Average Americans Part 11

A characteristic incident of the new spirit occurred in this attack.

Lieutenant Leck of E Company was a.s.signed the task of occupying the town of Villemontry with a platoon. After severe hand-to-hand fighting on the streets he succeeded. The rapidity of the attack prevented the Germans from carrying off some French girls with them. The town was under heavy fire and the runner who was sent with the message directing the withdrawal and the march on Sedan was killed before he reached them.

After the relieving unit arrived a message was sent to Leck that his regiment had withdrawn. He replied that the First Division never gave up conquered ground and he would hold the town until he received word from his proper commander.

The next day we moved to the south and east. The plan of the higher command, I have been informed, was to throw the First, Second, Thirty-second, and Forty-second Divisions across the Meuse in an attack on Metz, to a.s.sign no objectives but to let the rivalry in the divisions determine the depth of the advance.

All through the last ten days vague rumors had been reaching us concerning a proposed armistice. None of us really believed there was anything in them. This was largely on account of the fact that during the year and a half we had grown so accustomed to war that we could not imagine peace. Besides, we felt that terms that would be in any way acceptable to us would not be even given a hearing by the Germans. We felt also that we had them on the run and we wanted to go in and finish them. As a matter of fact, we didn't give much thought to it anyhow. We had almost as much as we could do finishing the job we had in hand.

On the march one day I heard one man discussing with the other members of his squad. He finished his remarks by saying, "I hope those d.a.m.ned politicians don't spoil this perfectly good victory we are winning."

As we were moving back a day later an engineer officer rode up to me from the rear and told me he had just come from Second Division headquarters, where they had announced that the armistice had been signed and all hostilities were to cease at 11 o'clock that morning. I sent back word to the men. It was announced up and down the column and a few scattering cheers were all that greeted it. I don't think it really got through their heads what had happened. I know it had not got through mine.

That night we stopped in the Bois de la Folie, and for the first time the men began to realize what had happened. Fires were lit all over.

Around them men were gathered, singing songs and telling stories. It was very picturesque: the battered woods, the flaming fires, and the brown, mud-caked soldiers. The contrast was doubly great, as until that time no fires were lighted by the troops when anywhere near the front lines.

German airplanes always came over and as the men expressed it, "laid eggs wherever they saw a light."

The first thing that really brought it home to me personally was when a little military chauffeur came up through the dark and said, "Colonel, Mrs. Roosevelt is waiting in the car at the corner."

I knew that no women had been anywhere near the front the day before. I realized that this really meant that the war was over. The car came up and skidded around in the deep mud. Mrs. Roosevelt was there in a pair of rubber boots. She had somehow managed to come because she wished to say good-by to me and return to our children in the United States now that the fighting was over. I went back with her some ten kilometers to a tent where some Y. M. C. A. men were giving out chocolates, crackers, etc.

All the way back through the night the sky was lit by the fires of the men. On every side rockets were going up, like a Fourth of July celebration. Gas signals and barrage signals flashed over the tree tops.

The whole thing seemed hardly possible.

Although we had been there in France only a year and a half, it seemed as if the war had lasted interminably. It seemed as if it always had been and always would be with us. All our plans had been based on an indefinite continuation. I had been rather an optimist, and yet I did not consider the possibility of a cessation of hostilities before the following autumn. Much of the quaint philosophy of the French had sunk into our hearts and insensibly became a part of us--the philosophy which had its creed in the expression _C'est la guerre_. To them and to us _C'est la guerre_ had much the significance of "All in the day's work."

Like them, we treated _apres la guerre_ as something in the nature of "castles in Spain."

So the war finished, so our part in the fighting came to an end; a page of the world's history was turned and we moved south to Verdun to prepare for our march into conquered Germany.

CHAPTER XI

UP THE MOSELLE AND INTO CONQUERED GERMANY

"Judex ergo c.u.m sedebit Quidquid latet, apparebit Nil, inultum remanebit."

CELANO.

