So far as we know, it is conveyed by water, and only by carrying out strictly, under all circumstances, the directions about boiling water, can it be prevented. It is a disease which, even under the best of circumstances, cannot always be prevented; but with care there should never again be widespread outbreaks in camps themselves.

"Pneumonia is a much more difficult disease to prevent. Many of us, unfortunately, carry the germ with us. In these bright days all goes well in a holiday camp like this; but when the cold and the rain come, and the long marches, the resisting forces of the body are lowered, the enemy, always on the watch, overpowers the guards, rushes the defenses, and attacks the lungs. Be careful not to neglect coughs and colds. A man in good condition should be able to withstand the wettings and exposures that lower the system, but in a winter campaign, pneumonia causes a large amount of sickness and is one of the serious enemies of the soldier.

"Above all others one disease has proved most fatal in modern warfare—enteric, or typhoid fever. Over and over again it has killed thousands before they ever reached the fighting line. The United States troops had a terrible experience in the Spanish-American War. In six months, between June and November, among 107,973 officers and men in 92 volunteer regiments, 20,738, practically one fifth of the entire number, had typhoid fever, and 1580 died. The danger is chiefly from persons who have already had the disease and who carry the germs in their intestines, harmless to them, but capable of infecting barracks or camps. It was probably by flies and by dust carrying the germs that the bacilli were so fatal in South Africa. Take to heart these figures: there were 57,684 cases of typhoid fever, of which 19,454 were invalided, and 8022 died. More died from the bacilli of this disease than from the bullets of the Boers. Do let this terrible record impress upon you the importance of carrying out with religious care the sanitary regulations.

"One great advance in connection with typhoid fever has been made of late years, and of this I am come specially to ask you to take advantage. An attack of an infectious disease so alters the body that it is no longer susceptible to another attack of the same disease; once a person has had scarlet fever, smallpox, or chicken pox, he is not likely to have a second attack. He is immune. When bacilli make a successful entry into our bodies, they overcome the forces that naturally protect the system, and grow; but the body puts up a strong fight, all sorts of anti-bodies are formed in the blood, and if recovery takes place, the patient is safe for a few years at least against that disease.

"It was an Englishman, Jenner, who, in 1798, found that it was possible to produce this immunity by giving a person a mild attack of the disease, or of one very much like it. Against smallpox all of you have been vaccinated—a harmless, safe, and effective measure. Let me give you a war illustration. General Wood of the United States Army told me that, when he was at Santiago, reports came that in villages not far distant smallpox was raging, and the people were without help of any kind. He called for volunteers, all men who showed scars of satisfactory vaccination. Groups of these soldiers went into the villages, took care of the smallpox patients, cleaned up the houses, stayed there until the epidemic was over, and not one of them took the disease. Had not those men been vaccinated, at least 99 per cent of them would have taken smallpox.

"Now what I wish to ask you is to take advantage of the knowledge that the human body can be protected by vaccination against typhoid. Discovered through the researches of Sir Almroth Wright, this measure has been introduced successfully into our own regular army, into the armies of France, the United States, Japan, and Germany. I told you a few minutes ago about the great number of cases of typhoid fever in the volunteer troops in America during the Spanish-American War. That resulted largely from the wide prevalence of the disease in country districts, so that the camps became infected; and we did not then know the importance of the fly as a carrier. But in the regular army in the United States, where inoculation has been practiced now for several years, the number of cases has fallen from 3.53 per thousand men to practically nil. In a strength of 90,646 there were, in 1913, only three cases of typhoid fever. In France the typhoid rate among the unvaccinated was 168.44 per thousand, and among the vaccinated .18 per thousand. In India, where the disease has been very prevalent, the success of the measure has been remarkable.

"In the United States, and in France, and in some other countries, this vaccination against the disease is compulsory. It is not a serious matter; you may feel badly for twenty-four hours, and the place of inoculation will be tender, but I hope I have said enough to convince you that, in the interests of the cause, you should gladly put up with this temporary inconvenience. If the lessons of past experience count, any expeditionary force on the Continent has much more to fear from the bacillus of typhoid fever than from bullets and bayonets. Think again of South Africa, with its 57,000 cases of typhoid fever! With a million of men in the field, their efficiency will be increased one third if we can prevent typhoid. It can be prevented, it must be prevented; but meanwhile the decision is in your hands, and I know it will be in favor of your King and Country."

