The Delta of the Triple Elevens Part 15

Plans were under way to hold a Seventy-Ninth Division parade in Philadelphia, Penna., but the boys voiced protests against being held in camp, with the result that the work of putting the outfit through the process of sterilization and cootiization was expedited.

After going through the "delouser" at Camp Dix, Battery D was moved to another section of barracks, near the discharge center. Clerical details were sent to the discharge center, known as the "madhouse,"

each day, to a.s.sist in getting out the paper work for official discharge of the outfits scheduled for muster out before Battery D.

Battery D was officially discharged from the United States Army Service on May 30th, 1919, when all its members were a.s.signed to various discharge units. On May 30th the soldiers whose homes were in Western States, were detached from the battery to be sent to Western camps for discharge.

Those who were scheduled to remain at Dix to receive their discharge papers, their pay and the $60 bonus, idled about the camp until Wednesday, June 4th, when they were called to the discharge center to be paid off. It required a long wait before the members of the casual detachments that once formed Battery D were admitted to the Central Records office.

The soldiers "beat it" from camp as soon as they had the coveted discharge certificates. The outfit separated in driblets during the day. The first ones called got clear of military service in the morning, while others were not called until late that afternoon.

By nightfall of June 4th, 1919, however, Battery D members, for the main part, were headed for HOME, to take up the thread of civilian life where they had severed it months before when they answered the call of selective service.

THE LORRAINE CROSS

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE 79th DIVISION INSIGNIA

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CROSS OF LORRAINE

Its Origin and Its Significance.

(Extracts from a Doc.u.ment) Written from data furnished by E. F. HENRI VIARD B. A. Paris University Late London Correspondent of "Le Journal"

Sometime Technical Translator to the Ordnance Department A. E. F.

The Lorraine Cross, official insignia of the Seventy-Ninth Division, United States Army, was adopted shortly after the armistice was signed.

Despite the fact that the Seventy-Ninth Division Artillery did not share in the fighting with the rest of the division, the artillerymen were accorded the privilege of wearing the emblem.

In all its war operations, the Seventy-Ninth Division faced the enemy in Lorraine, the province which the United States was pledged to win back for France.

Victory, in the face of stubborn opposition, crowned the efforts of the Seventy-Ninth Division. It was only appropriate, therefore, that the division should select as its emblem the ancient symbol of victory, The Lorraine Cross.

The divisional insignia was worn on the left sleeve of the uniform blouse at the shoulder.

THE CROSS OF LORRAINE.

A national emblem of the independent Duchy of Lorraine for centuries, and even now a distinctive cognizance of the Border Province of France, the double traverse cross, known as the Cross of Lorraine, forms part of the armorial bearings of no less than 163 n.o.ble families. And several military units engaged in the world war adopted the cross as an emblem. These units include, besides the Lorraine Detachment of the French Army, the Seventy-Ninth Division.

Before its adoption as an emblem by the reigning house of Lorraine, the double traverse cross had a long and interesting history.

Important in the history of the development of the shape of the Cross with its two beams, the design being Byzantine and emblematic of the triumph of Christ over Death, are ancient double traverse crosses, each containing fragments of the Real Cross of the Crucifixion. They are preserved in different sections of France.

The double traverse of the Cross of Lorraine comes from the subst.i.tution, for the t.i.tulus, or inscription originally used to mark the Cross upon which Christ was crucified, of a plain horizontal arm.

The origin of the double traverse cross is Eastern, and, students of the subject point out, it undoubtedly represents the Jerusalem Cross--the True Cross--with its main horizontal beam and the t.i.tulus, represented by a plain beam in the Cross of Lorraine.

Reliquaries containing parts of the Red Cross upon which the Savior was crucified, including the reliquaries in Poitiers and Limoges, are double traverse in form. On an enamelled plate in the Treasury of Graz Cathedral, Hungary, the figure of Saint Helena, credited with the recovery of the True Cross, is represented draped in a dress which is emblazoned with a double traverse cross.

The double traverse cross came to have its a.s.sociation with Lorraine in 1477 after Rene II, reigning head of the Duchy of Lorraine, had defeated Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, at the Battle of Nancy.

Rene was of the house of Anjou and the emblem had been known as the Cross of Anjou to earlier members of the house.

Succession to the Duchy of Lorraine came to Rene II through the female line. His mother was Yolande of Anjou, daughter of Rene I. Through his father, Ferri of Vaudemont, Rene claimed descent from the Ancient dynasty of the Dukes of Lorraine, who traced their history to Gerard of Alsace, and who had ruled the Duchy uninterruptedly for almost four centuries.

At the time of the accession of Rene II, the neighboring Duchy of Burgundy was ruled by Charles the Bold, who made a reputation as a general and warrior. In the forwarding of his ambition for greater territory and more widespread authority, he had roused the enmity of Lorrainers. In 1476, following the accession of Rene II, the Duke of Burgundy laid siege to Nancy and took the city.

Rene went abroad to hire troops, and, returning in the early days of 1477 with considerable forces, especially Italian and Swiss mercenaries, gave battle to Charles within sight of Nancy, whose soldier citizens sallied forth to his help. Despite their a.s.sistance, Rene might have lost the fight had it not been for Campo Ba.s.so, an Italian condettieri in the service of Charles the Bold, who, having some grudge against the latter and being bribed by the other side, went over to the Lorrainers at the critical moment.

