FullReads

The bare outline of the story gives, of course, no just notion of the intense passion of grief which fills it. Neither does it convey a due impression of the character in the different persons which, amidst the heartbreak, is ascertained with some such truth and impartiality as pervade the effects of “War and Peace.” I do not rank it with that work, but in its sincerity and veracity it easily ranks above any other novel treating of war which I know, and it ought to do for the German peoples what the novels of Erckmann-Chatrian did for the French, in at least one generation. Will it do anything for the Anglo-Saxon peoples? Probably not till we have pacified the Philippines and South Africa. We Americans are still apparently in love with fighting, though the English are apparently not so much so; and as it is always well to face the facts, I will transfer to my page some facts of fighting from this graphic book, which the read may apply to the actualities in the Philippines, with a little imagination. They are taken from a letter written to the heroine by her second husband after one of the Austrian defeats. “The people poured boiling water and oil on the Prussians from the windows of the houses at —-…. The village is ours–no, it is the enemy’s, now ours again–and yet once more the enemy’s; but it is no longer a village, but a smoking mass of ruins of houses….One family has remained behind…an old married couple and their daughter, the latter in childbed. The husband is serving in our regiment…. Poor devil! he got there just in time to see the mother and child die; a shell had exploded under their bed…. I saw a breastwork there which was formed of corpses. The defenders had heaped all the slain who were lying near, in order, from that rampart, to fire over at their assailants. I shall surely never forget that wall in my life. A man who formed one of its bricks was still alive, and was waving his arm…. What is happening there? The execution party is drawn out. Has a spy been caught? Seventeen this time. There they come, in four ranks, each one of four men, surrounded by a square of soldiers. The condemned men step out, with their heads down. Behind comes a cart with a corpse in it, and bound to the corpse the dead man’s son, a boy of twelve, also condemned…. Steep, rocky heights; Jaegers, nimble as cats, climbing up them…. Some of them, who are hit by the enemy’s shot, suddenly stretch out both their arms, let their muskets fall, and, with their heads falling backwards, drop off the height, step by step, from one rocky point to another, smashing their limbs to pieces. I saw a horseman at some distance, obliquely behind me, at whose side a shell burst. His horse swerved aside and came against the tail of mind, then shot past me. The man sat still in the saddle, but a fragment of the shell had ripped his belly open and torn out all the intestines. The upper part of his body was held to the lower only by the spine. From the ribs to the thighs nothing but one great, bleeding cavity. A short distance farther he fell to the ground, one foot still clinging in the stirrup, and the galloping horse dragging him on over the stony soil…. Another street fight in the little town of Saar…. In the middle of the square stands a high pillar of the Virgin. The mother of God holds her child in one arm, and stretches the other out in blessing…. Here the fight was prolonged, man to man. They were hacking at me, I laying about me on all sides…. A Prussian dragoon, strong as Goliath, tore one of our officers (a pretty, dandified lieutenant–how many girls are, perhaps, mad after him?) out of his saddle and split his skull at the feet of the Virgin’s pillar. The gentle saint looked on unmoved. Another of the enemy’s dragoons–a Goliath, too–seized, just before me almost, my right-hand man, and bent him backwards in his saddle so powerfully that he broke his back–I myself heard it crack. To this the Madonna gave her blessing also.”