The Plébiscite; or, A Miller's Story of the War

His highness the Duke of Saxe and his officers had just gone to inspect the camp around the place; I was left alone. I wanted to ring the church bells to assemble the municipal council, but all bell-ringing was forbidden. Then I sent round the rural policeman to summon each councillor, one after the other; but the councillors did not stir: they thought that by remaining at home they would prevent the Prussians from doing anything.

In this extremity I made Martin Kopp publish by beat of drum the list of all that the village had to supply in provisions and articles of every kind, before eleven in the morning; entreating all honest people to make haste, if they did not want to see their houses in flames from one end of the village to the other.

Scarcely had this notice been given out, when everybody made haste to bring all they could.

The quartermasters made out an inventory; they carried away my best cow, and gave me a receipt for everything in the name of his Majesty the King of Prussia.

The general indignation was terrible.

Such was the robbery and violence, in those earlier days, that not so much as a pound of salt meat could have been bought by us in the whole country; and as for fresh meat, it was no use thinking of it. Well, when the Prussians resorted to requisition, everything was obtained, by means of that threat of fire! It was known what they had done in Alsace, and, of course, they were supposed easily capable of beginning again.

After these requisitions, which might be regarded as a little bouquet for his highness, the Prussians raised their camp, announcing to us the arrival of new-comers. I also heard M. le Baron d'Engel command one of his orderlies to order at Sarrebourg six thousand rations of bread and of coffee. Then I saw clearly that it was intended we should feed all these fellows till the end of the campaign, and my sad reflections may easily be imagined. The German commissariat no longer seemed to me so admirable. I could see that it was simply organized robbery and pillage.

The Duke and his followers had scarcely departed, when a captain of blue hussars, Monsieur Collomb, came to take his place, with six horses, and his adjutant, the Count Bernhardy, with three more horses. They came from Saverne wet through, having spent the night in the open air, and this gave them a terrible appetite.

I explained that everything had been taken from us – that we had nothing left to eat for ourselves; but they would not believe me, and my wife was obliged to turn the house topsy-turvy to find something for them to eat.

While eating and drinking enough for four, these two gentlemen found time to tell us that they had hung eleven peasants of Gunstedt on the day of the battle of Reichshoffen! They also told us, what was quite true, that next day provisions would arrive in our village. Unhappily, this long train of provisions, which seemed endless, passed on direct to Sarrebourg.

This was the 12th of August.

We had, then, this captain, his adjutant, their servants, and their horses on our shoulders; all of whom we had to feed to the full until the day of their departure.

The batteries of Phalsbourg had dismounted the German guns at the Quatre Vents. Sick and wounded in great numbers had been sent to the great military hospital at Saverne; there were a few left in the school-room of Pfalsweyer: this annoyed the Prussians. One would have thought that it was our duty to let them come and rob, pillage, and bombard and burn us, without defending ourselves; that we were guilty of crimes against them, and that they had rights over us, as a nation of valets.

They actually thought this.

And I have always heard these Germans making such complaints: whether they took us for fools, or were fools themselves, I do not know exactly which; but I think there was something of both.

After the passage of a convoy of provisions, which went past us for two hours, came cannon, powder-wagons, and shells. Never had our poor village heard such a noise; it was like a torrent roaring over the rocks.

The 11th corps was passing. There were twelve like it, each from eighty to ninety thousand men.

We now knew nothing whatever about our own troops, nor our relations and friends in the town. We were shut up as in an island, in the midst of this deluge of Prussians, Bavarians, Wurtemburgers, Badeners, who streamed through in long, interminable columns, and seemed to have no end.

It appears that the requisitions which had been made the night before, and that immense convoy of provisions, were not enough for their army, so they no longer cared to address themselves to Monsieur le Maire; for the officers whom we lodged having left us early in the morning, all at once, about seven o'clock, loud cries arose in the village: the Prussians were coming to carry off all our remaining cattle at one swoop. But this time they had not taken their measures so cleverly; they had not guarded the backs of our houses, and every one began to drive his beasts into the wood – oxen, cows, goats, all were clambering up the hill, the women and the girls, the old men and children behind.

