Kings, Queens and Pawns: An American Woman at the Front

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

The French adopted the American belief that liberty is the object of government, and liberty of the individual—that very belief which France is standing for to-day as opposed to the nationalism of Germany. The Frenchman believes, like the American, that pressure should be from within out, not from without in. In other words, his own conscience, and not the arbitrary ruling of an arbitrary government, is his dictator. To reconcile liberty and democracy, then, has been France's problem, as it has been that of America. She has faced the same problems against a handicap that America has not had—the handicap of a discontented nobility. And by sheer force and determination France has won.

It has been said that the French in their Revolution were not reckless innovators. They were confiding followers. And the star they followed was the same star which, multiplied by the number of states, is the American flag to-day—Liberty.

Because of the many ties between the two countries, I had urged on the French Ambassador the necessity of letting America know a little more intimately what was being done by the French in this war. Since that time a certain relaxation has taken place along all the Allied lines. Correspondents have been taken out on day excursions and have cabled to America what they saw. But at the time I visited the French Army of the North there had been no one there.

Those Americans who had seen the French soldier in times of peace had not been greatly impressed. His curious, bent-kneed, slouching step, so carefully taught him—so different from the stately progress of the British, for instance, but so effective in covering ground—his loose trousers and huge pack, all conspire against the ensemble effect of French soldiers on the march.

I have seen British regiments at ease, British soldiers at rest and in their billets. Always they are smart, always they are military. A French regiment at ease ceases to be a part of a great machine. It shows, perhaps, more humanity. The men let their muscles sag a bit. They talk, laugh, sing if they are happy. They lie about in every attitude of complete relaxation. But at the word they fall in again. They take up the slack, as it were, and move on again in that remarkable pas de flexion that is so oddly tireless. It is a difference of method; probably the best thing for men who are Gallic, temperamental. A more lethargic army is better governed probably by rule of thumb.

I had crossed the Channel again to see the French and English lines. On my previous visit, which had lasted for several weeks, I had seen the Belgian Army at the front and the French Army in billets and on reserve. This time I was to see the French Army in action.

The first step to that end, getting out of Calais, proved simple enough. The car came from Dunkirk, and brought passes. I took more influenza medicine, dressed and packed my bag. There was some little regret mingled with my farewell to the hotel at the Gare Maritime. I had had there a private bath, with a porcelain tub. More than that, the tub had been made in my home city. It was, I knew, my last glimpse of a porcelain tub, probably of any tub, for some time. There were bath towels also. I wondered if I would ever see a bath towel again. I left a cake of soap in that bathroom. I can picture its next occupant walking in, calm and deliberate, and then his eye suddenly falling on a cake of soap. I can picture his stare, his incredulity. I can see him rushing to the corridor and ringing the fire bell and calling the other guests and the strangers without the gates, and the boot boy in an apron, to come and see that cake of soap.

But not the management. They would take it away.

The car which came for me had been at the front all night. It was filled inside and out with mud, so that it was necessary to cover the seat before I got in. Of all the cars I have ever travelled in, this was the most wrecked. Hardly a foot of the metal body was unbroken by shell or bullet hole. The wind shield had been torn away. Tatters of curtain streamed out in the wind. The mud guards were bent and twisted. Even in that region of wrecked cars people turned to look at it.

Calais was very gay that Sunday afternoon. The sun was out. At the end of the drawbridge a soldier was exercising a captured German horse.