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EIGHTEEN MONTHS IN THE WAR ZONE
EIGHTEEN MONTHS IN THE WAR ZONE
EIGHTEEN MONTHS IN THE WAR ZONE THE RECORD OF A WOMAN'S WORK ON THE WESTERN FRONT BY KATE JOHN FINZI With an Introduction by Major-General Sir Alfred Turner, K.C.B. With Sixteen Plates CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 1916 [Pg 6] [Pg 7] Dedicated To the Memory of those whom I have lost [Pg 8] [Pg 9]...
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FOREWORD
FOREWORD
When the great history of this almost untellable War comes to be told, historians will find themselves faced with a collection of evidence so devious, so at variance, that their task will be well-nigh stupendous. Whether, when they come to sift their data, they will have time to cast more than a passing glance at the great military bases that sprung up in an allied country, where once an invading army had stood, remains to be seen. That these bases, and in especial the largest and nearest to the
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
By Major-Gen. Sir ALFRED TURNER, K.C.B. In the following pages Miss Kate Finzi gives in a plain, unvarnished style a terrible and graphic picture of the horrors of war, which have been intensified, as never before, owing to the ferocious savagery of the German troops, as systematically ordered by their officers and commanded by the Kaiser himself, the greatest criminal in the world's record; for this war, planned and prepared deliberately by him, is the greatest crime ever committed against civi
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BOOK I 1914 As It Was in the Beginning
BOOK I 1914 As It Was in the Beginning
[Pg 28] [Pg 29]...
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CHAPTER I October, 1914
CHAPTER I October, 1914
October 21st, London. It was not without a sense of relief that we watched the hands of the station clock move on to the stroke of six, heard the train doors slam, and cast a last look at the anxious little group of friends who clustered round the carriage doors to bid us farewell and God-speed. To be quite frank, their cheering savoured somewhat of mourning and much of admonition. Were we not the tattered remnants of a once-flourishing Red Cross detachment, whose energies and equipment alike ha
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CHAPTER II November, 1914
CHAPTER II November, 1914
November 1st. It is impossible to keep note of the daily occurrences. Things move too quickly out here—besides, if the spirit is willing the flesh is very exhausted. Nevertheless, not for a moment do our spirits flag; on the contrary, the worse things grow the more cheerful do we become, the more determined to make the best of things. It is strange that all the years we worked hard to amuse ourselves at home not one brought an eighth of the satisfaction of this . There is a wonderful dearth of u
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CHAPTER III December, 1914
CHAPTER III December, 1914
December 2nd . They say that the Germans have been finally driven back, that our men are enjoying a rest from the trenches, that many officers have gone home on forty-eight hours' leave. Converted motor-buses with boarded windows, all of steel-grey hue, come down with loads of cheery though exhausted men on their way home. Most of the cases in hospital are now medical, rheumatism and the newest disease, "trench feet," which was at first identified as frost-bite. Each medical officer has a differ
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BOOK II 1915 Order Out of Chaos
BOOK II 1915 Order Out of Chaos
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CHAPTER IV January, 1915
CHAPTER IV January, 1915
January 8th. If Art be Selection, then surely is that of keeping a War Diary, that shall be true, unbiased and yet not dull, the hardest of all Arts! For our eyes are so focused on the smaller things out here that we are apt to ignore the larger issues altogether. Yet—even as, looking back at bygone years, it is the little things that count—the branch that taps against the study window, the sickly scent of lime trees, the odd pattern on the nursery cup, the wind across the fields, the broken dol
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CHAPTER V February, 1915
CHAPTER V February, 1915
February 2nd. This morning, in company with our chief, Mr. H——, I went over to prospect in the new sphere of action. The lower part of the hotel that the Association has taken is devoted to a canteen, whilst on the first floor there is a library and writing-room, and above, seven spacious rooms lie empty until such a time as the hostel is started. The hostel is a grand scheme for billeting gratis the relatives of badly wounded men, who could otherwise not afford the journey. My heart sank at sig
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CHAPTER VI March, 1915
CHAPTER VI March, 1915
March 5th. March was inaugurated by an amusing incident. At about midnight the alarm was given—a Taube or Zeppelin signalled from Calais—bells rang, guns boomed, the whole of the French population turned out, and the police raided a nurse's room because a light was visible—and, after all, nothing happened. That the Germans still have hopes of getting to Calais is obvious from their Press comments on the range of their coast guns. "The chief point of which lies in the suggestion that from Calais
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CHAPTER VII April, 1915
CHAPTER VII April, 1915
April 1st. In spite of the difficulties of getting teams together, the football league has flourished, and to-day we had the great final match between Australians and the A.S.C., for which, at a few hours' notice, aided by a solitary car, we managed to give a fairly successful tea. Thanks to the football and the various other "tournaments," the canteen is becoming quite an important factor of the little colony out here. We find that draught, chess and billiard tournaments draw the men (who are a
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CHAPTER VIII May, 1915
CHAPTER VIII May, 1915
May 2nd. This morning we attended Church Parade at the veterinary camp hard by. The chaplain, who had brought out a recently formed brass band, conducted the service in a large sand-pit from which most of the horses had been removed to the sides. A few tents were dotted about, a few sick animals still rolled in the sand as the men came on parade, whilst a narrow path winding up to the dark pine woods above made us feel for all the world like part of a Wild West Buffalo Bill show. How the French
