Our Army at the Front

And, most important of all, they were men who could eradicate the doughboy's suspicion that the Y. M. C. A. was a doleful, overly prayerful, and effeminate institution.

The Y. M. C. A. was dealing with the doughboy when he was on his own time. If he didn't want to go to the "Y" hut, nobody could make him. Certain things that were bad for him were barred to him by army regulation. But there was a margin left over. If the doughboy was doing nothing else, he might be sitting alone somewhere, feeling of his feelings, and finding them very sad. The army did not cover this, but the Y. M. C. A. took the ground that being melancholy was about as bad as being drunk.

But, naturally, the Red Triangle man had to use his tact. If he didn't have any, he was sent home. His job was to persuade the doughboy, not to instruct him. And before long, the rule of the Y. M. C. A. was flatly put: "Never mind your own theories – do what the soldiers want."

That is why the "Y" huts – the combination shop, theatre, chapel, and reading-room, coffee-stall and soda fountain, baseball-locker and cigarette store, post-office and library which are run by the Y. M. C. A. from coast to battle-line – are packed by soldiers every hour of the day and evening.

The "Y" huts began with the army. Before the second day of the First Division's landing, there was a circus banner across the foot of the main street stating: "This is the way to the Y. M. C. A. Get your money changed, and write home." By following the pointing red finger painted on the banner, one found a wooden shack, with a few chairs, a lot of writing-paper and French money, a secretary and a heap of good-will.

As the army moved battleward, these huts appeared just ahead of the soldiers, with increased stores at each new place. American cigarettes were on the counters. A few books arrived.

The Y. M. C. A. proved its persuasiveness by its huts. A member of the quartermasters' corps said, one day, in a fit of exasperation over a waiting job: "How do these 'Y' fellows do it – I can't turn without falling over a shack, built for them by the soldiers in their off time. Do I get any work out of these soldiers when they're off? I do not. They're too busy building 'Y' huts."

The first entertainment in the "Y" huts was when the company bands moved into them because the weather was too bad to play out-of-doors. The concerts were a great success. By and by, men who knew something interesting were asked to make short lectures to the soldiers. It was an easy step to asking some clever professional entertainer to come down and give a one-man show. Then Elsie Janis, who was in Europe, made a flying tour of the "Y" huts, and a little while after, E. H. Sothern and Winthrop Ames went over to see how much organized entertainment could be sent from America.

The result of their visit was The Over-There Theatre League, to which virtually every actor and actress in America volunteered to belong. By the end of the first year, about 300 entertainers were either in France or on their way there or back.

Three months was the average time the performers were asked to give, and they circled so steadily that there were always about 200 of them at work on the "Y" circuit.

The work of the Y. M. C. A. did not stop with affording entertainment to the soldiers in the camps. They rented a big hotel in Paris and another in London, and they established many canteens in these two cities, so that their patrols – secretaries whose job was to rescue stray, lonely soldiers in the streets – would always have a near and comfortable place to offer to the wanderers.

Then they preceded the army to Aix-les-Bains and Chambery, the two resorts in the Savoy Alps where American soldiers were sent for their eight-day leaves, and arranged for cheap hotel accommodations, guides, theatres, etc., and they took over the Casino entirely for the soldiers.

Their field canteens were just back of the fighting-line, and late at night it was the duty of the secretaries to store their pockets with cigarettes and chocolate and with letters from home, and shoulder the big tins of hot coffee made in the canteens and go into the front-line trenches to serve the men there. In fact, the "Y" men did everything with the army except go over the top.

The largest part of work of this type fell to the Y. M. C. A. because they had the most flexible organization ready at the beginning of American participation. But they had substantial help, which as time went on grew more and more in volume, from several other associations. The Knights of Columbus and the Salvation Army both did magnificent service, in canteens and trenches. And of course the Red Cross took over the sick soldier and entertained and supplied him, as a part of their co-army work.

There was one branch of the Red Cross which perhaps did more than any other one thing to keep up the hearts and spirits of the soldiers – it was called the Department of Home Communications, and it was directed by Henry Allen, a Wichita, Kansas, newspaper man.

Mr. Allen believed that a soldier's letters did more for him than any other one thing, and that, failing letters, he must at least have reliable news of his home folks from time to time. Further, that every soldier was easier in his mind if he knew that his home folks would have news of him, fully and authentically, no matter what happened to him.

So Mr. Allen posted his representatives in every hospital, in every trench sector, and through them kept track of every soldier. If a man was taken prisoner Mr. Allen knew it. If he was wounded Mr. Allen knew just where and how. The man's family was told of it immediately. Presently, where this was possible, Mr. Allen's representative was writing letters from the wounded men to their relatives, and was receiving all Mr. Allen's news of these relatives for the men in the hospital.

In addition to things of this kind, done by Red Triangle men, Red Cross men, and the Salvation Army and the Knights of Columbus, all these organizations worked together to effect distributions of comfort kits and sweaters, gift cigarettes and chocolate, and all the dozen and one things that made the soldiers find life a little more agreeable.

There was more than co-operation from the army itself. There was the deepest gratitude, openly expressed, from every member of the army, whether general or private, because it was a recognized fact that, though an army cannot do these things itself, it owes them more than it can ever repay.

CHAPTER XVI

INTO THE TRENCHES

AFTER months of training behind the lines the doughboys began to long for commencement. It came late in October. The point selected for the trench test of the Americans was in a quiet sector. The position lay about twelve miles due east from Nancy and five miles north of Lunéville. It extended roughly from Parroy to Saint-Die. Even after the entry of the Americans the sector remained under French command. In fact, the four battalions of our troops which made up the first American contingent on the fighting-line were backed up by French reserves. No better training sector could have been selected, for this was a quiet front. American officers who acted as observers along this line for several days before the doughboys went in found that shelling was restricted and raids few. Many villages close behind the lines on either side were respected because of a tacit agreement between the contending armies. French and Germans sent war-weary troops to the Lunéville sector to rest up. It also served to break in new troops without subjecting them to an oversevere ordeal, so that they might learn the tricks of modern warfare gradually.

Of course, even quiet sectors may become suddenly active, and care was taken to screen the movements of the soldiers carefully. It proved impossible, however, to keep the move a complete mystery, for when camion after camion of tin-hatted Americans moved away from the training area the villagers could not fail to suspect that something was about to happen. Perhaps these suspicions grew stronger when each group of fighting men sang loudly and cheerfully that they were "going to hang the Kaiser to a sour apple-tree."

The weather was distinctly favorable for the movement of troops. One of the blackest nights of the month awaited the Americans at the front. Rain fell, but not hard enough to impede transportation. Still, such weather was something of a moral handicap. Many of the newcomers would have been glad to take a little shelling if they could have had a bit of a moon or a few stars to light their way to the trenches. Instead they groped their way along roads which were soft enough to deaden every sound. A wind moaned lightly overhead and the strict command of silence made it impossible to seek the proper antidote of song. One or two men struck up "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching," as they headed for the front, but they were quickly silenced.

The march began about nine o'clock, after the soldiers had eaten heartily in a little village close to the lines. At the very edge of this village stood a cheerful inn and a moving-picture theatre. The doughboys looked a little longingly at both houses of diversion before they swung round the bend and followed the black road which led to the trench-line. The people of the village did not seem to be much excited by the fact that history was being made before their eyes. They had seen so many troops go by up that road that they could achieve no more than a friendly interest. They did not crowd close about the marchers as the people had done in Paris.

Seemingly the Germans had not been able to ascertain the time set for the coming of the Americans. The roads were not shelled at all. In fact, the German batteries were even more indolent than usual at this point. The relief was effected without incident, although a few stories drifted back about enthusiastic poilus who had greeted their new comrades with kisses.

The artillery beat the infantry into action. They had to have a start in order to get their guns into place, and some fifteen hours before the doughboys went into the trenches America had fired the first shot of the war against Germany. Alexander Arch, a sergeant from South Bend, Indiana, was the man who pulled the lanyard. The shot was a shrapnel shell and was directed at a German working-party who were presuming on the immunity offered by a misty dawn. They scattered at the first shot, but it was impossible to tell whether it caused any casualties. When the working-party took cover there were no targets which demanded immediate attention, and the various members of the gun crew were allowed the privilege of firing the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth shots of the war. After that, shooting at the Germans ceased to become a historical occasion, but was a mere incident in the routine of duty, and was treated as such.

The only unusual incident which seriously threatened the peace of mind of the infantrymen in their first night in the trenches was the flash of a green rocket which occurred some fifteen or twenty minutes after they arrived. They had been taught that a green rocket would be the alarm for a gas attack, but this particular signal came from the German trenches and had no message for the Americans. The Germans may have suspected the presence of new troops, for the men were just a bit jumpy, as all newcomers to the trenches are, and a few took pot-shots at objects out in No Man's Land which proved to be only stakes in the barbed wire or tufts of waving grass.

Although the Germans made the first successful raid, the Americans took the first prisoner. He was captured only a few nights after the coming of the doughboys. A patrol picked him up close to the American wire. He was a mail-carrier, and in cutting across lots to reach some of his comrades he lost his way and wandered over to the American lines. Although he was surprised, he was not willing to surrender, but made an attempt to escape after he had been ordered to halt. One of the doughboys fired at him as he ran and he was carried into the American trenches badly wounded. He died the next day.

