THE LANDING OF THE FIRST AMERICAN CONTINGENT IN FRANCE
The first executive work of the American Expeditionary Forces overseas
was performed in a second floor suite of the Crillon Hotel on the Place
de la Concorde in Paris. This suite was the first temporary headquarters
of the American commander.
The tall windows of the rooms looked down on the historic Place which
was the scene of so many momentous events in French history. The windows
were hardly a hundred yards from the very spot where the guillotine
dripped red in the days of the Terror. It was here that the heads of
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette dropped into the basket.
During General Pershing's comparatively brief occupancy of these
headquarters, the reception rooms were constantly banked with fresh-cut
flowers, the daily gifts of the French people,--flowers that were
replenished every twenty-four hours. The room was called the "Salon des
Batailles."
In one corner of the room, near a window overlooking the Place, was
General Pershing's table. It was adorned with a statuette of General
Joffre and a cluster of miniatures of captured German standards.
Extending from the floor to the ceiling on one of the walls were two
enormous oil copies of "La Bataille de Fontenoy" and the "Passage du
Rhin." A large flag-draped photograph of President Wilson occupied a
place of honour on an easel at one end of the room.
During the first week that General Pershing stopped at the hotel, the
sidewalk and street beneath his windows were constantly crowded with
people. The crowds waited there all day long, just in the hope of
catching a glimpse of the American commander if he should happen to be
leaving or returning to his quarters. It seemed as if every Parisienne
and Parisian had taken upon herself and himself the special duty of
personally observing General Pershing, of waving him an enthusiastic
"vive" and possibly being within the scope of his returning salute.
But the American commander would not permit demonstrations and
celebrations to interfere with the important duties that he faced. Two
days are all that were devoted to these social ceremonies which the
enthusiastic and hospitable French would have made almost endless.
Dinners, receptions and parades were ruthlessly erased from the working
day calendar. The American commander sounded the order "To work" with
the same martial precision as though the command had been a sudden call
"To arms."
On the morning of the third day after General Pershing's arrival in
Paris, the typewriters began clicking incessantly and the telephones
began ringing busily in the large building which was occupied on that
day as the headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces in France.
This building was Numbers 27 and 31 Rue de Constantine. It faced the
trees and shrubbery bordering the approach to the Seine front of the
Invalides. The building was two stories high with grey-white walls and a
mansard roof. At that time it could be immediately identified as the one
in front of which stood a line of American motor cars, as the one where
trim United States regulars walked sentry post past the huge doors
through which frequent orderlies dashed with messages.
Ten days before, the building had been the residence of a Marquis and
had contained furniture and art valued at millions of francs. All of
those home-like characteristics had been removed so effectively that
even the name of the kindly Marquis had been forgotten. I am sure that
he, himself, at the end of that ten-day period could not have recognised
his converted salons where the elaborate ornamentation had been changed
to the severe simplicity typical of a United States Army barracks.
General Pershing's office was located on the second floor of the house
and in one corner. In those early days it was carpetless and contained
almost a monkish minimum of furniture. There were the General's chair,
and his desk on which there stood a peculiar metal standard for one of
those one-piece telephone sets with which Americans are familiar only in
French stage settings. A book-case with glass doors, a stenographer's
table and chair, and two red plush upholstered chairs, for visitors,
comprised the furniture inventory of the room.
One of the inner walls of the room was adorned with a large mirror with
a gilt frame, and in the other wall was a plain fireplace. There were
tall windows in the two outer walls which looked out on the Rue de
Constantine and the Rue de Grenelle. Opposite the Rue de Grenelle
windows there was a small, deeply shaded park where children rolled
hoops during the heat of the day and where convalescent French soldiers
sat and watched the children at play or perhaps discussed the war and
other things with the nurse-maids.
This was the first workshop in France of the American
commander-in-chief. Adjoining rooms to the left and right were occupied
by the General's staff and his aides. And it was in these rooms that
the overseas plans for the landing of the first American armed
contingent in France were formulated.
It is safe now to mention that St. Nazaire on the west coast of France
was the port at which our first armed forces disembarked. I was in Paris
when the information of their coming was whispered to a few chosen
correspondents who were to be privileged to witness this historical
landing.
This was the first time in the history of our nation that a large force
of armed Americans was to cross the seas to Europe. For five and a half
months prior to the date of their landing, the ruthless submarine policy
of the Imperial German Government had been in effect, and our troop
ships with those initial thousands of American soldiers represented the
first large Armada to dare the ocean crossing since Germany had
instituted her sub-sea blockade zone in February of that same year.
