“Both armies have apparently abandoned the struggle to hold Craonne permanently, and it is now literally a city of the dead.

“It is a typical French village of ancient stone structures; the tiny houses all have, or had, gables and tiled roofs.  These have mostly been broken by shell fire.  Under the shelter of its buildings both the Germans and French have been able at times to rescue their wounded.

“This is more than can be said of the strip of death between the battle lines.  There the wounded lie and the dead go unburied, while the opposing forces direct their merciless fire a few feet above the field of suffering and carnage.  I did not know until I looked upon the horrors of Craonne that such conditions could exist in modern warfare.

“I thought that frequent truces would be negotiated to give the opposing armies an opportunity to collect their wounded and bury their dead.  I had an idea that the Red Cross had made war less terrible.  The world thinks so yet, perhaps, but the conditions along the Aisne do not justify that belief.  If a man is wounded in that strip between the lines he never gets back alive unless he is within a short distance of his own lines or is protected from the enemy’s fire by the lay of the land.

“This protracted and momentous battle, which raged day and night for so many weeks, became a continuous nightmare to the men engaged in it, every one of whom knew that upon its issue rested one of the great deciding factors of the war.”

BRITISH AID FOR FRENCH WOUNDED

The following paragraphs from a letter received October 15th by the author from an English lady interested in the suffrage movement, give some idea of the spirit in which the people of England met the emergency; and also indicate the frightful conditions attending the care of the wounded in France: 

“London, October 7, 1914.—­The world is a quite different place from what it was in July—­dear, peaceful July!  It seems years ago that we lived in a time of peace.  It all still seems a nightmare over England and one feels that the morning must come when one will wake up and find it has all been a hideous dream, and that peace is the reality.  But the facts grow sadder every day, as one realizes the frightful slaughter and waste of young lives. * * *

“But now that we are in the midst of this horrible time, we can only stop all criticism of our Government, set our teeth, and try to help in every possible way.  All suffrage work has stopped and all the hundred-and-one interests in societies of every kind are in abeyance as well.  The offices of every kind of society are being used for refugees, Bed Cross work, unemployment work, and to meet other needs of the moment.