A Journey Through France in War Time Part 6

It is the purpose of the French Heroes' Fund to make this Chateau in France a complement to Mount Vernon. In it are to be kept records of Colonial days, as well as those of the present war. There is to be a room dedicated to the British; one to the Legion; another to the American Ambulance and still another to aviation. It is also to be made a home for orphans and for soldiers who have been disabled.

After a collation, we visited the reception room, which contains a number of old-time engravings, facsimiles of the Declaration of Independence, a bronze bust of Lafayette, a marble bust of Lafayette and a bronze bust of Franklin. Overhanging the bed in which Lafayette was born is a fine portrait of Benjamin Franklin. Although Lafayette died in Paris, the bed in which he died was brought to the Chateau, and we were shown this also.

Among other things in the reception room was a large placard with the heading "North American United States Const.i.tution Explained". There was also a billiard table which looked as if it had seen much service.

I have alluded to this visit to the birthplace of Lafayette in a little address which I made at Besancon, and which will appear later.

Some photographs of the Commission were taken before leaving. Quite a large sum was raised among the Commissioners and given to the mayor to be distributed among the poor of the village.

Our next objective was LePuy, where we arrived at 4:30 P.M. and had breakfast, so-called, although the detour to the birthplace of Lafayette made us about ten hours late. We were met by the prefect, the mayor and the president of the Chamber of Commerce. We visited a church built on the top of a rock, the ascent to which was by three hundred perpendicular steps, two feet wide. It was said that these steps were built in this way as an opportunity for penance, it being a very hard operation to climb to the top. Some of our people made the ascent, myself among the number. When we reached the top we were rewarded by a magnificent view of the surrounding country. At the highest point is a statue of the Virgin Mary, made of Russian cannon, recast after capture by Napoleon.

While at LePuy we were shown the only spot where the immortal Caesar was defeated; otherwise his reign was triumphant.

Leaving LePuy we arrived at St. Etienne at midnight, after a most perilous ride. A banquet had been planned at St. Etienne, but had been postponed. On the following day we visited the establishment of the Giron Brothers, ribbon manufacturers. This establishment dates back to the very early part of the Nineteenth century, and at present has two thousand employees, nearly all women. Its trade is largely with the United States. On account of the labor situation the factory is working only half time. The men are at war, the women in the munition plants and factories. Wage earners make four, and not to exceed five, francs per day and consider themselves well paid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Monastery of St. Michael at Le Puy.]

We also visited the silk manufacturing plant of P. Staron, Jr. We saw here the most beautiful silks and brocades. Among other fine things were ribbons in the Fleur de Lis design, the national flower of France. On account of the war the employees at work were few.

Here we met Mr. Wm. H. Hunt, American consul and the last appointee of President McKinley before his untimely death.

At St. Etienne I went into a barbershop to get a shave, sat down in the chair, and a youth not over twelve years of age started to lather me. I supposed, of course, that he was getting me ready for the barber, who would soon appear; instead of that he proceeded with the work himself.

He spoke a little English, telling me his father was in the army and he was running the business. He gave me one of the best shaves I received in France.

My next experience with the youth of France was with a boy chauffeur.

Our military automobiles had disappeared for the time being and I engaged a taxicab.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Silk Tapestry Menu Used at Dinner to the Commission at St. Etienne.]

The boy who ran this was not over eleven or twelve years of age, but he did the work well.

On the evening of September 19th, we were given a banquet by the Chamber of Commerce at St. Etienne. It was a very successful affair. I met here Theodore Laurent, a prominent steel manufacturer whom I had met at Brussels in 1911, when the American Iron and Steel Inst.i.tute made its famous visit to England and the continent. At this banquet we met also the prefect and other notables.

VI.

A GREAT MUNITIONS PLANT

Wednesday, September 20th, we left St. Etienne for St. Charmond to visit the plant at which Mr. Laurent is director general. His company owns several plants, this being the most important and one of the oldest manufactories of cannons and munitions in France. We met here Colonel Rimialho, who is the inventor of the seventy-five-millimeter gun and has general charge of the artillery and munitions manufactured in France.

The plant at the present time makes only cannon and munitions. There are no blast furnaces at the works. They use the Siemens-Martin process and melt about seventy-five to eighty per cent. sc.r.a.p. They also use a quant.i.ty of vanadium steel imported from America and furnished by the American Vanadium Company. We were told that France produces five hundred thousand sh.e.l.ls or projectiles daily. This plant turns out twenty-eight thousand of this number, besides one hundred and twenty thousand fuses, or detonators. Before the war the works produced one hundred and twenty thousand annually; they now make this number daily.