Thus it was that any conversation concerning the fact that our men were
on the seas and at the mercy of the U-boats was conducted with the
greatest of care behind closed doors. In spite of the efforts of the
French agents of contra espionage, Paris and all France, for that
matter, housed numerous spies. There were some anxious moments while
that first contingent was on the water.
Our little group of correspondents was informed that we should be
conducted by American officers to the port of landing, but the name of
that port was withheld from us. By appointment we met at a Paris
railroad station where we were provided with railroad tickets. We took
our places in compartments and rode for some ten or twelve hours,
arriving early the next morning at St. Nazaire.
This little village on the coast of Brittany was tucked away there in
the golden sands of the seashore. Its houses had walls of white stucco
and gabled roofs of red tile. In the small rolling hills behind it were
green orchards and fields of yellow wheat. The villagers, old women in
their starched white head-dresses and old men wearing faded blue smocks
and wooden shoes, were unmindful of the great event for which history
had destined their village.
On the night before the landing the townspeople had retired with no
knowledge of what was to happen on the following day. In the morning
they awoke to find strange ships that had come in the night, riding
safely at anchor in the harbour. The wooden shutters began to pop open
with bangs as excited heads, encased in peaked flannel nightcaps,
protruded themselves from bedroom windows and directed anxious queries
to those who happened to be abroad at that early hour.
St. Nazaire came to life more quickly that morning than ever before in
its history. The Mayor of the town was one of the busiest figures on the
street. In high hat and full dress attire, he hurried about trying to
assemble the village orchestra of octogenarian fiddlers and flute
players to play a welcome for the new arrivals. The townspeople
neglected their _cafe au lait_ to rush down to the quay to look at the
new ships.
The waters of the harbour sparkled in the early morning sunlight. The
dawn had been grey and misty, but now nature seemed to smile. The
strange ships from the other side of the world were grey in hulk but now
there were signs of life and colour aboard each one of them.
Beyond the troop ships lay the first United States warships, units of
that remarkable fighting organisation which in the year that was to
immediately follow that very day were to escort safely across three
thousand miles of submarine-infested water more than a million and a
half American soldiers.
The appearance of these first warships of ours was novel to the French
townspeople. Our ships had peculiar looking masts, masts which the
townspeople compared to the baskets which the French peasants carry on
their backs when they harvest the lettuce. Out further from the shore
were our low-lying torpedo destroyers, pointed toward the menace of the
outer deep.
Busy puffing tugs were warping the first troop ship toward the
quay-side. Some twenty or thirty American sailors and soldiers, who had
been previously landed by launch to assist in the disembarkation, were
handling the lines on the dock.
When but twenty feet from the quay-side, the successive decks of the
first troop ship took on the appearance of mud-coloured layers from the
khaki uniforms of the stiff standing ranks of our men. A military band
on the forward deck was playing the national anthems of France and
America and every hand was being held at the salute.
As the final bars of the "Star Spangled Banner" crashed out and every
saluting hand came snappily down, one American soldier on an upper deck
leaned over the rail and shouted to a comrade on the shore his part of
the first exchange of greetings between our fighting men upon this
historic occasion. Holding one hand to his lips, he seriously enquired:
"Say, do they let the enlisted men in the saloons here?"
[Illustration: THE FIRST AMERICAN FOOT ON FRENCH SOIL]
[Illustration: THE FIRST GLIMPSE OF FRANCE]
Another soldier standing near the stern rail had a different and more
serious interrogation to make. He appeared rather blase about it as he
leaned over the rail and, directing his voice toward a soldier on the
dock, casually demanded:
"Say, where the Hell is all this trouble, anyhow?"
These two opening sorties produced a flood of others. The most common
enquiry was: "What's the name of this place?" and "Is this France or
England?" When answers were made to these questions, the recipients of
the information, particularly if they happened to be "old-timers in the
army," would respond by remarking, "Well, it's a damn sight better than
the Mexican border."
As our men came over the ship's side and down the runways, there was no
great reception committee awaiting them. Among the most interested
spectators of the event were a group of stolid German prisoners of war
and the two French soldiers guarding them. The two Frenchmen talked
volubly with a wealth of gesticulation, while the Germans maintained
their characteristic glumness.
The German prisoners appeared to be anything but discouraged at the
sight. Some of them even wore a smile that approached the supercilious.
With some of them that smile seemed to say: "You can't fool us. We know
these troops are not Americans. They are either Canadians or Australians
coming from England. Our German U-boats won't let Americans cross the
ocean."