The soldiers in the American army are also inoculated against measles, scarlet fever, and the pneumonia germ.

Tetanus, or lockjaw, is one of the grave dangers faced by the wounded soldiers; for the germ of this disease has its home in the earth, and during a battle, soldiers with open wounds often lie for hours in the fields and trenches. Antitoxin treatment has reduced the death-rate.

Two new diseases have been produced by the World War,—spotted typhus and trench fever; both are carried by vermin. This was proved by soldiers who volunteered to permit experiments to be made upon them. By preventing and destroying the vermin, these diseases are being conquered.

THE TORCH OF VALOR[7]ToC

The torch of valor has been passed from one brave hand to another down the centuries, to be held to-day by the most valiant in the long line of heroes. Deeds have been done in Europe since August, 1914, which rival the most stirring feats sung by Homer or Virgil, by the minnesingers of Germany, by the troubadours of Provençe, or told in the Norse sagas or Celtic ballads. No exploit of Ajax or Achilles excels that of the Russian Cossack, wounded in eleven places and slaying as many foes. The trio that held the bridge against Lars Porsena and his cohorts have been equaled by the three men of Battery L, fighting with their single gun in the gray and deathly dawn until the enemy's battery was silenced. Private Wilson, who, single-handed, killed seven of the enemy and captured a gun, sold newspapers in private life; but he need not fear comparison with any of his ancient and radiant line. Who that cares for courage can forget that Frenchman, forced to march in front of a German battalion stealing to surprise his countrymen at the bridge of Three Grietchen, near Ypres? To speak meant death for himself, to be silent meant death for his comrades; and still the sentry gave no alarm. So he gave it himself. "Fire! For the love of God, fire!" he cried, his soul alive with sacrifice; and so died. The ancient hero of romance, who gathered to his own heart the lance heads of the foe that a gap might be made in their phalanx, did no more than that. Nelson conveniently forgot his blind eye at Copenhagen, and even in this he has his followers still. Bombardier Havelock was wounded in the thigh by fragments of shell. He had his wound dressed at the ambulance and was ordered to hospital. Instead of obeying, he returned to his battery, to be wounded again in the back within five minutes. Once more he was patched up by the doctor and sent to hospital, this time in charge of an orderly. He escaped from his guardian, went back to fight, and was wounded for the third time. Afraid to face the angry surgeon, he lay all day beside the gun. That night he was reprimanded by his officers—and received the V.C.! Also there are the airmen, day after day facing appalling dangers in their frail, bullet-torn craft. Was there ever a stouter heart than that of the aviator, wounded to death and still planing downwards, to be found seated in his place and grasping the controls, stone-dead? Few eyes were dry that read the almost mystic story of that son of France who, struck blind in a storm of fire, still navigated his machine, obedient to the instructions of his military companion, himself mortally wounded by shrapnel and dying even as earth was reached.

There is no need to worship the past with a too-abject devotion, whatever in the way of glory it has been to us and done for us. Chandos and Du Guesclin, Leonidas and De Bussy have worthy compeers to-day. Beside them may stand Lance-Corporal O'Leary, the Irish peasant's son. Of his own deed he merely says that he led some men to an important position, and took it from the Huns, "killing some of their gunners and taking a few prisoners." History will tell the tale otherwise: how this modest soldier, outstripping his eager comrades, coolly selected a machine gun for attack, and killed the five men tending it before they could slew round; how he then sped onwards alone to another barricade, which he captured, after killing three of the enemy, and making prisoners of two more. Even officialism burst its bonds for a moment as it records the deed:

The epic of Lieutenant Leach and Sergeant Hogan, who volunteered to recapture a trench taken by the Germans, after two failures of their comrades, is reading to give one at once a gulp in the throat and a song in the heart. With consummate daring they undertook the venture; with irresistible skill they succeeded, killing eight of the enemy, wounding two, and taking sixteen prisoners. In the words of the veteran of Waterloo, "It was as good fighting as Boney himself would have made a man a gineral for."

