THE FRANCO-AMERICAN HONEYMOON
The day after the Americans marched in Paris one of the French
newspapers referred to the doughboys as "Roman Cæsars clad in khaki."
The city set itself to liking the soldiers and everything American and
succeeded admirably. Even the taxicab drivers refrained from
overcharging Americans very much. School children studied the history of
America and "The Star Spangled Banner." There were pictures of President
Wilson and General Pershing in many shops and some had framed
translations of the President's message to Congress. In fact, so eager
were the French to take America to their hearts that they even made
desperate efforts to acquire a working knowledge of baseball.
_Excelsior_, an illustrated French daily, carried an action picture
taken during a game played between American ambulance drivers just
outside of Paris. The picture was entitled: "A player goes to catch the
ball, which has been missed by the catcher," and underneath ran the
following explanation: "We have given in our number of yesterday the
rules of baseball, the American national game, of which a game, which is
perhaps the first ever played in France, took place yesterday at
Colombes between the soldiers of the American ambulances. Here is an
aspect of the game. The pitcher, or thrower of balls, whom one sees in
the distance, has sent the ball. The catcher, or 'attrapeur,' who should
restrike the ball with his wooden club, has missed it, and a player
placed behind him has seized it in its flight."
The next day _L'Intransigeant_ undertook the even more hazardous task of
explaining American baseball slang. During the parade on the Fourth of
July some Americans had greeted the doughboys with shouts of "ataboy." A
French journalist heard and was puzzled. He returned to his office and
looked in English dictionaries and various works of reference without
enlightenment. Several English friends were unable to help him and an
American who had lived in Paris for thirty years was equally at sea. But
the reporter worked it out all by himself and the next day he wrote:
"Parisians have been puzzled by the phrase 'ataboy' which Americans are
prone to employ in moments of stress or emotion. The phrase is
undoubtedly a contraction of 'at her boy' and may be closely
approximated by 'au travail, garçon.'" The writer followed with a brief
history of the friendly relations of France and America and paid a
glowing tribute to the memory of Lafayette.
The name for the American soldiers gave the French press and public no
end of trouble. They began enthusiastically enough by calling them the
"Teddies," but General Pershing, when interviewed one day, said that he
did not think this name quite fitting as it had "no national
significance." The French then followed the suggestion of one of the
American correspondents and began to call the soldiers "Sammies," or as
the French pronounce it, "Sammees." Although this name received much
attention in French and American newspapers it has never caught the
fancy of the soldiers in the American Expeditionary Army. Officers and
men cordially despise it and no soldier ever refers to himself or a
comrade as a "Sammy." American officers have not been unmindful of the
usefulness of a name for our soldiers. Major General Sibert, who
commanded the first division when it arrived in France, posted a notice
at headquarters which read: "The English soldier is called Tommy. The
French soldier is called poilu. The Commanding General would like
suggestions for a name for the American soldier." At the end of the week
the following names had been written in answer to the General's request:
"Yank, Yankee, Johnnie, Johnny Yank, Broncho, Nephew, Gringo, Liberty
Boy, Doughboy."
Now Doughboy is a name which the soldiers use, but strictly speaking, it
refers only to an infantryman. The origin of the name is shrouded in
mystery. One officer, probably an infantryman, has written, that the
infantrymen are called doughboys because they are the flower of the
army. Another story has it that during some maneuvers in Texas an
artilleryman, comfortably perched on a gun, saw a soldier hiking by in
the thick sticky Texas mud. The mud was up to the shoetops of the
infantryman and the upper part which had dried looked almost white.
"Say," shouted the artilleryman, "what've you been doing? Walking in
dough?" And so the men who march have been doughboys ever since.
Paris did not let the lack of a name come between her and the soldiers.
The theaters gave the Americans almost as much recognition as the press.
No musical show was complete without an American finale and each
soubrette learned a little English, "I give you kees," or something like
that, to please the doughboys. The vaudeville shows, such as those
provided at the Olympia or the Alhambra, gave an even greater proportion
of English speech. The Alhambra was filled with Tommies and doughboys on
the night I went. Now and again the comedians had lapses of language and
the Americans were forced to let jokes go zipping by without response.
It was a pity, too, for they were good jokes even if French. Presently,
however, a fat comedian fell off a ladder and laughter became general
and international. The show was more richly endowed with actresses than
actors. The management was careful to state that all the male performers
had fulfilled their military obligations. Thus, under the picture of
Maurice Chevalier, a clever comedian and dancer, one read that Mons.
