Our Army at the Front Part 3

CHAPTER IV

THE FOURTH OF JULY

The first they knew of it in Paris--barring vague promises of "something to remember" on the American fete that had appeared in modest items in the newspapers--was when a motor-bus, jammed to the guards with American soldiers, suddenly rolled into the Avenue de l'Opera from the Tuileries Gardens, and paraded up that august thoroughfare to the tune of incredible yelling from everybody on board. It was the afternoon of July 3.

A few picked Americans had known about it. A sufficient number of American and French officers and the newspaper correspondents had been told to appear at Austerlitz Station in the early morning of the 3d, and there they had seen the soldiers not merely arrive but tackle their first continental breakfast.

Neither was a sensation to be sneezed at. The soldiers were of the very finest, and in spite of their overnight journey they were all looking fit. They were anxious to fall right out of the train into the middle of Paris. To most of them it was a city of gallant and delightful scandal, filled even in war-time with that twinkle of gayety plus wickedness that is so intriguing when told about in Oscaloosa, behind the hand or the door. They said outright that they expected to see the post-cards all come to life when they set eyes first on Paris streets.

But even if Paris had had these fascinations in store, they were not for the soldiers that morning. Instead military precision, discipline, an orderly march to near-by barracks, and--a French breakfast: coffee and war-bread. Not even the French had a kind word for the war-bread, and no American ever spoke well of the coffee. But there it was--chronologically in order, and haply the worst of a Paris visit all over at once.

And most of the soldiers stayed right in barracks till it was time for the great processional the next day. It was a picked bunch that had the motor ride and informed Paris that they had come for a party. And if they didn't see the ladies with the unbehaving eyes, they did see the Louvre and the Tuileries, the Opera, the boulevards, and the Madeleine.

And Paris saw the soldiers.

There was no end of cheering and handclapping. The American flags that had been flying for Pershing were brought out again, and venders appeared on the streets with all manner of emblems to sell. It was one of those cheerful afternoons when good feeling expresses itself gently, reserving its hurrahs for the coming event.

The soldiers were kept on the cars, but now and then a good Parisian threw them a package of cigarettes or a flower. All told, they touched off the fuse timed to explode on the morrow, and, having done that, went back to barracks.

The first "Fourth" in Paris was a thoroughly whole-souled celebration.

The French began it, civilians and soldiers, by taking a band around to serenade General Pershing the first thing in the morning. His house was on the left bank of the Seine, not far from American headquarters in the Rue Constantine, an historic old place with little stone balconies outside the upper windows.

On one of these General Pershing appeared, with the first notes of the band. He was cheered and cheered again. A little boy who had somehow climbed to the top of a gas street-lamp squealed boastfully to Pershing: "See, I am an American, too, for I have a sky-sc.r.a.per!" (J'ai un gratte-ciel!) And with a wave of his hand General Pershing acknowledged his compatriot.

It was in this crowd around Pershing's house that a riot started, because a man who was being unpleasantly jostled said: "Oh, do leave me in peace." Those nearest him good-naturedly tried to give him elbow-room, but those a little distance away caught merely the "peace"

of his e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and, with sudden loud cries of "kill the pacifist,"

made for the unfortunate, and pommelled him roundly before the matter could be explained.

After the serenade and General Pershing's little speech of thanks the band, with most of the crowd following, marched over to des Invalides, the appointed place for the formal ceremony.

Around the ancient hotel, overflowing into the broad boulevards that radiate from it, and packing to suffocation the Champs de Mars in front of it, there were just as many Frenchmen as could stand shoulder to shoulder and chin to back. Inside, where there were speeches and exchanges of national emblems, the crowd was equally dense, in spite of the fact that only the very important or the very cunning had cards of admission.

The real Fourth celebration was in the streets. The waiting crowds yelled thunderously when the first band appeared, heralding the parade.

Then came the Territorials, the escort troops, in their familiar horizon-blue. Then more bands, then officers, mounted and in motor-cars, and, finally, the Americans, manifestly having the proudest moment of their lives.

They were to march from des Invalides to Picpus Cemetery, the little private cemetery outside of Paris, where the Marquis de Lafayette is buried.

They crossed Solferino bridge, and made their way through a terrific crowd in the broad Place de la Concorde. The Paris newspapers, boasting of their conservatism, said there were easily one million Parisians that day within sight of des Invalides when the American soldiers left the building and started on their march.

To hear the soldiers tell it, there were easily one million Parisians, all under the age of ten, immediately under their feet before they had marched a mile.

From a balcony of the Hotel Crillon, on the north side of the Place de la Concorde, the marching Americans were wholly lost to view from the waist down. n.o.body could ever complain of the French birth-rate after seeing that parade. n.o.body ever saw that many children before in any one a.s.semblage in France. It was prodigious.

And the French youngsters had their own notions of how they were to take part in that French Fourth of July. The main notion was to walk between the soldiers' legs. They were ma.s.sed thick beside the soldiers, thick between them, impeding their knee action, terrorizing their steps. At a little distance, they looked like batter in a waffle-pan. But they did what they could to make the American soldiers feel among friends that day, and n.o.body could say they failed.

