World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Western Front; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Sometimes they find messages written to them by the enemy in good
English, but with dark meanings. In one German dug-out the other day an
officer of ours found a note scribbled on the table.
"We are going away, Tommy dear, and leave some empty bottles of
Rhein wine. It is the best wine in the world. Take care it is not
the best for you."
"When are they coming?" was another note. "Enlist at once, Tommy my
boy."
But those things do not explain. It is difficult to find any clue to the
character of these German soldiers, who have left behind them proofs of
wonderful labour and skill, and proofs of great sentiment and religious
piety, and proofs of an ordered cruelty worse than anything seen in
France since barbarous days. How can one explain?
Yesterday I went to a village called Liancourt. There is a big château
there. Even now at a little distance it seems a place of old romance,
with a strong, round tower and high peaked roofs, and great wings of
dark old brick. In such a place Henri IV lived. It was centuries old
when the Revolution made its heraldic shields meaningless, but until a
year or two ago its walls were still hung with tapestries, and its halls
were filled with Empire furniture, and its great vaulted cellars with
wine. When the Germans came they made it a hospital for their
wounded--their Red Cross is still painted on one of the sloping
roofs--and though it was far behind their lines, surrounded it with
barbed wire which is now red with rust, and built enormous dug-outs in
its grounds in case French guns should ever come near. When the Germans
went a few days ago they left but an empty shell. They stripped the
walls of panelling and tapestry, they took all the clocks and pictures
and furniture and carpets, and I wandered yesterday through scores of
rooms empty of everything so that my footsteps echoed in them. The
Château of Liancourt had been looted from attic to cellar. But quite
close to the château the Germans have left the bodies of many of their
soldiers, as all over this country, by roadsides and in fields, there
are the graves of German dead. Here there was one of their cemeteries,
strongly walled with heavy blocks of stone, each grave with its big
wooden headpiece, with a stone chapel built for the burial service, and
with a "Denkmal," or monument, in the centre of all these dead. It was a
memorial put up by Hessian troops in July 1915 to the honour of men
taken on the field of honour.
In this graveyard one sees the deep respect paid by the Germans to the
dead--French dead as well as German dead.... But just a hundred yards
away is another graveyard. It is the cemetery of the little church in
the grounds of the château, and is full of vaults and tombs where lay
the dust of French citizens, men, women, and children, who died before
the horror of this war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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