Thus they caught scarcely anything.

From that hour, in spite of their threats, our cattle remained in the woods; and it was also known that we had francs-tireurs traversing the country. Some said that they were Turcos escaped from Woerth, others that they were French chasseurs; but the Prussians no longer ventured out of the high-roads in small parties; and this is, no doubt, the reason why they did not go to find our cattle in the Krapenfelz.

The next day, the 13th of August, the Prussians were seen in motion in the direction of Wéchem. A Prussian prince, advanced in years, with long nose and chin, and always on horseback, was at Metting; and the rumor ran that the great bombardment of Phalsbourg was going to begin, and that more than sixty guns were in position above the mill at Wéchem: that they were throwing up earthworks to cover the guns, and that it was going to be very serious.

That very day, when I was least expecting it, the quartermasters came back to requisition meat. But I told them that all the beasts were in the wood, through their own fault; that they had insisted on taking everything at once, and now they would get nothing.

On hearing these perfectly correct observations of mine, they tried threats. Then I said to them: "Take me – eat me – I am old and lean. You will not get much out of me."

However, as they threatened us with fire, I gave public notice that the Prussians still claimed, in the name of the King of Prussia, ten hundred-weight of oats and of barley, three thousand of straw, and as much of hay; and that if the whole was not delivered in the market square on the stroke of twelve, they would set fire to the place without compassion.

And this time, too, it all came.

These Germans had found out the way to compel people to strip themselves even of their very shirts! Fire! fire! There lies the true genius of the Prussians. No one had imagined fire– the power of fire, like these brigands. God alone had brought down fire hitherto upon His miserable creatures to punish heavy crimes, as at Sodom and Gomorrah; they resorted to it to rob and plunder us! It was the punishment of our folly.

But let us hope that nations will not always be so wicked. God will take pity upon us. I do not say the God of the Jesuits, nor of the Prussians, who are Protestant Jesuits! But He whom, every man feels in his own heart; He who draws from us the tears of pity and compassion, which we drop upon our brothers unjustly slain; He is the God of whom I speak, and it is to Him that I cry when I say: "Look upon our sufferings! Have we deserved them? are we accountable for our ignorance? If so, then punish us! But if others are to blame: if they have refused us schools; if they have never taught us anything that we ought to know; if they have profited by our credulity to impose upon us, oh! God, pardon us, and restore to us our country, our dear country, Alsace and Lorraine! Let us not be reduced to receiving blows like the German soldiers! Degrade not our children, our poor children, to become servants and beasts of burden to the German nobles! My God! we have been verily guilty in believing our 'honest man,' who swore to Thee with full intent to break his oath: and his Ministers, who plunged into war 'with a light heart!' after having promised us peace, and who first secured their own safety and well-lined pockets! Nevertheless, we of Alsace and Lorraine, the most faithful children of the Great Revolution, have not deserved that we should become Germans and Prussians! Alas! what a calamity! …"

I have just been weeping! After such a flood of miseries and abominable acts my heart over flows!

Now I pursue my sad story; and I will try never to forget that I am relating a true history, which everybody knows; which all the world has seen.

That same day, toward evening, several vans full of Alsacians, returning from Blamont, passed through our village to return home. The Prussians had obliged them to walk; their horses were nothing but bags of bones; and the people, emaciated, yellow-looking, had been so battered with blows, so famished with hunger, that they staggered at every step.

They had not received so much as a ration of bread on the whole journey; the Germans devoured everything! They would have seen our poor fellows – whom they had compelled to bear the burden of their baggage – they would have seen them drop with weariness and starvation before their eyes, without giving them a drop of water! But for our unhappy invaded Lorraine brothers, who fed them out of their own poverty, they would have perished, every one.

