A Picardy Heroine
The Story of Marcelle Semmer, Who Held Up the Advance of a German Army Corps
French heroines were not few; indeed to be a woman of France was to be a heroine in those slow grinding years of the war that tired the soul, as it trampled the life of that country. But none of them was of greater courage or of more resolutely self-sacrificing purpose than a young woman of Picardy, a mere girl, Marcelle Semmer. She was the daughter of a phosphate factory owner, an Alsatian, who had quitted Alsace in 1871 rather than remain as a subject of Germany.
The story of her deeds was first given to the public by a lecturer at the Sorbonne, Paris, and was repeated by the Paris correspondent of the Times, but her fame had already run throughout the armies of France, and the Republic had honored her.
After the defeat of the Allies at Charleroi, the French tried to make a stand along the Somme, but being unable to resist the overwhelming mass of the invaders, they fell back across a canal in the vicinity of Marcelle Semmer’s home. The enemy were in close pursuit. As the last group of the French crossed the bridge, Marcelle rushed forward and raising the drawbridge, threw into the canal the control key, without which the draw could not be lowered. This remarkable evidence of presence of mind and coolness was hardly to have been expected from a girl in such terrifying circumstances. The act was a daring one, as the advancing Germans did not hesitate to fire at her as well as at the retreating soldiers; but realizing that it would hold up the advance of the Germans she unhesitatingly confronted the danger. It was the saving grace for the French, for it was not until the next morning that the Germans were able to get together boats enough to form a pontoon across the canal. The retreat had the advantage of those precious hours of the hold-up.
Though the risks were great, Marcelle remained in the village during the German occupation in order to be of possible assistance to the French. And she did render assistance. There was near the village Eclusier a subterranean passage used in the working of a phosphate mine, and in this passage Marcelle managed to conceal at different times sixteen French soldiers who had got separated from their command in the retreat from Charleroi and Mons. There she fed them, furnished them with civilian clothes and aided their escape into the French lines. It was not until she was helping the seventeenth to escape that she was caught and dragged, with a French soldier, before the local commandant. Asked if she meant deliberately to aid the soldier to escape, she replied firmly:
“Yes. He is not the first. I helped sixteen others to get away. Do what you please with me. I am not afraid to die.”
With little ceremony she was ordered to be shot. She was taken out for the purpose. The firing squad was drawn up and only waited the order to fire when suddenly there was a roar of French artillery bombarding the town and the position of the Germans around Eclusier. It was an unexpected French advance, and without thought of the girl the firing squad joined the confusion of men hurrying to the shelter of their defenses. Marcelle made her escape to the friendly subterranean passage. The French occupied Eclusier.