“A German Red Cross orderly came up shortly afterwards, and was engaged in dressing the wound when the order came for the Germans to retire before a British counter-attack. ‘About ten minutes after the last had passed down the road our lads, counter-attacking, were creeping up the road, and it was not long before the R.A.M.C. lifted me on a stretcher and took me to the advanced dressing station.’
“We congratulate Private Bibby on the recovery he is making from a severe wound, and are glad that he is able to bear this testimony of gratitude to a company of unknown but chivalrous foes.
“It is, of course, well known that the Northcliffe Press refuses to print experiences of this kind.”
“Many of our wounded have passed through the same conditions of captivity and deliverance. They bear witness to the honourable conduct of the German Army doctors (majors). Here, for example, is one of the stories that I have heard: ‘I found myself in a ditch after the battle, unable to move. A German doctor came by; he gave me bread and coffee and promised to come back in the evening if he could, or next day. That night and the following day passed without my seeing any one; the time seemed long. In the evening he came: ‘I had not forgotten you,’ he said, ‘but I have had no time.’ He had me carried away and gave me careful attention.’” (_La Guerre vue d’une Ambulance_, par L’Abbé Félix Klein, Aumonier de l’Ambulance américaine, p. 80.)
The writer continues: “Facts of this nature deserve to be recorded. Amidst this setting loose of horrors and hates it would be well to lay stress on some of those deeds which are able to soften the soul. This morning I see that an article has been passed in one of the most widely read French journals recommending that no prisoners should be made in forthcoming battles, but that our enemies should be ‘struck down like wild beasts,’ ‘butchered like swine’! Nothing, not even the sack of Senlis, nothing justifies such outbursts of fury.” The French soldiers, M. L’Abbé indicates, confine their denunciations to the Prussian regulars and speak well of the reserves. “They are men like us, married men, fathers of families, fair-minded.” But for the doctors there is often a good word: “Le major allemand est venu, nous a soignés, nous a donné du café, du pain.” “Le major nous a soignés et donné de la soupe.” There was however, much plundering. The armies which do not plunder are indeed _raræ aves_. “The animosity of the English against the enemy,” says the Abbé, “is greater even than ours.” “In the evening,” runs one narrative, “the soldiers of the 101st put me in the wood where were many wounded Frenchmen and a German captain, wounded the day before. He suffered, he too, poor man (le pauvre malheureux).” When the Germans came, “some looked askance,” but the captain said the Frenchmen had been kind, and when the Germans had taken him they came back and attended to the French. It was a bad time in the retreat, but French and German wounded shared the same fate. (l.c., p. 98.)