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CHAPTER IX June, 1915
CHAPTER IX June, 1915
June 11th—Cumberland. Speaking to a gathering of village folk on work in France, I invited debate. "If King George 'as got wot Kaiser Bill wants, why don't they go and fight it out themselves?" asked one man. "Wot difference would it make to us if the country is ruled by Germans or Englishmen?" said another, a lazy fellow whose fields had remained fallow for years, quite oblivious of the fact that under German regime he would have been in the firing-line months ago. The rest of the audience shiv
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CHAPTER X July, 1915
CHAPTER X July, 1915
July 1st. In place of the old hotel, where operations are still being carried on, our new hut has sprung up. The dimensions, let me see, are somewhere about 120 feet by 40 feet. Beside the platform at the far end lies the library, to fill which our store of books is to be greatly enlarged. Behind the counter are situated the ladies' room, the store-room, the mess-room, to beautify which I am busy all day making curtains, etc. The kitchen is so small that it is not easy to get range and sink and
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CHAPTER XI August, 1915
CHAPTER XI August, 1915
August 3rd. Two Canadian A.M.C. orderlies were grousing that they hadn't left God's Own Country to sit twiddling their thumbs in Boulogne. "We volunteered for active service," says one. "Can't you picture it years hence," says the second. "Your children around you asking, like the little boy in the picture, 'And what did you do in the great war, Daddy?' 'Scrubbed floors, my son!'" They did not grouse in vain. Two days later they were drafted to Gallipoli, where no doubt they will see all the act
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CHAPTER XII September, 1915
CHAPTER XII September, 1915
September 3rd. Time has passed so quickly that it is hard to realise that beautiful autumn is already upon us. Yet as the days draw in, lights go on earlier, and our hut grows fuller and work more engrossing. Outside the laughing, gurgling wavelets, chasing each other round the rocks, are replaced by white-crested breakers that rage along the shore at high tide and cut us off from the town. Boulogne is once more animated, as people transfer their attention during leisure hours from country pursu
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CHAPTER XIII October, 1915
CHAPTER XIII October, 1915
October 3rd. All the morning we had been hard at work amongst our blessés . It is odd how soon they endear themselves to everyone. There is the little wizened bit of humanity who gazes all day long into space with a horror-stricken look, or falls asleep, half on the floor, half on the bed, until aroused. The unearthly green pallor of his face is not accounted for by his slum upbringing alone, but by the German gas and the fact that he has twice been blown heavenwards by exploding mines. There is
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CHAPTER XIV November, 1915
CHAPTER XIV November, 1915
November 2nd, All Souls' Day! The Bishop of Arras held a service in the cemetery, a memorial service for those morts pour la Patrie . The rain streamed down from the steel-grey sky in Boulognese torrents as the mass surged hither and thither amongst the crowded graves. Those graves into which but a year ago we watched the dead being heaped three deep, into which we cast our meagre offering of violets with a wish that those relatives at home might know that at least two English souls were there t
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CHAPTER XV December, 1915
CHAPTER XV December, 1915
December 2nd. Each honours list brings us greater surprises than the last, for it seems that a man who runs a military grocer's shop at the Base in perfect security is far more likely to reap a reward than a man risking his life daily in all the discomfort of the trenches! We have been convulsed with laughter lately by the antics of a little chauffeur, erstwhile jockey, whose reckless driving has for some time been the talk of the place. He has long evaded the arm of the law, but the other night
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BOOK III 1916 Scrapped
BOOK III 1916 Scrapped
[Pg 278] [Pg 279]...
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CHAPTER XVI January, 1916
CHAPTER XVI January, 1916
January 1st, 1916. Each New Year's Day one wonders afresh at the oddness of commencing the year in January, cold January, when all the world is engrossed in recovering from Christmas benevolence and bracing itself to hustle through the days with the minimum amount of cold, instead of Nature's New Year in April. January, this month of surprises, with its rain and sunshine, sleet and mists, its promises of rest soon to be found, is surely already a hoary old man with a life of infinite experience
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CHAPTER XVII February, 1916
CHAPTER XVII February, 1916
February 3rd. To-day we are debating as to whether or not a genuine spy has been within our grasp and wriggled out again. The sum of the matter is this: Boarding a crowded tram on its way into town, we were fain to avoid the closeness of the over-crowded interior by standing on the conductor's more airy platform. The conductor himself, an ill-grown little Belgian réformé , seemed pleased enough of company, judging by the avidity with which he poured forth his sorrows into our sympathetic ears. S
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EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE
It is an odd coincidence that the last words of this War Diary should be penned by candlelight in a darkened northern town, to the sound of bombs falling on an entirely defenceless city. With the truly sporting instinct of Britons, everyone has turned out to see what they may of the "fuss" by which our humane foe hopes to terrorise us. By the light of flares the great marauding machines of destruction are seen to hover apparently stationary. It is a fitting moment to add a note of apology to thi
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