Here I am back near Bordeaux where I started on my tour of France. We
came to this school understanding that we were to be abused by the
severest military discipline, but we are delighted to find that they
continue to spoil us. We have as pleasant barracks as are to be had in
France. We are permitted to eat in the _sous-officers’_ mess—a very
special mark of favor, which is really a break of military
discipline—and to cap it all, they are giving the whole camp _repos_ to
go to Paris for Christmas and for New Years. That is pretty nice. You
know we are really only corporals—that is to say, privates of no
rank—yet they really treat us like commissioned officers.
My affection for the French people continues to grow. They are not more
gallant in action than the American is at heart, and they are less
gallant at heart, but the French politeness which irritates some people
seems to me to express a desire to be inoffensive to one’s fellows.
Our interpreter and lecturer speaks English very well, and is an
excellent fellow. He has served in the Arabian division of the French
Army, and in the French lines also. He says the Arabians are volunteer
veterans of the French Army and make some of their best fighters. They
cannot stand bombardment and so are used only for attacks. They go over
the top with bayonets, swords, revolvers, cutlasses, and war cries. They
throw the weapons away in the order mentioned, as they close with the
enemy. At the finish, they are using only cutlasses, and they take no
prisoners. They fight like devils, and ask no quarter. We see many of
them around the aviation school. They have fine, sensitive features, and
those novel, keen but dreamy eyes of the Orient. Their carriage is
proud, and their smile disarming.
The Senegalese are another interesting factor in the French fighting
forces. They, too, are volunteers, and of the finest aggressive troops
used only in attacks. Great, stalwart blacks from Africa, with
intelligent faces and a rather indolent air, which impresses one as
masking a latent virility. They little suggest the man-eating
head-hunters that they are. They are of many tribes, and are
distinguished by a tribal mark in the form of great scars, which have
mutilated their features since childhood. One will have great
symmetrical slashes cutting each cheek diagonally; another a large cross
upon his forehead; another a ring of little pie cuts enclosing his eyes,
nose, and mouth, and anyone able to remember their strange name can
recognize the tribe by the mark.
They tell some terrible stories of these men. It is rumored that at this
camp two of them went wild under the influence of liquor and killed and
ate two members of an enemy tribe. In an attack these men are worse than
the Arabs and outbutcher the Huns. The Germans fear them like death. In
the advance, when they come upon a German who may be playing ’possum,
they drive the bayonet in an inch or so to test him out and sink it to
the hilt if he moves. They charge with their teeth showing, and do their
nicest work with a weapon which is a cross between a butcher’s cleaver
and a corn knife. They are called “trench cleaners” and return with
strings of human ears and heads, which after boiling make good skull
trophies. Yet these vicious Africans make reliable soldiers, and one
sees them standing guard night and day in prison camps and aviation
schools.
There is a great Russian camp near here in which thousands of Russians
are held in detention. There was a mutiny of Russian troops in the
French lines and they sent them down here. They will not fight or work,
but only wander about the landscape eating good food. Something will, no
doubt, be done with them as soon as it is possible to focus on the
Russian question, but this is cause enough for the French to hate the
Russians. A man in Russian uniform is mobbed in the streets of Paris
now. Officers there are forced to go about in civilian clothes. It is
very hard on some of the conscientious aviators who are anxious to
fight. For a time they were quite broken-hearted and disconsolate. But
now it has been arranged that Russian escadrilles will be formed as part
of the French service. One of these Russians, with whom I’ve struck
quite a friendship, is a great, six-foot-two fellow, with a splendid
face and a genial nature. He has served three years in the Russian
cavalry, and was describing their life. They travel in groups of six for
reconnaissance work and are gone from their companies days at a time.
One will forage the meat, another the bread, another the drink, and so
on. Their experiences are fascinating, but too long to tell here. He
spoke highly of the valor of the Cossacks. He said he had seen a Cossack
attack an entire company of German infantry single-handed. (As he told
it, a light came in his eyes and he lowered his head, making gestures
with his big hands. His name is Redsiffsky.) The Cossack drew up in
front of the Germans, looked on one side and then the other, drew his
long saber and raising in his saddle charged into the heart of them. His
great frame swayed and his saber cut circles of blue light about his
horse’s head as he slashed down man after man. A German’s arm would be
severed as it raised to strike; a German’s head would roll down its
owner’s back; a German’s body would open from neck to crotch. Still the
Cossack on rearing horse slashed through and the Germans crowded in.
Then the Cossack’s mount went down, stabbed from beneath, and with a
final slash, the Russian threw his saber and drew his poniard from his
belt. He ripped and stabbed at the Germans as they closed in for the
final sacrifice. His life was marked by seconds then, but every second
paid till a telling musket in full swing descended on his skull. When
the Germans withdrew, nine of their number stayed behind and seven left
with aid. Of the Russian, nothing was to be found. The German revenge
had been complete, but a Cossack _had died_.