The A. E. F.: With General Pershing and the American Forces

"That's my German," said the sergeant.

"I saw him first," objected the corporal, and so they agreed to count five and then fire together. One or both of them hit him, for down he came.

When we got back to the second line the men were having supper. The food supplied to the soldiers in the trenches was hot and adequate and moderately abundant. A few of the men complained that they got only two meals a day, but I found that there was an early ration of coffee and bread which these soldiers did not count as enough of a breakfast to be mentioned as a meal. This comes at dawn and then there are meals at about eleven and five. One of the men with whom I talked was mournful.

"We don't get anything much but slum," he said, when I asked him, "How's the food?" That did not sound appetizing until I found out that slum was a stew made of beef and potatoes and carrots and lots of onions. We ate some and it was very good, but perhaps it does pall a little after the third or fourth day. It forms the main staple of army diet in the trenches, for it is not possible to give the men in the line any great variety of food. The most tragic story in connection with food which we heard concerned a company which was just beginning dinner when a gas alarm was sounded. The men had been carefully trained to drop everything and adjust their masks when this alarm was sounded. So down went their mess tins, spilling slum on the trench floor as the masks were quickly fastened. Five minutes later word came that the gas alarm was a mistake.

Before we left we saw a patrol start out. The doughboys took to patrolling eagerly and officers who asked for volunteers were always swamped with requests from men who wanted to go. One lieutenant was surprised to have a large fat cook come to him to say that he would not be happy unless allowed to make a trip across No Man's Land to the German wire. When the officer asked him why he was so anxious to go, he said: "Well, you see, I promised to get a German helmet and an overcoat for a girl for Christmas and I haven't got much time left."

It was dark when we left the trenches and started cross country. The German guns had begun to fire a little. They were spasmodically shelling a clump of woods half a mile away and seemed indifferent to correspondents. But by this time the weather was actively hostile. The rain had changed to snow and the wind had risen to a gale. Every shell hole had become a trap to catch the unwary and wet him to the waist. Little brooks were carrying on like rivers and amateur lakes were everywhere. We walked and walked and suddenly the French lieutenant who was guiding us paused and explained that he hadn't the least idea where we were. Nothing could be seen through the driving snow and there was no certainty that we hadn't turned completely around. We wondered if there were any gaps in the wire and if it would be possible to walk into the German lines by mistake. We also wondered whether the Kaiser's three hundred marks for the first American would stand if the prisoner was only a reporter. Just then there was a sudden sharp rift in the mist ahead of us. A big flash cut through the snow and fog and after a second we heard a bang behind us.

"Those are American guns," said our guide, and we made for them. We were lost again once or twice, but each time we just stood and waited for the flash from the battery until we reached our base. Shortly after we arrived the shelling ceased. There was hardly a warlike sound. It was a quiet night on a tranquil front. The weather was too bad even for fighting.

We went to the hospital in the little town and were allowed to look at the first German prisoner. He was a pretty sick boy when we saw him. He gave his age when examined as nineteen, but he looked younger and not very dangerous, for he was just coming out of the ether. The American doctors were giving him the best of care. He had a room to himself and his own nurse. The doughboys had captured him close to the American wire. There had been great rivalry as to which company would get the first prisoner, but he came almost unsought. The patrol was back to its own wire when the soldiers heard the noise of somebody moving about to the left. He was making no effort to walk quietly. As he came over a little hillock his outline could be seen for a second and one of the Americans called out to him to halt. He turned and started to run, but a doughboy fired and hit him in the leg and another soldier's bullet came through his back. 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."

There were several Americans who had enough German for that and they asked him why. The prisoner explained that he had been assigned to deliver letters to the soldiers. Some of the letters were for men in a distant trench which slanted toward the French line, and so to save time he had taken a short cut through No Man's Land. It was a dark night but he thought he knew the way. He kept bearing to the left. Now, he said, he knew he should have turned to the right. He said it would be a lesson to him. The next morning we heard that the German had died and would be buried with full military honors.

There was another patient whom we were interested in seeing. Lieutenant Devere H. Harden was the first American officer wounded in the war. His wound was not a very bad one and the doctors allowed us to crowd about his bed and ask questions. In spite of the British saying, "you never hear a shell that hits you," Harden said he both saw and heard his particular shell. He thought it would have scored a direct hit on his head if he had not fallen flat. As it was the projectile exploded almost fifty feet away from him and his wound was caused by a fragment which flew back and lodged behind his knee. He did not know that he had been hit, but sought shelter in a dugout. Just as he got to the door he felt a pain in his knee and fell over. He noticed then that his leg was bleeding a little. A French officer ran over to him and said: "You are a very lucky man."

"How is that?" asked Harden.

"Why, you're the first American to be wounded and I'm going to recommend to the general that he put up a tablet right here with your name on it and the date and 'first American to shed his blood for France.'"

The thought of the tablet didn't cheer the lieutenant up half so much as when we prevailed on the doctors to let him take some cigarettes from us and begin smoking again. By this time we had almost forgotten about the slum of earlier in the evening and so we stopped at the first café we came to on the road back to the correspondents' headquarters. Several American soldiers were sitting around a small stove in the kitchen, and although they said nothing, an old woman was cooking omelettes and small steaks and distributing them about to the rightful owners without the slightest mistake. At least there were no complaints. Perhaps the doughboys were afraid of the old woman for whenever one of them got in her way she would say nothing but push him violently in the chest with both hands. He would then step back and the cooking would go on.

Presently a noisy soldier came roaring into the kitchen. It took him just half a minute to get acquainted and about that much more time to tell us that he was driving a four mule team with rations. We asked him if he had gotten near the front and he snorted scornfully. He told us that the night before he had almost driven into the German lines. According to his story, he lost his way in the dark and drove past the third line trench, the second line and the first line and started rumbling along an old road which cut straight across No Man's Land and into the German lines.

"I was going along," he said, "and a doughboy out in a listening post, I guess it must have been, jumped up and waved both his hands at me to go back. 'What's the matter?' I asked him, just natural, like I'm talking to you, and he just mumbles at me. 'You're going right toward the German lines,' he says. 'For God's sake turn round and go back and don't speak above a whisper.'

"'Whisper, Hell!' I says to him, kind of mad, 'I gotta turn four mules around.'"

CHAPTER XXI

THE VETERANS RETURN

WHEN the first contingent of doughboys came out of the trenches I went to a French officer whom I knew well and asked him what he thought of the Americans.

"Remember," I told him, "I don't want you to dress up an opinion for me. Tell me what you really thought of our men when you saw them up there. What did the French say about them?"

"Truly, I think they are very good," the Frenchman told me. Then he corrected himself. "I mean I think they will be very good. They are something like the Canadians. They were pretty jumpy at first, but that doesn't do any harm. The soldiers up there, they wanted to fire when the grass was moving and they did sometimes, without getting any orders. They got over that pretty soon. By the third night they were pretty well settled. Of course, they can shoot better than our men and they are bigger and stronger, but in some things we have the advantage. You Americans are much more excitable than we French."

As a rule French and British officers were inclined to be optimistic about the Americans. They were impressed by their physique. The first of the Canadians were probably a little huskier than the Americans and the early contingents of Australians and New Zealanders were at least as good, but now all the rest are falling off in their physical standards on account of losses, while the most recent American arrivals in France are better than any of our earlier contingents.

The American is potentially a good soldier, but it is a long cry of preëminence. Any nation which establishes itself as the best in the field will have to perform marvelous deeds. The chances are that nobody will touch the high water mark of the French. After all, in her finest moments, France has a positive genius for warfare. Her best troops possess a combination of patience in defense and dash in attack. France has a fighting tradition which we do not possess. We must gain that before we can rival her.

From the point of view of the newspaperman the Frenchman is the ideal soldier of the world. Not only can he fight, but he can tell you about it. There is no trouble in getting a poilu to talk. He has opinions on every subject under the sun. The only difficulty is in understanding him once you have got him started. The doughboys, on the other hand, are usually reticent. They're always afraid of being detected in some sentimental or heroic pose and so they adopt a belittling attitude toward anything which happens as protection. The first men who came back from the trenches were not quite like that. These doughboys were more like Rossetti's angels. "The wonder was not yet quite gone from that still look" of theirs.

They did not minimize their experiences. I think I understand now what Secretary Baker meant when he said that some of the most thrilling stories of the war would come in letters from the soldiers. We went to the major of a battalion which had just come back from the front to its billets.

"No, nothing much happened while we were up there," he said. "They didn't shell us very hard; they didn't try any raids or any gas and the aeroplanes let us alone."

Then we tried the soldiers. "Yes, sir, we certainly did see some aeroplanes," said a doughboy. "Why, one day there was two hundred and twenty-five flew over my head. I think the French brought down twenty of them, but I didn't see that." Another told how two hundred and fifty Germans had started to attack the Americans. "Our artillery put a barrage on them and in a couple of minutes all but three of them were dead."

"Did you see those Germans yourself?" we asked him sternly.

"No," he admitted, "it was a little bit down to our left but I heard about it."

