been used by the cavalry school, probably the best known in the world.
Before the war army officers of every important nation in the Occident and
Orient were sent by their governments to follow the course and learn the
method of instruction. My old friend Fitzhugh Lee was one of those sent by
the United States, and I found his record as a horseman still alive and
fresh in the memory of many of the townspeople.
Soon after the termination of my period of instruction I was in command of
C Battery of the Seventh Field Artillery in the Argonne fighting. I was
standing one morning in the desolate, shell-ridden town of Landres et St.
George watching a column of "dough-boys" coming up the road; at their head
limped a battered Dodge car, and as it neared me I recognized my elder
brother Ted, sitting on the back seat in deep discussion with his
adjutant. I had believed him to be safely at the staff school in Langres
recuperating from a wound, but he had been offered the chance to come up
in command of his old regiment, the Twenty-Sixth, and although registered
as only "good for light duty in the service of supply," he had made his
way back to the division. While we were talking another car came up and
out from it jumped my brother-in-law, Colonel Richard Derby--at that time
division surgeon of the Second Division. We were the only three members of
the family left in active service since my brother Quentin, the aviator,
was brought down over the enemy lines, and Archie, severely wounded in leg
and arm, had been evacuated to the United States. I well remember how once
when Colonel Derby introduced me to General Lejeune, who was commanding
his division, the general, instead of making some remark about my father,
said: "I shall always be glad to meet a relative of a man with Colonel
Derby's record."
On the 11th of November we had just returned to our original sector after
attacking Sedan. None of us placed much confidence in an armistice being
signed. We felt that the German would never accept the terms, but were
confident that by late spring or early summer we would be able to bring
about an unconditional surrender. When the firing ceased and the news came
through that the enemy had capitulated, there was no great show of
excitement. We were all too weary to be much stirred by anything that
could occur. For the past two weeks we had been switched hither and yon,
with little sleep and less food, and a constant decrease in our personnel
and horses that was never entirely made good but grew steadily more
serious. The only bursts of enthusiasm that I heard were occasioned by the
automobile trucks and staff cars passing by after dark with their
headlights blazing. The joyous shouts of "Lights out!" testified that the
reign of darkness was over. Soon the men began building fires and
gathering about them, calling "Lights out!" as each new blaze started--a
joke which seemed a never-failing source of amusement.
We heard that we were to march into Germany in the wake of the evacuating
army and occupy one of the bridge-heads. All this came through in vague
and unconfirmed form, but in a few days we were hauled back out of the
line to a desolate mass of ruins which had once been the village of
Bantheville. We were told that we would have five days here, during which
we would be reoutfitted in every particular. Our horses were in fearful
shape--constant work in the rain and mud with very meagre allowance of
fodder had worn down the toughest old campaigners among them. During the
weary, endless night march on Sedan I often saw two horses leaning against
each other in utter exhaustion--as if it were by that means alone that
they kept on their feet. We were told to indent for everything that we
needed to make our batteries complete as prescribed in the organization
charts, but we followed instructions without any very blind faith in
results--nor did our lack of trust prove unwarranted, for we got
practically nothing for which we had applied.
There were some colored troops near by engaged in repairing the roads, and
a number of us determined to get up a quartet to sing for the men. We went
to where the negroes had built themselves shelters from corrugated-iron
sheets and miscellaneous bits of wreckage from the town. We collected
three quarters of our quartet and were directed to the mess-shack for the
fourth. As we approached I could hear sounds of altercation and a voice
that we placed immediately as that of our quarry arose in indignant
warning: "If yo' doan' leggo that mess-kit I'll lay a barrage down on
yo'!" A platform was improvised near a blazing fire of pine boards and we
had some excellent clogging and singing. The big basso had evidently a
strong feeling for his steel helmet, and it undoubtedly added to his
picturesqueness--setting off his features with his teeth and eyes gleaming
in the firelight.
On the evening of the second day orders came to move off on the following
morning. We were obliged to discard much material, for although the two
days' rest and food had distinctly helped out the horse situation, we had
many animals that could barely drag themselves along, much less a loaded
caisson, and our instructions were to on no account salvage ammunition. We
could spare but one horse for riding--my little mare--and she was no use
for pulling. She was a wise little animal with excellent gaits and great
endurance. We were forced to leave, behind another mare that I had ridden
a good deal on reconnaissances, and that used to amuse me by her
unalterable determination to stick to cover. It was almost most impossible
to get her to cut across a field; she preferred to skirt the woods and had
no intention of exposing herself on any sky-line. In spite of her caution
it was on account of wounds that she had eventually to be abandoned. I
trust that the salvage parties found her and that she is now reaping the
reward of her foresight.
