T 7 flass j,.„\ BooL^JI GopyrigM - COPYRIGHT DEPOSm THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED The Story of the American Red Cross War Work for Belgium THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO.. Limited LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO i'i I f • I P5 £ en s Ih H CD o EE o O g M The Story of the American Red Cross War Work for Belgium By John van Schaick, Jr. Formerly Lieutenant Colonel U. S. Army (Assimilated Rank) Formerly Commissioner to Belgium A. R. C. T&tm fork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922 All rights reserved PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Copyright, 1922, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and printed. Published May, 1922. FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY NEW YORK MM 2* 1922 ©CI.A674245 I dedicate this book to my wife, who went with me to Europe in 1915 for work with the Rocke- feller Foundation War Relief Commission and again in 1917 for work with the American Red Cross. PREFACE Before I left Brussels in April, 1919, I agreed to write the story of the American Bed Cross work for Belgium. Other things prevented until March, 1921, when I got at it. The lapse of time has been fortunate, as I am convinced that we are past the period when "people do not want to hear anything more about the war." There are some indications of the beginning of a period bound to come when every detail of that stupendous struggle will be read with a deepening interest and a truer perspective. The Commission for Belgium of the American Red Cross was small in comparison with many other Red Cross Commissions. It operated on somewhat different lines. It handled less than five million of the four hundred million dollars raised by the American people through the American Red Cross for war relief. But this Commission was set down in one of the most dramatic and picturesque sections of Europe, where a brave people and a heroic King made a last stand to save their country, and where powerful armies of England and rep resentative divisions of France and the United States fought through to a glorious end. This book tells something of the story of war in Flanders, of life in that part of France which supported Flanders, and of the work of the American Red Cross in helping Belgian hospitals, cheering Belgian soldiers, saving Bel- gian children, and lifting the load of misery which settled down on both refugees and those who refused to fly. I am putting the foreign agencies we used in the fore- front of the story, because the policy of our Commissioner PREFACE was to "put responsibility squarely up to the Belgians for their own job, and to hold ourselves to guiding, cheering and helping with the resources of the United States." ISTo ordinary words are adequate to express the deep respect and abiding admiration which I feel for the American men and women who worked with our British, French and Belgian colleagues in these great tasks. The Americans showed courage, skill and sense. They promoted understanding and good will between different nations and races. Because the toil was mainly their toil and the leader- ship mainly that of our first Commissioner, I feel free to say frankly that the work was work in which the Ameri- can people will take increasing pride as they find out more about it, and that it will stand the test of the most rigid investigation. In the Library of Congress and the National Head- quarters of the American Bed Cross in Washington, I have found constant help, without which I could not have done this work. Especially I am indebted to Mr. George B. Chadwick and to Mrs. M. S. Fergusson, of the Amer- ican Red Cross, for valuable suggestions. John van Schaick, Jr. Washington, D. C, July 17, 1921. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Red Cross Officers at Bruges .... Frontispiece Facing Page The King and Queen of the Belgians with Prince Leopold at Red Cross Headquarters, Washington, October 29, 1919 38 Dr. Antoine Depage . 62 Col. Ernest P. Bicknell 62 Refugee Mothers Who Made Munitions .... 94 Madame Rolin Hymans Coming Out of the Abri . . 112 A Belgian Munition Worker at Le Havre . . . .142 In the American Red Cross Creche for Belgian Babies at Graville, France 180 In a Home for War Orphans in Brussels .... 224 CONTENTS Chapter I The First Commission to Europe The Government at Le Havre III The Battle of the Yser IV "The Little Corner Never Conquered V The Spectacle of War in Flanders VI The King and the Queen VII The Headquarters Organization VIII Getting Started in Flanders IX The Hospital of the Queen X Belgian Red Cross Activities XI Belgian Army Hospitals XII The Refugee Problem XIII Refugees in Flight XIV Refugees in Exile XV The Children's Colonies XVI Stories about Children XVII The Children's Own Stories XVIII The Works of Her Majesty, the Queen XIX For Those Who Held the Line XX What Civil Hospitals Did Quaker Foundations for Our Work Quakers in Action at the Front Dr. Park's Great Experiment XXIV Against Tuberculosis XXV For the Mutiles XXVI Some Great Days Toward the End XXVII The King Comes Home XXVIII With Those Who Stayed under the Germans XXIX The Reopening of the Universities XXX Cardinal Mercier XXXI A Great Ambassador XXXII The Americans Come to Flanders XXXIII Closing Up Appendix Page 1 16 23 29 34 38 46 54 62 69 77 81 85 93 102 113 124 135 140 151 157 165 177 184 192 199 211 217 228 232 235 241 246 249 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED The Story of the American Red Cross War Work for Belgium THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED CHAPTER I The First Commission to Europe WITH the approval of the United States Government, the War Council of the American Red Cross sent a Commission to Europe in June, 1917. The head of the Commission was Grayson M. P. Murphy, a graduate of West Point, and a successful ISTew York banker, who had shortly before been commissioned as Major in the United States Reserve Corps and placed on General Pershing's staff. He had a record for getting things done quickly in the business world and for making men like him. In war time there is need of getting things done quickly in the relief field, and of making men pull together. The choice of Major Murphy, therefore, was a happy one. For the beginning of the Commission to Belgium, we must go back to the S. S. La Touraine of the Compagnie Generate Transatlantique on which the Commission sailed June 2, 1917. On board the project of relief work in Belgium was talked over and plans were made. The War Council had defined a great task and then sent a Commission untrammeled by specific directions. "We are now in the war," they had said in substance. "It will be a year at least before the Government can strike a blow which will count in a military way. Mean- while, in every other way possible, it is necessary for us to cheer our Allies, help their armies and civilian populations. 1 2 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED and prevent an adverse decision before we get there in force. The job of the American Red Cross- is to get to Europe as fast as possible, establish relations with every Allied government, express American sympathy and good will, help lift the burden of war misery and, by sympathy and help, keep up morale." The subsequent history of the Allies and Von Luden- dorfPs Memoirs furnish eloquent testimony as to the decisive part played by morale. The conferences on shipboard made us acquainted with one another and with what we had in hand. Among those who sailed with us, not yet of our party, was the late beloved Ralph Preston. He had been in Paris since the outbreak of the war, had helped organize the American Relief Clearing House for French and Belgians, and now was quietly but effectively working to have the American Red Cross start by taking over the offices, staff and good will of this organization. There were also Leeds and Scattergood, American Friends, destined to organize one of the most useful units affiliated with us in war relief work. Among the members of our Commission was Ernest P. Bicknell, former National Director of the American Red Cross, who had been abroad the first year of the war as Director of the Rockefeller Foundation War Relief Com- mission. In one of the conferences on shipboard, Mr. Bicknell described his experiences with this Commission in 1914 and 1915, when he had visited England, Holland, Germany, Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Switzer- land, France, Italy and Belgium. He said that the first step taken by the American Red Cross in a disaster in any American city was to get into touch with the local authori- ties, Mayor and Common Council, and the local relief agencies, and to cooperate with them, so that in every disaster the relief agencies might be united. He said that the same principle underlay all successful relief work any- where, and that our policy should be to work with gov- THE FIRST COMMISSION TO EUROPE 3 ernments of the respective countries and to use existing relief agencies where we could. Another thing Bicknell said to us as we walked the deck put the whole project in a nutshell: "Every relief job has three sides. If you fail in any of them your whole job will be a failure: (1) Purchase of supplies, (2) Transportation, and (3) Distribution." In other words, "You have to get your wheat, carry it, and distribute it." "Each one of these phases of the job calls for an organi- zation highly specialized. Eor the first you need people who can raise money, and go into the markets and spend it wisely. For the second you need trained transportation men and the cooperation of armies and governments. Eor the third you need men of unusual balance, speed, cour- age and tact to help people without harming and without offending." Every day Major Murphy said either to a group or to individual members of the party: "We are relief forces and not combat forces, but the first duty of the American Red Cross is to help win the war. We have to remember that these people over there are very tired and very sensi- tive. I want you to pocket your pride and not get into arguments. "If a Red Cross man is high and mighty with a single hotel waiter, he will hurt the whole Red Cross. "Remember that these people who have been doing relief work in Europe since the beginning of the war know a lot more about it than we do. Play the game with them. "Any man who can't handle himself in French in three months enough to do business will be considered an un- desirable member of this party. "Any man who tries to pull off star plays at the expense of team work will soon draw his release. "I don't know a thing about it. I've got to depend on you fellows to put it over." 4 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED The members of the party in addition to those men- tioned were as follows: James H. Perkins, afterward Commissioner to France and Commissioner to Europe; William Endicott, afterward Commissioner to Great Britain; Reverend Robert Davis, long afterward Com- missioner to Austria; John van Schaick, Jr., afterward Commissioner to Belgium ; Carl Taylor, afterward Com- missioner to various countries ; Reverend E. D. Miei; C. G. Osborne ; R. J. Daly ; A. Wl Copp ; Thomas H. Kenny ; Paul Rainey; Frederick Hoppin; Frederick Hoffman; Ernest McCullough; F. R. King; and Philip Goodwin. Mrs. John van Schaick, Jr., was permitted to go on condition that it should not be official, but once on ship- board, Major Murphy saw that her knowledge of French and long experience abroad would be of value, and set her to work at once. So we went to Europe, with gymnastics every morning, French classes all over the ship, and hourly conferences about the big job ahead of us. We learned for the first time by wireless that General Pershing was en route at the same time, headed for England, and heard that we were to be militarized and made a part of the American Expeditionary Forces. Bicknell and I were given the Department of Social and Economic Conditions, he of course as chief and I as assistant chief. We were set to work to study and plan. We went down along the Marne and saw the relief and reconstruction work of the English Quakers "War Vic- tims Relief Committee." A number of times we went up into the Somme and Aisne around N"oyon, Ham, Nesle and Roye, and studied the section which had been evacuated by the Germans the preceding March, and which the Germans called the evac- uated region, the French the reconquered region, and the Americans the devastated region. We saw towns near the old trenches, unavoidably de- stroyed by shell tire, and places like Chauny knocked THE FIRST COMMISSION TO EUROPE 5 down deliberately by the Germans with the battering ram, or explosives on the eve of their retirement. We went up into the British Zone to Calais, Boulogne, St. Omer, Amiens, Perorme, Bapanme and Bray. We motored to Le Havre to visit the Belgian Govern- ment and to La Panne to visit the Belgian front. With all the destruction, we saw something of the relief work undertaken by the French and Belgian Govern- ments, and of innumerable private committees. There were English committees for the French, for the Bel- gians, and for the French and Belgians combined. There were French committees working simply for the French, and Belgian committees working for the Belgians, and committees of both working for both. There were also many American organizations and many Americans asso- ciated with French organizations. We discovered, of course, rivalry between different organizations and something of a frantic desire on the part of French military officials to get some of these relief people off their backs. We were, however, cordially welcomed as representa- tives of the American Red Cross, and again and again asked to help promote cooperation among the many indi- viduals and committees at work and anxious to work. Meanwhile, in the Paris office of the American Red Cross, C. G. Osborne, of Chicago, had organized trans- portation; Carl Taylor, buying; and Smith, of the Paris Branch of the Guaranty Trust Company, accounting. These three departments, from the very beginning, were given to understand that they were not only to serve France but every other allied country as they had op- portunity. In these early days the entire Commission could meet in one room, and everybody helped and advised everybody else. Every ship coming into Bordeaux brought new arrivals for the Red Cross work. Of those coming that first sum- 6 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED mer, Homer Folks and Livingston Farrand were to play very important parts in European relief. Mr. Folks took over Civil Affairs of the Commission for France, and Dr. Farrand organized the Commission for the Prevention of Tuberculosis in France, of the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Farrand, however, from the beginning was a co- operating force in all the affairs of the Red Cross. He took offices with us and gave up Folks, who had come for Tuberculosis work with him, to our organization. For organizing ability and all that makes great execu- tives in the field of relief, Folks and Farrand made rec- ords unsurpassed. The American Relief Clearing House, whose work we had taken over, had for some time sent supplies of food and clothing to individuals and committees dealing with Belgian refugees, and medical supplies to Belgian hospitals. As we went on with our study in France, the Belgian problem began to emerge as a separate thing. Mr. Bick- nell and I were somewhat familiar with the Belgian situa- tion on the other side of the fighting lines. Over that im- passable barrier lay the greater part of the little country and by far the greater number of the people. Both of us had cooperated more or less the first two years of the war in the work of Herbert Hoover, head of the Commission for Relief in Belgium. We knew Occupied Belgium with its seven and a half millions of people; its German guards at every turn; its masses of German troops in garrison and on the march; and its Comite National, made up of the best blood of little Belgium, working in the last and least little hamlet to feed and clothe the people. For us now, Occupied Belgium was something like Ger- many itself, shut in by an iron wall and known only vaguely through rumor, surmise, the isolated experiences of people who escaped, or the rare visits of Belgians who came out on mission. But on our journeys that summer we discovered an- THE FIRST COMMISSION TO EUROPE 7 other Belgium, "Belgique Libre" standing in mighty- contrast to "Belgique Occupee." It was made up of two hundred and fifty thousand Belgian refugees in France; one hundred and eighty thousand in England ; thirty thou- sand in (Switzerland; eighty thousand in Holland; the Belgian Civil Government, which had been given asylum by the French at Ste. Adresse, Le Havre (Seine Inferieure) ; the King and Queen at La Panne; and the Belgian Army in their trenches on the Yser. Installed in the Red Cross offices in Paris that first summer was a very intelligent old French gentleman, the Count de Moreuil, a friend of H. O. Beatty, Director General of the American Red Cross at that time, who tried, kindly and tactfully, to guide our first steps in a new country. Under date of August 9, he dictated a memorandum for the Department of Social and Economic Conditions, calling attention to the colonies of Belgian children in the Seine Inferieure, stating that on account of recent military operations in Flanders many hundred new evacues had been received, and that thousands more might come. He said that we should make ourselves fa- miliar with the situation. Immediately, Mr. Bicknell made arrangements to go to visit M. Berryer, the Belgian Minister of the Interior at Le Havre, and to study this situation at first hand. He knew what the rest of us discovered, that the way to get a, clear vision was to go and see in person. No matter what imagination a man has, in the midst of a great war, the responsible executive authorities must be field men at least part of the time, if their judgment is to count for anything. Mr. Bicknell, however, was held in Paris by other work and sent me on this first Belgian visit. I took with me Edward Eyre Hunt, for a long time of the Commis- sion for Relief in Belgium, who had just come for work abroad with the Red Cross. Out of Paris by the long Champs Elysees past St. Ger- 8 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED main en Laye, then down the lovely winding valley of the Seine, a fast automobile reaches Rouen, seventy-five miles away, in between two and three hours, and the great port, Le Havre, fifty miles farther on, in two hours more. But before Rouen is reached, there must be crossed the boundaries of ancient Normandy, part of which is in the modern French department, the Seine Inferieure. Here we found hundreds of Belgian children taken from the front by the Belgian Government. Three thousand we found had been put in colonies of from fifty to two hun- dred around Paris, and three thousand more in the Seine Inferieure and up along the coast between Le Havre and Calais. At Yvetot, half way between Le Havre and Rouen, the Belgian Government had stationed a Commissioner, Mr. Olbrecht, in general charge. On Sunday, August 12, he took us to visit the colonies at Yvetot, Caudebec, Saus- say, Malaise and Ouville l'Abbaye. The children were all well clothed, apparently well nourished and were cared for by nuns of different religious orders, with a priest here and there as a teacher or chaplain for a group of colonies. We discovered that they had their hard prob- lems, one of which was the difficulty of obtaining milk for younger children. Cows were selling around nine hun- dred francs and before a year, got up to fifteen and sixteen hundred francs. Another serious thing was lack of clothing and cloth for clothing. At St. Hlery, Olbrecht said they were trying to teach boys the fundamental principles of agriculture, gardening and care of stock. They needed chickens, cows, sheep, pigs and four draft horses. They wanted to raise for themselves what they ate and to furnish other colonies. The food situation in general was better in the Seine Inferieure than around Paris and in less fertile parts of France. It was a country of orchards and grain fields, of gardens and pastures. We saw many French departments THE FIRST COMMISSION TO EUROPE 9 in the ensuing months but nowhere did the country people bring in as much garden stuff as here. But here, as everywhere in the world, in peace or war, equalizing of supply depended upon transport, and transport was stag- gering under the burden of war. These colonies were supported in two ways : (1) By grant of the French Government; (2) By funds of the Belgian Minister of the Interior. The grant of the French Government was a grant made to all refugees driven from their homes by the movement of armies. It consisted of francs, 1.25 per day for adults and 50 centimes for children. With characteristic sen- erosity the French Government extended the benefit of the law to Belgians on the same terms as to their own people. The funds of the Minister of the Interior were not funds of the government but funds contributed by relief committees all over the world, but principally in Eng- land, for use of Belgian refugees. That first Sunday of the distinctively Belgian work, we got into touch by long distance telephone with this Min- ister, M. Berry er, and arranged to meet him at the tem- porary Belgian capitol, Ste. Adresse, Le Havre. We met three people at Le Havre on this first trip destined to be closely associated with our work: M. Berryer, Brand Whitlock and Madame Henry Carton de Wiart. M. Berryer, a lawyer of Liege, is a member of the Catholic party, a man of independent means and rather broad views. He told us that he needed our help, that the war had gone on and his funds were running down and he must not get entirely without money. He said the Belgian Government was living on borrowed money and he could not turn to the public treasury; that he had the responsibility for all the refugees, all the sick, infirm old people whether refugees or not, and all the children still at the front and in his colonies. He told us that the recent attack of the British with the counter battery work of the Germans had forced the evacuation 10 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED of many additional children, and that he might at any time have all the people left in Free Belgium as refugees on his hands. With Mr. Brand Whitlock we began that day an as- sociation which lasted all through the war, in which he placed himself and all his experience freely at our serv- ice. Of this great American we shall write hereafter. Madame Henry Carton de Wiart, wife of the Belgian Minister of Justice, had just been released from a German prison and sent around through Switzerland to rejoin her husband at Le Havre. In a beautiful chateau at Harfleur, outside Le Havre, under huge trees, surrounded by lovely flowers, with happy children, she talked of things hard to visualize in these surroundings: life under the iron German rule in Brussels, the spying and watching and waiting ; the arrest, the trial and the months in Germany. In their fiercest moments the Germans never terrorized this bright-faced, keen-witted, charming, resourceful lady. Both she and Whitlock told us we were needed to help the Belgians. M. Berryer insisted, after a brief interview with us, that we go to the front and see for ourselves. He got the frontier post at Ghyvelde, two hundred miles away, on the telephone, and arranged for us to pass the frontier line between France and Belgium without passes. With little time at our disposal we pushed off late in the day on the two-hundred-mile trip from Le Havre to the Belgian front, following the coast up through Dieppe, Eu, Abbeville, Montreuil-sur-Mer, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais and Dunkirk to La Panne, where we arrived in the afternoon of the next day. In my diary of August fourteenth, I wrote : "It is always a significant thing to pass a frontier, but in war time it is a line of destiny for thousands. It was a great experience today to cross the frontier and to be tonight on the water front surrounded by every conceivable spectacle of war, tens of thousands of English troops, and THE FIRST COMMISSION TO EUROPE 11 to realize that it is Belgium, the little strip ten miles wide and thirty miles long, to which Albert and his troops have clung — with the German lines only six miles away; Ostend, where we used to cross the channel, just up the coast; Looten Hulle, where we used to visit our friends, the Hulins, only thirty miles from here, but under the Germans." Our business was to study the half destroyed villages back of the Belgian and British Armies, in which civilians were still living. We were conducted by M. Jean Stey- aert, destined also to be one of our closest associates until the end of the war. M. Steyaert was Commissaire d'Ar- rondissement de Fumes-Dixmude, a position which corre- sponds to Sous-Prefet in France. Belgium in peace time is divided into nine provinces, each of which has a Governor appointed by the Minister of the Interior. Under each Governor are Commissaires, and under the Commissaires, burgomasters of towns and cities. All that was left of Belgium was part of the province of West Flanders, under Governor Janssens van Bisthoven. Under