Our Army at the Front

ries only in theory, because all its sides were ready to swing farther north, east, south, and

beginning for the Americans, and as such, overhauled by those first marines and

was to be re-established, but when the first marine ordered the first manure-pil

lleted with the peasants. And the marines said the peasants had t

before the body of the troops arriv

the privates to have next best. And the choice of assignments for officers was

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 coul

t had Field Headquarters at camp, and though his assignment was relativ

ding in the main street of the central vil

ntion outside it, whenever motors or pedestrians passed tha

ion, as soon as the troops moved there, the French soldiers were always pre

d old chromos, and plain wooden tables and chairs were set about. The marines opened the windows, an

houses 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

ens, and the big army soup-kettles were bricked into plac

perience: he looks out of his train-window and remarks to his companion, who knows France well: "Isn't that a pretty little creek? Are there many springs about here?" And the compa

ican training-camp, in which the Americans did their bathing.

ported with soap and wash-cloth along the banks. Hundreds of others, swimming their suds off, flashed here an arm and there a leg in the stream itself. It did not take much distance to make them look like figures on a frieze, a new Olympic group. Modesty k

ther matter, suggesting

hen the cots were carried up to the second floors of the barns and put along in tidy rows. At the foot of each soldier's bed was whatever manner of small wooden box he could corral from the quartermaster, and there he kept all

, for the fresh air that seemed, so inexplicab

e soldiers averaged a little over two thousand to the village, and since not one of the villages had more than fou

of those who became major-generals soon after the arrival in France-had his quarters in an aristocratic old house, set back in a long yard, where plum-trees dropped their red fru

grained woods, old and mellow of tone. The stairway was broad and easy to c

pped the eyes out of the Pompadour's head. He pinned up the four-poster hangings with a safety-pin, that being the only way he could convey to his amiable little French servant-girl that he didn't want that bed turned down for him of nights. And he had taken all the satin hangings

y France." His house was nothing much, but behind it was a garden-a long garden, filled with vegetables, decorated with roses, shaded by fruit-trees. At the far end of the garden was a summer-house,

ion is "Sunny France." The summer of 1917, after a blazing start in June, se

fireplaces. By the time the warmth had come back to his summer-house it was time for him to go up to the

in, General Pershing made a tour of inspection, and some of the things he said about what he saw didn't make good listening. But after that

ctness. The French never drink water on any provocati

billets, and it was then treated with a germicide, tasteless fortunately, c

ent down and turned the faucet in the hanging skin tank. I

metimes uncomfortable, the soldiers did

were com

with the help of the "Blue Devils" who trained with the Americans, took on all the exhilaration of war with non

surmountable French language, which kept doughboys and poilus at arm's l

und the mess-tent after supper, in the daylight-saving long twilight, to hear the band

to much. Those were the days before anybody had thought to supply the army bands wi

the hundreds, and listened and looked off over the hills to where the gun

all his English, and the party lasted till the soldier, billet-bound, said "Fee-neesh

se they had come across to France and been slapped into school. The censors were astounded by what they read ... gory battles of the day before, terrific air-raids, bombardments of camp, etc. Some of the men told how they had slaughtered Germans with their bare

that it was presently to be joined by the New England Division and the Ra

Committee on Pu

ed by their military band, entertaining

n and sombre business, and all the lighter, easier sides of the exp

Americans on July 14, when the whole day was given over to a picnic, with boxing, wrestling,

e in October. The steadily increasing number of men widened the area of the training-camp, but th

he First Division had landed,