True Stories of the Great War, Volume 4 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
History
True Stories of the Great War, Volume 4 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
"I always felt very much at home dressed as a man, for I travelled all
through Persia and other parts of the Orient as my husband's brother.
"An artillery train with much baggage was about to move forward and I
could go with that provided I didn't object to riding in a forage wagon
for six hours. My peasant costume I was to take with me wrapped in a
bundle. Once through the rear lines in Belgian territory I was to look
out for myself.
"We started. I rode for hours and hours, expecting at every halt to be
detected and questioned. But fortune smiled on me and that night after
we were well across the border of Belgium I slipped down and walked
forward unchallenged. The place fairly swarmed with soldiers, Belgian,
French and British. Near a farm house I changed back to my simple
Belgian peasant garb and prepared to resume my journey on foot as soon
as it became daylight.
"Fortunately I had not many miles to reach the farm to which the letter
had directed me. Walking all day I reached the farm that night and
there I learned to my great joy that my husband was safe. He had not
been wounded, but his regiment was under orders to leave within a day
or so for another part of the front where severe fighting was expected
and he wanted to see me once more, if possible, before he left. I saw
him next day. He came to the farm. Then on the morrow he marched away
with his regiment toward Arras, and ten days later he was killed."
Mme. Andre found that it was easier to get out of the war zone than
into it and she had little difficulty in returning to Paris. There
she began to raise funds for Red Cross work and to gather material
for future reference about the men-of-letters of America, France and
England who have given up their lives in the great war.
III--STORY OF MAID OF LOOS WHO WON THE CROSS OF WAR
We in America find it possible to read with calm pulse and an
attitude of cold, reasoned impartiality the stories that are
written in red blood and heroic action by real participants in
the great war. Their language, like their viewpoint, seems to us
extreme, violent, embittered. Yet, inasmuch as the presence of
stern reality, which colors viewpoint and language, is the same
that inspired the valorous action itself, we submit, exactly as it
came from Paris, this article, which recounts at first hand the
desperate courage of Mlle. Moreau.
In the musty archives of the French Government she is merely Emilienne
Moreau, youngest of her sex to have achieved mention in Gen. Joffre's
Order of the Day and the right to wear upon her breast the Cross of
War. But to thousands upon thousands of French and British soldiers,
she is the Jeanne d'Arc of Loos--whose valiant spirit won back Loos for
France.
The Official Journal has only this to say about Emilienne Moreau:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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