Exactly a century after they were sent.
The only event of the week so far is that last night I went to the hospital at Joinville, nearby, to visit Billy. When things grew dull in the movies he took a job as head K.P. because he was to get alternate days off. But he strained himself and went to the hospital. So I went to see him. He’s the same Ham – the pet and life of the ward.
Next post March 7.
This is Sunday and I am enjoying the luxury of laziness. Not only is it Sunday, but it is noon. And I have just opened my eyes and tobacco bag.
Last night I went to bed at one o’clock, thought it was really only twelve. the summer time standard went into effect and everyone lost an hour of night. Of course I had to make up for it somehow. I did. I awoke at 11 A.M. when Frank, who wanted to go to church at 10, asked me the time. Since then I have been lying here thinking it over, and have just decided. First, a pipe (beautiful corn cob); second, lower half remain under cover, upper clothed in O.D. shirt; third, write a letter. If there be a fourth it is that I’m awful comfortable.
I don’t understand why people waste their Sunday mornings so. Look at Frank. Still he’s a Catholic, in a Catholic country. There’s a Protestant church in Vincennes and I don’t even know where it is. I believe, if you must go to church over here, it is much more sensible to go to an interesting one – a ruined or noted or beautiful one. So I sleep.
There have been so many changes of time since I last saw you, that I can’t figure out in just which time era you’re living.
Last night I spent at the lab, printing up a lot of pictures – mostly those we had made on our trip.
Friday night I was to have gone to Bellamy’s for a lesson, but it was M. Streiff’s 44th birthday, so I went there for dinner, and later adjourned next door to Kesler’s who have a new pianola and like it. Ye Gods.
Now I think it is about time to get up. It’s 12:25 and I ought to wash, dress and lay out all the prints on my bed to dry. And dinner is at one and I’m hungry. I had planned to go to the Louvre this afternoon. Don’t know yet, whether I shall or not.
Now it’s three o’clock. Cold, drizzly, March. Billy’s fire is more attractive than the Louvre. And here I am. Only Watson for company.
Next post March 6.
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday hummed their way, drummed their way and went their way. That is their way now. It’s a life of twin days. Not a birthmark, freckle or line that isn’t common to all. Their death-masks could be made up, a dozen at a time, from the same mold.
Except a few – an announcement that Washington’s Birthday would be a holiday, and orders and preparations for a trip for me.
Chateau-Thierry is more a popular excursion point for Americans than Rheims; which is as it should be. It is a name that will live in American history, with a renown greater than that of the Argonne-Meuse battles. The latter was the biggest effort of our army – the greatest in which an American army ever engaged; yet it is, I believe, less known than any other. The people at home think that America won the war, and did it at Chateau-Thierry. It certainly was a popular success. What if it was the British and Americans in Belgium and northern France, the French and Italians in the center of the line, and the Americans in the Argonne-Meuse-Lorraine section, the French and Americans in Alsace, all pushing at once, in October and November, that actually finished the enemy? In the U.S. it remains the first great victory – Chateau-Thierry – which ended the war.
In 1914 the first great drive of the Germans brought them as far as Meaux, 40 miles from Paris, on the great main highway between Paris and Metz. Here the French checked them. Gradually, they were forced back. Then both sides dug in and settled down for life, on the front of the Aisne river. One week the Germans took a trench and the next week the French had it back. Winters were hard, but there were always warm dugouts at the end of the three or four day bit in the trenches. And in the summer the breezes wafted over No Man’s land, the nights were cool and life was lovely.
In 1917 Foch replaced the capable but cautious Joffre and the Yanks came along. Result – pep. Activity began to result. It wasn’t always successful but it gave promise.
The German spring drive 1918 took them as far as the Marne River, a bit beyond Chateau-Thierry, but not as far as Meaux. They were making another attempt along the Paris-Metz Road. Then in June Foch prepared a counter-offensive and Pershing sent him the now famous message: “Everything we have is yours.”
