Show PROBLEMS FACING STRICKEN WORLD shall chaos or reconstruction in europe follow the great world war NOW WEAK AND heartbroken in mourning and poverty sha counts her dead and looks with eyes of sadness toward the threatening future article 11 by FRANK COMERFORD august 1 1914 was the day on that lay germany declared war on russia the fire alarm rang around the world peasants in the field straightened their backs listened and looked into the sun confused wonder ing flags were unfurled bands placed faces were white tense and serious men left their work and talked in groups on the street corners IV omen laid down their brooms put aside their washing and talked in whispers sad lights were in their eyes children stopped playing something had happened lua things were ahead august 3 and 4 found france and great britain mobilizing their sons the torch was sweeping eu cope the alro of death had started for four long years libart sicken scars the world ran red men waded through mud and blood fought suffered cursed prated while buck home in the manias houses women and children worked cried prated and waited the world was mad death poisoned every breath the people breathed it Is over now it Is finished A stunned numbed weak heartbroken europe Is again sitting in the sun 0 peace europe Is in dirty black rags the black s the rags are poverty her face Is deeply lined trenches made by suffering her eyes anre downcast and dead hope flutters weakly in her breast faith has faded from her soul her home Is a house of darkness the fire on the hearth eftis turned to cold gray asheh the kettle no longer sings it moans her mind is weary her body Is wasted hunger has robbed her of her strength her shoeless feet are blue from the cold her lips wear i color ice in the winters wind lashes her half naked body she mumbles as she stares vacantly into space she Is tired so llred As I 1 beheld her it seemed to roe that a face so troubled and sad must never have known a smile I 1 listened to her muttering I 1 found that she was counting over and over again she counted on her thin tired worn hands she was counting her dead thinking of her loss she was thinking iier eyes looked over the hundreds of thousands ot square miles of war zone slashed with trenches pitted and pockmarked pock marked by shells she sees where they fell ko tears are in her eyes long ago the hurt had reached the point tears dry up row upon row line upon line mile upon mile white painted wooden crosses mark their graves for the most part they were her youngest born her most beloved who dug deep in the soil to sleep forever in the dark dugouts dug outs As they fell bleeding from steel and lead choking from gas writhing in agony from fire aliey proved in the dy ing word they spoke that they were mere boys as they had shown in their fighting thit they w ere brav e men to the copples they In trusted their mes sage and the red copples remember the last word of europe s dying sons who went out into the great beyond wah this last word on their lips aid lher she has counting an ache her bent body she and soba seven and a halt mil lion of my sons are dead her thoughts turn ta the living her arms open to receive them she holds them to her heart they have come but how some with sightless eyes doomed to grope through the world in a never ending darkness a night without stars or moon sunless black hopeless days nd these too poling men in the very morning of their day others sentenced to silence deaf and dumb never again will she hear their voices nor will they hear her still others in wheel chairs dwarfed legless more hobbling on crutches limping on canes some with ampt fe leeves many with great scars where once ans a handsome she see fill her feirt bleeds the twisted the ohp torn the counting the 12 GIG hc wounded of the war wars frightful cost her voice Is huk her hands are tired but she must count on six and n halt million 0 her sons were nils log end prisoners in the official score many of these come back to her hut she does not question them dare not faes fa es tell of the unspeakable horrors apy en anred she sees in eyes a aepli of pain that Is she Is a mother she know the war Is over but she Is pot over he ar must lie never stop aunt ins Is no end to her loi hie aeils arils arc troubled her thoughts turn to the dead who while they did not die in the war died because of the war chow who went out in babue batue left life in a burst of glory others there were who fell in their tracks exhaustion broken hearts sent them west she has not forgotten how the home flank suffered the homes were not all sl ackers they fought hunger and cold bent their hacks beyond the straining point worst of nil they waited it Is estimated that chiliano Chi lians died from weakness fatigue strain broken hearts the horror of waiting destroyed resistance these were the underfed older men and women the scared undernourished children Is there any wonder that europe has a death took in her bjes death has been her morning thought it has been her night sob and for four years made up of months weeks days hours minutes and seconds death has been her nemesis she la now totaling the figures are appalling they stagger her imagination it Is easy to write them impossible to understand their full meaning the mind cant grasp it the w orld Is bewildered by the number it Is too stupendous too horrible for un think of it seven and a half million young men for the most part between the ages of eighteen and thirty the auth the strength the spirit the man power of europe dead twenty million from civil life dead oer twelve arid a halt million wounded who can measure this loss war brought death it did more it stopped birth in the devastated regions of belgium france italy poland parts of russia and the balkan countries the birth rate tell to almost nothing in england and W les the birth rate in the last part of 1915 was the lowest on record mal latt calculated that the birth rate had fallen 12 per cent in england and wales by 1910 the journal of heredity quotes sa borgnan as haeng estimated that it will take england at leist ten bears germany 12 ears italy 38 years and france 30 years to recuperate their populations these calculations by were made before the fearful losses of the campaign of 1918 A in france BIe rancourt tells what the war has done to the man power of europe this village which Is in the chateau thierry soissons Sols sons district had a population of a thousand people before the war its losses have been tabulated twenty six soldiers from this village were killed in alie war of the villagers died from war privations the total of Is the death toll of a village of a thousand the figures I 1 have quoted from the of and mallett were made before the war was finished since the war estimates have been made and these estimates show the situation to be even worse in france I 1 was told that ca per cent of the men between twenty and forty years were listed as dead or incapacitated for work further that it would take I 1 ranee over 70 years to recover her normal population it Is said that it will take italy 50 years and angland 25 years to regain normality of population the human waste of lie war Is more than sad memories the loss of man power makes a grave problem it has thrown out of balance the domestic scheme of the world it will be felt for years there are a great many more young women than men home life Is bound to suffer there will be fewer marriages fewer children statistics only tell part of the story 1920 western newspaper Newa paper union |