His arms and
shoulders are mighty. But for the accident of emigration, then,
Wilhelm, working to-day in the sun among his Delphiniums and his iris,
his climbing roses and flowering shrubs, would be wearing the helmet
of the invader; for his vine-covered house he would have substituted a
trench; for his garden pick a German rifle.
For Wilhelm was a faithful subject of Germany while he remained there.
He is a Socialist. He does not believe in war. Live and help others to
live is his motto. But at the behest of the Kaiser, Wilhelm too would
have gone to his appointed place.
It was of Wilhelm then, and others of his kind, that I thought as I
stood in the end of the new-fashion trench, looking at the rabbit
trap. There must be many Wilhelms in the German Army, fathers, good
citizens, kindly men who had no thought of a place in the sun except
for the planting of a garden. Men who have followed the false gods of
their country with the ardent blue eyes of supreme faith.
I asked to be taken home.
On the way to the machine we passed a _mitrailleuse_ buried by the
roadside. Its location brought an argument among the officers.
Strategically it would be valuable for a time, but there was some
question as to its position in view of a retirement by the French.
I could not follow the argument.
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