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WITH THE DOUGHBOY IN FRANCE
* * * * *
[Illustration]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
* * * * *
[Illustration: SUPPER HOUR AT BORDEAUX
No matter what hour; always the gobs and buddies--other armies as well
as our own--ready with 100 per cent appetites]
WITH THE DOUGHBOY IN FRANCE
A Few Chapters of an American Effort
by
EDWARD HUNGERFORD
Author of The Modern Railroad, The Personality
of American Cities, etc., etc.
New York
The Macmillan Company
1920
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1920,
By the Macmillan Company
Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1920.
TO THE
CROIX ROUGE AMÉRICAINE
The girl in the steel-gray uniform with the crimson crosses,
who toiled and endured and danced and laughed
and lived, that the heart and soul of the
boy in khaki might remain untroubled,
this book is affectionately
inscribed
PREFACE
Six months ago I finished writing the chapters of this book. At that
time the American Red Cross still had a considerable force in
Paris--throughout France for that matter. It was still functioning and,
after its fashion, functioning extremely well. In the language of the
French it "marched." To-day its marching days in the land of the lilies
are nearly over. The personnel have nearly all returned home; the few
that remain are clearing and packing the records. In a short time the
_Croix Rouge Américaine_ which for months was so evident in the streets
of the French capital will be but a memory along the Boulevards. But a
memory of accomplishment not soon to be forgotten. If there is one
undying virtue of the Frenchman it is that of memory. Seemingly he
cannot forget. And for years the remembrance of our Red Cross in his
land is going to be a pleasant thought indeed. Of that I am more than
sure.
To attempt to write a history, that should be at all adequate as
complete history, of a great effort which was still in progress, as the
writing went forward, would have been a lamentable task indeed. So this
book makes no pose as history; it simply aims to be a picture, or a
series of pictures of America in a big job, the pictures made from the
standpoint of a witnesser of her largest humanitarian effort--the work
of the American Red Cross.
I should feel embarrassed, moreover, at signing my name to this book
were any reader of it to believe that it was in any large sense
whatsoever a "one man" production. The size of the field to be covered,
the brief space of time allotted in which to make some sort of a
comprehensive picture of a really huge endeavor, made it necessary for
the author to call for help in all directions. The answers to that call
were immediate and generous. It hardly would be possible within a single
chapter of this volume to make a complete list of the men and women who
helped in its preparation. But the author does desire to state his
profound sense of indebtedness to Mrs. Caroline Singer Mondell, Mrs.
Kathleen Hills, Miss E. Buckner Kirk, Major Daniel T. Pierce, Captain
George Buchanan Fife and Lieutenant William D. Hines. These have borne
with him patiently and have been of much real assistance. His
appreciation is great.
This picture of an American effort tells its own story. I have no
intention at this time or place to attempt to elaborate it; but merely
wish in passing to record my personal and sincere opinion that, in the
workings of our Red Cross overseas, there seemed to me to be such an
outpouring of affection, of patriotism, of a sincere desire to serve as
I have never before seen. It was indeed a triumph for our teachings and
our ideals.
E. H.
New York--January, 1920.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
AMERICA AWAKENS 1
CHAPTER II
OUR RED CROSS GOES TO WAR 6
CHAPTER III
ORGANIZING FOR WORK 13
CHAPTER IV
THE PROBLEM OF TRANSPORT 39
CHAPTER V
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS AS A DEPARTMENT STORE 80
CHAPTER VI
THE DOUGHBOY MOVES TOWARD THE FRONT 100
CHAPTER VII
THE RED CROSS ON THE FIELD OF HONOR 128
CHAPTER VIII
OUR RED CROSS PERFORMS ITS SUPREME MISSION 182
CHAPTER IX
THE RED CROSS IN THE HOSPITALS OF THE A. E. F. 208
CHAPTER X
"PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES IN YOUR OLD KIT BAG" 238
CHAPTER XI
WHEN JOHNNY CAME MARCHING HOME 259
CHAPTER XII
THE GIRL WHO WENT TO WAR 278
ILLUSTRATIONS
SUPPER HOUR AT BORDEAUX _Frontispiece_
No matter what hour; always the gobs and buddies--other
armies as well as our own--ready with 100 per
cent appetites.
FACING PAGE
SO THIS IS PARIS 20
A. E. F. Boys, guests of our A. R. C. in its great
hospital at St. Cloud, look down about the "Queen
City of the World."
CHOW 62
The rolling kitchens, builded on trailers to motor
trucks, brought hot drinks and food right up to the men
in action.
OUR RED CROSS AT THE FRONT 100
A typical A. R. C. dugout just behind the lines.
AS SEEN FROM ALOFT 140
The aëroplane man gets the most definite impression at
the A. R. C. Hospital at Issordun, which was typical
at these field institutions.
TICKLING THE OLD IVORIES 180
Many an ancient piano did herculean service in the
A. R. C. recreation huts throughout France.
BANDAGES BY THE TENS OF THOUSANDS 220
An atelier workshop of the A. R. C. in the Rue St.
Didier, Paris, daily turned out surgical dressings by
the mile.
NEVER SAY DIE 262
Sorely wounded, our boys at the great A. R. C. field
hospital in the Auteuil race track outside of Paris,
kept an active interest in games and sports.
WITH THE DOUGHBOY IN FRANCE
CHAPTER I
AMERICA AWAKENS
In that supreme hour when the United States consecrated herself to a
world ideal and girded herself for the struggle, to the death, if
necessary, in defense of that ideal, the American Red Cross was ready.
