Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 177, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1917 — IT ISN'T ALL EAREARISM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

IT ISN'T ALL EAREARISM

Human nature becomes brutalized by conflict, but the men in the trenches, both friend and enemy, have their fun and comradeship and kindliness^ — ~~ .

fAR has outwardly lost Its romance with Its color and pageantry. It Is bloody, ugly and horrible. Yet romance is not dead. It still survives, radiant and glowing, in the heroic achievements of our soldiers and in the tender fancies of their hearts.” Thus writes Stephen Stapleton, an Englishman, in the Contemporary Review. And he sets forth with vividness some manifestations of this romance —little twilight pictures, gentle touches of, an otherwise ghastly existence: In the trenches one evening a battalion of the Leinster regiment held a “kallee,” or Irish singsong, at which there was a spirited rendering of the humorous old ballad, “Brian O’Lynn,” sung to an infectiously rollicking tune. The opening verse runs: “Brian O’Lynn had no breeches to wear, So he bought a sheepskin to make him a pair. ‘With the woolly side out and the skinny side in, Falx, ’tls pleasant and cool, says Brian O’Lynn.” The swing of the tune took the fancy of the Germans in their trenches, less than 50 yards away. With a “rumty-tum-tumty-tum-tumty-tum-tum,” they loudly hummed the air of the end of each verse, all unknowing the Lelnsters, singing at the top of their voices, gave the words, a topical application: “ ‘With the woolly side out and the skinny side in, Sure we’ll wallop the Gerrys,’ said Brian O’Lynn.” Hearty bursts of laughter and cheers arose from both trenches at the conclusion of the song. It seemed as if the combatants gladly availed themselves of this chance opportunity of becoming united again In the common brotherhood of” man, even for but a fleeting moment, by the spirit of good humor and hilarity. A young English officer of a different battalion of the same Leinster regiment tells of a more curious incident still, which likewise led to a brief cessation of hostilities. Two privates in his company had a quarrel In the, trenches, and nothing would do them but to fight It out on No Man’s Land. The Germans were most appreciative and accommodating. Not only did they not molest the pugilists, but they cheered them, and actually fired the contents of their rifles in the air by way of a salute. The European war was, in fact, suspended in that particular section of the lines while two Irishmen settled their own little differences by a contest of fists. “Who will now say the Germans are not sportsmen?” was the comment of the young English officer.

There is, however, another, and perhaps a shrewder view of the episode. It was taken by a sergeant of the company. “Yerra, come down out of that, ye pair of born fools,” he called out to the fighters. “If ye had only a glimmer of sense, ye’d see, so ye would, that ’tls playing the Gerrys’ game ye are. Sure, there’s nothing they’d like better than to see us all knocking blazes out of each other.” But as regards the moral pointed by the officer there must be, of course, many “sportsmen” among the millions of German soldiers; t'hough the opinion widely prevailing in the British army is that they are often treacherous fighters. Indeed, to their dirty practices is mainly to be asscribet) the bitter perjfipal animosity that occasionally marks the relations between the combatants when the fighting becomes most bloody and desperate, and —as happens at times in all wars—no quarter is given to those who allow none. An Interchange of Christmas Presents. Amenities between combatants are very ancient. The Greeks and Trojans used to exchange presents and courtesies in the intervals of fighting, and the early stages of this war seemed to afford a promise that they would be revived. The fraternizing of the British and Germans at their first Christmas under arms, in 1914, will, perhaps, always be accounted as the most curiohs episode of the war. ' The Influence of the great Christian festival led tq a suspension of hostilities along the lines, and the men on each side seized the opportunity to satisfy their natural curiosity to see something more of each other than through the smoke of battlfe with deadly weapons in'their hands, and hatred in their eyes. Each side had taken prisoners; but prisoners are “out of it,” and therefore reduced to the level of noncombatants. The foeman in being appears in a very different light. He has the power to strike. You may have to kill him, or you may be killed by him. -i So the British and the Germans, impelled in the main by a common feeling of inquisitiveness, met together between the lines on No Man’s Land. There was some amicable conversation where they could make themselves understood to each other, which happened when a German was found who could .speak a little English. Cigarettes and tunic buttons were freely exchanged. But, for the most part, British and Germans stood with arms folded across their breasts and stared at each other with a kind of dread fascination. It never happened Again. How could It possibly be repeated 1 The introduction into the conflict by the Germans In high command of the barbaric elements of “frightfulness,” hitherto confined to savage tribes at war; their use of such devilish inventions as poison gas and liquid fire? their belief only in brute strength and, as regards the common German soldiers, the native lowness of morality ehown by so many of them; their apparent inaensitiveness to ordinary humane instincts, inevitabltf tended to harden and embitter their adversaries against them. Even so, British feeling Us extraordinarily devoid of vindictiveness. The Germans, in the mass, are regarded as having been dehumanized and transformed into a process of ruthless destruction. In any case, they are the enemy. As such, there iq a satisfaction —nay, a positive delight—tn sweeping them out of existence. That is war. But against the German soldier individually it may be said that, on the whole, there is no rancor. - - -