With a vengeance, the supreme commander took him at his word. Americans fought among, around and between the French, throughout. In June they cleared the vanguard from Torcy, Bouresches, Belleau Woods. In July they tackled the more difficult Chateau-Thierry and Marne regions and just sailed through. By the beginning of August the Germans were everywhere driven back to the Vesle River, half way, between the Marne and the Aisne. The trench system was gone; they fought above ground. And they moved fast.
Yesterday there were four of us. We visited all the old battlegrounds and tramped over them. Now they are mostly ploughed up for the early spring planting, but the evidences of battle are still there. We saw Lucy, Torcy, Bouresches, Montreuil, Meaux and a dozen other war towns. Many of them are only powdered mortar. The weather was alternately sunny and rainy; the rain was a heavy downpour. And everywhere the mud was ankle-deep. We had to ooze through it.
Belleau Woods, which our Marines took, was the toughest place we saw. It is a thick, tangled wood of small trees, on a very steep hill. It is full of waterfilled holes and dugouts and hastily-dug shelters. How they fought through it is beyond me. It was a job to walk through. Nearby is a little graveyard with nearly 200 wooden crosses, in straight rows, standing erect, each with the identification tag of the soldier nailed on it and star-spangled disc. The French showed their appreciation by renaming the place “Bois de la Brigade des Marines,” but everyone calls it Belleau Woods.
Lucy is another point of interest. The village is a complete wreck. The church is ruined, its roof fallen in, and the height of the debris pile inside equaling that of its remaining walls. But the crucifix over the altar, by some remarkable chance remains almost untouched.
The object of the trip was twofold – pleasure and business. I took quite a number of pictures (object, same two.) We didn’t set out to get souvenirs, which was lucky, for the place, seems to have been combed clean. I went into one house in Lucy and found a lot of books, two or three of which I took. They are French. In another was a copy of “Barrack-Room Ballads”, with the name of one Walter Browne on the fly-leaf. The book had been soaked by many a rain, falling unresisted through the roofless house. Maybe Walter was too.
After a very active day we went back to Meaux, reached there at 7:30 and after a welcome wash had an even more welcome supper. Nothing ever tasted so good before. We were all pretty cold and hungry. It was like seeing an old friend or a character out of a favorite book, to be served by the little boy waiter who has been photographed so often that everyone in the lab knows his face.
Although we could have stayed out today (Sunday) and although I’d have liked to see Soissons, we finally decided to come back. We had covered a great deal of ground, done all we wanted to up there, and our orders were not good for any other place. We got home quite late and I just fell into bed. I slept soundly until one o’clock this afternoon and I’m still tired. That trip has made me feel like a Y.M.C.A. man – “Boys we are right behind you; go to it.” But it was interesting and I’d like to take another some time.
Next post March 3.
Frank came back Tuesday and I certainly was glad to see him. Today he took me to lunch and tonight I shall take him. Then I guess I’ll drop in to Streiffs’. I didn’t tell you that I went to Mme. Bellamy’s the other night. Her husband is home and in civilian clothes, so she is willing to have our lessons at her house now.
8 o’clock.
We’ve had supper and been round to the shop where the pretty girl talks English. Frank bought a map showing where he’s been.
There was some talk here a couple of days ago about the recommencing of the war. It is astonishing how people gobble up these things. I have never heard of anything as impossible as that. The armistice conditions make it absolutely incomprehensible that Germany can continue a bare existence, much less make war. It’s just propaganda, I think, not the least of whose aims is to combat the desire of Americans to go home.
Tonight I heard of a place where you can buy cakes and fruit tarts and other sweet things. Thing of that, in warbound, sugarless France. And yesterday the organization whose name appears at the head of this sheet (K of C) issued free to everyone in the company: 3 cakes Hershey’s chocolate; 1 box U.S. gov’t candy, 6 sacks Bull Durham, 1 tin of Tuxedo, 1 cigar, 5 packages of cigarettes, 1 cake of tar soap. The poor soldiers. We get issues about every ten days, though not always such generous ones.
Sunday I expect to go to Rheims. About six others are to go with me.
