Saturday, August 29
Twenty-seventh day of the war. Sultry weather, with light northerly breezes. Temperature at five P.M. 26 degrees centigrade.
“Hold tight!” Such is the watchword given by the French Government, and French and British soldiers are holding tight for all they are worth against the slowly advancing German armies. Heavy fighting all along the lines from the Somme to the Vosges continues without a break. The Prussian Guard Corps and the Tenth German Army Corps have been driven back to Guise, in the department of the Aisne (one hundred and ninety kilometers from Paris), but on the French left the Germans have fought their way to La Fère (northwest of Laon, about one hundred and forty kilometers from Paris). In the eastern theater of the war, Koenigsberg has been invested by the Russians under Rennenkampf, who continue their advance towards Berlin.
Paris begins to realize that the war is coming closer to them, by the following official announcement:
Defences of Paris
_The Military Governor of Paris, in view of the urgent military requirements, has decided:
1. Within a delay of four full days, starting from August 30, all proprietors, occupants, and tenants of all descriptions of houses and buildings situated in the military zone of old and new forts must evacuate and demolish the aforesaid houses and buildings.
2. In the event of these instructions not being fulfilled within the prescribed delay, these houses and buildings will be immediately demolished by military authority and the materials taken away.
The Military Governor of Paris, Commander of the Armies of Paris.
(Signed)
Gallieni._
General Pau, the gallant one-armed general who commands the French Army of the East, arrived in Paris at four o’clock this afternoon, but the reason for his visit is naturally kept secret. He had a conference at the Ministry of War with M. Millerand. He called for a few moments at his residence in the Boulevard Raspail. General Pau’s son, a sub-lieutenant of infantry, is lying wounded at the hospital at Troyes. General Pau had an informal conversation with President Poincaré at the Elysée Palace, and leaves again for the front to-morrow morning.
Refugees from Belgium and northern France continue to pour into Paris. But the authorities, having had time to organize, are sending them on with very little delay to various places in the west and south of France.
It is impossible to prevent these frightened people from taking refuge in Paris, which they regard as a place of safety, and the only course open is to send them on as soon as possible.
Among the financial victims of the war are a number of Chinese students who have found their supplies of money from home suddenly cut off. A body of about sixty went to the Chinese Legation in the Rue de Babylone on Friday evening, and clamored for money.
The Minister, Mr. Liu Shih-shên, was out but, to the great disgust of the staff, the students invaded the dining-room and kitchen and commandeered the dinner which was being prepared for the Minister.
A message was sent to his Excellency, who dined at a restaurant. Meanwhile the students, having dined, began to gamble, and several made preparations to spend the night in the Legation. They were, however, expelled by the police.
At the meeting of the women’s auxiliary of the American Ambulance at the Embassy this afternoon, many details in connection with the establishment and maintenance of the hospital in the Lycée Pasteur were discussed.
A committee was appointed for the special purpose of supplying with clothing such wounded soldiers as may be brought to the hospital.
It was announced that Miss Matthews will succeed Miss Cameron as the chairman of the sewing committee, the latter having been called to America by her brother’s illness.
Mrs. W.K. Vanderbilt has offered to contribute many articles needed in the installation of the hospital, particularly such things as window curtains and other furnishings designed to make the institution as comfortable as possible for the sufferers.
For just four weeks now the American Government has been advancing money to citizens in need of it at the Embassy, and still the stream of applicants continues in about the same proportions as ever.
The undiminishing demand for funds is due largely to the fact that there are new arrivals in the city every day, but Major Cosby, who is in charge of the distribution of the money, believes that with the departure of the Rochambeau and the Flandre there will come a gradually lessening demand for assistance.
So far about five hundred persons have received money, and the total paid out for the four weeks is 62,100 francs. This represents about one hundred and twenty-five francs, or twenty-five dollars, apiece.
In addition to the Government fund, which is paid only to persons who accept it as a loan, about twenty-seven thousand francs, raised here in Paris, has been given outright to persons who for various reasons could not be assisted out of the Government fund.
Captain Brinton has also paid out from sixty to seventy thousand dollars to various persons upon cable orders from the Department of State in Washington. This represents a purely business transaction, as the money has first been deposited with the Government by friends in the United States. It has, however, been an exceedingly practical means of helping persons who otherwise might have had to fall back on the relief funds.