According to all accounts received from the French soldiers who are in the prison camps of Germany, one of the greatest hardships is the lack of white bread, and they have employed various subterfuges in the endeavour to let their relatives know that they wish to have bread sent to them.

Some of the Bretons writing home nickname bread “Monsieur Barras,” and when there was a very great shortage they would write to their families:  “Ce pauvre Monsieur Barras ne se porte pas tres bien a present.” (M.  Barras is not very well at present.) Finally the Germans discovered the real significance of M. Barras and they added to one of the letters:  “Si M. Barras ne se porte pas tres bien a present c’est bien la faute de vos amis les Anglais.” (If M. Barras is not well at present, it is the fault of your friends the English.) And from then all the letters referring to M. Barras were strictly suppressed.

While the German Press may not be above admitting a shortage of food in Germany, it seriously annoys the Army that the French prisoners or the French in the invaded regions should hear of it.  I heard one story of the wife of a French officer in Lille, who was obliged to offer unwilling hospitality to a German Captain, who, in a somewhat clumsy endeavour to be amiable, offered to try to get news of her husband and to convey it to her.  Appreciating the seeming friendliness, of the Captain, she confided to him that she had means of communicating with her husband who was on the French Front.  The Captain informed against her and the next day she was sent for by the Kommandantur, who imposed a fine of fifty francs upon her for having received a letter from the enemy lines.  Taking a one hundred franc note from her bag she placed it on the desk, saying, “M. le Kommandantur, here is the fifty francs fine, and also another fifty francs which I am glad to subscribe for the starving women and children in Berlin.”  “No one starves in Berlin,” replied the Kommandantur.  “Oh, yes, they do,” replied Madame X., “I know because the Captain who so kindly informed you that I had received a letter from my husband showed me a letter the other day from his wife in which she spoke of the sad condition of the women and children of Germany, who, whilst not starving, were far from happy.”  Thus she not only had the pleasure of seriously annoying the Kommandantur, but also had a chance to get even with the Captain who had informed against her, and who is no longer in soft quarters in Lille, but paying the penalty of his indiscretion by a sojourn on the Yser.

The Bridge At Meaux

The Bridge at Meaux, destroyed in the course of the German retreat, has not yet been entirely repaired.  Beneath it rushes the Marne and the river sings in triumph, as it passes, that it is carrying away the soil that has been desecrated by the steps of the invader, and that day by day it is washing clean the land of France.