New-York tribune. [volume], August 04, 1918, Page 8, Image 42

About New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924

Image provided by: Library of Congress, Washington, DC

                
By and For
the Soldiers
of the A* & K
The Official
Newspaper
of the A. E. Ft
Here's a page of stuff right from the trenches, assembled by The Review from a recent issue of the above named paper, published "Somewhere in France"
AME?IOALJN FRANCE
Chateau-Thierry
Written down by the soldiers of the
A. E. F., one by one there are appear?
ing for the first time in the pages of
American history the names of old
French towns. They are towns rich in
the memories of a thousand years and
scarred with the half-forgotten wounds
of a hundred wars. Theirs are names
that French children have conned for
centuries and which now your children
and your children's children will read in
the school books of America.
Such a name is Ch?teau Thierry. It
was there that the German armies in
the great thrust for Paris they began
on May 27 first met the resistance of
Yankee troops.
Chateau Thierry is a little town on a
hill. Past its foot flow the slow, un?
troubled waters of the Marne. From the
gray stone, red tiled outskirts on the
other side of the river you cross a
three-arched bridge of stone to mount
by winding paths to where the ancient
church lifts its sixteenth century belfry
to the heavens. House by house and
street by street, the town has grown up
through the centuries around a squat,
deep-dungeoned ch?teau. Of this ch??
teau only two vine-hung gates and the
fragments of a thickset wall are left
to tell the story of many a bitter siege.
Built by Charles Martel
The ch?teau was built in 720 by
Charles Martel, the great Hammer of
the Franks and grandfather of the still
greater Charlemagne?the same Charles
Martel who saved Europe for Christen?
dom when, twelve years later, he met
and vanquished the turbanned hosts of
the all-conquering Saracens in the bat?
tle of Poitiers. Little remains of the
castle itself, but you can still see the
base of the tower where one of his fee?
ble successors, Charles the Simple, was
held a prisoner.
When, in the early days of June,
.1918, men once more fought hand to
hand in the narrow streets of Chateau
Thierry and the thunder of the guns
stirred ancient echoes in the crumbling
ruins of the castle, history was but re?
peating itself. The river valleys, con?
verging upon the plain of Paris and
finding there a barrier of hills, have
ever turned that basin into the final
battlefield of an invasion, with the capi?
tal as the goal. That is why around
Chateau Thierry, reared like a stub?
born bastion on the rim of that basin,
the soldiers of many a forgotten cause
have fought and died. It has always
blocked the path to Paris.
Now held as a watch tower by the
dukes of France, now as an outpost by
the counts of Champagne, the castle
changed hands again and again through
the early centuries.
English archers took and held it in
1421, toward the close of the weary
Hundred Years' War between England
and France, the interminable war which
finally brought Joan of Arc up out of
the fields of Lorraine to lead the armies
of the King and which, at the end, lost
to the English crown all its rich French
jewels save only Calais.
In the first half of the sixteenth cen?
tury, while adventurers on the other
side of the Atlantic were exploring with
fear and wonder th,e mysteries of the
wilderness known as America, the old
world shook with the trampling armies
of Francis I, King of France, and his
enemy, the mighty Charles V, Emperor
of Germany, who had made a pact witri
England for his undoing.
Then?and not for the last time?the
dwellers along the Marne saw an armj
of Germans march upon Paris. For
leading his troops through Champagne
Charles pressed his invasion to withir
twenty-four leagues of the capital, and
in that invasion the Germans took Ch??
teau Thierry.
A half century later the Spaniard?
sacked it in the course of the terribh
Wars of Religion, when Catholics anc
Huguenots fought such bitter battlei
for the control of France that, in th<
course of thirty years, a million French
men perished. Spanish troops enteret
France as allies of the Catholics. Thos<
were the days when a Spanish garrisor
held Paris, nor, for all his sieges, coulc
the Protestant chieftain, Henry of Na
varre, enter its gates till he had marchec
through crowds of joyous people to th<
Church of Saint-Denis and there, in th<
presence of the prelates, asked to b?
received "into the pale of the Catholie
Apostolic and Roman Church."
Greatest Battle in 1814
It was in 1591 that the Spaniards fel
upon Ch?teau Thierry, but its greates
battle was fought in that desperat?