the Governor in 1917 were M. Stey- aret and M. Biebuyck, the Commissaire of Ypres. On August fifteenth I forwarded a report to Red Cross headquarters, saying in substance this : "La Panne, August 15, 1917. "I arrived here last night from Dunkirk and am leaving for Paris late today. "I came up because at Le Havre the Minister of the Interior said that there were fifty thousand people who might have to be evacuated at once and because he was most anxious to have Bed Cross help. "I have seen the villages where conditions are especially dangerous today, Alveringhem, Coxyde and Furnes, with the Commissaire d' Arrondissement, M. Jean Steyaert. In all three places there are left five thousand civilians of which twelve hundred are children. Alveringhem is eight 12 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED kilometers, Coxyde ten kilometers and Furnes ten and a half kilometers from the lines. All are shelled more or less and all exposed to gas attack. In Alveringhem the people have moved out on the dunes as it is considered safer. "In Coxyde they live in the village. In Furnes they go out and pass the nights on the farms around about, and also in little shanties they have erected. "If La Panne should have to be evacuated there would be four or five thousand people to be evacuated out of a total civil population of eleven thousand. The others, the Commissaire says, would not go unless things were very bad, and then they would go by themselves. "Here is an important thing. The babies are still back of the lines. ]STo children under three are evacuated. They take them now from three to fifteen years of age. But they want to hire another farm, put up some barracks and evacuate fifty babies at once. "As for work in the rear around Le Havre and Rouen, I am convinced that it is well done. "It is under Catholic sisters. In fact practically all the people are Catholics and the sisters are a fine lot. "I am convinced that the Minister of the Interior handles the thing well. His man at Yvetot is a barrister and very able. Madame Henry Carton de Wiart repre- sents the Minister and has exceptional ability also. The Sous-Prefet (French) at Abbeville, who has taken charge at Cayeux and Nouveau Brighton, has had long experience in this kind of work." On August 17, 1917, supplementing this report, I rec- ommended to Mr. Bicknell that we help start a baby farm colony near the front, put up two new colonies for children farther down the coast, establish a warehouse at Dunkirk or some other point well forward, and assemble emergency supplies. I suggested also that we put some games and toys in the colonies of Normandy. THE FIRST COMMISSION TO EUROPE 13 That modest request for toys has often been referred to as the only request which the War Council in Wash- ington refused to grant the Commission to Europe. It was believed that spending money for toys for famine stricken Europe would be misunderstood in the United States. The War Council, however, suggested another way and we got the money from another source. On August 16, Major Murphy went to La Panne to see the King and Queen of the Belgians. He came back by Le Havre and conferred with the Ministers of the Belgian Government. Major Murphy always moved with great speed. Under date of August 6 I had set down in my diary an im- pression of Major Murphy I never had to change: "The wheels are turning fast. Murphy is putting drive into it. I am more cheered about the way the thing is going than I have been at any time. Some of our unofficial advisors, who, in themselves, are lovable fellows, take the attitude, 'Oh, that is very dangerous. We must be careful. The government must be handled right. The French nature is very peculiar.' Murphy's attitude is 'Damn the torpedoes. We have got to move.' " On August 20 he directed that a department for Bel- gium be immediately organized with Mr. Bicknell as chief and with me as assistant chief — that we make our headquarters at Le Havre, and cooperate closely with the Belgian Government. He said emphatically to us: "I do not want you to attempt to build up great specialized services like transportation, accounting and purchase, but depend on Paris. We are getting over the best men in the United States to run these departments and we want to put them at the service of the Red Cross organizations throughout Europe." Major Murphy said later, "I organized a department for Belgium and soon turned it into an independent Com- mission to Belgium for three reasons : First, I thought it a better way to do business, that it would spur up the 14 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED men on the separate commissions and give them more pride in their work. Second, I knew that it would please the different countries to have Commissions of their own and not deal simply with Paris. Third, I knew that de- centralization was necessary with a thing as big as our work." Three days after our appointment, two of the Belgian Ministers appeared upon Major Murphy's invitation for a conference with us: Vandevyvere, Minister of Finance, and Berry er, Minister of the Interior. Vandevyvere spoke almost faultless English. He had been several times in the United States and liked Americans. He acted in this interview as interpreter for Berryer, under whose department all of our civil work for Belgians would have to be done. Only three things were accomplished at this first interview, but they were vital. One was the begin- ning of an acquaintance and friendship with the heads of the Belgian Government. The second was an agreement that all our work would be undertaken with the knowledge of the government. The third was the distinct acceptance on both sides of the principle that the responsibility for the job was Belgian, and the American part, one of as- sistance and cooperation. In the few remaining days in Paris we talked to every- body who knew Belgium. There was an American, Cap- tain Colby, son of Admiral Colby, U.S.N., who had come over early in the war with a volunteer ambulance unit for Belgium, and had become a Captain of Artillery in the Belgian Army. "Watch your step," said he, "don't get mixed up in their politics. Work as much as you can through the Queen." There was a former official of the American Relief Clearing House, who had helped Belgium. "Do what you can," said he, "for Belgium. Everybody praised them in the beginning. Everybody is beginning to damn them out now without rhyme or 'reason. It is not their fault that they can't go on and recapture their country. There THE FIRST COMMISSION TO EUROPE 15 never was a region more terrible for soldiers than those lowlands of the Yser. See what has just happened to the British at Nieuport. Nor can the Belgians help it if the slum people of Antwerp make a bad impression as refugees in England. When all is said and done, the fact remains that they died by the thousands to stop Germany. They prevented a decision in her favor in 1914. They have fought our fight ever since." They were words casually spoken, but with great earnestness; and we found them words of discrimination and truth. Paris turned over to us one clerk, one automobile and one chauffeur in the last week of August. The chauffeur did not propose to get side-tracked with a little one-horse department, and struck. He flatly refused to go to Le Havre. Major Alexander Lambert dealt with his case for the transportation department and sent him back to New York. Not' being willing to wait for a chauffeur, I drove the car. In a white painted Ford, known as the Lambert Ford, with Bicknell and the baggage in the back seat, and with my wife, newly appointed as inter- preter and translator, seated beside me, the department for Belgium left Paris on Saturday, September 1, 1917, at exactly two-twenty P. M. with the cheers of some of the Red Cross pioneers ringing in our ears. CHAPTER II The Government at Le Havre 'OMING from Paris by Yvetot, and reaching the top of the long hill above Harfleur, one gets a glorious view of the Seine, the port of Le Havre, and of the Atlantic Ocean beyond. A yellow dirigible was moving gracefully about over the water. Two hydroplanes were going out to sea and two others were coming in. In the foreground an English camp stretched away to the right as far as we could see. There was a great volume of shipping in the harbor and on the Seine. That much we could be sure of at a glance. The blue sea, the curving coast line, a bold headland, the miles of roofs and a golden sunlight over everything made our first view memorable. We went through Le Havre to Ste. Adresse, the tem- porary seat of the Belgian Government, a suburb to the northwest of the town, at the foot of the headland which guards the entrance to the harbor. Here Le Havre had tried to make another JNTice without the sun and warmth of the Riviera, and had named it l^ice-Havrais. But Dufayel, the promoter, had succeeded in building several hotels and many villas, and one huge office or apartment building on the steep ground sloping back from the har- bor. One little hotel had been perched high up on the rocks far enough around so that it overlooked the surf of the ocean itself. It was called the Hotellerie. Here the Belgian Ministers lived. Another larger hotel was built at the water's edge and named the Hotel des Re gates in honor of the frequent regattas of the yacht club. Here the Commission to Belgium installed itself. 16 THE GOVERNMENT AT LE HAVRE 17 Before any man or society can do effective work in any field he must know: First, what is to be done in that field, and, Second, who are already at work. The great stupidity often of relief work is duplication or competi- tion. Our first great task therefore was to get acquainted. There are three political parties in Belgium — the Cath- olic party, called the Clerical by its opponents, the Liberal, and the Socialist. The Catholic party is the party of the church. The Liberal party opposes Catholic control in the State, especially control of schools and government grants to religious institutions. It also opposes the Social- ists in economic matters and is fully as much the party of property as the Catholic. Some Liberals are in the Catholic church but many of them have left all churches. A few are Protestant and a very few are Jews. The Socialists are against both other parties on economic questions. In spite of Catholic bitterness toward Social- ists, Socialists curiously enough sometimes feel themselves more in sympathy with the Catholic attitude of interest in the masses than in what they call the aristocratic ten- dencies of Liberals. When the war broke out, the Catholics had been in con- trol for over thirty years. The King, however, summoned all parties to the service of the country. In a memorable session of Parliament he called Vandervelde, the Socialist leader, to the Cabinet, and Vandervelde, amid deafening cheers, shouted, "I accept." Soon after, Liberals were also called in and the Cabinet became "a sacred union for the war." The men in the Cabinet with whom we came to work intimately were Berryer, the Minister of the In- terior, a Catholic; Vandervelde, Minister of Intendance, a Socialist ; and General De Ceuninck, Minister of War, a Liberal. The Belgian Government was situated at Le Havre, two hundred miles from the front, because there was no room for them any nearer. The first plan had been to give them Abbeville, a hundred miles north, but the British had 18 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED needed Abbeville as a forward railroad base. Those of us who saw Abbeville "straffed" by aviators in 1918 and completely evacuated, were glad that the Belgian Gov- ernment had not been put there. Only two or three times was Le Havre visited by the German aviators. The trou- ble at Le Havre was congestion. The French city of ante bellum times had some one hundred and thirty thousand people ; Le Havre of war time had one hundred thousand more. Practically no new buildings were erected during the war. There were twenty thousand Belgian refugees to be crowded in somewhere. In addition, the port had been turned over to the British as a base, and docks and ware- houses were crowded with British supplies. Into this port there poured a steady line of British troops and out of it a steady stream of British wounded "bound for Blighty." Here also in 1918, as at Calais, St. Nazaire and Bordeaux, the Americans landed. French, Belgian and British hos- pitals found room where they could, and welfare workers of many kinds came here to meet the troops and help the wounded. Into the midst of these important French and British activities, Belgian organizations were set down. Out at Graville there were Belgian munition plants employing fifteen thousand people. Up on the hill above Ste. Adresse there was another huge plant making and repairing auto trucks and other supplies. Twenty thousand Belgian sol- diers were employed here and three thousand worked in the government departments. Only one department stayed at the front. Against the wishes of his colleagues, General De Ceuninck, who suc- ceeded Baron de Broqueville as Minister of War in 1917, established his headquarters in an old chateau just outside of Furnes, some six miles from the lines. His officers and clerks were in long wooden barracks behind the chateau. He was a brave old warrior who had commanded a division and he could not bear to be at the rear. As a result, however, of this insistence on living in the danger THE GOVERNMENT AT LE HAVRE 19 zone, all his barracks were burned by German shells in 1918 and very important records were destroyed. There are always malicious people to criticize those who work at the rear in war time. This destruction of Belgian war records emphasized, the importance of that courage which dares stay back when the best service demands it. Besides Berryer and Vandervelde, we found here at Le Havre, the Baron de Broqueville, President of the Council of Ministers, a Catholic and a man of great per- sonal charm. We knew him as the Minister who had stood up in the Chamber at Brussels at the beginning of the war, and in a speech of great power announced the fateful decision of the government to oppose the passage of German troops. We met also Poullet, Minister of Science and Arts, another Catholic, who was elected Presi- dent of the Chamber of Deputies in the reorganization after the armistice; Helleputte, Minister of Agriculture and Public Works, very firmly Catholic and Flemish, well versed in English, a man of very genial presence, espe- cially kind to us, but who was disliked above his party associates by Liberals and Socialists for his unbending political views. Paul Hymans, a Protestant, a great orator and interest- ing man, was the leader of the Liberal party in this Le Havre Cabinet. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs. We, of course, had little to do with him officially. His wife, however, a cultured, intelligent and generous Jewess of Brussels, became one of our best agents and partners. Their home on the Cote was a charming center socially, Paul Hymans in 1920 became the first President of the League of Nations. Count Goblet d' Alviella, another Liberal, was Minis- tre d'Etat or Minister — without portfolio. He was an elderly man, a great scholar and a professor of compara- tive religions in the University of Brussels. He was the head of the Free Masons of Belgium and as such especially opposed to the rule of Catholics. Yet Count Goblet and 20 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED M. Helleputte, the Catholic, were the two Presidents of the Comite Officiel Beige des Befugies, and always had courteous relations. We quickly came into friendly asso- ciation with the Goblets; the young Countess Helene Goblet we soon discovered to be one of the fairest and finest of characters and one of the most devoted of workers for her country. Her service to the British, French, Belgian and American armies through the British Y. M. C. A. was one of the fine spiritual contributions of the war. Jules Renkin, Minister of the Colonies, was regarded as a very able leader of the Catholic party. Earlier, like Henry Carton de Wiart, he had been called a Catholic- Democrat, but with the growth of democracy in the world, the party caught up with him near enough to insure his good standing and even his leadership. Madame Renkin, a charming lady, was at the head of a work for Belgian soldiers en repos. Henry Carton de Wiart was Minister of Justice in the government at Le Havre, retiring from the Cabinet upon the return to Brussels, to become Ambassador to Holland. Later he became President of the Council of Ministers, or Prime Minister. Courtly, polished, an orator, a writer of distinction, one always instinctively wanted to call him Count or Baron.* His wife makes a strong impression upon Americans. They first think of her as a member of the American Prison Association, a subscriber to the Survey, and as the woman who introduced the Juvenile Court into Belgium. Then they find her the mother of four lovely girls whose names all begin with "G" : Ghis- laine, Georgette, Gudule, Guillemette, — and of two boys, the older a veteran of the World War while still in his teens. As they come to know her they find her very devout, her religion finding expression in all kinds of charitable activities. In Belgium, when Germans were the stranded ones, the first weeks of the war, she worked for Germans. When Belgium went under the German yoke, she stayed and took up the burden of her poor coun- *Recently creatad Count. THE GOVERNMENT AT LE HAVRE 21 trymen. In Le Havre she was at the head of the Vestiaire of the American Red Cross and agent of the Minister of the Interior for children's colonies. But between Brussels and Le Havre, she served a term in a German prison. She passed the weary months of confinement in translat- ing Whitlock's "Forty Years of It" into French. Whit- lock, in his "Belgium," has told the dramatic story of her battle of wit and will with the Germans. In those early days of getting acquainted, we often turned to Brand Whitlock for advice and sympathy. To his tea table, we took things obscure, and learned how much diplomats know which they can't publish. Of his help and friendship we shall speak hereafter. Vandevyvere, Minister of Finance, had visited the United States several times, was often in England, and had a point of view and experience which made him of great service to us. "What I do not want," said he, "is to have Belgium held up in England and in the United States as a nation of beggars. I am grateful for appeals made for us by organizations like the American Red Cross, but we have suffered too much already by the wild talk of both frenzied Belgians and frenzied Americans. We take help now gratefully because we have to, both through you and through Hoover. But once give us back our coun- try and help us get started, and we don't want any more talk about the poor Belgians. The relief must be cut off at the earliest possible moment." Segers, Minister of Railways, Hubert of Industry, and Liebaert and Cooreman, Ministers of State, completed the Havre Cabinet, — Cooreman becoming Prime Minister a little later and continuing to the end of the war. Nearly all the Belgian Ministers and the members of their families were engaged in some form of relief work for their unhappy countrymen. To walk between them all and tread on no toes, to do the wise thing and not have it appear partisan or sectarian, would have been difficult had it not been for two things. 22 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED On their side, whatever their divisions, the Belgians wanted distress relieved and people saved, no matter what agency did it. On our side, we tried to know all that was knowable about the rivalries of persons and institutions and then to walk as if they did not exist. Underlying everything was the basic fact that these Belgians were likable human beings, no different in essen- tials from the people back home, and that we had a chief of our Belgian work who approached them with a dignity, a courtesy, and a good will which won their confidence and regard. It was a little government without a country. It was separated from the King by a long, tiresome, all-day motor ride. It had to submit to more or less dictation from the big Allies who loaned it money, — and every reference to it out of Germany was couched in terms of the greatest contempt. But around it swirled all the currents of the war maelstrom. To it came the rumors, the gossip, and the authentic news. At it were directed two or three of Germany's most important peace efforts. The Commission to Belgium of the American Red Cross was fortunate in establishing close relations with this government at Le Havre. The Ministers knew the facts about their army, their hospitals, and their people wherever they were situated. They were able to tell us in a few words what relief meas- ures had been undertaken, who were at w r ork, what were the most pressing needs and the possibilities of future distress. They were never too busy to advise and help. They straightened out quickly questions of "circulation" or free movement of our personnel with British, French or their own military authorities. Their cooperation con- tributed largely to the success of Red Cross work for Belgium. CHAPTER III The Battle of the Yser ""^TOW," said the Germans to Brand Whitlock that -**^l tragic day in Brussels when Antwerp fell, "now watch us push the Belgian Government into the sea." It was not that the Germans cared so much to punish the Belgians, Whitlock says, but that their great objective was Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, Dieppe and the other channel ports which were the very life of the allied cause. The "foolish, short-sighted Belgians" first of all had refused to drive a thrifty bargain and let the German armies through. . They had secondly at Liege put up a resistance which delayed the powerful forces destined to swing around and capture Paris. There would have been no battle of the Marne without Liege. Finally, at Antwerp, they had defended the forts, some in bad condition, and consumed still more of the precious German time ; they had disarranged the schedule until the High Command became both nervous and furious.* Then the King made a fateful decision to save his army from capture, extricated his forces, and gave up the place which every Belgian had regarded as a Gibraltar. On Friday, October 9, 1914, the Germans entered Ant- werp, and coming in to Whitlock's house in Brussels, one of the higher officers exclaimed with glee, "Now watch us push the Belgians into the sea." The battle of the Yser with that of Ypres and Arras which followed, all a part of what Joffre calls "The Battle for Flanders," had been reckoned throughout the war as * Belgium under the German Occupation. Whitlock. 23 24> THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED one of the decisive battles of the world. But only now are we beginning to get the story from the leaders : Field Marshal Viscomte French of Ypres, the Sir John French of 1914, in his book "1914" describes the "stakes for which we were playing." He asks how it would have fared with the British Empire if from the end of October, 1914, up to the end of the war, the German right flank had been "established at Dieppe instead of at Nieuport." The enemy then would have had the whole of the depart- ment of the Pas de Calais, the ports of Dieppe, Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk, submarines would have closed the channel to British trade, England would have been starved out or invaded, "the horrors of air raids would have been multiplied a hundred fold," and long range artillery would have made effective practice across the channel at the English coast. "The stakes for which we were playing," said he, "were nothing less than the safety, indeed, the very existence of the British Empire." General von Falkenhayn, Chief of the German General Staff at the time, in "General Headquarters, 1914-16 and Its Critical Decisions," says: "It seemed possible to bring the northern coast of France and therefore control of the English channel, into German hands. The prize to be won was worth the stake." It would make possible, "the drastic action against Eng- land and her sea traffic with submarines, aeroplanes and airships, which was being prepared as a reply to England's war of starvation." Each side was making desperate ef- forts to outflank the other. Success for either in the fall of 1914 might have meant speedy victory and the end of the war. King Albert and the Belgians who were to play so decisive a part in the battle, during that second week of October, were marching west and south. They were in desperate condition. "The first of all to fight," they had been at it against heavy odds for over six weeks and were THE BATTLE OF THE YSER 25 about worn out. They had stood some terrible pounding, hoping daily for the Allies to come. Now they had lost nearly the whole country, but Foch for the French, and Sir John French for the English were sending urgent messages to them to save the coast. Where could they in their extremity make a stand against the new fresh armies constantly hurled at them? Some sixty miles west of Antwerp is the fashionable seaside resort, Ostend, and ten miles down the coast toward the French frontier from Ostend is the mouth of the Yser Eiver at Meuport. Behind the Yser is a low-lying, marshy country, cut by canals and waterways feeding the Yser, which itself is here a canal 65 feet wide. Like their forefathers in almost every century from Csesar down, in their hour of peril, the Belgians made for the swamps and got ready to call on the water for help. They took their stand on the Yser and there for two weeks from October 15 on, they fought a battle which saved civilization, led by a King who already seems like a figure of mythology. Said John Buchan in "Nelson's History of the War," "the forty miles between Lille and JSTieuport suddenly became the Thermopylae of the war." This was the gateway to the coast, closed by the French on the south, the British at Ypres and the Belgians on the Yser. The battles of La Bassee, Arras, Ypres and the Yser are all a part of one struggle. Llad the Germans won anywhere they would have won everywhere. What made the Belgian end of it so dramatic was that everybody knew the Belgians had lost men and equipment, were short of ammunition and food, and were inexpressi- bly weary. "Little can be expected of the Belgians," said more than one allied despatch. "Their morale is shattered by continual retreat." But they were men fighting for the last few square miles of their country. Only the King and Generals might know the great world issues. They knew that they were 26 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED fighting for their homes. And they were a stiff-necked, stubborn, unyielding folk. From IsTieuport-Bains where it entered the sea, the Yser was the front line for eleven miles, to Dixmude, where it makes a great bend south and southwest to its source in France. Back of the Yser from one to one and a half miles and parallel all the way from Nieuport to Dixmude was a single track line of railway on a little embankment above the flatlands, which was destined to play a memorable part in the struggle. The Belgians held the Yser to Dixmude and eleven miles of more solid land from Dixmude to Boesinghe, near Ypres. Subsequently their line was shortened to 153/2 miles by French and British reinforcements. There were crossings of the Yser at St. George near ISTieuport, at the Schoorbakke, Tervaete east of Pervyse, and at Dixmude. The Belgians had from 60,000 to 80,000 men, 48,000 of whom were rifles. They had the help of 6,000 gallant French marines in Dixmude, two divisions of French terri- torials and another French division before the battle closed. The Germans in front of the Belgians numbered 150,- 000 men — the army released by the fall of Antwerp and several new army corps under the Duke of Wurtemburg. