"Speaking a few words of French" could only open a chink in the barrier of language between our men and the French people. Wherever two Americans met they could begin talking without waiting on an interpreter. The common bond of language promoted the family feeling of the A. E. F. In all their relations our men saw with fresh eyes, in the light of foreign surroundings, how like they were, not only in uniform and equipment and ways of thought, but how distinctly American even the European born and the sons of European parents had become. Old differences disappeared in this new sense of a fundamental similarity. Men from the different parts of the United States came together not only in the combat divisions but around the docks and railway yards and wherever they labored in the Services of Supply. Kansas, Oregon, and Maine had adjoining beds at a hospital, while a doctor from Pittsburgh or Oskaloosa, or a nurse from New York or Cheyenne, looked after them. Reserve officers who had been lawyers, merchants, engineers, gang foremen, bakers, bankers, manufacturers, lived and worked together in keeping the army fed with shells and food.
"The gang's all here," was as expressive of the soldier's feeling in the Great War as "There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight" in the little war with Spain. To all in whom there was the germ from which it could develop, the stern fighting and effort brought a sense of personal power, quiet, observant, undemonstrative; and their sense of the presence there in France of two millions of Americans—scattered far and wide, omnipresent in their energy, welded into one mighty organization, pulsing with the heart of the home country three thousand miles away, as California looked Maine in the eye in that common family—brought a new sense of national power. It occurred to me that the A. E. F. symbolized how a great overgrown boy of a nation, with a puzzled feeling about its expanding physique, had suddenly become a dignified, poised, self-respecting adult.
The men knew why they were in France, even if they did not express it in the phrases of oratory or propaganda. Their logic was as cold as their steel, as vivid as gun flashes. They were in France to beat the Germans. The period for argument had passed for them. They had the business in hand. Their bitterness toward the foe was not as great as that at home. Why waste words on him when you had bullets and shells to fire at him? He was taken for granted no less than burglary and murder: a positive material force to be overcome.
Whether college graduates or street-sweepers, the privates were a guild as exclusive in its way—as it always has been—as a regular mess. They had voted themselves into their task. It was the will of the majority of their country that we go to France. The majority rules; general and other officers may act as legatees for the majority. The thing was to "play the game." Those who rebelled found that there was nothing else to do. They were in the machine's grip. "Play the game!" No phrase better expressed their attitude than this. It was a wicked, filthy, dangerous game. They had signed on for it; they would see it through.
Given this conviction, and no soldier will endure more hardship than the American. It was the bedrock of adherence to that rigid discipline which in our western democracy surprised Europeans. We saluted on all occasions—what a punctiliously saluting army we were!—and followed all the rules of etiquette that the experts said were necessary, and learned to take "bawlings out" with soldierly philosophy. As children know their parents, the men knew their officers' characters; a fresh replacement lieutenant was promptly "sized up," but final judgment was reserved until he had led them under fire, where he must stand the real test. It was a relief to them that they did not have to add an extra salute for every grade of an officer's rank. One salute would do for a general as well as a second lieutenant. Generals passed them on the road in cars; generals inspected them. They did not take much interest in generals, who were also a part of the game to them. Company and battalion commanders alone could make their personal leadership felt. They were the "heroes" when they were good, and rightly so.
Officers made strange guesses sometimes as to what their men were thinking. The men were wiser than many officers knew; for they were the mass intelligence of America. They understood that the Stars and Stripes was propaganda; but it was interesting. They read it with avidity. Propaganda was one of the parts of the mysterious, ugly game. I have heard it compared to the coaching from the bleachers at a league game. The men smiled over the communiqué's records of actions in which they participated. Communiqués were a part of the game, helping propaganda to coach from the side lines. It would not do to say that a company had been sent by mistake into interlocking machine-gun fire to take a town which the survivors had to yield. When the men read the home papers, there was no mention of their losses or their suffering. One might think from the accounts that they were enjoying themselves immensely, and were quite comfortable in the fox-holes. This, too, was a part of the game.
They were there to see the game through. The sooner it was through, the sooner they would go home. Veterans who had spent one winter in France did not want to spend another; those who had not did not care to try the experience. They had no more reason for liking France than a man who sleeps on the ground in Central Park in December, eating cold rations, under machine-gun fire, has for liking New York City. "I want to get back to the cactus!" as an Arizona man said. All were fighting to reach home and be free men again; freedom having a practical application for them. The longer they were in France, the more they felt that they were fighting for America. As Americans they were on their mettle. Such was the spirit that carried them as Americans through the Meuse-Argonne, which was the American army's battle.