In fact, British soldiers have a curiously detached and generous way of regarding their country’s enqmles. When the German soldier is taken prisoner or picked up wounded the British soldier is disposed, as a hundred thousand instances show, to treat him as a “pal,” to divide his* food and share his cigarettes with him as he passes to the base. In the gladiatorial fights for the entertainment of the people in ancient Rome the defeated combatant was expected to expose his throat to the . sword of the victor, and any shrinking on his part caused the arena to ring with the angry , shouts of the thousands of spectators, “Receive the steel!” By all accounts, the Germans have a dislike of the bayonet. They might well be paralyzed, Indeed, at the affrighting spectacle of that thin line of cold steel wielded by a furious Irish- ,■ man; but if the bayonet were in the hands of a soldier of any of the other British nationalities his cry to the German that recoiled from Its thrust would probably be “Receive the steel!” expressed In the rudest and roughest native idiom. The way of the Irish at-Glnchy was different; and perhaps the trenunclatlon of their revenge was not the least magnificent act of a glorious day. “If we brained them on the spot who could blame us? 'Tls ourselves that would think It no sin if it was done by anyone else,” said a private of the Dublin Fusiliers. “Let me tell you,” he went on, “what happened to myself. As I raced across the open with my comrades, jumping in and out of shell holes, and the bullets flying thick around us, laying many a fine boy low, I said to myself: ‘This is going to be a fight to the last gasp fur those of us that get to the Germans.’ “As I came near the trenches I picked a man out for myself. Straight in front of me he was, leaning out of the trench, and he with a rifle firing away at us as if we were rabbits. “I made for him with my bayonet ready, determined to give him what he deserved, when—what do you think? —didn’t he notice me and what I was up to! Dropping his rifle, he raised himself up in the trench and stretched out his hands toward me. What could you do in that case but what I did? Sure, you wouldn’t have the heart to strike him down, even if he were to kill you. a frightened and pleading look in them that I at once lowered my rifle and .took him by the hand, saying, ‘You’re my prisoner!’ “I don’t suppose he understood a word of what I said; but he clung to me, crying, ‘Kamerad! Kamerad!’ I was more glad than ever that I hadn’t the blood of him on my soul. ’Tis a queer thing to say, maybe, of a.man who acted like that; but, all the same, he looked a decent boy, every bit of him. *l. suppose the truth of it is this: We soldiers on both sides have to go through such terrible -experiences that there is no accounting for how we may behave. We might be devils all out in the morning and saints no less in the evening.” Trench Repartee and Trench Favorites. The relations between the trenches Include even attempts at an exchange of repartee. The wit, as may be supposed, In such circumstances is invariably ironic and sarcastic. My examples are Irish, for the reason that I have had most to do with Irish soldiers, but they may he taken as fairly representative of the taunts and pleasantries which are often bandied across No Man’s L’and. The Germans, holding part of their line In Belgium, got to know that the British trenches opposite them were being held by an Irish battalion. “Hello, Irish!” they cried. “How is King Carson getting on, and have you got home rule yet?” The company sergeant major, a big Tipperary men, was selected, to make the proper reply, and in order that it might be fully effective he sent it through a megaphone which the colonel was ae- ; customed to use in addressing the battalion on parade. “Hello. Gerry!” he called out. “I’m thinking it isn’t information ye want, but divarshlon; but ’tis Information I’ll be after giving ye, all the same. / Later on we’ll be sending ye some fun that’ll make ye laugh at the other side of yer _

