Heywood Broun

“ As ship after ship came in more troops marched to camp. The streets were filled with the clatter of the big boots of doughboys throughout the morning and well into the afternoon. There were American army mules, too, and although the natives had seen the animal before in French service, he attracted no end of attention. In his own particular army the mule seems more picturesque. He has never learned French. It seems to break his spirit, but he pranced and kicked and played the very devil under the stimulus of the loud endearments of the American mule drivers. ”

“ From the top of Souville it was possible to see gun flashes and to spy, now and again, aeroplanes which darted back and forth all day, but not a soldier of either side was to be seen through the strongest glasses. On no front have men dug in so deeply as at Verdun. They have good reason to snuggle into the earth, for the French have a story that one of their projectiles killed men in a dugout seventy-five feet below the surface. They thought that this terrific penetration must have been due to the fact that the shell hit fairly upon a crack in the concrete and wedged its way through. ”

“ Sibert we remembered because he was a quiet, kindly man who got the things he wanted without much fuss. He was among the thinkers of the army. Mostly he was listening to other people, but when he talked he wasted no words. Undoubtedly he was one of the best loved men in the army for he combined with his efficiency and his kindliness an occasional playful flash of humor. I remember a visit which three American newspaperwomen paid to him one day at his headquarters. ”

“ There were sports as well as military exercises in the program arranged for Clemenceau. There were footraces and a tug of war and boxing matches. In one of these American blood was freely shed on French soil for a middleweight against whom the tide of battle was turning butted his opponent and cut his forehead.
I did not see Joffre when he paid a visit to the army zone and reviewed the troops but he left a glamor for us all in our messroom where he had dinner with General Pershing. It was a reporterless dinner so it meant less to us than to Henriette who served the dinner for the two generals. ”

“ Trenches, save in the very active sectors, give the visitor a sense of security. Open places are the ones which try the nerves of civilians, and it was pleasant to walk with a wall of earth on either hand, even if some of us did have to stoop a bit. From the point where we entered the communication trench to the front line was probably not more than half a mile as the crow flies—if, indeed, he is foolish enough to travel over trenches—but the sunken pathway turned and twisted to such an extent that it must have been two miles before we struck even the third line. ”

“ It takes a good deal of skill to keep it straight and when the aviator has learned that much he is allowed to make a trip in a machine which leaps a little in the air every now and then, only to flop to earth again. Then he is ready to fly a Bleriot, though, of course, his first trips are made as a passenger. Very little time is spent in flying. Staying up in the air is no great trick. It's the coming down which gives the trouble. And so the student is eternally trying landings. He smashes a good many machines and here the French show their keen realization of the mental factor in flying. ”

“ The American army now has the largest flying field in France for its very own, but during summer and early autumn many of our men trained in the French schools. There his groundling days try the aviator's dignity. He must hop before he can fly and perhaps "hop" is too dignified a word. When we visited one of the biggest schools, all the new pupils were practicing in a ridiculous clipped wing Bleriot called a penguin. This machine was a groundhog which scurried over the earth at a speed of twenty or thirty miles an hour. ”

“ A man who was a first lieutenant when the army came to France told us: "A first lieutenant is supposed to know everything and do everything; a captain is supposed to know everything and do nothing, and a major is supposed to know nothing and do nothing." ”

“ Even our friends in Europe are inclined to put us down as materialists. They think we love money more than anything else in the world. I don't believe this is true. I think we use money only as a symbol and that even if we don't express them, or if we express them badly, the American who fights has not forgotten to pack his ideals. A young American officer brought that home to me one day in Paris. ”

“ Into the trenches they went and over. First line, second line, third line, each fell in turn to the redcoats. They were so thick that the earth seemed to bleed for its wounds.
Presently we were in Arras and our officer led us into the cathedral. "We won't stay in here long," said the officer. "The Germans drop a shell in here every now and then and the next one may bring the rest of the walls down. People keep away from here." This indeed seemed a very citadel of destruction and loneliness, but as we turned to go we heard a mournful noise from an inner room. ”

“ The theater was packed with French soldiers who were back from the front to rest. American troops were going into the trenches for the first time. Our little group of civilians had come thousands of miles to see this thing, but the poilus did not stop to watch marching men. They paid their 10 centimes and went into the picture show. They had an American Western film that night, and French soldiers who only the day before had been face to face with Germans, shelled and gassed and harassed from aeroplanes, thrilled as Indians chased cowboys across a canvas screen. ”

“ But there was one French word the soldiers had to learn. That was "fineesh." The children forced that word upon them. They were always at the heels of the American soldiers. They galloped the doughboys up and down the village streets in furious piggyback charges. They borrowed jam from company cooks and rode in the supply trucks. Of course there had to be an end to the rides, sometimes, and even to the jam and the only way to convince the children of France that an absolute unshakable limit had been reached was to thrust two hands aloft and cry "fineesh." ”

“ WAR seemed less remote in the artillery camp than in any other section of the American training area for the roar of the guns filled the air every morning and they sounded just as ominous as if they were in earnest. They were firing in the direction of Germany at that, but it was a good many score of miles out of range. Just the same the French were particular about the point. "We always point the guns toward Germany even in practice if we can," said a French instructing officer, "it's just as well to start right." ”

“ Little traveling shops in wagons came through the smaller villages in the northern part of the training area loaded with all sorts of gimcracks intended for the peasant trade. The peddlers had no time to put in a special line for the soldiers. They found that it was not necessary. Desperate men with pockets full of money would purchase even the imitation tortoise shell sidecombs which the itinerant merchants had to sell.
The purchasing capacity of the soldier was not limited to his pay alone. The villagers were wildly excited about the white bread issued to the American army. ”

