THROUGH THE SCHOOL OF WAR
Clip the skyline from the Blue Ridge, arch it over with arboreal vistas from the forests of the Oregon, reflect the two in the placid waters of the Wisconsin—and you will have some conception of the perfect Eden of beauty in which the first contingent of the American Expeditionary Forces trained in France.
Beckoning white roads curl through the rolling hills like ribbons of dental cream squeezed out evenly on rich green velour. Châteaux, pearl white centres in settings of emerald green, push their turrets and bastions above the mossy plush of the mountain side. Lazy little streams silver the valleys with their aimless wanderings.
It was a peaceful looking garden of pastoral delight that United States soldiers had picked out for their martial training ground. It was a section whose physical appearance was untouched by the three years of red riot and roar that still rumbled away just a few miles to the north.
The training area was located in the Vosges, in east central France. By train, it was a nine-hour day trip from Paris. It was located about an hour's motor ride behind the front lines, which at that time were close to the north of the cities of Nancy and Toul.
The troops were billeted in a string of small villages that comprised one side of the letter V. French troops and instructing officers occupied the other converging line of the letter. Between the two lines was the area in which our men trained. Where the two lines converged was the town of Gondercourt, the headquarters of Major General Seibert, the Commander of the first American division in France.
The area had long since been stripped of male civilian population that could be utilised for the French ranks. The war had taken the men and the boys, but had left the old people and children to till the fields, tend the cattle, prune the hedges and trim the roads.
With the advent of our troops, the restful scene began to change. Treeless ridges carpeted with just enough green to veil the rocky formation of the ground began to break out with a superficial rash of the colour of fresh earth. In rows and circles, by angles and zigzags, the training trenches began to take form daily under the pick and shovel exercises of French and Americans working side by side.
Along the white roads, clay-coloured rectangles that moved evenly, like brown caravans, represented the marching units of United States troops. The columns of bluish-grey that passed them with shorter, quicker steps, were companies of those tireless Frenchmen, who after almost three years of the front line real thing, now played at a mimic war of make-believe, with taller and heavier novitiates.
Those French troops were Alpine Chasseurs—the famous Blue Devils. They wore dark blue caps, which resemble tam o'shanters, but are not. They were proud of the distinction which their uniform gave them. They were proud of their great fighting records. One single battalion of them boasted that of the twenty-six officers who led it into the first fight at the opening of the war, only four of them existed.