This is the truth! We experienced it ourselves not long afterward; for the same fate was reserved to us.

After the passage of these miserable creatures, to whom I gave a little bread – though we had scarcely any left, since the Germans, only two days before, had robbed us of twenty-seven loaves just fresh out of the oven – after this melancholy sight, we saw coming with a terrible clatter and ringing of sabres, one after the other, three Prussian aides-de-camp, who were announced to us; the first as a colonel, the second a general, and the third I cannot remember what – a duke, a prince, something of that kind!

It was the colonel whom I had the honor, as they called it, to entertain, Colonel Waller, of the 10th regiment of Silesian grenadiers; and then followed the general, who did me the honor to sup at my house at my expense. This man's name was Macha-Cowsky. They had the pleasure of informing us that that very night Phalsbourg was going to be thoroughly shelled. Those gentlemen are full of the greatest delicacy; they imagined that this good news was going to delight me, my wife, and my daughter!

The flag of the Silesian grenadiers was brought into the colonel's apartment. This regiment was arriving from the Austrian frontier; it had waited for the declaration of neutrality of the good Catholics down there, to come by rail and unite with the twelve army corps which were invading us with so much glory.

I learned this by overhearing their conversation.

That was a very bad night for us. The officers wanted to be waited on separately, one after the other; my poor wife was obliged to cook for them, to bring them plates – in a word, to be their servant; and Grédel, in spite of her indignation, was helping her mother, pale with passion and biting her lips to keep it down.

The general and the colonel took their supper at nine, the aide-de-camp at ten; and so forth all the night through, without giving a thought to the exhaustion and trouble of the poor women.

They were laughing a good deal over what Monsieur le Curé of Wilsberg had said the night before; who had told them that the misfortunes of Napoleon had arisen from his withdrawing his troops from Rome, and that "whoever ate of the Pope would burst asunder!"

They enjoyed these words and had great fun over them.

I, in my corner, came to the conclusion that from a fool you must expect nothing but folly.

At last I dropped off to sleep, with my head upon my knees; but scarcely had daylight appeared when the house was filled with the ringing of spurs and steel scabbards, and above all rose the loud voice of the aide-de-camp: "Where are you, you scoundrel! will you come, ass! fool! brute! come this way, will you!"

This is the way he called his servant! This is exactly the way they treat their soldiers, who listen to them gravely, the hand raised beside the ear, eyes looking right before them, without uttering a sound! He is lucky, too, if the speech finishes without a smart box on the ears or a kick in the rear! This is what they hope to see us coming to some day; this is what they call "instructing us in the noble virtues of the Germans."

The colonel breakfasted at about five in the morning; a company came for the flag, and the regiments marched off. We were rejoicing, when about seven, the bombardment opened with an awful crashing noise. Sixty guns at Wéchem were firing at the same time.

The town replied; but at half-past eight a heavy cloud of smoke was already overhanging Phalsbourg; the heavy guns of the fortress only replied with the more spirit; the shells whizzed, the bombs burst upon the hill-side, and the thunders of the bastion of Wilsenberg roared and rolled in echoing claps to the remotest ends of Alsace.

My wife and Grédel, seated opposite each other, looked silently in each other's faces; I paced up and down with my head bowed, thinking of Jacob, and of all those good people who at that moment had before their eyes the spectacle of their burning houses and furniture, the fruit of their fifty years of labor.

At ten I came out; the dense column of smoke had spread wider and wider; it extended toward the hospital and the church; it seemed like a vast black flag which drooped low from time to time and rose again to meet the clouds.

A squadron of cuirassiers, and behind them another of hussars, dashed past up the face of the hill; but they came down again with lightning speed in the direction of Metting, where the Prussian prince had his head-quarters.

The shells of the sixty guns went on their way rising through the air and falling into the smoke; the bombs and the shells from the town dropped behind the Prussian batteries, and exploded in the fields.