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, brother-in-law to the Queen of the Belgians, was one of the German High Command in Flanders during this struggle. Practically all through the war his presence on their front added a pa- thetic and dramatic touch to the situation. For two weeks, Belgians and Germans were at close grips. The Germans coming down in force hurled the Belgians over the river and the Belgians fought their way back.* Violent attempts were made to capture Dix- mude — fifteen in one night, but Belgian artillery and *Nehon's History of the World War. THE BATTLE OF THE YSER 27 French marines held it by an unending struggle. Not until November 10 did the Germans get into the town and 1hen it was too late to do them any good. Down the shore road against Nieuport itself, they made one powerful massed attack but at the crisis they were heavily shelled from the sea. British ships had crossed and were taking a hand where the Germans had not dreamed they would run the risk. But among other vessels, the British had three Brazilian craft built in England for patrol work on the Amazon River. They drew only four feet, seven inches of water. Heavily armored and converted into a kind of monitor, they could operate on the dangerous shoals where submarines could not attack them. With other old warships to help, they annoyed the Germans for five or six miles inland.* It was, says Buchan, like the Battles of the Dunes two hundred and fifty years before when Cromwell's fleet came to the help of the French and shelled the Spaniards from the sea. In spite of all efforts, the battle seemed lost when the Germans at last fought their way over the Yser at the Schoorbakke and Tervaete, held their ground and kept crossing in force. But it was one thing to cross and an- other thing to spread out. There were dikes and canals everywhere, and then the railway bank, and Belgians be- hind everything. But the Germans were inexorable. For three days they slowly pushed on over the swampy ground. The men of Flanders however knew their waterways and the possibilities. There were no dykes to cut to let the ocean in but their faithful Yser was brimming full.* At the most critical hour they completed a dam at Nieuport. Suddenly the Germans found puddles where none had been before, then pools, then their artillery was deep in mud, and then they were floundering in a foot of water. The river was spilling it over on to them. Even then they made a last effort. Under the eyes of the Kaiser himself, *Nelson's History of the World War. 28 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED picked volunteers charged through a foot of water and captured Kamscappelle and a point on the railroad bank for the second time. But they could not advance. Wet, cold, miserable, they held it for the night, but on October 31 were driven out. Finally, all the sluices of the feeders of the Yser were opened, the waters rose fast, drowning some of the Ger- mans, and the battle was over. The Belgians had lost 14,000 men killed and wounded.* Their effective rifles were reduced to 32,000 men and half of the artillery was for the time put out of commission. But they had responded every time to the appeal of the King who begged for one day more — and another day more — through two horrible weeks. They had established the lines of Free Belgium as they were to stand throughout the war. They had saved "the little corner never conquered" in which we of the Ameri- can Red Cross were to see such stirring days and do so much of our work. *Commander in Chief Belgian Army on "The War of 1914," />. 85. CHAPTER IV "The Little Corner Never Conquered" URUsTGr the battle for Flanders two Commanders issued proclamations to their troops which have been preserved. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, brother-in-law of King Albert and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, on October 26, 1914, promulgated an army order commending several German corps and brigades, thanking the troops and clos- ing with this appeal: "Soldiers, the eyes of the whole world are now directed upon you. You must not now lose your energy in the fight with our most hated foe, you must finally break his pride. He is already tired out. Already many officers and men have voluntarily surren- dered. But the greatest and most decisive battle still re- mains before you. You must sustain it even to the end. The enemy must be crushed. You will persevere, you will not let him escape your fangs. We must conquer, we will conquer, we shall conquer." On October 28, King Albert addressed a proclamation to his officers, noncommissioned officers, corporals and soldiers. "For more than two months you have fought with marvelous courage and rare energy. You have been unable to guard the country from an odious invasion ; but Belgium has not submitted, and the Belgian Army is not annihilated. "Thanks to the wise retreat from Antwerp, considerable forces remain intact. . . . Together the Allies will retake, step by step, the territory soiled by the occupation of a powerful enemy who had premeditated the war, and brought formidable resources against us. 29 30 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED "Soldiers! our towns have been burnt, our fields rav- aged, our hearths destroyed; mourning is universal in our dear country, which has been cruelly devastated by pitiless foes. Even greater misfortunes hang over our compatriots if you do not deliver them from infamous oppression. You have then an imperative duty which you will know how to perform when your leaders give the sign. "A great King of France once wrote this letter in the day of defeat: 'All is lost save honor.' You have clothed your unfortunate country with honor and today you must cause it to rise from its ashes. "Soldiers ! There remains for you more than the glory of conquest. You have to rescue the country with the aid of our noble Allies." There is a marked difference in the tone of the two proclamations. The one is the appeal to pride and hate; the other is the appeal for home and loved ones, native land and honor. The reconquest of the country was not to come for over four years but the proclamation of the King nerved the little army for a long and terrible ordeal in the mud and cold of Flanders. They already had gone through three terrible winters in the trenches when the American Red Cross came in the fall of 1917 to the little corner of Free Belgium never conquered by the Germans. What was there of it ? There were eight miles north- easterly along the coast of the North Sea from the fron- tier of France near Dunkirk up through La Panne, St. Idesblade, Coxyde, Oost Dunkerke to Nieuport-Bains on the Yser ; forty-five or fifty miles southeasterly in a great bend of front line trenches from Nieuport-Bains through Nieuport, Ramscappelle, Pervyse, Merkem, around Ypres and to a point on the frontier near Armentieres where the trenches left Flanders and entered French territory; thirty-one or two miles northerly back along the French frontier to the point of beginning. This long narrow strip . "THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED" 31 of land was in most places eight to ten miles wide from the front line back to the French frontier. It narrowed to a width of a mile or two at the lower end and at times widened out over a vast destroyed ISTo-Man's-Land in front of Ypres to a total width at that point of perhaps 20 miles. The area seldom got above 250 or 300 square miles and what was added to it by successful attack was not reckoned as much, for it was an abomination of desolation. All the towns mentioned except La Panne were of course destroyed by the time we arrived. Of this 250 square miles of Belgian territory, there were picturesque sand dunes along the coast, many of which were artillery posts ; trenches above ground at the front, destroyed country from 2 miles to 10 miles back of it, and a rich, flat farming country in the rear, every foot of which was exposed to shell fire, but which in the main was unhurt except for an occasional shell hole, roofless farmhouse, dead peasant or cow. There were other Flemish villages like Houthem, the Belgian Great Headquarters, Leysele, Isenberge, Wul- veringhem, Yincken, Beveren, Hoogstade, Oostvleteren, Proven, Watou and Bousbrugge which were comparatively safe. There were places like Ypres, Kemmel, JSTeuve-Eglise, Ploeg Steert, Dickebusch, Vlamertinghe, entirely wiped out and then other places like Furnes, of which one-fourth of the houses were wiped out, one-fourth badly hurt, one- fourth slightly touched and one-fourth undamaged, so dangerous at times that it was entirely evacuated and at other times reasonably safe. In this little corner of West Flanders there were four armies operating in 1917, the British next the sea, the Belgians, the French, and then again a huge British Army around Ypres. The French forces were small and were soon after withdrawn except for some artillery near La Panne. The presence of the French, however, was one of the bits of color, and association with the officers one of the compensations for Flanders. General Kouquerol, 32 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED head of the French Mission to the Belgian Army, and Colonel Bonhomme, commanding the guns in the dunes back of La Panne, and their staffs were brave, upstanding, interesting, helpful men. I remember Colonel Bonhomme as the kindly officer who took me to have a drill with my gas mask at the French gas mask station — a thing I had neglected to do until he insisted upon it. Back of the forces at the front, there stretched far into France the artillery, the reserves, the training camps, the hospitals, the aerodromes, and all services of supply. Where the Belgians could put a thing on their own soil they did so, and often took grave risks to stay in their own land. For example, the bakery near Adinkerke, which fur- nished a train load of bread every day for the trenches, was destroyed in 1918. As I have said, the Minister of War lost most of his offices and records at Fumes. Gen- eral Kucquoy had his children's colony at Boitshoucke shelled to pieces: the Ocean Hospital at La Panne was two or three times temporarily evacuated, and the Hopital Elisabeth at Poperinghe was permanently evacuated and destroyed, and so something or other was always either getting hit or just escaping. In among these great armies moving to and fro, there lived the civilian population which would not go away. Military commanders raged about it. Civil governments gave orders but generally the orders were revoked or not enforced. The peasants clung to the soil. It was the same with the Flemish or half Flemish population of northern France. They simply would not leave unless the Germans were at the doors. It was partly due, we must admit, to cupidity. They are a thrifty lot. They got high prices for all produce during the war. They made more money than they had ever made in their lives, even with the able-bodied men away. And their little homes and furniture and animals were dear to them. The old woman might have little more than a cow but she would "THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED" S3 not leave her cow. But there was underlying it all a noble patriotism. In Belgium it meant going into an- other country. While thousands did go, other thousands whose homes were free, stayed, worked for the army, raised their crops, mended roads and performed all kinds of services. When the American Red Cross reached Free Belgium in the early fall of 19 IT, there were 90,000 civilians still there. CHAPTER V The Spectacle of War in Flanders OUR first morning at La Panne we were awakened by tlie rattle of machine guns, and jumping to the balcony of our hotel room overlooking the sea, we were just in time to see a German plane plunge into the sea. It made a terrific splash and then there was nothing to be seen but the Englishman hovering overhead. x\nother afternoon, coming into town, Bicknell ex- claimed suddenly, "There goes one" — and we saw a sec- ond German fall in narrowing spirals until he crashed into the canal not far away. "The Germans will want to take some revenge for this," said Bicknell, "and maybe send a few shells over." Within an hour the first one came with a terrific screech directly past the little villa and landed in the sand. It was just before sunset. Soldiers and civilians were walk- ing on the beach. Many were bathing. Such a scattering of people I never saw before. Then came another, exactly among them but nobody was hurt. One is safer on the sand than in a house. The area covered by the explosion in sand is small. The sand grips the jagged bits of metal and much of the force is lost. That night other shells fell near the hospital and Dr. Depage, whose guests we were, ordered everybody into shallow trenches on the beach, the wounded, nurses, doctors, orderlies and guests. While we lay there, the Germans went over to Dunkirk down the coast and the whole sky that way was lighted up with the explosion of the barrage of defense. This kind of thing was not uncommon, and unhappily almost always there were victims. 34 THE SPECTACLE OF WAR IN FLANDERS 35 A bomb fell just outside our office — all our windows were smashed and two soldiers standing on the corner were blown to bits. A shell came into the hotel next door and riddled the top story. Another shell from the sea came into the hotel on the corner, entering just over the door, but it was a little fellow and did no great damage. We would be eating lunch sometimes and see shells fall on the beach. One Sunday, while at dinner, we saw a German submarine exchange shells with the coast — the whole thing a picturesque but a perfectly futile per- formance. Night after night the planes of the Allies went up and came down the coast, and night after night the Germans passed over on the way to and from Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, or England. Occasionally they had a bomb or two left over for La Panne, and now and then we would be counted worthy of a real visit. Some of the happenings were terribly tragic, but some were funny. One bomb hit a chicken house of a worthy citizen, destroyed his fowls, and a big piece of it flew into the open window of the bed chamber of this citizen asleep there and lodged under his bed without his even waking up. Such were some of the Flemish nerves. One shell fell among a score of little children playing in the yard at the villa of the Queen and did no harm as it failed to explode. Another which fell on the Bains Militaires or Military Baths gave us 60 victims of whom 30 died. Troops were always marching in or marching out. When the English held La Panne and Nieuport in the fall of 1917, every morning one could see hundreds of mounted men riding their horses out belly deep into the sea. By day or night the great English monitors with their little patrols came drifting up and when they attacked the German lines, it was the heaviest firing of all. They often broke our windows. 36 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED We had grandstand seats for the dramatic night attacks on Ostend and Zeebrugge, the most spectacular naval op- erations of the war, though we didn't know it at the time. We simply knew that there were terrific explosions, that the night was lighted up, and that a few people came out of their houses at La Panne to inquire sleepily what was taking place. On other nights German destroyers came out from Ostend and Zeebrugge and dashed down the coast, shelling as they went. The raids were futile as a rule and the shells that fell on La Panne were small and did little damage. But as spectacles, such raids also were mag- nificent. Belgian Ministers were always coming or departing. Other visitors from all over the world had to be enter- tained, many of whom we had to take to the trenches. Attached to some parties there was especial interest, like the Irish journalists coming to get material about what little Belgium was doing to spread it broadcast in Ireland. Sometimes by day we saw a sausage balloon over the trenches go up in smoke and the occupant, if lucky, come down in his parachute. At night there were always the Hares of the trenches and the flashes of the guns. Only a hair line separated life and death. We took visitors to the little hotel on the corner to lunch. A fine young Belgian aviator was sitting at the' next table with his brother. He finished first, strolled out, got into his plane and was off. Before we finished, Commandant Le Due cried, "See that fellow doing stunts." But. it was no stunt. Down he came, the same boy who finished his luncheon first, in a nose spin, faster and faster until he hit the sea. There was a great splash, wings of the plane floating an instant and all was gone. Nothing remained but men running wildly on the beach and the brother tugging desperately at THE SPECTACLE OF WAR IN FLANDERS 37 a huge fishing boat which twenty men could not move from the sand. Down just back of Ypres and around Poperinghe, there were the last of the hopyards for which Flanders was famous. But the hopyards were screens for motor con- voys and aerodromes. While men, women and little chil- dren were hop picking, English battle planes were going up beside them and German shells were searching always for roads and dumps and quarters or whatever else was there. And very often the shells found the men, women and children making hay, or picking hops or gathering the great broad beans of Flanders. Everywhere on the beach, along the roads, in the hospi- tals, in the trenches, one met the King and Queen, those two who gave interest and thrill and glory to everything in Flanders. They might be with a visitor like King George of England, Poincare or Clemenceau of France, — or the King might be on a bicycle or walking away from a peasant's burning house — one never saw them without sensing the intense pathos of the whole world struggle. The American Red Cross workers were not out for spec- tacles, but no man who did not sense the great spectacle in Flanders was fit to work there, and no man could intelli- gently do the work of relief if he did not know something of the whole mighty struggle of which it was a part. CHAPTER VI The King and the Queen THE war in Flanders revolved around the Xing and the Queen. The relief work of the American Red Cross for Belgium was done with their closest cooperation and often directly through them. From the time of the battle of the Yser, until the end of the war, the King and Queen lived in a villa on the beach at La Panne, or on a farm in what is called the Moeres, three miles away. The greater part of the winter of 1917-18 they were living in the Moeres as La Panne, it was said, was considered too dangerous. But they were in La Panne nearly every day, and on roads which were shelled, or in the trenches. Moreover, shells went over them in the Moeres constantly and bombs several times fell in the garden. One of our men who went down to the farm just about nightfall to see the King and Queen reported that German shrapnel was bursting all the time that he was there, around a Belgian sausage balloon just above, but that the King sat smoking peacefully on the porch with General Jungblut, the little Princess Marie-Jose and the Countess Caramon de Chimay were sketching in the yard, and the Queen was walking up and down the road. The danger was less in some places than others, but there was no real safety. Of all the great figures of the World War none have captured the popular imagination more than the King and the Queen of the Belgians. They represented a small kingdom against a powerful empire. With their people, they made a right choice in the beginning — that of oppos- 38 THE KING AND THE QUEEN 39 ing the passage of German troops at any cost. They were situated in an especially dramatic place, all they did had dramatic significance, and they lived up to their high and noble part all through. During the war, Maeterlinck, the Belgian poet, made an address in France upon the King's birthday, and called him "The King of the Sand Ridge." "Every time," said he, "the bloody veil of the tempest which hides him from our eyes is raised or rent, we behold him in the same spot in the same ridge of sand which has become the most splendid throne in the world, quietly, almost secretly, doing his duty as a crowned soldier." Already legends have begun to cluster around the names of this King and Queen. The tendency will be to see them through the mist. We were with them on the other side of the veil and saw them as they were. They lose nothing close up. We must resist the tendency to magnify them so that the outlines are blurred. History will be richer if we can keep their humanity distinct. In subsequent chapters details of work done with the King and Queen Avill be found. It is important here to ask what kind of people they are. "I have both French and German blood in my veins," said the King one night when the Germans were thun- dering all along the line. We find the exact statement in the semi-official Alma- nac de Bruxelles: "Albert I, Leopold-Clement-Marie-Meinrad, King of the Belgians, due de Saxe, prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, sovereign of the independent state of the Congo, majeste, born at Brussels, April 8, 1875, son of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, and of Marie, Princess of Hohenzollern. "He succeeded his uncle, the King Leopold II, Decem- ber 23, 1909, and was married at Munich, October 2, 1900, to Elisabeth, Duchess of Bavaria, who was born in the Chateau of Possenhoven, July 25, 1875." 40 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED The same infallible authority states that his grand- mother, the wife of King Leopold I, a German, was the Princess Louise Marie d'Orleans, daughter of King Louis Philippe of France. The Belgians are fond of telling how he grew up with no idea of becoming King; how Elisabeth married him with no idea that she was to become Queen ; and how Albert and Elisabeth used to walk out on the boulevards of Brussels with their children on Sunday afternoons, quite like the other householders of that city. ^Nobody can understand King Albert who does not understand what it means to be a good citizen. He is essentially a good citizen, w T ith civic pride and an in- tense desire for the common good, doing his work as a citi- zen through the hereditary job in which he finds himself. He is not busy amassing a fortune, nor enlarging his own political power, nor taking pleasure, but he is study- ing and working and traveling to promote the general welfare. Said the King that last winter in La Panne to one of our men, "The first business of the King is to be the servant of all the people." Unquestionably he is able to be the good citizen be- cause he is first of all the good man. He is devoted to his wife and children. He is simple, unassuming, honest, honorable, patient, open-minded, seeking light, but un- yielding. He has a fine sense of humor, not evident at first, but gradually revealing itself as you win his confi- dence and his shyness or bashfulness wears off. By hard study of books, by interviews with people who are supposed to know, by going himself where things are being done, the King is all the time fitting himself to lead, to advise, to help his country. He has a native intellect which the Belgians say is "not brilliant like that of Leopold II," but which is sure and steady ; and he is endowed with the surpassing gift of common sense. Most Belgians, however, who praise the genius of Leopold II THE KING AND THE QUEEN 41 add something to the effect that King Albert has true nobility of soul. He is a constitutional monarch working through his Ministers. During the war, as Commander in Chief of the army, he had great legal power, and likewise, because of the circumstances, he had unusual moral power. That power he keeps. He brings it to bear on the war- ring elements of his country, on the race jealousies of Flemings and Walloons, on the political jealousies of Catholic, Liberal and Socialist, and on the personal jeal- ousies of those who stayed in the country and those who were out of the country during the war. It is no exagger- ation to say that this personal, unifying, harmonizing influence of the King has done much to hold things to- gether and to enable Belgium to make rapid progress to- ward recovery. King Albert, is a big man, 6 feet, 3 or 4 inches tall, of powerful build, light golden hair and mustache, blue eyes, ruddy face, and of slow deliberate speech. Queen Elisa- beth is a dainty little woman, much more beautiful than any of her photographs, with fair hair, also with blue eyes, low voiced but quicker in speech and in movement than the King. They have three children, Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant, the heir to the throne, born Novem- ber 3, 1901, Prince Charles, or "Charlie," Count of Flan- ders, born October 10, 1903, and the Princess Marie- Jose, born August 4, 1906. Their beautiful family life is indicated by the fact that the King speaks of the Queen as "my wife" and of his children as "my boys" or "my little girl." He said to one of our men when he was dis- cussing education : "I like my boys to go to public school and play football. It is good for young princes to play with other boys and get their shins kicked." Once to his sister the King wrote testifying to the Queen's medical skill: "There is no use of my pretending to have a headache to escape from some stupid function for Elisa- beth always doctors me up and sends me along." 42 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED The Queen has both German and Portuguese blood in her veins. She was born in Bavaria in a home devoted to science and music and filled with an unselfish spirit of service. Her father, Duke Karl Theodore, was a famous ocu- list, having removed over 6,000 cataracts. He was a most generous man in his service to the poor and unfor- tunate. The little Elisabeth was trained as his nurse. She got her degree of Doctor of Medicine at Leipzig be- fore her marriage and did active work in the hospital at Kreuth, Germany. She investigated especially tubercu- losis, and the sleeping sickness which was so deadly in the Congo, and likewise made a study of methods of training nurses. She has always made personal visits to people in trouble — back in the happy days in the old Germany, in the even happier days in Belgium before the war, and all through the great struggle. She has the Bavarian love of music and plays beautifully on the violin. It is a grim com- mentary on the changes of life that this gentle loving soul should ever have to say of the Germans as she has said: "Between them and me there has fallen a curtain of iron that will never again be lifted." When the King and Queen were driven back to the Yser, they both made their second great decision of the war, a decision which gives them a mighty hold on the affections of their own people, and is one of the secrets of their popularity throughout the world. They put aside com- fort and safety, chose to share the common lot of danger and hardship and buckled down to daily tasks of the hardest kind to help win the war. The King led his men in the trenches and from head- quarters. He worked with his Minister of War, his Chief of Staff, and the Allied chiefs. And he went to the worst places of the worst sectors to cheer the men holding the lines. He could talk Flemish to the simple farm boys and French to the university students from Brussels and Liege. THE KING AND THE QUEEN 43 On October 28, during the battle of the Yser, the little Queen said to Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the American Legation at Brussels: "As long as there is one square foot of Belgium, free of the Germans, I will be on it." "She said it," said Gibson, "simply in answer to a question from me, but there was a big force of courage and determination behind it." She made her words good, and she did her part with extraordinary courage and ability. Our Red Cross men would meet her sometimes in the mud of the trenches. One of them writing home in 1917, described such an encounter : "The first time I ever saw the Queen was in the front trenches just before Christmas. Her eldest son, Leopold, Duke of Brabant, was with her in the uniform of a Bel- gian private. A daintily dressed little lady, with a sweet face and a winning smile, she made her way from dugout to dugout in the slime and mud, with chocolate and ciga- rettes and other gifts for the men. They idolize her not so much for the chocolate and cigarettes as because she is there to see for herself what they have to endure and to take her share of the danger. As one of them said to me, 'When we see the Queen, we feel that we are not forgot- ten, that the war will not last forever, that some day we will all be back in Brussels.' " * Her medical and surgical knowledge, her nursing abil- ity, her experience in public health work, and her great store of human sympathy had full expression in the war. In "The Hospital of the Queen" and "The Works of Her Majesty, the Queen," that part of the story is set down. Though the King and Queen walked on a great stage, nothing is as far from the mark as to think of them as theatrical. *Her Majesty used flowers effectively to cheer wounded men. Expert horticulturists in the army, under direction of Dr. Depage, made a remarkable rose garden in the mud of Flanders which produced thousands of blossoms. 44 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED Though the King dropped down upon the Peace Con- ference from the sky, though the King and Queen both went to England for a royal wedding by aeroplane, though they make a tour of the United States, or Brazil, or Spain, it is done simply and for a definite purpose. They use the aeroplane because it is easier and quicker. They travel to learn and to promote good will. The non-theatrical side of the King was never better put than by Mark Sullivan when he said: "The King was at all times during the war merely the Chief Engineer, who happened to be re- sponsible for the job when the dam broke." That means much to Americans at least. When I remember him com- ing away on foot from a fire in a peasant's cottage, or see again his long figure on a bicycle hurrying from one task to another, or recall him on a motor cycle, in a motor car or on horseback as occasion demands, I see a man intent on a great job who happens to be a monarch and who is presumably owner of a throne and a crown which perhaps are in storage. Clemenceau went to visit the Belgian front during the Inst year of the war and the King went with him to Nieu- port — almost always a dangerous place. Many a brave fellow had been killed there. As they left their cars and started to walk slowly up the gentle slope to the ruins, a German shell burst near them on the right. Then a sec- ond fell on the left. Another burst behind. They were in the center of a bombardment. Probably their arrival had been seen from the Great Dune or from a balloon. Aides and orderlies were greatly excited but the King and Clemenceau never altered their pace or never suspended their talk. They went along quietly until they reached a dugout under a wall when the King invited his guest in, much as he might ask him in out of a shower. There is no sham or humbug or pretense about Albert and Elisabeth. The King did not dash up slopes. Tie walked to the business in hand. THE KING AND THE QUEEN 45 It made the Belgians anxious and sometimes angry to think of the chances he took but there was no other way. "My life is no more precious than that of my men/' he told them. He knew that he had better be killed than give any suspicion that he was holding back. So he never held back. When one saw the King and Queen come back into Brussels after four years on the Yser — four years of blood and death, of tragedy and loss — at the head of the troops and amid the shouts and tears of a freed people, one liked to remember what he said to the Belgian Parliament August 4, 1914: "I have faith in our destinies. A na- tion which defends itself commands the respect of all. Such a nation can not perish. God will be with us in a just cause." CHAPTER YII The Headquarters Organization T Le Havre, the new organization of the Commission to Belgium had quickly taken form. It always was small. It purposely was kept small. We made the Bel- gians work for themselves, a thing they delighted to do. We got together a small staff of inspectors, accountants and clerks and finally the doctors and nurses for children's work. If we could have had Major Moten of Tuskegee and a hundred of his men who know how to do real things or one hundred Hampton boys we would have taken them at any time. If we could have had more surgeons and nurses and nurse's aids for the time of activity on the front and more doctors and nurses for civil hospital work, we would have taken them also. In Paris late in August, 19 17, we saw some twenty accountants and bookkeepers arrive at the Hotel Vouille- mont, late at night, just off the ship, and one of them, Francis de Sales Mulvey, was assigned to us. Mulvey did stenography, typewriting, and general office work until we could get hold of an office force, and then took entire supervision of the accounts. Mulvey was one of the men who would work until midnight to finish papers and bring them to a five o'clock morning train for signature. "It is bad business," so it is said, "to have the wife or members of the family of a chief about an office." But war makes new rules. In an emergency every available hand counts, and people of sense can fit in anywhere. Mrs. Bicknell and her daughters, Constance and Alberte, arriving late in September, speedily found work with us and stayed in Europe the greater part of three years. 46 THE HEADQUARTERS ORGANIZATION 47 Mrs. Bicknell became head of the Department of Re- search and Private Secretary of the Commissioner. The daughters did children's work at Le Glandier, the school of the Queen, and at Le Havre. All three were valuable assets. By the end of October we had Captain Philip Horton Smith, a Boston architect, at the job of constructing ware- houses at Adinkerke. In November, Captain Ernest W. Corn, a Christian clergyman, joined us and was made head of the Bureau of Refugee Service. He also did effective emergency work in charge of warehouses when we entered Bruges. By January 1, 1918, we had hold of Dr. Park and Miss Wilcox for the baby saving work, and they were joined by Miss Damon, in March, an Hawaiian American, whose executive ability kept things moving at the Salle Franklin. Doctor Leonard Chester Jones, of New York, had been in Switzerland and had taken his degree of Doctor of Phi- losophy at Geneva. He had been working in the Pass Bureau of the Paris office, but we got him free in March, 1918, and he was made First Aide to the Commissioner, and later office manager, proving himself a very valuable man. That summer of '18 he hurried to Switzerland and married a charming Swiss lady whose experience in the International Red Cross and whose knowledge of lan- guages were very useful to us. Major J. Wideman Lee, Jr., of New York City, a trained publicity man, now President of the George L. Dyer Company, was sent to us in July, 1918, to write up our work and make it easier for headquarters at Washing- ton to raise the huge sums we required. He soon showed his long business training and great driving power, and in the absence of the Commissioners ran the office, as well as his own department of Public Information. Lie was made Deputy Commissioner in October, 1918, and when he left Belgium in 1918 received the Order of the Crown from the King. General Atterbury, who knew his ability, 48 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED offered him work with the S.O.S. of the army, and an army commission and salary, which he refused, because of his conviction that he was more needed with us. The Commissioner could not have remained so constantly at work in the field if he had not had a man of such loyalty and executive ability as Major Lee to leave sitting at the center of things. John W. Gummere, of New York, was one of the theo- logical students in the Episcopal Seminary who did not want any exemption from war service. He drove an am- bulance in '16 and '17, and came to us in '17 as our repre- sentative at the Paris office, putting through our requisi- tions for goods and acting for us at headquarters. Later he was transferred to La Panne in Flanders, and put in charge of our warehouses. He next came to Le Havre as director of work for children, but soon went to the Balkans as Aide to Colonel Bicknell. He is now the Reverend John W. Gummere, Rector of St. Paul's Epis- copal Church, Bound Brook, New Jersey, a big, fine fel- low, well fitted to "show faith by works." So the machine was gradually built. Prom all over the earth, people of different temperaments and abilities and widely differing experiences were brought together. Here was a French clerk who had been all shot to pieces in the trenches. Here was a little girl of Polish parentage, a stenographer, whose home was Paris, and whose national- ity was English, and who left us at last to marry an Australian. Here was a French stenographer who mar- ried a gallant young American officer she had met in Le Havre. Here was a square built Englishman, MacDonald, who came to audit the books, and who knew neither friend nor foe in his task. For a year, the Havre office was in the Hotel des Regates, with one of the loveliest of views over across the bay to Deauville and Trouville, and with the music of the waves on the beach. Then for six weeks we were at 123 rue d'Etretat, and things were happening at the front THE HEADQUARTERS ORGANIZATION 49 which made it certain that this was only a provisional arrangement. From November 1 to 22, we were installed in Bruges, with all the refuse of the German soldiers to clear away, and with great German-built stoves to keep us warm. On November 22, we established our office at Brussels, where the Commissioner had been established two days before the Germans evacuated the city, — getting from the Comite National quarters at 54 rue des Colonies. Headquarters life at Le Havre gave one a pleasant, but not a "soft" job by any means. There was a constant stream of visitors to be dealt with. Letters in French, Flemish and English were piled up every morning to be sorted and answered. Applications for help came in every day from individ- uals, from societies or from the government. Appropriations began to go through, hastened by prompt action in Paris, upon our recommendations and by close cable connection between Paris and Washington. The first money spent was upon children. Money for supplies and warehouses quickly followed. Then came the appro- priations for refugees and military relief. Every six months there was a budget to make for the next six months, and to make a budget for relief work in war time in a foreign land, one had to be both a relief worker and a mind reader. There were reports to get off for the Commissioner to Europe and through him to the whole United States. There were important people to receive and take about. Le Havre was on one of the main routes between London and Paris, that via Southampton. It was a never ending source of delight to see the sorts and conditions of men who went through. Red Cross people, like Major Stanley Field, were going to England to buy supplies. Paul Rainey, the great ani- mal photographer and hunter, was going home. Chevril- lon, Hoover's agent in Paris, the talented Frenchman who helped the Red Cross get started in France was off for a 50 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED conference with his London office. Miss Mabel T. Board- man was coming to study Red Cross work in France, Bel- gium, Italy and England ; Mrs. Whitelaw Beid was going back to London to "carry on" there throughout the war; English Quakers were taking the boat to go on leave. Edward T. Devine was coming for work with Major Folks in Paris. Paul Kellogg had finished a job for the Bed Cross in Italy and was on his way back to N"ew York. Major Byrne, Deputy Commissioner for Italy, was on a mission to London. Captain Twose, of the Bed Cross Commission to Roumania, was headed for Boulogne ; Mc- Lanahan or Pomeroy, of the Boulogne office, were down for a conference, — and so it went. Every one had a different experience and a different errand. Army people, navy people, relief people of all nations streamed back and forth through Le Havre and the Commissioner saw many of them. JSTo more heartening visits were made than those of our own national officers from Paris or Washington. Henry P. Davison was hurrying back and forth across the At- lantic, urging things forward everywhere. Ivy L. Lee came and made a speech which revealed for the first time to us how practically the whole United States had enlisted in the Bed Cross, and it gave us new power. Eliot Wadsworth of the War Council, and George Sim- mons, Manager of the Southwestern Division, Perkins and Gibson, successive Commissioners for all Europe, cheered us on and helped us see more clearly the direc- tion to take. In the year and more that headquarters were at Le Havre, the city gradually took on a different aspect for Americans. The American Army came. An American base was established with General Coulter in command. Americans arriving and departing had to report there. The little Southhampton boat began to come in loaded with American officers. At last American Army trans- ports began to dock at Le Havre, and long lines of Ameri- THE HEADQUARTERS ORGANIZATION 51 can troops began to march off to the rest camp. The Paris office of the American Red Cross put men at Le Havre to render service to these troops, and all our supplies and all our personnel were at the service of the Americans. No order for this had to be given. With every man, the American job was the first job. The ladies of the Commission did not content them- selves with translations and other office work, but estab- lished relations with the British, French and Belgian military soldiers in Le Havre, visiting the soldiers, carry- ing fruit, cigarettes and chocolate and other little gifts. A Committee of Belgian and American ladies took re- sponsibility for this form of welfare work for the Belgian hospital in the rue Ancelot, and the Red Cross helped finance it. On this committee were Madame Paul Hy- mans, Madame Renkin, the Countess Goblet d'Alviella, Mademoiselle H,elene Goblet d' Alviella, Madame Bassom- pierre, Madame Jean de Mot, and Mrs, John van Schaick, Jr. Another Committee of American ladies for hospital work was under the chairmanship of Mrs. John Ball Os- borne, wife of the American Consul at Le Havre, who co- operated so faithfully with us. It consisted of Mrs. Ernest P. Bicknell, Mrs. William Mathews, Mrs. John de Mot, Mrs. Louis Orrell, Mrs. Bradford, and Mrs. van Schaick. Mrs. Whitlock, while not a member of this Committee, helped them and did herculean service by her- self along the same line. These ladies, financed by the Commission for Belgium, carried fruit and comforts to the American soldiers in the hospitals of Le Havre, not forgetting the allied comrades who often lay by the side of the Americans. In the great rush of wounded from the battles of July, 1918, these ladies were very busy. Mrs. van Schaick went into the French Military Hospital at the Hotel Frascati, which was caring for wounded American sol- diers, and worked as a nurse's aid for some weeks. The 52 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED hospitals did not have personnel to handle the patients. Doctors and nurses were overworked, doing only the most essential things. Besides, most of them did not speak English and our boys did not speak French. The number of little things a person entirely untrained can do as a nurse's aid at such a time is indicated by the following list kept at Frascati: "Took down records of the wounded American soldiers, four papers for each. Collected patients' letters, took them to censor, who was a wounded officer on top floor. Translated a letter written in Italian into English, so censor could pass on it. Got the passes for the slightly wounded going out. Fed soldiers helpless through wounds in hands or arms, or very ill. Gave out newspapers, fruit, matches, cigarettes and writing paper. Handed out uni- forms for men going out for the day and other clothing like socks and underwear. Washed feet. Prepared spe- cial soup on alcohol lamp. Bathed very ill men on head and hands with cologne. Put into English lists of surgical appliances and material the French surgeons were asking of the American Red Cross. Attended funerals of the boys who died and was the only woman at the grave of some of them. Got the wreaths for these funerals, tied them with our colors and put them on the casket. Brought back the American flag from the grave. Wrote to fami- lies of the dead boys. Prepared little boxes in which boys could keep bullets or pieces of shell taken out of them. Helped an American sergeant entertain his French sweet- heart and her mother who had come to visit him. Tele- phoned. Sorted, counted and sent out dirty linen. Got men ready to take motor rides. Wrote letters for men. Interpreted for doctors, nurses and patients. Mended clothes. Picked up trash." In this hospital Mrs. Barton and Mrs. Carstairs, two English ladies, had helped as nurse's aids for two years. Mrs. Barton, wife of a Colonel in the British Army, was an American, born in Princeton, New Jersey. She THE HEADQUARTERS ORGANIZATION 53 had lived in India, Africa and England so long that, as she put it, "I believed I had lost all my Americanism. But when I saw the first American wounded, I knew that I could never lose my feeling for my native country." CHAPTER VIII Getting Started in Flanders 1ST all effective charity or relief work, it is accepted as a fundamental that nothing shall be done for a man which he can do for himself, that every effort shall be made to cheer and encourage those in distress, that the work done shall be adequate to the need, and carried on until the need is met, that neighbors and friends should be encouraged to take the lead in doing what is necessary, and that relief organizations and their workers should keep in the background. The first Commissioner for Belgium, Colonel Bicknell, had had a greater experience in relief work at home and abroad than anyone else in the Red Cross organization. He believed that the fundamentals of relief do not change in war time or in the foreign field. From the beginning he was insisting : "Use the French and Belgian Committees and their Red Cross Societies. Cooperate with them. Strengthen them. Take advantage of their long experi- ence in the war and their knowledge of their own people. Let us do our work largely through them, use our in- fluence to effect mergers, get rid of competition, and bring about the highest efficiency. Then let us pour our money and supplies through their channels. If we do this, when we leave any country, we won't make a great gap which it will discourage the people to fill, but we will leave local organizations stronger than we found them and more able to do what we have to leave undone." It is the opinion of his colleagues in the work that the principles which he laid down are sound principles 54 GETTING STARTED IN FLANDERS 55 and that future Red Cross work in war and in peace — abroad and at home — must he based upon them. "Work," said he from the first day, "through the govern- ment, and the existing agencies. Keep personnel at a minimum. Don't let us load up with a great number of people whom we can't use. Get experienced workers. When our people get here, put them in alongside the foreign worker, first to learn, and then to help." But some tasks were obviously American almost ex- clusively, from the beginning. In both France and Belgium, there was need of supplies of all kinds and of transport so as to place them where they were wanted. Finance, purchase and transport were distinctly American jobs to be done by American work- ers. The Paris office built up an able staff for finance, ac- counting, purchase and transportation and directed that these be at the service of