OVERSEAS
"Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the gates of Hercules,
Before him not the ghosts of shores
Before him only shoreless seas."
JOAQUIN MILLER.
My brother and I sailed from New York for Bordeaux on June 18, 1917. One
little incident of the voyage always stands out in my mind. As we were
leaving the harbor, the decks crowded with passengers, everyone keyed up
to a high state of excitement, our flag was lowered for some reason.
While being lowered it blew from the halyards and fell into the water,
and as it fell one could hear everyone who saw it catch his breath, like
a great sob.
The passenger list was polyglot. French returning from missions to the
United States, Red Cross workers, doctors, ambulance drivers, and a few
casual officers. We spent our time trying to improve our French to such
an extent that we could understand or be understood when speaking it
with others than Americans. Our teacher was Felix, a chauffeur. He had
already served in the artillery in the French army, finally finishing
the war as a captain in the same branch of the service in the United
States army.
We touched the shore of France toward the end of June and, passing a few
outgoing ships and a couple of torpedoed vessels, steamed slowly up the
broad, tranquil estuary of the Garonne. In the town of Bordeaux all the
inhabitants were greatly excited about _Les Americaines_. We were the
first they had seen since the news had reached France that we were
sending troops, and as we drove through the multi-colored market the old
crones would get up and cackle their approval.
To the average Frenchman who had always been accustomed to a sound
scheme of preparedness and trained men who could go to the colors for
immediate service, we were taken to be simply the first contingent of an
enormous army which would follow without interruption. The poor people
were bitterly disappointed when they found that the handful of untrained
men alluded to by our papers in this country as "the splendid little
regular army" represented all that we had available in the United
States, and that ten months would pass before a really appreciable
number of troops would arrive.
From Bordeaux we went by train to Paris. In the train the same interest
in and excitement over us continued. The compartment was full of French
soldiers, who asked us all about our plans, the number of our troops and
when they would arrive. Outside it was a beautiful day, and the green,
well-cultivated fields and picturesque, quiet villages made it hard to
realize we were really in France, where the greatest war in history was
being fought.
On reaching Paris we reported to General Pershing. He asked us what duty
we wished. We both replied, service with troops. He assigned my brother
at once to the Sixteenth Infantry, and ordered me to go with the advance
billeting detail to the Gondecourt area, where our troops were to train.
Meanwhile the convoyed ships containing the troops had arrived at St.
Nazaire. On the way over officers and men had tried to do what they
could to prepare themselves. One of the officers told me he spent his
time learning the rules of land warfare for civilized nations as agreed
on by the Hague tribunal. Like the dodo, the mammoth, and international
law, these rules had long since become extinct.
From St. Nazaire a battalion of the Sixteenth Infantry went to Paris and
paraded on the Fourth of July. The population went crazy over them.
Cheering crowds lined the streets, flowers were thrown at them, and I
think the men felt that France and war were not so bad after all. As a
side light on our efficiency in this parade the troops were marched in
column of squads because the men were so green that the officers were
afraid to adopt any formation where it was necessary to keep a longer
line properly dressed.
Meanwhile three officers and I had left Paris and gone to Gondecourt.
The officers were General (then Colonel) McAlexander, who since made a
splendid record for himself when the Third Division turned the German
offensive of July 15, 1918, east of Chateau Thierry; General (then
Major) Leslie McNair, afterward head of the artillery department of the
training section; and Colonel Porter, of the medical corps. We knew
nothing about billeting. The sum total of my knowledge was a hazy idea
that it meant putting the men in spare beds in a town and that it was
prohibited by the Constitution of the United States.
Toward evening we arrived at the little French village of Gondecourt.
The streets were decorated with flowers, and groups of little French
children ran to and fro shouting _Vive les Americaines_! We were met by
French officers and taken to the inn, a charming little brownstone
building, where French officers, soldiers and civilians mingled without
distinction. There the mayor of the town and the town major, who is
appointed in all zones of the army as the representative of the
military, came to call on us, and we started to get down to business. A
most difficult thing for our men to realize was the various formalities
through which one must go in working with the French. Many times real
trouble was caused because the Americans did not understand what a part
in French life _politesse_ plays. No conversation on military matters is
carried on by the French in the way we would. You do not go straight to
the point. Each participant first expresses himself on the virtues and
great deeds of the other, and after this the sordid matter of business
in hand is taken up. We were poorly equipped for this. Only McNair and I
spoke French at all, and ours was weird and awful to a degree. We had
both been taught by Americans after the best approved United States
method.
The French town major with whom we dwelt was an old fellow, a veteran
of the war of 1870. He had an enormous white mustache. He "snorted like
a buffalo," and the one word that I always understood was
_parfaitement_, which he constantly used.
[Illustration: BRIGADIER GENERAL FRANK A. PARKER, LIEUTENANT COLONEL
THEODORE ROOSEVELT, AND MRS. ROOSEVELT AT ROMAGNE]
Right by this area was the birthplace of Jeanne d'Arc. The humble little
village, Domremy, is just like any of those in the surrounding country.
The house where she is supposed to have lived is rather smaller than its
neighbors. In many ways Jeanne d'Arc and this little village symbolize
France to me. France is France not on account of those who scintillate
in Paris, but on account of the humbler people, those whom the tourist
never sees, or if he does, forgets. France has no genius for politics.
Her Chamber of Deputies is composed of men who amount to little and who
do not share the national ideals and visions, but in the body of the
people you find that flaming and pure patriotism which counts no costs
when the fight is for France. The national impulse will exist as long as
there is a peasant left alive.
