I saw the unburied dead lying between battle
lines, where for weeks they had lain, and where for weeks, and perhaps
months to come, they would continue to lie, and I saw the graves of
countless numbers of other dead who were so hurriedly and carelessly
buried that their limbs in places protruded through the soil, poisoning
the air with hideous smells and giving abundant promise of the
pestilence which must surely follow. I saw districts noted for their
fecundity on the raw edge of famine, and a people proverbial for their
light-heartedness who had forgotten how to smile.
In Germany I saw innumerable men maimed and mutilated in every
conceivable fashion. I saw these streams of wounded pouring back from
the front endlessly. In two days I saw trains bearing 14,000 wounded men
passing through one town. I saw people of all classes undergoing
privations and enduring hardships in order that the forces at the front
might have food and supplies. I saw thousands of women wearing widow's
weeds, and thousands of children who had been orphaned.
I saw great hosts of prisoners of war on their way to prison camps,
where in the very nature of things they must forego all hope of having
for months, and perhaps years, those small creature comforts which make
life endurable to a civilized human being.
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