Paris War Days by Charles Inman Barnard

Author:Charles Inman Barnard [Barnard, Charles Inman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, New Age, History, Fiction & Literature
ISBN: 9781465521026
Google: 07RNygEACAAJ
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2021-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

Wednesday, August 26.

Twenty-fourth day of the war. Dull, cheerless weather, with a Scotch drizzle in the afternoon and heavy rain in the evening. Southwesterly wind. Temperature at five P.M. 20 degrees centigrade.

The great battle on the Sambre and Meuse continues with frightful slaughter on both sides. The allies have been partially forced back but resist with dogged determination.

Mrs. Hermann Duryea, a family relative of mine, and whose husband's horse "Durbar" won the English Derby this spring, has come to Paris for a few days from their country place near Argentan in Normandy, and is stopping at her apartment in the Avenue Gabriel. Mrs. Duryea's chauffeur, who is a young Frenchman, says that Belgian chauffeurs have reached Normandy from the north, telling harrowing tales of the brutality and cruelty of the Germans, and announcing that the "German cavalry and armored motor-cars would soon prevent people from leaving Paris." Mrs. Duryea, who is an exceedingly cool-headed, plucky woman, came to me for advice. I told her that there was no probability at present of communication from Paris to the westward being interfered with. She sent some of her servants home to the United States and made arrangements to rejoin her husband at Bazoches-en-Houlme, near Argentan. The château has, through the generosity of the Duryeas, been turned into a Red Cross hospital.

President Poincaré has taken a leaf from Great Britain, and Premier René Viviani has reconstructed a new Cabinet with eminent men, representing all political parties, making a government of national defence. Since the outbreak of the war, the Cabinet has been taking advice from statesmen such as MM. Millerand, Delcassé, Briand, and Ribot. These men now form part of the Ministry, the formation of which was announced to a group of journalists at 11.30 this evening at the Ministry of War, when we assembled there for the usual nightly communiqué. The new Cabinet is made up as follows: Prime Minister (without Portfolio), M. René Viviani; Vice-President of Council and Minister of Justice, M. Aristide Briand; Interior, M. Malvy; Foreign Affairs, M. Delcassé; War, M. Millerand; Navy, M. Augagneur; Finance, M. Ribot; Agriculture, M. Fernand David; Public Works, M. Marcel Sembat; Labor, M. Bienvenu-Martin; Commerce, M. Thomson; Public Instruction, M. Albert Sarraut; Colonies, M. G. Doumergue; Minister without Portfolio, M. Jules Guesde.

M. Etienne Alexandre Millerand is an illustrious member of the Paris Bar, who has been several times a cabinet minister. As head of the War Department, two years ago, he did more than any living Frenchman towards the reconstitution of true esprit militaire in the French army. He prepared the way for the three years' service, and reorganized the forces of the nation that had grown rusty during the decade that preceded the alarm caused by the German Emperor at Agadir. It is quite probable that M. Millerand will prove to be the Lazare Carnot—"The Organizer of Victory"—of the present war. With M. Théophile Delcassé as Minister of Foreign Affairs, French diplomacy cannot be in better hands. In calling upon M. Jules Guesde, socialist deputy for Lille, and upon M.

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