It is an amusing fact that although each detail of officers delegated to
escort the party "to the front" received the most explicit instructions
from their superior officers to take the party only to the quiet sectors
where there was no fighting going on, each detail from the three
governments successively brought the party directly under shell-fire,
and each on the first day of the "inspection." It was unconsciously
done: the officers were as much amazed to find themselves under fire as
were the members of the party, except that the latter did not feel the
responsibility to an equal degree. The officers, in each case, were
plainly worried: the editors were intensely interested.
They were depressing trips through miles and miles of devastated
villages and small cities. From two to three days each were spent in
front-line posts on the Amiens-Bethune, Albert-Peronne,
Bapaume-Soissons, St. Mihiel, and back of the Argonne sectors. Often,
the party was the first civilian group to enter a town evacuated only a
week before, and all the horrible evidence of bloody warfare was fresh
and plain. Bodies of German soldiers lay in the trenches where they had
fallen; wired bombs were on every hand, so that no object could be
touched that lay on the battle-fields; the streets of some of the towns
were still mined, so that no automobiles could enter; the towns were
deserted, the streets desolate. It was an appalling panorama of the most
frightful results of war.
Pages:
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422