Belgium, Italy and the other countries, as well as France. There was a shortage in personnel along some lines from the moment we landed until the end of the war. There were never too many people, for example, able to repair automobiles. There were never too many nurses, especially those willing to nurse contagion among sick civilians as well as to care for soldiers. There was urgent need from the beginning of sending men in American uni- form among the soldiers and civilians to let them know that "the Americans are here." To build up an organization able to do what the Bel- gians could not do and not to attempt to take their places in what they could do and ought to do was our problem. At Havre, the Belgian Ministers talked things over with us and agreed with Colonel Bicknell that an important task would be to bring in supplies of food and clothing, drugs, dressings and bandages, and place these where they could be quickly made available in case of need. We were faced with the choice every military com- mander had to make, whether to have things which we 56 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED needed back where they would be safe but inaccessible, or forward and more or less in danger of being captured or destroyed by the enemy. The Belgian Minister of the Interior had placed stores at Conchil near Montreuil-sur-mer, fifty miles from the front. We decided to establish stores of clothing at Le Havre for the use of refugees but to place such food and hospital supplies as we could get, as well as part of the clothing, near the front. If the enemy moved forward and there was a rush of new refugees, or if the Allies moved forward and Belgian civilians were liberated, or if the Germans should separate the British and Belgian Armies from the French and cut us off from our stores at Paris and Le Havre — these stores at the front would be invaluable. With the Ministers Berryer and Vandevyvere, we studied maps and could see only one place to locate store- houses for Belgium, and that was Dunkirk. It was the seaport nearest the trenches. It had plenty of empty warehouses and we were determined to rent if possible and not spend time and money in building, especially as we had neither carpenters, hardware nor lumber. Dunkirk was near enough for one great purpose. What was passing in our minds may be seen by this remark of Colonel Bicknell to M. Vandevyvere, the Belgian Minister of Finance. "If we get done with trench war and the armies move, then is the time we will need these sup- plies. But just at that time the roads will be blocked by troops of all kinds, railroads will be overworked, and trucks simply will not be available to haul from Paris or Le Havre. If we expect to be of service, we have got to have our stuff where we can get it; we must take risks." When we decided to put stores at the front and to go to pick out a spot, the government acted quickly. The Min- ister of War gave us a fast closed car with one of his best drivers. The Minister of the Interior called up the frontier guard at Ghyvelde, 200 miles away, to advise GETTING STARTED IN FLANDERS 57 them that we were coming without waiting for passes. At the same time he telegraphed to Monsieur Jean Maes to meet us in Dunkirk to help us. M. Maes, a member of the Belgian Parliament, living at Bousbrugge in Free Belgium, was acting as an officer of the Minister of the Interior in charge of food supplies for the civilian inhab- itants of Free Belgium. We had reached Le Havre and opened headquarters Monday, September 3. On Tuesday, we had had our conference. By Wednesday at 7 P. M. we rolled into Dunkirk, 212 miles north. We were im- pressed at once with dark, silent streets and people seek- ing shelter in cellars. By 8 :45 P. M. we understood why and also why the Belgian Ministers had appeared some- what reluctant for us personally to stay in Dunkirk very long. The Germans came over with several planes and many bombs. We went down and foolishly stood in the big open door of the hotel quite alone. There I might easily have lost my chief as a machine gun bullet hit his shoe a glancing blow. Luckily, this was all that hit us. The battle raged between aviators and anti-air craft bar- rage with terrifying noise, houses were crashing, but clanging down the dark streets through it all came the ambulances of the Friends' Ambulance Unit, which we afterward were to know so well, "on a work of love in the midst of war." The next night, Thursday, September 6, I made the following entry in my diary: "More excitement tonight. Another alette just after we got to bed. (One more by aviators and one by long range gun later in the night.) Dunkirk beats the world for sirens. Spent the whole day on that warehouse matter. It was a revelation to us to go down to the docks this morning and to find that the building we were after was a smoking ruin with huge chunks of masonry blown in every direction by a powerful bomb dropped by an aviator. Don't hardly know what to do. Maes said simply 'formi- 58 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED dable,' which seems to be French for terrific or unbelieva- ble, or 'the limit.' " The best advice we could get, British, French, Belgian, as well as that of our own Consular Agent was against putting stores in Dunkirk. Stores were coming into the port every week but people did not leave them around the docks or in the city longer than necessary. Dunkirk then, as throughout the war, was a city especially picked out for attack. At La Panne, in Free Belgium, only seven miles from the trenches, we found conditions little better. My own record puts it as follows under date of September 7 : "Bicknell and I came into Belgium today after calling on Mordey, Adjutant of the Friends' Ambulance Unit. Went to the Ocean Hospital and found that it had just been shelled. My room was full of broken glass. Two men were killed. Two nurses hurt. They have had a shell in the storeroom and a bomb in the street back of the hospital." There was no port at La Panne. Nothing but fishing boats landed on the beach. We took up the matter of a location of the stores with the Belgian Chief of Staff. He assigned an Engineer Officer to help us. Major Cobra and Commandant Vierset of the Head- quarters Staff, Colonel Nolf, Director of the Belgian Mili- tary Hospital at Cabour, and Jean Steyaert, C ommissaire of the Arrondissement of Fumes, walked many miles helping us study the various sites proposed. Commandant H. Dustin and Commandant Vierset, in charge of Belgian Army supplies, put what material they had available at our service, so that we would not be delayed too much getting started. We decided to give up the idea of a seaport, to put our stores in Belgium instead of France, and in the open coun- try instead of a town which was more likely to be at- tacked. GETTING STARTED IN FLANDERS 59 When we started looking for locations, we found the same kind of difficulties which one confronts in Washing- ton, or jSTew York, or anywhere else, when one wants to locate a municipal hospital or school for tubercular chil- dren. Each neighborhood wants another neighborhood chosen. "Don't put it near the children's colony or the hospital, for it will draw the German shells or the bombs of aviators." "Please don't take my field, kind gentlemen, as it is the only field I have for my cow." These were the kind of things we heard. One place was too dangerous — another place was too wet. A third place was too inac- cessible, and so it went. At last we settled on both Adin- kerke and Cabour, partly on the principle that it is best not to put "one's eggs all in a single basket," and partly on the principle that "Man proposes and God disposes," and there was no place at the front where the eggs could be absolutely safe. The man who superintended the putting up of our warehouses at the front was Captain Philip Horton Smith, a Boston architect who in the latter part of the war was busy putting up hospitals and storehouses for the army. When I picked him up at Calais, October 19, 1917, and started with him up through the British Zone, and dis- covered that he had no passes, I was thoroughly irritated about it. When I saw later how people were delayed get- ting passes in Paris, I gave Smith a big credit mark for starting without them. It was a simple matter to fix him up when we got to Major Tinant, Surete Militaire Beige. The barracks came up by rail in sections, from the Con- struction Department of the American Red Cross in Paris and Smith had the cooperation and help of Major Emer- son, head of that department, in this first job. There were all kinds of delays but Smith showed grit and patience and in the next seven months got 9 bar- racks erected, each 100 ft. long and 20 ft. wide. Smith himself wrote of the work as follows : "We worked with the Belgian Army, which loaned us 60 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED a gang of soldiers under the able command of Lieutenant Roelandt of Grand. We were also greatly assisted in ob- taining material by the Belgian Army authorities, who cooperated with us at every turn in the most gratifying manner. "We encountered great difficulties, owing to our work being in the zone of activities and were very lucky in narrowly escaping the destruction of our barracks and hospitals on numerous occasions, notably in the great day- light raid of early ^November, 19 17, when we were heavily bombed, one missile falling only a few yards from the work then going on. "Personally, in spite of the discomforts and great diffi- culties of every sort which I encountered in carrying through my part of the work to a satisfactory conclusion, I look back on those months spent in Belgium with the greatest pleasure. I never got entangled in the miles of red tape that hampered other departments. "I am grateful for having had the opportunity of com- ing in contact with the Belgians, a people whom I greatly admire. Seeing them as I did, in the midst of discom- fort and terror, cut off from their homes and communi- cation with their loved ones, enduring privation and often with a lack of proper appreciation and understanding from their Allies, I came to have a great affection based on respect and admiration for this fine, clean, sturdy, honest, and industrious people." We put Lieutenant John Gummere in charge of filling the barracks. In the summer of 1918, shipments were stopped on account of the German advance. We made arrangements to blow up the barracks if the Germans came so fast that we could not get the stores away. We refused, however, to accept the advice of some Bel- gians and a few Americans visiting this front to evacuate at once on account of the danger. In this same summer of 1918, we began to draw on these stores to feed refugees. GETTING STARTED IN FLANDERS 61 At the same time we turned over two of the barracks nearest Cabour to the Minister of the Interior for a refu- gee clearing station which he operated in conjunction with the Friends' Ambulance Unit. In the fall of 1918, when the army and hospitals moved forward, and Belgium from the North Sea to the Scheldt was liberated, these supplies were worth almost their weight in gold to us. As we had foreseen, it was almost impossible to get things up from Paris at this time. As we fed refugees, supplied hospitals, and distributed condensed milk for children, we were thankful that our Commissioner, Colonel Bicknell, had been an old, experienced relief worker, that he had insisted on these stores far up at the front, that he had never listened to advice to move them back, or abandon the warehouses when things looked threatening. He had two remarks for such occasions : "We've no business in this war if we are not willing to take chances," and "Things never are as bad as repre- sented." CHAPTER IX The Hospital of the Queen THE Hospital of the Queen," "The Hospital of Dr. Depage," and the "Ocean Hospital" were names variously given to the main hospital of the Belgian Red Cross Society at La Panne. Like so much in recent Belgian history, this hospital dates back to the Battle of the Yser, with its thousands of casualties and its utter lack of facilities for the care of the wounded. Of the origin Dr. Depage writes as follows : "Toward the end of November, 1914, after the battle of the Yser, I found myself in Calais. I had come to or- ganize there the hospital 'Jeanne d'Arc' with the funds put at my disposal by the Belgian Bed Cross. "Queen Elisabeth in the course of a visit which she had made to our wounded, proposed to me that we establish at La Panne a new hospital which she desired to see cre- ated nearer the front and upon Belgian territory. "At the moment, with the exception of the Belgian Field Hospital, which we owe to the generosity of the English and which was later transferred to Hoogstade, our only surgical hospital in the zone of the armies was at Furnes. It was served by religious sisters whose good will could not supply the lack of professional training. Her Majesty understood the great advantage that there would be in giving competent surgical attention to the severely wounded before an evacuation which meant a long journey by automobile or railway train. "I accepted Her Majesty's proposition with enthusiasm as I was sure that in realizing her ideals, we would be 62 w o Q 6 TO h THE HOSPITAL OF THE QUEEN 63 able to make a notable contribution to the care of our wounded. "La Panne is on the border of the North Sea, ten kilo- meters to the southwest of Nieuport and about a dozen kilometers behind the trenches. It is the last village on the Belgian coast before the frontier of Trance." The Queen secured for their use the Ocean Hotel prop- erty on the beach. By 1917, there had been added to the original hotel building at least forty pavilions or barracks, from butchery to chapel, contributed by various agencies. There were the Pavilion de reception, Pavilion British, Pavilion Every- man, Pavilion Albert-Elisabeth, Pavilion Americain. There was the Institut Marie Depage, and on a lonely sand dune facing the ocean, there was the grave of Marie Depage who raised money for the hospital in America in 1915 and lost her life on the Lusitania coming home. Her body was washed ashore on the coast of Ireland, re- covered by Dr. Depage, her husband, and buried at La Panne along the coast just above the hospital. This lonely coast town made a deep impression on all who saw it for the first time and even many of those who lived there for months never got away entirely from a feel- ing of awe. Ugly brick and wooden buildings strung along the beach, and on streets at right angles to it, sol- diers quartered in villas whose windows were often broken and boarded up, nearly everything in the village shabby or half destroyed — shells of houses here and there wrecked by aviators or guns, refugees crowded in between soldiers' barracks, little stores thriving when they could get any- thing to sell, two hotels carrying on though both had been hit, at one end of the beach the two modest villas of the King and Queen and their officers, and at the other end toward the trenches — the Ocean Hospital — yet this was the very heart and soul of Belgium, — the real capital of the country. "I knocked tonight at Dr. Depage's door," one of our 64 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED men wrote in 1917, "and for a time no one came. It was very dark except for the line of surf. I turned and watched the ocean rolling in and thought of all that had happened on this beach since the days of the early North- men and of how many men had 'fought in Flanders.' Off to my left were England and France and home. Up the coast to my right, there were the Germans. Star shells and gun flashes lit up the night. Behind the Germans were Ostend and Ghent and our dear Belgian friends of other days — so near we could have motored over in an hour, and yet so far, with the trenches between, that we may never see them. Then the door opened and I went in to a man who may have sentiment but who never showed it, and who never for one instant seemed to get away from the tasks of the Belgian Red Cross Society." Antoine Depage was physically and mentally a big man. He was of humble origin and seemed to have the strength of generations of Vikings behind him. He had a great frame and an iron will. He knew surgery and medicine and hospitals and he knew also what other countries had discovered and the men who were doing things. He had fought his way to the front at Brussels in his profession before the war. Distinguished French, English and American doctors told us in 19 17 what Dr. Carrel said after the war: "The Ocean Hospital is one of the greatest hospitals the war produced." The secret of it was the secret of good work, able men and the best equipment money could buy. Depage got doctors and nurses from England, France, Italy and the United States, as well as his own country. He had to start with what he could get, but he never let up until he strengthened weak spots. He had Levaditi, a great French Bacteriologist, De Baisier of the University of Louvain, Delray of the University of Liege, Vande- velde of the University of Ghent, Carl Janssen Dele, Bene Sand, Dustin and Zunz of the University of Brussels — all great specialists and all playing the game. THE HOSPITAL OF THE QUEEN 65 Depage is a Liberal and now after the war is a Senator in Parliament of the Liberal party, but he made a hos- pital where Catholics, Liberals and Socialists were equally free to work. The spirit was scientific, not limited by country, church or party. Depage proved that pure science is the best patriotism. Though he had fought the good fight for trained nurses before the war, like a sensible man he took what he could get during the war — whether trained nurses from Eng- land, peasant girls from Flanders, or cultured ladies of Brussels. Given a person of good health, good will, and common sense, he knew he could make a nurse, and some of these so-called "fancy ladies" stood in the forefront of this exacting profession when the war ended. Madame de Brockdorf and Madame Jean de Mot, both of whom lost their husbands while serving here, Madame Carl Janssen Dele and Madame Maurice Hanssens did especially valu- able work in executive positions. Dr. Eugene Poole of ISTew York, Dr. Yehtes, Dr. Lee, and Dr. Moody were among the American doctors who helped him, and Moody, stricken with disease, worked in the great push of 1918 until he was literally dying and only then consented to go away. These Belgian doctors speak very tenderly of the gallant doctor who now lies buried in the south of France. Mrs. Larz Anderson of Washington, Miss White, Miss Denning, Mrs. Snowden of Greenwich, Mrs. Dewitt Mac- Kenzie, and Miss Phylis Moore were among the helpful American ladies. When we first knew the hospital, Captain Charles Graux was business manager, and he was suc- ceeded by Maurice Hanssens. But here was a Red Cross Society with practically all its contributors and workers in occupied Belgium under the Germans. So there were two branches of the Society during the war : In Brussels, the Countess Jean de Merode, President, held things together and was able to accomplish important 66 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED things for prisoners and for Belgian soldiers mutilated in the early fighting and left in the country. But the Grand Protector — the King, and the Honorary President — the Queen, were with the army. They helped make a new organization for the war. General Melis, Inspector General of the Service de 8 ante of the Belgian Army was made President. Dr. Depage was made Di- rector, Mr. G. Didier was elected Secretary, and he opened an office first at Calais and then in Paris, while an execu- tive committee was formed of Dr. Depage, Baron Guffinet and General Melis. The King settled in short order the question of the mili- tary status of Belgian Bed Cross doctors. The entire Bed Cross was taken into the military establishment, except the contributed funds which were left in charge of the executive committee. The doctors were commissioned in the army. Dr. Depage became a Colonel. He wore the uniform, and he had the insignia, but he never thought of himself as any- thing but Head Surgeon, and this was his strength and his weakness. He paid scant attention to the spirit of orders which interfered — he never followed along the paths of army red tape, he made some of the military men almost froth at the mouth with rage, and yet he was too big and important and valuable to be taken out and shot at sunrise. When real tension resulted, there was the little Queen with some common sense solution, or the King with a suggestion which Depage, out of both love and loyalty, would be quick to accept. As the situation worked out, the Belgian Red Cross Society had practically a free hand. Scientific ideas controlled. The doctors were free. If they needed something, a way was found to get it. Of course the regular army establishment felt that Depage and the Ocean Hospital got the pick of everything, and they did. The Belgian Bed Cross Society with its freedom and its funds was continually getting new things and raising THE HOSPITAL OF THE QUEEN 67 standards. Instantly there was a demand all along the line for those same new things and one way or another they had to come. By the time we got to La Panne in 1917, Depage was in trouble. He had to move his hospital, his funds were exhausted, and England, which had supported him so loyally, was unable to do more. It was the time that the British were planning for their great push in Flanders to force the evacuation of Ostend and Zeebrugge, the bases of the menacing submarines. First they tried it along the coast, straight up from ISTieu- port. The Belgians moved out of La Panne and the sector along the coast and the British moved in. In a night old friendly sentinels were replaced by smart Tommies who stopped one and looked one all over. Old passes were no good. British Generals moved into the villas and thou- sands of British soldiers marched or played on the sand. Foreseeing this in time, Dr. Depage had put all his money into a great new hospital some six miles inland at Vinekem or Wulveringhem, two little Flemish villages side by side. There he had built some forty or fifty new modern barracks and a few larger buildings of brick, well lighted, with central heat, and with corridors and passages so wide that it seemed wasteful. Depage explained that a second row of cots could be placed in these corridors and still leave room to pass. It seemed fanciful and far- fetched, but 1918, with its terrible rush of wounded, was to fully vindicate this so-called extravagant and waste- ful man. Depage had spent 2,500,000 francs — all he had — on his Vinekem hospital, and it was still unfinished. He hoped the British would buy his Ocean LTospital at La Panne. They said they wanted it but the price was too high and these negotiations fell through. What we had then to decide was whether we would recommend to the American Red Cross in Paris that they give the Belgian 68 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED Red Cross a million with which to finish the Vinckem hospital. There was for it the support of the Queen who wel- comed us at Vinckem on our first visit, the fact that the Belgians had to get out of La Panne, and our belief in Depage's theory that hospitals, like the fighting men, must take chances, and build up where they can get the wounded quickly, even if they run a chance of being destroyed. For it also was the judgment of Doctor Alexander Lam- bert of New York who said to us: "Depage is a great man. Some of them hate him but they can't do without him. Back him up. He may be extravagant but he is extravagant to save life and he is able and honest." So we recommended an appropriation of 500,000 francs, and got it. The American Red Cross finished the hospital at Vinckem. But the British met with a reverse at Nieu- port. They instantly concentrated again at Ypres for the attack on the Passchendaele ridge. The Belgians moved back into the Nieuport-La Panne sector and the Belgian Red Cross now had two great establishments, both run under the name of Ambulance de V Ocean. During the winter of 1917-18, the hospital barracks at Vinckem were empty. At a little dinner at La Panne of Belgium and British officers, one of Depage' s enemies made a great laugh by describing the famous hospital "run by three men and a dog and with transport service of one bicycle." By midsummer the laugh was on the other side. CHAPTER X Belgian Red Cross Activities T 1ST the early summer of 1918, the Belgium Red Cross -*- Society had under its control five military hospitals serving the army: First Line: The Ocean Hospital at La Panne, and the new hospital at Vinekem to which we contributed 500,000 francs. Second Line: Hopital Vir- val of 400 beds on the outskirts of Calais, and Hopital Petit Fort Philippe — a mile from Gravelines — with 1,000 beds. Third Line: Hopital Mortain in the department of Calvados south of Rouen with another 1,000 beds. From La Panne near the front line, it was 22 miles back to Gravelines and 250 miles back to Mortain. These hospitals, as a part of the army establishment, drew rations and all personnel was paid by the army. So whether funds came in to the Belgian Red Cross or not these hospitals could exist, but they could not carry on the high grade work they had been doing. Under date of May 8, 1918, I wrote Colonel Bicknell at Le Havre