Newspaper Page Text
GERMAN STUDENTS TELL WHAT SHERMAN MEANT .?Everything Here Is Beyond One's Strength!" One Cries--Another Describes the Rescue of Two Frenchmen from the Hor? rors of "No Man's Land." W\?i the educated German soldier ftj, ?bout t\e uar, hcnc he is if fitted by the ''rain and ihr brutalities 5 fa heroism* <"* life consequent of j# ,'f ?etcribed u-ith i " -'?? | merfmi ?ridnett ?* * book ?f **r lrUrrs from Qfrnan students ittue? under the ed ?orihtp ?f Profetto* PhUipp WUkop, . tf Freiburg {"Krirasbru fc Deutscher iitdtr.ten" Tronslmtion* cf tome 0/ aVsaafesfi m* oa ';' GfTsiea gemth ore \tet presented. Before Ivangorod, October 14. 1014. Oh' THE worst of all I have not written. . . . It is not the slaying, not the mounds of de.nl. whiih we are always passing, and not the wounded (they have the morphine.needle and they lie quiet and peace? ful in the straw of the requisitioned peasant carts). To me the arorsl is the distress and suffering to which man and beast are con? stantly subjected by the terrible strain. We have just buried my first mount, a glorious animal, virtually driven to his death. Driven to death by me! Can you imagine that a person "// we don't conquer our enemies we conquer our friend*.' ?From the Oennan War Pictorial, "Wieland Fot the Fatherland. as peaceable as I could find it possible to drive a horse to death with whip and spurs? There i ; no heln for it. The word is for? ward?always forward! Oh, this everlasting driving on! One stands beside a team that can go no further r.nd compels the drivers, with kind? ness or threats, to force the impossible out of the horses. The poor animals are all in, but one grabs the whip himself and mercilessly beats away at the miserable beasts till they move again. That is the shocking thing?that one is constantly compelled to make demands upon the poor animals to which they are not equal. Everything here is beyond one's strength. The impossible is made possible. It must go?till something or other breaks. Or picture this to yourself: Shaken with fever and with burning eyes, a boy comes to me, whimpering?he can endure no more?and I ride into him and drive him back to the front. Can you picture that? But it must be: Everything here is beyond one's strength. My Cod! We ourselves must do impossible things. But can one demand that of the oth? ers? We know that the struge'e is for the German idea in the world?that it is to defend German understanding. German perception against the on laught of Asiatic bar'.iarism and Romanic indifference. We know what is on the cards if we do not do our utmost. Hut the men? How often since we came to this Godforsaken region did we tell ourselves that it was impossible to go forward at night It is really impossible And then came an order ?an order which could not De carried out dur ing the day, so it went at night. It went be? cause it must. Because "the order" is the great unavoidable?something that must be carried out?Fate, the all determining. We know what "the order" means now! It is that which gives our people the ascendan~y over the whole world. WALTHER HARICH. a o a o ? e Near Maricourt, December 17, 1914. Soon after 11 we were awakened by the re? tiring sentries. As tired as dogs though we were, we crawled out into the open. It was still raining wet strings?a cold, ugly Decem? ber night; not a star to be seen. Every once in a while the sound of a shot came to us from the other side of the stream. "You." remarked Hias suddenly, "listen!" Hear anything?" "What do you mean?" "Now." It was a long, wailing cry for help. I could hear it distinctly. "There is a poor devil out there, wounded," said Hias. Great heavens?in this weather! And he must have been lying there without help since early yesterday. lie ; ouldn't be in the wood somewhere, for ve had gone through that thoroughly. Per? haps he had been caught by a shrapnel splin? ter dur.ng the retreat across the field. Well, what was it to us? Let his comrades get him. He must be just a few metres from the French trenches, anyhow. Released at 1, we went back to our tents to get some sleep, cursing the French who Robert Herrick's Dictum That the War's Literature Would Come from Its Participants Proved True?Soldiers Express the German Will to Conquer left their comrade to perish so miserably. At 3 the next afternoon, when I went on duty again, the poor devil was still calling for help, keeping it up all day. We could not help; we did not see him. And to expose our? selves to the French was a proceeding not to be lightly recommended. It was a horrible feeling to be condemned thus to inaction while a wounded soldier called for help. When the wind changed one could hear the poor devil whimger and weep and then sud? denly rouse himself and send out a call for help, "Oh. la, la!" Why didn't the French take him away? There was no danger. We could not shoot, for we saw nothing. And we had no intention of doing that. I was glad when my hour was up. At 8 o'clock I was at my place again with Hias. The poor Frenchman was whining more pitiably than ever. For half an hour we lis? tened; then Hias lost his patience. "What a tribe of pigs," he broke out, "to leave a comrade die like a dog! He can't last much longer." "Well, Hias," I said, "what can we do? I am sorry for him myself, but there is no help. He must die." After a few minutes a terrible scream: "Oh, la, la, la. la!" pierced the night. Then there was quiet. God be praised! Now he is dead and at peace, I