Don
Martin diary entry for Friday, August 16, 1918:
Rode more than 350 miles in a motor car today. Went to Chaumont by
request to see General Pershing. Drove to Chaumont by way of Troyes. Went out
to Lengres also to see a tank demonstration, Saw Pershing at 5 with about twelve
other correspondents. He said war m-a-y end next year but he apparently does
not expect it will. He says the scheme is to keep the Boche guessing all the
time. Says also we have 31 divisions in France now. He did not impress me as
being much. Left for Paris at half past six. Delayed so decided to go to Meaux
instead. Air raid on Colummiers as we went through the place. Arrived at Meaux
at midnight just after a raid there was over.
That was a surprising comment about General Pershing! Don Martin mailed a lengthy dispatch about German vandalism to New York, dated August 16, which was published in the New York
Herald on Sunday, September 8.
Telling Proof of Germans’ Vandalism in French Homes Is Found by Don
Martin
Herald Correspondent Inspects Once Beautiful Chateaus, Now Wrecks as
Result of Huns’ Bestial Savagery—Americans Provide Vivid Contrast
By DON MARTIN
Special Correspondent of the Herald with the American Armies in France
(Special to the Herald)
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, August 16
There seemed to be a suspicion in
the United States, at least in the earlier days of the war, that the stories of
German vandalism were more propaganda than truth; that they were circulated to
stir up and intensify hatred for the Germans. I had some doubts myself regarding
the complete truth of the statements that German officers had wantonly wrecked
and defiled magnificent private residences.
I have no doubts now. I know the
Huns do things which no one without a bestial nature could do. They loot, they
burn, they wreck, they defile. They commit crimes against property which cannot
be discussed. They leave death traps in their wake. They devise most devilish
infernal machines. They treat aged civilians with no consideration whatever,
stealing their food and returning just enough to the poor people to keep body
and soul together. It is true that now and again an instance is found where one
German in a group of a hundred or more shows a spirit of kindliness to some
feeble civilian, but in every case of this kind I have been able to run down
the humanity sprang from the heart of an Alsatian or a Pole.
Every chateau which the Germans
have occupied in the region between the Marne and the Vesle—and chateaus are
everywhere and Germans always choose them for their officers’ headquarters—has
been marred and mutilated. Every city and village where the Huns sojourned on
their vandalistic march south from the Chemin des Dames tells a woeful story of
destruction and pillage. Of the magnificent dwellings in Chateau Thierry I have
already told in cable despatches to the Herald. I went through twenty of them.
They are homes of wealthy families—homes such as one would find in the leading
street of an American city the size of Trenton, Albany or Bridgeport. They
presented a sad spectacle when the American and French troops entered the city
on the heels of the retreating Germans, who had been resting in comfort in the
beautiful homes for six weeks.
What They Did
Here are some of the things the
German officers, or their orderlies, did to one home:--
Threw an ink bottle against a seven
foot mirror, afterward splashing ink on the walls and ceiling.
Jammed a bayonet through the works
of five handsome marble clocks.
Tore covers and blocks of pages
from costly volumes and strew more than 600 books around the floor, practically
ruining a library which was very evidently the pride of a booklover.
Tore a Teddy bear in two; pulled
arms and legs from large dolls; smashed a doll cradle and generally wrecked a
child’s nursery.
Smashed all the china in a cabinet
and a cupboard and shattered expensive glassware.
Slit oil paintings and stamped
holes in pictures, which had been torn from the walls and left on the floor.
Broke the keys on a costly piano.
Knocked tops off vases and fancy
urns.
Slit tapestries and curtains to
ribbons.
Threw bottles against handsomely
decorated walls and poured various kinds of sauces and other liquids on
expensive rugs and carpets.
Rifled every drawer in the house;
blew open a small safe; threw trinkets and fancy articles of wearing apparel
all over.
Wrecked beds, dressers and mirrors
in all the sleeping rooms.
And even this does not tell all. It
would be difficult to give an adequate picture of any of the score or more of
fine homes which the Germans occupied and wrecked as they were forced hurriedly
to abandon them to the oncoming Franco-Americans. There remains in none of the
homes I visited hardly a thing which is of any value, and some of the homes, in
furnishings and decorations alone, represented an expenditure of at least $150,000.
All the Wine Gone
Château-Thierry is a very old and a
very wealthy city. It is the centre of manufacture of musical instruments.
Every shop in the city was stripped. Not a bottle of wine remained in any of
the wine shops and not a pair of shoes or a piece of wearing apparel was to be
found when the allied troops entered the place.