We were a sorry-looking outfit as we marched away from Bantheville. My
lieutenants had lost their bedding-rolls and extra clothes long since--as
every one did, for it was impossible to keep your belongings with you--and
although authorized dumps were provided and we were told that anything
left behind would be cared for, we would be moved to another sector
without a chance to collect our excess and practically everything would
have disappeared by the time the opportunity came to visit the cache. But
although the horses and accoutrements were in bad shape, the men were fit
for any task, and more than ready to take on whatever situation might
arise.
Our destination was Malancourt, no great distance away, but the roads
were so jammed with traffic that it was long after dark before we reached
the bleak, wind-swept hillside that had been allotted to us. It was
bitterly cold and we groped about among the shattered barbed-wire
entanglements searching for wood to light a fire. There was no difficulty
in finding shell-craters in which to sleep--the ground was so pockmarked
with them that it seemed impossible that it could have been done by human
agency.
This country had been an "active" area during practically all the war, and
the towns had been battered and beaten down first by the Boche and then by
the French, and lately we ourselves had taken a hand in the further
demolition of the ruins. Many a village was recognizable from the
encompassing waste only by the sign-board stuck in a mound announcing its
name. The next day's march took us through Esné, Montzeville, and
Bethainville, and on down to the Verdun-Paris highway. We passed by
historic "Dead Man's Hill," and not far from there we saw the mute
reminders of an attack that brought the whole scene vividly back. There
were nine or ten tanks, of types varying from the little Renault to the
powerful battleship sort. All had been halted by direct hits, some while
still far from their objective, others after they had reached the wire
entanglements, and there was one that was already astride of the
first-line trench. The continual sight of ruined towns and desolated
countryside becomes very oppressive, and it was a relief when we began to
pass through villages in which many of the houses were still left
standing; it seemed like coming into a new world.
At ten in the evening I got the battery into Balaicourt. A strong wind was
blowing and the cold was intense, so I set off to try to find billets for
the men where they could be at least partly sheltered. The town was all
but deserted by its inhabitants, and we managed to provide every one with
some degree of cover. Getting back into billets is particularly welcome in
very cold or rainy weather, and we all were glad to be held over a day on
the wholly mythical plea of refitting. Although the time would not be
sufficient to make any appreciable effort in the way of cleaning harness
or _matériel_, the men could at any rate heat water to wash their clothes
and themselves.
The next day's march we regarded as our first in the advance into Germany
to which we had so long looked forward. We found the great Verdun highway
which had played such an important part in the defense that broke the back
of the Hun to be in excellent shape and a pleasant change from the
shell-pitted roads to which we had become accustomed. It was not without a
thrill that I rode, at the head of my battery, through the missive south
gate of Verdun, and followed the winding streets of the old city through
to the opposite portal. Before we had gone many miles the road crossed a
portion of the far-famed Hindenburg line which had here remained intact
until evacuated by the Boche a few days previously under the terms of the
armistice.
We made a short halt where a negro engineer regiment was at work making
the road passable. A most hospitable officer strolled up and asked if I
wanted anything to eat, which when you are in the army may be classified
with Goldberg's "foolish questions." A sturdy coal-black cook brought me
soup and roast beef and coffee, and never have I appreciated the culinary
arts of the finest French chef as I did that meal, for the food had been
cooked, not merely thrown into one of the tureens of a rolling kitchen,
which was as much as we had recently been able to hope for.
The negro cook looked as if he would have been able to emulate his French
confrère of whom Major de Caraman told me. The Frenchman was on his way to
an outpost with a steaming caldron of soup. He must have lost the way, for
he unexpectedly found himself confronted by a German who ordered him to
surrender. For reply the cook slammed the soup-dish over his adversary's
head and marched him back a prisoner. His prowess was rewarded with a
Croix de Guerre.
It was interesting to see the German system of defense when it was still
intact and had not been shattered by our artillery preparation as it was
when taken in an attack. The wire entanglements were miles in depth, and
the great trees by the roadside were mined. This was done by cutting a
groove three or four inches broad and of an equal depth and filling it
with packages of explosive. I suppose the purpose was to block the road in
case of retreat. Only a few of the mines had been set off.
Passing through several towns that no longer existed we came to Etain,
where many buildings were still standing though completely gutted. The
cellars had been converted into dugouts with passages and ramifications
added. We were billeted in some German huts on the outskirts. They were
well dug in and comfortably fitted out, so we were ready to stay over a
few days, as we had been told we should, but at midnight orders were sent
round to be prepared to march out early.