There were other stories which may have grown in the telling, but they sounded more plausible. One concerned a soldier who had his hyphen shot away at the front. This man was of German parentage and his father was in the German army. Before he went to the trenches he used to dwell on what a terrible thing it was for him to be fighting against his father and Fatherland. He declared that if it were possible he was going to play a passive part in the war. But in the course of time he went into the first line and no sooner was he in than he peeked over the top to have a look at the folks from the old home. "Pat, pat, pat!" a stream of bullets from a machine gun went by his head. The German-American gave a grunt of surprise and then a yell of rage and jumped over the parapet and began firing his rifle in the direction of the machine gun. He must have made a lucky hit for by some chance or other the machine gun ceased firing and the doughboy crawled back into the trench unharmed. He was still mad and kept mumbling, "I didn't do anything but look at 'em and they went and shot at me."

A story better authenticated concerns a visit which General Pershing paid to the trenches. A young captain took his responsibilities much to heart and wanted to leave nothing to his subordinates. He was on the rush constantly from one point to another and at the end of fifty-two hours of unceasing toil he went to his dugout to get three hours' sleep. He had hardly started to snore when there was a knock and a doughboy came in to complain that he had sore feet and what should he do. A few minutes later it was another who wanted to know where he could get additional candles. Rid of him, the captain really began to sleep, only to be awakened by a knock at the door and a voice, "Is this the company commander?"

"Yes," said the irritated captain, "and what the hell do you want?"

The door opened and the strictest disciplinarian in the American army permitted himself the shadow of a smile. "I'm General Pershing," he said.

One battalion came back from the front with an additional member. He was a large dog of uncertain breed who had deserted from the German lines. At least it was hard to say whether he belonged to the German army or the French. The French first saw him one afternoon when he came lumbering across No Man's Land and pushed himself through the wire in a place where it had grown a bit slack. One French soldier fired at him. The poilu thought it might be a new trick of the Germans. For all he knew a couple of Boches might have been concealed inside the big hound. He was no marksman, this soldier, for he missed the dog who promptly turned sharply to the left and came in at another point in the trenches. The soldiers made him welcome although there was some discussion as to what his nationality might be. It was evident that he had come across from the German lines, but it was possible that he was a French dog captured in one of the villages which fell to the invaders. The men in the front line tried him with all the German they knew – "You German pig," "what's your regiment?" "damn the Kaiser," "to Berlin," and a few others. He indicated no understanding of the phrases. Later he was taken further back and examined at length by an intelligence officer but no single German word could be found which he seemed to recognize. On the other hand it was ascertained that he was equally ignorant of French. However, he understood signs, would bark for a bone and never missed an invitation to eat.

During the first week of his stay the soldiers were generous in giving him a share of their rations. Later he became an old friend and did not fare so well. One night he disappeared and an outpost saw him lumbering back to the German lines. The Boches were out on patrol that night and apparently the big dog reached their lines without being fired upon. He was gone three weeks and then he returned for a long stay with the French. So it went on. He never affiliated himself permanently with either army and he never gave away secrets. Possibly his coming gave some sign of declining morale across the way for when the men became cross and testy the big dog simply changed sides. There was never any indication that he had been underfed even when rumors were strongest about the food shortage in Germany. The Boches took a pride in belying these stories, as best they could, by keeping the hound sleek and fat.

The French called him Quatre Cent Vingt after the big gun but nobody knew for certain his German alias. Once when he left the German lines in broad daylight the Boches all along the line were heard whistling for him to come back, but no one called him by name. The French chose to believe that across the way he was known as "Kamerad," but there was no evidence on this point. It is true that he would stand on his hind legs and wave his paws when anybody said "Kamerad," but this was a trick and took teaching.

He must have heard somehow or other about the coming of the Americans for he left the Germans at noon one day when the doughboys had hardly become settled in their new home. A French interpreter vouched for him and he was allowed free access to third line, second line, first line and, what he valued much more, to the company kitchen. Here for the first time he tasted slum. Soldiers are fond of belittling this combination of beef, onions, potatoes and carrots but Quatre Cent Vingt was frank in his admiration of the dish. Naturally, free-born American citizens could not be expected to know him by his outlandish French name or any abbreviation of it and he became Big Ed in honor of the mess sergeant. Hitherto Quatre Cent Vingt had been careful to show no favors. He had been the company's dog but he became so distinctly partial to the mess sergeant that the soldier took him over as his own and when the company went away Quatre Cent Vingt went too, following closely behind a rolling kitchen.