Some of those German prisoners happened to have been in America before
the war. They spoke English and recognised the uniforms of our men.
Their silent smiles seemed to say: "Well, they don't look so good at
that. We have seen better soldiers. And, besides, there is only a
handful of them. Not enough can come to make any difference. Anyhow, it
is too late now. The war will be over before any appreciable number can
get here."
But the stream of khaki continued to pour out of the ship's side.
Company after company of our men, loaded down with packs and full field
equipment, lined up on the dock and marched past the group of German
prisoners.
"We're passing in review for you, Fritzie," one irrepressible from our
ranks shouted, as the marching line passed within touching distance of
the prisoner group. The Germans responded only with quizzical little
smiles and silence.
Escorted by our own military bands, the regiments marched through the
main street of the village. The bands played "Dixie"--a new air to
France. The regiments as a whole did not present the snappy, marching
appearance that they might have presented. There was a good reason for
this. Sixty per cent. of them were recruits. It had been wisely decided
to replace many of the old regular army men in the ranks with newly
enlisted men, so that these old veterans could remain in America and
train the new drafts.
However, that which impressed the French people was the individual
appearance of these samples of American manhood. Our men were tall and
broad and brawny. They were young and vigorous. Their eyes were keen and
snappy. Their complexions ranged in shade from the swarthy sun-tanned
cheeks of border veterans to the clear pink skins of city youngsters.
But most noticeable of all to the French people were the even white rows
of teeth which our men displayed when they smiled. Good dentistry and
clean mouths are essentially American.
The villagers of St. Nazaire, old men and women, girls and school
children, lined the curbs as our men marched through the town. The line
of march was over a broad esplanade that circled the sandy beach of the
bay, and then wound upward into the higher ground back of the town. The
road here was bordered on either side with ancient stone walls covered
with vines and over the tops of the walls there extended fruit-laden
branches to tempt our men with their ripe, red lusciousness. As they
marched through the heat and dust of that June day, many succumbed to
the temptations and paid for their appetites with inordinately violent
colics that night.
A camp site had been partially prepared for their reception. It was
located close to a French barracks. The French soldiers and gangs of
German prisoners, who had been engaged in this work, had no knowledge of
the fact that they were building the first American cantonment in
France. They thought they were constructing simply an extension of the
French encampment.
That first contingent, composed of United States Infantrymen and
Marines, made its first camp in France with the smallest amount of
confusion, considering the fact that almost three-quarters of them
hadn't been in uniform a month. It was but several hours after arriving
at the camp that the smoke was rising from the busy camp stoves and the
aroma of American coffee, baked beans and broiled steaks was in the air.
On the afternoon of that first day some of the men were given permission
to visit the town. They began to take their first lessons in French as
they went from cafe to cafe in futile efforts to connect up with such
unknown commodities as cherry pie or ham and egg sandwiches. Upon
meeting one another in the streets, our men would invariably ask: "Have
you come across any of these FROGS that talk American?"
There was nothing disrespectful about the terms Frogs or Froggies as
applied to their French comrades in arms. American officers hastened to
explain to French officers that the one piece of information concerning
France most popularly known in America was that it was the place where
people first learned to eat frog legs and snails.
The Frenchmen, on the other hand, were somewhat inclined to believe that
these first Americans didn't live up to the European expectations of
Americans. Those European expectations had been founded almost entirely
upon the translations of dime novels and moving picture thrillers of the
Wild West and comedy variety.
Although our men wore the high, broad-brimmed felt hats, they didn't
seem sufficiently cowboyish. Although the French people waited
expectantly, none of these Americans dashed through the main street of
the village on bucking bronchos, holding their reins in their teeth and
at the same time firing revolvers from either hand. Moreover, none of
our men seemed to conclude their dinners in the expected American
fashion of slapping one another in the face with custard pies.
There was to be seen on the streets of St. Nazaire that day some
representative black Americans, who had also landed in that historical
first contingent. There was a strange thing about these negroes.
It will be remembered that in the early stages of our participation in
the war it had been found that there was hardly sufficient khaki cloth
to provide uniforms for all of our soldiers. That had been the case with
these American negro soldiers.
But somewhere down in Washington, somehow or other, some one resurrected
an old, large, heavy iron key and this, inserted into an ancient rusty
lock, had opened some long forgotten doors in one of the Government
arsenals. There were revealed old dust-covered bundles wrapped up in
newspapers, yellow with age, and when these wrappings of the past were
removed, there were seen the uniforms of old Union blue that had been
laid away back in '65--uniforms that had been worn by men who fought and
bled and died to free the first black American citizens.