The parade turned along the picturesque old Rue de Rivoli on leaving the Place de la Concorde, and filed along the river, almost the length of the city. They had not gone far before the Frenchwomen had thrown them enough roses to decorate bayonets and hats and a few lapels. They made a brave sight, brave to n.o.bility. And though they were hara.s.sed by the eager children, abashed by the women, and touched to genuine emotion by the whole city, they wouldn't have grudged five years of their lives for the privilege of being there.

At Picpus, the scene made up in intensiveness what it lacked in breadth, for the cemetery is far too small to permit of a crowd of size. A home for aged gentlewomen overlooks one wall ... its windows were filled, and their occupants proved that Frenchwomen are never too old or too gentle to throw roses. A military hospital overlooks another side, and balconies and windows were crowded with "blesses." The few officers and civilians who had access to the cemetery-grounds made their commemoration brief and simple. It was there that Colonel Stanton made the little speech which buzzed around the Allied world within the day: "Lafayette, nous voila!"--"Lafayette, we're here!" Its felicity of phrase moved the French scribes to columns of congratulation. Its compactness won the Americans. Everybody said it was the best war speech made in France, and it was.

After Picpus, the officers came back to the city for work, and the soldiers went to barracks. The sailors were allowed to saunter about the city, in vain search for the post-card ladies and the flying champagne corks. The soldiers were on a sterner regime.

Early on the morning of the 5th, they were eastward bound, to join the rest of the First Division for training, and Paris saw the last of the American soldiers.

A few had leave, within the next few months, from engineering corps and base hospitals. But the infantrymen and the marines were over learning lessons in the war of trench and bayonet, and by Christmas even the scattering leaves from behind the lines were discontinued, and Americans on holiday bent were sent to Aix-les-Bains. Even officers had little or no Paris leave, and those who had been quartered in Paris, in the Rue Constantine and the Rue Sainte-Anne, were collected at the new American headquarters, southeast of Paris. The American uniform all but vanished off the Paris streets. The French national holiday, ten days after the American, had no American contingent.

So Paris and the American Army had a quick acquaintance, a brilliant one and a brief one. It was mainly between the beginning and the end of that Fourth of July. It will quite probably not be renewed till the end of the war. Lucky the onlooker who sees the reunion. For then it may be wagered that there will be gayety enough to answer the needs of even the most post-card-haunted soldier.

But to get on to the training-camps----

CHAPTER V

WHAT THEY LIVED IN

The American training-camp area spread over many miles and through many villages. It had boundaries only in theory, because all its sides were ready to swing farther north, east, south, and west at a day's notice, whenever the Expeditionary Force should become army enough to require it.

But its focus was in the Vosges, in the six or seven villages set apart from the beginning for the Americans, and as such, overhauled by those first marines and quartermaster's a.s.sistants who left the coast in early July and moved campward.

This overhauling brought the end of the Franco-American honeymoon.

Later, amity was to be re-established, but when the first marine ordered the first manure-pile out of the first front yard, a breach began which it took long months to heal.

There were few barracks in the Vosges. The soldiers were to be billeted with the peasants. And the marines said the peasants had to clean up and air, and the peasants said the marines were insane.

Those first days at training-camp, before the body of the troops arrived, were circus enough for anybody.

Six villages were to be got ready, the officers to have the pick of places, and the privates to have next best. And the choice of a.s.signments for officers was still so far from ideal as to make the house-cleaning a thorough job all around.

The marines had a village to themselves, the farthest from the inspection-grounds. The correspondents had a village to themselves, too, though it wasn't because there was any excess of regard for the importance of the correspondents among the men who laid out the grounds.

They were put where they could do the least harm, and where their confusing appearance, in Sam Brown belts and other officer-like insignia, would not exact too many wasted salutes.

General Headquarters was still in Paris at this time, but General Sibert had Field Headquarters at camp, and though his a.s.signment was relatively stylish, it could not have been said to offend him with its luxury.

He lived and worked in a little frame building in the main street of the central village, which had probably once been a hotel.

It was to be recognized by the four soldiers always at attention outside it, whenever motors or pedestrians pa.s.sed that way. Two of the soldiers were American and two were French.

Although all the American training-camp area became America as to jurisdiction, as soon as the troops moved there, the French soldiers were always present around headquarters, partly to help and partly to register politeness.

Inside Field Headquarters, the little bare wooden rooms were stripped of their few battered vases and old chromos, and plain wooden tables and chairs were set about. The marines opened the windows, and scrubbed up the floors, and hung out the sign of "Business as usual," and General Sibert moved in.

The rest was not so easy. The various kitchens came in first for attention. For many days French and American motor-lorries had been trundling across France, storing the warehouses with heaping piles of food-supplies. The procession practically never stopped. Trains brought what could be put aboard them, but it was to motors that most of the real work fell. So the thin, long line of loaded cars stretched endlessly from coast to camp, and finally everything was attended to but where to put the food and where to cook it.

The houses with the good back sheds were picked for kitchens, and the big army soup-kettles were bricked into place, and what pa.s.sed for ovens were provided for the bakers.