thought And quietly I re? peated a few prayers for his soul. But after a while we heard his cry again. "Well, it's enough now," exclaimed Hias. *T can't stand this any longer. I'm going to get him, with or without permission." He spoke and disappeared. In a minute his brother took his place at my side, while he himself ran up to the trenches. He was back in about ten minutes. He bad the permission. The lieutenant also was going and asked if I would come along, as I knew something of first aid and could speak a little French. When we got to the lieutenant three more men, spltndid fellows, on whom one could rely, had volunteered. In a twinkling we had gathered tent cloth, side arms and saws and were running singly across the meadow. Of course, the sentries were notified that we were out in front. We entered the wood. While two men worked with knives and saws te cul a way through, the others held themselves ready for anything that might develop. We stumbled over bodies, weapons and knapsacks. At last I found a little path which the French had made a few days previously. I rested a while and was just about to re? turn to my comrades when a hand gripped my foot. Great God. I was frightened! For a second I was paralyzed; then, tearing out my sword? ' Pitie! pitie!" Some one under my feet was whining for mercy. My teeth chattered. I could hardly ' move or answer. "Oh, m'sieur camarade; piti?! pitie!" Suddenly the lieutenant appeared and I found my control again. Getting down on my knees, I carefully groped for the body. "Look out now," whispered the lieutenant "It may be a tran." _ "Give me your hand," I ordered the French? man. A cold, moist, trembling hand was put into mine. "Where is your weapon?" I asked. He had lost it as he pulled himself along till he was exhausted. Suddenly from somewhere near we heard the horribly familiar call. "Oh, la! la!" "Well, now." said the lieutenant, "we have one man, but not the right one." I asked the wounded one whether we would be seen if we tried to get the other man. "Oui, mon brave camarade. Allemand." The lieutenant hesitated, but resolved nevertheless to go on. One man remained behind with the French? man?a corporal, he said he was?with orders to stab him instantly if he called for help while we were working our way through the brush. We came to the edge of the wood at last and peered out. We could make out the forms of many black objects?dead men, killed so near their own trenches, too! Hias was beside me, and with his sharp peasant eyes soon espied the body of the poor fellow we were after. The lieu? tenant crawled out, and we followed. Coming up to him, I calle i softly, "Camarade1'' I did not want to frighten him; besides, he might Continued on page seven. A War Comrade. ?Frota ' il <? load, p< of Sensible New YorK. nrlio Caruso, a siot'fcr and h believer. By Djuna Barnes. ONE always looks up an authority to svoid quoting him. I looked up Sig? mund Freud, and so am in a position "?loon with this story without further ton ^rary interruption. *'deals with superstitions, and it also deaU *^J with the subconscious mind, through *"?- all material things of the body are di -tctt<-. which sees to it that the heart beats. ^ ii the master behind those ind.scretions '; Street moments?t! at quality, in other J?a. that does the best work of most lives. '? ?-?cover just how far the voice of the past /* tended and into how many ears it has ,tw ' questioned the elite few. 1 '?tailed to them that Napoleon ' always J*! with him, or, rather, had follow him. 1 horse get aside for the purpose, a paint *f oi His young son; how at night be had it T^ beside his bed. and how, on the morning m? bettle of Waterloo, he had arisen in ??? of the dawn and had stumbled over r jmething. Stooping over he found the pict? ure of his son lying face down, causing him to say with profound significance: "A very ( minous thing has happened on a very ominous day!" I told them also of Goethe's dread of his ,wn back stairs, down which he was never een to pass. The secret? In his childhood a urpet dotted with crimson roses had mace im dream of blood. I told them of Oliver Goldsmith, who was encouraged to finish what to him was a very rksome task?"The Vicar of Wakefield"?by the industry of a spider, and how upon corn ?etion of the last paragraph he had raised .is eyes only to behold the spider hanging teless In its web. I ended with Gladstone, who kept a spe? i.i! valet to care for a pet pair of amethyst cuff .nks. All of this by way of encouraging them to be brave, and came out thus: Said Chauncey M. Depew, leaning back in his chair and broadening the mouth com ..rted on either side by the old-fashioned mut? ton chop whiskers: "I am an unsuperstitious man doing superstition grandly. "I will sit down to a dinner where I am the thirteenth at the tafile, though I'd rather not. In three of thirteen cases the guests have died within the year. In thtee hundred dinners of ? ?urteen guests that I have attended sixteen of them have d:ed within the year. Of some four hundred dinners of sixteen guests something like twe.ity of the participants have passed out in the following six months. "So, you sec, superstition keeps its hold en ?,:ie people because statistics are kept of it." Signo: Canil '. who hus a voice box in every gesture as well as in his throat, beamed "Do I believe in superstition? Ah, no! Do I fear the evil eye? No. Am I susceptible to signs' Still no, and yet to all of my denials I shall have to add 'yes.' Superstition is seme without a reason; reason without sense, what you will. "Shall I illustrate? In Monte Catlo, a place, by the way. where nothing common should happen, but where everything common does, I was very fond of motoring. One day my iriends and I passed en the road some charm? ing lady priests?those creatures who have sanctified Unes. Said my friends: 'Ah! such horrible, such ghastly luck! We must turn back.' But I remonstrated. "'Did you not see?' they retorted. 