And here on this foreign shore, on this day in June more than half a
century later, the sons and the grandsons of those same freed slaves
wore those same uniforms of Union blue as they landed in France to fight
for a newer freedom.
Some of these negroes were stevedores from the lower Mississippi levees.
They sang as they worked in their white army undershirts, across the
chest of which they had penciled in blue and red, strange mystic
devices, religious phrases and hoodoo signs, calculated to contribute
the charm of safety to the running of the submarine blockade.
Two of these American negroes, walking up the main street of St.
Nazaire, saw on the other side of the thoroughfare a brother of colour
wearing the lighter blue uniform of a French soldier. This French negro
was a Colonial black from the north of Africa and of course had spoken
nothing but French from the day he was born.
One of the American negroes crossed the street and accosted him.
"Looka here, boy," he enquired good-naturedly, "what can you all tell me
about this here wah?"
"Comment, monsieur?" responded the non-understanding French black, and
followed the rejoinder with a torrent of excited French.
The American negro's mouth fell open. For a minute he looked startled,
and then he bulged one large round white eye suspiciously at the French
black, while he inwardly debated on the possibility that he had become
suddenly colour blind. Having reassured himself, however, that his
vision was not at fault, he made a sudden decision and started on a new
tack.
"Now, never mind that high-faluting language," he said. "You all just
tell me what you know about this here wah and quit you' putting on
aihs."
The puzzled French negro could only reply with another explosion of
French interrogations, coupled with vigorous gesticulations. The
American negro tried to talk at the same time and both of them
endeavouring to make the other understand, increased the volumes of
their tones until they were standing there waving their arms and
shouting into one another's faces. The American negro gave it up.
"My Gawd," he said, shaking his head as he recrossed the street and
joined his comrades, "this is shore some funny country. They got the
mos' ignorantest niggers I ever saw."
Still, those American blacks were not alone in their difficulties over
the difference in languages. I discussed the matter with one of our
white regulars who professed great experience, having spent almost one
entire day on mutual guard with a French sentry over a pile of baggage.
"You know," he said, "I don't believe these Frenchies ever will learn to
speak English."
Our veterans from Mexico and the border campaigns found that their
smattering of Spanish did not help them much. But still every one seemed
to manage to get along all right. Our soldiers and the French soldiers
in those early days couldn't understand each other's languages, but they
could understand each other.
This strange paradox was analysed for me by a young American Lieutenant
who said he had made a twelve-hour study of the remarkable camaraderie
that had immediately sprung up between the fighting men of France and
the fighting men of America. In explaining this relationship, he said:
"You see, we think the French are crazy," he said, "and the French know
damn well we are."
Those of our men who had not brought small French and English
dictionaries with them, made hurried purchases of such handy articles
and forthwith began to practice. The French people did likewise.
I saw one young American infantryman seated at a table in front of one
of the sidewalk cafes on the village square. He was dividing his
attention between a fervent admiration of the pretty French waitress,
who stood smiling in front of him, and an intense interest in the pages
of his small hand dictionary.
She had brought his glass of beer and he had paid for it, but there
seemed to be a mutual urge for further conversation. The American would
look first at her and then he would look through the pages of the book
again. Finally he gave slow and painful enunciation of the following
request:
"Mad-am-moy-sell, donnie moy oon baysa."
She laughed prettily as she caught his meaning almost immediately, and
she replied:
"Doughboy, ware do you get zat stuff?"
"Aw, Hell," said the young Infantryman, as he closed the book with a
snap. "I knew they'd let those sailors ashore before us."
From the very first day of the landing we began to learn things from the
French and they began to learn things from us. Some of our men learned
that it was quite possible to sip an occasional glass of beer or light
wine without feeling a sudden inclination to buy and consume all there
remained in the cafe.
The French soldiers were intensely interested in the equipment of our
land forces and in the uniforms of both our soldiers and sailors. They
sought by questions to get an understanding of the various insignia by
which the Americans designated their rank.
One thing that they noticed was a small, round white pasteboard tag
suspended on a yellow cord from the upper left hand breast pocket of
either the blue jackets of our sailors or the khaki shirts of our
soldiers. So prevalent was this tag, which in reality marked the wearer
as the owner of a package of popular tobacco, that the French almost
accepted it as uniform equipment.
