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In one of the magazines published during the war there are some
verses in which an American baby is supposed to speak. He tells of the good
times that he had and at the end he says:
I'm fat and rosy and stuffed and pampered and happy,
and maybe
There's anything you can think of better to be than an American baby.
Then another little one speaks, a French baby, thin and
troubled, and with sad questioning eyes. His father has been killed in the
war, and he tells what a lonesome time he has while his mother is gone to
work all day. He tells of the miserable grass tea that is all she has to
give him to eat. Then he says:
Once in a blue moon, there's a large, deep-voiced
Person in Black
Called the curé, who brings me real milk—just a little, but, oh, isn't
it fine!
And when I see it coming, warm and white, I'm in such a hurry that I
whimper and whine
For pure joy, and the Curé smiles a bit, watching me, and says
I'm the hope of France;
But how can a chap be the hope of France when he can't get enough food
to have a chance?
Before the war, the little French babies had enough to eat,
most of it raised at home and not brought in from other countries. France
contains a large number of small farms, and nearly every one of them was
cultivated by the family that owned it. These farmers were anxious of course
to have as good crops as possible. They were in general wide-awake people,
and had no idea of carrying on their farms just as their grandfathers had
done. They kept their eyes open for new methods and as soon as they found
one that was an improvement on their won, they adopted it. The result was
that France raised more of her own food than any other of the western
Allies. She raised more than one-third as much wheat as the United States,
and she cultivated great quantities of sugar beets. She raised horses and
sheep, but grass land was not ample enough to feed large numbers of cattle.
There were, however, vineyards without number; there were peaches and
cherries and oranges and lemons, and wherever nothing else would grow, there
were chestnut trees, and of the chestnuts some of the thrifty French people
made an excellent flour. The French are never wasteful, and they do much
with a little. France was well-fed, busy, and happy.
Then came the war, and everything was changed. In 1917, France
raised less than half as much wheat as usual, less than two-thirds as many
potatoes, and only one-third as much sugar. Her number of cattle, sheep, and
hogs had greatly decreased. How did the war bring this about?
In the first place, there were no men to work in the fields. All
able-bodied Frenchmen were either fighting, making munitions, or helping to
transport soldiers and guns and supplies. The men left at home were those
who were too old and feeble to do much work, the wounded soldiers, and the
sick. Then, too, there were not so many fields as formerly. Some of the
richest land in the country was either in the hands of the Germans or had
been overrun by them.
War always means destruction, but military commanders of other
nations are proud of not injuring non-combatants and of doing no harm to the
country through which they pass other than that which will be of military
value to them. Roads and railroads must often be destroyed, wires and cables
torn down, sometimes wells blown up; but the Germans set to work
deliberately to do as much harm as possible. They demolished famous
buildings and works of art; they burned villages and towns; they bombed
hospitals; they cut down fruit trees and vineyards; they poisoned wells, and
did many other cruel things. The result is that people who struggled back to
their old homes found only cinders for houses and waste land for cultivated
fields.
These people shelter themselves as best they can, but it is easier
to put together something for a rough protection against the weather than to
raise wheat in a field that has been torn to pieces by shells. But the
French women have done wonders. Wherever it was possible, a woman has always
been ready to take the place of a man so that the man might help to defend
the country. The women have cared for their children and the sick, they have
toiled at all kinds of labor in factories and workrooms, caring not what it
was or whether it was hard or easy, if only it would help France. They have
ploughed and planted and reaped. Sometimes a few soldiers could be allowed
to come home to help in harvesting, and sometimes prisoners of war have been
of service in the farm work; but the greater part of the labor of raising
food has been done by the French women with the aid of the aged and the
children.
France needed more food than before. The bravest troops cannot do
their best when they are hungry, and whoever went without, the soldiers had
to be fed. And then there were the Frenchmen who had been captured and who
were starving in German prison camps. Food has to be sent to them if their
lives were to be saved. The weather was unfavorable and the crops failed,
but still the brave French women kept on, weary and suffering, but not
complaining.
In France to-day, butter, cheese, meat, and even potatoes are
enormously dear. The only food that everybody can afford to buy is bread.
The Government has kept the price of bread low; but it is rationed, and a
ten-ounce ration card does not always mean that its holder can get in
exchange the full ten ounces. In some of the mountain districts, what bread
can be bought is black and has a disagreeable odor. It is made of chestnut
flour mixed with oats, barley, and a little buckwheat.
There has been no invaders on English soil as on that of France,
but the British have been in the trenches, or on warships in the North Sea,
or convoying troops, or making munitions in one or another of the 5,000 war
factories of England. Here, too, as in France, women have stepped into the
vacant places. They have acted as conductors on trains, as porters at
railroad stations. They have toiled in munition factories. The petted
daughters of noblemen have worked twelve hours a day side by side with women
who have known nothing but but toil all their lives; and they have all lived
together in little villages built close to the factories. The beautiful
velvety turf of England has been ploughed up and the great parks turned into
potato fields; and here too, women have been hard at work. In spite of the
labor shortage more food was raised on English soil the last year of the war
than ever before.