The weather is bearable again. Not a very important remark, but it means that I now get up in the morning. Not counting this morning, when I rose at 11:30. The army chow wasn’t so good last night —–!
The President is going home in a couple of days to return in about six weeks I think. While he is away I rather expect things will move in the Conference, because old man Clemenceau will have free rein. He’s for laying a heavy punishment on the Germans and getting through while Wilson is still playing around with the idealistic League plan. In the beginning I was strong for the idea but now I’m not sure that it isn’t just a shade above the world.
Do you remember Jim Bennett? He was a heavyset blond chap with a funny upper lip. He and another fellow and a lieutenant have been covering the Presidential party since its arrival. All Jim did was to carry the tripod. But they’re going back with the party. I don’t suppose they’ll be discharged. The chances are they’ll come back here again. Even if they do get out, I’m glad for Jim. His father has just died and Jim has to support his mother.
Next post February 23.
Saturday Billy and I went to theatre – the Ba-ta-clan. They told us it was a musical show, and we had visions of “Oh Boy,” etc. It turned out to be a sort of “burlesque” show – a species whose name is interesting but not very instructive. For it burlesques nothing and no one. It was a shade above an American burlesque in staging etc. and below it in moral tone. But it was funny.
Sunday morning I went to Rheims. Were you ever on an excursion? That was one. Cinders, garlic, rain, oranges, delays and smells. Bustle to get aboard the train at 8 A.M. and get a seat. Trample on everyone to get out of it at 8:30. Then three more hours of riding, standing, lying, sitting, kneeling, crouching – anything in the way of a position. These French trains are the limit of discomfort. Every thing is too small. You can’t stretch without begging the pardon of everyone this side of the engineer.
The train goes through many an old be-battled town. Meaux, Chateau-Thierry, Dormans, Epernay. Miles of ruins, trenches and barbed wire. Camouflaged dugouts, gun emplacements, piles of shells, graves, shell-holes – all the leavings of a war.
Then, after more miles of gas-stunted vineyards, Rheims. The cathedral is on a high spot of the city and can be seen for miles over the flat country. It is a magnificent specimen. Somehow I couldn’t feel so bad about the destruction of a church, as I did about the fact that the pile dates back more than ten centuries, and then must end in a pile of stones.
The town itself is to me more touching. It is the center of the champagne industry, and once prospered mightily. It had a population of 115,000. Now there may be 500 or so returned refugees. A couple of pitifully pitched together shops are open. One family has a brave little restaurant in the lower part of a ruined house. “Boucherie” was chalked over the door of what must have been a house once, but now looks like a bit of exhumed Pompeii.
We bought some bread, cheese, jam and wine and ate them in the train on the way home. We started at four and got to Paris at eight. It’s only a hundred miles. There were eight of us together and we sang all the way home to the edification of the French passengers.
There is much more to say about it, but it will keep till I get back. Next Sunday it will be Chateau-Thierry, unless I happen to get there during the week.
Ernie Schoedsack is back from the discharge camp all set for the Red Cross. He expects to leave for Poland on Thursday, and is as wild as a boy the day before a party. He’s a great kid.
There is a certain part of the lab. here, where officers may not enter, and where enlisted men congregate. It is sacred to enlisted men and the old French sweeper-up. Besides, it is the only place where one can smoke during the day. Smoking in this lavatory is a terrible offense, but, since no officer ever goes there and everyone else always does, there have been no punishments. It is the slackers’ paradise, and within its doors all rumors originate. Someone got hold of a bulletin board and put it up for recording rumors. Now there is a laugh every minute. All the wit of the section goes to enliven that board. The latest cartoon and jingle talent comes to the surface. There is a crowd around it all day, new stuff on it all the time and no one ever knows who does it. They blame all the best stuff on me, but so far I’m quite innocent. If our dear Major ever saw some of the things they say about him and his gold-leaved complacence, he’d court martial the whole outfit. It is funny, however.
Billy turned cook. He was dying of ennui up in the shop, and so applied for the job of assistant cook. He began today with a day off. He works only on alternate days.
