THE SECTION IN ALSACE RECONQUISE
"Mon corps à la terre,
Mon âme à Dieu,
Mon cœur à la France."
The trenches in this part of the Vosges are cut along the brows of heights which directly overlook the Rhine Valley. From these summits can be seen, beyond the smoke which deepens the mist above the famous cities of Mulhouse and Colmar, the shadowy boundary of the Black Forest and the snow-topped mountains of Switzerland. A few yards behind the mouths of the communication trenches are the first dressing-stations, everywhere and always one of war's most ghastly spots. Paths make their way from these dressing-stations down the mountain-sides until they become roads, and, once they have become roads, our work begins.
Nowhere else are foreign soldiers upon German soil. Nowhere else, from Ypres to Belfort, do the lines face each other in a mountain range of commanding summits and ever-visible village-dotted valleys. Nowhere else can one study in history's most famous borderland both war and one of those problems in nationality which bring about wars. And surely nowhere else are Detroit-manufactured automobiles competing with Missouri-raised mules in the business of carrying wounded men over dizzy roads.
Until our light, cheap cars were risked on these roads a wounded man faced a ten-mile journey with his stretcher strapped to the back of a mule or put on the floor of a hard, springless wagon. Now he is carried by hand or in wheelbarrows from one half to two miles. Then in one of our cars there is a long climb followed by a long descent. And over such roads! Roads blocked by artillery convoys and swarming with mules, staggering likely as not beneath a load of high-explosive shells! Roads so narrow that two vehicles cannot pass each other when both are in motion! Roads with a steep bank on the one side and a sheer drop on the other! Roads where lights would draw German shells! Roads even where horns must not be blown!
THE COL DE BUSSANG—THE GATE TO ALSACE RECONQUISE