Long before that historic evening of the sixth of April, 1917, when
Congress made its grim determination to enter the cause "for the
democracy of the world," the Red Cross in the United States had felt the
prescience of oncoming war. For nearly three years it had heard of, nay
even seen, the unspeakable horrors of the war into which it was so soon
to be thrust. It had witnessed the cruelties of the most modern and
scientific of conflicts; a war in which science seemingly had but
multiplied the horrors of all the wars that had gone before. Science and
_kultur_ between them had done this very thing. In the weary months of
the conflict that began with August, 1914, the American Red Cross had
taken far more than a merely passive interest in the Great War overseas.
It had watched its sister organizations from the allied countries,
already involved in the conflict, struggle in Belgium and France and
Russia against terrific odds; it had bade each of these "Godspeed," and
uttered many silent prayers for their success. The spirit of Florence
Nightingale and Clara Barton still lived--and still enthused.
It would have been odd--almost inconceivable, in fact--if anything else
had been true. It would have been unpardonable if the American Red Cross
had not, long before our entrance into the conflict, scented that
forthcoming step, and, having thus anticipated history, had failed to
make the most of the situation. We Americans pride ourselves as a nation
upon our foresightedness, and an institution so distinctly American as
the American Red Cross could hardly fail to have such a virtue imbedded
in the backbone of its character.
Ofttimes, as a boy, have I read of the warriors of long ago, and how,
when they prepared for battle, it was their women--their wives and their
mothers, if you please,--who girded them for the conflict; who breathed
the prayers for their success, and who, whether or not they succeeded in
attaining that success, bound up their wounds and gave them comfort upon
their return. Such is the spirit of the Red Cross. The American artist
who created that most superb of all posters, _The Greatest Mother in the
World_, and who placed in the arms of that majestic and calm-faced woman
the miniature figure of a soldier resting upon a stretcher, sensed that
spirit. The American Red Cross is indeed the greatest mother in the
world, and what mother--what American mother in particular--could have
failed in the early spring of 1917 to anticipate the inevitable?
Certainly none of the mothers of the hundred thousand or more boys who
anticipated our own formal entrance into the Great War, by offering
themselves--bodies and hearts and souls--to the armies of Britain,
France, and Canada.
Other pens more skilled than mine have told, and will continue to tell,
of the organization of the Red Cross at home to meet the certainties and
the necessities of the oncoming war. For if America had not heretofore
realized the magnitude of the task that was to confront her and had even
permitted herself to become dulled to the horrors of the conflict
overseas, the historic evening of the sixth of April, 1917, awakened
her. It galvanized her from a passive repugnance at the scenes of the
tragic drama being enacted upon the great stage of Europe into a bitter
determination that, having been forced into the conflict, no matter for
what reason, she would see it through to victory; and no matter what the
cost. Yet cost in this sense was never to be interpreted into
recklessness. Her boys were among her most precious possessions, and, if
she were to give them without stint and without reserve--all for the
glory of her supreme ideal--she would at least surround them with every
possible requisite for their health, their comfort, and their strength.
This was, and is, and will remain, the fundamental American policy.
With such a policy, where should America turn save to her Red Cross? And
who more fit to stand as its spiritual and actual head than her
President himself? So was it done. And when President Wilson found that
the grave responsibilities of his other great war tasks would prevent
him from giving the American Red Cross the detailed attention which it
needed, he quickly appointed a War Council. This War Council was hard at
work in a little over a month after the signing of the declaration of
war. It established itself in the headquarters building of the Red Cross
in the city of Washington and quickly began preparations for the great
task just ahead.
* * * * *
For the fiber of this War Council the President scanned closely the
professional and business ranks of American men. He reached out here and
there and chose--here and there. And, in a similar way, the War Council
chose its own immediate staff. A man from a New York city banking house
would find his office or his desk--it was not every executive that could
have an office to himself in those days--adjoining that of a ranch owner
from Montana or Wyoming. The lawyer closed his brief case and the doctor
placed his practice in other hands. The manufacturer bade his plant
"good-by" and the big mining expert ceased for the moment to think of
lodes and strata. A common cause--a common necessity--was binding them
together.
War!
War was the cause and war the necessity. A real war it was, too--a real
war of infinite possibilities and of very real dangers; war, the thing
of alarms and of huge responsibilities, and for that war we must
prepare.
It was said that America was unready, and so it was--in a way. It was
unprepared in material things--aëroplanes and guns and ships and
well-trained men. But its resources in both money and in men who had
potential possibilities of becoming the finest soldiers the world had
ever seen, were vast, almost limitless. And it was prepared in idealism,
and had assuredly a certain measure of ability. It was prepared too to
use such ability as it had in turning its resources--money and untrained
men--into a fighting army of material things; material things and
idealism. One thing or the other helped win the conflict.
* * * * *
"They said that we could not raise an army; that if we did raise it, we
could not transport it overseas; and that if we did transport it
overseas, it could not fight--and in one day it wiped out the St. Mihiel
salient."
These words tell the entire story--almost. Not that it becomes us
Americans to talk too much about our forces having won the war. For one
thing, it is not true. The British and the French armies also won the
war, and if both had not hung on so tenaciously ours would not even be a
fair share of the victory. But for them there would have been no
victory, not on our side of the Rhine, at any rate, and men in Berlin,
instead of in Paris, would have been dictating peace terms.
It is true, however, that without our army, and certainly without our
moral prestige and our resources, the fight for democracy might have
been lost at this time, and for many years hereafter. Count that for
organization--for real American achievement, if you please. We builded
a machine, a huge machine, a machine not without defects and some of
them rather glaring defects as you _come_ close to them, but it was a
machine that functioned, and, upon the whole, functioned extremely well.
It took raw materials--men among them--and fashioned them into fighting
materials; fighting materials which flowed in one channel or another
toward the fighting front overseas. And with one of these channels--the
work of the American Red Cross with the Army of the United States in
France--this book has to do.