as follows : "Mr. Hanssens, Business Manager of the Ocean Hos- pital, on Sunday told me the condition of things in the Belgian Red Cross Society and asked our help. When you and I talked about this before, they had a reserve of several hundred thousand francs. This has been spent and the Society finds itself without resources except oc- casional small gifts and the profits of the canteen at the Ocean Hospital, which amounts to only a few thousand a year. "In the opinion of Mr. %' and of Mr. %' an officer of the King, neither of whom want to be quoted in any 69 70 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED way, it is important to keep the Belgian Red Cross So- ciety alive and independent but working in closest co- operation with the Service de Sante. Toward this co- operation 'Y' has been working for some months. Depage and Melis now pull together. If, however, the Belgian Red Cross goes out of business, the entire medical and surgical administration will become centered in the army. This will mean a certain amount of stagnation and red tape. Everybody seems to agree, even those who criticize Depage, that his influence has been powerful and uplifting in the army as well as in general. Everybody agrees that he is fearless, honest, intelligent and very progressive. If the Belgian Red Cross comes to depend entirely on the army, it is believed that Depage will be more or less ham- pered. Hanssens said 'If we need a new operating table for the Ocean Hospital, we ought to be free to get it and not have to wait three months.' In all matters of special equipment, experimentation, etc., they want liberty. "If the American Red Cross can give the Belgian Red Cross a monthly subsidy, the freedom can be maintained. I believe we ought to help the Belgian Red Cross Society because it is a Red Cross Society of standing, because the first job of all Red Cross Societies is the military hospi- tals, and because the main man in the Society is Depage and Depage is a real leader. "I recommend an appropriation of 25,000 francs per month on the condition that we are free at any time to withdraw from the undertaking." Colonel Bicknell was so frequently at the front and knew Depage so well that argument with him was un- necessary. Conservative usually in granting funds, given to making conditions which would stimulate the recipient, here he went far beyond me. It was a critical moment for the Allies. Up on our part of the front, the Germans had taken Mt. Kemmel and were now behind us. They were massing around Hazebrouck and there was grave danger of our having to give up the front line from Ypres to Nieu- BELGIAN RED CROSS ACTIVITIES 71 port and fall back toward Dunkirk. It was time for a real stroke to cheer and stiffen everybody. Bicknell found that the American Red Cross in Paris and in London had taken precisely that view of the situation. They had given 10,000,000 francs to the French Red Cross, 450,000 pounds to the British Red Cross and smaller gifts to the Italian and Swiss Red Cross Societies. Colonel Bicknell requested a million francs for the Belgian Red Cross Society and the Finance Committee granted it. Then he arranged for Colonel James H. Perkins, Commissioner to Europe, to go to La Panne and present the check to the Queen as Honorary President of the Belgian Red Cross Society. It was some weeks before Colonel Perkins could get to our front but the Belgian Red Cross had been ad- vised of the grant and did not have to wait for the check to use it. The brave little Queen was happier even than Depage when she got the news. "Our brave men," she said. "It means so much for them." Her face fairly shone with joy. Finally on August 17, Bicknell and I met Colonel Perk- ins at Boulogne-sur-mer, coming back from England. With him was Major Daniel T. Pierce and Major J. Wideman Lee. They saw everything from Nieuport to Poperinghe, — front trenches, canteens, children's colonies, civil and mili- tary hospitals, — and on August 19, were received by both the King and Queen. The King was in a very happy mood, joked about living so long at La Panne, said he liked the sea view but was "fed up" with it, and in every way made the little ceremony much less stiff than these things are apt to be. Perkins got the check transferred to the King who promptly handed it to the Queen. Per- kins did it in the simplest, friendliest kind of a way and the King and Queen both showed deep feeling in the way they thanked the American Red Cross and the people of the United States. The money was used to equip the hospitals Petit Fort 72 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED Philippe, Virval and Mortain, and in improving condi- tions at Vinckem and La Panne. The Belgian Red Cross farm, in the Moeres, was an oasis in the midst of a desert of war. Shells went over but here were peace and plenty. Destruction was in the air about, but here things were produced. Not having milk, eggs, vegetables, chickens for the wounded, the Belgian Red Cross Society raised them. Madame Joos- tens, wife of a great horse breeder and fancier, was in charge. Her husband commanded a battery at ISTieuport. The farm was run on modern lines and any cow which did not give her 20 or 25 liters of milk per clay had to go. The best cow gave 32 liters. Long before the armistice, the Belgian Red Cross was looking forward to service in the occupied country. "As we move forward," said Madame Joostens, "we must pre- pare to deal with a population in which are many ema- ciated, many tubercular, and a great number of children in need of a diet of eggs and milk." On September 28, the Belgian Army, held on the de- fensive so long, left their trenches and began the famous battle of the "Mountain of Flanders." In one day they captured Houthulst Forest at which they had looked for over four years. They were well astride the Passchendaele ridge now which the British had captured foot by foot in 1917 and had had to give up in the great German offensive of 1918. The British fighting with them said, "These Belgians are wonderful. They must have webbed feet to go over such ground." The wounded came back by the thousand. ISTow every hospital facility was taxed to the uttermost. Vinckem, no longer run by "three men, a dog and a bicycle," was full and the expensive wide corridors, as Depage had foreseen, cared for long rows of cots which he had in reserve. Amer- ican Red Cross money unquestionably saved many lives. Under date of October 5, 1918, I wrote Colonel Bick- nell from La Panne: BELGIAN RED CROSS ACTIVITIES 73 "Depage has risen to the emergency in great shape. The Ocean Hospital (which had been almost entirely evac- uated under army orders) jumped from two doctors and six nurses and perhaps fifty beds, to 800, then 1,000, and now tonight 1,500. The hospital at Vinckem jumped from 400 to 1,600 beds. "Depage's judgment in building it has been vindicated. (It was a close question, however, whether Germans wouldn't capture it.) The plan Depage drew with wide corridors has saved the day, for these corridors are wide enough for wards. Depage came up with a rush from Mortain on the 27 and the offensive started the 28. He took command of the hospital in person and spends his days at Vinckem and his nights at La Panne. The great lack was personnel. I gave my secretary. Civilian doctors were impressed. I sent Dr. Rothholz and her nurse from Leysele. Doctor Park came and jumped in to help for a day or two. A cable brought 25 nursing students from London, Belgian girls, household servants in La Panne, were taken over, and so it went. Nurses and doctors were hurried up from Mortain but this supply was limited as the wounded were evacuated in that direction. "All in all, it has been handled well. Doctors have op- erated 20 hours on a stretch and nurses have worked 40 hours out of 48, but it is better now. "The worst thing was that the jump was so quick and the ground so bad and the roads so few that the army got away from us and the wounded were not picked up quickly the first three days. There is no doubt but that a number were lost that way. "There seem to be up to date 15,000 casualties, 8,000 of which are grave, 5,000 dead. The proportion of offi- cers was very great, probably 1,000 casualties and I was told 800 dead. "The Belgians fought fiercely, with an anger long pent up and very savage when they struck regiments like the one which shot up Dinant early in the war. They took 74 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED 5,000 or 6,000 prisoners in the first two days. If they had had roads and reserves, or reserves without any more roads, they would have gone through to Bruges or Ghent. "Another interesting thing: Seeing the lack in quick attention at the front line and the inability of regimental surgeons to cope with it, Depage is starting two advanced surgical stations — one at Poelcappelle on the south side of the Forest of Houthulst, and the other at Jonckershove near Houthulst village on the north side. Dr. Delporte is in charge of the first and has been operating these two days, and Dr. jSTeuman is in charge of the second which is placed today. These are installed in tents which the American Red Cross gave "Gifts for Belgian Soldiers" for canteen purposes, but they are switched rapidly to this use because of the need and because of the good team work between Vandervelde and Depage. "I'd like a hundred good American stretcher bearers, but we can't have them. We will come through without them." The little Queen went up into all that tangle of Houthulst Forest, nursing in the advanced surgical sta- tions, and was in places shelled repeatedly. The King was with the troops and once came back to find her, meeting her at one of the American Ked Cross tents. Neither asked the other to go back where it was safer, though both were in grave danger. That was the greatest test of all. "Thanks to the millions of members of the American Red Cross in the United States, we had hundreds of cases of bandages, dressings and hospital garments ready and our trucks were busy keeping hospitals supplied from our warehouses at Adinkerke. A. P. Rice, head of our supply service in Paris, wrote on November 8, 1918, that he had shipped us 660 cases in October alone — besides 1,000 pounds of ether and chloroform just sent and a truck load of ether and other drugs started over the road. By October 19, we were in Bruges. The Belgian Red Cross, like the army hospitals moved with the army. BELGIAN RED CROSS ACTIVITIES 75 There was a hospital at Thourout one day and the next day in the Ecole Normale of Bruges. Then by November 5, Depage put an advanced surgical station in an old con- vent at Waerschoote, close up to Ghent. "Our camions with food and blankets, as well as sur- gical supplies and dressings, kept up with the Belgian Red Cross as it moved. "Waerschoote was the last stand before Brussels." Under date of October 25, 1918, I wrote Major Lee, our Acting Deputy Commissioner at Le Havre, from La Panne, as follows: "The time element in this relief work sticks out at every turn. It is the instantaneous decision and the bull- dog determination and the wild bull kind of rushes which succeed in a relief crisis like that which faces us now. "I see why Depage is hated and why he succeeds. I said to him tonight as I left him at Bruges : 'You are sometimes very difficult but also from time to time magnifi- cent.' This is one of the times when he shines out, when nothing stops him, and he gets the wounded in and oper- ated upon and fed and covered with blankets and nursed. I see the enormous difficulties of making a new hospital He changes his base as the army changes, — quick as lightning. He sacrifices any amount of labor already done to meet a new condition which has arisen, which was not in the situation before. "The time element, as I say, sticks out. I like the way you realize this at Le Havre and act on it. 1,000 blankets when wounded men lie uncovered are more than 1,000,000 when they are in the hospital, warm and fed. "Ten sacks of rice for a new hospital, swept clean by the Germans, means more than a shipload in some port 100 miles away. One hundred tubes of catgut two miles back from the front trenches or at some post de secours outweighs an order for 30,000 tubes just going in to Paris. "It is this catgut, blankets, rice, beans, many-tailed 76 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED abdominal bandage kind of job that we have been doing since the great Belgian offensive. "These are the things rushed forward from our stores accumulated a year ago for this kind of an emergency, placed far forward in an area under fire, while some laughed and others expostulated. It is sent up now by transport arranged months ago when, with this thing in mind, we placed camions in the front area to do evacuation work of the people and property in danger and to be quickly available for some great hour of need." When the King reached Brussels, the war over, the American Red Cross did two further things for the Bel- gian Red Cross. It placed in the hands of the Queen 1,250,000 francs to use for the reeducation of the mutiles through the Red Cross, and appropriated 300,000 francs additional for the purchase of cows, the enlargement of the Red Cross farms, and the furnishing of milk and eggs to the tubercular. CHAPTER XI Belgian Army Hospitals WATCHING the tumult and the shouting when our boys came home, a good lady turned to a lonely- looking soldier near her and said, "Are you one of the heroes, too?" "ISTo, ma'am," was his reply; "I'm a regular." It is the regular generally who has the heavy end to carry and small credit for carrying it. Without the financial backing given to the Belgian Red Cross Society, the regular military hospitals of the Belgian Army held on through all the hard years and did good work. When we first went to Belgium, General De Ceuninck, Minister of War, invited us to his chateau at Furnes to meet General Melis, Inspector General Service de Sante or Surgeon General of the Belgian Army, and both asked our help in the purchase of mobile surgical units or auto- mobile operating rooms to move with the army as it moved. An appropriation of 170,000 francs was made for this purpose. This led to a study of the entire hospital system. The three front hospitals were Beveren, Cabour and Hoogstade. For a second line, as finally organized, Beveren had a hospital at Calais, Cabour, also one at Calais, and Hoog- stade, one at Bourbourg, a few miles from Calais. For the third line, Beveren evacuated to Villiers-le-see in Cal- vados, and Hoogstade to Le Havre. Cabour, which was exclusively medical, evacuated to a great many hospitals all over western France, for heart diseases, shell shock, 77 78 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED tuberculosis, kidney diseases, venereal diseases, and con- valescents. Dr. Derache, head of the Beveren system of hospitals, was a strong man and a brilliant surgeon. Dr. Willems, head of the Hoogstade line, another able man, did some new and remarkable things in the treatment of joints. Dr. Pierre ISTolf, head of Cabour and of all the medical service, has become an international figure. He is one of the most scientific men Belgium has produced and is a trusted friend and advisor of the royal family. He dealt effectively during the war with two very bad epidem- ics, dysentery and grip, with brilliant results. When the war broke out, Nolf was a professor of medi- cine at Liege, well known locally. He made his way to the army area and took charge of a little hospital for civil- ians at Coxyde, only four miles from the front line. Here he was discovered by the Queen who saw what remarkable things he was doing, and speedily brought him to the at- tention of General Melis who took him for the army. The Queen did effective nursing at Cabour as well as at La Panne, and visited regularly all the front hospitals. General Melis, the Surgeon General, had visited the United States with King Albert when he was still Prince. He speaks English fluently. It would be hard to find a more agreeable, kindly companion. He was very con- servative and frequently said, "I am a very economical man. We are a small country and poor. I want to keep you from throwing your money out of the window." So he was constantly giving us advice which we appreciated about how to make our money and supplies go as far as they would. He was President of the Belgian Red Cross as well as Surgeon General but it was natural that he should think less of the great expensive Ocean Hospital with its ade- quate equipment, and more of the obscure surgeon of the regular army in some remote place who had little to work with. BELGIAN ARMY HOSPITALS 79 All of us in the Commission for Belgium shared that feeling and we saw quite clearly that the one Red Cross job above all others we must do effectively was the charter obligation "to help the nations care for sick and wounded soldiers in time of war." To the following military hospitals under General Melis we gave help — all of them were in France except Beveren, Hoogstade and Cabour. To Beveren we furnished huge packing cases of ban- dages, dressings and hospital garments ; to Cabour serum, drugs, dressings and on a few occasions supplies of food; to Angerville and Auberville near Le Havre, medical sup- plies, clothing and recreation equipment for the convales- cents; to Bourbourg, an X-ray machine and new piano; to Cap Ferrat in the Alpes Maritimes, a barrack, dental instruments and 10,000 francs; to Chateau Giron, hos- pital supplies; to the Porte of Gravelines, at Calais, 2,000 blankets and medical supplies ; Le Havre, a recreation hall costing 38,500 francs, fruit and candy, and other supplies; Le Mans, surgical instruments, food and clothing; Mont- pellier, hospital supplies; Paris, beds and garments; Rouen, operating table and pharmacy equipment ; Soligny La Trappe, cinema; St. Lumaire, supplies. When the great advance came in the fall of 1918, and hospitals, dressing stations and everything started forward, out of our reserve stocks of bandages, dressings and food at Adinkerke we helped the hospitals of the army as we had those of the Belgium Red Cross Society. We supplied through "Gifts for Belgian Soldiers," two hundred surgical kits to regimental dressing stations, con- cerning which the Deputy Commissioner with the troops reported as follows : "These kits were carried to the new lines on the other side of Houthulst Forest and created a tremendous sen- sation because of the great need which they met and be- cause of the difficulty of delivery. ISTo single act of the 80 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED American Ked Cross more quickly showed results in sav- ing life, than the delivery of these kits." Finally, for these regular army hospitals, back in their own country, we bought one thousand beds, twenty hun- dred dozen cups and twenty-five hundred dozen plates. CHAPTER XII The Refugee Problem DURING the progress of the war, many thousands of people had to decide whether they would flee from an approaching enemy or stay at home. There were arguments both ways : If they stayed they might get killed or be made prisoners. At all events, they would have to live under the jurisdiction of the enemy and would not be free to communicate with those who went away. On the other hand, if they left, they usually would have to go hurriedly, leave their property unpro- tected, risk death from fatigue or exposure, and perhaps live under difficult conditions among strangers. If they were moved by unselfish rather than selfish con- siderations, they could find arguments both ways. In the case of Belgium, everybody, except a few down in one corner of West Flanders, had that decision to make. Most Belgians decided not to flee. When we hear of the hundreds of thousands of Belgian refugees, we forget the seven million who stuck to their country, Germans or no Germans. Some who went away went back afterward and looked after their little properties. Others who stayed in Bel- gium made their way out at risk of their lives to enlist in the army or to carry messages or to join members of their families. Some who stayed might better have gone away and put on a uniform, and some who went away and lived at ease in England or on the Riviera might better have stayed in Occupied Belgium and shared the common lot. But the 81 82 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED great majority of Belgians did their duty as they saw it, and generally they saw straight. Caught between two armies, it is about as safe to go one way as another, toward friend or foe, provided one keeps out in the open away from buildings or road inter- sections liable to be shelled. The natural instinct is to flee from the enemy and to take shelter in buildings. Both tendencies may be wrong. About the only sure thing the relief worker can hold to is that the status of the refugee is evil, that people ought not to be encouraged to become refugees and if they do, not to be encouraged to remain refugees. Relief workers in Holland in 1915 saw thousands of men sitting smoking in close crowded barracks unable to work for fear of upsetting the Dutch industrial conditions ; they saw women and children under far from ideal condi- tions, at the very best, and these relief workers said, "Why is it not the best thing for these people to be at home in Belgium, under the Germans ? If they have gar- dens they can cultivate them. If they have little houses, they can keep them in repair. They at least can earn there a part of their support. They will be under their own priests and leaders. They will be surrounded by their own community standards and bad as conditions may be in Belgium, they won't rot morally there as fast as they will here." So in spite of the fact that Germans might deport a few of them for enforced labor in Germany, thousands were encouraged to go back into Occupied Belgium, and thousands of others went who needed no encouragement but who said "Our duty is at home with our own people." There is no question that at home they were far better off than the average refugee. But those who stayed in Occupied Belgium or in the part of northern France where Hoover's men operated, were better off than those who stayed in those parts of Serbia, Poland, Boumania or Russia occupied by the THE REFUGEE PROBLEM 83 Germans, for the Commission for Relief in Belgium fed and clothed them throughout the war. And yet, thousands who fled died of famine, pestilence, wounds or fatigue. One of the great tragedies of the war was the death of Serbian boys from 14 to 18 and under, sent away from the country when the Serbian Army re- treated. They were lost in the Albanian mountains, frozen, starved and wasted with disease so that only 5,000 out of 35,000 survived. As Homer Folks says: "This almost complete loss of its younger male population is perhaps the saddest in the many sad pages in the war history of Serbia." Serbia would have been better off to have let those boys stay at home. Even the Germans felt the power of world opinion and probably would not have conscripted them. Some of them .would have starved to death or died of disease even at home, but there would have been no loss of 30,000 or anything like it. If people do run away, then the flight must be con- trolled at the earliest possible stage by the country to which they are running. An organization must be made to sort them. The military authorities must look for spies. The doctors must look for contagion. The directors of the work must send farm workers to farming regions and industrial workers to industrial regions. The army of refugees must be treated like an army and conscripted for service. But they must also be treated like suffering human beings in need of sympathy and help. The governments of France, Switzerland, Holland and England received many thousands of Belgian refugees. In 1917, there were probably 250,000 Belgians in France, 5,000 in Switzerland, 50,000 in Holland and 80,000 in England. France at one time was spending $14,000,000 per month in the care of refugees, her own and those of other nations. The American Red Cross in France at one time was 84 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED spending $1,400,000 a month helping France care for refugees. The same reasons which impel Us to clean up slums in peace time impel us to deal effectively with refugees in war time. Leaving aside all motives of brotherhood and humanity, though these can't be left aside in any true account of the war, refugees have to be cared for or they will get in the way of armies, block roads, create city slums, breed contagion which spreads to troops, and if maddened by hunger, start riots and take troops needed elsewhere to put them down. Worse than all this from the standpoint of winning a war, what Bakewell says in his "American Red Cross in Italy" is true for every fighting country : "There are wounds besides those made by enemy guns that reach the entire civilian population. And every sol- dier at the front is linked by ties of affection to those at home, his mother, his wife, his children. Their wounds are his wounds. If they are neglected, his courage is sapped." While the wives and children of the greater number of Belgian soldiers were left in Belgium, there were many thousands who were refugees in France. What kept up their courage, kept up the courage of their men in the line? In work for Belgium, as in work for France, Italy and