The Third Army, which was to march into Germany as the army of occupation, was all in place on the 15th of November. My regiment was bivouacked in what had once been a wood, northeast of sh.e.l.l-shattered Verdun. The bleakest of bleak north winds whistled over the hilltops, whirling the gray dust in clouds. The men huddled around fires or burrowed into cracks in the hillside. Here we prepared as well as we could for our move forward.

Before dawn on the 17th of November, the infantry advanced in two parallel columns. By sunrise we were over the German lines and the brown columns were winding down the white, dusty roads through villages long beaten out of the semblance of human habitation by the sh.e.l.ls.

Gazing back down the column, the thought that always struck uppermost was the realization of strength. The infantry column moves slowly, but the latent power in the close ma.s.s of marching men is very impressive.

The only thing I know which compares with it in suggestion of power is a line of great gray dreadnaughts lunging across the water.

At one village a young French soldier, who had been riding on a bicycle by our column, stopped sadly before three crumbling walls. It was all that was left of his home. His father, the mayor of the village, had lived there. His mother had died in Germany and he did not know what had become of his father.

By night we were out of the uninhabited parts and were reaching the freed French villages. Here we found starving men, women, and children whom we helped out from our none-too-plentiful rations. These people were pathetic. They seemed to have lost the power to rejoice. They looked at us from their doors with lackl.u.s.ter eyes and apparent indifference. One woman told me that the Germans as they left her house had told her they would be back soon. I asked her if she believed it, and she simply shrugged her shoulders.

Next morning we were on the march again. All day long, past our advancing columns, streamed the prisoners whom the Germans had been working in the coal mines. They were French, Italian, Russian, and Rumanian, desperately emaciated for the most part and still wearing their old uniforms. Sometimes they dragged behind them little carts containing the possessions of two or three of them. Often I stopped them and questioned them, but whether they were French or not they seemed to have one idea, and one only--to put as many miles between them and Germany as possible.

We had sent back to where our baggage was stored while we were at Verdun and brought up our colors and our band. Now we put them at the head of the column and went forward with band playing and colors flying.

The farther we got from where the front line had been, the better was the condition of the inhabitants. Now we began to see the first signs of rejoicing. News would reach the authorities in villages that we were coming some time before we arrived. They would throw arches of flowers over the streets through which we marched. Groups of little girls would run by the side of the column, giving bouquets to the men. Cheering crowds would gather on the sides of the road.

The doughboy had a beautiful time. The doughboy loves marching to music, with flags flying and the populace cheering. He is very human and is fond of showing off. For some reason or other there is a current belief in this country that the average American does not like parades, decorations, etc. This is just bosh. The average American is just as keen for such things as anyone else. He likes to put on a pretty ribbon and come home and be admired by the young ladies. I know I like to put on my decorations for my wife.

In every little town where we spent the night a ceremony of some sort took place. Generally the townspeople made us an American flag and presented it to us. I have some of these flags stowed away at this moment. They were made with the help of old dictionaries. Sometimes these dictionaries were very old and the American flag of one hundred years ago would be the one copied. At one village we were presented with a flag with fifty stars. The donor explained that he had been in the United States and knew we had forty-eight and that the two extra were for Alsace and Lorraine.

Once, while we were at mess in the evening, with great ceremony it was announced that a committee of young ladies desired to wait on me. I bowed to the girdle and said, "Will they come in?" They trooped in, peasant girls from fourteen to twenty years old, dressed in their Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and headed by the mayor's daughter. They had a flag with them. First, one of them made an elaborate speech, in which we were hailed as the sons of Lafayette and George Washington, a slight historical inaccuracy. Then I replied, calling upon the names of Joan of Arc, Henry of Navarre, and others, and then the spokeslady, to the intense delight of my staff, stepped forward and kissed me on both cheeks. At another time a large, corpulent, much-bewhiskered mayor endeavored to enact the same ceremony, but forewarned is forearmed, and I evaded him.

In a short time we came to the Duchy of Luxembourg and marched over the border. Everywhere here also we were met with open arms. The streets were jammed as we marched through the villages. All the world and his wife were there and greeted us as "Comrades glorious" and "Victors."