They have sixteen thousand employees, five thousand of whom are women.

We saw here a number of Amazonian Junos doing men's work while wearing leather ap.r.o.ns, and were informed that they were fully as efficient as men and are paid the same wages.

We saw at these works a number of the now famous "caterpillars", an armored car moving on a broad track which it lays down as it goes. This machine was invented by an American, and I have seen it at work on the Pacific coast.

After an examination of the works, we were taken to the suburbs of the town and a special test of the big guns was made for our benefit, the firing going to the hill. We were instructed to put cotton in our ears and keep our mouths open, and faithfully observed this injunction. The seventy-five millimeter fired twelve shots in thirty-six seconds, by my watch. The target was brought to us afterwards and we were shown that the projectiles went straight through without a side dent. We were also treated to the firing of some of the very large guns, and by the time this was over I was ready to visit an ear doctor, if there had been one convenient.

When this interesting exhibition was ended we were entertained for the first time in a real French home. Mr. Laurent took us to his home and gave us a luncheon. We met Mrs. Laurent and two daughters, but the four sons had joined the colors. Two of them had already lost their lives in battle.

We met at this luncheon Sir Thomas Barclay, of London, who has taken an active part in the humanitarian work of England, with headquarters in Paris.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Col. Rimailho with 155-mm. Gun (upper) and Famous 75-mm.

Gun (lower) Perfected by Him.]

The party reached Lyons at 6:20 P.M. by military automobiles and at once had a conference with Mayor Heriot. It appeared that there was some discussion between this official and the president of the Chamber of Commerce as to who should head the entertaining. We were greatly impressed with M. Heriot, but he took a night train for Paris and we were left in the hands of the Chamber of Commerce. We were given a reception by this body, and spent the night at Lyons.

On the afternoon of the following day we visited the textile museum. We also visited the government munitions plant, which was formerly the Lyons fair, but had been taken over by the government, stripped of everything and made the most efficient munitions plant in all France. We met Thadee Natanson, Director General. He is a wonderful character. Our impression of him was very good and he later addressed us in strong but broken English and said he hoped he would learn something from us, and, if we had, in visiting the plant, any suggestions to make, he wanted to hear them. The plant employs twelve thousand, one-half women and the remainder men. The product is sh.e.l.ls, cartridges, fuses, and detonators.

We were told that this is the only place in France where a projectile is entirely completed, ready to fire. We met Andre Foulcher, engineer of the plant. The production of this plant is twenty-eight thousand sh.e.l.ls and twenty-five thousand fuses daily. We were told that here the women were more efficient than the men. At these works we were taken into the most dangerous part of the plant, where frequent explosions have occurred.

We met here George Martin, editor of the Paris "Progress", and also Capt. J. Barret, who had recently lost in the army his only son.

Our tour of Lyons included the Lyons electric light and gas plant. On this side trip we met an entire regiment of Algerian soldiers, black as the traditional ace of spades, but fine specimens of manhood. Their uniforms were almost identical with the uniform worn by our soldiers in the Civil War. They wore light blue overcoats, such as Governor Tod furnished the first company which marched from Youngstown.

Over the door of the gas plant were the words "Defense D'Entrer", with skull and cross bones underneath and with the further words, "Danger de Mort".

At this place we received our first home letters, which were very welcome.

In the evening we were given a banquet by the Chamber of Commerce. The invitation received from the Lyons Chamber, translated, is as follows:

Lyon, Chamber of Commerce.

The Lyons Chamber of Commerce beg you to be so kind as to accept a private invitation at dinner which it will give to the members of the Commission of the United States on Thursday, September 21st, 7 o'clock P. M. at Berrier and Millet, 31 Bellecour Square.

Business dress.

R.S.V.P.

We were welcomed in English by the vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce, and discussed the following menu:

Supreme of Lobster A l'amiral Tenderloin a la bearnaise Artichoke Hearts Chantilly style Roast Truffled Bresse Chicken Scotch Salad Havana Ice Desert Wines Fleurie (Beaujolais) in Decanter Pouilly (Maconnais) in Decanter White Hermitage 1904 Chateau Vaudieu 1904 Saint-Peray frappe

On my right was General d'Armade, one of the noted generals of the French army, who had seen service all through the present war. On my left was M. Farrand. My talk with General d'Armade was most interesting.

