"And they thought we wouldn't fight"

by Floyd Phillips Gibbons

The recruit tightened his grip on his rifle and lowered his aim with better results. At the end of his first fifty shots he was placing one in three on the target and the others were registering close in.

"Bravo!" came from a group of French officers at the other end of the trench, where another American, older in the service, had signalised his first experiences with the new firearm by landing thirty targets out of thirty-four shots, and four of the targets were bull's-eyes. The French instructors complimented him on the excellence of his marksmanship, considering his acknowledged unfamiliarity with the weapon.

Further along the depression, in another set of opposing trenches and targets, a row of French machine guns manned by young Americans, sprayed lead with ear-splitting abandon, sometimes reaching the rate of five hundred shots a minute. Even with such rapidity, the Americans encountered no difficulties with the new pieces.

French veterans, who for three years had been using those same guns against German targets, hovered over each piece, explaining in half French and half English, and answering in the same mixture questions on ways and means of getting the best results from the weapons.

Here a chasseur of the ranks would stop the firing of one American squad, with a peremptory, "Regardez." He would proceed with pantomime and more or less connected words, carrying the warning that firing in such a manner would result in jamming the guns, a condition which would be fatal in case the targets in the other trenches were charging upon the guns.

Then he showed the correct procedure, and the Yanks, watchfully alert to his every move, changed their method and signified their pleasure with the expression of "Trays beans," and "Mercy's."

"Do you think it would have resulted in a quicker and possibly more understanding training if these Americans were instructed by British veterans instead of French?" I asked an American Staff Officer, who was observing the demonstration.

"I may have thought so at first," the officer replied, "but not now. The explanations which our men in the ranks are receiving from the French soldiers in the ranks are more than word instructions. They are object lessons in which gesticulation and pantomime are used to act out the movement or subject under discussion.

"The French are great actors, and I find that American soldiers unacquainted with the French language are able to understand the French soldiers who are unacquainted with the English language much better than the American officers, similarly handicapped, can understand the French officers.

"I should say that some time would be lost if all of our troops were to be trained by French soldiers, but I believe that this division under French tutelage will be better able to teach the new tactics to the new divisions that are to follow than it would be if it had speedily passed through training camps like the British system, for instance, where it must be taken for granted that verbal, instead of actual, instruction is the means of producing a speeding up of training."