Beginning on the night of November 2 and extending over into the early morning of November 3, the Germans made a successful raid against the American lines immediately after a relief. After a severe preliminary bombardment a large party of raiders came across. The bombardment had cut the telephone wires of the little group of Americans which met the attack and they were completely isolated. They fought bravely but greenly. Three Americans were killed, five were wounded, and twelve were captured. The Germans retired quickly with their prisoners.

American morale was not injured by this first jab of the Germans. On the other hand, it made the doughboys mad, and, better than that, made them careful. A German attempt to repeat the raid a few nights later was repulsed. The three men who were killed in this first clash were buried close to the lines, while minute-guns fired shells over the graveyard toward the Germans. General Bordeaux, who commanded the French division at this point, saluted before each of the three graves, and then turned to the officers and men drawn up before him and said:

"In the name of the division, in the name of the French Army, and in the name of France, I bid farewell to Private Enright, Private Gresham, and Private Hay of the American Army.

"Of their own free will they had left a prosperous and happy country to come over here. They knew war was continuing in Europe; they knew that the forces fighting for honor, love of justice and civilization were still checked by the long-prepared forces serving the powers of brutal domination, oppression, and barbarity. They knew that efforts were still necessary. They wished to give us their generous hearts, and they have not forgotten old historical memories while others forget more recent ones. They ignored nothing of the circumstances and nothing had been concealed from them – neither the length and hardships of war, nor the violence of battle, nor the dreadfulness of new weapons, nor the perfidy of the foe.

"Nothing stopped them. They accepted the hard and strenuous life; they crossed the ocean at great peril; they took their places on the front by our side, and they have fallen facing the foe in a hard and desperate hand-to-hand fight. Honor to them. Their families, friends, and fellow citizens will be proud when they learn of their deaths.

"Men! These graves, the first to be dug in our national soil and but a short distance from the enemy, are as a mark of the mighty land we and our allies firmly cling to in the common task, confirming the will of the people and the army of the United States to fight with us to a finish, ready to sacrifice so long as is necessary until victory for the most noble of causes, that of the liberty of nations, the weak as well as the mighty. Thus the deaths of these humble soldiers appear to us with extraordinary grandeur.

"We will, therefore, ask that the mortal remains of these young men be left here, be left with us forever. We inscribe on the tombs: 'Here lie the first soldiers of the Republic of the United States to fall on the soil of France for liberty and justice.' The passer-by will stop and uncover his head. Travellers and men of heart will go out of their way to come here to pay their respective tributes.

"Private Enright! Private Gresham! Private Hay! In the name of France I thank you. God receive your souls. Farewell!"

After the Germans had identified Americans on the Lunéville front it was supposed that they might maintain an aggressive policy and make the front an active one. The Germans were too crafty for that. They realized that the Americans were in the line for training, and so they gave them few opportunities to learn anything in the school of experience. In spite of the lack of co-operation by the Germans, the doughboys gained valuable knowledge during their stay in the trenches. There were several spirited patrol encounters and much sniping. American aviators got a taste of warfare by going on some of the bombing expeditions of the French. They went as passengers, but one American at least was able to pay for his passage by crawling out from his seat and releasing a bomb which had become jammed. When every battalion had been in the trenches the American division was withdrawn, and for a short time in the winter of 1917 there was no American infantry at the front.

Curiously enough, the honor of participation in a major engagement hopped over the infantry and came first to the engineers. It came quite by accident. The 11th Engineers had been detailed for work behind the British front. Early on the morning of November 30 four officers and 280 men went to Gouzeaucourt, a village fully three miles back of the line. But this was the particular day the Germans had chosen for a surprise attack. The engineers had hardly begun work before the Germans laid a barrage upon the village, and almost before the Americans realized what was happening German infantry entered the outskirts of the place while low-flying German planes peppered our men with machine-gun fire. The engineers were unarmed, but they picked up what weapons they could find and used shovels and fists as well as they retired before the German attack. According to the stories of the men, one soldier knocked two Germans down with a pickaxe before they could make a successful bayonet thrust. He was eventually wounded but did not fall into the hands of the enemy. Seventeen of the engineers were captured, but the rest managed to fight their way out or take shelter in shell-holes, where they lay until a slight advance by the British rescued them.

Having had a taste of fighting, the engineers were by no means disposed to have done with it. The entire regiment, including the survivors of Gouzeaucourt, were ordered first to dig trenches and then to occupy them. This time they were armed with rifles as well as intrenching-tools. They held the line until reinforcements arrived.

The conduct of the engineers was made the subject of a communication from Field-Marshal Haig to General Pershing. "I desire to express to you my thanks and those of the British engaged for the prompt and valuable assistance rendered," wrote the British commander, "and I trust that you will be good enough to convey to these gallant men how much we all appreciate their prompt and soldierly readiness to assist in what was for a time a difficult situation."

