Letters From the Front

Dated: November 28, 1918

A member of the Canadian contingent, a farmer by occupation, tells this of the last hours of the war:

Four days ago it seemed as if we were in for a renewal of trench warfare. We were in position along a river and canal and there was heavy firing of trench mortars and artillery. All at once, however, the enemy's lines began to weaken and the forces on our left and our own infantry in front broke through the German defenses. The result was startling, as we were able to advance 8 miles the first day. Late in the afternoon we began to strike large towns, were all the houses were still intact. The French civilian population poured out to meet us, giving us pancakes, cocoa - anything and everything they had, in fact. It was a wonderful sight, the people flocking in the streets and every home floating the tricolor. The flags had been hidden in mattresses for four years. Men, women and children surrounded us and cheered and kissed the relieving troops. Enthusiasm, gratitude. There never was anything like it. The air fairly shivered with "Vive le France", "Vive Canada", "Vive l'Engleterre." The poor people had been depending on food supplied by the American Relief commission, and still they want to share even that with us.

Last night we had our guns in position on the outskirts of one of the relieved French villages, and every man in the battery had a real bed with sheets and all the rest of it. It was wonderful to see the bands marching up street, playing the Marseille, with girls hanging to the arms of the men.

Next day we advanced again, and at night I had a bed in a house adjoining the school of the village in which we were billeted. Madame was a local schoolmistress and could speak a little English, but I brought in a French Canadian to make conversation easier, and through him heard both a very interesting but pitiful story. The Germans had, the school mistress said, told French civilians that the enemy's army was about to retreat. The Canadians, the Germans later on said, were coming, and as they were, according to the enemy version, no better than brigands the French civilians were advised to retreat with the Army lately in occupation of their territory. The French people believed, however, that the Canadians could be no worse than their late masters, and so held on all through the shelling, and were there to welcome us on our arrival.

The Germans had, of course, destroyed every mine, railway and public building. They may have been justified in this, but were they justified in carrying off every chicken, cow, horse and dog the people possessed? They had even ransacked many of the homes and other buildings, taking brass candlesticks, church bells and the larger potatoes and apples supplied by the American Relief commission.

Over in Belgium, just beyond the French frontier, boys of 12 years of age had been forced to herd cattle. Women and children were forced, too, to work seven days a week in the mines, the Germans giving them in return a little coal at the weekend. When the Germans were billeted in a house the owners were allowed only two rooms for a family of five.

The petty brutalities the Germans were amazing. For example I asked one woman for some hot water for shaving, putting a commonplace "Please" at the end of the request. She replied that the Germans had never said "please"; they demanded. The people were not allowed to mention France or to so much as wear white on Sundays. The civilians had to salute all German officers and obey their slightest wish on penalty of a fine. They were not allowed to go beyond a two-mile radius of their own homes. The schoolmistress with whom I lodged had not been permitted to see her sister living in a village 9 miles away, since September of the first year of the war. Just before the end, however, the German soldiers were on their knees praying for peace.