He said the best soldiers of both the French and the German armies were gone; that they had been destroyed in the early part of the war and that the soldiers now fighting were civilians who had been trained for two years. He declared that a French soldier was always a French soldier. He had no doubt of the ultimate victory of the Allies. In addition to General d'Armade's experience in the present war, he had been in Morocco and the Sudan with important commands.

On Friday, the day following, we were entertained by the directors of the Lyons Fair. On my left was Charles Cabaud, Russian Consul General.

On my right sat Dr. Jules Courmont, who in time of peace is Professor of the faculty of medicine and physician to the hospitals of Lyons, but who now, in time of war, is in the War Department, has the rank of general, and is charged with the hygiene of the army.

We found him a very competent and interesting gentleman. He accompanied us in the private car which the railroad furnished us, and went south with us some distance to where there is a large government garrison, and where he had an inspection to make.

During the trip on the train Dr. Courmont told us many interesting things about the hygiene of the army. He said that the warfare of today is very different from the warfare of former times in respect to the hygiene; that contrary to what was commonly supposed, the hygiene of the trenches is excellent; that the soldiers are in better condition, most of them, than they are in time of peace. They are more regularly and better fed, and are strong, well nourished and hearty. The experience has been the regeneration of very many of them physically. This is due, he says, to the fact that they have their food served to them regularly and abundantly; whereas in former wars it was a matter of the greatest difficulty for troops to be provisioned.

We asked him whether or not the water in the trenches was harmful to the soldiers and he replied that they had very little rheumatism, and the men did not seem to suffer from it. He said there was almost, or in fact, no smallpox, and there was comparatively no typhoid. All of the soldiers are innoculated against typhoid, receiving on the first innoculation three or four injections, and subsequently being innoculated about once in every six months, receiving then two injections. This is for soldiers, whereas civilians are usually innoculated about once every three years, if it is desired that they should be kept immune from typhoid. He says they use with best results the system of Dr. Vidal, of Paris, employing a serum in which the bacteria have been destroyed by heat rather than by boiling. They find the effect of this serum much better than that of others. He says that tuberculosis does, of course, exist, because tuberculosis exists among most civilized peoples. There is even more tuberculosis now among the troops than at the beginning of the war; but this is not due to an increase of tuberculosis, but is due to the fact that the later levies of troops have included many soldiers who at the beginning would not have been accepted, because they either had the disease or had a tendency toward it.

He then spoke about the effect of various weapons in use. He was asked whether the modern rifle wound was serious. He said it was either so serious as to kill the soldier by pa.s.sing-through the brain, the heart, or some other vital part, or else it was a matter of more or less indifference. If a rifle ball went through the fleshy part of the body, you could pretty safely say it was not a grave wound, because the bullets pa.s.sing through the air are so cleansed and heated that when they go through the fleshy part of the body they leave no germs and do little harm unless they fracture a bone. We asked if they did not carry into the wound infected pieces of the soldiers' clothing, and he said no, that they did not find that to be the case; that the bullet went through so quickly that it separated the clothing, and went through the flesh clean. He even stated that a bullet could pa.s.s through the lungs; that the wounded soldier would spit up blood, but that when attended to at once, and the wound dressed, it would be a matter of only eight or ten days when he would be again in fairly good condition. He said, however, that wounds from fragments of shrapnel were of quite a different character; that they were ragged, unclean and usually gave much concern. He said, also, as a matter of fact, that the gun or rifle was performing a less and less important function in warfare. That many were even in favor of abandoning the rifle entirely as a weapon. That the war, as carried on today, is carried on in personal a.s.saults mainly through the effectiveness of the grenades, handknives, revolvers and similar weapons; that the trenches and trench warfare are not suited to close hand-to-hand encounters, as there is not usually room enough to manipulate a gun and bayonet. (This agrees with what was told us by our Negro friend, Bob Scanlon, whom we met at Clermond, and who said all he wanted and carried in an a.s.sault or a fight were grenades, a knife and a good club, preferably of iron.)

The doctor said that for the warfare of today reliance is mainly upon the mitrailleuse, which fires 300 shots a minute. He says that nothing living within the range of these guns, and exposed to them, can possibly stand. This is the small arm which had such great effect for the French in the first days of the war. The Germans had very few guns of this kind in the beginning, but they have since provided themselves with them. He said that outside of these guns the most effective are the famous 75 mm.

and the 155 mm. rifles. He asked us to recall the fact that both of these guns were fired for our benefit at St. Charmond, under the direction of Col. Rimailho, whom we had the pleasure of meeting there, and who was one of the important men co-operating in building the "75", and who was, himself, the inventor and author of the "155". These are the guns of lighter caliber which do such effective work in the field.