A Journey Through France in War TimeButler, Joseph G. (Joseph Green)
History
A Journey Through France in War Time
Butler, Joseph G. (Joseph Green)
France -- Description and travel; World War, 1914-1918
England today is an armed camp. From end to end of the country there is
hardly a man, woman or half-grown child who is not working, making
ammunition, guarding the coast, doing police duty, watching for
Zeppelins, making uniforms or shoes, or moving provisions or supplies of
all kinds for an army of five million men, with the British navy thrown
in. There are two thousand munition factories in England and more under
construction. I was told of one plant being built in units extending for
eight miles. These munition factories employ one million men and women.
There are other works being built to make aeroplanes, cannons, machine
guns and hand grenades. All this since the war opened. Great Britain has
mobilized the ship yards and they are working overtime to build vessels.
This has more than offset the loss of vessels destroyed by the Germans.
America is doing a great deal in the way of Red Cross and relief work,
but it is a mere bagatelle compared with the activities of England in
this direction. The women of England are as fully awake as are the women
of France. Thousands are at work in hospitals and caring for the
refugees. Girls are at work making horse-shoes for the army horses.
These girls are cultivated, aristocratic women, members of golf and
hockey clubs. Others are working on farms, handling teams, pitching hay,
or driving cattle to market. Thousands of women are occupied as
chauffeurs at the various fronts. Hundreds of English women are living
through all kinds of weather in tents just behind the firing lines,
acting as stretcher bearers and driving ambulances.
[Illustration: Nancy--Place Stanislas]
While in London I met a number of old friends, many of them incidentally
connected with the government and very much alive to the situation. The
concensus of opinion of these friends is that failure of the Allies to
win the war means the death-warrant of France and the British Empire;
that there is no middle course; that the war will be fought to a finish
and the Allies will be victorious; that the Kaiser and the Prussian
military system will be annihilated, the German people will arise, and
the Republic of Germany will be the result.
Among other things spoken of there was the incident of Dewey at Manila
and the near clash over Samoa. It will be remembered that Dewey fired a
shot across the bows of a German vessel. To people in London the
Venezuelan embroglio proved that the Kaiser had in mind smashing the
Monroe Doctrine. Germany yielded to us in both cases. President
Cleveland was at the helm when the Venezuelan controversy came and the
immortal McKinley was in the chair when Manila was taken. Cleveland,
Harrison and McKinley all stood up for our rights and Germany backed
clear down, facts which the English have not overlooked.
XVIII.
ON THE BROAD ATLANTIC
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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