In Fere-en-Tardenois the homes were
mutilated in the same way. There, I think, the Germans were a little more
vicious than in Château-Thierry. The fact that they were not routed so
hurriedly out of Fere-en-Tardenois may account for the more perfect
disfigurement and destruction of property there. Fere-en-Tardenois is a city
ordinarily of about fifteen thousand inhabitants, with large shops, handsome
homes and attractive streets. Now there is not a house that is habitable; not a
dwelling which has not been mutilated and pillaged; not a shop which has not
been looted. Shellfire from the allied guns in their blasts to drive the
Germans north did immeasurable damage to the exteriors of the buildings, but
the Germans did more. I went through about thirty homes there and found in all
the same scene of savage despoliation. Floors littered with shattered pieces of
furniture, crockery, glassware; pictures torn from walls and hacked with
knives; pianos nicked and in some instances smashed; clocks shattered; drawers
open and the contents strewn all about; private letters opened and torn to
bits; wall safes blown or pried open; bottles everywhere.
In one home more than thirty
paintings and pictures of other kinds—engravings, etchings, photographs—were
damaged and three remained on the walls untouched. They were photographs of
Niagara Falls—one of the American Falls, one of the Horseshoe Falls and one of
the river taken from Goat Island.
In another home, which was treated
somewhat worse than the others, the Germans had fired rifle bullets into the
pictures and, with the same weapons, had shot off the necks of vases and fancy
glass flower holders. The mutilation here was unspeakably wanton. Family
trinkets and heirlooms—old family portraits—whose preciousness to the owners
must have been realized by the vandals, were crunched under heels and thrown
against walls. Bedding was ripped to pieces and valuable coverlets and curtains
torn to shreds.
Death Traps Everywhere
I went through the homes of
Fere-en-Tardenois the day after the Germans left the city and spent three hours
with a captain of engineers inspecting the place. Before the Americans began
the work of cleaning up this captain, who comes from California, called his men
before him and said:--
“Tell your men not to touch a wire
or handle anything suspicious until one of the officers has made an examination
of it.”
I asked him the significance of
this warning, and he replied:--
“We have to be very careful. The
Germans leave death traps and infernal machines everywhere. They are not
satisfied merely to destroy property but they want those who start the work of
repair to be maimed or killed. We have found more than a hundred fiendish traps
in the wake of the Germans. To pick up an abandoned German shell or a grenade—a
rifle even—is tempting death.
Fere-en-Tardenois had temporarily
been transformed into a German city. German signs, elaborately printed, are all
over the place. The streets had been given German names, such as Strassburg,
Liepsic, Munich, Berlin; huge labels had been affixed to the various
headquarters—ammunition, hospital, division, sanitary—and warnings against
drinking water at certain places or standing in groups about the streets were
posted in many places.
The Germans took Fere-en-Tardenois
during the latter days of May and evidently expected to remain there a long
time. They left in great haste, with the French and Americans right at their
heels. However, they must have known from the steady advance of the Allies that
Fere-en-Tardenois would sooner or later have to be abandoned, so they had
plenty of time, despite their final haste, to wreak their vengeance in a
typically systematic German way. They also had time to empty the shelves of all
the stores and shops. Civilians who remained during the German occupation say
that the Germans packed up their stocks in the shops and shipped them back to
Germany. Soldiers were permitted to help themselves and were told that each
could send to his folks in Germany a sack full of shoes, wearing apparel or
canned goods. The army provided trucks to move this loot back to the
Fatherland. Jewelry shops were stripped bare, though the hauls in such places
were small, because the owners of the shops managed to get out most of their
valuables before the Germans arrived.
A Shining Example
The engineers who accompanied me on
a trip through this stricken city said that in their cleanup campaign from the
Marne north they had seen at least a score of châteaux which were pillaged and
torn by the Germans. I visited one—the Château Fere, about three miles north of
Fere-en-Tardenois. There I saw a shining example of Hun vandalism at its worst
and saw a sample of Hun fiendishness which failed. The Germans had wired the
chateau in such a way that the quick movement of a single wire which hung
loosely in many places—so loosely that unless one moved with extreme caution he
would trip over them--would explode three tons of high explosive and reduce the
chateau to ruins, killing all who might be inside or anywhere near it, The
captain of engineers explained this further:--
“It was one of the most devilish
death traps I have even heard of. If any one on entering the château had tugged
at any of the wires he would have been buried under thousands of tons of
masonry. Not only that, but the connections extended to a preserved ruin of a
château built more than eight hundred years ago, so that if one had been razed
both would have been destroyed. There might, perhaps, be some military reason
for destroying the château itself, but there can be no earthly reason, except
pure vandalism, for seeking to wipe off the earth this grand old ruin, which is
of no military value whatever. Our boys were the first to enter the château,
and they saw danger everywhere. They bore in mind the warning we gave them when
we started this campaign of cleaning up after the Huns, and it is a good thing
they did,”
The château is one of the most
beautiful in this part of France. It stands on an eminence, heavily wooded,
about a half mile fro the main road from Fere-en-Tardenois to Fismes, and is in
general outline about five hundred feet long. It was built in 1539, but it
shows its age only in the color of the stone. It is the home of a French count
of enormous wealth, whose aesthetic nature and tastes were reflected in the
decorations and the furnishings. It would be impossible to estimate the cost of
the works of art and pieces of delicately carved furniture—some of them more
than two hundred and fifty years old—which filled the magnificent rooms. They
would compare with the finest to be found in the homes in Fifth avenue and
Riverside Drive, New York. The homecoming of the owner will be a sad one, for
his precious works of art have been damaged beyond repair, his antiques have
been hacked and nicked and the paintings and decorations have been sorrowfully
mutilated. The Germans occupied this château for several weeks. It was used as
the headquarters of a German army corps, so the vandalism cannot be laid to the
privates, whom the German high command attempts to blame for crimes of
vandalism which are actually proved.