The attitude of our first arriving American soldiers toward the German
prisoners who worked in gangs on construction work in the camps and
rough labour along the docks was a curious one. Not having yet
encountered in battle the brothers of these same docile appearing
captives, our men were even inclined to treat the prisoners with
deference almost approaching admiration.
In a measure, the Germans returned this feeling. The arrival of the
Americans was really cheering to them. The prisoners disliked the French
because they had been taught to do so from childhood. They hated the
English because that was the hate with which they went into battle.
It sounds incongruous now but, nevertheless, it was a fact then that the
German prisoners confined at that first American sea-base really seemed
to like the American soldiers. Maybe it was because any change of
masters or guards was a relief in the uneventful existence which had
been theirs since the day of their capture. Perhaps the feeling was one
of distinct kindred, based on a familiarity with Americans and American
customs--a familiarity which had been produced by thousands of letters
which Germans in America had written to their friends in Germany before
the war. On the other hand, it may simply have been by reason of
America's official disavowal of any animosity toward the German people.
One day I watched some of those prisoners unloading supplies at one of
the docks in St. Nazaire, more or less under the eyes of an American
sentry who stood nearby. One group of four Germans were engaged in
carrying what appeared to be a large wooden packing case. Casually, and
as if by accident, the case was dropped to the ground and cracked.
Instantly one of the prisoners' hands began to furtively investigate the
packages revealed by the break. The other prisoners busied themselves as
if preparing to lift the box again. The first German pulled a spoon from
his bootleg, plunged it into the crevice in the broken box and withdrew
it heaped with granulated sugar. With a quick movement he conveyed the
stolen sweet to his mouth and that gapping orifice closed quickly on the
sugar, while his stoical face immediately assumed its characteristic
downcast look. He didn't dare move his lips or jaws for fear of
detection.
Of course these Germans had been receiving but a scant ration of sugar,
but their lot had been no worse than that of the French soldiers
guarding them previously, who got no sugar either. American soldiers
then guarding those prisoners reported only a few of them for
confinement for these human thefts.
Surreptitiously, the American guards would sometimes leave cigarettes
where the prisoners could get them, and even though the action did
violate the rules of discipline, it helped to develop further the human
side of the giver and the recipient and at the same time had the result
of making the prisoners do more work for their new guards.
It should be specially stated that lenience could not and was not
extended to the point of fraternisation. But the relationship that
seemed to exist between the German prisoners and American soldiers at
that early date revealed undeniably the absence of any mutual hate.
Around one packing case on the dock I saw, one day, a number of German
prisoners who were engaged in unpacking bundles from America, and
passing them down a line of waiting hands that relayed them to a freight
car. One of the Germans leaning over the case straightened up with a
rumpled newspaper in his hand. He had removed it from a package. A look
of indescribable joy came across his face.
"Deutscher, Deutscher," he cried, pointing to the Gothic type. The paper
was a copy of the New York _Staats-Zeitung_.
The lot of those prisoners was not an unhappy one. To me it seemed very
doubtful whether even a small percentage of them would have accepted
liberty if it carried with it the necessity of returning to German
trenches.
Those men knew what war was. They had crossed No Man's Land. Now they
were far back from the blazing front in a comparatively peaceful country
beyond the sound of the guns. If their lot at that time was to be
characterised as "war," then in the opinion of those Germans, war was
not what Sherman said it was.
Their attitude more resembled that of the unkissed spinster who was
taken captive when the invading army captured the town. She flung
herself into the arms of the surprised commander of the invaders and
smilingly whispered, "War is war."
The German prison camps at St. Nazaire were inspected by General
Pershing on the third day of the American landing when he, with his
staff, arrived from Paris. The General and his party arrived early in
the morning in a pouring rain. The American commander-in-chief then held
the rank of a Major General. In the harbour was the flagship of Rear
Admiral Gleaves.
There was no delay over the niceties of etiquette when the question
arose as to whether the Rear Admiral should call on the Major General or
the Major General should call on the Rear Admiral.
The Major General settled the subject with a sentence. He said, "The
point is that I want to see him," and with no further ado about it
General Pershing and his staff visited the Admiral on his flagship.
After his inspection of our first contingent, General Pershing said:
"This is the happiest day of the busy days which I have spent in
France preparing for the arrival of the first contingent. To-day I
have seen our troops safe on French soil, landing from transports
that were guarded in their passage overseas by the resourceful
vigilance of our Navy.
"Now, our task as soldiers lies before us. We hope, with the aid of
the French leaders and experts who have placed all the results of
their experience at our disposal, to make our forces worthy in skill
and in determination, to fight side by side in arms with the armies
of France."