Horrors and Atrocities of the Great War: Including the Tragic Destruction of the LusitaniaMarshall, Logan
History
Horrors and Atrocities of the Great War: Including the Tragic Destruction of the Lusitania
Marshall, Logan
World War, 1914-1918 -- Atrocities
“My poor brother was unable to get away from the war zone in time. He
wrote this letter several weeks ago, and now I fear he may never survive
the terrible hardships. He had plenty of money and a splendid estate,
but all were swept away.”
The letter referred to shows that there is no leveler like war. It runs:
“My dear brother, whether this will ever get through the lines and reach
you I do not know. I am sure no man could get through alive, with all
this fighting and the continual bombardment going on on every hand.
“The war broke with such suddenness that it was impossible to escape. I
was forced to remain here on my estate in Garnesk. This part of Poland
has been reduced to worse than a desert. All is desolate and every one
is suffering. My beautiful estate has met the common fate and been
reduced to ashes. I am now living in a cellar with scanty covering. If
a shell should drop in it would afford no protection. So fierce has
been the fighting here that there have been days when I could not
venture forth. We have been between two fires. All Poland needs relief.
“I have no coal, oil, coffee, and only a handful of grain left. Through
the cold and the rain I have had but poor shelter, but my lot is the
same as that of my fellow countrymen here. Every one is in want; every
one is suffering. Many are dead, and many more will die unless aid
reaches them soon. Prince Lukouirski and his wife recently reached here
and are sharing my cellar with me. Their own beautiful estate has been
destroyed, and even the cellar blown to atoms by the shells.”
PLIGHT OF RUSSIAN POLAND
Mr. Herbert Corey, writing from Berlin to the New York Globe, in the
spring of 1915, declared that unless something was done the world would
be horrified--if the world had not lost its capacity for horror--by the
sufferings of the Poles. “Soon cholera will come to Poland. Famine is
there now. Scarlet fever and typhoid and smallpox and enteric and typhus
are old settlers.” The million now in utter want only live at all
because “humanity has a wonderful capacity for adjustment to
wretchedness.
“There are 6,000,000 Poles in the portion of Russian Poland that is
being fought over. Of these, according to the Red Cross men, 1,000,000
are absolutely destitute. They are without food or the means to buy
food. They are living on the charity of others who are but slightly
better off. That charity must come to an end soon--because food is
coming to an end. It is not merely that money is lacking. Flour is
lacking. It must be imported or starvation follows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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