Chevalier was wounded at the battle of Cutry, when a bullet passed
between his lungs. The story added that he was captured by the Germans
and held prisoner for twenty-six months before he escaped. It did not
seem surprising therefore that Chevalier should be the gayest of funny
men. Twenty-six months of imprisonment would work wonders with ever so
many comedians back home.
And yet we Americans missed the old patter until there came a breath
from across the sea. A low comedian came out and said to his partner in
perfectly good English: "Well, didja like the show?" His partner said he
didn't like the show. "Well, didja notice the trained seals?" persisted
the low comedian and the lower comedian answered: "No, the wind was
against 'em." Laughter long delayed overcame us then, but it was mingled
with tears. We felt that we were home again. The French are a wonderful
people and all that, of course, but they're so darn far away.
Later there was a man who imitated Eddie Foy imperfectly and a bad
bicycle act in which the performers called the orchestra leader
"Professor" and shouted "Ready" to each other just before missing each
trick. This bucked the Americans up so much that a lapse into French
with Suzanne Valroger "dans son repertoire" failed to annoy anybody very
much. The doughboys didn't care whether she came back with her
repertoire or on it. Some Japanese acrobats and a Swedish contortionist
completed the performance. There are two such international music halls
in Paris as well as a musical comedy of a sort called "The Good Luck
Girl." The feature of this performance is an act in which a young lady
swings over the audience and invites the soldiers to capture the shoe
dangling from her right foot. The shoe is supposed to be very lucky and
soldiers try hard to get it, standing up in their seats and snatching as
the girl swings by. An American sergeant was the winner the night I went
to the show, for he climbed upon a comrade's shoulder and had the
slipper off before the girl had time to swing out very far. Later, when
he went to the trenches, the sergeant took the shoe with him and he says
that up to date he has no reason to doubt the value of the charm.
The most elaborate spectacle inspired by the coming of the Americans was
at the Folies Bergères which sent its chorus out for the final number
all spangled with stars. The leader of the chorus was an enormous woman,
at least six feet tall, who carried an immense American flag. She almost
took the head off a Canadian one night as he dozed in a stage box and
failed to notice the violent manner in which the big flag was being
swung. He awoke just in time to dodge and then he shook an accusing
finger at the Amazon. "Why aren't you in khaki?" he said.
Restaurants as well as theaters were liberally sprinkled with men in the
American uniform. The enlisted men ate for the most part in French
barracks and seemed to fare well enough, although one doughboy, after
being served with spinach as a separate course, complained: "I do wish
they'd get all the stuff on the table at once like we do in the army. I
don't want to be surprised, I want to be fed." A young first lieutenant
was scornful of French claims to master cookery. "Why, they don't know
how to fry eggs," he said. "I've asked for fried eggs again and again
and do you know what they do? They put 'em in a little dish and bake
'em."
Yet, barring this curious and barbarous custom in the cooking of eggs,
the French chefs were able to charm the palates of Americans even in a
year which bristled with food restrictions. There were two meatless days
a week, sugar was issued in rations of a pound a month per person and
bread was gray and gritty. The French were always able to get around
these handicaps. The food director, for instance, called the ice cream
makers together and ordered them to cease making their product in order
to save sugar.
"We have been using a substitute for sugar for seven months," replied
the merchants.
"Well, then," said the food director, "it will save eggs."
"We have hit upon a method which makes eggs unnecessary," replied the
ice cream makers.
"At any rate," persisted the food director, "my order will save
unnecessary consumption of milk."
"We use a substitute for that, too," the confectioners answered, and
they were allowed to go on with their trade.
The cooks are even more ingenious than the confectioners. As long as
they have the materials with which to compound sauces, meat makes little
difference. War bread might be terrapin itself after a French chef has
softened and sabled it with thick black dressing. Americans found that
the French took food much more seriously than we do in America. Patrons
always reviewed the _carte du jour_ carefully before making a selection.
It was not enough to get something which would do. The meal would fall
something short of success if the diner did not succeed in getting what
he wanted most. No waiter ever hurried a soldier who was engaged in the
task of composing a dinner. He might be a man who was going back to the
trenches the next day and in such a case this last good meal would not
be a matter to be entered upon lightly. After all, if it is a last
dinner a man wants to consider carefully, whether he shall order
_contrefilet à la Bourguignon_ or _poulet roti à l'Espagnol_.
Whatever may be his demeanor while engaged in the business of making war
or ordering a meal, the Frenchman makes his permission a real vacation.
He talks a good deal of shop. The man at the next table is telling of a
German air raid, only, naturally, he calls them Boches. A prison camp,
he explains, was brilliantly illuminated so that the Boche prisoners
might not escape under the cover of darkness. One night the enemy
aviators came over that way and mistook the prison camp for a railroad
station. They dropped a number of bombs and killed ten of their
comrades. Everybody at the soldier's table regarded this as a good joke,
more particularly as the narrator vivified the incident by rolling his
war bread into pellets and bombarding the table by way of illustration,
accompanied by loud cries of "Plop! Plop!"
Practically every man on permission in Paris is making love to someone
and usually in an open carriage or at the center table of a large
restaurant. Nobody even turns around to look if a soldier walks along a
street with his arm about a girl's waist. American officers, however,
frowned on such exhibitions of demonstrativeness by doughboys and in one
provincial town a colonel issued an order: "American soldiers will not
place their arms around the waists of young ladies while walking in any
of the principal thoroughfares of this town."
Still it was not possible to regulate romance entirely out of existence.
"There was a girl used to pass my car every morning," said a sergeant
chauffeur, "and she was so good looking that I got a man to teach me
_'bon jour,'_ and I used to smile at her and say that when she went by
and she'd say _'bon jour'_ and smile back. One morning I got an apple
and I handed it to her and said '_pour vous_' like I'd been taught. She
took it and came right back with, 'Oh, I'm ever so much obliged,' and
there like a chump I'd been holding myself down to '_bon jour_' for two
weeks."
There could be no question of the devotion of Paris to the American
army. Indeed, so rampant was affection that it was occasionally
embarrassing. One officer slipped in alighting from the elevator of his
hotel and sprained his ankle rather badly. He was hobbling down one of
the boulevards that afternoon with the aid of a cane when a large
automobile dashed up to the curb and an elderly French lady who was the
sole occupant beckoned to him and cried: "_Premier blessé_." The officer
hesitated and a man who was passing stepped up and said: "May I
interpret for you?" The officer said he would be much obliged. The
volunteer interpreter talked to the old lady for a moment and then he
turned and explained: "Madame is desirous of taking you in her car
wherever you want to go, because she says she is anxious to do something
for the first American soldier wounded on the soil of France."
The devotion of Paris was so obvious that it palled on one or two who
grew fickle. I saw a doughboy sitting in front of the Café de la Paix
one bright afternoon. He was drinking champagne of a sort and smoking a
large cigar. The sun shone on one of the liveliest streets of a still
gay Paris. It was a street made brave with bright uniforms. Brighter
eyes of obvious non-combatants gazed at him with admiration. I was
sitting at the next table and I leaned over and asked: "How do you like
Paris?"
He let the smoke roll lazily out of his mouth and shook his head. "I
wish I was back in El Paso," he said.
I found another soldier who was longing for Terre Haute. Him I came upon
in the lounging room of a music hall called the Olympia. Two palpably
pink ladies sat at the bar drinking cognac. From his table a few feet
away the American soldier looked at them with high disfavor. Surprise,
horror and indignation swept across his face in three waves as the one
called Julie began to puff a cigarette after giving a light to Margot.
He looked away at last when he could stand no more, and recognizing me
as a fellow countryman, he began his protest.
"I don't like this Paris," he said. "I'm in the medical corps," he
continued. "My home's in Terre Haute. In Indiana, you know. I worked in
a drug store there before I joined the army. I had charge of the biggest
soda fountain in town. We used to have as many as three men working
there in summer sometimes. Right at a good business corner, you know. I
suppose we had almost as many men customers as ladies."
"Why don't you like Paris?" I interrupted.
"Well, it's like this," he answered. "Nobody can say I'm narrow. I
believe in people having a good time, but----" and he leaned nearer
confidentially, "I don't like this Bohemia. I'd heard about it, of
course, but I didn't know it was so bad. You see that girl there, the
one in the blue dress smoking a cigarette, sitting right up to the bar.
Well, you may believe it or not, but when I first sat down she came
right over here and said, 'Hello, American. You nice boy. I nice girl.
