WAR INCIDENT

Evening Star, Issue 21925, 11 January 1935, Page 1

WAR INCIDENT

THE STORY OF A “ MIRACLE " MARSHAL FOCH'S BELIEF One of tlic most amazing miracles of the war has just been revealed for the first time—-the story of how a picture of Christ “ came alive ” and succoured a party of wounded Frenchmen and Germans. The miracle was believed implicitly by the late Marshal Foch, who investigated it after the Battle of the Marne, and later told it to an intimate friend. That friend sent the story, exactly as told him by Foch, to Mr A. J. Russell, who has incorporated it in his popular book, ‘ Their Religion.’ Here is the story as Marshal Foch related it to his friend: “ Around La Fere Champenoise,” said Marshal Foch, “ during those unforgettable days of the Marne . . . I thought at first when 1 heard the story it was just the peculiar tension of our nerves; yet later I took the trouble to question and verify. “ Tlie man who told me the stoW was a sergeant in a lino regiment—sceptical, not to say wholly ignorant, of religion. After the troops had swept on and night had conic, he awoke on the battlefield suffering acutely—bis left leg was shattered beyond repair. “ My sergeant said he' cursed the war and his generals and his God, for he was suffering such anguish. DESIRE TO SERVE. 11 Yet there must have been a strain of unselfishness in him, of desire to serve, for presently he became aware of other sufferers around him, and he tried to crawl towards them to help. They must have all gone through their own hell, too. “ Tho sergeant told me that now something queer happened to him ; he felt he did not matter like the others,' and, therefore, lie must assume charge and do his best to save them.

“ They wore just on the outskirts of the village, which was a heap of ruins and burning in places. He could make out one building which was more or less undamaged and which he rightly took to be a church.

“Ho must have been powerfully helped by God's grace, for he succeeded in rounding np a small company of wounded, some of them atrociously mutilated, and in 'getting them into flic church. That church had been a German dressing station, and it was now a slaughter house.

“ Inside the church lie found some soiled bandages and scattered medical supplies. There was little enough, for tho Gormans were almost worse off than his own company. “ The sergeant said that at this moment he felt no pain, only the imperious urge to ease the suffering of these men. How he set to work I do not know. He did not know himself. But with the aid of one of the least wounded Germans he somehow bandaged and tended everybody. . . . “ The church had suffered several direct hits, and only the outer walls were standing; hut tho main altar was undamaged; and there was above it a picture of Jesus with hands extended as though fo bless. “ The sergeant said that he really did not know what made him, at flic price of great efforts and suffering, arrange all his charges in a semi-circle at the foot of the steps leading to (lie altar—but this is wbaf lie did. And their plight was awful.

They were half insane with terrible thirst, for they had been fighting for five days with hardly any food or drink. There seonicd no hope, for none knew if any of our units would come through that place. “ Men began to rave. One of the Germans muttered prayers and called upon God to come down and save them. Another, a .French soldier, was delirious, and kept talking about life in his village, of his mother baking new bread, and of the new wine being made. ...

“ There was not one drop of water, not one morsel of bread, nor food of any kind in the church.

“ My sergeant said that his feeling was one of snob intense tenderness towards his fellow sufferers that it obliterated all else. . . . He was very weary, of course, and as he lay among the others suffering dumbly, he said that he was looking straight at the picture of Our Lord above the altar.

“ The light round the picture and streaming down on tho altar and on the sorry company assembled there was very strange. He said that he felt tho light entering into him, and strange thoughts came to him.

“ He did not know how to pray, but bo began talking to the Figure above the altar. I remember his words quite clearly—-they have stuck in my memory:

“ 1 Jesus Christ.’ he said, ‘ I do not know Yon, but You must know me, if what the priest says is true. They say You know all men for what they are. Well. lam a pretty rotten specimen, and I am neb worthy of being heard by Yon. But these others—l don’t know them—they are sure to be better than I. You don’t want them to suffer and die here like dogs. They have been lighting like devils, but for a good cause. The Germans as well;, they are not Germans any more, Jesus Christ, don't hold that against them—they are just poor broken men. “ ‘ That boy there who is raving about hew bread and new wine, he is a good lad. Ho has been taught how to pray by his mother. He does not pray now because be is off his head by suffering.' That is why I, who am unworthy, must speak to You. The Abbe said the other day that Yon had bread and wine to give to men so that they may live. ; Jesus Christ give us bread and wine so that we may live. Not to me, perhaps, for I am a great sinner, a braggart, but to these others, and the Gormans also. . .

“My sergeant said that as he spoke he had no doubt hut that tho picture of Christ above the altar heard, and that He would answer presently. His faith at that moment was so vital that he adds a few words: ‘ You have heard me, he said, and You are taking pity

on these men. ... 1 am content and I thank You. 1 know that Y T ou could do it.’

“ He was quite clear as to what followed,” continued Marshal Foch to his friend.

POWERFUL BEAM,

“ The light in the church became .stronger, and the wounded ranged before it in one powerful beam, like a searchlight, only more beautiful. “ And in that light the Figure above the altar moved and came clown the steps with hands extended, and bent over each one of the wounded in turn—feeding them with pieces of bread and giving them wine to drink out of a cup. “ Tho sergeant insisted that there was a, loaf of bread and a large cup of wine.”

Three days later an ambulance lumbered that way and found the company of wounded, The doctor wondered how they could have survived without food or drink, mutilated and mangled as they were. That was why the sergeant, suppurled by all the others, was led to toll that they had received fbe bread and wine.