'Those lady priests?it will not do to proceed. We must turn back.' " 'My dear sirs,' I protested. 'For lady priests one turns back on nothing but one's past. This ride is still a thing of tne future. Proceed.' And so they went on, but presently the car stopped of itself. They said: 'You ?bSU?KtJ '?? O?ptV* . "ho >.(Uii<iuiid> super. ttltto? with statistic*. ste? The women, the priests.' I said: N gasolene," but in my heart?ah, well." The Princess Troubetzkoy, she who is haunt? ed ever with the brackets (Am?lie Rives), handed a cup of tea to her tall painter hu, hand and quoted from a paragraph composed in her youth. * "There is a grain of superstition in the stuff .?Il men are mixed of." She continued: "There is a certain quality in an old fear, which super? stition is, that even I can admit, hut it one he I eves in God how can one believe in pea locks? To the actor there is nothing more portentous than a peacock, yet I have three ?n my play 'The Fear Market.'" The strong face of Mary Austin seemed suddenly to awaken into a fire. "Superstitions are things practised alter one has none," she observed. "We hold on to everything that we do not believe. Personally, 1 want no intellectual junk. It is utterly wrong, this separation of thought from action To pick up a pin is absurd, and yet" She studied, her eyes staring before her, the attitude of one who believes and yet does not believe. And still I saw in her no realisation that superstition is the very pigment of life, that it strangles the dull monotony of exist? ence and reduces living to one simple system of profound and pangless pains. Ml ntgomery Flagg, on t'ie other hand, was lame Cowl, who like" to call her supersti? tions "hunches." lunnv. It seemed utterly impossible for him to think up a thing. He could be neither nat Lidlly superstitious nor yet naturally unsuper stitious. He just wasn't anything at all, in ;,pite of the fact that he vowed he'd like to be. He has very long legs, and he kept walking about above them and shaking his head. He was plainly quite crazy about the subject, but could improvise no method by which he could break out into a rash of superstition. In the end he called in his wife and asked her, comically, what the devil his superstitions were anyway. She answered promptly "Women," but he slid that wasn't superstition, that was a fac? ulty, and walked about some more. 'I know what," he said finally. "I wish they would get up a correspondence school for su? perstition. I thtr.k life is utterly miserable without a superstition. It's like a prayer rug without knees. Great cats! You've put a new zest into my life. I'm going to cultivate my superstitions. It's absurd for a man with an income to be without them. I don't know what I've been thinking of." Henrietta Rodman, of the short hair and ihe brogan gait, came next. "I retuse to live in a topsy turvy world." she said flatly. "If it is as silly as superstition would have it, and if superstition is real, then at least I can refuse to see it. After all is said and done it's only a hangover of yesterday .nd I can't be bothered with it." And so I went away from there. I passed out into the street, still looking, and came upon Dr. Abraham Jacobt, whose thin voice said: "Superstitions? What are superstitions? I do not feel them; I cannot answer to their message. My body is one vast treble of sci? atica." "Ah!" said I. "my grandmother, too, suffered from that. I am _orry." "Thank you; you are a good girl. And that about your grandmother establishes a bond between your family and mine, thereby begin inng a superstition for ourselves which will '..old the world together." "Not a superstition in me," said Jane Cowl imless a hunch is superstition. Once it wa al-out a horse. The owner said he would giv? me an option on it for a few days. When I returned at the expiration of the period he had a choice collection of excuses, but no horse .Now. I always listen to that small inner voice Also. I know that if I stay in the country I'll have better health." Here the unsuperstitious Miss Cowl knocked on wood. Then the laughed, suddenly coloring. "It's only habit," she said. Vexed with travail that bore but scant fruit, came into the golden room of one Fran.: Harris, a man with the gifted pen but the still more gifted tongue, and put the question to him also. "The little atavistic superstition, like skipping certain flagstones and touching parts of the fence, I must confess to. I confess that I am continually count.ng nine stones and hoping tor luck. I find myself looking up trying to I lay fair, but all the time acutely conscious ;ust where that ninth one lies. "I think this is the only superstition I can trace in myself. I rather like whistling, but that is to keep my courage up rather than a superstition." And as he believes so will those who do not and who shall discover that superstitions are ??ut aside for the minutes to betray. James Wontyomct \ llayg. who fa tra/v sbout superstitions hut h?M?ft OSTT,