There are isolated incidents of this kind in every war; but in a thousand different places in France and Belgium the dauntless, nonchalant valor of Irishmen, Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Welshmen has shown itself. Did ever the gay Gordons do a gayer or more gallant thing than was done on the 29th of September, 1914, on the western front? Thirty gunners of a British field battery had just been killed or wounded. Thirty others were ordered to take their place. They knew that they were going to certain death, and they went with a cheery "Good-by, you fellows!" to their comrades of the reserve. Two minutes later every man had fallen, and another thirty stepped to the front with the same farewell, smoking their cigarettes as they went out to die—like that "very gallant gentleman," Oates, who went forth from Scott's tent into the blizzard and immortality. Englishmen can lift up their heads with pride, human nature can take heart and salute the future with hope, when the Charge of the Five Hundred at Gheluvelt is recalled. There, on the Ypres road to Calais, 2400 British soldiers, Scots Guards, South Wales Borderers, and the Welsh and Queen's Regiments held up 24,000 Germans in a position terribly exposed. On that glorious and bloody day the Worcesters, 500 strong, charged the hordes of Germans, twenty times their number, through the streets of Gheluvelt and up and beyond to the very trenches of the foe; and in the end the ravishers of Belgium, under the stress and storm of their valor, turned and fled. On that day 300 out of 500 of the Worcesters failed to answer the roll call when the fight was over, and out of 2400 only 800 lived of all the remnants of regiments engaged; but the road to Calais was blocked against the Huns; and it remains so even to this day. Who shall say that greatness of soul is not the possession of the modern world? Did men die better in the days before the Cæsars?

Not any one branch of the service, not any one class of men alone has done these deeds of valor; but in the splendid democracy of heroism, the colonel and the private, the corporal and the lieutenant—one was going to say, have thrown away, but no!—have offered up their lives on the altars of sacrifice, heedless of all save that duty must be done.

But greater than such deeds, of which there have been inspiring hundreds, is the patient endurance shown by men whose world has narrowed down to that little corner of a great war which they are fighting for their country. To fight on night and day in the trenches, under avalanches of murdering metal and storms of rending shrapnel, calls for higher qualities than those short, sharp gusts of conflict which in former days were called battles. Then men faced death in the open, weapon in hand, cheered by color and music and the personal contest, man upon man outright, greatly daring for a few sharp hours. Now all the pageantry is gone; the fight rages without ceasing; men must eat and sleep in the line of fire; death and mutilation ravage over them even while they rest. Nerves have given way, men have gone mad under this prolonged strain, and the marvel is that any have borne it; yet they have not only borne it, they have triumphed over it. These have known the exaltation of stripping life of its impedimenta to do a thing set for them to do; giving up all for an idea. The great obsession is on them; they are swayed and possessed by something greater than themselves; they live in an atmosphere which, breathing, inflames them to the utmost of their being.

There was a corner in the British lines where men had fought for days, until the place was a shambles; where food could only rarely reach them; where they stood up to their knees in mud and water, where men endured, but where Death was the companion of their fortitude. Yet after a lull in the firing there came from some point in the battered trench the new British battle-cry, "Are we downhearted?" And then, as we are told, one blood-stained specter feebly raised himself above the broken parapet, shouted "No!" and fell back dead. There spoke a spirit of high endurance, of a shining defiance, of a courage which wants no pity, which exalts as it wends its way hence.

Sir Gilbert Parker.

FOOTNOTES:

MARSHAL FOCHToC

A Great German philosopher said many years ago that history was the story of the struggle of the human race for freedom. Would the Huns conquer Europe and put back human liberty for hundreds of years? This was the question that was answered at the battle of the Marne in September, 1914, and the answer depended upon what General Foch was able to do with his army. It was necessary that he should attack, and General Joffre ordered him to do so.

General Foch did not reply that he was having all he could do to hold his own and to prevent his army from being captured or destroyed, although this was really the situation. He sent back to his commanding general a message that will never be forgotten, one that was in keeping with the maxim he had always taught his students in the military school, that the best defense is an offense: "My left has been forced back; my right has been routed; I shall attack with my center."