“ The patrol carried the prisoner to the trench. He seemed much more dazed by surprise than by the pain of his wounds. "You're not French," he said several times as the curious Americans gathered about him in a close, dim circle illuminated by pocket flash lamps. The prisoner next guessed that they were English and when the soldiers told him that they were Americans he said that he and his comrades did not know that Americans were in the line opposite them. Somebody gave him a cigarette and he grew more chipper in spite of his wounds. He began to talk, saying: "Ich bin ein esel." ”

“ His thrusts grew fiercer and fiercer. The point of his bayonet flashed into the cloth knob again and again. He was trembling with rage as he played the battle game. As he finally flung himself upon the stick and knocked it out of the major's hands the officer called a halt.
"There," he said to the Americans, "if your men are to train well, you've got to make them believe it's true, and you can do it."
The British added lots of snap to the American training because they knew how to arouse the competitive spirit. ”

“ In one billet a soldier stole a look over his shoulder at the General as he passed. Pershing turned immediately.
"That's not the way to be a soldier," he said. "You haven't learned the first principle of being a soldier." He turned to a second lieutenant. "This man doesn't stand at attention properly," he explained. "I want you to make him stand at attention for five minutes."
The next offender was a captain who had one hand in his pocket while giving an order. The General spoke to him just as severely as he had to the enlisted man. Then he was into his car and away to the next village. ”

“ Very reluctantly the French have adopted squadron flying and the airman now finds himself obeying commands just as if he were an infantryman or an artillerist. Even the civilian population has begun to show that it realized the change in the status of the aviator. There was, for instance, poor Navarre, the finest flier in the army, who was sent to prison because he came to Paris on a spree and ran down three gendarmes with his racing auto. French aviators cannot see the sense of punishing Navarre. I only heard one aviator who had any excuse to offer for the civilian authorities. ”

“ The next man to try his luck was a non-commissioned officer long in the army. He patted the gun and wooed it a little in whispers before he shot. It was a French gun, to be sure, but the language of firearms is international. "Behave, Betsy," he said and she did. He sprayed shots along the line of targets at the bottom of the hill as the gun clattered away with all the clamor of a riveting machine at seven in the morning. When they looked at the targets they found he had scored thirty hits out of thirty-four and some were bull's-eyes. ”

“ The men sat about underground playing cards and reading newspapers, but the commander of the battery was unwilling that we should go with such a peaceful impression of his guns. He brought his men to action with a word or two and sent six shells sailing at the German first line trenches for our benefit. We left, half deafened, but delighted.
No child could be more eager to show a toy than is a French officer to let a visitor see in some small fashion how the war wags. We went from the battery to a first line trench. ”

“ Thus we all felt much more uncomfortable in the square than when we stood in the composing room of the newspaper which was shielded by the remains of a glass skylight. The same curious psychological twist can be found among soldiers at the front. Again and again men will be found taking apparent comfort in the fact that half an inch of tin roof protects them from the shells of the Germans.
One is always taken from the cathedral of Rheims to the wine cellars. ”

“ The poilus maintain that on dark nights the ghosts of cognac, of burgundy and even champagne flit about in and out of the broken windows and that a lucky soldier may sometimes detect, by an inner warmth and tingle, the ghost of some drink that is gone. Sometimes it is a German patrol which spends the night in No Man's Café. It is more or less a custom to allow whichever side gets to the café first to hold it for the night, since it is a strong defensive position in the dark. ”

“ Too much credit cannot be given to the captains of the first American Expeditionary Force. A captain commands more men now than ever before in the American army and he has more power. This was particularly true in France where many companies had a little village to themselves. The captain, therefore, was not only a military leader, a father confessor, and a gents' furnisher, but also an ambassador to the people of a small section of France. The colonels and majors and the rest are the fellows who think up things to be done, but it is the captains who do them. ”

“ It would be the system of any nation which had the opportunity of taking its time, yet the scholarly approach cannot fail to dim adventure a little bit. Launcelot would have been a somewhat less dashing knight if he had begun his training in chivalry by learning the minimum number of foot pounds necessary to unhorse an opponent or the relative resilience of chain mail and armor. Yet not all the training in the world can take the stunt spirit out of the young American aviator. ”

“ The night before the attack his dugout was flooded with poison vapor from German gas shells, but he awoke in time to arouse his two companions, who got their masks on in time to prevent injury. Another American officer who shall be nameless found it difficult to sit back as a spectator when so much was going on. He was a brigadier general, but this was his first taste of war on a big scale. The French offensive aroused his enthusiasm so much that he said to a fellow American officer: "Nobody's watching us now, let's sneak up ahead there and throw a few bombs." ”

“ In fact they were new to many in the audience for as the concert went on French soldiers joined the audience and townspeople hung about the edges of the crowd. They listened politely and applauded, though indeed one must get a strange impression of America if his introduction is through our popular songs. Such a foreigner is in danger of believing that ours is a June land in which the moon is always shining upon a young person known as "little girl." Yet the French expressed no astonishment at the songs. ”

“ One officer, probably an infantryman, has written, that the infantrymen are called doughboys because they are the flower of the army. Another story has it that during some maneuvers in Texas an artilleryman, comfortably perched on a gun, saw a soldier hiking by in the thick sticky Texas mud. The mud was up to the shoetops of the infantryman and the upper part which had dried looked almost white. "Say," shouted the artilleryman, "what've you been doing? Walking in dough?" And so the men who march have been doughboys ever since. ”