File:American Red Cross work among the French people (1921) (14595421807).jpg

Identifier: americanredcross00ames (find matches)
Title: American Red Cross work among the French people
Year: 1921 (1920s)
Authors: Ames, Fisher
Subjects: American National Red Cross World War, 1914-1918
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ed and representative centersfor such work throughout France. Refugees in thesetowns were helped and arrangements made to receive oth-ers, who were coming into Paris at a rate which made aproper reception very difficult. In the summer of 1918the rush of fugitives from the districts of the Aisne andthe Marne became so great that an appeal for help wassent to the Red Cross by the Government. The majority came through the railway station knownas the Gave du Nord. The French had established a tem-porary hospital there and two canteens, one in the base-ment and the other in the court where the crippled andthe sick, who could not go downstairs, were fed. TheBureau sent a corps of workers to assist in receiving andcaring for the flood of travelers who, as usual, were in asorry condition. Additional hospitals were installed,medical attention given, an ambulance service maintained,supplies furnished the canteens, and dispensaries started.Night after night — the convoys usually arrived at the
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REFUGEES TS end of the day -— the work went on, often from sunset todawn and frequently complicated by the raids of theGerman aeroplanes upon the city. It was rather disheart-ening for these poor people, dazed and shaken as they wereby the horrors of the War Zone they had just left, to begreeted by the wailing sirens of Paris, the crackle of shrap-nel, and the heavy, rending explosions of the Boche bombs. The villages from which these refugees of the summerof 1918 had come were those that had been taken by theGermans early in the war and from which they had beendriven in March, 1917. In their retreat they had method-ically and effectively carried out a sullen work of destruc-tion, burning and blowing up houses and barns andbridges, hewing down orchards and shade trees, and carry-ing off or wrecking all vehicles and agricultural machinesand implements. Some of their ruinous activity wasprobably justified by military necessity, but most of itwas due to plain German spite, such as the

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