CHAPTER XVII

OUR OWN SECTOR

THE Lunéville sector was merely a sort of postgraduate school of warfare, but shortly after the beginning of 1918 the American Army took over a part of the line for its very own. This sector was gradually enlarged. By the middle of April the Americans were holding more than twenty miles. The sector lay due north of Toul and extended very roughly from Saint-Mihiel to Pont-à-Mousson. Later other sections of front were given over to the Americans at various points on the Allied line. Perhaps there was not quite the same thrill in the march to the Toul sector as in the earlier movement to the trenches of the Lunéville line. After all, even the limited service which the men had received gave them something of the spirit of veterans. Then, too, the movement was less of an adventure. Motor-trucks were few and most of the men marched all the way over roads that were icy. The troops stood up splendidly under the marching test and under the rigorous conditions of housing which were necessary on the march. They had learned to take the weather of France in the same easy, inconsequential way they took the language.

For a second time the German spy system fell a good deal short of its reputed omniscience. Seemingly, the enemy was not forewarned of the coming of the Americans. Despite the fact that the troops were tired from their long march, the relief was carried out without a hitch. Toul had been regarded as a comparatively quiet sector, and, while it never did blaze up into major actions during the early months of 1918, it was hardly a rest-camp. It was, as the phrase goes, "locally active." Few parts of the front were enlivened with as many raids and minor thrusts, and No Man's Land was the scene of constant patrol encounters, which lost nothing in spirit, even if they bulked small in size and importance.

It is probable that the Germans had no ambitious offensive plans in regard to the Toul sector. They tried, however, to keep the Americans at that point so busy and so harassed that it would be impossible for Pershing to send men to help stem the drives against the French and the English. The failure of this plan will be shown in the later chapters.

Before going on to take up in some detail the life of the men in the Toul sector, it is necessary to record a casualty suffered by Major-General Leonard Wood. While inspecting the French lines General Wood was wounded in the arm when a French gun exploded. Five French soldiers were killed and Lieutenant-Colonel Charles E. Kilbourne and Major Kenyon A. Joyce, who accompanied General Wood, were slightly wounded. Wood returned to America shortly after the accident, and did not have the privilege of coming back to France with the division he had trained. But for all that he had a unique distinction. Leonard Wood was the first American major-general to earn the right to a wounded stripe.

The German artillery was active along the Toul front and the percentage of losses, while small, was higher than it had been in the Lunéville trenches. Of course, the American artillery was not inactive. It had a deal of practice during the early days of February. The Germans attempted to ambush a patrol on the 19th and failed, and on the next night a sizable raid broke down under a barrage which was promptly furnished by the American batteries in response to signals from the trench which the Germans were attempting to isolate.

The first job for America did not come on the Toul sector, but near the Chemin-des-Dames. American artillery had already shown proficiency in this sector by laying down a barrage for the French, who took a small height near Tahure. Hilaire Belloc referred to this action as "small in extent but of high historical importance." The importance consisted in the fact that for the first time American artillerymen had an opportunity of rolling a barrage ahead of an attacking force. They showed their ability to solve the rather difficult timing problems involved. Certain historical importance, then, must be given to the action of February 23, when an American raiding-party in conjunction with the French penetrated a few hundred yards into the German lines and captured two German officers, twenty men, and a machine-gun. This little action should not be forgotten, because it was practically the first success of the Americans. It gave some indication of the efficient help which Pershing's men were to give later on in Foch's great counter-attack which drove the Germans across the Marne.

It is interesting to know that every man in the American battalion stationed on the Chemin-des-Dames volunteered for the raid. Of this number only twenty-six were picked. There were approximately three times as many French in the party, and it must be remembered that the affair was strictly a French "show." The raid was carefully planned and rehearsals were held back of the line, over country similar to that which the Americans would cross in the raid. At 5.30 in the morning the barrage began and it continued for an hour with guns of many calibres having their say. The attack was timed almost identically with the relief in the German trenches and the Boches were caught unawares. The fact that a shell made a direct hit on a big dugout did not tend to improve German morale. The little party of Americans had already cut 2,999 miles and some yards from the distance which separated their country from the war, and they were anxious to cover the remaining distance. Their French companions set them the example of not running into their own barrage. Poilus and doughboys jumped into the enemy trench together. There was a little sharp hand-to-hand fighting, but not a great deal, as the German officers ordered their men to give ground. The group of prisoners were captured almost in a body. Further researches along communicating trenches and into dugouts failed to yield any more.

Attackers and prisoners started back for their own lines on schedule time. The German artillery tried to cut them off. One shell wounded five of the Germans and six Frenchmen, but the American contingent was fortunate enough to escape without a single casualty. The French expressed themselves as well pleased with the conduct of their pupils. They said that the Americans had approached the barrage too closely once or twice, but this was not remarkable, as it was the first time American infantry had advanced behind a screen of shell fire. Their inexperience also excused their tendency to go a little too far after the German trench-line had been reached.