In 1898 Mildred went to live and work in France as a foreign correspondent and translator. She lived initially in Paris, where she met fellow ex-patriate Americans Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. When she was 60, Mildred decided to retire from the busy city life and, in search of peace and quiet, looked for a house in the countryside around Paris. In June 1914, she moved to Huiry, where she found a delightful house overlooking the River Marne. She moved in and began to renovate the property but her dreams of a quiet life were shattered in August 1914.
Mildred’s accounts of what life was like for a civilian American woman in that part of the world in the early days of WW1 are fascinating and can be read on line:
“A Hilltop on the Marne”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11011/11011-h/11011-h.htm
“When Johnny Comes Marching Home”
https://archive.org/details/whenjohnnycomesm00aldr/page/n15
After some hair-raising adventures, Mildred and a friend visited the graves of many of the soldiers killed in the early days of WW1. They travelled on 5th December 1914 by car, following the line of the fighting that took place on 6th and 7th September 1914. Pilgrimages to the cemeteries had begun on All Souls Day – 2nd November – 1914 but Mildred and her friend preferred to wait until the crowds had thinned out.
Mildred was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 1922, for it was widely felt that her books, which were very successful in America, had contributed to America joining the war.
Mildred died on 19th February 1928 and is buried in the churchyard of the Church of St. Denis in Quinchy-Voisons.
After our exhibition and book about some of the Inspirational Women of WW1, I received this message from John Stevens:
"I have been reading through your most fascinating book "No Woman's Land". It may be of interest to you that on page 57 Lt Edwin [Eddie] Allen James Edwards was the youngest brother of my Grandfather [my Great Uncle!] Sadly, Eddie was badly wounded on 15th October and died back in England aged 19. His older brother, Capt Gerald John Edwards of Kings Royal Rifle Corps was also killed in 1917 aged 34."
It is astonishing how many of the threads in my project are linked.
My grateful thanks to John for getting in touch and letting us know what happened to his Great Uncle Eddie after he met Mildred who looked after his troops when they were near her house on the banks of the River Marne, giving them tea, bread and butter and biscuits.
Here is a brief extract from Mildred’ account of her meeting with a British Army Officer: A conversation followed and Mildred showed the officer round her garden. As he left, she asked:
“ "Is there anything I can do for you, captain?"
He mounted his horse, looked down at me. Then he gave me another of his rare smiles.
"No," he said, "at this moment there is nothing that you can do for me, thank you; but if you could give my boys a cup of tea, I imagine that you would just about save their lives." And nodding to me, he said to the picket, "This lady is kind enough to offer you a cup of tea," and he rode off, taking the road down the hill to Voisins.
I ran into the house, put on the kettle, ran up the road to call Amelie, and back to the arbor to set the table as well as I could. The whole atmosphere was changed. I was going to be useful.
I had no idea how many men I was going to feed. I had only seen three. To this day I don't know how many I did feed. They came and came and came. It reminded me of hens running toward a place where another hen has found something good. It did not take me many minutes to discover that these men needed something more substantial than tea. Luckily I had brought back from Paris an emergency stock of things like biscuit, dry cakes, jam, etc., for even before our shops were closed there was mighty little in them. For an hour and a half I brewed pot after pot of tea, opened jar after jar of jam and jelly, and tin after tin of biscuit and cakes, and although it was hardly hearty fodder for men, they put it down with a relish. I have seen hungry men, but never anything as hungry as these boys.
I knew little about military discipline—less about the rules of active service; so I had no idea that I was letting these hungry men—and evidently hunger laughs at laws—break all the regulations of the army. Their guns were lying about in any old place; their kits were on the ground; their belts were unbuckled. Suddenly the captain rode up the road and looked over the hedge at the scene. The men were sitting on the benches, on the ground, anywhere, and were all smoking my best Egyptian cigarettes, and I was running round as happy as a queen, seeing them so contented and comfortable.
It was a rude awakening when the captain rode up the street.
There was a sudden jumping up, a hurried buckling up of belts, a grab for kits and guns, and an unceremonious cut for the gate. I heard a volley from the officer. I marked a serious effort on the part of the men to keep the smiles off their faces as they hurriedly got their kits on their backs and their guns on their shoulders, and, rigidly saluting, dispersed up the hill, leaving two very straight men marching before the gate as if they never in their lives had thought of anything but picket duty.
The captain never even looked at me, but rode up the hill after his men. A few minutes later he returned, dismounted at the gate, tied his horse, and came in. I was a bit confused. But he smiled one of those smiles of his, and I got right over it.
"Dear little lady," he said, "I wonder if there is any tea left for me?"
Was there! I should think so; and I thought to myself, as I led the way into the dining-room, that he was probably just as hungry as his men.
While I was making a fresh brew he said to me:—
"You must forgive my giving my men Hades right before you, but they deserved it, and know it, and under the circumstances I imagine they did not mind taking it. I did not mean you to give them a party, you know. Why, if the major had ridden up that hill—and he might have—and seen that party inside your garden, I should have lost my commission and those boys got the guardhouse. These men are on active service."
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| German Uhlans WW1 |
Then, while he drank his tea, he told me why he felt a certain indulgence for them—these boys who were hurried away from England without having a chance to take leave of their families, or even to warn them that they were going.
"This is the first time that they have had a chance to talk to a woman who speaks their tongue since they left England; I can't begrudge it to them and they know it. But discipline is discipline, and if I had let such a breach of it pass they would have no respect for me. They understand. They had no business to put their guns out of their hands. What would they have done if the detachment of Uhlans we are watching for had dashed up that hill—as they might have?" ”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11011/11011-h/11011-h.htm
Photo of Uhlans from WW1 Buffs Facebook Page