We sent forward, as was customary, a detail of officers to make sure that billeting accommodations were forthcoming and that everything would be as comfortable as possible for the men. When I arrived, slightly in advance of the troops, the first thing I saw was a procession of townfolk approaching. At its head was a band which might, for all the world, have come out of the comic opera. Following the band were pompous gentlemen in frock coats and top hats, carrying bouquets of gorgeous flowers done up with ribbons, and making up the body of the procession were people of every age, both s.e.xes, and every grade in society. I realized they were heading for me, and with great dignity descended from the d.i.n.ky little side car in which I had been traveling. Major Legge and Lieutenant Ridgely here joined me and explained that a ceremony of welcome was to take place, and I was to represent the United States! We three lined up solemnly while the Luxembourgers formed a semicircle around us. The ceremony was, first, the presentation speech; second, the keys of the city and armfuls of bouquets, and, third, a cheer for America; and then the band played. We none of us knew the Luxembourg national anthem, but felt that this must be it, so we stood at attention with great solemnity and saluted while it was sounding. When it was finished the mayor started it off again with a cheer for France and the same supposedly national anthem. Again we stood at attention. We went through this same ceremony for six of the Allies, when fortunately the troops came up and terminated it. Later I found that the tune they played and to which we had been rendering the formal compliment was the air of a popular song. The warm welcome would have impressed me more had I not been certain it had been accorded equally to the Germans when they marched through.

Meanwhile the Eighteenth Infantry of our division had pa.s.sed on our left flank through the city of Luxembourg. That day I ran down with a couple of officers to watch them parade. It was the first time I had ever been in Luxembourg. The city is very picturesque. It is built on the side of a rocky gorge, and on one jutting pinnacle of rock are the remains of the feudal castle where a medieval emperor of Germany was born. The fete amused me very much. I felt as if I were living in George Barr McCutcheon's _Graustark_. The Luxembourg army was drawn up to receive our troops, all the men being present, 150 sum total. What they lacked in numbers they made up in gorgeousness. Never have I seen such beautiful uniforms, so many colors, so much gold lace, and such absurdly antiquated rifles. The populace had a beautiful time. They are mercantile by temperament. They realized that a reign of plenty was coming; that the American goose that lays the golden eggs would be in their midst and that money would flow as the changeless current of their own Moselle River.

A couple of days' march farther and we reached the banks of the Moselle.

Here we spent four or five days while the troops cleaned up and rested in three small towns. The regimental band played for different units every day. Everything moved smoothly. The inhabitants were gentle and kindly. Indeed, they were so effective in their kindness that one of the second battalion headquarters cooks, called "Chops," came to grief.

First, he drank all of their wine he could get, then, in an inspired spirit of generosity, cooked and turned over to his new friends the turkey which, with much labor, had been secured for the officers'

Thanksgiving dinner. His generosity was sadly misunderstood by his commanding officer, for he was returned to duty with the mule train from which he had come.

On the fifth of December we resumed the march and crossed the Moselle into conquered Germany. From this time on a new element was added to the chances of campaigning. Our maps were perfectly impossible. You never could tell where bridges were and where there were simply ferries. Once we ran our column directly into a pocket. The map showed what looked like a bridge. We were not allowed to scout ahead, and the interpreter's questions seemed to confirm its existence. When we got there we found a ferry that accommodated only sixteen men at a time and we had to double on our tracks. On these maps, also, the roads all looked good. The first day's march in Germany we nearly lost the supply train on account of this, as a seemingly good highway ended in a marsh.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RHINE AT COBLENZ Drawn by Captain Ernest Peixotto, A. E. F.]

That night we billeted for the first time in German territory.

Regimental headquarters were in the country house of a German officer.

On the news of our advance he had fled farther north, but, with the characteristic affectation of his cla.s.s, telephoned, on our arrival, saying he regretted that he would not be there to receive us and hoped that we would be comfortable. Next morning he telephoned again, sending a message to the effect that if any of his servants had not done everything for our comfort would we please report the matter to him immediately in order that he might punish the offender.

