X

THE AMERICANS AS HELPERS

It is one thing to become an ally, and quite another to have an army prepared to make our proffered alliance of value. After the indifference with which Germany met American protests in regard to the sinking of the Lusitania and the U-boat warfare, the thinking people of the country realized that war would probably be forced upon us. In the summer of 1915 training camps were formed at Plattsburg and elsewhere; and there business men, college professors and students, lawyers, authors, publishers, and others spent a month in learning how to be soldiers. Here was the "intensive training" of which we hear so much. The only difference between this and ordinary training is that in the intensive there is no dawdling; every man has a reason for doing his best, and he does it. The result at Plattsburg was that in one month many hundreds of men learned about warfare and the use of arms what would ordinarily have required four months of training. They were not prepared to command armies in battle, but they were prepared to train raw troops in the manual of arms, to teach them how to care for their health in a campaign, and, perhaps most valuable of all, to inspire them with a fuller appreciation of team work, with an eagerness to serve their

country and a comprehension of the nobility of such service.

An army was raised by "selective draft," that is, composed of strong, well men upon whom, as far as possible, no one was dependent for support, and who were not engaged in work necessary to the war, such as shipbuilding, munition-making, etc. To every soldier or sailor the Government gave a life insurance policy, in amounts varying up to $10,000; the premiums, amounting to 80 or 90 cents a month on each $1000, to be taken from his pay. The Government also gave him the privilege of taking out additional insurance up to another $10,000 at the same rates that he would pay in time of peace. For each $1000 of this he pays about $8 a year.

The preparations ordered by the Government were enormous. As one small detail, 45,000,000 yards of cotton cloth had to be purchased, besides 21,000,000 yards of drilling; the building of ships, aeroplanes, and submarine chasers was ordered. Cantonments, or camps wherein our troops may live and be trained for the army, had to be built; and it is no small matter to build almost in a night sixteen wooden cities capable of housing some 40,000 men each, with water-supply, drainage, electric lights and power, barracks, hospitals, stables, sheds, shops, and storehouses. The average cantonment has twenty miles of sewer and forty miles of water mains. In these cantonments the men are taught not only to know the manual of arms, but to dig trenches, to handle guns and take care of them,

to use bayonets, hand grenades, and bombs, to keep clean, to care for their feet, to stand and run and walk in the least fatiguing manner, to obey orders, and, as one detail, to learn that the salute is a mark, not merely of the deference of a private to an officer, but of the respect due to the uniform of the United States. The prescribed form is for the man of lower rank to salute first, but if the officer neglected to return the salute, he would be punished.

Before the summer of 1918 had come to an end, some 3,300,000 American boys were under arms, half of them in France and the other half in training camps. Command of the Allied forces had been put into the hands of General Foch, whom Marshal Joffre called "the first strategist in Europe." Week after week Foch repulsed the drives of the Germans, holding firmly to his positions. At length the hour came for which he had been planning and preparing. He now took the offensive; blow followed blow, and from the middle of July the Germans have been in retreat. Territory has been gained, of course, but the greatest gain has been the defeat of Germany's plans to win the war before the end of 1918. From all directions come praises of the bravery of the American boys. The Germans had not supposed it possible for a few months' training to make the Americans into acceptable soldiers; but these same boys, fresh from college and farm and workshop, have held their own against the flower of the German army, the famous "Prussian Guards" and the Bavarian Guards, veterans of many battles.

Immigrants have been coming to this country in vast numbers, and we have not taken sufficient pains to see that they learned to speak English. Now that many of them are in our army, they must learn to understand orders at least, and therefore the cantonments have classes for them. A visitor to one of these classes thus pictures a lesson:

"In one of these groups one of the exercises for the evening consisted in practicing the challenge when on sentry duty. Each pupil of the group (there were four of Italian and two of Slavic birth) shouldered in turn the long-handled stove shovel and aimed it at the teacher, who ran along the side of the room as if to evade the guard. The pupil called out in broken speech: 'Halt! Who goes there?' The answer came from the teacher: 'Friend.' And then, in as yet unintelligible English (the voices of innumerable ancestors struggling in their throats to pronounce it), the words: 'Advance and give the countersign.'

So it is that these men of foreign birth are learning the language of the country which has given them a home and which they are preparing to defend.

Americans who have gone to France have not all been expert linguists, and amusing stories come back to us of their struggles with the French language. One is said to have wondered why so many Frenchmen named their dogs "Ici" (here). Another wanted to tell his peasant hostess that her cow had wandered away, but could say only, "Madame du

Copyright, Underwood & Underwood, New York

FOUR ALLIED COMMANDERS IN FRANCE

From left to right these are: (1) General Petain, one of the leaders at the defense of Verdun, 1916; now Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies; (2) Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in France and Flanders. He was made ield marshal after the battle of the Somme, in 1916; (3) Marshal Foch, Commander-inChief of the Allied Armies; with Marshal Joffre, he was joint hero of the battle of the Marne, 1914, where his daring and impetuous attack started the Germans on their retreat. Joffre styles him "the greatest strategist in France", and (4) General John Joseph Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces.