Paris War Days: Diary of an AmericanBarnard, Charles Inman
History
Paris War Days: Diary of an American
Barnard, Charles Inman
Paris (France) -- History -- 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Thousands of foreign volunteers assembled on the Esplanade des Invalides
this morning to offer their services for the war. These young foreigners
are mostly strong, active youths and have all received more or less
military training. They marched through the streets in detachments of
from two to six hundred, grouped together according to nationalities,
bearing French flags alongside flags of their own countries. There were
about five thousand Russians, five thousand Italians, two thousand
Belgians, numerous Czecs, Slavs, Roumanians, and Armenians, together
with smaller contingents of Americans, British, and Greeks. Mr. Arthur
Bles and his second in command, Mr. Victor Little, are busy organizing
the "Rough Riders" in a riding-school in Rue Avenue des Chasseurs.
M. Geissler, manager of the Hotel Astoria, who was recently reported as
having been shot as a spy for arranging disks on the roof of his hotel
to interfere with the French wireless telegraphy, was tried today, not
by court martial, but by a civil judge, M. Tortat, to whom the court
martial had referred the matter for further evidence. It appears that M.
Geissler had been denounced on insufficient grounds by a clerk in his
employment. His innocence was established, this morning, and he was
released from the Sante prison and handed over to the military
authorities, who will probably let the matter drop.
_Saturday, August 22._
Mobilization is now completed. This is the nineteenth day since the
declaration of war (August 3). A sultry day with light northwesterly
breezes. Thermometer at five P.M. 22 degrees centigrade.
"All that I can say to you is that the battle has begun. That is all I
know," is the statement made by M. Malvy, Minister of the Interior, as
he stepped into his motor-car at the Elysee Palace on his way home this
evening after the meeting of the Council of National Defence.
Remarkable, impressive silence prevails everywhere. If people speak, it
seems to be in a whisper. Never before was Paris so full of
motor-ambulances, all driving hurriedly hither and thither, bearing
nurses or Red Cross attendants, but never a wounded. The whole of the
Rue Francois-Premier is lined on both sides with Red Cross motor-cars.
The railway stations have an unusual appearance, with hundreds of wooden
booths forming a sort of barrier to approaches. The calm, confident,
silent, patriotic expectation augurs well for the future and vividly
contrasts with the noisy, braggadocio spirit of 1870. Paris at the
present moment is the most orderly, well-behaved city in the world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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