Serbia, this was one of the factors which impelled gener- ous appropriations by the American Red Cross for refugee work. CHAPTER XIII Refugees in Flight THERE are refugees in flight and refugees settled more or less permanently in the country to which they have fled. The help needed is different in each case. ISTo spectacle of war was sadder than that of refugees in flight. There were always little trickles of the stream made up of the people who went in plenty of time. But when the enemy broke through and advanced rapidly or when he suddenly started shelling heavily a place heretofore im- mune, there came an overflowing stream. It filled the roads, and side paths, and spread out over fields. It was made up of men, women and children, old people and babies, burgomasters, bankers, priests, school teachers, and every kind of laborer. The man who had a factory fled with his workmen, and his wife, who was the great lady of the village, fled with her maids. Some were old or sick and didn't go. If the enemy halted and the lines were established near them, they were sent back the other way and were Belgian or French refugees in occupied Belgium or France. If the lines moved on far enough these people who stayed in their homes remained there, in thousands of cases throughout the war under the law of the invader. Where those who fled could do so, they started on the railway. When they did not, the scheme was to direct them to a railway at what was called a rail head — the last point toward the enemy that the railway dared run. Once on the railway, they came under the jurisdiction 85 86 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED of the dejDartment of the French Government which de- cided where they were to be sent. If they had money, they could generally buy tickets on regular trains and shift for themselves. If not, they were allocated among the departments of France. American Red Cross help began often in the villages or on the farm whence they fled. !No conviction that the refugee status was evil ever stopped us in helping people who wanted to leave. Our trucks carried people by the hundred to the rail head. Often they worked until Germans entered the vil- lage. Once one of our trucks, driven by a Quaker boy, got caught between the lines and riddled with bullets but nobody was hurt. At the rail head, the problem was to furnish sheds, blankets, food and medical help for a day or more until trains could pick the people up. On the trains the work consisted of supervision, cheer, medical help and emergency rations. The ideal was trucks enough for all the sick, aged, infirm or little chil- dren so that they would not have to walk, food and shel- ter for everybody, and medical or surgical help to those in need — whether on the train or truck or waiting at the rail head. That ideal was never realized in work for Bel- gium, nor do I believe it has ever been realized in a refu- gee rush in the history of the world. The number of people, the variety of conditions, the amount of anguish, create a situation almost insupporta- ble, and a problem nobody can ever be ready to solve com- pletely and satisfactorily. Children, the aged, and the invalids often died along the line of flight, and the well and strong also succumbed at times to wounds or hardships. And as every variety of age and condition was found among the refugees, every variety of experience was encountered. They left because they heard rumors or because they saw retreating soldiers, or were warned by a burgomaster REFUGEES IN FLIGHT 87 or town major or Red Cross worker, or because shells fell around them or even because they saw the Germans com- ing. They went on foot, in dog or pony carts, or in huge farm wagons drawn by ox teams, splendid Flemish horses or even the family milk cows, and in motor cars. They took what they could, but often the selection was like that which excited people make in case of fire. If they had time, they buried silver or money or heir- looms of one kind or another, and German soldiers in- stalled long enough learned to dig for buried treasure. In nearly every group were the family dogs, faithful in days of evil report as in days of good report, making often a lark out of the migration, and giving one touch of cheer to a terribly tragic picture. There were cats, chickens, ducks, geese in the proces- sion, as well as all the larger animals. Great herds of cattle driven ahead of the refugees were bought by the government. The refugees slept in barns, in their carts, in aban- doned houses or on the ground. There were exhibitions of selfishness and fear, but the prevailing spirit of a refugee rush was one of stoicism, courage and marvelous helpfulness. ]STeighbors helped neighbors, and a common disaster bound all sorts and con- ditions of people together. "Nothing is more touching than the kindness of the poor for the poor," Jane Addams tells us. And nothing is more touching in war time than the service of war victims by war victims. There were great refugee flights in 1914 and 1915, but after conditions on the western front were stabilized and the long period of trench warfare began, refugee rushes were limited to a few hundred people at a time from newly shelled areas. When the Germans made their great advance in the spring of 1918, we lived 1915 over again. For months the Germans had been preparing and both in the armies 88 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED and among the civilians there were rumors. Two sharp German attacks were made March 8 to the north and south of Ypres, but were repulsed. General Plummer, of the 2nd British Army, whom we had met in 1917, had disappeared in a night for Italy, and came hack in a night. When the great attack was launched on March 21, it started along a front of 50 miles from Monchy to La Fere, hut as it progressed and narrowed, it became a fight for Amiens. Up in Flanders this meant that some of our roads to Paris were seized, that British and Belgian Armies might be cut off from the French, that the La Panne office of the American Red Cross might be cut off from the Paris and Le Havre offices. In Paris it meant a great refugee rush, for which some of our workers were temporarily detached. "In American Red Cross Work for France," by Fisher Ames, Jr., this story is clearly told. At the request of the Commissioner for France, the Commissioner for Belgium agreed to take over all American Red Cross work for France north of the Somme, putting it under the La Panne office. The Deputy Commissioner at La Panne got up all the supplies possible and constantly carried 40,000 to 50,000 francs about with him. Stopped at Amiens and Montdidier, the German High Command turned to Flanders. On a line of Ypres — Armentieres, they launched a second attack, April 9, against the British Army. Again it was a break through toward the north and behind us. As Conan Doyle says, "The whole front fell in south of Armentieres." By night- fall, April 10, the Germans were in Merville where we looked down upon them from our quarters in the old Hotel du Sauvage at Cassel. Every day the attack grew in intensity, and every day the refugee flight increased. These were the very darkest days of the war. Sir Douglas Haig, always calm and self-possessed, issued that order of the day which was unlike any other in history, REFUGEES IN FLIGHT 89 when lie said "Every position must be held to the last man. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight to the end." It made everybody feel that we might be pushed into the sea, but that every foot of ground would be fought for. The Germans were then only 40 miles from Calais. If they succeeded in covering as much ground as they did on the drive toward Amiens, they would reach the coast and more. There was no strong natural line to stop them. The French came to help, but on April 25, after bitter fighting, the Germans took Mt. Kemmel, a wooded hill rising 500 feet above the Flanders plain. It looked as if all that was left of Free Belgium, as well as the whole of the French Departments du Nord and Pas de Calais were gone. Then we saw preparation, the whole significance of which we understood only after the war. We knew that the French were preparing to inundate low ground around Dunkirk. We did not know that they were prepared to let the British pump sea water into the greater part of the rich and fruitful Pas de Calais to hamper the Ger- mans. It meant giving up one of their richest depart- ments for years. The harbors of Dunkirk, Calais, Bou- logne were to be wrecked, and blockaded. Railways, sig- naling systems, factories, supply depots were to be blown up, and dykes and locks were to be cut so that even the soil would be inundated and destroyed ; this that Germany might not have new bases for submarines and for the in- vasion of England. Inundating around Dunkirk with fresh water had actually begun before the danger passed. The Belgians likewise dug new trenches to make a last stand for a few feet of Belgian soil, but it looked as if it would be useless work. The German advance overlooked Ypres from the south, and the lines were up directly in front of Ypres to the north and east. The pincers had only to close. We put explosives under our warehouses at Cabour and Adinkerke ready to blow them up. But 90 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED the pincers never closed. The great advance was stopped on Kemmel and in the forest of Dieppe. The Germans turned south for the third great blow, which fell between Rheims and Soissons. The Belgian towns of Loere, Drauoutre, Neuve-Eglise and other smaller hamlets had been denuded of civilians who had fled northward. The American Red Cross trucks with the Friends' Am- bulance Unit worked night and day to help the people away. A jolly old priest of Westoutre who couldn't walk, was carried back with his faithful nurse to a safe place without even his pipe. But he had 50 old $1.00 American bank notes, and one or two Canadian bank notes. These our agents put into francs for him, and at the same time supplied nightgowns, underclothes, tobacco and a pipe. A rail head was established at Couthove near Pope- ringhe and when shelled moved to Rousbrugge. Over the French line others were made at Ebblinghem, and at Lumbres near St. Omer for the Hazebrouck area, and farther south at Anvin near Heuchin for the Bethune area. Think for a moment of the authorities concerned in moving refugees. On the Belgian side of the frontier there were the Belgian civil authorities, the Belgian Mili- tary Mission attached to the British Army, and the British military authorities. On the French side of the frontier there were the French civil authorities, the French Mili- tary Mission attached to the British Army, and the British military authorities, as this was the British zone. A refugee rush implies such an emergency that who- ever may be theoretically in control, the strongest man in sight actually takes command, no matter what his nation- ality. Individual British officers, for example, showed great ability and rare tact in dealing with these emer- gencies. The Friends' Ambulance Unit, a part of the British REFUGEES IN FLIGHT 91 Red Cross, backed up the army authorities as described elsewhere. The American Eed Cross furnished supplies of food, clothing, bandages and drugs for the rail heads and the trains, trucks for the convoy work, and money to keep the Friends going. Our men were moving rap- idly from rail head to rail head, seeing needs, and getting necessary cooperation from French, British or Belgian authorities. Along the line of railway in France, at Abbeville, at Rouen and other places to the south, Ameri- can Red Cross canteens operated from Paris, did a mem- orable work ministering to the needs of the sick, weary, and often heartbroken refugees. At the journey's end, perhaps way down in the Midi, American Red Cross workers met them. In the closing months of the war, when the Allies were advancing, we got refugees from the occupied country. On October 14, 1918, in Ypres, six bedraggled-looking men and a collie dog led by a string, came down the road from Winkel St. Eloi. They had hidden in a cellar when the fighting swept over them. When it got quiet, the Germans had gone and the Allies had passed over in pur- suit. They were the first of the liberated thousands. Most liberated civilians stayed in their homes. But in areas of fighting, of course they fled. The Germans in retreat established a new line on the Scheldt River. From here they shelled vigorously the advancing Belgians, British, French and Americans. Many populous villages, which, for four years, had endured the Germans and never had seen a shell, all at once came under fire. As one of the Quakers said : "They were freed only to be ruined," and it happened in the last two weeks of the war. For these refugees, a large hospice was opened at Pope- ringhe and villages which were not shelled received them. They were not sent into France. The end was in sight. At this period wounds and gas made the problem primarily one of hospitals and that story is told later. Throughout the war, the British took the position that 92 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED refugee rushes should be foreseen and provided for by systematic evacuation of civilians from all the forward areas of the army. Both French and Belgians opposed this view. In February, 1918, the British General Headquarters, aware of the impending German attack, again made rep- resentation to the French authorities on this subject, but got no attention. The civilians in threatened areas did not want to go and the government was afraid a panic would be caused in other areas if they were made to go. The British said that civilians blocked roads, harbored spys, spread disease and were a continual nuisance and impediment. The French and Belgians admitted much of this but added that they tilled the soil, gathered crops, mended roads, ran laundries, and did many other services for the army. After all, it wasn't what the authorities did or didn't do which decided the matter. It was the flat refusal of the peasants to go until they themselves decided that they had better go, and the reluctance of the government to force them. It was one of the few instances in the war where civilians held out against the military. CHAPTER XIV Refugees in Exile N the broad sense, the Ministers at Le Havre and their families, and all the well-to-do away from Belgium were refugees. The middle class people and laborers who got jobs and supported themselves out of the country were refugees. But in common usage, the word means those wholly or partly dependent. To them we confine our attention. But both dependent and independent were bound to- gether by a common anxiety and sorrow for their country, by a common sense of the humiliation of exile, and by a common hope of return. The condition of most of the refugees in exile for long periods of time was bad. The status itself was bad. In France, where most of them stayed, they faced congestion in an aggravated form. Seven, eight or nine persons were often jammed into one little dark, insanitary room, and for the room they had to pay an exorbitant price. Food prices went soaring also and the quality of food went down. Sickness broke out among them, and many died. Many were separated from relatives. The man was in the trenches, or children and parents had been left in Belgium. While the French were at first kind, before the end the refugees were often made to feel that they were intruders, eating bread and taking places that be- longed to the French. They were as a rule very clean people — proud of their housekeeping, and a refugee status was hard on them. An intelligent executive who acted as Secretary for one of the Ministers, a Belgian who is himself a devoted 93 94 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED friend and admirer of the French people, explained why the French feeling cooled for the Belgians : "First, because most Belgian refugees in France spoke Flemish and not French. The French could not under- stand them and called them 'Bodies,' the worst word they could employ. "Second, because the Belgians had large families and the French small. "Third, because the average Belgian workman did much more than the average French or British workman and was accused of spoiling the conditions of industry and changing standards of work. The British trade unions went so far as to ask manufacturers not to employ Bel- gians on this account," The Belgians were homesick — so homesick that the ex- pressions which fell from their lips seemed to echo the words of the Jews in Babylon: "How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." And French refugees, from northern France, nearly all more or less Flemish, felt much the same. The French Government with great generosity treated Belgian refugees practically as they did French refugees. One and a half francs per day were allowed for an adult and one franc for a child under 16. They did not get the five francs extra per week which special cases of the French got for rent, but received a rent allowance of fifteen francs a month directly from their own govern- ment at Le Havre. The grants to Belgians cost the French Government practically 100,000,000 francs for the period of the war. Instead of making the Belgian Goverment repay this, the French Government canceled the debt. In return, the French had the benefit of the Belgian refugee labor at a time when both industry and agriculture were in great need of labor. -2 « s "a £ "« 5 >- 2 o ■a E « Lc £ U Cfl C bfl o c *-! HS is en f^ £ C "3 ° O +3 St y^fy" REFUGEES IN EXILE 95 The Minister of the Interior, French, and the Minister of the Interior, Belgian, cooperated in the care of Bel- gians in France. The French Prefets, Sous-Prefets and M aires hore the responsibility for the work, under their own Minister. The official Belgian agency for dealing with refugees was the Comite Ojficiel Beige pour Befugies, organized in Antwerp, while the government was still there. It was nominally under M. Berryer, Minister of the Interior, but acted more or less independently of him, under the joint presidency of M. Helleputte, Minister of Public Works, and the Count Goblet d' Alviella, Minister of State, which in Belgium means Minister without port- folio. This Committee had branches in many departments of France to cooperate with French Committees and re- lieve them in part at least of special oversight of Belgians. One of the most intelligent agents of the Committee was Ernest Claes, now a Professor at Louvain. Claes had fought bravely in the first part of the war, had been taken prisoner, had made his escape after almost incredible hardships, and in spite of shattered health served his gov- ernment most effectively at Le Havre. With Captain Ernest W. Corn, Director of our Bureau of Refugee Ser- vice, Claes traveled through many departments of France to see how the refugees got on. He found most of them at work. "In K"imes," he said, "they get fifteen francs a day. Many are in bee culture for eight, nine or ten francs a day and two bottles of wine. Many have been put in the service of the electric tramways. The refugees at Cette work on the quai, in the factories of petroleum and chemical prod- ucts and in the vineyards. At Toulouse, there is a great deal of war industry and salaries are large. At Lourdes they are in the munition works and at farming. At Bor- deaux they are employed in munition factories, canneries, at the wharves, and in the works of the service of supply of the French Army. Even women at Bordeaux earn from five to six francs a day. In the Lot and Garonne, the 96 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED refugees work on farms and in a workroom maintained by the Committee on refugees to make clothing for dis- tribution." So it was all over the country. Able-bodied refugees had plenty of work. There were the old, the sick, the wounded, the children who had to be looked after. There were the shiftless who had to be made to work. Claes spoke frankly about the Belgian Committees. The American Red Cross agent at Marseilles said to him : "Edouard de Keyser, President of the Belgian Commit- tee at jSTimes, is very able and devoted. You can find out anything from him." He did find De Keyser petitioning the French Prefet to cut off the allocation from Belgian refugees who would not work. At Montpellier, he found the Chairman of the Belgian Committee so able and honest that the French had put him in charge of all refugee work in the department. "But at another place," said he, "the impression I had after my conversation at the Consulat Beige and after having seen the list of persons aided, was that relief is given rather easily. The money for refugees is received. Therefore it must be given to refugees whether they need it or not." At X he found an utterly impossible Belgian rep- resentative. This representative believed that the whole refugee business was held up because he and other Bel- gian Committee Chairmen were not made Consuls and given authority. He wanted the Committee to address formal letters of thanks to all the Prefets and Sous-Pre- fets and obtain for them the Order of Leopold. "He distributes," said M. Claes, "the subsides that he receives with wonderful impartiality. He does not make any dis- tinction between the families who are really needy and those who are not needy at all. He gives the same subsidy to everybody. If he made any distinction, if he gave to one family one franc more than he gave to another, there would be a great discontent, complaints and M. X — would REFUGEES IN EXILE 97 not like to have that. He thinks this affair of subsidies troublesome and so he asks the Comite Officiel Beige not to send him any more money. He prefers that the Ameri- can Red Cross do not send him a stock of clothing as pro- posed by Captain Corn. He did not know anything about the 1,700 new refugees just arrived." In every department of France, The Bureau of Refu- gees of the French Commission of the American Red Cross had put agents. These agents had built up an extensive organization, were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, finding housing accommodations for refugees, sup- plying clothing, running workrooms, getting medical care, etc. Colonel Bicknell knew all these things when he decided positively not to engage in any large way in refugee work among the refugees in France. He said that he didn't want any American agencies set up which the Belgians or French could set up for themselves, that he would not have any duplication of the work of the French Commis- sion of the American Red Cross, and that he would not go into any welfare work for refugees however desirable it might be as a peace time proposition, which could not be clearly classed as war emergency work . He believed that the French had the refugee situation in France well enough in hand, and that there was work for everybody, that every- body should be made to work, and that we would probably find our greatest usefulness in care of children, medical work and housing. He believed that all the American Red Cross refugee workers could render by far a greater service as liaison officers among the different authorities, as inspec- tors to detect neglected conditions, as spurs to local agencies, as judges of the kind and quantity of supplies needed, and even perhaps eventually as experts who could make sug- gestions of new methods and better ways. But as far as Belgians were concerned, if furniture was to be sold, or clothing distributed, or farms operated, or sewing rooms organized, he wanted the Belgians to do it, and their 98 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED desire to do for themselves conserved and strengthened. So he laid down these principles : "Do not organize American hureaus with American per- sonnel except in exceptional cases. "Do not help organize any committee for Belgian refu- gees except in communities where there is no French Com- mittee. "Help the Comite Officiel Beige to help special cases of distress throughout France, but don't take any special cases. "Concentrate work on communities w T here conditions are clearly bad. "Do the things they are not equipped to do and do them quickly when you find them." Accordingly we gave several cash grants to the Comite Officiel Beige and its branches, amounting to 270,000 francs. Colonel Bicknell had arranged before his departure for other important grants, but these were canceled on account of the armistice. In Le Havre, the Comite Officiel Beige had a local vestiaire for t|ie city under Madame Louise Helleputte, wife of the Minister of Public Works. To this we gave clothing and several small cash appropriations. A branch of this vestiaire made layettes for new babies and distrib- uted cradles, and we helped to the extent of some 60,000 francs. For the rest of France, M. Berryer, the Minister of the Interior, organized a vestiaire under Madame Henry Car- ton de Wiart, wife of the Minister of Justice and the American Red Cross kept it supplied with clothing and paid the entire expense by a grant of 10,000 francs per month. Something over 2,000 francs in cash and just under 200,000 francs in clothing went to this very useful work. The Minister of Intendance, or Supplies, M. Vander- velde, in 1918, organized a committee called Famille du Soldat Beige for work among the wives and children of REFUGEES IN EXILE 99 the men in the