New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-11-01
z EUROPEAN WAR


had cost them from $1,000 to $1,000 each, and
in times of peace had they been used for the
purposes for which they were built would sew
eral times over have paid for themselves. But
war gave them no time to pay even for their
tires You saw them by the roadside, cast
aside like empty cigarette boxes A few hours
tinkering would have set them right. They
were still good for years OF service. But an
army in retreat or in pursuit has time 70
waste in repairing motors. To waste the motor
is cheaper.
Between Vilers-C otterets and scissors the
road was strewn with high power automobiles
and motor trucks that the Germans had been
forced to destroy Something had gone wrong.
something that at other times could easily
have been mended. But with the French in
pursuit there was 10 time TO pause, nor could
cars of such value be LETT to the enemy SO
they had been set on fire or blown up or al
lowed to drive head-on into a stone wall or
over an embankment. From the road above
we could see them in the field below. lying like
giant turtles on their backs. In one place in
the forest of Villers was line OF fifteen trucks,
each capable of carrying FIVE tons. The gaso-
lene TO feed them had become exhausted. and
the whole fifteen lad been set on FIRE. In war
this is necessary, but it was none the less
waste. When an army takes the field it must
consider first its own safety; and TO embsrrass
the enemy everything else must be sacrificed.
1t cannot consider the feelings or pockets OF
railroad or telegraph companies. 1t cannot
hesitate to destroy bridge because that bridss
cost S5OO,00O And it does not hesitate.
Motoring from Paris to the front these days
is a question of avoiding roads rendered use-
less because broken bridge has cut them II
half. All over France are these bridges OF ircr.
of splendid masonry, some decorated with
statues, some daring back hundreds OF years,
but now with a span blown out, or entirely
destroyed and sprawling in the river. All OF
these material things-motor cars, stone
bridges, railroad tracks, telegraph lines-can
be replaced Money can restore them. But
money cannot restore the noble trees OF France
and Belgium, eighty years old or more. that
shaded the roads, that made beautiful the parks
and forests. For military purposes they have
been cut down, by artillery fire shattered
into splinters. They will again grow but
eighty years is long time TO wait
LOSSES WHICH ARE UNTHINKABLE;
NUMBERS THAT ARE ONLY NUMBERS.
Nor can money replace the greatest waste Of
all-the waste in killed, wounded and miss
ing" The waste of human life in this war is
so enormous so far beyond our daily expe-
renee that disasters less appalling are much
easier TO understand. The loss OF three people
in an automobile accident comes nearer home
than the fact that at the battle OF Sezanne
thirty thousand men were killed. Few OF rs
are trained to think of men in such numbers.
Certainly not of dead men in such numbers.
We have seen thirty thousand men together
only during the worlds series, al the cham
pionship football matches. To get an idea OF
the waste of this war we must imagine all OF
the spectators at a football match between
Yale and Harvard suddenly stricken dead We
must think Of all the wives children. friends
affected by the loss of those thirty thousand,
and we must multiply those thirty thousand by
hundreds, and imagine these hundreds Of thou
sands lying dead in Belgium, i'll Alsace-Lor-
raine and within ten miles OF Paris. After the
Germans were repulsed at MeauX and at
Sezanne the dead Of both armies were so many
that they lay interminged in layers three and
four deep. They were buried in long pits and
piled on top of each other like cigars in box.
Lines of fresh earth so long that you mistook
them for trenches intended to conceal regi-
ments were in reality graves. Some bodies lay
for days uncovered until they had lost all human
sembiance. They were so many you ceased &c
regard them even as corpses. They had be-
come just part OF the waste, a part OF the
shattered walls, rprooted trees and tields
ploughed by shells. What once had been your
fellow men were only bundles of clothes.
swollen ana shapeless, like scarecrows stuffed
with rags, polluting the air.
THE GIVING OVER OF A GAME THAT
MUST BE LOST"
The wounded were hardly less pitful. They
were so many and so thickly did they fall that
the ambulance service at first was not sufficien,
TO handle them. They lay in the fields or fof.
ests sometimes for a day before they were
picked up suffering unthinkable agony. And
after they were placed in cars and started back
toward Paris the tcrtures continued Some OF
TIE trains Of wounded that arrived outside the
city had not been opened in two days The
wounded had been without food or water They
had not been able to move from the positions
in which in torment they had thrown them
selves. The foul air had produced gangrene
And when the were opened the stencil
so fearful that the Red Cross people fell
back as though from blow. For the wounded
Paris is full OF hoSpitals-French, English az.
American. And the hospitals are full OF splen-
did men. Each one once had been physically
AZ or he uouid not hav. b.ar raes.d .. A..