William Benjamin West

“ For generations to come the soil of France will be disclosing to the peasants who till her fields, the fragments of war's destructive power and the bones of heroes who bled and died.
On the battlefields I saw innumerable [105] quantities of equipment, together with guns and ammunition, which had cost millions to produce but were valueless in so far as their future use was concerned. I saw the Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries Garden in Paris packed with one thousand captured German guns and more than a score of Boche planes and observation balloons. ”

“ For three hours we walked "duck-boards" [1] through a maze of connecting trenches, stealthily and silently following our guides and stopping "dead" when a star shell burst near us. We had secret hopes of taking prisoner some of the "Heinies" whom we could almost hear breathing out there in No Man's Land. ”

“ The American army was a victorious army. It had never been defeated. It had faith in its ideals. Those ideals were neither selfish nor arrogant. It wore no boastful "Gott mit uns" on its belt. It desired only the opportunity of striking low that nation which dared to dictate terms to the Almighty as well as to men. It braved three thousand miles of submarine peril to meet such an enemy.
Even an invincible army has to breathe and eat and sleep. They can hold their breath long enough to adjust a gas mask, but the mask tells us that even in gas they must be enabled to breathe. ”

“ Major H, a friend of old college days, was a staff officer of the 37th Division and was as brave as he was big. His clear brain and military genius laid out our machine-gun nests. He had studied carefully every foot of ground and planted machine guns wherever they could command an enemy advance or night raid. The direct and crossfire of these guns were so coordinated that many guns could play upon a dangerous enemy approach. It was a most exciting chess game which was being played with real armies and men. ”

“ Then as he came through a cloud and was hidden [36] from the view of our planes, he suddenly righted and shot off toward the German lines.
The next day the same thrilling scene was staged a little to the south of us. But this time there was no disappointment. The rapid "pu-pu-pu-pu-pu" of the machine gun told us that our pilot's gun was working perfectly, and a burst of flame from the enemy plane told also how true was his aim.
There can be no more thrilling moments in life than when you are watching bodies out of control hurtling through space and are breathlessly anticipating the crash. ”

“ I was one of a score of "Y" men who followed Farnsworth's division into action, establishing hot chocolate stations and carrying on our backs great packs of chocolate, cigarettes, and tobacco which we gave away to the boys on the battlefield. There we met the wounded who, having received first aid, were being carried on stretchers back to the field dressing stations, where the army surgeons were working feverishly under trees or in protected valleys. From here continuous lines of stretcher-bearers with their precious burdens moved back to the field hospitals. ”

“ Where men are on the line in aggressive warfare, the action is so intense that they cannot stand up under long-continued fighting. In the Argonne fight our Ohio division was on the front line for five days after going "over the top." Then they were relieved by a fresh division, which took their places under cover of the night.
As our boys came out I stood all night with another "Y" man on a German narrow-gauge railroad crossing, giving a smoke or a piece of chocolate to each man as he passed. ”

“ In the heat of the chase when the Hun is the hare, they can forget for a time that they are hungry, but the field kitchen testifies to the fact that hunger undermines courage and that an efficient army must be a well-fed army.
To see men curled up in muddy [73] shell-holes with the sky for canopy, peacefully sleeping, while cannon are booming on every side and shells whining overhead, is sufficient evidence that sleep is not a myth invented by the Gods of Rest. ”

“ The flashes of the guns, the dazzling brilliancy of the star shells, the long lines of varicolored signals as they went up from many camps and out-posts, and the flares dropped from scores of planes, passing and repassing in the darkness overhead, can never be forgotten. ”

“ Machine gun nests had been planted in every conceivable point of vantage from a camouflaged bush on the hillside to the concealed "lookout" in the tallest treetop. Cannon of every caliber had been placed throughout the woods and under the lea of each protecting hill or cliff. A system of narrow-gauge railroads sent its spurs into every part of the Forest, delivering ammunition to the guns and supplies to the men, even connecting by tunnel with some of the largest dugouts. ”

“ It was in Baccarat that I met West again, running his car, transporting newspapers or moving-picture [13] machines, or canteen supplies, or itinerant entertainers such as I, out over any sort of road toward the front line. His glimpses of the great war were from an angle of vision that makes what he has to say in this book well worth reading. His duties took him into every sort of billet, and brought him into close touch with many branches of the army, as well as with all sorts of welfare work and workers. ”

“ The movement of troop trains was always a special target for Boche bombing planes, and several times during the night Fritz tried to "get" us. Each time, however, he was successfully driven off by our anti-aircraft and machine guns. Whenever we heard the planes overhead and shrapnel began to burst around us, we would scurry to cover underneath the cars, which gave us protection from the falling pieces of shrapnel and the machine-gun bullets.
Troop trains had a never waning interest for civilian and soldier alike. The French freight cars are about half the size of our American cars. ”

“ Our last mile with the car was over shell-torn roads and past guards who dared to pass no man without full proof of his identity. Many German spies had been caught recently. Through the ruined village of Heberviller we passed to the old chateau. Here we left the car with the chauffeurs, and having been armed we started with two guides for [33] the trenches. Every gun emplacement was inspected to see if orders had been faithfully carried out—and woe betide the man who failed. The Major's intimate and technical knowledge of every detail in machine-gun fighting, won the admiration of the men. ”

“ My first near view of the Boche trenches came one day when, waiting for our movie man at one of the huts, I went out "masked and helmeted" to a hill between our first and second lines. The peculiar "chills" and "thrills" of first sensations are indescribable. Cautiously and with some inward trembling I followed Private Van Voliet, of the 146th Infantry (Colonel Weybrecht's Regiment) , across a shell-torn field where twisted wire entanglements told of former fierce encounters. We passed a Stokes mortar battery of the 147th Infantry concealed in low bushes. ”

