Part 15

"After seven months I returned nominated by our government as the first president of the Czecho-Slovak republic. I know not whom I ought to thank first. It is natural that the recognition by England and the United States, the greatest Allied Powers, has helped us greatly. The United States guaranteed from their wealth abundant help, and we have from them a definite promise for the future. President Wilson himself has devoted sincere attention to our question and we are obliged to him and the Allied Powers. They can always count on us.

"The real object of the war and peace is the reorganization of eastern Europe and the solution of the eastern question. The war was a culmination of many struggles to solve the eastern question in the broad sense of the word. German pressure eastwards was directed against a zone of small nations between Germany and Russia, beginning with the Finns and going as far down as Greece, making a series of eighteen small nations. German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian imperialism suffered shipwreck. The small nations are freed. The war's negative task is fulfilled. The positive task awaits--to organize east Europe and this with mankind in general. We stand on the threshold of a new time when all mankind feels in unity. Our people will contribute with full consciousness its part in the realization of this great and lofty task."

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And for your country, boy, and for that flag, never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look to another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by Her, boy, as you would stand by your mother.

EDWARD EVERETT HALE.

"TO VILLINGEN--AND BACK"

Very remarkable in the world struggle for liberty was the eagerness of the Allied soldiers to fight and to make the supreme sacrifice if necessary. The Americans, especially, brought cheer and courage to the tired French, Belgian, Italian, and British hearts, so daring and high spirited were they when going into battle. With a smile, a shout, or a song, they went over the top to meet the Huns, ready for anything except to be taken prisoners into Germany.

This was the one possibility dreaded by the soldiers all along the front. They knew that the Huns were not a pleasant company to meet; that they sang only when ordered to do so, and sang only what they were ordered to sing; that they laughed most and shouted loudest when cruelly torturing innocent, unprotected, and unarmed people. What life must be in a German prison at the mercy of German soldiers, they dared hardly imagine.

It is not strange therefore that our men wished rather to die than to be prisoners. Nor is it strange that, having been taken, they made the most desperate attempts to escape.

Naturally the easiest time to break away was while being carried from the front to the rear of the German lines. Once thrown into prison, the difficulties were much greater.

Often the captive was handed back from one company of guards to another, being made to work for the enemy on his way. Private Donahue was one who was sent back in this manner, after being captured in a midnight skirmish near Chateau-Thierry.

He was dropped unconscious on the ground outside a German officer's tent, and when he revived he found that all his belongings,--even letters and snapshots from home,--had been taken from him. A German stood over him and began questioning him, hoping to gather important military information.

When asked how many Americans were at the front, the prisoner said, "Thirty-two American divisions and forty French."

"Pigs!" shouted the German lieutenant, and the cry was caught up by the guards, who came at a signal and dragged Donahue away.

From early morning until nightfall, he worked with the camouflage men, masking the batteries and cutting leafy branches for screening the stores of ammunition heaped by the roadside.

The Germans gave him no blankets at night, and for food poured out for him a sort of tasteless gruel and tossed him chunks of coarse black bread to eat with it. Every day a different soldier took him in charge. Each night he was closely guarded. He knew from the distant sounds of the guns that he was being taken back into Germany.

On the seventh night, he lay on the ground with Germans sleeping all about him. His guard sat beside him, leaning against a tree, his rifle between his knees. Private Donahue wished that he were back in the American lines, when suddenly in the moonlight he could see the guard's head nodding and nodding. Now was his time to escape.

He stole away and began creeping through the woods. There were Germans lying all around and he stumbled over several of them. But they only grunted savagely, and he crept fearfully on.

Soon he reached the edge of the woods and crawled under a bush to think.

Above No Man's Land an occasional shell was bursting, by whose light he could dimly see the American lines, eight kilometers away. He crept along in the shadows, lying still whenever a soldier passed near him. When morning came, he crawled into a grain field and lay down so that no one might see him. Several times soldiers passed so close to him that he could hear them talking. Once he was nearly trampled under the hoofs of two horses, and twice a Red Cross dog threatened to disclose his presence in the field. But he lay still as death and the dog went off.

That night he was creeping up the side of a ravine when he was discovered by the sentry.

"Halt!" cried the guard.

Private Donahue had been fearing that he would hear that word. But now he recognized it as spoken by an American voice.

"I am an American!" he cried joyfully, springing to his feet.

Soon he was sleeping inside his own lines, under two old potato sacks. At dawn he ate a good breakfast at the field kitchen, then reported at headquarters.

He had kept his eyes open during his seven days' journey through the German lines, and had some important information to give at French headquarters.

But many times the captives had no opportunity to escape before they were locked in the prison camp somewhere in Germany. Then it demanded every bit of Yankee ingenuity to get away.

One of the most elaborate attempts, involving the escape of a great number of men, is told in the following story.