"I thought that frequent truces would be negotiated to give the opposing armies an opportunity to collect their wounded and bury their dead. I had an idea that the Red Cross had made war less terrible. The world thinks so yet, perhaps, but the conditions along the Aisne do not justify that belief. If a man is wounded in that strip between the lines he never gets back alive unless he is within a short distance of his own lines or is protected from the enemy's fire by the lay of the land. "This protracted and momentous battle, which raged day and night for so many weeks, became a continuous nightmare to the men engaged in it, every one of whom knew that upon its issue rested one of the great deciding factors of the war." BRITISH AID FOR FRENCH WOUNDED The following paragraphs from a letter received October 15th by the author from an English lady interested in the suffrage movement, give some idea of the spirit in which the people of England met the emergency; and also indicate the frightful conditions attending the care of the wounded in France: "London, October 7, 1914.--The world is a quite different place from what it was in July--dear, peaceful July! It seems years ago that we lived in a time of peace. It all still seems a nightmare over England and one feels that the morning must come when one will wake up and find it has all been a hideous dream, and that peace is the reality. But the facts grow sadder every day, as one realizes the frightful slaughter and waste of young lives. * * * "But now that we are in the midst of this horrible time, we can only stop all criticism of our Government, set our teeth, and try to help in every possible way. All suffrage work has stopped and all the hundred-and-one interests in societies of every kind are in abeyance as well. The offices of every kind of society are being used for refugees, Bed Cross work, unemployment work, and to meet other needs of the moment. "Every day of our time is taken up with helping to equip 'hospital units,' private bodies of doctors and nurses with equipment, to go to France and help the French Red Cross work among the French wounded. The situation in France at present is more horrible than one can imagine. Our English soldiers have medical and surgical help enough with them for first aid. Then they are sent back to England, and here all our hospitals are ready and private houses everywhere have been given to the War Office for the wounded. But the battlefield is in France; many of the French doctors have been shot; the battle-line is 200 miles long, and the carnage is frightful.