All the next day we moved up the banks of the winding Moselle through Treves, where relics of the old Roman buildings frowned down on us as we pa.s.sed. At night we stopped in another German house, from which the German officer had not fled. He was a lieutenant colonel and had waited to receive us, prepared to be butler or anything we demanded.

A real indication of the character of the German soldier was given by the terror of the women at our approach. It was clear that they expected any outrage. On account of this, on arriving in each town, when I would call the burgomaster to give him the instructions concerning the behavior of the townspeople, I would finish up by directing him to announce to all women and children that they need have no fear concerning the actions of any American soldier, that we were Americans, not Germans. I had my interpreter see that it was given out in this form.

Day after day we followed the river or made short cuts inland. As we marched along, on hilltops on either side, silhouetted against the sky, austere and dignified, were the crumbling brown-rock towers of medieval castles. These castles were destroyed more than two centuries before by Louis XIV as he marched by the same route. On either side of the river the slopes rose abruptly. They were covered with vineyards, apparently growing from the brown shale. Once, when we pa.s.sed through the city of Berncastle, in the early morning, when the mist choked the valley, I looked up and saw on the peak that overhung the town, touched by the morning sun, the old keep framed in the white mist like a cameo set in mother-of-pearl. Time and again some Hun farmer would stop me and take me through a cow-shed to see the marble remains of some Roman bath or villa, the name of whose owner had long since vanished in the mists of time.

An odd incident of this march occurred when Lieutenant Barrett was ordered by me to go and instruct a German soldier we were pa.s.sing concerning certain of our regulations. When Barrett reported back, he told me the man had come from his own home town in Indiana.

One thing that struck us all as we left France and reached Germany was the number of children. In France children are rare. Each community you pa.s.sed you felt was composed of grown people. In Germany the streets were full of them--healthy-looking little rascals, pink-cheeked and well-nourished, wearing diminutive gray-blue uniforms like those of the German soldier. Little machine gunners, the men used to call them, for they looked like so many small replicas of those men we had been killing and who had killed us. Immediately upon the proclamation going out that the children would be in no way molested, these little rascals swarmed over everything. Nothing could satisfy their curiosity.

After weaving our way up the river valley and over the hills, one early December morning we found ourselves winding down from the surrounding hills toward the Rhine. As we swung around a rocky corner, the whole panorama lay before us--the gables and steeples of the town of Boppard with, as a background, the broad, undisturbed silver Rhine. On we wound down the rocky slope into the city, the flag flying at the head of the column. That night I formed the entire regiment in line on the terraced water front facing the river and, with the band playing _The Star-Spangled Banner_, stood retreat.

We waited here a day and then marched down the river to Coblenz. On this march we pa.s.sed through one village, with old gates, little jutting houses carved and painted in bright colors, unchanged sixteenth-century Europe. Next was another village, factory towers smoking, great brick buildings filled with machinery, plain little board houses for the workmen, the epitome of modernism.

The night of December 12th we billeted at Coblenz. Next morning, at seven o'clock, the First Division in two columns crossed the Rhine, the first of the American troops. As the head of the column reached the center of the bridge and I looked at ma.s.sive Ehrenbreitstein and up and down the historic river, I felt this truly marked the end of an era.

Two days more brought us to the end of the bridgehead, where we were to take up our position. Division headquarters were in quite a large town called Montabaur, a name supposed to have been brought back with the early crusaders, _i. e._, Mount Tabor. Two castles overlooked the town, one in ruins, the other still used as an administrative building by the town authorities. The regiment was scattered through the surrounding small country villages.

Quarters for the men were good in comparison with what they had been used to. We were able to get washing facilities, food came up regularly, and now, for the first time, proper equipment. The men really enjoyed themselves for the first week or so. We had no trouble with fraternization. Our men had seen too many of their friends and relations killed to care to have anything to do with their late enemies. Like true Americans, they played with the children and flirted with the women whenever opportunity offered, but I never remember seeing any attempt to become familiar with the men.