Belgian Army. On the distinct understand- ing that there would be a careful exchange of records with the Comite Officiel Beige and no overlapping, we gave to this work a cash grant of 10,000 francs a month. This action induced M. Berryer to propose to his col- league that Famille du Soldat Beige be merged with a work called V Assistance Temporaire which he had organ- ized in Paris under the Baronne Beyens, wife of the former Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and that a branch for western France be organized under the presi- dency of Madame Hymans, wife of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs. As Berryer was Catholic, Vandervelde, Socialist, and Hymans, Liberal, the consummation of this arrangement showed a fine spirit and good team work. U Assistance Temporaire gave emergency assistance to hundreds of cases of Belgians whose resources were ex- hausted by the prolongation of the war or who had been overtaken by some unforeseen disaster. We gave V As- sistance Temporaire a cash grant of 202,000 francs, and clothing to the value of 50,000 more. Work for the civilian population of Free Belgium, Oc- cupied Belgium and Liberated Belgium is discussed else- where. The long list of smaller refugee committees which were helped from time to time may be found in the Appendix. What visitors to Le Havre wanted most to see was the American Bed Cross Befugee Village. Of this Mrs. Bicknell wrote in 1919 as follows: "In Havre the most desperate single condition probably was that of housing. To the overcrowded, insanitary, and dark lodgings which refugees were forced to occupy at the cost, exorbitant to them, of fifty francs a room a month, could be laid many of the evils of disease and fam- ily disintegration which all relief agencies were trying to benefit. An organization known as the King Albert Fund (Fonds du Roi Albert) especially interested in the prob- lem of future reconstruction in Belgium, conceived the 100 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED idea of putting up a model Belgian village outside Havre with barracks which later could be moved up into freed Belgium as a first shelter for the returning homeseekers. "The King Albert Fund was created in September, 1916, by royal decree and to it the government made a grant of ten million francs, only to be apprised that its purposes of provisional rebuilding lay without the ends to which the money loaned to Belgium by the Allies could be devoted. A smaller appropriation was made to this work out of one of the small private revenues belonging to the government, but it was without the funds necessary to build this projected village and applied to the Red Cross for aid. Ground was loaned by the owners, and the Red Cross agreed to pay 500,000 francs of a projected total of 8,000,000 francs. Later this amount was increased to 600,000 francs. The building of the houses was en- trusted to the King Albert Fund; they were managed by the Ministry of the Interior, and title to them vested in the Belgian Government. "Three months after the work was started the first families had been installed in the village of Haut Graville. Each house was provided with a small vegetable garden, and was completely furnished ; a rent of thirty francs per month was charged — where this could not be paid by the tenant the expense was met through some charitable source, but in no case was the family permitted to feel that it was receiving free lodging. By August, forty Families nom- breuses — large families — to whom preference was given because of their special difficulty in finding lodging in the city, were established in this attractive garden village. The conclusion of the war made unnecessary the extension of the village to the one hundred houses originally planned. The other fifty houses were shipped into Belgium direct." The Commission to Belgium also dealt with Belgium refugees, children and interned soldiers in England, Switzerland and Holland as shown in the Appendix to this book. REFUGEES IN EXILE 101 "No matter how rigidly it held itself down to the bedrock of absolute necessity, the Commission at no time was hard- hearted. Every day it realized what Bakewell in this account of the work in Italy called "the magnitude, the seriousness, the tragedy of the refugee situation," and it tried to make understanding, sympathy and friendship its greatest contribution. CHAPTER XV The Children's Colonies N" spite of stories of Germans cutting off Belgian chil- dren's hands — a thing nobody could ever run down, in spite of children bombed, shelled, killed by disease, or slowly starved, so much good work was done for Belgium both inside and outside the country, that Belgium saved more of her children than many of the other fighting countries. If pestilence started, it was checked. If actual starva- tion threatened, food in some way was secured. If people slept out a night or so, the condition was temporary. All that was hard or terrible or loathsome or cruel which ever happened anywhere, happened at some time to some Belgians, but very bad conditions never became general. Nothing like that which Homer Folks describes for Serbia in "The Human Costs of War," happened to the Belgians. As Mr. Hoover said in 1917: "Belgians are not starving to death. It would be a severe reflection on American brains and efficiency, if after all our work, they were starving to death. But they are not starving to death because we are busy." In Trance and in Free Belgium we found all kinds of oeuvres or works going on for French and Belgian chil- dren. Among them were "Children of the Frontier," "Children of the Lys," "Children of the Yser," Le Foyer Ecossais of Miss Fyffe, and "Infant Consultations" of Madame Haden Guest. By far the greatest number of Belgian children outside of Occupied Belgium assisted during the war were under the Minister of the Interior or 102 THE CHILDREN'S COLONIES 103 under Her Majesty, the Queen. In the chapter on the works of the Queen, the latter will be described. Early in 1915, the Minister had taken away from the fighting zone some 6,000 children, which he placed in in- stitutions which he himself organized and called Colonies Scolaires. There was no question raised of placing out such chil- dren in private families as we are coming to do in the United States, for in the first place the number was too great and then the time to prepare for them too limited ; mass care was the only thing practicable. But further than this, Belgium is Catholic, the Minister was Catholic, and almost all the children were Catholic, and nobody thought of employing anything but the traditional Catholic method. Every school or closely related group of schools had a priest or aumonier, as he was called. Sometimes the director was a priest and always the greater part of the work was done by religious sisters. There were three main groups of these colonies : a. In or around Paris to the number of 3,000 children under Senator Empain, a member of the Belgian Parlia- ment; b. In Normandy, the region of Rouen and Le Havre, comprising some 3,000 more, under M. Olbrecht; c. In the region along the coast between Dieppe and Calais. There were scattered groups here and there in France and many of the Paris colonies were sent to the south of France when it seemed as if the Germans were coming into the city in June, 1918. American Red Cross camions started to evacuate the children but while the evacuation was in progress, the tide turned at Chateau-Thierry and so about half the children stayed. The Belgian system of decentralized government, strong in every little community, in contrast with the French centralized government depending wholly on the man above, showed results in these colonies. Each colony had 104 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED its own individuality and employed its own methods. The universal principle was illustrated over and over again that results are directly in proportion to leadership. If the Minister had the right person, man or woman, priest or layman, head or acting head in any colony, the colony did its work well. Great fussiness over forms of organi- zation or mere names was whipped out of us by war, and the one question we came to ask was "Is there some one in this institution, whether in office or kitchen, who can and will run this job ?" The colonies comprised usually from 80 to 100 children each. Some were larger, some were smaller. The cost per capita of running the colonies was at first 70 centimes per child per day, but afterward, as prices went up, the cost became 1.25 francs per day. It was less in proportion, of course, in the larger colonies. To balance this, some of the Belgians asserted vigorously that if contagion broke out the virulence of the disease was greater in the large colonies. It was not simply that there were more cases but the cases were more severe. Dr. Rowland G. Freeman of New York says that this view is generally held among pediatricians of the United States. The Liberals and Socialists of the government were al- ways inclined to criticize the Colonies Scolaires, not that children were not fed, clothed and kindly treated, but that the educational methods were archaic. Said one in- telligent woman at Le Havre : "Here are four years these children are out of regular schools and the time is wasted." We have in the United States the teachers who "keep school" rather than teach school, and some of the hard worked sisters at these colonies, who had little schooling themselves, did not run very high grade schools. But the children were kept clean, were taught their religion, and seemed happy. In some of the schools very remarkable work was done in sewing and embroidery. In several, beautiful lace was made. All the children were drilled in singing and recitation and even gave little plays. No THE CHILDREN'S COLONIES 105 American public schools could equal them along these lines. When the Minister or a Bishop or American Red Cross man came, there was almost always a reception where the children sang and where the visitor was pre- sented with a "compliment." A little tot was pushed forward who read or recited an address of welcome begin- ning "Digne Bienfaiteur" and expressed the thanks of the colony for the aid of the American people through the American Eed Cross or whoever else it might be. To find places in which to establish colonies was a diffi- culty. It was met by the loan of chateaux, by taking the abandoned buildings of religious orders driven out of France, by the French Government giving schools or other public buildings, and by hiring or borrowing great summer hotels along the coast. One of the first things we did was to buy a number of cows to increase the milk supply of the colonies. We or- dered expensive Normandy cows worth 900 or 1,000 francs each, but a purchasing agent in Paris found he could get Breton cows for 500 francs each and on the score of econ- omy did so. The little wild animals ate heartily and gave practically no milk. They had to be resold at a loss and the beautiful big Normandy cows took their places. We soon saw that some of the colonies needed to be waked up with organized play, and in the early days se- cured an initial appropriation of 2,000 francs for toys. With all of the Red Cross Commissions, toys did their part, as well as bread and meat. Footballs, baseballs, in- door games, and dolls helped educate the children and helped roll back the loneliness and misery which, in some colonies especially, always threatened. The El Paso (Texas) Chapter of the Red Cross seemed to realize all this for in the fall of 1917 they sent $500 to buy a Christmas treat for children. It came too late for Christmas, but purchased a New Year's treat of cakes and chocolate in 33 colonies in which were 3,810 children. Far more extensive and important, of course, was the 106 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED distribution of thousands of dollars worth of clothing to these colonies. The nuns were famous needlewomen and taught the little girls to sew. Old garments were beau- tifully refitted and made over. And both to teach the children and to increase the ability of each colony to look after its own clothing problem, we bought sewing machines for between 20 and 30 colonies. Just off the main road from Paris to Rouen at St. llliers-les-Bois and some sixty miles from Paris, the Minister had a colony to teach agriculture and trades to the larger boys. We helped install electricity, the boys doing much of the work. This was used for lighting and for pumping water. We purchased sheep, pigs, cows, and horses, both to stock the farm which gave them their support, and to give opportunity for teaching husbandry, spending 21,000 francs at this colony. At Cayeux-sur-mer up the coast between Dieppe and Boulogne, and near the mouth of the Somme, we installed three barracks 18 by 100 feet, at a cost of 30,000 francs to take care of new arrivals from the front. There were many more or less independent colonies of children, nominally under the Minister, not counted, how- ever, as Colonies Scolaires. With two especially, our relations became especially close — Wisques and Wizernes — partly because they were near one of our main routes to the front, and partly be- cause of our friendship for the interesting old man at the head. The Abbe Delaere, since the war, Dean of the destroyed Cathedral at Ypres, was a faithful parish priest in Ypres before the war. He stayed through the first attack on Ypres in the fall of 1914 and was there during the second attack in March, 1915, when Ypres was destroyed. Thou- sands of civilians at first tried to stay through the bom- bardment, taking refuge in their cellars. Troops and even relief workers searching especially for them have some- times been deceived into thinking everybody had gone THE CHILDREN'S COLONIES 107 from a shelled town, when in fact, many of the cellars in some other part of the town have been full of them. Abbe Delaere stayed through the shelling and burning of Ypres, giving the last rites of the church to the dying, burying the dead, helping survivors get away. He did not go until ordered out in person by the Belgian Minister of War, and he is said to have been the last civilian to leave Ypres. Many tell yet of the tall spare old man with fine scholarly face, in long, black cassock, walking back and forth on the roof of his church, kicking off falling fire brands to save the structure, while German shells crashed around and the flames of the doomed city lit up the scene. He had a decoration from the King for his bravery. We found him in 1917 living in the old chateau of the Counts of Wisques, three miles from St. Omer, and some 30 miles back of Ypres, but always within sound of the guns which kept going at Ypres for over four years. Here he had established a refuge for the children of Ypres — the little girls in the chateau, and the little boys a mile away in some old buildings and under his assistant, the jolly Father Dilger and the good Mere Godelieve. He had over 600 in all. When we had visitors for the front, we sometimes took them to Ypres and then back to see the children of Ypres. No pen can do justice to the desolation of the old Flemish city, as it was in 1917 and 1918. For visit- ors the impression was deepened by British sentinels who stopped the car and ordered everybody to put on helmets and adjust gas masks. Almost always shells were falling in the city or going overhead. Several times visitors were killed in Ypres, but luckily none for whom we were re- sponsible. It made the British very reluctant to give per- mits for the city. When we took into Ypres in the spring of 1918 a member of the United States Senate, Senator Thompson of Kansas, he had several very narrow escapes, both in the city, on the road down from Fumes, and on the road out by Vlamertinghe and Poperinghe. Af- ter the danger and universal destruction, the empty menac- 108 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED ing streets with pieces of shell all over the pavements, the anxiety as to where the next one would fall, the mad race down the shelled road, visitors were generally ready for anything farther back. What we showed them at Wisques was one of the loveliest of landscapes in France, trees dat- ing back for centuries, lush meadows, rich gardens, birds, bees, flowers, children. They ate generally in the huge kitchen of the chateau by the great fireplace in which their dinner was cooked, thick stone walls around them, served by good sisters who knew how to cook, with appe- tites sharpened by long hours of travel and a "thank God" in their hearts that they had done it and had come out alive. And often for our visitors the good Abbe drew from a closet a bottle of the little store of wine he had brought out of Ypres when he came. The most rabid teetotaler could no more refuse it than he could refuse the wine of communion if he were a believer. It was about the highest mark of gratitude the Abbe could show. It was communion with the old Ypres, the cloth hall and cathedral, its happy people, all scattered and many dead, that we drank in the wine of Ypres. It was a rite — that drinking with the Abbe — the coldest blooded New York business men sensed it and were moved by it. And they drank with a determination that these things should never happen again. If there were time, the children sang and recited for the visitors, or if it were the play hour, they took them into their big circle dancing around the courtyard. Every child had a history that was dramatic. Their lives had been saved almost by a miracle. One or both parents had been killed. We sometimes saw visiting her little one a mother who had only one arm in which to clasp the child. These little girls at Wisques showed less of the repression and more of the spontaneity and initiative which the apos- tles of progressive education are talking about. The older girls were little mothers for the younger. The good Abbe had a group of sisters here far above the average — one or THE CHILDREN'S COLONIES 109 two with normal training — and the Mother Superior had both strength and charm. The colonies of Wisques and Wizernes nominally un- der a work called the Aide Civile Beige actually were in- dependent, but were helped by the Belgian Minister of the Interior. Their greatest friend and patron was a sober- looking English Quaker who was the Adjutant of the Friends' Ambulance Unit at Dunkirk, who advised and helped the Abbe, and won the hearts of the children as no other visitor of any country. He was and will be Vader Mordey in Flanders for many years. Wizernes eventually had to be evacuated to Jouey-les-Tours, south of Paris, as long range German shells and aerial bombs were falling around. We thought it a mistake and so did the brave Abbe, but those directly in charge of the little lives did not want to take chances. All told, we helped Abbe Delaere over a period of many months to the extent of 115,000 francs. American shoes and clothing and food, a barrack for a trade school, money for tools, were all sent up in spite of enormous difficulties of transportation. And at the end all the children were taken back into Flanders and safely installed by the help the American Red Cross was able to give. Less spectacular, but no less deadly, was the continual shelling of Flemish villages in 1917 and 1918, and the bombing of towns farther back. We bought barracks and secured the Chateau of Recques near Montreuil-sur-mer for the Minister and made provi- sion for five hundred additional children who were brought out in the spring of 1918. The first inmates of the new colony were children who had been evacuated once before from the villages behind the lines and placed in Calais. This was safe for a time but finally the aviators began to attack it. One night our Commissioner stayed in Calais when there was a severe bombing in which there were between 200 and 300 civilian casualties. A bomb fell in the yard of the children's colony, breaking glass, wound- 110 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED ing some of the huge trees and frightening everybody. Both the sisters and children begged the Commissioner to help take them away. Impervious to fear as seemed some of the little Flemish children others had been through ex- periences which told on them severely. These children at Calais knew the power of high explosives and lay awake trembling night after night as the Germans came over. The Commissioner took measures which resulted in these children being moved quickly to Recques where they had great woods and lovely fields in which to play. This col- ony was made ready late in the war but paid for its cost, S 07,000 francs, ten times over. It was one of the colonies for which the Red Cross paid all the expenses. After the war, the barracks were given to the Belgian Government to use in the devastated areas. Another project for children much debated and much criticized but fully justified by events was the construction of a colony in Free Belgium itself within range of enemy shell fire, at a little place next the French frontier called Leysele. Against the project was the danger of capture by the Germans if they broke through behind Flanders in one of their many attacks, or moved forward in front. Against it also was the danger of a shell falling on the colony. For it was the unanswerable argument of the peasants that the fields were big and the shells, even the greatest, small in comparison, and that there was plenty of room for shells to go over ; further that many parents who lived in very dangerous places would not send their chil- dren into France but would send them to a place nearby in their own country. So with the energetic help of Jean Steyaert, Commissaire d : ' Arrondissement of Furnes, we got up ten barracks bought in Switzerland and shipped to Furnes by railway. We put some 150,000 francs into this project. The barracks sheltered children but not as we had planned. All at once in the spring of 1918, during a terrible shelling, over the fields from Furnes, Alvering- hem and other places, came hundreds of adults and chil- THE CHILDREN'S COLONIES 111 dren seeking shelter. The colony was used first as a refu- gee clearing station and then for some months as a refu- gee colony, housing 250 adults and 150 children. Nothing was more necessary in the relief field as well as in army headquarters than quick change of plans to meet changed conditions. We never made of Leysele what we had planned, but we made something of it far better for the emergency which soon confronted us. In this refugee colony we had an outbreak of typhoid in the summer of 1918, but it was quickly brought under control. Nothing more picturesque in children's work could be found anywhere than a little children's colony in Boit- schoucke among the camps of the soldiers and just back of the second line of trenches. General Rucquoy, command- ing in that sector, found children who wouldn't go away, living in the farms, without schooling. He raised money among his officers, secured a couple of barracks from the army, an intelligent priest to take charge and opened a school which survived all of war's alarms until the shell- ing of March, 1918, when the children were quickly sent away. This school differed from the others in that the children went back to the farms to sleep at night. The old rule that the open country was the place of danger and the walled town the place of safety, was reversed in this war. These little children at Boitschoucke did not seem ner- vous. They jeered at German aeroplanes when they passed over and at the shells high up headed for Dun- kirk, and had a thoroughly happy time. The American Red Cross put up for them a new barrack for a refectory and assembly hall. The school made every visitor throw up his hands in amazement, made practically everybody object to the Red Cross endorsement of "so dangerous a project." But it was another illustration of doing the best possible under the circumstances, and not only did the children survive, but the Red Cross barrack came 112 THE LITTLE CORNER NEVER CONQUERED through intact although there were shell holes and de- stroyed buildings all around it. A Scotch lady, Miss Georgia FyfTe, lived at the Belgian front for two or three years evacuating children. She was brave as a lion, most intelligent, but not amenable to military discipline, and was sent out of the army area in 1918 by the British. She continued to look after a children's colony she had established at ISTeuilly and the American Red Cross helped her with two thousand francs a month and with clothing to the value of four thousand francs more. All kinds of children's agencies demanded our help. We did every conceivable kind of a thing for a child from building a little hospital and dugout for the brave Madame Rolin at La Panne, and a creche for mothers making munitions at Graville, to great colonies like Recq and Le Glandier. All told, we spent in children's work $1,159,553.54. N/ext to care of the men fighting the battle, comes care of the children. They are peculiarly endangered by war. Birth rates go down, death rates go up, education is interrupted, moral standards are lowered. Saving the children for the re- building of their country must go hand in hand with help- ing soldiers save the country. There is no use of saving it if there is to be nobody to occupy it, as there is no joy in occupying it if it has not been saved. X M < O ^