With the Doughboy in France: A Few Chapters of an American Effort

by Edward Hungerford

Once in stating his policy in regard to the direction of the Red Cross Department of Military Affairs, of which he had been chief before succeeding Major Murphy as Commissioner to France, Major Perkins laid down his fundamental principles of work quite simply: they were merely to find and to develop the quickest and most effective way of helping the soldiers of the allied armies, and, particularly in the case of the United States Army, to put the Red Cross at the full service of every individual in it, not only in succoring the wounded but in making a difficult life as comfortable as was humanely possible for the well, and to perform these duties in the most economical and effective manner possible.

Here was a platform broad and generous, and, with the greatest armies that the world in all its long centuries of fighting has ever known, affording opportunities so vast as to be practically limitless. One might have thought that in a war carried forward on so unprecedented and colossal a scale that the Red Cross—or, for that matter, any other relief organization—might have found its fullest opportunity in a single activity. But seemingly that is not the Red Cross way of doing things. And in this particular war its great and dominating American organization was forever seeking out opportunities for service far removed from its conventional activities of the past, and of the things that originally might have been expected of it. Count so much for its versatility.

Consider, for instance, its activities in the field with the American Army—we also shall consider these in greater detail farther along in the pages of this book. The field service of the Red Cross in France—the distribution of such homely and needed man creature comforts as tobacco and toilet articles to the troopers in the trenches or close behind them—was a work quite removed from that started by women such as Florence Nightingale or Clara Barton. But who shall rise to say that, in its way, it was not nearly if not quite as essential?

It was this field service that Major Perkins inaugurated, then urged, and, in its earliest phases, personally directed. In addition he had charge of the first developments of the canteen or outpost services at the front. This consisted of the establishment of more or less permanent stations by the Red Cross as close to the front-line trenches as was either practicable or permissible. Open both day and night, these outposts took, at night under the cover of darkness, hot drinks and comforts to the men holding the trenches and at all hours took care of them as they came and went to and from the lines of advanced fighting.

When, slowly but surely, the American Army began to be a formidable combat force in France, the already great problems of Major Perkins were vastly increased. Up to that time the allied soldiers had been receiving the bulk of the assistance of our Red Cross. Now the balance of the work had to be changed and its preponderance swung toward our own army. Yet Perkins did not forget the grateful words and looks of thanks that he had received so many, many times from the poilus and all of their capitaines.

"Not less for the French, but more for the Americans," he quietly announced as his policy.

So it was done, and so continued. The sterling qualities of leadership that this man had shown from the first in the repeated times of great stress and emergency stood him in good stead. He already had instilled into the hearts and souls of the men and women who worked with him that consecration of purpose and enthusiasm for the work in hand which rendered so many of them, under emergency, supermen and superwomen. I have myself a high regard for organization. But I do believe that organization, without the promptings of the human heart to soften as well as to direct it, is as nothing. How often have we heard of the man with the hundred-thousand-dollar mind and the two-cent heart. And how well we all know the fate that eventually confronts him.

To Harvey D. Gibson, who succeeded him as Commissioner to France in the summer of 1918, Major Perkins turned over an organization whose heart was as big as its mind, and then wended his own way toward the army, where he repeated so many of his successes in the Red Cross. But, as we have said, left behind him in this last organization enduring memorials of great affection.

Eventually there came other big chiefs of our American Red Cross in France. Colonel Gibson returned to the United States in March, 1919, with the satisfaction of having done a thorough job thoroughly. He was succeeded by Colonel George H. Burr, as big-hearted and as broad in vision as Perkins. At the same time that Burr came to the seat of command in Paris, Colonel Robert E. Olds, whom Gibson had brought to Paris, became Commissioner for Europe. Between Burr and Olds there was the finest sort of teamwork. The period in which they worked was far from an easy one. With the armistice more than three months past, with the constantly irritating and unsettling effect of the Peace Conference upon Paris and all who dwelt within her stout stone walls, with the mad rush of war enthusiasts to get back to the peace days in the homeland, with the strain and overwork of long months of the conflict finally telling upon both bodies and nerves, the necessity of maintaining the morale of the Red Cross itself, to say nothing of the men it served, was urgent. The dramatic phases of the work were gone. So was the glory. There remained simply the huge problem of orderly demobilization, of bringing the structure down to its original dimensions. A job much more easily said than done; but one that was done and done very well indeed.

We have digressed from the days of the war. Return once again to them. In all that time there were many, many changes in our American Red Cross in Paris—one might fairly say, "of course." Men came and men went and plans and quarters were changed with a fair degree of frequency. But far more men—women, too—came than went, and moving days and plan changings grew farther and farther apart; for here was a definite and consistent planning and upbuilding of organization. If there is any one material thing upon which we Americans pride ourselves to-day more than another it is upon our ability to upbuild our efficiency through organization. And I think it is but fair to say if it had not been thoroughly organized much of the effort of the American Red Cross in France would have been lost. Commissions and commissioners might come and commissions and commissioners might go, but the plan of organization stood, and was at all times a great factor in the success of the work overseas.