The experience in the trenches made American soldiers a little more expressive than they had been before but the national character remained baffling. As a nation we unquestionably have personality but our army is somewhat lacking in this quality even among its leaders. Pershing is a personality, of course, and Bullard and Sibert and March, but for the rest all major generals seemed much alike to us. 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. The conversation had scarcely begun when one of the women somewhat tactlessly remarked, "General, this is a young man's war, isn't it?"

General Sibert is husky enough but he is a bit gray and he smiled quizzically as he looked at his questioner over the top of a big pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

"When I was a cadet at West Point," said General Sibert, "I used to console myself with the thought that Napoleon was winning battles when he was thirty. Now, I find that my mind dwells more on the fact that Hindenburg is seventy."

Robert H. Bullard is probably the most picturesque figure in the American army. He has a reputation as a fighter and a daredevil and he is still one of the best polo players and broadsword experts in the American army. They say that when a second lieutenant swore at him one day in the heat of a game he made no complaint but laid for the young man later on and sent him sprawling off his horse in a wild scrimmage. He will fight broadsword duels with anybody regardless of rank if his opponent promises to be a man who can test his mettle. And yet it was a bit surprising that when the command of one of the crack divisions in France was open, General Pershing chose Bullard for the command because Major General Robert H. Bullard is perhaps the worst dressed major general in the American army. A poilu in one of the provincial cities mistook him for an American enlisted man and talked to him with great freedom for more than half an hour before an excited French officer rushed up and told him that the man with whom he was talking so familiarly was an American general.

"Oh, that's all right," said Bullard, "I wanted to hear what he had to say. Come around to my headquarters sometime and tell me some more."

On another occasion I saw an American captain suffer acutely because Bullard appeared at a public Franco-American function with two days' growth of beard. "What kind of an aide can he have," moaned the captain. "I was on his staff for two years and I never let him come out like that. I always had him fixed up when there was anything important on."

Tall, spare, hawk-featured and straight, Bullard represents a type of officer who has a large part to play in the American army. It is around such men that tradition grows and tradition is the marrow of an army. It was Bullard, too, who gave the best expression to the hope and purpose of the American army which I heard in France. He had said that what the American army must always maintain as its most important asset was the offensive spirit and when we asked him just what that was he lapsed into a story which was always his favorite device for exposition.

"There was once a Spanish farmer," said General Bullard, "who lived in a small house in the country with his pious wife. One day he came rushing out of the house with a valise in his hand and his good wife stopped him and asked, 'Where are you going?' 'I'm going to Seville,' said the farmer bustling right past her. 'You mean God willing,' suggested his pious wife. 'No,' replied the farmer, 'I just mean that I'm going.'

"The Lord was angered by this impiety and He promptly changed the farmer into a frog. His wife could tell that it was her husband all right because he was bigger than any of the other frogs and more noisy. She went to the edge of the pond every day and prayed that her husband might be forgiven. And one morning – it was the first day of the second year – the big frog suddenly began to swell and get bigger and bigger until he wasn't a frog any more, but a man. And he hopped out of the pond and stood on the bank beside his wife. Without stopping to kiss her or thank her or anything he ran straight into the house and came out with a valise in his hand.

"'Where are you going?' his wife asked in terror.

"'To Seville,' he said.

"She wrung her hands. 'You mean God willing,' she cried.

"'No,' thundered the farmer, 'to Seville or back to the frog pond!'"

In the main, however, American officers and soldiers were not very successful in expressing their feelings and ideals in regard to the war. One of the Y. M. C. A. huts carried on an anonymous symposium on the subject "Why I joined the army." Only a few of the answers came from the heart. Most of the rest were of two types. One sort was swanking and swaggering, in which the writer unconsciously melodramatized himself, and the other was cynical, in which the writer betrayed the fact that he was afraid of being melodramatic. Thus there was one man who answered, "To fight for my country, the good old United States, the land of the free and the starry flag that I love so well." "Because I was crazy," wrote another and it is probable that neither reason really represented the exact feeling of the man in question.

Some were distinctly utilitarian such as that of the soldier who wrote "To improve my mind by visiting the famous churches and art galleries of the old world." There was also a simplicity and directness in "to put Malden on the map." But the two which seemed to be the truest of all were, "Because they said I wasn't game and I am too" and "Because she'll be sorry when she sees my name in the list of the fellows that got killed."

For a time I was all muddled up about the American reaction to the war. Sometimes we seemed helplessly provincial and then along would come some glorious unhelpless assertiveness. This would probably be in something to do with plumbing or doctoring. 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. He was a doctor from a thriving factory town upstate.