I saw them, crusted with
dirt, worn with incredible exertions, alive with crawling vermin, their
uniforms already in tatters, and their broken shoes falling off their
feet.
On the day before I quit German soil--the war being then less than
three months old--I counted, in the course of a short ride through the
City of Aix-la-Chapelle two convalescent soldiers who were totally
blind, three who had lost an arm, and one, a boy of 18 or thereabout,
who had lost both arms. How many men less badly injured I saw in that
afternoon I do not know; I hesitate even to try to estimate the total
figure for fear I might be accused of exaggeration.
In Holland I saw the people of an already crowded country wrestling
valorously with the problem of striving to feed and house and care for
the enormous numbers of penniless refugees who had come out of Belgium.
I saw worn-out groups of peasants huddled on railroad platforms and
along the railroad tracks, too weary to stir another step.
In England I saw still more thousands of these refugees, bewildered,
broken by misfortune, owning only what they wore upon their backs,
speaking an alien tongue, strangers in a strange land. I saw, as I have
seen in Holland, people of all classes giving of their time, their
means, and their services to provide some temporary relief for these
poor wanderers who were without a country.
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