Shells in Dining Room
The grand dining room of the
château was used as a storehouse for high explosives. More than a thousand
shells of high calibre were there when I visited the place. Gas shells were
stacked against the walls, also. When the château was abandoned by the owner
and the servants in May it was completely furnished. Some personal belongings
and knickknacks were taken out in the hurried departure, but the Germans found
it ready for luxurious occupation, and they made full use of it until they were
forced to make way for the advancing French and Americans. Then they proceeded
to vent their vengeance in destruction.
The château was damaged somewhat by
shell fire. The allied guns were trained on it just long enough to hasten the
flight of the German commanders. One shell struck between two windows of a
bedroom and hurled a chunk of the three foot wall across the room. Another
struck a corner of the structure and hacked off about two tons of masonry. But
the shell damage, though ugly in appearance, can be easily repaired, while the
damage wrought by the vandals inside cannot be remedied.
Nurseries Desecrated
It is a curious and unbelievable thing,
but true, that the Germans seem to take especial delight in desecrating
nurseries, tearing dolls apart, smashing hobby horses, shattering all the
things which children love to play with. The nursery in the Château Fere was
practically demolished. It looked as if a fanatic had attacked the tender
playthings and had grown red with rage as he proceeded with his hellish work. I
have seen dozens of instances where the Germans devoted particular attention to
children’s toys and left other things nearby untouched.
And what a contrast to the
Americans! Time and time again American staffs, in their swift advance
northward, occupied as headquarters châteaux and other buildings which had been
used for the same purpose by the Germans only a day or two before. In every
case American soldiers were put to work, with the engineers, to sweep and clean
up. It is amazing what wonders fifty industrious young soldiers can do with
pick, shovel, broom and brush in a few hours. Chloride of potash and line are
necessary articles, also, it might be said, in cleaning up after the Germans.
Recently an American chief of staff
was preparing to leave a château to take up an office in a farm building twenty
kilometres further north. He called my attention to a squad of soldiers who were
scrubbing the floors and placing everything in perfect order. He showed me how
the men in the kitchen had left a high polish on every utensil and how they had
put everything in a state of immaculate cleanliness. Débris had long before
been carried out and order had come out of chaos. The château looked as well as
it could with the walls bare and the magnificent and costly pieces of woodwork
hacked and cut. Outside the yards had been cleaned up, the grass cut and the
mangy hedge neatly trimmed. After calling my attention to all this the chief of
staff took me to a room which was securely locked. Opening the door he pointed
to a great pile, neatly arranged, of various articles of furniture and small articles.
“Those are the things which I
assume are most treasured by the owner,” he said. “We gathered them up and
placed them here as soon as we arrived. Now I shall lock the door and give the
key to the town mayor, so when the owner comes back he will find some of his
belongings in good condition.”
That shows how the American uses
property which belongs to others. That furnishes a perfect illustration of the
difference between a people fighting for barbarism and a people battling for
the cause of freedom.
A notice about Floyd Gibbons, war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, being decorated by the French, was published in the Paris
Herald on Friday, August 16.
Floyd Gibbons
Decorated with Croix de Guerre
Floyd P. Gibbons, of the “Chicago
Tribune,” has been decorated with the Croix de Guerre (with palm). There is a
citation in the army signed by General Petain. The order reads as follows:--
“Monsieur Floyd Gibbons,
war correspondent of the ‘Chicago Tribune,’ has given on several occasions
proof of courage and bravery in going to obtain information in most exposed
positions. On June 5, 1918, accompanying a company of Marine Riflemen who were
attacking a wood, he was very seriously wounded by three machine gun bullets
while going to the aid of an American wounded officer near by, thus giving
proof of the finest devotion. Rescued several hours later, and carried to a
dressing station, he insisted on not being cared for before the wounded who had
arrived before him.
“Issued at G.Q.G., August
2, 1918.
“Petain”
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