You buy me a drink.' I never saw her before in my life, you understand,
and I didn't even look at her till she spoke to me. I told her to go
away or I'd call a policeman and have her arrested. I've been in Paris a
week now, but I don't think I'll ever get used to this Bohemia business.
It's too effusive, that's what I call it. I'd just like to see them try
to get away with some of that business in Terre Haute."
Some of the visiting soldiers took more kindly to Paris as witness the
plaint of a middle-aged Franco-American in the employ of the Y. M. C.
A.:
"I'm a guide for the Young Men's Christian Association here in Paris,"
he said, "but I'm a little bit afraid I'm going to lose my job. They
make up parties of soldiers at the Y. M. C. A. headquarters every day
and turn them over to me to show around the city. Well, Monday I started
out with twelve and came back with five and today I finished up with
three out of eight. I can't help it. I've got no authority over them,
and if they want to leave the party, what can I do? But it makes trouble
for me at headquarters. Now, today, for instance, I took them first of
all to the Place Vendome. There were seven infantrymen and an
artilleryman. They seemed to be interested in the column when I told
them that it was made out of cannon captured by Napoleon. They wanted to
know how many cannon it took and what caliber they were and all that.
Everything went all right until we started for the Madeleine. We passed
a café on the way and one of the soldiers asked: 'What's this "vin" I
see around on shops?' I told him that it was the French word for wine
and that it was pronounced almost like our word 'van' only a little bit
more nasal. They all looked at the sign then, and another soldier said:
'I suppose that "bières" there is "beers," isn't it?'
"I told him that it was and another guessed that 'brune ou blonde' must
mean 'dark or light.' When I said that it did, he wanted to know if he
couldn't stop and have one. I told him that I couldn't wait for him, as
the whole trip was on a schedule and we had to be at the Madeleine at
three o'clock. 'Well,' he said, 'I guess it'll be there tomorrow,' and
he went into the café. Another soldier said: 'Save a "blonde" for me,'
and followed him, and that was two gone.
"After I had showed the rest the Madeleine I told them that I was going
to take them to St. Augustin. The artilleryman wanted to know if that
was another church. I said it was and he said he guessed he'd had enough
for a day. I tried to interest him in the paintings in the chapel by
Bouguereau and Brisset, but he said he wasn't used to walking so much
anyway. He was no doughboy, he said, and he left us. We lost another
fellow at Maxim's and the fifth one disappeared in broad daylight on the
Boulevard Malesherbes. He can count up to twenty in French and he knows
how to say: 'Oú est l'hotel St. Anne?' which is army headquarters, so I
guess he's all right, but I haven't an idea in the world what became of
him."
The high tide in the American conquest of Paris came one afternoon in
July. I got out of a taxicab in front of the American headquarters in
the Rue Constantine and found that a big crowd had gathered in the
Esplanade des Invalides. Now and again the crowd would give ground to
make room for an American soldier running at top speed. One of them
stood almost at the entrance of the courtyard of "Invalides." His back
was turned toward the tomb of Napoleon and he was knocking out flies in
the direction of the Seine. Unfortunately it was a bit far to the river
and no baseball has yet been knocked into that stream. It was a new
experience for Napoleon though. He has heard rifles and machine guns and
other loud reports in the streets of Paris, but for the first time there
came to his ears the loud sharp crack of a bat swung against a baseball.
Since he could not see from out the tomb the noise may have worried the
emperor. Perhaps he thought it was the British winning new battles on
other cricket fields. But again he might not worry about that now. He
might hop up on one toe as a French caricaturist pictured him and cry:
"Vive l'Angleterre."
One of the men in the crowd which watched the batting practice was a
French soldier headed back for the front. At any rate he had his steel
helmet on and his equipment was on his back. His stripes showed that he
had been in the war three years and he had the croix de guerre with two
palms and the medaille militaire. His interest in the game grew so high
at last that he put down his pack and his helmet and joined the
outfielders. The second or third ball hit came in his direction. He ran
about in a short circle under the descending ball and at the last moment
he thrust both hands in front of his face. The ball came between them
and hit him in the nose, knocking him down.
His nose was a little bloody, but he was up in an instant grinning. He
left the field to pick up his trench hat and his equipment. The
Americans shouted to him to come back. He understood the drift of their
invitation, but he shook his head. "C'est dangéreux," he said, and
started for the station to catch his train for the front.