The district was in ruins. I know,
because I worked there with our Red Cross Corps through those three
weeks. The humorous explanation of this is given by one of the Fusilier
Marin Lieutenants--that the blue cap and the red pompon of the famous
fighting sailors of France looked strangely to the Germans, who took the
wearers for _francs-tireurs_, terror suggesting the idea. But this is
the kindly humor of Brittany. The saucy sailor caps could not have
looked strangely to German eyes, because a few weeks earlier those
"Girls with the red pompon" had held the German army corps at Melle, and
not even terror could have made them look other than terribly familiar.
No. The officers had been faithfully trained to find militant peasants
under arms, and to send back letters and reports of their discovery,
which could later be used in official excuses for frightfulness. This
letter is one that did not get back to Berlin, later to appear in a
White Paper, as justification for official murder of non-combatants.
The picture projected by the Great German Literary Staff is too
imaginative. Think of that Army of the Invasion with its army corps
riding down through village streets--the Uhlan cavalry, the innumerable
artillery, the dense endless infantry, the deadly power and swing of it
all--and then see the girl-child of Alost, and the white-haired woman,
eighty years old--aiming their rifles at that cavalcade.
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