Nevertheless, food is not plentiful. One sort of food after another
has grown scanty, then disappeared. Fats in general are scarce. There is
only a little milk, and that is saved for the children and the sick. Turning
grass land into potato fields is better to supply food for the people, but
it is not good for the keeping of cows, and many have been killed.
Everyone knows the brave and victorious struggle that Italy has
made at the front, but not everyone realizes that her fight with hunger has
been just as brave. Even to-day, her bread and meat and sugar—what she can
get of them—are of poorer quality than is common in any other of the Allied
countries. She needs coal almost as badly as food, for part of the time coal
has cost $110 a ton; and even at that price, the railroads could hardly get
enough to keep running. If she only had plenty of coal, what food there is
could be distributed over the country; but as it is, even if there is
sufficient of any kind of food in one part of the land, there is often n way
of getting it to the other parts.
Belgium was far more helpless than were they other countries.
Belgium was what is called a neutralized state. The little country is not
one-fourth as large as the State of New York, but it is so situated that any
country controlling it could, if she chose, do great harm to England,
France, or Germany. That is why these countries, as well as Austria and
Russia, all signed a treaty declaring that, no matter what wars might break
out, no one of them would ever attach Belgium. Belgium, on her side,
promised that she would never favor any one country to the loss of any
other.
Everybody knows what happened when, in 1914, hundreds of thousands
of German troops suddenly swarmed out of the trains at Belgium's frontier
and demanded a passage through the country. But Belgium refused to break her
promises. She marched out her little arm, and how they did fight! Of course
they could not drive the hordes of Germans back, but they did delay them two
full weeks. France and England had time to get some troops into the field,
and Germany's plan to dash into France and perhaps capture Paris before the
French could get their troops into position was spoiled.
Everyone knows, too, how the German armies behaved after they had
made their way into Belgium; how they murdered and tortured and looted and
destroyed; how they shelled magnificent old buildings that had been for
centuries the pride of the country; how they burned village after village
because some one person was perhaps accused of firing a single shot at them.
They seized the railroads, telephones, and telegraphs, the canals, the cars,
and the mails. Every little village was cut off from every other. They
stopped all business; they carried off to Germany all that there was in the
country of oil, wool, copper, rubber—anything they could make use of; and
then they tore away from their homes thousands of men, women, boys, and
girls and carried them away to toil in the mines and factories of Germany,
manufacturing articles that would be used to help overpower their own
people. Of course the Germans wanted only the well and strong; the old and
feeble were allowed to remain. Little food could be left in Belgium after
such treatment, and this was quite according to the plans of the Germans.
They were not unwilling that the Belgians should starve. The more that died
the better; then the land would be free for them to occupy.
Americans promptly sent food to the Belgians, and four months after
the beginning of the war the Commission for Relief in Belgium was formed.
The wise work of the Commission and the generous sympathy of the American
people and the Allies saved Belgium from starvation. "Never has a country
had such friends," said the Belgian minister. But at best the Belgians have
had only just enough to keep them alive. More than half of them are still in
soup lines. If means of industry and happiness are to be restored to their
country, food must be provided in generous quantities.
Roumania, Serbia, and Poland are starving; so are Armenia, Finland,
and some parts of Russia. Germany swept through Roumania, driving the
Roumanians into a small corner of their land, the least fertile of all. They
had no hope of resisting their foes, for enemies were on all sides, and they
yielded. But they might almost as well have struggled till every Roumanian
had fallen, for here, as well as in Serbia and Poland and Russia, the German
troops seized everything in the shape of food that they could find. They
searched not only storehouses and stores, but all the little cottages, and
carried away everything that could be eaten.
The German governor-general of Poland commanded that every
able-bodied Pole should go to Germany to work for his conquerors. This meant
that for each Pole one more German would be set free for the army. If a Pole
dared to refuse, it was forbidden for any other Pole, even his own brother,
to give him a mouthful of food.
War is always terrible, and some years ago representatives of the
different nations of the world met at The Hague in Holland and signed an
agreement never to do certain things which added to its horrors. One of
these things was that no conquering army should take supplies from the land
it had captured unless it paid for what it took and did not leave the
country in want. Germany signed this agreement, but, as every one of the
lands that she has overpowered has learned, she did not keep it. In all
these countries food for man and beast was seized, horses were carried off,
and cattle and hogs either driven away or killed for food to supply the
invaders.
These are the reasons why so much of Europe is suffering from
hunger, why the countries that have been crushed by Germany are more
helpless than countries have ever been before, and why they appeal to those
who are in comfort and plenty for a share at the "common table." |