The training area was composed of a number of towns with from 150 to 500
civilian population. We ran from village to village in automobiles,
surprised and appalled by the number of men that the French military
were able to put in each.
These small French villages in the north of France resemble nothing that
we have in our country. They are charming and picturesque, but various
features are lacking which to the well-ordered American mind causes
pain. To begin with, there is no system of plumbing. The village gets
all its water supply from the public fountains. This naturally makes a
bath an almost unknown luxury. Many times I have been asked by the
French peasants why I wanted a bath, and should it be winter, was I not
afraid I would be taken sick if I took one. Around these public
fountains the village life centers. There the chattering groups of women
and girls are always congregating. There the gossip of the countryside
originates and runs its course. There is rarely electric light in the
small towns, and enormous manure piles are in front of each house and
in the street. The houses themselves are a combination affair, barn and
house under the same roof. The other features that are always present
are the church and cafe. Even in the smallest town there are generally
charming chapels. The cafes are where the opinions of the French nation
are formed.
The peasants who live in these villages have an immemorial custom behind
them in most of their actions. They have the careful attitude of an old
people, very difficult for our young and wasteful nation to understand.
Each stray bit of wood, each old piece of iron, is saved and laid aside
for future use. No great wasteful fires roar on the hearth, but rather a
few fagots, carefully measured to do just what is intended for them.
The families have lived in the same spot for generations. Their roots
are very firmly in the ground. Individually they are a curious
combination of simplicity and shrewdness. One old woman with whom my
brother Archie was billeted in the town of Boviolles became quite a
friend of ours. We talked together in the evening, sitting by the great
fireplace, in which a little bit of a fire would be burning. She had
never in her life been farther than six or eight miles from the village
of Boviolles. To her Paris was as unreal as Colchis or Babylon to us.
She, in common with her country folk, looked forward to the arrival of
the American army, much in the way we would look forward to the arrival
of the Hottentots. In fact, when she heard we were coming to the
village, she at first decided to run away. To her the United States was
a wilderness inhabited by Indians and cowboys. We told her about New
York City and Chicago. We told her that New York was larger than Paris
and that neither of us had ever shot a bear there and no Indians
tomahawked people on the street. We explained to her that if you took
all the houses in the village and placed them one on top of another they
would not stand as high as some of our buildings. As a result, she felt
toward us much as the contemporaries of Marco Polo felt toward him--we
were amiable story-tellers and that was all.
Once I introduced a French officer to Colonel William J. Donovan, of the
165th Infantry. In the course of my introduction I mentioned the fact
that Colonel Donovan came from Buffalo. After Donovan had gone, the
Frenchman remarked to me, "Buffalo is very wild, is it not?" I answered
him guardedly, "Not very." He explained, "But it is the place where you
hunt that great animal, is it not?"
Something that struck me forcibly was the total lack of roving desire
among the peasants. Where they had been born, there they desired to live
and die. This you would see in the _poilu_ in the trenches, whose idea
always was to return home again to the house where he was born.
There is also a very real democracy in the French army. This should be
borne in mind by all those who go about talking of the military
aristocracy which would be built up by universal service in this
country. In France I have seen sons of the most prominent families, the
descendants of the old _haute noblesse_, as privates or noncommissioned
officers. I also have seen in the little French villages a high officer
of the French army returning to his family for his leave, that family
being the humblest of peasants, living in a cottage of two rooms. I have
dined with a general, been introduced by him to the remainder of his
family, and found them privates and noncommissioned officers.
The French sent to the Gondecourt area a division of the "Chasseurs
Alpins" to help train us. The chasseurs are a separate unit from the
French infantry and have their own particular customs. To begin with,
their military organization is slightly different, in that they do not
have regiments and the battalion forms the unit. Their uniforms are dark
blue with silver buttons, and they do not wear the ordinary French cap,
but have a dark-blue cloth _beret_, or tam-o'-shanter, with an Alpine
horn embroidered in silver as insignia. The corps is an old one and has
many traditions. Their pride is to consider themselves as quite apart
from the infantry; indeed, they feel highly insulted if you confuse the
two, although, to all intents and purposes, their work is identical.
They have songs of their own, some of them very uncomplimentary to the
infantry, and highly seasoned, according to our American ideas. They
have a custom when marching on parade of keeping a step about double the
time of the ordinary slow step. Their bugle corps, which they have
instead of our regimental brass bands, are very snappy and effective,
and the men have a trick of waving their bugles in unison before they
strike a note, which is very effective. They have no drums. These
quaint, squat, jovial, dark-haired fellows were billeted in the villages
all around our area.
The billeting party, after working very hard and accomplishing very
little, divided the area up as the French suggested. In advance of the
remainder of our troops the battalion of the Sixteenth Infantry, which
paraded in Paris on the Fourth of July, arrived. We were all down at the
train to meet them, as was a battalion of the Chasseurs Alpins. They
came in the ordinary day coaches used in France. I remember hearing an
officer say that these were hard on the men. It was the last time that I
ever saw our troops travel in anything but box cars, and this
arrangement was made, I think, as a special compliment by the French
Government.
A couple of days afterward came the Fourteenth of July. The French had a
parade, and our troops took part in it. The French troops came first
past the reviewing officers, who were both French and American. The
infantry of each battalion passed first, bayonets glittering, lines
smartly dressed; following them in turn the machine-gun companies, or
"jackass batteries," as they were called by our men, the mules finely
currycombed and the harness shining. Their bands, with the brass
trumpets, played snappily. Altogether they gave an appearance of
confident efficiency. Then came our troops--in column of squads. What
held good in Paris still held good--our splendidly trained little army
did not dare trust itself to take up platoon front.