It is Spring here now. Warm and rainy. Funny country. Wish I were back where winter is winter and Spring looks green. Here you can’t tell them apart.
Maybe if I spoke to them about it they’d let me go home about April 10th. There is a rumor about that Lieut. Cushing is to go home with some men to work in Washington. If he does, I’ll go along, because he is about all that makes life bearable here all day long. We have a good time together.
A new promotion list is going through, but of course I’m not on it. I guess I shall not go any higher in this war; but watch me in the next one – I’m going to have the best title imaginable – Mr. And I’m going to wave a flag and stand on the corner and say, “There they go.”
Next post February 19.
For the last three days it hasn’t been so bright. I have made the discovery that, all in all, I like the adventure of being here and experiencing new things, but that I am tired of it.
Next post February 18.
I went to Mme. Jeanne’s for supper last night and sat and talked, till, by the time I got back to Billy’s, it was too late to write. This morning I awoke at noon to see the sun. Real sun; can you imagine such a thing. I got up and washed next door and just made it in time for dinner.
Tomorrow it will be two weeks that Frank is gone and I miss him. Why? Because I sleep right through the bugle calls. I haven’t been to breakfast six times since he left. Often I don’t awake till after eight. Then if I don’t go to Mme. Jeanne’s I do without.
Today after dinner I came up to Billy’s, heated water and shaved and washed properly. Then I sat down intending to write, but it seemed a shame to stay in on the one sunny day, so out I went.
At first it was cold, but as I walked I began to glow. It was fine. I went east through woods and past a half-frozen lake (which made me thing of Woodlands). Then I came out on a road leading to Joinville. Everything was white and cold; even the bracing air seemed crisply white. Occasionally a yellow trolley car rattled by in charge of a pretty pink-cheeked girl. About half of these suburban cars have female “wattmans.” On the rushing front platforms of a tram it is hard to tell whether it’s a man or a girl; they are dressed almost alike. Only eyes, nose and cheeks show. If a fur neckpiece comes just below these it’s a girl; if a set of whiskers, most likely it’s a man.
There were some ducks and swans in the lake. They reminded me of a hardy polar expedition, for they were entirely surrounded by ice. A little square of black open water near shore, in which they paddled round; the rest flat, desolate ice.
The French are not so strong for cold weather. They bundle up and complain and sit inside their stuffy rooms. They even keep their windows shut when they sleep. Preserve me from a people like that.
The Marne runs through Joinville. It is about as wide as the Passaic river and indescribably lovely. It is placid and smooth. Along its banks are white and cold, tawny fields, with upright woods here and there. Near a town there will be a row of poplars, planted and growing up so straight that a heavenly axe might cleave them all down the exact center at one stroke.
It is the kind of river for which canoes are made. Even the towns and villages have a way of softening off into the picturesque as they come down to the river.
I came back by car, about in time for supper. After supper I went to Streiffs’ for an hour or so, and here I am. Where? In front of the same fire.
It is now ten o’clock and I’m sleepy because I slept so late.
Next post February 12.
This week has been wasted. It has been unprecedentedly cold; the water in the pipes and faucets of the little wash-place we have downstairs was frozen this morning. I had to eat my breakfast unwashed and bring my toilet tools over the lab. Now it is still freezing and icy, and the visions of Billy’s fire as attractive.
Jack wanted me to go to theatre with him tonight, but for two reasons I shall not. First, for three weeks he was very “gentil” which was an unnatural condition; he didn’t drink or go absent without leave or anything. Last week after pay day he did, and while I recognize that it is one of the things in him that must be either accepted or dispensed with along with his friendship, there were other circumstances that are not so savory. He owes a lot of money and knows it; he has spent his pay and is penniless.
Secondly, if we went to town we should be home after 11:30 and it is a very dreary walk in the cold and wind from the subway to my bed; the cars don’t run at night. Si I shall probably end by lending Jack some money and going over to Billy’s fire. You don’t like Jack after all this account of his evildoings, do you? I do.
