“If they do we shall put our aid at their disposal in every way that we can.  If they do not we must await with patience and sympathy the awakening and recovery that will assuredly come at last.”

GERMAN MALTREATMENT OF PRISONERS

Prisoners set free under terms of the armistice brought back tales of their almost unbelievably barbarous treatment in German prison camps.  A correspondent, Philip Gibbs, describes some of them as living skeletons.  Of one typical group he says “they were so thin and weak they could scarcely walk, and had dry skins, through which their cheekbones stood out, and the look of men who had been buried and come to life again.  Many of them were covered with blotches.  ’It was six months of starvation,’ said one young man who was a mere wreck.  They told me food was so scarce and they were tortured with hunger so vile that some of them had a sort of dropsy and swelled up horribly, and died.  After they left their prison camp they were so weak and ill they could hardly hobble along; and some of them died on the way back, at the very threshhold of new life on this side of the line.”

[Illustration:  MAP OF WORLD WAR ZONE

Showing Final Battle Line from Holland to Switzerland.  Shaded Portion
Shows German Territory Evacuated.

1.  Rhine line to be occupied by Allied troops as provided in Armistice, showing cities and brdgeheads.

2.  Neutral Zone Line as provided by terms of Armistice.]

CHAPTER XXXIV.

HONOR TO THE VICTORS

November 16, 1918, the American Distinguished Service Medal was conferred upon General Pershing at his headquarters in the field by General Tasker H. Bliss, representing President Wilson.  The ceremony was witnessed by the members of the allied missions, and was most impressive, Admiral Benson, representing the United States Navy, and William G. Sharp, American Ambassador to France, were also present.

SERVICE MEDAL TO GENERAL PERSHING

General Bliss, in presenting the decoration, read this order issued by Newton T. Baker, Secretary of War: 

“The President directs you to say to Gen. Pershing that he awards the medal to the commander of our armies in the field as a token of the gratitude of the American people for his distinguished services and in appreciation of the successes which oar armies have achieved under his leadership.”

After reading the order General Bliss called to mind that when the first division went away many doubted if it would be followed by another for at least a year.

“But,” he added, “you have created and organized and trained here on the soil of France an American army of between two and two and a half million men.  You have created the agencies for its reception, its transportation and supply.  To the delight of all of us you have consistently adhered to your ideal of an American army under American officers and American leadership.