Part 31

After the battle I was very pleased to be of assistance to the wounded, for whom my mother and I had arranged an ambulance. It was at four o'clock that I saw the first party of British prisoners being marched through from Mons to Brussels. A halt was called just outside the Chateau. The Germans were very kind at that time and offered their prisoners cigarettes and gave them water from their bottles.

Two men, exhausted by terrible wounds, dropped into the ditch. The baron went off to ask if we could be of assistance, and the German doctor told him that he would be grateful for any help, as he had to get on to Brussels and could not wait. The two men were brought into the chateau. We did all we could for them, and gradually, after some weeks, they recovered.

Neglect and honourable conduct are both recorded in the next cutting from the Manchester Guardian (September 17, 1917).

A Scotsman wounded at La Bassee had lain for eight days in a German dug-out which our troops had captured and from which they had been driven. One party of Germans peering into the darkness had bombed him, and added one or two slight wounds to the twenty-two he already possessed. He managed to signal to the second bombing party some days later, and was carried away to the field hospital, where hundreds of wounded Germans were lying. Here he was found by a young German engineer who had spent years in Glasgow and Liverpool. "Hullo, Jock," the man said kindly, "pretty bad, aren't you? I'll fetch a doctor for you."

He did so, and the wounds were roughly dressed. Nothing more was done for eight days, when the Scot managed to attract the attention of some visiting officer to the fact that his wounds were in a dreadful condition, septic and suppurating.

"He was furious," said the Scot: "made no end of a row about it, and I was attended to at once. I have nothing to complain of about my treatment when in hospital in Germany."

From the Daily News, April 16, 1918:

Here is a story vouched for by a young soldier now in hospital in the North of England:--"I was shot in both legs during the recent fighting. As I lay, helpless and almost hopeless, for our lads had been pressed back, a German officer, also wounded, crawled up to me. He spoke English fluently, and it turned out that he had once worked in the town from which I come. When I told him I was the last of the family left to my widowed mother, and that I feared it would settle her when she heard I had gone too, he said: 'All right, old chap; we'll see what can be done.' As soon as it was quite dark he got me to pull myself on to his back. In this way he crawled to within earshot of our outposts, and only left me and dragged himself in the direction of his own lines when he knew my cry had been heard."

From the same paper of April 11, 1918, I take the story told by a naval prisoner exchanged through Switzerland:

The sailor had one eye blown out and the other temporarily damaged by a shell in a concentrated fire which sank his destroyer in the battle of Jutland. He was picked up by an already overcrowded British boat after swimming about for an hour almost blind. Then a German destroyer ran alongside and took aboard the whole boatload.

The voice of an officer hailed from the deck: "Don't forget the British way, lads, wounded first." "He spoke such good English that I took him for a Scottie," said my informant, "and I thought it was a British destroyer that had picked us up. I was hauled aboard, and I saw him look at my face and turn away. 'What's the matter, Jock?' I said. 'I'm not a Jock,' says he, 'I'm one of the Huns.' 'What, ain't this a British ship?' says I. 'Throw me back into the sea, and let me take the chance of being picked up by one of ours.' 'It can't be done, sonny,' he says. 'You've got to go to Germany. But you'll be exchanged all right. You're disabled.' It seems he had a relative in London, and knew England well. All the time British ships were chasing us and shelling us; and he hung a lifebelt near me, and said: 'If the British Fleet sink us that will give you a bit of a chance yet.'"

The following is from Lloyd's News, May 12, 1918, under the heading of "Back from the dead":

Three years ago a Twickenham resident, Mrs. Maunders, received official news from the War Office that her husband, one of "The Old Contemptibles," had been killed in action.

Thrown on her own resources, and having a small family to keep, she struggled on, and a very good offer of marriage came along and was accepted. A few days before the wedding a letter came from the supposed dead husband, stating that he was badly wounded and left for dead on the battlefield, but was found by the enemy and nursed back to health.

The following is from a private letter: "I am happy to be able to tell you that through the German Flying Corps dropping a message, we heard of [my son's] safety early in July. He writes to us and appears to be well and comfortable.... He was shot through the neck. He has happily quite recovered after being about four weeks in hospital. He has spoken only of kindness and attention from doctors and nurses."

Again: "As you have probably heard by now, I am a wounded prisoner of war.... I myself got my shoulder rather badly smashed up by a machine gun which knocked me out, and I lay in a shell hole for about ten hours while our guns strafed like hell and I expected every moment to be blown to bits. However, I at last managed to crawl up and stagger along, and as I was in German lines, ran into a lot of Germans. They were awfully kind to me, gave me food and drink and bound up my wound, and then sent me along to the dressing station. I am at present in hospital in Belgium and expect to go to Germany almost directly. My address at the back will find me." What follows from the same correspondent has some bearing on the feeding in hospitals. "You mentioned in your last letter whether you could send me anything. Well, dear old chap, if you are feeling an angel, plenty of good plain chocolate and other delicacies would be awfully welcome, also some Gold Flake cigarettes." It was only "delicacies," it will be observed, that were asked for. This was in the middle of 1917.