The country was lovely and gave little sign of the Boche occupation except
that it was totally deserted and when we passed through villages all the
signs were in German. There was but little originality displayed in naming
the streets--you could be sure that you would find a Hindenburg Strasse
and a Kronprinz Strasse, and there was usually one called after the
Kaiser. The mile-posts at the crossroads had been mostly replaced, but
occasionally we found battered metal plaques of the Automobile Touring
Club of France. Ever since we left Verdun we had been meeting bands of
released prisoners, Italians and Russians chiefly, with a few French and
English mingled. They were worn and underfed--their clothes were in rags.
A few had combined and were pulling their scanty belongings on little
cars, such as children make out of soap-boxes. The motor-trucks returning
to our base after bringing up the rations would take back as many as they
could carry.
We came across scarcely any civilians until we reached Bouligny, a once
busy and prosperous manufacturing town. A few of the inhabitants had been
allowed to remain throughout the enemy occupation and small groups of
those that had been removed were by now trickling in. The invader had
destroyed property in the most ruthless manner, and the buildings were
gutted. The domestic habits of the Hun were always to me inexplicable--he
evidently preferred to live in the midst of his own filth, and many times
have I seen recently captured châteaux that had been converted into
veritable pigsties.
The inhabitants went wild at our entry--in the little villages they came
out carrying wreaths and threw confetti and flowers as they shouted the
"Marseillaise." The infantry, marching in advance, bore the brunt of the
celebrations. What interested me most were the bands of small children,
many of them certainly not over five, dancing along the streets singing
their national anthem. It must have been taught them in secret. In the
midst of a band were often an American soldier or two, in full swing,
thoroughly enjoying themselves. The enthusiasm was all of it natural and
uninspired by alcohol, for the Germans had taken with them everything to
drink that they had been unable to finish.
Bouligny is not an attractive place--few manufacturing towns are--but we
got the men well billeted under water-tight roofs, and we were able to
heat water for washing. My striker found a large caldron and I luxuriated
in a steaming bath, the first in over a month, and, what was more, I had
some clean clothes to pull on when I got out.
One evening, when returning from a near-by village, I met a frock-coated
civilian who inquired of me in German the way to Etain. I asked him who he
was and what he wanted. He answered that he was a German but was tired of
his country and wished to go almost anywhere else. He seemed altogether
too apparent to be a spy, and even if he were I could not make out any
object that he could gain. I have often wondered what became of him.
The Boches had evidently not expected to give up their conquests, for they
had built an enormous stone-and-brick fountain in the centre of the town,
and chiselled its name, "Hindenburg Brunnen." Above the German canteen or
commissary shop was a great wooden board with "Gott strafe England"--a
curious proof of how bitterly the Huns hated Great Britain, for there were
no British troops in the sectors in front of this part of the invaded
territory.
We worked hard "policing up" ourselves and our equipment during the few
days we stayed at Bouligny. One morning all the townsfolk turned out in
their best clothes, which had been buried in the cellars or hidden behind
the rafters in the attics, to greet the President and Madame Poincaré, who
were visiting the most important of the liberated towns. It was good to
hear the cheering and watch the beaming faces.
On November 21 we resumed our march. Close to the border we came upon a
large German cemetery, artistically laid out, with a group of massive
statuary in the centre. There were some heroic-size granite statues of
Boche soldiers in full kit with helmet and all, that were particularly
fine. As we passed the stones marking the boundary-line between France
and Lorraine there was a tangible feeling of making history, and it was
not without a thrill that we entered Aumetz and heard the old people greet
us in French while the children could speak only German. The town was gay
with the colors of France--produced from goodness knows where. Children
were balancing themselves on the barrels of abandoned German cannon and
climbing about the huge camouflaged trucks. We were now where France,
Luxemburg, and Lorraine meet, and all day we skirted the borders of first
one and then the other, halting for the night at the French town of
Villerupt. The people went wild when we rode in--we were the first
soldiers of the Allies they had seen, for the Germans entered immediately
after the declaration of war, and the only poilus the townsfolk saw were
those that were brought in as prisoners. We were welcomed in the town
hall--the German champagne was abominable but the reception was
whole-hearted and the speeches were sincere in their jubilation.
I was billeted with the mayor, Monsieur Georges. After dinner he produced
two grimy bottles of Pol Roger--he said that he had been forced to change
their hiding-place four times, and had just dug them up in his cellar.
They were destined for the night of liberation. Monsieur Georges was thin
and worn; he had spent two years in prison in solitary confinement for
having given a French prisoner some bread. His eighteen-year-old daughter
was imprisoned for a year because she had not informed the authorities as
to what her father had done. No one in the family would learn a single
word of German. They said that all French civilians were forced to salute
the Germans, and each Sunday every one was compelled to appear in the
market-place for general muster. The description of the departure of their
hated oppressors was vivid--the men behind the lines knew the full portent
of events and were sullen and crestfallen, but the soldiers fresh from the
front believed that Germany had won and was dictating her own terms; they
came through with wreaths hung on their bayonets singing songs of victory.