mouths. The last we heard of Carson he was prodding the government like the very devil to put venom into thelr-blows at ye, and more power to his elbow while he’s at that work, say we.' As for home rule, we mean to have it, and we'll get it, please God, when ye’re licked! Put that in yer pipes and smoke it!” The two names for the Germans in use among the Irish troops are “Gerrys” and (a corruption of the French “Allemand” for German) “Alleymans.” Brief informal truces are not infrequently come to between the opposing forces at particular sections of the lines, so that one or other, or both, may bring in, after a raid, their wounded and their slain. One of the most uplifting stories I have heard was told me by a captain of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. . Out there in front of the trench held by his company lay a figure In khaki writhing in pain and wailing for help. “Will no one come to me?” he cried, in a voice broken with anguish. He had been disabled in the course of a raid on the German trenches made the Hight before by a battalion which was relieved in the morning. These appeals of his were like stabs to the compassionate hearts of the Irish Fusiliers. Several of them told .the captain they could stand it no longer and must go out to the wounded man. If they were shot in the attempt, what matter I It happened that a little dog was then making himself quite at home in both the British and German trenches at this part of the line. He was a neutral; he took no sides; he regularly crossed from one to the other and found in both friends to give him food and a kind word with a pat on the head. The happy thought came to the captain to make a messenger of the dog. So he wrote: “May we take our wounded man in?” tied the note to the dog’s tail, and sent him to the German trenches. The message was in English, for the captain did not know German, and had to trust to the chance of the enemy being able to read it. r In a short time the dog returned with the answer. It was in English, and it ran: “Yes; you can have five minutes." So the captain and a man went out with a stretcher and brought the poor fellow back to our lines,— 27 ; -. ■

Then, standing on the top of the parapet, the captain took off his hat and called out : “Give the Germans three hearty cheers, boys.” The response was most enthusiastic. With the cheers were mingled such cries as :“Sure, the Gerrys are not all bad chaps, after all,” and “May the heavens be the bed of those of them we maF kill.” More than that, the incident brought tears to many a man’s eyes on the Irish side; and, it may be, on the German side, too. Certainly, answering cheers came from their trenches. I have had from a French officer, who was wounded in a cavalry charge early in the war, an account of a pathetic Incident which took place close to where he lay. Among his companions in affliction were two who were far gone on the way of death. One was a private In the Uhlans and the other a private in the Royal Irish Dragoons. The Irishman .got, with a painful effort, from an inside pocket of his tunic a rosary of beads which had a crucifix attached to it Then he commenced to mutter to himself the invocations to the Blessed Virgin, of which the rosary is composed. “Hall Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the .fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” The German, lying huddled close by, stirred with the uneasy movements of a man w’eak from pain and loss of blood on hearing the murmur of prayer, and. looking round in a dazed condition, the stghtTjF the beads tn the hands of his fellow in distress seemed to recall to his mind other times and different circumstances—family prayers at home somewhere in Bavaria, and Sunday evening devotions In church —for he made, in his own tongue, the response to the Invocation: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now at the hour of our death. Amen.” So. the voices Intermingled in address and prayer—the wrapt ejaculations of the Irishman, the deep guttural of the German—getting weaker and weaker, in the process of dissolution, until tl ey were hushed on earth forever more.