But the night in the quiet village wears away.
To-morrow we shall be flying through the pleasant
land of France, bound for Paris and Lorraine.
For I am turning now to a new task. On our own
line I have been trying to describe, for those who
care to listen, the crowding impressions left on a
woman-witness by the huge development in the last
twelve months of the British military effort in France.
But now, as I go forward into this beautiful country,
which I have loved next to my own all my life, there
are new purposes in my mind, and three memorable words
in my ears:
“Reparation—Restitution—Guarantees!”
May 10th, 1917.
DEAR MR. ROOSEVELT,—We are then, for a
time, to put France, and not the British line, in
the forefront of these later letters. For when
I went out on this task, as I think you know, I had
two objects in mind—intimately connected.
The first was to carry on that general story of the
British effort, which I began last year under your
inspiration, down to the opening of this year’s
campaign. And the second was to try and make
more people in this country, and more people in America,
realise—as acutely and poignantly as I could—what
it is we are really fighting for; what is the character
of the enemy we are up against; what are the sufferings,
outrages, and devastations which have been inflicted
on France, in particular, by the wanton cruelty and
ambition of Germany; for which she herself must be
made to suffer and pay, if civilisation and freedom
are to endure.
With this second intention, I was to have combined,
by the courtesy of the French Headquarters, a visit
to certain central portions of the French line, including
Soissons, Reims, and Verdun. But by the time I
reached France the great operations that have since
marked the Soissons-Reims front were in active preparation;
roads and motor-cars were absorbed by the movements
of troops and stores; Reims and Verdun were under
renewed bombardment; and visits to this section of
the French line were entirely held up. The French
authorities, understanding that I chiefly wished to
see for myself some of the wrecked and ruined villages
and towns dealt with in the French official reports,
suggested, first Senlis and the battle-fields of the
Ourcq, and then Nancy, the ruined villages of Lorraine,
and that portion of their eastern frontier line where,
simultaneously with the Battle of the Marne, General
Castelnau directed from the plateau of Amance and
the Grand Couronne that strong defence of Nancy which
protected—and still protects—the
French right, and has baulked all the German attempts
to turn it.