February of 1814 when England, Prus
sia, the German States, Spain, Portugal
Russia, Sweden and Austria?a crush
ing alliance?joined hands against Na
poleon. From the south and the eas
they invaded France, and, hemmed ii
on all sides, the little Emperor wa
forced for the first time in his life t>
fight on the defensive.
Fighting with only 20,000 young am
untried conscripts, he fell upon an'
smashed at Ch?teau Thierry an army o
50,000 Russians and Prussians. It wa
a final flash of the old success, a shinin
victory in the midst of a disastrou
campaign, for on the last day of Marc
Napoleon's enemies entered Paris, an
before many weeks had passed he ha
been exiled to Elba.
Ch?teau Thierry was taken and rt
taken in 1814. Just a hundred year
later its walls looked clown upon th
retreat of the enemy before the victoi
of the Marne.
Visiting there in the spring of th
year, you would have foudd Ch?tea
Thierry a town set in a fair and peaci
ful countryside, proud of its shee*
crowded pasturage and rich in its vim
and cherry trees?a little town of 7,00
people, no larger than Rochester, Minn
or Red Bank, N. J.
And this town is a shrine for Frene
pilgrims, not because of the batth
fought in its streets, but because it w?
the home of the master of fables, L
Fontaine. Very much as it was in tl
seventeenth century, you can see to-ds
the house, with its outside staircases ar
its rnoss-grown well, where this most b
loved of French poets was born.
Walk an hour or so up the road th<
leads to the northwest, and you con
to La Fertc-Milon, the home of Racin
Jean de la Fontaine and Jean Racine
A PERFECT DAY (? la Hun)
?Urawn by Wallgren
they are the poets of that region at the
heart of the country which is known as
Isle de France, the poets whose work, in
its simplicity, its modesty, its eternal
common sense, gives to the French spirit
its finest, its purest expression.
La Fontaine at Chateau Thierry
The French of all ranks and ages love
their poet of Ch?teau Thierry. When,
in the early stages of the Revolution,
the infuriated mob in Paris gave them?
selves over to the September massacres
of bloody memory, and thousands of
prisoners were butchered, one woman
was spared for no other reason than be?
cause she was the granddaughter of La
Fontaine. French children hear his
fables in the nursery and kno\?f them by
heart; their fathers and mothers find
summed up in them all their philosophy
of life.
It was at Ch?teau Thierry that La
Fontaine was Master of the Waters and
the Forests. It was there he made
friends with the wandering dog, the toil?
ing ant, the mounting lark?all the ani?
mals of the countryside that move in his
fables. It was there he wrote "The
Wolves and the Ewe," of which the
moral is the motto of his people in this
year of trial:
"We can conclude from this that one
must war continually with the wicked.
Peace is all very well in itself, I admit,
but of what use is it with enemies who
are faithless?"
THE COY AND PLAYFUL COOTIE
With a manner quite invidious,
And an attitude insidious,
He will plant himself upon a mortal's
frame,
And with gimlet, pike and augur
And the cant-hook of a logger,
He will do his best to viscerate and
maim.
Since the days of ancient Rome,
The human body's been his home,
A sort of perennial sacred niche;
And he chuckles with great pleasure
As you dance the cootie measure
To the gleeful time of his eternal itch.
He dotes on Yank and French,
And the English in the trench;
He cares not for a permanent location;
But when he finds a human,
All his friends and he start roomin',
And establish a splendid habitation.
And when it seems that coals of fire
And that flaming darts aspire
To seek an inlet to your very heart,
Stop your scratching just to reason
That this is cootie season,
And your body's now a busy cootie mart.
SUMMER DAYS UP AT THE FRONT
"Say," said an infantryman, "do you
? want to hear about the worst piece of
| out-of-luck that ever happened in the
: A. E. F.? A pal of mine went into the
tight with 2,000 francs in his pocket?
you know.
"Now he's reported missing."
An ancient French schoolhouse, de?
serted in the flight of the villagers, was
taken over by the Americans as part of
the headquarters of a field ambulance.
The interrupted lesson could be read
upon the bulletin board by the Yankee
wounded, carried through, and a Daudet
among them could have woven a master?
piece from it. The moral that the teach?
er was inculcating when he held his
"derni?re classe" was this:
"The free man obeys his conscience
and the laws of his country."
And the phrase set before the pupils
for their composition exercise that day
?the date was written on the board,
29 Mai, 1918?was:
"Un jour de grand vent."
They might have written it: "The day
of the big wind."