Fred Eldridge has moved out into the field. He is with the 80th division. Do you know I think he has a notion that he can manage to go home with them and that it will be before we go? I happen to know also that he’s wrong on several counts. The 80th will probably go up to Germany, and he’ll be called back here to go home with us. Clarence will be back here, I imagine, before long. I have seen pictures of him and have heard from him recently. He has grown old and is nervous to the point of dementia. He would make a very good exhibit A if you were interested in psychological experiments on the effect of a shell that passes too close. It happened on the first day of the Argonne drive and he never stops talking about it. Unless he’s got better since the last time he was in here, I fear for his mind. Instead of going away now, it seems to prey on him. Hope he’s better when he comes in.
Next post February 9.
I was all settled when in came 3 noisy inmates of the room, and I could not write another word.
The Peace Conference which has been under way for about three weeks is only the preliminary. As yet it is not a conference with our late enemy. Its only accomplishments will be to achieve accord among the Allies, so that when the Germans come to the green table a definite program awaits them. Incidentally, the world’s history is being made down there at the Hotel Grillon. The real Peace Conference will doubtless take place not in Paris, but in Versailles, just outside. And today I heard that it is expected that peace will be signed by the middle of June. Five months would not be so bad, for a congress that must dispose of such weighty matters.
There is no outward sign, so far, that we are not to stay here until June; but I’m more or less on the inside. Things are moving there. I have hopes.
Ernie Schoedsack left yesterday for a discharge camp. He has enlisted for six months in the Red Cross, as camera man, and will get a fine salary. He hasn’t lived home for 5 years, is in no hurry to get back, in fact, would like to make a trip round the world before returning.
By the way he also was made a Sgt. 1st class, and more than deserves it. Millard Huston is now an M.S. E. (one grade higher); he might have been a 2nd Lt. but for the armistice. Van Duzer and Worry are corporals, and Geisel, Billy and Frank are privates 1st class.
Jean Crunelle came back today from 6 weeks of touring France taking hospitals. Perfectly useless stuff. Had I told you he is a sergeant?
Remember Furst? Tall, lanky, glasses, always “picked up” a girl at Ft. Wood? On Dec. 28 he died in a hospital, of abscess on the brain. Proved the presence of a brain at any rate.
This week I have heard from Bert Webb and Clarence Elmer, and seen pictures of each. Both are in Germany with different divisions, and apparently well. Corporal (now) Sulzer is there too.
I had a fine time Sunday. Jones plays the flute, “Pep” the guitar. I the mandolin and Cesario talks Italian. We had two fine Italian meals, lots of music and some dancing. It lasted from 2 P.M. to midnight.
Since then I haven’t done much either by day or by night. I have lost most of my ambition. It seems to have oozed out into the mud and dampness of the Parisian winter. It is an awful effort to take my laundry around the corner.
Today I acquired a German Iron Cross. My only souvenir, and I don’t know what to do with it.
I want to go home; I don’t see any sense in staying here when it’s all over. I didn’t enlist to win medals and colonelcies for four-flushers. The thing’s over and we are worse than useless. Why can’t they send us back?
Today has been a pretty good day, for no particular reason, except that I had a good time. All day long we laughed and joked. Then came Nellie who took me to supper.
Now Billy’s fire is warm and bright, and it is still comfortable here. Of course I must stop and shave and then go to bed.
Next post February 8.
It is very cold here. I’m on the floor in front of a fine log fire in Billy’s room, and for a change everyone is quiet. The room is only about 11 by 12, but even a roaring fire doesn’t heat it. This one isn’t a roarer; it is just a crackly one.
And I am back to the ABC smoke of all pipe-smokers – Bull Durham in a corn-cob pipe. I have beaucoup other fuel and 3 other furnaces, but this is good for a change. The K of C, threatened with an excess of stuff, has been very good to us of late. In the last month or so they have handed out free lots of towels, soap, tobacco, cigarettes, candy – and a corn-cob. That’s more than the Y.M.C.A. has ever done.
Next post February 5.
Letters from Sidney Friend During The Great War 