At St.
Ludwig and Constance those husky soldiers in ironmongery, with shaved
heads and beards and outstanding ears, fell into sheer savagery, not
because they were bad and savage men, but simply because they were
hysterical. The fact is worth noting.
It explains many a bloody and infamous deed in the tragic history of sad
Alsace and of little Belgium. The war-begotten reversal to savagery
brought with it all the hysteria of the savage man. The sentries at St.
Ludwig struck with muskets and sabres because they were hysterical with
terror of the new, unknown state into which they had been plunged, not
because they were not men like you and me. Surely the savage Uhlan who
ravaged the cottages of Alsace was your brother and mine, and the Magyar
beyond the Danube and the Cossack at Kovna. Only they had gone back to
the terrors of the man who dwelt in a cave.
Traffic stopped; and when it stopped civilization fell away from the
travelers. That was strange. Take the afternoon of the day war was
declared, the date being Aug. 1, in the year of our Lord 1914, and the
hour 7:30 P.M., Berlin time. It was the last train that reached the
frontier from Paris. Between Delle and Bicourt lies a neutral zone about
three kilometers--say, nearly two and a half miles--in extent. On one
side France and invasion and terror and war; on the other side of the
zone the relative safety of Switzerland.
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