I had often wondered how justly the food supplies sent by America for the
inhabitants of the invaded districts were distributed. Monsieur Georges
assured me that the Germans were scrupulously careful in this matter,
because they feared that if they were not, the supplies would no longer
be sent, and this would of course encroach upon their own resources, for
even the Hun could not utterly starve to death the captured French
civilians. The mayor told me of the joy the shipments brought and how when
the people went to draw their rations they called it "going to America."
We sat talking until far into the night before I retired to the luxury of
a real bed with clean linen sheets. There was no trouble whatever in
billeting the men--the townsmen were quarrelling as to who should have
them.
Next morning, with great regret at so soon leaving our willing hosts, we
marched off into the little Duchy of Luxemburg. We passed through the
thriving city of Esch with its great iron-mines. The streets were gay with
flags, there were almost as many Italian as French, for there is a large
Italian colony, the members of which are employed in mining and smelting.
Brass bands paraded in our honor, and we were later met by them in many of
the smaller towns. The shops seemed well filled, but the prices were very
high. The Germans seemed to have left the Luxemburgers very much to
themselves, and I have little doubt but that they would have been at least
as pleased to welcome victorious Boches had affairs taken a different
turn. Still they were glad to see us, for it meant the end of the
isolation in which they had been living and the eventual advent of
foodstuffs.
As we rode along, the countryside was lovely and the smiling fields and
hillsides made "excursions and alarums" seem remote indeed. It felt
unnatural to pass through a village with unscarred church spires and
houses all intact--such a change from battered, glorious France.
We were immediately in the wake of the German army, and taken by and large
they must have been retiring in good order, for they left little behind.
Our first night we spent at the village of Syren, eight kilometres from
the capital of the Duchy. Billeting was not so easy now, for we were
ordered to treat the inhabitants as neutrals, and when they objected we
couldn't handle the situation as we did later on in Germany. No one likes
to have soldiers or civilians quartered on him, and the Luxemburgers were
friendly to us only as a matter of policy. Fortunately, the chalk marks of
the Boche billeting officers had not been washed off the doors, and these
told us how many men had been lodged in a given house.
In my lodging I was accorded a most friendly reception, for my hostess
was French. Her nephew had come up from Paris to visit her a few months
before the outbreak of the war, and had been unable to get back to France.
To avoid the dreaded internment camp he had successfully passed as a
Luxemburger. In the regiment there were a number of men whose parents came
from the Duchy; these and a few more who spoke German acquired a sudden
popularity among their comrades. They would make friends with some of the
villagers and arrange to turn over their rations so that they would be
cooked by the housewife and eaten with the luxurious accompaniment of
chair and table. The diplomat would invite a few friends to enjoy with him
the welcome change from the "slum" ladled out of the caldrons of the
battery rolling kitchen. I had always supposed that I had in my battery a
large number of men who could speak German--a glance over the pay-roll
would certainly leave that impression--but when I came to test it out, I
found that I had but four men who spoke sufficiently well to be of any use
as interpreters.
Next morning we made a winding, roundabout march to Trintange. Here we
were instructed to settle down for a week or ten days' halt, and many
worse places might have been chosen. The country was very broken, with
hills and ravines. Little patches of woodland and streams dashing down
rocky channels on their way to join the Moselle reminded one of Rock Creek
Park in Washington. The weather couldn't be bettered; sharp and cold in
the early morning with a heavy hoarfrost spreading its white mantle over
everything, then out would come the sun, and the hills would be shrouded
in mist.
My billeting officer had arranged matters well, so we were comfortably
installed and in good shape to "police up" for the final leg of the march
to Coblenz. I had now my full allowance of officers--Lieutenants Furness,
Brown, Middleditch, and Pearce. In active warfare discipline while
stricter in some ways is more lax in others, and there were many small
points that required furbishing. Close order drill on foot is always a
great help in stiffening up the men, and such essentials as instruction in
driving and in fitting harness required much attention. In the American
army much less responsibility is given to the sergeants and corporals than
in the British, but even so the spirit and efficiency of an organization
must depend largely on its non-commissioned officers. We were fortunate in
having an unusually fine lot--Sergeant Cushing was a veteran of the
Spanish War. He had been a sailor for many years, and after he left the
sea he became chief game warden of Massachusetts. In time of stress he was
a tower of strength and could be counted upon to set his men an example of
cool and judicious daring. The first sergeant, Armstrong, was an old
regular army man, and his knowledge of drill and routine was invaluable to
us. He thoroughly understood his profession, and was remarkably successful
in training raw men. Sergeants Grumbling, Kubelis, and Bauer were all of
them excellent men, and could be relied upon to perform their duty with
conscientious thoroughness under the most trying conditions.