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A DAY AT ECLISFONTAINE 89
was that the flow of blood had soiled his beautiful tunic. But
one soon gets accustomed to the wounded and their injuries
and ends by paying little attention to them.
It is no misfortune to bleed for one’s country and one’s
liberty. As human beings must needs fire on one another, it
is a blessing after all that so many of the wounded can be
saved, even though they remain cripples for the rest of their
days. But unhappiest are those who are deprived of their
liberty and taken from the ranks of the defenders of their
country to meet the dismal fate which awaits the prisoner of
war. However kindly the treatment, a prisoner’s life is after
all the hardest trial that can await a soldier.
Here are some French infantrymen marching to Eclis-
fontaine, deprived of their arms and accoutrements but here
and there carrying a knapsack. They are twenty-three in
number and are escorted by two German soldiers with loaded
rifles and fixed bayonets. Many, perhaps the majority, wear
an indifferent expression which betrays but one thought :
everything is now lost, everything is going wrong for us.
Others look very distressed and one can see that they have
been crying—France has been deprived of their strong right
arm just as she needed them the most.
I was just talking to the Brigade Commander, Major-General
Bernhard, when the Frenchmen came marching along in their
tattered blue tunics and baggy red trousers narrowing towards
the tops of their " jack " or high-laced boots. The uniforms
were torn and soiled, which is not to be wondered at after
many days’ and nights’ exposure in the trenches. One cannot
well expect them to be neat and trim after such an experience.
General Bernhard stepped on to the road and ordered the
convoy to halt. He then had the Frenchmen formed up
before him in a semicircle and began to chat with some of
them. One had been called out from Auxerre^ and had on the
eleventh day of mobilisation been moved via Bar-le-Duc to
the neighbourhood of Varennes, where his regiment had since
been stationed. Every man is carefully cross-examined. All
statements are entered in the " Protocol." Valuable infor-
mation about the enemy is thus gained. The uniforms alone
tell one what troops one has to deal with. Nor do the German
commanders in this siege warfare seem to have any difficulty
^ Auxerre is the station of the 4th Infantry Regiment, 17th Infantry
Brigade, gth Infantry Division, 5th Army Corps.
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