The next extract is from Common Sense, July 13, 1918:

"The following experience of an Ullet Road boy, Private Arthur Bibby (6th S.W.B.), who is now recovering from a severe wound, is recorded in the Ullet Road Church Calendar for July:

The part of the line in which Private Bibby was placed was subjected to a heavy bombardment, after which the enemy delivered an attack. The order to retire was given "and our section made for a road which led into a village, but about a hundred yards up the road I received a bullet wound which passed under the shoulder-blade and pierced a portion of the lung."

"Private Bibby was forced to lie down by the side of the road, and shortly afterwards an advance party of the Germans came along delivering their attack. The first wave swept past, but of those who followed one stopped to give Private Bibby a cigarette, another took off his wounded foe's equipment and made it into a pillow for his head, and put his water-bottle within reach, while a third made a pad out of his field dressing with which he staunched the wound. As he turned and followed his comrades, he assured his patient that the Red Cross would come soon.

"A German Red Cross orderly came up shortly afterwards, and was engaged in dressing the wound when the order came for the Germans to retire before a British counter-attack. 'About ten minutes after the last had passed down the road our lads, counter-attacking, were creeping up the road, and it was not long before the R.A.M.C. lifted me on a stretcher and took me to the advanced dressing station.'

"We congratulate Private Bibby on the recovery he is making from a severe wound, and are glad that he is able to bear this testimony of gratitude to a company of unknown but chivalrous foes.

"It is, of course, well known that the Northcliffe Press refuses to print experiences of this kind."

"Many of our wounded have passed through the same conditions of captivity and deliverance. They bear witness to the honourable conduct of the German Army doctors (majors). Here, for example, is one of the stories that I have heard: 'I found myself in a ditch after the battle, unable to move. A German doctor came by; he gave me bread and coffee and promised to come back in the evening if he could, or next day. That night and the following day passed without my seeing any one; the time seemed long. In the evening he came: 'I had not forgotten you,' he said, 'but I have had no time.' He had me carried away and gave me careful attention.'" (La Guerre vue d'une Ambulance, par L'Abbe Felix Klein, Aumonier de l'Ambulance americaine, p. 80.)

The writer continues: "Facts of this nature deserve to be recorded. Amidst this setting loose of horrors and hates it would be well to lay stress on some of those deeds which are able to soften the soul. This morning I see that an article has been passed in one of the most widely read French journals recommending that no prisoners should be made in forthcoming battles, but that our enemies should be 'struck down like wild beasts,' 'butchered like swine'! Nothing, not even the sack of Senlis, nothing justifies such outbursts of fury." The French soldiers, M. L'Abbe indicates, confine their denunciations to the Prussian regulars and speak well of the reserves. "They are men like us, married men, fathers of families, fair-minded." But for the doctors there is often a good word: "Le major allemand est venu, nous a soignes, nous a donne du cafe, du pain." "Le major nous a soignes et donne de la soupe." There was however, much plundering. The armies which do not plunder are indeed rarae aves. "The animosity of the English against the enemy," says the Abbe, "is greater even than ours." "In the evening," runs one narrative, "the soldiers of the 101st put me in the wood where were many wounded Frenchmen and a German captain, wounded the day before. He suffered, he too, poor man (le pauvre malheureux)." When the Germans came, "some looked askance," but the captain said the Frenchmen had been kind, and when the Germans had taken him they came back and attended to the French. It was a bad time in the retreat, but French and German wounded shared the same fate. (l.c., p. 98.)

WHOSE FAULT?

The poor soldiers, obliged to obey orders under penalty of death, defending (as they believe) their homes from wanton attack, are surely, in the mass, but little to blame. The blame rests elsewhere. A body of Russian prisoners was brought into a village in East Prussia. The sufferings of the inhabitants during the invasion had made them bitter, and from the crowd of onlookers there was a scornful outcry. "At that one of the prisoners bent forward, shook his head and said slowly, with great, sad eyes, 'It is not your fault, and it is not mine.'" (Dr. Elisabeth Rotten in Die Staatsbuergerin.) Looking at it all with fresh knowledge, after more than three years of war, I feel that this Russian spoke for all the peoples, "It is not your fault, and it is not mine." Meanwhile there still goes on what my wounded friend, writing from Rouen described as "this orgy of slaughter, this incredible and criminal lunacy."

AN ORDER AGAINST KINDNESS.