“ A preacher without a preachment is a paradox. We do not fear the paradox, much less the criticism of the over-religious. But we frankly believe that the solution of the moral and spiritual problems of the soldier, as the army attempted to solve them, gives a hint to the churches which dare not be ignored. ”

“ As they came out of the battle they left great piles of salvage which they fervently hoped the world would never need to use again.
[106] With the world's war bills mounting into the billions, and the value of the salvage piles an almost negligible amount, the material waste of war is appalling. If it will teach the nations to be as generous toward the great reconstruction program as they were toward the overthrow of that autocracy which threatened the world's freedom, then the waste of war has not been in vain. ”

“ No matter how many hundreds of times you hear the challenge ring out, each time you hear it a new thrill runs through your whole being and a new respect for military authority holds you captive, for you instinctively know that behind that challenge is the cold steel and a deadly missile. ”

“ My plea is for that type of Christianity, so pure as to be above reproach and question and so genuinely human as to enjoy the wit and humor and even the frivolities of life, its Christliness lifting its pleasures out of the mists of evil into which we have permitted the devil to drag them, and placing them side by side with the more serious considerations of our life work. ”

“ When we left the first-line trenches we walked or crouched through woods, [39] where the bark of the trees toward the enemy was riddled and broken by bullets, shrapnel, and shell; then through trenches which had been abandoned but which ran far out into No Man's Land and furnished splendid avenues to our Petty Posts. No. 4 was the first, and was so exposed that only one man at a time was permitted with the guide. Secretary Armstrong went first. While we were examining the graves of German aviators who had been killed when their planes crashed to earth, a rifle bullet whistled over our heads. ”

“ We had been seen by a German sniper, so we quickly crouched low behind the trench wall. I found myself right over the grave of one of the Germans, and was rewarded by finding on it a piece of German shell, grim paradox of the fortunes of war.
We continued through the trenches to P.P. No. 5. This was our nearest point in this sector to the enemy front line. It was difficult to get through because of [40] the mud and water in the trench. In some places, because of exposure to the enemy guns, we had to crawl on our hands and knees. ”

“ As we talked with the men in Petty Post No. 10, the German 77's were feeling for some vulnerable point just back of our line. We could see the flash of the gun and hear that peculiar, [34] fascinating "whine" as it passed over our heads, and finally its mocking challenge as it found its target. One of the men who was off guard, lay curled up in a shell hole beside the trench, sleeping peacefully to the music of the guns. Conversation here was whispered, and even the illuminated faces of our wrist watches were carefully concealed in our pockets. And every man knew well the reason why. ”

“ Then from the battle-line to the Atlantic coast we must think of the vast supply stations and warehouses, the great engineering plants and repair shops. America not only built in France the greatest ice plant in the world but she made every preparation on a gigantic scale. ”

“ The crucifix was a monument containing a secret inner chamber reached by a small spiral stairway. A Boche sniper concealed in this crucifix had taken too large a toll of American soldiers at that point in the line. The four night raiders left the American trench at one o'clock in the [92] morning. They crawled on their bellies through snow for one hour before reaching the sniper's post. Seven yards per minute is a snail's pace, but pretty good time in No Man's Land, where you must remain motionless each time a star-shell lights up the darkness around you and makes your discovery possible. ”

“ We worked our way in and out past ammunition wagons, Red Cross ambulances, officers' cars, and army trucks. Just before midnight we reached our huts at Avoncourt, where hot chocolate was being served to never-ending lines of tin-helmeted, khaki-clad wearers of the gas mask.
Through this town, now leveled to the ground by four years of intermittent bombardment, we groped our way to a temporary "Y" supply hut, where we hoped to spend the night. Upon opening the door we discovered that every [70] available foot of space on the bare ground floor was occupied by "Y" men rolled up in their blankets. ”

“ A five minute walk brought us to the "alert zone," where gas masks must be adjusted and ready for instant use. The guard at the crossroad allowed us to pass with the warning, "Keep under cover or you will draw the fire of the Boche snipers." So we crawled through a hole in the camouflaged screen which protected the road from German observers, and keeping behind clumps of bushes we peered through at the trenches just across the valley, in which Hun rifles lay cocked and primed for any American who would dare become a target. I confess I breathed easier when we got safely back to the "Y" hut. ”

“ In the Forest proper our boys encountered machine-gun nests, artillery pieces of every caliber, and the Boche with whom the woods were infested. Besides the opposition of an active enemy, were the natural barriers of deep ravines, stony ridges and cliffs, and in many places an almost impassable barrier of dense underbrush and fallen limbs and trees. ”

“ The heaviest guns, including the big naval guns, were especially well concealed in woods, in orchards, and well camouflaged in fields. So well hidden were they that I passed within a few rods of multitudes of them, as I traveled the roads, without detecting their presence until I would either hear the discharge of their shells or see them as they were being unlimbered. To move a heavy gun in mud is no small task. ”

“ Ravigny is a small town but an important railroad center from which troop trains were re-routed to various points on the front line. Our division was ordered to proceed to Riccicourt, a deserted and partly destroyed village about twelve miles west of Verdun and about five miles south of Avoncourt, where our boys went "over the top." The women canteen workers, much to [52] their disappointment, were ordered by the colonel to remain at Ravigny, where they could get accommodations and be saved the danger and distress of the battlefield. ”