Amazing meals appeared at most amazing places, all the menus carefully thought out days before. Imagine fresh trout served you with other famous French delicacies in a little house in the battle zone, where only a few hundred yards of barbed wire and a few feet more of air separated you from the German trenches. During the German advance, also after the battle of the Marne, there were many towns in the districts where it was impossible to obtain tobacco, spirits, or food staples. This condition has entirely abated, and the commissariat is now so well supplied that soldiers have sufficient tobacco even in the trenches.
It was my privilege to take a brief ride at the front in an antebellum motor bus of glorious memory—there being nothing left in Paris but the subway. Buses are now used to carry fresh meat, although they have been used in transporting troops and also ammunition. We trundled quite merrily along a little country road in Northern France, the snow-white fields on either side in strange contrast to the scenery when last I rode in that bus. I am sure I rode in the same bus before the war in my daily trips to the Paris office of THE NEW YORK TIMES. Its sides are bullet riddled now, but the soldier conductor still jingles the bell to the motorman, although he carries a revolver where he used to wear the register for fares.
Trench life was one of the most interesting surprises of the trip. Every night since the war began I have heard pitying remarks about "the boys in the trenches," especially if the nights were cold. I was, therefore, prepared to find the men standing in water to the knees, shivering, wretched, sick, and unhappy. I found just the contrary—the trenches were clean, large, and sanitary, although, of course, mud is mud. I found the bottoms of the trenches in every instance corduroy-lined with modern drains, which allowed the feet to keep perfectly dry, and also the large dugouts where the men, except those doing sentry duty, sleep comfortably on dry straw. There are special dugouts for officers and artillery observers.
I also visited a large, perfectly equipped Red Cross First Aid camp, all built underground, extending from one line of trenches to another. All trenches, communication traverses, and observatory dugouts have received names which are printed on shingles affixed to the trenches on little upright posts. For instance, we entered one section of the trenches through Boyau d'Espagne, we traversed Avenue de Bois, Avenues Wagram and Friedland, and others commemorating Napoleonic victories. The dugouts of officers and observers were all called villas—Villa Chambéry, Villa Montmorency being examples. It all seemed like cozy camp life underground except that three times the morning of our visit it was necessary to flatten ourselves against the mud sidewalls while dead men on crossed rifles were carried out, every head in that particular bit of trench being bared as the sad procession disappeared.
Although the maps show the lines of fighting to be rather wavy, one must go to the front really to appreciate the irregular zigzag, snakelike line that it really is. The particular bit of trenches we visited cover a front of twelve miles, but so irregular is the line, so intricate and vast the system of intrenchments, that they measure 200 miles on that particular twelve-mile fighting front.
When one leaves the trenches at the rear of the communication boyaux, it is astonishing how little of the war can be seen. Ten feet after we left our trenches we could not see even the entrance. We stood in a beautiful open field having our pictures taken, and a few hundred yards away our motor waited behind some trees. Suddenly we heard a "zip zip" over our heads. German snipers were taking shots at us.
In addition to the enormous force of men constantly in the trenches along the entire line there is an equal size reserve line directly behind them in case of sudden attack. The artillery is posted considerably further to the rear along with revictualing stations, aeroplane hangars, and headquarters of the Generals, but through all this enormous mass of men which we passed daily going to and from our front observation posts never once did we get the impression of parade. Three were just troops, troops, troops everywhere, every hamlet, every village filled with them, every crossroads with their sentries. All of them, hardened by Winter and turns in the trenches, are in splendid condition, and as opposed to the Germans, at least to the German prisoners I have seen, each French soldier has a clear and definite knowledge of what the war is all about. The greatest event of his day is when the Paris newspapers arrive.
What impressed me greatly was that in all the officers' quarters were copies of the French "Yellow Book," the English "White Paper" and German documents attempting to prove their innocence in causing the conflict. It is not sufficient for French Generals or officers just to go to war; they must know why they go to war, down to the last papers in the case. In six months the French privates have acquired one habit from the British Tommies—that is drinking tea. Back of every section of trenches I found huge tea canteens, where thousands of cups are served daily to the soldiers who have decided for the first time in their life they really like such stuff. There one sees more soldiers at the same time than at any other place in the fighting zone; there they sit and discuss the future calmly and confidently, there being a distinct feeling that the war is likely to be over next Summer.
No one knows what the Spring tactics of General Joffre will be. Along the section of the front I visited the officers are all satisfied that the Commander in Chief's "nibbling tactics" have forced the Germans to retire on the average of two to three miles all along the line. The very name of that great man is spoken with reverence, almost with awe, by his "children at the front."
I, therefore, from the facilities given me, can only make one assertion in summing up my opinion of the French grand army of 1915, that it is strong, courageous, scientifically intelligent, and well trained as a champion pugilist after months of preparation for the greatest struggle of his career. The French Army waits eager and ready for the gong.