Don't carry anyt?ing in your gas mask
bag that doesn't belong there. That
isn't a general order, but the fruit of at
least one man's experience.
He had gone over the top on a patrol.
Somebody smelled gas; on went the
masks. He bit into it, clamped his nose
on tight, and started to breathe. That
is, he tried to. For several agonizing
minutes he struggled to get wind through
it. And then he found it was a false
alarm.
Thanking his stars that it hadn't been
a real attack to be endured with a safety
appliance that was as dangerous as the
German pizen itself, he went to his lieu?
tenant at the first opportunity and told
him that the thing didn't work.
The lieutenant looked at it.
"What's this?" he asked.
From the slot at the base of the res?
pirator he drew a postcard that had
stuck there.
"Now try it," he said.
It worked. That man isn't using his
mask bag as a mail pouch any more.
The top sergeant of a field hospital
was tenderly straightening out the.
papers?clippings, letters, photographs
?that had been found in the pockets of
a marine from Philadelphia who had
died from his wounds on his way to an
evacuation hospital. "I see he got his
man first," said the top, and showed
among the papers there a muddy two
mark note.
"Major, er?I mean Colonel?no, par?
don me, Major"
You really can't tell the difference
after the major or the lieutenant colonel
has been hiking a few kilometres along
the dusty roads away up beyond the
sprinkling cart zone. The gold leaves
and the silver leaves lose all their glint
and glamour beneath a coat of gray
brown dust. So it is perfectly permis?
sible to make mistakes.
If you are wise you will say colonel
If it is a lieutenant colonel, you're right,
and if it's a major it makes him feel
good.
A batch of German prisoners was be?
ing marched along the road under con
-?-??J
voy of a sergeant. They swung p^
little audience of Yanks. '
"Hello, boys!" called one gleeful
tive in regular English. And poj2
to the line, he added just as gleefi?i
'"It's hell up there !"
A lean young infantryman horrW
across France with his re<rimen1. ??
flung intto a fight near Ch?teau Thie*.
with scanty sleep and short ratio*
went over a crest with the first wav
assault, emerged from a mix-up tria
German bayonet none the worse exce!
for a tear in the seat of his breeches
caped by a miracle even,- blast in'ei,
murderous crossfire of German mach"
guns and finally came out one of the ?C
unscratched ones in his platoon, n
dropped on the ground, doubly thanK
for the promise of a few moments' re?
but he bounded up again in all A
agony of his first wound. His facefcii
landed in a bunch of nettles.
A marine confided to the surgeon ?in
was dressing his wound that his cou
pany had, at one point, swarmed np?
the German artillery and taken the gu?
"Were you able to bring them back!
the doctor wanted to know. ?
"Bring them back? Hell, we're can?,
lng there."
Up at the front you hear vin mat
called by the nickname by which ever
poilu knows it. The word pinard k^i
the best Americanese.
Two marines on the outskirts of Chi
teau Thierry made a dash at a Gents
machine gun that was coming into pfr
on their bunch. The first, a privat?,
grabbed the mouth of the gun with h
hand and shoved it up in the air. It?
most blew his hand to bits, but the thin
he remembers best was the way his pi
the corporal, laughed as he jabbed rj
bayonet through the four Germans*'}
were behind that gun.
When one division moved up to arm
headquarters it took along with it ase:
g?ant in the Q. M. C. who believes:
being as comfortable as the exigence
of war will permit. He was one of th?
"sleek-headed men, and such as sleepi
nights," and straightway ge began?
look around for a bed. In a barn I
found the village hearse, which by sor
oversight had not been evacuated. A:
there he lies nightly.
Somebody else liked the idea an:
tried to bunk on the roof. But th
hearse wouldn't stand it. It threate:;:
to collapse all over the sergeant, s:
after a council of war it was deciie
that the hearse had been constructed c:
a one-man basis and ought to stay &
way.
"It's very comfortable," the sergesr.
explains. "And if they ever shell Ik
barn, here I am, ;;'! ready for'em."
WAR-TIME SEESAWS
The Tommies describe those big belts
cf steel that are sawed in half to nut
arched roofs for dugouts as "elepfe
iron." The French gamin describes.*?
as "rockers." Whenever two youths l
France discover one of these half ac?
tions on its back with the ends stiefcf
up, they balance a plank across it &?
merrily proceed to seesaw.
DIES' IST "DER TAG!"
?By WALLGREN