Winning a Cause Part 11

Then from one thing to another M. Hamel began to talk to us about the French language, saying that it was the most beautiful language in the world, the clearest, the most forceful; that we must guard it among us and never forget it, because when a people falls into slavery, as long as it holds firmly to its own tongue, it holds the key of its prison.

Then he took a grammar and gave us our lesson. I was astonished to find how well I understood. All he said seemed to me so easy, so easy.

I think, too, that I never listened so hard, and that he had never taken such pains to explain. One would have said that before going away the poor man wished to give us all his knowledge, to ram it all into our heads at one blow.

That lesson finished, we pa.s.sed to writing. For that day M. Hamel had prepared for us some quite fresh copies, on which was written in beautiful round hand: _France, Alsace, France, Alsace_. They looked like little banners floating round the cla.s.s room on the rail of our desks. To see how hard every one tried! And what a silence there was!

One could hear nothing but the sc.r.a.ping of the pens on the paper. Once some c.o.c.k-chafers flew in; but n.o.body took any heed, not even the little ones, who worked away at their pothooks with such enthusiasm and conscientiousness as if feeling there was something French about them.

On the roof of the school the pigeons cooed softly, and I thought to myself, hearing them:--

"Are they to be forced to sing in German too?"

From time to time, when I raised my eyes from the page, I saw M. Hamel motionless in his chair, looking fixedly at everything round him, as if he would like to carry away in his eyes all his little schoolhouse.

Think of it! For forty years he had been in the same place, in his court outside or with his cla.s.s before him. Only the benches and the desks had grown polished by the constant rubbing; the walnut trees in the courtyard had grown up, and the honeysuckle, which he had planted himself, now garlanded the windows up to the roof. What a heart-break it must be for this poor man to leave all these things, and to hear his sister coming and going in the room above, packing up their boxes, for they were to go the next day--to leave the country forever.

All the same, what courage he had to carry out the cla.s.s to the end!

After the writing we had our history lesson; then the little ones sang all together their Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu. There at the end of the room, old Hansor put on his spectacles, and holding his spelling-book with both hands, he spelt the letters with them. One could see that he too did his best; his voice trembled with emotion, and it was so funny to hear him that we all wanted to laugh and cry at once. Ah! I shall always remember that cla.s.s.

Suddenly the clock of the church rang for noon, then for the Angelus.

At the same moment, the trumpets of the Prussians returning from drill pealed out under our windows. M. Hamel rose from his chair, turning very pale. Never had he looked to me so tall.

"My friends," he said, "my friends, I--I--" But something choked him.

He could not finish the sentence.

Then he turned to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and pressing with all his might, he wrote as large as he could:--

VIVE LA FRANCE[1]

The determination of the people of Alsace and Lorraine not to submit to the pressure of their conquerors was made evident even up to the very day that war was declared in 1914. Von Moltke had predicted that "It will require no less than fifty years to wean the hearts of her lost Provinces from France." Notwithstanding all their efforts, the German leaders in 1890 had said, "After nineteen years of annexation, German influence has made no progress in Alsace." When the German soldiers at the beginning of the World War entered the provinces, their officers said to them, "We are now in enemy country."

This remark seems all the more strange because the population of the provinces was largely German. Most of the French citizens had emigrated to France, and all the young men had left to avoid German military service and the possibility of being forced to fight France.

Many Germans had moved in. Indeed if at this late day a vote had been taken, no doubt the majority would have expressed the desire to remain under German rule. But Germany still considered the country as an enemy. She knew the whole world disapproved of her seizing the provinces. Therefore it did not surprise the German government to learn that President Wilson, as one of the fourteen points to be observed in making a permanent peace for the world, gave as the eighth,--

"The wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871, in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years should be righted."

At the foot of the Vosges mountains near the Lorraine border, the American armies joined those of France. There in the Lorraine sector they fought valiantly and finally drove the enemy headlong before them through the Argonne forest, helping to make it possible for the peacemakers to gather again in the great council hall at Versailles where, nearly half a century before, France had seen the first German emperor crowned and then had been forced to sign the humiliating agreement that later became the Treaty of Frankfort.

But now the tables were turned; this meeting was in answer to the plea of a defeated Germany who was to agree to return her stolen property and to make good as far as possible the wrong she had done France and the world.

The statue of Stra.s.sburg in Paris had been stripped of the mourning which had covered it for nearly fifty years. Germany, as a victor, had indeed been a hard master, not caring in the least for the interests of the people in the conquered territories. How different was the spirit of the French as victors is shown in General Petain's orders to the French armies after the signing of the armistice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Memorial Day, 1918, was celebrated abroad as well as at home. In Masevaux, the provisional capital of the recaptured Alsatian territory, the American troops, headed by their band, paraded through the streets. In the contingent directly behind the band you can see a delegation of American and French officers and prominent citizens.]

As a piece of military literature it ranks with the soundest and the most eloquent ever delivered. In the spirit of President Lincoln's second inaugural address, "With malice towards none, with charity for all," it emphasizes a contrast which will be remembered for generations, to the everlasting shame of Germany and the glory of France. To every true American patriot it means that our armies have been fighting with the flower and chivalry of France, not for revenge, but for the overthrow of oppression, the freedom of the oppressed, and for honorable and permanent peace.

To the French Armies:--

During long months you have fought. History will record the tenacity and fierce energy displayed during these four years by our country which had to vanquish in order not to die.

Tomorrow, in order to better dictate peace, you are going to carry your arms as far as the Rhine. Into that land of Alsace-Lorraine that is so dear to us, you will march as liberators. You will go further: all the way into Germany to occupy lands which are the necessary guarantees of just reparation.

France has suffered in her ravaged fields and in her ruined villages.

The freed provinces have had to submit to intolerable, vexatious, and odious outrages, but you are not to answer these crimes by the commission of violences, which, under the spur of your resentment, may seem to you legitimate.

You are to remain under discipline and to show respect to persons and property. You will know, after having vanquished your adversary by force of arms, how to impress him further by the dignity of your att.i.tude, and the world will not know which to admire more, your conduct in success or your heroism in fighting.

I address a fond and affectionate greeting to our dead, whose sacrifices gave us the victory. And I send a message of salutation, full of sad affection, to the fathers, to the mothers, to the widows and orphans of France, who, in these days of national joy, dry their tears for a moment to acclaim the triumph of our arms. I bow my head before your magnificent flags.

Vive la France!

(Signed) PETAIN.

[1] Translated from the French of Alphonse Daudet.

THE CALL TO ARMS IN OUR STREET

There's a woman sobs her heart out, With her head against the door, For the man that's called to leave her, --G.o.d have pity on the poor!

But it's beat, drums, beat, While the lads march down the street, And it's blow, trumpets, blow, Keep your tears until they go.

There's a crowd of little children That march along and shout, For it's fine to play at soldiers Now their fathers are called out.

So it's beat, drums, beat; And who will find them food to eat?

And it's blow, trumpets, blow, Oh, it's little children know.

There's a young girl who stands laughing, For she thinks a war is grand, And it's fine to see the lads pa.s.s, And it's fine to hear the band.

So it's beat, drums, beat, To the fall of many feet; And it's blow, trumpets, blow, G.o.d go with you where you go.

W. M. LETTS.

THE KAISER'S CROWN

(VERSAILLES, JANUARY 18, 1871)

The wind on the Thames blew icy breath, The wind on the Seine blew fiery death, The snow lay thick on tower and tree, The streams ran black through wold and lea; As I sat alone in London town And dreamed a dream of the Kaiser's crown.

Holy William, that conqueror dread, Placed it himself on his h.o.a.ry head, And sat on his throne with his n.o.bles about, And his captains raising the wild war-shout; And asked himself, 'twixt a smile and a sigh, "Was ever a Kaiser so great as I?"

From every jewel, from every gem In that imperial diadem, There came a voice and a whisper clear-- I heard it, and I still can hear-- Which said, "O Kaiser great and strong, G.o.d's sword is double-edged and long!"

"Aye," said the emeralds, flas.h.i.+ng green-- "The fruit shall be what the seed has been-- His realm shall reap what his hosts have sown; Debt and misery, tear and groan, Pang and sob, and grief and shame, And rapine and consuming flame!"