Eyewitness: What a Preacher Saw under Fire

Chaplain Karl Reiland

About My Great Uncle Karl Reiland by Garth Gustafson

My Uncle Karl was born on 23 October 1872 in Brooklyn and died 12 September 1964 in Winstead, CT. He was educated in the public schools of Middletown, CT, and studied at Cheshire Military Academy and Trinity College in Hartford. Later, he attended the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria and the Berkeley Divinity School of Middletown. He was Rector of St. George's Church in New York City from 1912 to 1936 (later Rector Emeritus until his death in 1964). Well-known in his day,  he was a wonderful communicator and a powerful speaker. 

In the Spring of 1918, the Red Cross approached him and asked if he would travel to France to deliver an important message to our servicemen. The message was not to worry about their families back home, their families would be well cared for by the Red Cross and US Government. Karl was with the Red Cross at Château-Thierry, Soissons, the Vesle and Aisne. He saw a lot action in that six-month period and the New York Times interviewed him and published this article when he returned in November 1918.

Rev. Karl Reiland, rector of St. George’s Church in Stuyvesant Square, returned recently from a visit of several months to the battlefront of France.

Early last Spring the Red Cross asked Dr. Reiland to go before the men in the cantonments and impress upon them that there was no need for them to worry about their families while they were in the army, as the Red Cross and the Government would see that every soldier’s wife, mother, and babies would be comfortable and well cared for.

Dr. Reiland felt that it was not right for any man to appear before men who were going into the inferno of the battlefield unless he too, knew something of what they were to go through. He told the Red Cross this, and the result was that he was sent on a special detail to France. While there, as a member of several Red Cross units, he visited the battleline from Soissons to Rheims. He was present at the battle of Chateau-Thierry, at the battles of the Vesle and the Aisne, and was several times under fire.

“I had been in Paris but a few days when an SOS call came from Chateau-Thierry, and a relief unit started out at once. I was fortunate enough to be a member of it. What I saw there and subsequently on the Vesle, and still later in the hospitals, convalescent homes, and refugee centers qualifies me to give our boys the message that has been assigned to me.”

At Chateau-Thierry Dr. Reiland slept in a camion with two bags of sugar and one of coffee for a mattress. It was here that he saw the Red Cross step into the breach and furnish 6,500 compresses to stem the flow of American blood. After the fight, our boys rested in the woods and made flapjacks. The Red Cross unit was encamped in the cemetery.  The soldiers sent over and invited them to a flapjack party, and there with the cemetery shining white in the moonlight and the bodies of dead Germans everywhere, they cooked and ate flapjacks.

American Red Cross Hut at Château-Thierry

“But this did not last long,” said Dr. Reiland. “The battle progressed so rapidly that we were soon ordered on to another station. That was the way with us for weeks. We no sooner set up stakes at one place, delivered whatever supplies were asked for, handed out chocolates and cigarettes and mosquito nets to the boys, than a need arose for us a few miles further on. Our boys are some fighters you know, and they do not understand the word retreat”.

It was while at Crezancy on the Marne that Dr. Reiland interviewed some boche prisoners. “There,” he narrated, “I met the little boche who surrendered and, after surrendering, turned his machine gun on his comrades, who fired back at him, and finally succeeded in catching him in the ankle. In spite of this, he assisted the American soldier whose prisoner he was, and who had also received a shot in the leg, back to the American trenches. When the American soldier was taken to the hospital he refused to be quiet until assured that the little boche was beside him. This little chap-he was only 18 and about five feet one or two-told me that he had never wanted to fight the Americans, but that the German officers had told them that if they were caught by the Americans they would be tortured and starved. The soldier who captured him says he is going to take the youngster back home with him as a mascot when the war is over.”

Here Dr. Reiland paused in his narrative for a word about the magnanimity of the French. “It is no wonder” said he, “that their spirit trudges forward triumphantly. It is magnificent beyond words. In spite of what France has suffered at the hands of Germany, her soldiers have the least hatred in their hearts and display the most kindness towards the German prisoners of any of the allied soldiers. Why, when I was talking to the little boche in the hospital a French General who was passing through the ward came up, looked down at him, patted his blonde head and sighed with a shake of his head, 'Too young! too young for war'”.

“I saw another French officer lift a wounded German up and take a pillow from under his head because the pillow was too high and, when the ambulance moved or went over a rut, the German’s head would be bumped. He held the man’s head on his arm until the stretcher was lowered, when he put the pillow back. You can’t put down a spirit as divine as that.”

Traveling by Train with a Red Cross Group (2nd from left)

At Orleans there were hundreds of serious shrapnel and gas cases. Dr. Reiland saw many of our boys who are suffering from mustard gas burns. This gas, the most cruel invention of the Hun, is craftier than the gas mask, for it makes its way to whatever part of the body is moist from perspiration and inflicts deep burns. “The hospital here,” Dr. Reiland continued, “is the most wonderful one I have ever seen. It was an old municipal building, and has now been renovated and equipped with all modern apparatus and fittings, and its staff members are specialists of note.”

“The Red Cross is rendering splendid service at Orleans among the refugees and repatriees, the latter returned through Evian. With the aid of the French Government and the cooperation of the Roman Catholic clergy, a mattress factory has been established where the repatriees and refugees make a good livelihood by making mattresses out of moss furnished by the French Government. The problem of housing also fell to the Red Cross. The result of this is that the people look upon all Americans as ministering angels. If one visits one of these homes he must visit all in that block, or the dear people are hurt, for they all want to offer wine.”

In the warehouse at Blois from which the Red Cross sends out its supplies there is everything from “socks to sausages”, according to Dr. Reiland. It was here that the tragedy of the homeless was brought most closely home to him. He saw returning citizens prying about among the shattered ruins of their homes, some of them trying to clear away the debris with the hope of starting to build again. He came across one old woman who had, after digging for a whole day, found the crucifix which hung for years just over her bed. She was weeping bitterly as she held it up to him and pointed to the shattered feet of the Saviour.

“And I must not forget to tell about one lady from Lille. It was my fortune to be introduced to her. And she, for about the thousandth time, much to her delight, regaled me with the tale of how she spat on the Kaiser’s picture. It was during  the first days of terror in Belgium. She told me that she had ranted around, infuriated at the outrages committed by the German soldiers against her fellow citizens.  Finally, she was arrested and taken before a German officer, who told her that for punishment she must kiss the Kaiser’s picture. While she was telling me all this she was illustrating what she did, and, believe me, she was some spitter. The consequence of her act was condemnation to death.

“But she did not want to die, so she just pretended that she was crazy, and, forgetting her age, picked up her skirts and danced a gay ballet. They let her go, and delivered her over to the authorities at Evian as a repatriee.”

Long after the War,
Close to the End of a Distinguished Career

Source: The New York Times, Published 10 November 1918