The Burgundians were cut to pieces. Charles the Bold, in trying to break away, was slain by a Lorraine officer who did not recognize him and who committed suicide when, the body of the famous Duke having been identified a couple of days later from an old scar behind the ear, he realized that it was he who had killed "so great a Prince."

The Battle of Nancy was not only the greatest event in the History of Lorraine, but one of the most momentous in the History of France, and even of Europe. If Burgundy alone was defeated, three parties benefitted by the victory, namely; Switzerland, for whom it meant final acquisition of independence; the King of France, and the Duke of Lorraine. The disappearance of Charles the Bold ensured at one stroke the unity of France, which it rid of the last ever powerful va.s.sal, and the independence of Lorraine. No doubt Louis XI would rather have been the only profiteer by the death of his rival. No doubt, also, he meant to get hold of Lorraine and, as the event proved, laid hands shortly afterward on the Duchy of Bar and tried to prevent Rene II from coming into this comparatively small portion of Rene of Anjou's inheritance. But his wily plans were foiled by the very fact that, whatever his motives, he had made a show of fostering and supporting the Lorrainer against the Burgundian. Had Lorraine become a part of Charles the Bold's dominions, even the Mighty House of Austria would have been unable to keep it independent from France; Henry II's efforts would have been exerted against Lorraine, and Lorraine it is that France would have occupied at the same time as the three bishoprics, Toul, Metz, and Verdun and before Alsace. France's influence made itself felt in the Duchy as early as 1552, but annexation was put off until 1766.

Not only did Rene II's reign ensure the independence of Lorraine, but it secured the adjunction of Barrois, for there can be no doubt that the Duchy of Bar would have been annexed to France right away had not Charles VIII found it politic to give back the territory confiscated by his father, Louis XI, as an inducement to Duke Rene II not to press his claims regarding such parts of Rene of Anjou's inheritance as Anjou and Provence which France wanted and secured out of the deal.

Considering the importance of the Battle of Nancy in the eyes of Lorrainers, the historical value of the badge worn by their victorious ancestors at that famous fight is easily understood. That badge was a double traverse cross. We have Duke Rene II's own word for it. In the account of operation and conduct of the Battle of Nancy, dictated by the Duke himself to his secretary, Joannes Lud, we read: "And I had on my harness a robe of gold cloth, and the armour of my horse was also covered with gold cloth trappings and on the said robe and trappings were three white double traverse crosses."

The Burgundian badge was the St. Andrew Cross. To differentiate his men from their opponents, Rene II naturally thought of the conspicuously distinct double-traverse cross his grandfather Rene I had brought over from Anjou and made so much of.

In another account of the battle, to be found in the Chronicle of Lorraine, written at very nearly the same time, the following pa.s.sage occurs relating to the period of the fight when Campo Ba.s.so and his mercenaries went over from the Burgundian to the Lorraine side; "They all tore off their St. Andrew crosses and put on the Jerusalem one, which Duke Rene was wearing."

The Jerusalem Cross obviously is a misnomer, as proven by the context, the very next sentence of which reads: "And many of the Nancians, sallying from their city to take part in the pillage of the Bold One's Camp, were in great danger of being slaughtered by the Swiss and by their own countrymen because they had not the double traverse cross on them." Again in several other pa.s.sages the cross is specifically described as a double traverse cross.

January 5, 1477, was the birthday of the Cross of Lorraine. From that day, ceasing to be merely reminiscent of Anjou, the double traverse cross became the Lorraine National Emblem.

Since the war in 1870-71, which resulted in the annexation of part of Lorraine to Germany, a significant use has been made of the old cross. Shortly after the signature of the Treaty of Frankfurt, a meeting of the inhabitants of Metz was held on Sion Hill. As a result of the meeting a marble monument was erected, having carved on it a broken Lorraine Cross. An inscription in local dialect was added, reading "_C'name po tojo_" ("'Twill not be forever"). The world war ended in the realization of this prophecy.

So the soldiers of the Seventy-Ninth Division can look at the insignia they have been privileged to wear and think of the memories a.s.sociated with it.

CHAPTER XXIV.

BATTERY D HONOR ROLL.

CORPORAL FRANK McCABE--Plains, Pa., died January 24, 1918, at the Base Hospital, Camp Meade, Md., at 7:40 p. m., with an attack of acute rheumatism. Body was sent to Plains with a military escort. Buried in Plains.

PRIVATE WILLIAM REYNOLDS--Pottsville, Pa., was killed by the explosion of a French field gun on the range at La Courtine, France, at 3 p. m.

October 11, 1918. Buried in the American Military Cemetery at Camp La Courtine, October 12th. Grave No. 37.

FIRST-SERGEANT JAMES J. FARRELL--Plains, Pa., died November 2, 1918, at the Base Hospital, Camp La Courtine, France, at 4:30 p. m., with an attack of pneumonia. Buried in the American Military Cemetery at Camp La Courtine, November 4th, at 11 a. m. Grave No. 80.